Always worth remembering that the next election is nearly 4 years away (given Labour is unlikely to go early), and almost inevitably some major world-shaking event that few expect will have changed the political dynamic one way or other by then.
It could be a massive new migrant crisis thanks to natural disaster or another Syria, in which case Farage could be measuring the curtains for No 10.
It could well be a Trump coup in 2028 (with the first round being next year) in which case Farage’s bolt might be shot
Or a financial and fiscal crisis that might just summon back the ghost of the Tories.
OK, what are the known unknowns?
1. Ukraine - there could be a vaguely just peace, Ukrainian refugees return home (good for immigration figures), opportunities for British firms to be involved in reconstruction, general positive feelings; or things get worse, major Russian advances, more refugees. Worst case is World War III!
2. Trump - maybe Trump/Vance are voted out of office, there's a peaceful transition to a Democratic President; maybe there's a full-on Republican coup. Bad Trump stuff hurts Reform UK. Bad Trump stuff might also hurt the economy, hurting the incumbent government. We've seen Trump hurt the right in Canadian and Australian elections, but maybe a Trump who leaves peacefully in 2028 neuters the issue. But a Trump who goes further in destroying democratic norms would be Kryptonite for Farage.
3. Palestine/Israel - things could settle down to the status quo ante. That'd take the heat out of the issue, which could benefit Labour against more radical positions (Greens, Your Party). Things could get worse: Israel go for full-on ethnic cleansing. The UK/EU might have to take a stronger position, like Russian-style sanctions. Maybe if the situation is clearer (we all agree it's genocide), then the government acts and that also takes the heat out of the issue. Syria or Lebanon could blow up again. Major refugee crisis.
4. Iran vs Israel or Saudia Arabia or ?? - could there be renewed conflict between Iran and Israel/US? Iran confirming a nuclear bomb is, I think, unlikely, but might be game-changing. Yemen is already a mess. If conflict spread, could be another major refugee crisis, but the more likely effect is on oil prices. Or will we have decarbonised enough that that matters less?
5. Former Yugoslavia - the former Yugoslavia could yet again collapse into major conflict. Russia could foment conflict, it wouldn't take much. Would Europe/NATO get involved again? Reform UK would presumably oppose any UK involvement: is that popular or is there a rally round the flag effect? A major refugee crisis and one closer to us than Ukraine/Middle East.
6. War between Pakistan and India - this regularly threatens to blow up. What if full scale war breaks out, even a nuclear conflict? Major refugee crisis. Community tensions in the UK.
7. Climate change emergency - we're getting used to hotter summers and more extreme weather. Could there be a more dramatic shift in weather? A hot summer might kill 1000 people in the UK, but those deaths aren't particularly visible. What if we get something a lot worse? That would harm parties opposed to Net Zero (Reform and increasingly the Tories), one would think.
8. Another pandemic - historically, we've had maybe 4-5 pandemics per century, but they don't have to be spread out evenly. Avian flu has been threatening for years, but some other flu pandemic could also happen, as could some new coronavirus pandemic, or something else. RFK Jr's nonsense policies have made an avian flu pandemic more likely!
Volcanic winter, major agricultural pestilence, 9/11 redux, internal Chinese strife, AGI, a good Resident Evil film?
On 7, thats a real clutching of the lanyard. Cold kills far far more people than heat. Climate change probbaly going to help Reform demographic rather than hinder....
I don't think people will want a Reform government. But will it be possible to block it in a first past the post system where they are the largest party? I'm not sure. The British public is often quite good at gaming the system to get the result it wants. The fundamental problem is that nobody is willing to make the hard choices necessary to fix our problems. Everybody wants someone else to pay the costs involved. The voters are the real villains here.
I think that's unfair on the voters. With a few honourable exceptions the voters aren't economists, they aren't experts on the public finances. They're only believing what they're being told.
If it was the case that one of the parties had told them the truth about the current situation, and the hard choices that would be required, and had rejected that in favour of platitudes from other parties, then it might be fair to blame the voters.
But that hasn't happened. No-one has levelled with the voters.
May's "dementia tax" is an example of what happens when you try to level with voters. Labour's cuts to WFA similarly. Probably neither party did enough to give voters the true picture. But how do you even communicate reality to voters when they're all in their own echo chamber?
Okay, those aren't terrible examples of the voters rejecting reality. But I think in neither case did either government prepare the ground and create a convincing narrative in the way that Cameron and Osborne did with austerity and, "we're all in it together."
Now, maybe the coalition austerity was austerity-lite. Some special groups were protected. And the Tories at the 2015GE benefited from cannibalising their coalition partners. But you did have a government that had done some plenty unpopular things for the purpose of balancing books win reelection. The voters were willing to be convinced that it was necessary.
To my mind coalition austerity had a lot of unfortunate features. For instance, it targeted cuts at local governments in poorer areas of the country. So much for all in it together or making tough choices. Also, far from dealing with the underlying ageing related drivers of our fiscal problems they introduced the triple lock which makes the problem even worse! The real problem is that rather than addressing ageing related costs directly we have seen Tory governments slashing spending on everything else instead, and Labour governments looking for ever more distortionary sources of taxation to plug the gap. As a result, people are left asking why are we getting less and paying more for it? While the underlying problem is left unaddressed and continues to drive a year by year worsening in our fiscal picture. Meanwhile politics gets lost in a series of essentially pointless debates on Brexit and small boats. It's enough to drive even a natural optimist like me to despair.
Yes. I'm not a fan of how the coalition implemented austerity, but I think they did pretty well with the politics of it.
Cameron and Osborne sold austerity brilliantly. The notion of the maxed out credit card was very clever too, although was a wholly inappropriate analogy.
Then Johnson came along and spent like a drunken sailor.
This time last year you were criticising me for saying Rachel Reeves is shit.
She still is
Indeed but to be to fair to him he’s been on a journey and no longer does that and is critical of labour at times too.
I think for some of us the buyers remorse came quickly. Others it didn’t.
Yes, however as a country we still need to get out of the mess and face up to where we are. Endlessly telling me about Boris is just holding on to comfort blankets.
The Left needs people who live in the present not 2020.
We’re going to get set 350 and barely get half way there. Again.
Rashid has gone for 3.3/over, Jacks and Bethell both over 10. A better bowler than the pair and SA would be 50 less. They need to contribute with the bat, otherwise the selectors should be dropped.
I'd forgotten it was on, so hadn't been following on TMS until now. Delighted to find that both Vaughan and Alex Hartley are being rested!! Tymal Mills is a good addition, sadly for what could have been, very knowledgeable about back injury.
I don't think people will want a Reform government. But will it be possible to block it in a first past the post system where they are the largest party? I'm not sure. The British public is often quite good at gaming the system to get the result it wants. The fundamental problem is that nobody is willing to make the hard choices necessary to fix our problems. Everybody wants someone else to pay the costs involved. The voters are the real villains here.
I think that's unfair on the voters. With a few honourable exceptions the voters aren't economists, they aren't experts on the public finances. They're only believing what they're being told.
If it was the case that one of the parties had told them the truth about the current situation, and the hard choices that would be required, and had rejected that in favour of platitudes from other parties, then it might be fair to blame the voters.
But that hasn't happened. No-one has levelled with the voters.
May's "dementia tax" is an example of what happens when you try to level with voters. Labour's cuts to WFA similarly. Probably neither party did enough to give voters the true picture. But how do you even communicate reality to voters when they're all in their own echo chamber?
Okay, those aren't terrible examples of the voters rejecting reality. But I think in neither case did either government prepare the ground and create a convincing narrative in the way that Cameron and Osborne did with austerity and, "we're all in it together."
Now, maybe the coalition austerity was austerity-lite. Some special groups were protected. And the Tories at the 2015GE benefited from cannibalising their coalition partners. But you did have a government that had done some plenty unpopular things for the purpose of balancing books win reelection. The voters were willing to be convinced that it was necessary.
To my mind coalition austerity had a lot of unfortunate features. For instance, it targeted cuts at local governments in poorer areas of the country. So much for all in it together or making tough choices. Also, far from dealing with the underlying ageing related drivers of our fiscal problems they introduced the triple lock which makes the problem even worse! The real problem is that rather than addressing ageing related costs directly we have seen Tory governments slashing spending on everything else instead, and Labour governments looking for ever more distortionary sources of taxation to plug the gap. As a result, people are left asking why are we getting less and paying more for it? While the underlying problem is left unaddressed and continues to drive a year by year worsening in our fiscal picture. Meanwhile politics gets lost in a series of essentially pointless debates on Brexit and small boats. It's enough to drive even a natural optimist like me to despair.
Yes. I'm not a fan of how the coalition implemented austerity, but I think they did pretty well with the politics of it.
Cameron and Osborne sold austerity brilliantly. The notion of the maxed out credit card was very clever too, although was a wholly inappropriate analogy.
Then Johnson came along and spent like a drunken sailor.
This time last year you were criticising me for saying Rachel Reeves is shit.
She still is
Indeed but to be to fair to him he’s been on a journey and no longer does that and is critical of labour at times too.
I think for some of us the buyers remorse came quickly. Others it didn’t.
Yes, however as a country we still need to get out of the mess and face up to where we are. Endlessly telling me about Boris is just holding on to comfort blankets.
The Left needs people who live in the present not 2020.
I agree but sadlY this is 1975 redux and not 1997 redux.
As I said earlier. We need some fiscal responsibility. Who gives a shit what Boris did when we are facing an imminent crisis.
Always worth remembering that the next election is nearly 4 years away (given Labour is unlikely to go early), and almost inevitably some major world-shaking event that few expect will have changed the political dynamic one way or other by then.
It could be a massive new migrant crisis thanks to natural disaster or another Syria, in which case Farage could be measuring the curtains for No 10.
It could well be a Trump coup in 2028 (with the first round being next year) in which case Farage’s bolt might be shot
Or a financial and fiscal crisis that might just summon back the ghost of the Tories.
OK, what are the known unknowns?
1. Ukraine - there could be a vaguely just peace, Ukrainian refugees return home (good for immigration figures), opportunities for British firms to be involved in reconstruction, general positive feelings; or things get worse, major Russian advances, more refugees. Worst case is World War III!
2. Trump - maybe Trump/Vance are voted out of office, there's a peaceful transition to a Democratic President; maybe there's a full-on Republican coup. Bad Trump stuff hurts Reform UK. Bad Trump stuff might also hurt the economy, hurting the incumbent government. We've seen Trump hurt the right in Canadian and Australian elections, but maybe a Trump who leaves peacefully in 2028 neuters the issue. But a Trump who goes further in destroying democratic norms would be Kryptonite for Farage.
3. Palestine/Israel - things could settle down to the status quo ante. That'd take the heat out of the issue, which could benefit Labour against more radical positions (Greens, Your Party). Things could get worse: Israel go for full-on ethnic cleansing. The UK/EU might have to take a stronger position, like Russian-style sanctions. Maybe if the situation is clearer (we all agree it's genocide), then the government acts and that also takes the heat out of the issue. Syria or Lebanon could blow up again. Major refugee crisis.
4. Iran vs Israel or Saudia Arabia or ?? - could there be renewed conflict between Iran and Israel/US? Iran confirming a nuclear bomb is, I think, unlikely, but might be game-changing. Yemen is already a mess. If conflict spread, could be another major refugee crisis, but the more likely effect is on oil prices. Or will we have decarbonised enough that that matters less?
5. Former Yugoslavia - the former Yugoslavia could yet again collapse into major conflict. Russia could foment conflict, it wouldn't take much. Would Europe/NATO get involved again? Reform UK would presumably oppose any UK involvement: is that popular or is there a rally round the flag effect? A major refugee crisis and one closer to us than Ukraine/Middle East.
6. War between Pakistan and India - this regularly threatens to blow up. What if full scale war breaks out, even a nuclear conflict? Major refugee crisis. Community tensions in the UK.
7. Climate change emergency - we're getting used to hotter summers and more extreme weather. Could there be a more dramatic shift in weather? A hot summer might kill 1000 people in the UK, but those deaths aren't particularly visible. What if we get something a lot worse? That would harm parties opposed to Net Zero (Reform and increasingly the Tories), one would think.
8. Another pandemic - historically, we've had maybe 4-5 pandemics per century, but they don't have to be spread out evenly. Avian flu has been threatening for years, but some other flu pandemic could also happen, as could some new coronavirus pandemic, or something else. RFK Jr's nonsense policies have made an avian flu pandemic more likely!
Volcanic winter, major agricultural pestilence, 9/11 redux, internal Chinese strife, AGI, a good Resident Evil film?
On 7, thats a real clutching of the lanyard. Cold kills far far more people than heat. Climate change probbaly going to help Reform demographic rather than hinder....
Lots of people die all the time, but the public and media notice novel deaths.
Graham Linehan accuser ‘is disgraced transgender police officer’
Watson was sacked by Leicestershire Police after being found guilty by a misconduct hearing of sending former police officer Harry Miller more than 1,200 messages over an 18-month period, branding him a “Nazi”, a “bigot” and a “wife-beater”.
What Starmer knew and when he knew it starting to worm its way into the story
Kevin Hollinrake was hinting that Starmer is equally guilty of the cover up. Thank goodness we are not allowed any Tory era whataboutery under your terms.
Are we seeing a Watergate developing over Angela's stamp duty?
There's no Woodward or Bernstein but we do have Dan Hodges and Alison Pearson.
Afternoon all.A long day of award-winning journalism.
We could be seeing the scandal of the century developing here. What Hodges and Pearson have discovered should shock everyone, and may shake the very foundations of the British polity. Read all about it in their new book, published by Telegraph Press at £32.39.
Always worth remembering that the next election is nearly 4 years away (given Labour is unlikely to go early), and almost inevitably some major world-shaking event that few expect will have changed the political dynamic one way or other by then.
It could be a massive new migrant crisis thanks to natural disaster or another Syria, in which case Farage could be measuring the curtains for No 10.
It could well be a Trump coup in 2028 (with the first round being next year) in which case Farage’s bolt might be shot
Or a financial and fiscal crisis that might just summon back the ghost of the Tories.
OK, what are the known unknowns?
1. Ukraine - there could be a vaguely just peace, Ukrainian refugees return home (good for immigration figures), opportunities for British firms to be involved in reconstruction, general positive feelings; or things get worse, major Russian advances, more refugees. Worst case is World War III!
2. Trump - maybe Trump/Vance are voted out of office, there's a peaceful transition to a Democratic President; maybe there's a full-on Republican coup. Bad Trump stuff hurts Reform UK. Bad Trump stuff might also hurt the economy, hurting the incumbent government. We've seen Trump hurt the right in Canadian and Australian elections, but maybe a Trump who leaves peacefully in 2028 neuters the issue. But a Trump who goes further in destroying democratic norms would be Kryptonite for Farage.
3. Palestine/Israel - things could settle down to the status quo ante. That'd take the heat out of the issue, which could benefit Labour against more radical positions (Greens, Your Party). Things could get worse: Israel go for full-on ethnic cleansing. The UK/EU might have to take a stronger position, like Russian-style sanctions. Maybe if the situation is clearer (we all agree it's genocide), then the government acts and that also takes the heat out of the issue. Syria or Lebanon could blow up again. Major refugee crisis.
4. Iran vs Israel or Saudia Arabia or ?? - could there be renewed conflict between Iran and Israel/US? Iran confirming a nuclear bomb is, I think, unlikely, but might be game-changing. Yemen is already a mess. If conflict spread, could be another major refugee crisis, but the more likely effect is on oil prices. Or will we have decarbonised enough that that matters less?
5. Former Yugoslavia - the former Yugoslavia could yet again collapse into major conflict. Russia could foment conflict, it wouldn't take much. Would Europe/NATO get involved again? Reform UK would presumably oppose any UK involvement: is that popular or is there a rally round the flag effect? A major refugee crisis and one closer to us than Ukraine/Middle East.
6. War between Pakistan and India - this regularly threatens to blow up. What if full scale war breaks out, even a nuclear conflict? Major refugee crisis. Community tensions in the UK.
7. Climate change emergency - we're getting used to hotter summers and more extreme weather. Could there be a more dramatic shift in weather? A hot summer might kill 1000 people in the UK, but those deaths aren't particularly visible. What if we get something a lot worse? That would harm parties opposed to Net Zero (Reform and increasingly the Tories), one would think.
8. Another pandemic - historically, we've had maybe 4-5 pandemics per century, but they don't have to be spread out evenly. Avian flu has been threatening for years, but some other flu pandemic could also happen, as could some new coronavirus pandemic, or something else. RFK Jr's nonsense policies have made an avian flu pandemic more likely!
Volcanic winter, major agricultural pestilence, 9/11 redux, internal Chinese strife, AGI, a good Resident Evil film?
A simple partial interruption to UK food supply caused by bad weather in too many places at once as well as the UK could do it, esp if combined with a murrain. The UK's no longer a favoured customer of EU firms, pace recent improvements, so if things are short they will go for the nearer custom. And if shipping is interrupted that's the long distance frozen stuff slowed down.
It took me two years to get through the large bag of rice I bought during covid.
You clearly don't drop your phone in the bath often enough...
Always worth remembering that the next election is nearly 4 years away (given Labour is unlikely to go early), and almost inevitably some major world-shaking event that few expect will have changed the political dynamic one way or other by then.
It could be a massive new migrant crisis thanks to natural disaster or another Syria, in which case Farage could be measuring the curtains for No 10.
It could well be a Trump coup in 2028 (with the first round being next year) in which case Farage’s bolt might be shot
Or a financial and fiscal crisis that might just summon back the ghost of the Tories.
OK, what are the known unknowns?
1. Ukraine - there could be a vaguely just peace, Ukrainian refugees return home (good for immigration figures), opportunities for British firms to be involved in reconstruction, general positive feelings; or things get worse, major Russian advances, more refugees. Worst case is World War III!
2. Trump - maybe Trump/Vance are voted out of office, there's a peaceful transition to a Democratic President; maybe there's a full-on Republican coup. Bad Trump stuff hurts Reform UK. Bad Trump stuff might also hurt the economy, hurting the incumbent government. We've seen Trump hurt the right in Canadian and Australian elections, but maybe a Trump who leaves peacefully in 2028 neuters the issue. But a Trump who goes further in destroying democratic norms would be Kryptonite for Farage.
3. Palestine/Israel - things could settle down to the status quo ante. That'd take the heat out of the issue, which could benefit Labour against more radical positions (Greens, Your Party). Things could get worse: Israel go for full-on ethnic cleansing. The UK/EU might have to take a stronger position, like Russian-style sanctions. Maybe if the situation is clearer (we all agree it's genocide), then the government acts and that also takes the heat out of the issue. Syria or Lebanon could blow up again. Major refugee crisis.
4. Iran vs Israel or Saudia Arabia or ?? - could there be renewed conflict between Iran and Israel/US? Iran confirming a nuclear bomb is, I think, unlikely, but might be game-changing. Yemen is already a mess. If conflict spread, could be another major refugee crisis, but the more likely effect is on oil prices. Or will we have decarbonised enough that that matters less?
5. Former Yugoslavia - the former Yugoslavia could yet again collapse into major conflict. Russia could foment conflict, it wouldn't take much. Would Europe/NATO get involved again? Reform UK would presumably oppose any UK involvement: is that popular or is there a rally round the flag effect? A major refugee crisis and one closer to us than Ukraine/Middle East.
6. War between Pakistan and India - this regularly threatens to blow up. What if full scale war breaks out, even a nuclear conflict? Major refugee crisis. Community tensions in the UK.
7. Climate change emergency - we're getting used to hotter summers and more extreme weather. Could there be a more dramatic shift in weather? A hot summer might kill 1000 people in the UK, but those deaths aren't particularly visible. What if we get something a lot worse? That would harm parties opposed to Net Zero (Reform and increasingly the Tories), one would think.
8. Another pandemic - historically, we've had maybe 4-5 pandemics per century, but they don't have to be spread out evenly. Avian flu has been threatening for years, but some other flu pandemic could also happen, as could some new coronavirus pandemic, or something else. RFK Jr's nonsense policies have made an avian flu pandemic more likely!
Volcanic winter, major agricultural pestilence, 9/11 redux, internal Chinese strife, AGI, a good Resident Evil film?
23. Taylor Swift exposed after secret affair with Boris Johnson.
We’re going to get set 350 and barely get half way there. Again.
Rashid has gone for 3.3/over, Jacks and Bethell both over 10. A better bowler than the pair and SA would be 50 less. They need to contribute with the bat, otherwise the selectors should be dropped.
I'd forgotten it was on, so hadn't been following on TMS until now. Delighted to find that both Vaughan and Alex Hartley are being rested!! Tymal Mills is a good addition, sadly for what could have been, very knowledgeable about back injury.
We need to lose the series 3-0so we never have to see that revolting kit they are wearing on any future highlight reels.
What Starmer knew and when he knew it starting to worm its way into the story
Kevin Hollinrake was hinting that Starmer is equally guilty of the cover up. Thank goodness we are not allowed any Tory era whataboutery under your terms.
Are we seeing a Watergate developing over Angela's stamp duty?
There's no Woodward or Bernstein but we do have Dan Hodges and Alison Pearson.
The last Watergate we were promised on here was the curious case of the Britain-helping Afghan migrants and the super-injunction. I don't think that's blown up yet, but I have been away.
I'm still waiting to find out what the Finland Rumour was.
Meghan and Harry are doing a fine job at covering up their divorce. It's almost as if there wasn't one.
I don't think people will want a Reform government. But will it be possible to block it in a first past the post system where they are the largest party? I'm not sure. The British public is often quite good at gaming the system to get the result it wants. The fundamental problem is that nobody is willing to make the hard choices necessary to fix our problems. Everybody wants someone else to pay the costs involved. The voters are the real villains here.
I think that's unfair on the voters. With a few honourable exceptions the voters aren't economists, they aren't experts on the public finances. They're only believing what they're being told.
If it was the case that one of the parties had told them the truth about the current situation, and the hard choices that would be required, and had rejected that in favour of platitudes from other parties, then it might be fair to blame the voters.
But that hasn't happened. No-one has levelled with the voters.
May's "dementia tax" is an example of what happens when you try to level with voters. Labour's cuts to WFA similarly. Probably neither party did enough to give voters the true picture. But how do you even communicate reality to voters when they're all in their own echo chamber?
Okay, those aren't terrible examples of the voters rejecting reality. But I think in neither case did either government prepare the ground and create a convincing narrative in the way that Cameron and Osborne did with austerity and, "we're all in it together."
Now, maybe the coalition austerity was austerity-lite. Some special groups were protected. And the Tories at the 2015GE benefited from cannibalising their coalition partners. But you did have a government that had done some plenty unpopular things for the purpose of balancing books win reelection. The voters were willing to be convinced that it was necessary.
To my mind coalition austerity had a lot of unfortunate features. For instance, it targeted cuts at local governments in poorer areas of the country. So much for all in it together or making tough choices. Also, far from dealing with the underlying ageing related drivers of our fiscal problems they introduced the triple lock which makes the problem even worse! The real problem is that rather than addressing ageing related costs directly we have seen Tory governments slashing spending on everything else instead, and Labour governments looking for ever more distortionary sources of taxation to plug the gap. As a result, people are left asking why are we getting less and paying more for it? While the underlying problem is left unaddressed and continues to drive a year by year worsening in our fiscal picture. Meanwhile politics gets lost in a series of essentially pointless debates on Brexit and small boats. It's enough to drive even a natural optimist like me to despair.
Yes. I'm not a fan of how the coalition implemented austerity, but I think they did pretty well with the politics of it.
Cameron and Osborne sold austerity brilliantly. The notion of the maxed out credit card was very clever too, although was a wholly inappropriate analogy.
Then Johnson came along and spent like a drunken sailor.
This time last year you were criticising me for saying Rachel Reeves is shit.
She still is
Indeed but to be to fair to him he’s been on a journey and no longer does that and is critical of labour at times too.
I think for some of us the buyers remorse came quickly. Others it didn’t.
Yes, however as a country we still need to get out of the mess and face up to where we are. Endlessly telling me about Boris is just holding on to comfort blankets.
The Left needs people who live in the present not 2020.
I agree but sadlY this is 1975 redux and not 1997 redux.
As I said earlier. We need some fiscal responsibility. Who gives a shit what Boris did when we are facing an imminent crisis.
I'm hugely disappointed in this governments inability to get on top of infrastructure, it's as bad as their predecessors. We need houses, water and electricity infrastructure as well as transport and communications.
Instead we still have the same blob capture and nothing is getting done, No real jobs, no boost to productivity, no growth. It's lamentable.
Always worth remembering that the next election is nearly 4 years away (given Labour is unlikely to go early), and almost inevitably some major world-shaking event that few expect will have changed the political dynamic one way or other by then.
It could be a massive new migrant crisis thanks to natural disaster or another Syria, in which case Farage could be measuring the curtains for No 10.
It could well be a Trump coup in 2028 (with the first round being next year) in which case Farage’s bolt might be shot
Or a financial and fiscal crisis that might just summon back the ghost of the Tories.
OK, what are the known unknowns?
1. Ukraine - there could be a vaguely just peace, Ukrainian refugees return home (good for immigration figures), opportunities for British firms to be involved in reconstruction, general positive feelings; or things get worse, major Russian advances, more refugees. Worst case is World War III!
2. Trump - maybe Trump/Vance are voted out of office, there's a peaceful transition to a Democratic President; maybe there's a full-on Republican coup. Bad Trump stuff hurts Reform UK. Bad Trump stuff might also hurt the economy, hurting the incumbent government. We've seen Trump hurt the right in Canadian and Australian elections, but maybe a Trump who leaves peacefully in 2028 neuters the issue. But a Trump who goes further in destroying democratic norms would be Kryptonite for Farage.
3. Palestine/Israel - things could settle down to the status quo ante. That'd take the heat out of the issue, which could benefit Labour against more radical positions (Greens, Your Party). Things could get worse: Israel go for full-on ethnic cleansing. The UK/EU might have to take a stronger position, like Russian-style sanctions. Maybe if the situation is clearer (we all agree it's genocide), then the government acts and that also takes the heat out of the issue. Syria or Lebanon could blow up again. Major refugee crisis.
4. Iran vs Israel or Saudia Arabia or ?? - could there be renewed conflict between Iran and Israel/US? Iran confirming a nuclear bomb is, I think, unlikely, but might be game-changing. Yemen is already a mess. If conflict spread, could be another major refugee crisis, but the more likely effect is on oil prices. Or will we have decarbonised enough that that matters less?
5. Former Yugoslavia - the former Yugoslavia could yet again collapse into major conflict. Russia could foment conflict, it wouldn't take much. Would Europe/NATO get involved again? Reform UK would presumably oppose any UK involvement: is that popular or is there a rally round the flag effect? A major refugee crisis and one closer to us than Ukraine/Middle East.
6. War between Pakistan and India - this regularly threatens to blow up. What if full scale war breaks out, even a nuclear conflict? Major refugee crisis. Community tensions in the UK.
7. Climate change emergency - we're getting used to hotter summers and more extreme weather. Could there be a more dramatic shift in weather? A hot summer might kill 1000 people in the UK, but those deaths aren't particularly visible. What if we get something a lot worse? That would harm parties opposed to Net Zero (Reform and increasingly the Tories), one would think.
8. Another pandemic - historically, we've had maybe 4-5 pandemics per century, but they don't have to be spread out evenly. Avian flu has been threatening for years, but some other flu pandemic could also happen, as could some new coronavirus pandemic, or something else. RFK Jr's nonsense policies have made an avian flu pandemic more likely!
Volcanic winter, major agricultural pestilence, 9/11 redux, internal Chinese strife, AGI, a good Resident Evil film?
23. Taylor Swift exposed after secret affair with Boris Johnson.
Always worth remembering that the next election is nearly 4 years away (given Labour is unlikely to go early), and almost inevitably some major world-shaking event that few expect will have changed the political dynamic one way or other by then.
It could be a massive new migrant crisis thanks to natural disaster or another Syria, in which case Farage could be measuring the curtains for No 10.
It could well be a Trump coup in 2028 (with the first round being next year) in which case Farage’s bolt might be shot
Or a financial and fiscal crisis that might just summon back the ghost of the Tories.
OK, what are the known unknowns?
1. Ukraine - there could be a vaguely just peace, Ukrainian refugees return home (good for immigration figures), opportunities for British firms to be involved in reconstruction, general positive feelings; or things get worse, major Russian advances, more refugees. Worst case is World War III!
2. Trump - maybe Trump/Vance are voted out of office, there's a peaceful transition to a Democratic President; maybe there's a full-on Republican coup. Bad Trump stuff hurts Reform UK. Bad Trump stuff might also hurt the economy, hurting the incumbent government. We've seen Trump hurt the right in Canadian and Australian elections, but maybe a Trump who leaves peacefully in 2028 neuters the issue. But a Trump who goes further in destroying democratic norms would be Kryptonite for Farage.
3. Palestine/Israel - things could settle down to the status quo ante. That'd take the heat out of the issue, which could benefit Labour against more radical positions (Greens, Your Party). Things could get worse: Israel go for full-on ethnic cleansing. The UK/EU might have to take a stronger position, like Russian-style sanctions. Maybe if the situation is clearer (we all agree it's genocide), then the government acts and that also takes the heat out of the issue. Syria or Lebanon could blow up again. Major refugee crisis.
4. Iran vs Israel or Saudia Arabia or ?? - could there be renewed conflict between Iran and Israel/US? Iran confirming a nuclear bomb is, I think, unlikely, but might be game-changing. Yemen is already a mess. If conflict spread, could be another major refugee crisis, but the more likely effect is on oil prices. Or will we have decarbonised enough that that matters less?
5. Former Yugoslavia - the former Yugoslavia could yet again collapse into major conflict. Russia could foment conflict, it wouldn't take much. Would Europe/NATO get involved again? Reform UK would presumably oppose any UK involvement: is that popular or is there a rally round the flag effect? A major refugee crisis and one closer to us than Ukraine/Middle East.
6. War between Pakistan and India - this regularly threatens to blow up. What if full scale war breaks out, even a nuclear conflict? Major refugee crisis. Community tensions in the UK.
7. Climate change emergency - we're getting used to hotter summers and more extreme weather. Could there be a more dramatic shift in weather? A hot summer might kill 1000 people in the UK, but those deaths aren't particularly visible. What if we get something a lot worse? That would harm parties opposed to Net Zero (Reform and increasingly the Tories), one would think.
8. Another pandemic - historically, we've had maybe 4-5 pandemics per century, but they don't have to be spread out evenly. Avian flu has been threatening for years, but some other flu pandemic could also happen, as could some new coronavirus pandemic, or something else. RFK Jr's nonsense policies have made an avian flu pandemic more likely!
Volcanic winter, major agricultural pestilence, 9/11 redux, internal Chinese strife, AGI, a good Resident Evil film?
A simple partial interruption to UK food supply caused by bad weather in too many places at once as well as the UK could do it, esp if combined with a murrain. The UK's no longer a favoured customer of EU firms, pace recent improvements, so if things are short they will go for the nearer custom. And if shipping is interrupted that's the long distance frozen stuff slowed down.
Some disruption and you get shortages and inflation, voters blame the incumbents. Big disruption, national crisis, climate change to blame, you might get more of a rally around the flag, dig for Britain nostalgia, and it hurts the anti-Net Zero parties?
It wouldn't be a bad thing if more were done to provide allotments and to discourage their concreting over, that's for sure.
I wonder what pols have them (or actively grow veg in their back gardens)? There's Mr Corbyn of course.
Flats, allotments and parks a much more efficient use of land too. The waiting list in Edinburgh is over a decade last time I checked, though the cost should be about £30,000 per year if they reflected land values, rather than £170.
(And on-street parking should cost about £2,000 - suggesting this at a community council meeting isn't the smartest thing I've ever done)
Always worth remembering that the next election is nearly 4 years away (given Labour is unlikely to go early), and almost inevitably some major world-shaking event that few expect will have changed the political dynamic one way or other by then.
It could be a massive new migrant crisis thanks to natural disaster or another Syria, in which case Farage could be measuring the curtains for No 10.
It could well be a Trump coup in 2028 (with the first round being next year) in which case Farage’s bolt might be shot
Or a financial and fiscal crisis that might just summon back the ghost of the Tories.
OK, what are the known unknowns?
1. Ukraine - there could be a vaguely just peace, Ukrainian refugees return home (good for immigration figures), opportunities for British firms to be involved in reconstruction, general positive feelings; or things get worse, major Russian advances, more refugees. Worst case is World War III!
2. Trump - maybe Trump/Vance are voted out of office, there's a peaceful transition to a Democratic President; maybe there's a full-on Republican coup. Bad Trump stuff hurts Reform UK. Bad Trump stuff might also hurt the economy, hurting the incumbent government. We've seen Trump hurt the right in Canadian and Australian elections, but maybe a Trump who leaves peacefully in 2028 neuters the issue. But a Trump who goes further in destroying democratic norms would be Kryptonite for Farage.
3. Palestine/Israel - things could settle down to the status quo ante. That'd take the heat out of the issue, which could benefit Labour against more radical positions (Greens, Your Party). Things could get worse: Israel go for full-on ethnic cleansing. The UK/EU might have to take a stronger position, like Russian-style sanctions. Maybe if the situation is clearer (we all agree it's genocide), then the government acts and that also takes the heat out of the issue. Syria or Lebanon could blow up again. Major refugee crisis.
4. Iran vs Israel or Saudia Arabia or ?? - could there be renewed conflict between Iran and Israel/US? Iran confirming a nuclear bomb is, I think, unlikely, but might be game-changing. Yemen is already a mess. If conflict spread, could be another major refugee crisis, but the more likely effect is on oil prices. Or will we have decarbonised enough that that matters less?
5. Former Yugoslavia - the former Yugoslavia could yet again collapse into major conflict. Russia could foment conflict, it wouldn't take much. Would Europe/NATO get involved again? Reform UK would presumably oppose any UK involvement: is that popular or is there a rally round the flag effect? A major refugee crisis and one closer to us than Ukraine/Middle East.
6. War between Pakistan and India - this regularly threatens to blow up. What if full scale war breaks out, even a nuclear conflict? Major refugee crisis. Community tensions in the UK.
7. Climate change emergency - we're getting used to hotter summers and more extreme weather. Could there be a more dramatic shift in weather? A hot summer might kill 1000 people in the UK, but those deaths aren't particularly visible. What if we get something a lot worse? That would harm parties opposed to Net Zero (Reform and increasingly the Tories), one would think.
8. Another pandemic - historically, we've had maybe 4-5 pandemics per century, but they don't have to be spread out evenly. Avian flu has been threatening for years, but some other flu pandemic could also happen, as could some new coronavirus pandemic, or something else. RFK Jr's nonsense policies have made an avian flu pandemic more likely!
Volcanic winter, major agricultural pestilence, 9/11 redux, internal Chinese strife, AGI, a good Resident Evil film?
23. Taylor Swift exposed after secret affair with Boris Johnson.
She'd struggle to shake that off.
Would it increase Boris’ electability though?
No, because she'd devote half of her next album to thinly-disguised attacks on him. Also it's never going to happen... like, ever.
Europe does suck up all the US oil & gas they can. If you look at US exports, essentially all East Coast LNG goes to Europe. And the export facilities are all running at capacity. Now, there are five new LNG liquifaction facilities under construction, but until they're live, then that's it, there isn't going to be any more gas going to Europe.
As far as oil exports go, then there's some pipeline sales into the Canadian maratime provinces, and there's some from West Coast oil fields into Asia. But, the rest much all goes to Europe already. If the US produced more oil, then Europe would be happy to suck it up.
But that hasn't happened yet - not least because the flow of Canadian oil into the US has slowed, which has meant the US is using more of their own oil.
Graham Linehan accuser ‘is disgraced transgender police officer’
Watson was sacked by Leicestershire Police after being found guilty by a misconduct hearing of sending former police officer Harry Miller more than 1,200 messages over an 18-month period, branding him a “Nazi”, a “bigot” and a “wife-beater”.
"Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has gone on trial in London on charges of harassment and criminal damage against a transgender woman.
Westminster Magistrates' Court was told the 57-year-old allegedly used social media to "relentlessly" publish offensive posts about an 18-year-old trans campaigner."
As I said the other day, he has gone off the deep end with this stuff. I am sure there is a PhD in it for somebody to investigate mildly famous people who go down the rabbit hole of social media and become extremists / can't help themselves with looking for that engagement.
Leader of Peterborough Council resigns and is suspended from the Labour Party for referring to victims of the banned thing as 'poor white trash' Peterborough a key target for the Tories next time, They won the area handily over Reform in the mayor race in May with Labour a distant third. Its the sort of seat they need to be working hard
Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed for the first time the government is looking at digital ID as a way to tackle illegal immigration.
The prime minister said a new identity programme could play an "important part" in reducing the incentive to enter the UK without permission.
The last Labour government started issuing ID cards to UK citizens, but the scheme was scrapped by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition over privacy concerns.
Ed Balls has claimed Angela Rayner is “hypocritical” for not resigning over her tax affairs having demanded the sackings of Tory ministers while she was deputy leader of the opposition.
Mr Balls, the former Labour shadow chancellor, told the Political Currency podcast: “I think there is sympathy for her personal situation. But Angela Rayner was the person who was on the moral high ground demanding others resign.
“And it’s hypocritical of her [to have] one rule for everybody else, a different rule for her, for her not to resign.
Europe does suck up all the US oil & gas they can. If you look at US exports, essentially all East Coast LNG goes to Europe. And the export facilities are all running at capacity. Now, there are five new LNG liquifaction facilities under construction, but until they're live, then that's it, there isn't going to be any more gas going to Europe.
As far as oil exports go, then there's some pipeline sales into the Canadian maratime provinces, and there's some from West Coast oil fields into Asia. But, the rest much all goes to Europe already. If the US produced more oil, then Europe would be happy to suck it up.
But that hasn't happened yet - not least because the flow of Canadian oil into the US has slowed, which has meant the US is using more of their own oil.
My suggestion had little to do with the actual situation on the ground, and everything to do with the politics of it. If the Europeans tell Trump they’ll take everything he has to export in exchange for some old and depreciated weapons, they’re likely to get the President onside.
I don't think people will want a Reform government. But will it be possible to block it in a first past the post system where they are the largest party? I'm not sure. The British public is often quite good at gaming the system to get the result it wants. The fundamental problem is that nobody is willing to make the hard choices necessary to fix our problems. Everybody wants someone else to pay the costs involved. The voters are the real villains here.
I think that's unfair on the voters. With a few honourable exceptions the voters aren't economists, they aren't experts on the public finances. They're only believing what they're being told.
If it was the case that one of the parties had told them the truth about the current situation, and the hard choices that would be required, and had rejected that in favour of platitudes from other parties, then it might be fair to blame the voters.
But that hasn't happened. No-one has levelled with the voters.
May's "dementia tax" is an example of what happens when you try to level with voters. Labour's cuts to WFA similarly. Probably neither party did enough to give voters the true picture. But how do you even communicate reality to voters when they're all in their own echo chamber?
Okay, those aren't terrible examples of the voters rejecting reality. But I think in neither case did either government prepare the ground and create a convincing narrative in the way that Cameron and Osborne did with austerity and, "we're all in it together."
Now, maybe the coalition austerity was austerity-lite. Some special groups were protected. And the Tories at the 2015GE benefited from cannibalising their coalition partners. But you did have a government that had done some plenty unpopular things for the purpose of balancing books win reelection. The voters were willing to be convinced that it was necessary.
To my mind coalition austerity had a lot of unfortunate features. For instance, it targeted cuts at local governments in poorer areas of the country. So much for all in it together or making tough choices. Also, far from dealing with the underlying ageing related drivers of our fiscal problems they introduced the triple lock which makes the problem even worse! The real problem is that rather than addressing ageing related costs directly we have seen Tory governments slashing spending on everything else instead, and Labour governments looking for ever more distortionary sources of taxation to plug the gap. As a result, people are left asking why are we getting less and paying more for it? While the underlying problem is left unaddressed and continues to drive a year by year worsening in our fiscal picture. Meanwhile politics gets lost in a series of essentially pointless debates on Brexit and small boats. It's enough to drive even a natural optimist like me to despair.
Yes. I'm not a fan of how the coalition implemented austerity, but I think they did pretty well with the politics of it.
Cameron and Osborne sold austerity brilliantly. The notion of the maxed out credit card was very clever too, although was a wholly inappropriate analogy.
Then Johnson came along and spent like a drunken sailor.
This time last year you were criticising me for saying Rachel Reeves is shit.
She still is
Indeed but to be to fair to him he’s been on a journey and no longer does that and is critical of labour at times too.
I think for some of us the buyers remorse came quickly. Others it didn’t.
Yes, however as a country we still need to get out of the mess and face up to where we are. Endlessly telling me about Boris is just holding on to comfort blankets.
The Left needs people who live in the present not 2020.
I agree but sadlY this is 1975 redux and not 1997 redux.
As I said earlier. We need some fiscal responsibility. Who gives a shit what Boris did when we are facing an imminent crisis.
I'm hugely disappointed in this governments inability to get on top of infrastructure, it's as bad as their predecessors. We need houses, water and electricity infrastructure as well as transport and communications.
Instead we still have the same blob capture and nothing is getting done, No real jobs, no boost to productivity, no growth. It's lamentable.
No you're not "hugely disappointed", since you expected that from the start. I'm disappointed, as I was willing to give them a chance once they were elected.
But I don't think we disagree that it's not going very well.
Leader of Peterborough Council resigns and is suspended from the Labour Party for referring to victims of the banned thing as 'poor white trash' Peterborough a key target for the Tories next time, They won the area handily over Reform in the mayor race in May with Labour a distant third. Its the sort of seat they need to be working hard
Well, the swing against the Conservatives was very small as the Workers' Party hoovered up 12% of the vote, presumably mostly from Labour.
This is one of those seats where the Lab/Con duopoly faces a significant threat from BOTH Reform and the new emergent new anti-Labour party. For a bit of comedy, take the 2024 result, take ten points off both Labour and Conservative and add ten points to both Reform and the Workers Party and you get the sort of result which, were it to happen on a racecourse, would please any handicapper.
Always worth remembering that the next election is nearly 4 years away (given Labour is unlikely to go early), and almost inevitably some major world-shaking event that few expect will have changed the political dynamic one way or other by then.
It could be a massive new migrant crisis thanks to natural disaster or another Syria, in which case Farage could be measuring the curtains for No 10.
It could well be a Trump coup in 2028 (with the first round being next year) in which case Farage’s bolt might be shot
Or a financial and fiscal crisis that might just summon back the ghost of the Tories.
OK, what are the known unknowns?
1. Ukraine - there could be a vaguely just peace, Ukrainian refugees return home (good for immigration figures), opportunities for British firms to be involved in reconstruction, general positive feelings; or things get worse, major Russian advances, more refugees. Worst case is World War III!
2. Trump - maybe Trump/Vance are voted out of office, there's a peaceful transition to a Democratic President; maybe there's a full-on Republican coup. Bad Trump stuff hurts Reform UK. Bad Trump stuff might also hurt the economy, hurting the incumbent government. We've seen Trump hurt the right in Canadian and Australian elections, but maybe a Trump who leaves peacefully in 2028 neuters the issue. But a Trump who goes further in destroying democratic norms would be Kryptonite for Farage.
3. Palestine/Israel - things could settle down to the status quo ante. That'd take the heat out of the issue, which could benefit Labour against more radical positions (Greens, Your Party). Things could get worse: Israel go for full-on ethnic cleansing. The UK/EU might have to take a stronger position, like Russian-style sanctions. Maybe if the situation is clearer (we all agree it's genocide), then the government acts and that also takes the heat out of the issue. Syria or Lebanon could blow up again. Major refugee crisis.
4. Iran vs Israel or Saudia Arabia or ?? - could there be renewed conflict between Iran and Israel/US? Iran confirming a nuclear bomb is, I think, unlikely, but might be game-changing. Yemen is already a mess. If conflict spread, could be another major refugee crisis, but the more likely effect is on oil prices. Or will we have decarbonised enough that that matters less?
5. Former Yugoslavia - the former Yugoslavia could yet again collapse into major conflict. Russia could foment conflict, it wouldn't take much. Would Europe/NATO get involved again? Reform UK would presumably oppose any UK involvement: is that popular or is there a rally round the flag effect? A major refugee crisis and one closer to us than Ukraine/Middle East.
6. War between Pakistan and India - this regularly threatens to blow up. What if full scale war breaks out, even a nuclear conflict? Major refugee crisis. Community tensions in the UK.
7. Climate change emergency - we're getting used to hotter summers and more extreme weather. Could there be a more dramatic shift in weather? A hot summer might kill 1000 people in the UK, but those deaths aren't particularly visible. What if we get something a lot worse? That would harm parties opposed to Net Zero (Reform and increasingly the Tories), one would think.
8. Another pandemic - historically, we've had maybe 4-5 pandemics per century, but they don't have to be spread out evenly. Avian flu has been threatening for years, but some other flu pandemic could also happen, as could some new coronavirus pandemic, or something else. RFK Jr's nonsense policies have made an avian flu pandemic more likely!
Volcanic winter, major agricultural pestilence, 9/11 redux, internal Chinese strife, AGI, a good Resident Evil film?
23. Taylor Swift exposed after secret affair with Boris Johnson.
She'd struggle to shake that off.
Would it increase Boris’ electability though?
No, because she'd devote half of her next album to thinly-disguised attacks on him. Also it's never going to happen... like, ever.
The ballad of Boris and Taylor.
“I said you were fat You said it was muscle But now I realise It was just a hustle
When i said we should marry You never said no I didn’t realise Carrie Would never let go.
Oh Boris you hurt me Like a lover from Ovid you fucked me like the country When you lead it in Covid.”
"Being arrested is a serious moment and during this time there are certain procedures police must follow. Failure to do so can make the arrest unlawful. An arresting officer must always state the following three points as soon as practicable after an arrest:
That you are being arrested, The crime you are being arrested for, The necessity of arresting you,"
Leader of Peterborough Council resigns and is suspended from the Labour Party for referring to victims of the banned thing as 'poor white trash' Peterborough a key target for the Tories next time, They won the area handily over Reform in the mayor race in May with Labour a distant third. Its the sort of seat they need to be working hard
Well, the swing against the Conservatives was very small as the Workers' Party hoovered up 12% of the vote, presumably mostly from Labour.
This is one of those seats where the Lab/Con duopoly faces a significant threat from BOTH Reform and the new emergent new anti-Labour party. For a bit of comedy, take the 2024 result, take ten points off both Labour and Conservative and add ten points to both Reform and the Workers Party and you get the sort of result which, were it to happen on a racecourse, would please any handicapper.
That would be interesting certainly. Lower than national Reform share, good performance comparatively in the mayoral 6000 votes clear of Reform, hyper marginal. If they arent targeting this they might as well pack up and go home.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Except it's the conveyancing solicitors responsibility for making sure the stamp duty is reported to HMRC (unless twin A's did something they didn't need to do which is unlikely).
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Blimey.
I said this whole thing was tedious. IF that is true, then I was wrong, and it's a massive embarrassment for the government for the DPM to have been quite so stupid..
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Well, it's surely curtains then, unless she can produce some physical evidence of their giving her (wrong) advice.
Surely she wasn't so stupid as to malign her lawyers, with a blatant lie, in order to save her skin??
She must have known the lawyers would stridently object, it's their business which is at reputational risk. Now she needs hard evidence or Eeek
This could end up ruining her, financially as well as professionally, if she's not careful
Don’t we see this sort of thing every time there is a political scandal. Outright denial, well maybe something happened but I will refer myself to inspectors, I didn’t mean to do it and I was stressed, it was someone else’s fault technically, then resignation with contrite statement.
Maybe it is my age but we just don't seem to get the quality of politician we used to. Maybe it is the TV and social media age. Wilson's and Blair's Cabinets were stuffed with people who could speak to an audience and indeed in some cases electrify a room with their oratory.
And also they seemed to know what they wanted to do with power.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Blimey.
I said this whole thing was tedious. IF that is true, then I was wrong, and it's a massive embarrassment for the government for the DPM to have been quite so stupid..
"Stupid" might be generous. It is also possible that she is a venal liar
She really is on the edge now, she immediately needs absolute 100% proof that she got misleading advice (from three different sources!) or she's finished and in big trouble
If I may say so, it seems you make no allowance for individual taste in what makes people laugh. This cartoon strikes me as very similar on the LOL-o-scale as the previous two you've posted. I found them all entertaining.
Part of Matt's genius is that overall his cartoons appeal to such a wide range of people.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Except it's the conveyancing solicitors responsibility for making sure the stamp duty is reported to HMRC (unless twin A's did something they didn't need to do which is unlikely).
It is, but in my experience conveyancers will be very clear on their engagement terms that you have to be comfortable the SDLT calculation/treatment is correct - they’ll do the return for you but you’ve got to make sure you’re happy with it. I seem to recall mine even asked me to sign a declaration of some sort to confirm that.
Graham Linehan accuser ‘is disgraced transgender police officer’
Watson was sacked by Leicestershire Police after being found guilty by a misconduct hearing of sending former police officer Harry Miller more than 1,200 messages over an 18-month period, branding him a “Nazi”, a “bigot” and a “wife-beater”.
"Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has gone on trial in London on charges of harassment and criminal damage against a transgender woman.
Westminster Magistrates' Court was told the 57-year-old allegedly used social media to "relentlessly" publish offensive posts about an 18-year-old trans campaigner."
The man who accused him has quite a record of offensive posts, writing in one that he wished acid had been thrown over a woman's face instead of soup. (According to the evidence given in court today.)
So you think Linehan is in the right?
What are you jumping to that assumption based on what I wrote?
I reported some evidence which has come out during the trial, during the cross-examination of the complainant. The cross-examination was, in my professional opinion, very good. (I am not surprised by this because I know the KC doing it.) Some of the admissions made by the complainant about what he was doing and why do not reflect well on him. He was also under-age at the time and was hanging round with some dubious individuals. So there is a safeguarding issue there as well. But I have not heard all the evidence and so I express no views on whether Linehan was guilty or not. He is innocent until proven guilty. As you know perfectly well.
I for one am looking forward to Phase 638, in about two months, when Starmer appoints the late Keith Chegwin as Chancellor, and decides from now on to speak in Albanian
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Well, it's surely curtains then, unless she can produce some physical evidence of their giving her (wrong) advice.
Surely she wasn't so stupid as to malign her lawyers, with a blatant lie, in order to save her skin??
She must have known the lawyers would stridently object, it's their business which is at reputational risk. Now she needs hard evidence or Eeek
This could end up ruining her, financially as well as professionally, if she's not careful
Don’t we see this sort of thing every time there is a political scandal. Outright denial, well maybe something happened but I will refer myself to inspectors, I didn’t mean to do it and I was stressed, it was someone else’s fault technically, then resignation with contrite statement.
On the conveyancer front their statement looks like Ange is correct that she was told to pay 30k by her conveyancers but because she did not give them info to suggest higher rate Stamp Duty applied. Whoops
[Sen] Cassidy: Do you agree that the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?
RFK: Absolutely.
Cassidy: But you just said that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID.
America is so screwed. Essentially every normal country in the world thinks they have gone mad and no longer trusts them. The only countries that favour Trump and his government are places like Russia and China, and not because he is Making America Great Again.
The damage done to the US will outlast most of us here.
I don't think people will want a Reform government. But will it be possible to block it in a first past the post system where they are the largest party? I'm not sure. The British public is often quite good at gaming the system to get the result it wants. The fundamental problem is that nobody is willing to make the hard choices necessary to fix our problems. Everybody wants someone else to pay the costs involved. The voters are the real villains here.
I think that's unfair on the voters. With a few honourable exceptions the voters aren't economists, they aren't experts on the public finances. They're only believing what they're being told.
If it was the case that one of the parties had told them the truth about the current situation, and the hard choices that would be required, and had rejected that in favour of platitudes from other parties, then it might be fair to blame the voters.
But that hasn't happened. No-one has levelled with the voters.
May's "dementia tax" is an example of what happens when you try to level with voters. Labour's cuts to WFA similarly. Probably neither party did enough to give voters the true picture. But how do you even communicate reality to voters when they're all in their own echo chamber?
Okay, those aren't terrible examples of the voters rejecting reality. But I think in neither case did either government prepare the ground and create a convincing narrative in the way that Cameron and Osborne did with austerity and, "we're all in it together."
Now, maybe the coalition austerity was austerity-lite. Some special groups were protected. And the Tories at the 2015GE benefited from cannibalising their coalition partners. But you did have a government that had done some plenty unpopular things for the purpose of balancing books win reelection. The voters were willing to be convinced that it was necessary.
To my mind coalition austerity had a lot of unfortunate features. For instance, it targeted cuts at local governments in poorer areas of the country. So much for all in it together or making tough choices. Also, far from dealing with the underlying ageing related drivers of our fiscal problems they introduced the triple lock which makes the problem even worse! The real problem is that rather than addressing ageing related costs directly we have seen Tory governments slashing spending on everything else instead, and Labour governments looking for ever more distortionary sources of taxation to plug the gap. As a result, people are left asking why are we getting less and paying more for it? While the underlying problem is left unaddressed and continues to drive a year by year worsening in our fiscal picture. Meanwhile politics gets lost in a series of essentially pointless debates on Brexit and small boats. It's enough to drive even a natural optimist like me to despair.
Yes. I'm not a fan of how the coalition implemented austerity, but I think they did pretty well with the politics of it.
Cameron and Osborne sold austerity brilliantly. The notion of the maxed out credit card was very clever too, although was a wholly inappropriate analogy.
Then Johnson came along and spent like a drunken sailor.
This time last year you were criticising me for saying Rachel Reeves is shit.
She still is
Indeed but to be to fair to him he’s been on a journey and no longer does that and is critical of labour at times too.
I think for some of us the buyers remorse came quickly. Others it didn’t.
Yes, however as a country we still need to get out of the mess and face up to where we are. Endlessly telling me about Boris is just holding on to comfort blankets.
The Left needs people who live in the present not 2020.
I agree but sadlY this is 1975 redux and not 1997 redux.
As I said earlier. We need some fiscal responsibility. Who gives a shit what Boris did when we are facing an imminent crisis.
I'm hugely disappointed in this governments inability to get on top of infrastructure, it's as bad as their predecessors. We need houses, water and electricity infrastructure as well as transport and communications.
Instead we still have the same blob capture and nothing is getting done, No real jobs, no boost to productivity, no growth. It's lamentable.
As I recall, you were disappointed in the Government when Starmer's car reached Admiralty Arch on the way back from the Palace.
This kind of infrastructure doesn't appear overnight and I can only speak as I find but a lot of effort is going in to repairing and improving the existing infrastructure never mind anything new.
Spending on highways for example is often limited by the priorities of councils who prefer (understandably) to spend on vulnerable adults and children rather than pot holes.
I've cited the issue of the cost of construction in London and Samuel Hughes has pointed out some other detailed issues which cause issues with construction and are basically over-regulation. You might well argue (and you'd not be wrong) a Government with a big majority and the will to make things happen should be all over this.
I see a Government overwhelmed by the scale of the challenges facing it - the "boats" are in truth a distraction and a diversion. It's not that big an issue compared with many of the others and in truth, as was the case with Brexit for the Conservatives, public and media attention is diverting the Government from what it should be about so nothing gets done which accentuates the perception of failure and drift.
I for one am looking forward to Phase 638, in about two months, when Starmer appoints the late Keith Chegwin as Chancellor, and decides from now on to speak in Albanian
Bari Weiss has done what no-one else managed to do, in creating a relatively centrist online space at a time of extreme polarisation in US politics. Also with quality journalism rather than clickbait content.
Both sides will talk to her, because they see her as being fair and in the middle, something that precisely none of the MSM in the US have done.
If she’s getting out for nine figures in five years, then well played that lady.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Well, it's surely curtains then, unless she can produce some physical evidence of their giving her (wrong) advice.
Surely she wasn't so stupid as to malign her lawyers, with a blatant lie, in order to save her skin??
She must have known the lawyers would stridently object, it's their business which is at reputational risk. Now she needs hard evidence or Eeek
This could end up ruining her, financially as well as professionally, if she's not careful
Don’t we see this sort of thing every time there is a political scandal. Outright denial, well maybe something happened but I will refer myself to inspectors, I didn’t mean to do it and I was stressed, it was someone else’s fault technically, then resignation with contrite statement.
On the conveyancer front their statement looks like Ange is correct that she was told to pay 30k by her conveyancers but because she did not give them info to suggest higher rate Stamp Duty applied. Whoopa
So she didn't give them the right information. So it's on her? Unless she can quickly find some OTHER lawyer to admit "Yeah, I'm shit, I gave Ms Rayner terrible advice, I don't mind if my career ends"
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Well, it's surely curtains then, unless she can produce some physical evidence of their giving her (wrong) advice.
Surely she wasn't so stupid as to malign her lawyers, with a blatant lie, in order to save her skin??
She must have known the lawyers would stridently object, it's their business which is at reputational risk. Now she needs hard evidence or Eeek
This could end up ruining her, financially as well as professionally, if she's not careful
Don’t we see this sort of thing every time there is a political scandal. Outright denial, well maybe something happened but I will refer myself to inspectors, I didn’t mean to do it and I was stressed, it was someone else’s fault technically, then resignation with contrite statement.
Not every time. See Louise Haigh's resignation. Ask the public who she is, what she was, why she resigned, and I suspect most wouldn't have a clue.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Well, it's surely curtains then, unless she can produce some physical evidence of their giving her (wrong) advice.
Surely she wasn't so stupid as to malign her lawyers, with a blatant lie, in order to save her skin??
She must have known the lawyers would stridently object, it's their business which is at reputational risk. Now she needs hard evidence or Eeek
This could end up ruining her, financially as well as professionally, if she's not careful
Don’t we see this sort of thing every time there is a political scandal. Outright denial, well maybe something happened but I will refer myself to inspectors, I didn’t mean to do it and I was stressed, it was someone else’s fault technically, then resignation with contrite statement.
On the conveyancer front their statement looks like Ange is correct that she was told to pay 30k by her conveyancers but because she did not give them info to suggest higher rate Stamp Duty applied. Whoopa
So she didn't give them the right information. So it's on her? Unless she can quickly find some OTHER lawyer to admit "Yeah, I'm shit, I gave Ms Rayner terrible advice, I don't mind if my career ends"
Not giving the conveyancers the correct information and then saying they had advised her to pay the lower amount is surely enough regardless?
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
Her own lawyers are now briefing the media.
She’s Donald Ducked.
The remaining question is what she told the trust lawyers she claims to have consulted then.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
Her own lawyers are now briefing the media.
She’s Donald Ducked.
The real question is what she told the trust lawyers she claims to have consulted.
Well it appears that she did the conveyencing through some local solicitor, which brings everything back to Dan Neidle’s one question from yesterday.
Did she mention the Trust to those advising her on the purchase of the Hove apartment?
[Sen] Cassidy: Do you agree that the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?
RFK: Absolutely.
Cassidy: But you just said that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID.
America is so screwed. Essentially every normal country in the world thinks they have gone mad and no longer trusts them. The only countries that favour Trump and his government are places like Russia and China, and not because he is Making America Great Again.
The damage done to the US will outlast most of us here.
Trump seens to have gone out of his way to aggravate allies for little purpose - everyone still has to deal with America, and sure they're better than China, but that's about all you can say when your ally acts like you're an enemy.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
Her own lawyers are now briefing the media.
She’s Donald Ducked.
The real question is what she told the trust lawyers she claims to have consulted.
The real question is what she told Verrico & Associates who were buying the Hove flat, and by their comments today I assume this could get very messy for her
Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed for the first time the government is looking at digital ID as a way to tackle illegal immigration.
The prime minister said a new identity programme could play an "important part" in reducing the incentive to enter the UK without permission.
The last Labour government started issuing ID cards to UK citizens, but the scheme was scrapped by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition over privacy concerns.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Well, it's surely curtains then, unless she can produce some physical evidence of their giving her (wrong) advice.
Surely she wasn't so stupid as to malign her lawyers, with a blatant lie, in order to save her skin??
She must have known the lawyers would stridently object, it's their business which is at reputational risk. Now she needs hard evidence or Eeek
This could end up ruining her, financially as well as professionally, if she's not careful
Don’t we see this sort of thing every time there is a political scandal. Outright denial, well maybe something happened but I will refer myself to inspectors, I didn’t mean to do it and I was stressed, it was someone else’s fault technically, then resignation with contrite statement.
On the conveyancer front their statement looks like Ange is correct that she was told to pay 30k by her conveyancers but because she did not give them info to suggest higher rate Stamp Duty applied. Whoopa
So she didn't give them the right information. So it's on her? Unless she can quickly find some OTHER lawyer to admit "Yeah, I'm shit, I gave Ms Rayner terrible advice, I don't mind if my career ends"
As above, when it comes to conveyancers and SDLT I’m pretty sure it’s all on you really, based on standard engagement terms - unless they made a complete clanger when they submitted the return/changed it from your instructions or what have you.
They need to do the return because it’s a necessary filing, but they’re very reticent about confirming they’re presenting the correct tax position - you’ve got to sign off on that I think.
I did wonder if Ange was using some big outfit who might have offered a bit more of an integrated service; but when it came out she was using a high street conveyancer it did all sound a little odd.
Presumably Rayner is going to claim to have taken advice from someone else.
That Telegraph story is a bit weird. As far as I am aware, no one knew who those people were until they voluntarily told the Telegraph. Not sure they are being scapegoated (unless I've missed Rayner naming them in an Alan Partridge kind of way).
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
Her own lawyers are now briefing the media.
She’s Donald Ducked.
The real question is what she told the trust lawyers she claims to have consulted.
The real question is what she told Verrico & Associates who were buying the Hove flat, and by their comments today I assume this could get very messy for her
The question comes down to did the solicitors use a paper form with the correct questions on it - because otherwise (as TSE implied yesterday) it’s he said, she said attached to very bad processes that should have been fixed years ago.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
Her own lawyers are now briefing the media.
She’s Donald Ducked.
The Telegraph has also been talking to local estate agents and is suggesting that the house may have been overvalued:
Leader of Peterborough Council resigns and is suspended from the Labour Party for referring to victims of the banned thing as 'poor white trash' Peterborough a key target for the Tories next time, They won the area handily over Reform in the mayor race in May with Labour a distant third. Its the sort of seat they need to be working hard
Well, the swing against the Conservatives was very small as the Workers' Party hoovered up 12% of the vote, presumably mostly from Labour.
This is one of those seats where the Lab/Con duopoly faces a significant threat from BOTH Reform and the new emergent new anti-Labour party. For a bit of comedy, take the 2024 result, take ten points off both Labour and Conservative and add ten points to both Reform and the Workers Party and you get the sort of result which, were it to happen on a racecourse, would please any handicapper.
That would be interesting certainly. Lower than national Reform share, good performance comparatively in the mayoral 6000 votes clear of Reform, hyper marginal. If they arent targeting this they might as well pack up and go home.
Indeed, it's the no.4 target for the Conservatives over Labour so they should be in with a real shout.
The constituency covers about 60% of the area of Peterborough Council - the elections in May 2024 had the Conservatives losing half their seats with Labour and Peterborough First the main beneficiaries with five and three gains respectively.
The rest of the Council area is in the North West Cambridgeshire constituency which is the number 3 Conservative target so Tory activists spoilt for choice. The 2028 elections for Peterborough Council (assuming no General Election) will be highly informative.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Well, it's surely curtains then, unless she can produce some physical evidence of their giving her (wrong) advice.
Surely she wasn't so stupid as to malign her lawyers, with a blatant lie, in order to save her skin??
She must have known the lawyers would stridently object, it's their business which is at reputational risk. Now she needs hard evidence or Eeek
This could end up ruining her, financially as well as professionally, if she's not careful
Don’t we see this sort of thing every time there is a political scandal. Outright denial, well maybe something happened but I will refer myself to inspectors, I didn’t mean to do it and I was stressed, it was someone else’s fault technically, then resignation with contrite statement.
On the conveyancer front their statement looks like Ange is correct that she was told to pay 30k by her conveyancers but because she did not give them info to suggest higher rate Stamp Duty applied. Whoopa
So she didn't give them the right information. So it's on her? Unless she can quickly find some OTHER lawyer to admit "Yeah, I'm shit, I gave Ms Rayner terrible advice, I don't mind if my career ends"
Not giving the conveyancers the correct information and then saying they had advised her to pay the lower amount is surely enough regardless?
Presumably Rayner is going to claim to have taken advice from someone else.
That Telegraph story is a bit weird. As far as I am aware, no one knew who those people were until they voluntarily told the Telegraph. Not sure they are being scapegoated (unless I've missed Rayner naming them in an Alan Partridge kind of way).
They had been named earlier in the day. Below in the guardian.
Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed for the first time the government is looking at digital ID as a way to tackle illegal immigration.
The prime minister said a new identity programme could play an "important part" in reducing the incentive to enter the UK without permission.
The last Labour government started issuing ID cards to UK citizens, but the scheme was scrapped by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition over privacy concerns.
So the spin is going to be ID cards for all to stop illegal immigration.
The Home Office has been pushing for ID cards for decade after decade.
It may work, but given that stop the boats is the poster child for public wrath, it's hard to see how ID cards for those already here will help with that.
Presumably Rayner is going to claim to have taken advice from someone else.
That Telegraph story is a bit weird. As far as I am aware, no one knew who those people were until they voluntarily told the Telegraph. Not sure they are being scapegoated (unless I've missed Rayner naming them in an Alan Partridge kind of way).
Rayner said she received advice from the conveyancer and 2 tax/trust experts Conveyancers here say, no she did not
Graham Linehan accuser ‘is disgraced transgender police officer’
Watson was sacked by Leicestershire Police after being found guilty by a misconduct hearing of sending former police officer Harry Miller more than 1,200 messages over an 18-month period, branding him a “Nazi”, a “bigot” and a “wife-beater”.
"Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has gone on trial in London on charges of harassment and criminal damage against a transgender woman.
Westminster Magistrates' Court was told the 57-year-old allegedly used social media to "relentlessly" publish offensive posts about an 18-year-old trans campaigner."
The man who accused him has quite a record of offensive posts, writing in one that he wished acid had been thrown over a woman's face instead of soup. (According to the evidence given in court today.)
So you think Linehan is in the right?
What are you jumping to that assumption based on what I wrote?
I reported some evidence which has come out during the trial, during the cross-examination of the complainant. The cross-examination was, in my professional opinion, very good. (I am not surprised by this because I know the KC doing it.) Some of the admissions made by the complainant about what he was doing and why do not reflect well on him. He was also under-age at the time and was hanging round with some dubious individuals. So there is a safeguarding issue there as well. But I have not heard all the evidence and so I express no views on whether Linehan was guilty or not. He is innocent until proven guilty. As you know perfectly well.
There is the moral as well as the legal. Do you think a man in his fifties getting into a nasty Internet spat with a young person is right? Especially when that man is famous and has some influence amongst those of a similar mindset?
I also wish you'd refer to the complainant as 'she'. I know you won't.
Presumably Rayner is going to claim to have taken advice from someone else.
That Telegraph story is a bit weird. As far as I am aware, no one knew who those people were until they voluntarily told the Telegraph. Not sure they are being scapegoated (unless I've missed Rayner naming them in an Alan Partridge kind of way).
I don't think that is true. It was reported the Guardian found out who they were. I am presuming some helpful person pointed them in the right direction.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
Her own lawyers are now briefing the media.
She’s Donald Ducked.
The real question is what she told the trust lawyers she claims to have consulted.
The real question is what she told Verrico & Associates who were buying the Hove flat, and by their comments today I assume this could get very messy for her
The question comes down to did the solicitors use a paper form with the correct questions on it - because otherwise (as TSE implied yesterday) it’s he said, she said attached to very bad processes that should have been fixed years ago.
In a past life I did conduct lectures on business, and I always said 'if it is not written it is not said'
Presumably Rayner is going to claim to have taken advice from someone else.
That Telegraph story is a bit weird. As far as I am aware, no one knew who those people were until they voluntarily told the Telegraph. Not sure they are being scapegoated (unless I've missed Rayner naming them in an Alan Partridge kind of way).
Rayner said she received advice from the conveyancer and 2 tax/trust experts Conveyancers here say, no she did not
Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed for the first time the government is looking at digital ID as a way to tackle illegal immigration.
The prime minister said a new identity programme could play an "important part" in reducing the incentive to enter the UK without permission.
The last Labour government started issuing ID cards to UK citizens, but the scheme was scrapped by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition over privacy concerns.
So the spin is going to be ID cards for all to stop illegal immigration.
The Home Office has been pushing for ID cards for decade after decade.
It may work, but given that stop the boats is the poster child for public wrath, it's hard to see how ID cards for those already here will help with that.
Prediction: It won't work - in the main because it would be administered by the same state blob who have failed in every other respect when it comes to stopping the boats.
I'm actually suprised that the forced choice 'Lab or Reform' question is already as close as 43:37. Plenty for Reform to play for and the trajectory is still titing in their favour.
There is the 18% Conservative vote to squeeze further (it saddens me but they are done.) After November's budget and maybe another couple like it, with Labour's manifesto pledges on Taxes in tatters, the 52% who delivered Brexit (allowing for electoral churn ofcourse) will, broadly speaking, deliver for Reform.
If you are still voting Tory now you are likely to always be voting Tory and of course Kemi could pick up or be replaced by a more appealing leader.
In seats Labour won where the Tories were second last year, which is most of them, there is also of course no tactical reason for Tory voters to vote Reform even if LD and Green voters have a logical reason to tactically vote Labour.
At least a quarter to a third of 2024 Tories would also vote LD over Reform
I take my hat off to your for standing by the Conservative Party (genuinely) but I respectfully disagree with your analysis here.
The polls show the Conservatives retaining only around 63% of their 2024 voters, similar figures for Labour to be fair.
The 2024 seats you mention, where Labour came first and the Conservatives second, simply do not look like that today and will look even less like that by the time of the next GE.
I respect the old true blues who will die in the ditch with the old brigade, I just think they are significantly outnumbered by the sort of instinctive Conservatives whose motivation to kick Labiur will prove stronger than habitual or historic attachment to the Conservative Party.
For now maybe, but Cleverly for example could certainly get back most of the Sunak vote and narrow the gap with Reform.
As I also said about a third of Tory voters would vote LD over Reform
Maybe it is my age but we just don't seem to get the quality of politician we used to. Maybe it is the TV and social media age. Wilson's and Blair's Cabinets were stuffed with people who could speak to an audience and indeed in some cases electrify a room with their oratory.
And also they seemed to know what they wanted to do with power.
I would guess no one truly trains for giving speeches anymore, since anything beyond a 20 second soundbite is very rare, highly scripted, or seen by very few people. So only the naturally gifted can orate with any skill and others get few opportunities to develop the skill. Go back centuries and some people rambled on for hours with messianic passion.
Not knowing what to do with power is trickier to figure out, there's no shortage of ideas, but little vision - which is why many like those with vision even if their ideas are often terrible.
Leader of Peterborough Council resigns and is suspended from the Labour Party for referring to victims of the banned thing as 'poor white trash' Peterborough a key target for the Tories next time, They won the area handily over Reform in the mayor race in May with Labour a distant third. Its the sort of seat they need to be working hard
Well, the swing against the Conservatives was very small as the Workers' Party hoovered up 12% of the vote, presumably mostly from Labour.
This is one of those seats where the Lab/Con duopoly faces a significant threat from BOTH Reform and the new emergent new anti-Labour party. For a bit of comedy, take the 2024 result, take ten points off both Labour and Conservative and add ten points to both Reform and the Workers Party and you get the sort of result which, were it to happen on a racecourse, would please any handicapper.
That would be interesting certainly. Lower than national Reform share, good performance comparatively in the mayoral 6000 votes clear of Reform, hyper marginal. If they arent targeting this they might as well pack up and go home.
Indeed, it's the no.4 target for the Conservatives over Labour so they should be in with a real shout.
The constituency covers about 60% of the area of Peterborough Council - the elections in May 2024 had the Conservatives losing half their seats with Labour and Peterborough First the main beneficiaries with five and three gains respectively.
The rest of the Council area is in the North West Cambridgeshire constituency which is the number 3 Conservative target so Tory activists spoilt for choice. The 2028 elections for Peterborough Council (assuming no General Election) will be highly informative.
Peterborough does it in thirds so tracking the progress of the target 26, 27, 28 should be illuminating on an ongoing basis
I don't think people will want a Reform government. But will it be possible to block it in a first past the post system where they are the largest party? I'm not sure. The British public is often quite good at gaming the system to get the result it wants. The fundamental problem is that nobody is willing to make the hard choices necessary to fix our problems. Everybody wants someone else to pay the costs involved. The voters are the real villains here.
I think that's unfair on the voters. With a few honourable exceptions the voters aren't economists, they aren't experts on the public finances. They're only believing what they're being told.
If it was the case that one of the parties had told them the truth about the current situation, and the hard choices that would be required, and had rejected that in favour of platitudes from other parties, then it might be fair to blame the voters.
But that hasn't happened. No-one has levelled with the voters.
May's "dementia tax" is an example of what happens when you try to level with voters. Labour's cuts to WFA similarly. Probably neither party did enough to give voters the true picture. But how do you even communicate reality to voters when they're all in their own echo chamber?
Okay, those aren't terrible examples of the voters rejecting reality. But I think in neither case did either government prepare the ground and create a convincing narrative in the way that Cameron and Osborne did with austerity and, "we're all in it together."
Now, maybe the coalition austerity was austerity-lite. Some special groups were protected. And the Tories at the 2015GE benefited from cannibalising their coalition partners. But you did have a government that had done some plenty unpopular things for the purpose of balancing books win reelection. The voters were willing to be convinced that it was necessary.
To my mind coalition austerity had a lot of unfortunate features. For instance, it targeted cuts at local governments in poorer areas of the country. So much for all in it together or making tough choices. Also, far from dealing with the underlying ageing related drivers of our fiscal problems they introduced the triple lock which makes the problem even worse! The real problem is that rather than addressing ageing related costs directly we have seen Tory governments slashing spending on everything else instead, and Labour governments looking for ever more distortionary sources of taxation to plug the gap. As a result, people are left asking why are we getting less and paying more for it? While the underlying problem is left unaddressed and continues to drive a year by year worsening in our fiscal picture. Meanwhile politics gets lost in a series of essentially pointless debates on Brexit and small boats. It's enough to drive even a natural optimist like me to despair.
Yes. I'm not a fan of how the coalition implemented austerity, but I think they did pretty well with the politics of it.
Cameron and Osborne sold austerity brilliantly. The notion of the maxed out credit card was very clever too, although was a wholly inappropriate analogy.
Then Johnson came along and spent like a drunken sailor.
This time last year you were criticising me for saying Rachel Reeves is shit.
She still is
Indeed but to be to fair to him he’s been on a journey and no longer does that and is critical of labour at times too.
I think for some of us the buyers remorse came quickly. Others it didn’t.
Yes, however as a country we still need to get out of the mess and face up to where we are. Endlessly telling me about Boris is just holding on to comfort blankets.
The Left needs people who live in the present not 2020.
I agree but sadlY this is 1975 redux and not 1997 redux.
As I said earlier. We need some fiscal responsibility. Who gives a shit what Boris did when we are facing an imminent crisis.
Presumably Rayner is going to claim to have taken advice from someone else.
That Telegraph story is a bit weird. As far as I am aware, no one knew who those people were until they voluntarily told the Telegraph. Not sure they are being scapegoated (unless I've missed Rayner naming them in an Alan Partridge kind of way).
Their name is now in the public domain and if they are saying they are being scapegoated, and the matter is now with the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, then this story is not going away anytime soon
Presumably Rayner is going to claim to have taken advice from someone else.
That Telegraph story is a bit weird. As far as I am aware, no one knew who those people were until they voluntarily told the Telegraph. Not sure they are being scapegoated (unless I've missed Rayner naming them in an Alan Partridge kind of way).
Rayner said she received advice from the conveyancer and 2 tax/trust experts Conveyancers here say, no she did not
Conveyancers would have given advicer on conveyancing. We have yet to hear about the tax experts.
Maybe it is my age but we just don't seem to get the quality of politician we used to. Maybe it is the TV and social media age. Wilson's and Blair's Cabinets were stuffed with people who could speak to an audience and indeed in some cases electrify a room with their oratory.
And also they seemed to know what they wanted to do with power.
I would guess no one truly trains for giving speeches anymore, since anything beyond a 20 second soundbite is very rare, highly scripted, or seen by very few people. So only the naturally gifted can orate with any skill and others get few opportunities to develop the skill. Go back centuries and some people rambled on for hours with messianic passion.
Not knowing what to do with power is trickier to figure out, there's no shortage of ideas, but little vision - which is why many like those with vision even if their ideas are often terrible.
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
The key phrase there is "based on the information provided to us".
The questions are these:-
1. Did AR know or understand that she was still a property owner of the house put in trust for her son? This will depend on what Shoosmiths told her. 2. If she did, did she tell the conveyancers? 3. If she did not know, why not? 4. If she did know, why did she not tell the conveyancers? 5. Did she ask anyone else for advice and, if so, when and on what factual basis?
She'd better have some good answers to these. Because it's bloody stupid to blame your conveyancers and accuse them publicly of negligence. If they were negligent you do this in writing and they will be in contact with their insurers. Publicly blaming like this if they weren't leads to precisely this sort of response: we weren't asked for and do not give tax advice and you did not tell us.
It could still all have been a cock up, especially when you have different lawyers involved doing different tasks and not seeing the complete picture.
But as usual, Cyclefree's Golden Rule of Investigations kicks in.
It's not the cock up which is the problem but how you respond to it which all too often makes a small problem much worse.
It appears as though this might well be an extra-judicial execution, not within any existing legal authority,
The Pentagon is working—STILL—to make up a legal rationale for slaughtering 11 people, 1,500 miles from America, AFTER THE FACT? WHAT? You can’t do this after they’re dead. That is a crime. That is murder. https://x.com/hissgoescobra/status/1963464928066711700
Whether or not they were bad guys is really not the point at all.
Yeah, all the explanations so far have been a bit Hague. Sorry, I meant vague...
Legal process and evidence do not appear to be high up the administration's list of priorities.
Further evidence that the Trump admin lied repeatedly (to the public and a judge) when it tried to deport 600 children to Guatemala in the dead of night.
"In rare interviews with NBC News, a dozen federal judges—appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents, including Trump, and serving around the country — pointed to a pattern they say has recently emerged:
"Lower court judges are handed contentious cases involving the Trump administration. They painstakingly research the law to reach their rulings. When they go against Trump, administration officials and allies criticize the judges in harsh terms. The government appeals to the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority.
"And then the Supreme Court, in emergency rulings, swiftly rejects the judges’ decisions with little to no explanation.
Do we really want to import all this into the UK via Farage and his crew ?
Farage is a traitor.
So is Trump, and it didn't stop him from winning election.
Indeed. But we need to make it clear who people are voting for when the vote for the Farage Party.
There is much evidence, but Farage's recent time in Washington is one piece.
But that isn't happening.
We have researched Farage's fiasco in Congress. The mainstream media and Farage fans won't be reporting that Farage was f*****' beasted and owned by Jamie Raskin. He was humiliated. But you won't see that on a TV screen near you.
Angela Rayner having her pants pulled down is far more newsworthy than Farage's modesty being exposed.
If Farage was 'beasted' by a US politician I am not sure that reflects particularly well on the politician or particularly badly on Farage.
He was there to give his views on the political situation in the UK. I don't know why the committee particularly wanted to know this, but apparently they did. As far as I'm aware he didn't wade into US politics, so what was the US politician's angle? That he knew UK politics better than a British politician?
Apparently Angela Rayner's lawyers say they never gave her tax advice and she is 'scapegoating' them !!
Which ones? Shoosmiths said yesterday it was nowt to do with them
Telegraph is reporting:
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
Her own lawyers are now briefing the media.
She’s Donald Ducked.
The Telegraph has also been talking to local estate agents and is suggesting that the house may have been overvalued:
The price of any home is that which 'a willing buyer will pay a willing seller' so not really relevant
Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed for the first time the government is looking at digital ID as a way to tackle illegal immigration.
The prime minister said a new identity programme could play an "important part" in reducing the incentive to enter the UK without permission.
The last Labour government started issuing ID cards to UK citizens, but the scheme was scrapped by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition over privacy concerns.
[Sen] Cassidy: Do you agree that the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?
RFK: Absolutely.
Cassidy: But you just said that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID.
America is so screwed. Essentially every normal country in the world thinks they have gone mad and no longer trusts them. The only countries that favour Trump and his government are places like Russia and China, and not because he is Making America Great Again.
The damage done to the US will outlast most of us here.
And the main causal factor IMO is the Internet.
The Internet has been a wonderful invention, but it has sure had its downsides.
Comments
The Left needs people who live in the present not 2020.
Delighted to find that both Vaughan and Alex Hartley are being rested!!
Tymal Mills is a good addition, sadly for what could have been, very knowledgeable about back injury.
As I said earlier. We need some fiscal responsibility. Who gives a shit what Boris did when we are facing an imminent crisis.
We could be seeing the scandal of the century developing here. What Hodges and Pearson have discovered should shock everyone, and may shake the very foundations of the British polity. Read all about it in their new book, published by Telegraph Press at £32.39.
We need houses, water and electricity infrastructure as well as transport and communications.
Instead we still have the same blob capture and nothing is getting done, No real jobs, no boost to productivity, no growth. It's lamentable.
(And on-street parking should cost about £2,000 - suggesting this at a community council meeting isn't the smartest thing I've ever done)
Europe does suck up all the US oil & gas they can. If you look at US exports, essentially all East Coast LNG goes to Europe. And the export facilities are all running at capacity. Now, there are five new LNG liquifaction facilities under construction, but until they're live, then that's it, there isn't going to be any more gas going to Europe.
As far as oil exports go, then there's some pipeline sales into the Canadian maratime provinces, and there's some from West Coast oil fields into Asia. But, the rest much all goes to Europe already. If the US produced more oil, then Europe would be happy to suck it up.
But that hasn't happened yet - not least because the flow of Canadian oil into the US has slowed, which has meant the US is using more of their own oil.
Peterborough a key target for the Tories next time, They won the area handily over Reform in the mayor race in May with Labour a distant third. Its the sort of seat they need to be working hard
The prime minister said a new identity programme could play an "important part" in reducing the incentive to enter the UK without permission.
The last Labour government started issuing ID cards to UK citizens, but the scheme was scrapped by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition over privacy concerns.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y5379djl3o
So the spin is going to be ID cards for all to stop illegal immigration.
Spencer Hakimian
@SpencerHakimian
[Sen] Cassidy: Do you agree that the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?
RFK: Absolutely.
Cassidy: But you just said that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID.
Mr Balls, the former Labour shadow chancellor, told the Political Currency podcast: “I think there is sympathy for her personal situation. But Angela Rayner was the person who was on the moral high ground demanding others resign.
“And it’s hypocritical of her [to have] one rule for everybody else, a different rule for her, for her not to resign.
I'm disappointed, as I was willing to give them a chance once they were elected.
But I don't think we disagree that it's not going very well.
This is one of those seats where the Lab/Con duopoly faces a significant threat from BOTH Reform and the new emergent new anti-Labour party. For a bit of comedy, take the 2024 result, take ten points off both Labour and Conservative and add ten points to both Reform and the Workers Party and you get the sort of result which, were it to happen on a racecourse, would please any handicapper.
“I said you were fat
You said it was muscle
But now I realise
It was just a hustle
When i said we should marry
You never said no
I didn’t realise Carrie
Would never let go.
Oh Boris you hurt me
Like a lover from Ovid
you fucked me like the country
When you lead it in Covid.”
That you are being arrested,
The crime you are being arrested for,
The necessity of arresting you,"
https://hnksolicitors.com/news/what-do-police-say-when-they-arrest-you/
Anyone expecting them to read out a tweet to a suspect are being really silly.
Lower than national Reform share, good performance comparatively in the mayoral 6000 votes clear of Reform, hyper marginal.
If they arent targeting this they might as well pack up and go home.
@FraserNelson
This is a phenomenon: a $200m company created in four years. From a Substack.
Bari Weiss has shown how much life there is in journalism: what can be done with clear vision, backing, agility and drive.
If writing is good enough, the prospects for quality journalism are better than ever.
https://x.com/FraserNelson/status/1963596321434349621
https://x.com/addicted2newz/status/1963602595970203982?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
She must have known the lawyers would stridently object, it's their business which is at reputational risk. Now she needs hard evidence or Eeek
This could end up ruining her, financially as well as professionally, if she's not careful
I said this whole thing was tedious. IF that is true, then I was wrong, and it's a massive embarrassment for the government for the DPM to have been quite so stupid..
Angela Rayner’s lawyers claim they have been made “scapegoats” and did not give her tax advice, the Telegraph can disclose.
The conveyancing firm that handled the purchase of her £800,000 flat in Hove insisted that it had done nothing wrong.
The comments are a major blow for the Deputy Prime Minister, who has blamed “legal advice that I received” for her failure to pay a £40,000 stamp duty bill on the purchase of her seaside holiday home.
Verrico & Associates, a family company based in Herne Bay, Kent, confirmed that it advised her on the purchase of the flat.
Joanna Verrico, managing director, told The Telegraph: “We acted for Ms Rayner when she purchased the flat in Hove. We did not and never have given tax or trust advice. It’s something we always refer our clients to an accountant or tax expert for.
“The stamp duty for the Hove flat was calculated using HMRC’s own online calculator based on the figures and the information provided by Ms Rayner.
“That’s what we used and it told us we had to pay £30,000 based on the information provided to us. We believe that we did everything correctly and in good faith. Everything was exactly as it should be.
“We probably are being made scapegoats for all this and I have got the arrows stuck in my back to show it. We are not an inexperienced firm, but we’re not qualified to give advice on trust and tax matters and we advise clients to seek expert advice on these.”
A spokesman for the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, which regulates such firms, said: “We have asked them for a full account of events. They are not licensed to provide tax advice. What they are licensed to do is to provide conveyancing advice, and they are regulated to the highest standards.”
Ms Rayner admitted on Wednesday that she underpaid £40,000 of stamp duty on the seafront flat. She insisted that she had relied on “legal advice that I received that said that I was liable to pay the standard stamp duty.”
And also they seemed to know what they wanted to do with power.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=OQEJnerDzWU
She really is on the edge now, she immediately needs absolute 100% proof that she got misleading advice (from three different sources!) or she's finished and in big trouble
Part of Matt's genius is that overall his cartoons appeal to such a wide range of people.
Sen. Bill Cassidy: "Do you agree with me that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?"
RFK: "Absolutely."
Sen. Bill Cassidy: "But you just told Sen. Bennet that the Covid vaccine killed more people than Covid?"
https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1963619936200229042
I reported some evidence which has come out during the trial, during the cross-examination of the complainant. The cross-examination was, in my professional opinion, very good. (I am not surprised by this because I know the KC doing it.) Some of the admissions made by the complainant about what he was doing and why do not reflect well on him. He was also under-age at the time and was hanging round with some dubious individuals. So there is a safeguarding issue there as well. But I have not heard all the evidence and so I express no views on whether Linehan was guilty or not. He is innocent until proven guilty. As you know perfectly well.
I for one am looking forward to Phase 638, in about two months, when Starmer appoints the late Keith Chegwin as Chancellor, and decides from now on to speak in Albanian
Whoops
The damage done to the US will outlast most of us here.
This kind of infrastructure doesn't appear overnight and I can only speak as I find but a lot of effort is going in to repairing and improving the existing infrastructure never mind anything new.
Spending on highways for example is often limited by the priorities of councils who prefer (understandably) to spend on vulnerable adults and children rather than pot holes.
I've cited the issue of the cost of construction in London and Samuel Hughes has pointed out some other detailed issues which cause issues with construction and are basically over-regulation. You might well argue (and you'd not be wrong) a Government with a big majority and the will to make things happen should be all over this.
I see a Government overwhelmed by the scale of the challenges facing it - the "boats" are in truth a distraction and a diversion. It's not that big an issue compared with many of the others and in truth, as was the case with Brexit for the Conservatives, public and media attention is diverting the Government from what it should be about so nothing gets done which accentuates the perception of failure and drift.
Both sides will talk to her, because they see her as being fair and in the middle, something that precisely none of the MSM in the US have done.
If she’s getting out for nine figures in five years, then well played that lady.
She’s Donald Ducked.
Did she mention the Trust to those advising her on the purchase of the Hove apartment?
(RFK also lied to Cassidy during his confirmation hearings, which I suspect is at least partly behind Cassidy's annoyance here.)
They need to do the return because it’s a necessary filing, but they’re very reticent about confirming they’re presenting the correct tax position - you’ve got to sign off on that I think.
I did wonder if Ange was using some big outfit who might have offered a bit more of an integrated service; but when it came out she was using a high street conveyancer it did all sound a little odd.
That Telegraph story is a bit weird. As far as I am aware, no one knew who those people were until they voluntarily told the Telegraph. Not sure they are being scapegoated (unless I've missed Rayner naming them in an Alan Partridge kind of way).
The constituency covers about 60% of the area of Peterborough Council - the elections in May 2024 had the Conservatives losing half their seats with Labour and Peterborough First the main beneficiaries with five and three gains respectively.
The rest of the Council area is in the North West Cambridgeshire constituency which is the number 3 Conservative target so Tory activists spoilt for choice. The 2028 elections for Peterborough Council (assuming no General Election) will be highly informative.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/04/angela-rayner-used-family-conveyancing-firm-to-buy-tax-row-flat
Conveyancers here say, no she did not
I also wish you'd refer to the complainant as 'she'. I know you won't.
As I also said about a third of Tory voters would vote LD over Reform
Not knowing what to do with power is trickier to figure out, there's no shortage of ideas, but little vision - which is why many like those with vision even if their ideas are often terrible.
The questions are these:-
1. Did AR know or understand that she was still a property owner of the house put in trust for her son? This will depend on what Shoosmiths told her.
2. If she did, did she tell the conveyancers?
3. If she did not know, why not?
4. If she did know, why did she not tell the conveyancers?
5. Did she ask anyone else for advice and, if so, when and on what factual basis?
She'd better have some good answers to these. Because it's bloody stupid to blame your conveyancers and accuse them publicly of negligence. If they were negligent you do this in writing and they will be in contact with their insurers. Publicly blaming like this if they weren't leads to precisely this sort of response: we weren't asked for and do not give tax advice and you did not tell us.
It could still all have been a cock up, especially when you have different lawyers involved doing different tasks and not seeing the complete picture.
But as usual, Cyclefree's Golden Rule of Investigations kicks in.
It's not the cock up which is the problem but how you respond to it which all too often makes a small problem much worse.
He was there to give his views on the political situation in the UK. I don't know why the committee particularly wanted to know this, but apparently they did. As far as I'm aware he didn't wade into US politics, so what was the US politician's angle? That he knew UK politics better than a British politician?
The Internet has been a wonderful invention, but it has sure had its downsides.