For the first time ever the holders of the three great offices of state beyond PM (chancellor, foreign secretary, home secretary) are all women
I think we’ve had plenty of evidence now that what people have between their legs has zero influence on them being capable. Probably time to stop getting excited by identity and focus on ability.
A fine and worthy sentiment. But I do hope you don't have in your body of work on here any posts a-mocking and a-taunting Labour for never having had a woman leader. Because if you do they'll be unearthed and that would be deeply regrettable and you might have to take an enforced break from internet punditing.
I’m absolutely certain I have mocked Labour for it however they justify mockery as they have been the traditional party of identity politics and so for them not to have had a female leader does amuse slightly.
At least my admission saves you the tedium of going through old posts of mine if you had been so inclined.
Well done for the clear and immediate mea culpa. No investigation now necessary. Politicians caught misbehaving please take note and learn.
Well I don't think I've mocked Labour for it. I congratulate them for never yet going down the tokenism route for leader, though sorely and idiotically tempted they have clearly been, and lament that they felt compelled to do so for deputy. Choosing a leader for their identity rather than their ability is lamentable whoever does it. I'm glad that none of the long string of awful female Labour MPs ofmy lifetime was never leader. Though I had a soft spot for Gwyneth Dunwoody.
But there have tbf been high quality female options at times and when THE progressive whole UK party has never been led by a woman it is a valid thing to consider. Not as the main thing obviously, that would be brainless, but in the mix. Eg if post Starmer there's a standout imo who's a man he's getting my vote. But if (perhaps more likely) there isn't and I'm humming and hahing over a number of candidates all of whom I think will be terrific then I'll be inclined to bring gender into the equation. Or sex as I suppose we should now say after the SC judgement. So, yes, when I vote I'll probably be thinking about sex.
This government will self destruct in three, two, oh, damn, too late.
Hardly - it's a distraction which Starmer could have done without but we often see autumn reshuffles and I suspect, after tinkering round the edges, the Prime Minister has gone for a root and branch approach especially at the top level.
We could see, in response, some changes to the Conservative Shadow team - perhaps Stride will be moved on. Philp has had a decent summer and then of course there's the Jenrick issue.
Oh come on. This must be the biggest reshuffle since the night of the long knives in the 1962.
Blair’s were always rather extensive, from memory. It was like the cabinet merry go round at one point - who hasn’t done this job before, and what new job can John Reid have?
For the first time ever the holders of the three great offices of state beyond PM (chancellor, foreign secretary, home secretary) are all women
I think we’ve had plenty of evidence now that what people have between their legs has zero influence on them being capable. Probably time to stop getting excited by identity and focus on ability.
A fine and worthy sentiment. But I do hope you don't have in your body of work on here any posts a-mocking and a-taunting Labour for never having had a woman leader. Because if you do they'll be unearthed and that would be deeply regrettable and you might have to take an enforced break from internet punditing.
I’m absolutely certain I have mocked Labour for it however they justify mockery as they have been the traditional party of identity politics and so for them not to have had a female leader does amuse slightly.
At least my admission saves you the tedium of going through old posts of mine if you had been so inclined.
Well done for the clear and immediate mea culpa. No investigation now necessary. Politicians caught misbehaving please take note and learn.
Well I don't think I've mocked Labour for it. I congratulate them for never yet going down the tokenism route for leader, though sorely and idiotically tempted they have clearly been, and lament that they felt compelled to do so for deputy. Choosing a leader for their identity rather than their ability is lamentable whoever does it. I'm glad that none of the long string of awful female Labour MPs ofmy lifetime was never leader. Though I had a soft spot for Gwyneth Dunwoody.
But there have tbf been high quality female options at times and when THE progressive whole UK party has never been led by a woman it is a valid thing to consider. Not as the main thing obviously, that would be brainless, but in the mix. Eg if post Starmer there's a standout imo who's a man he's getting my vote. But if (perhaps more likely) there isn't and I'm humming and hahing over a number of candidates all of whom I think will be terrific then I'll be inclined to bring gender into the equation. Or sex as I suppose we should now say after the SC judgement. So, yes, when I vote I'll probably be thinking about sex.
"when I vote I'll probably be thinking about sex."
If ever you need a reminder that there are four years for Reform to crash and burn in, watch that.
At the moment we all laugh about it. But at some point people do need to be convinced they want them running the country (the “scales will fall from people’s eyes” argument is overblown, I think - but not completely).
Yep. Their biggest liability and risk - their people. God.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
If ever you need a reminder that there are four years for Reform to crash and burn in, watch that.
At the moment we all laugh about it. But at some point people do need to be convinced they want them running the country (the “scales will fall from people’s eyes” argument is overblown, I think - but not completely).
Yep. Their biggest liability and risk - their people. God.
For the first time ever the holders of the three great offices of state beyond PM (chancellor, foreign secretary, home secretary) are all women
I think we’ve had plenty of evidence now that what people have between their legs has zero influence on them being capable. Probably time to stop getting excited by identity and focus on ability.
A fine and worthy sentiment. But I do hope you don't have in your body of work on here any posts a-mocking and a-taunting Labour for never having had a woman leader. Because if you do they'll be unearthed and that would be deeply regrettable and you might have to take an enforced break from internet punditing.
I’m absolutely certain I have mocked Labour for it however they justify mockery as they have been the traditional party of identity politics and so for them not to have had a female leader does amuse slightly.
At least my admission saves you the tedium of going through old posts of mine if you had been so inclined.
Well done for the clear and immediate mea culpa. No investigation now necessary. Politicians caught misbehaving please take note and learn.
Well I don't think I've mocked Labour for it. I congratulate them for never yet going down the tokenism route for leader, though sorely and idiotically tempted they have clearly been, and lament that they felt compelled to do so for deputy. Choosing a leader for their identity rather than their ability is lamentable whoever does it. I'm glad that none of the long string of awful female Labour MPs ofmy lifetime was never leader. Though I had a soft spot for Gwyneth Dunwoody.
But there have tbf been high quality female options at times and when THE progressive whole UK party has never been led by a woman it is a valid thing to consider. Not as the main thing obviously, that would be brainless, but in the mix. Eg if post Starmer there's a standout imo who's a man he's getting my vote. But if (perhaps more likely) there isn't and I'm humming and hahing over a number of candidates all of whom I think will be terrific then I'll be inclined to bring gender into the equation. Or sex as I suppose we should now say after the SC judgement. So, yes, when I vote I'll probably be thinking about sex.
"when I vote I'll probably be thinking about sex."
Is that why you come to PB?
I do flirt on here occasionally if I sense it would be welcomed. Hyufd will confirm.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
It was magnificent, boarding school, university enjoying the London nightlife and then starting work as a flash twat stockbroker. Great music and football became joyful with Euro 96, Klinsman going to Spurs (even as a Liverpool fan it was fantastic) and the arrival of glamorous foreign players. It will of course have an element of age bias but generally all was good in the world.
If ever you need a reminder that there are four years for Reform to crash and burn in, watch that.
At the moment we all laugh about it. But at some point people do need to be convinced they want them running the country (the “scales will fall from people’s eyes” argument is overblown, I think - but not completely).
The biggest danger for Nigel is that at some point he stops being cool and becomes instead a bit embarrassing to ever have liked. The entertainment industry is littered with such people: Paul Daniels, Chesney Hawkes, Boris Johnson.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
As we mentiomed a few weeks ago, it's notable that in yougov surveys the generations that were in their teens and ' twenties in the 60s and 90s are more nostalgic about those decades than other generations are of their respective youth decades.
I can't imagine a Farage or a Trump in the '90s. There was still an overwhelming sense that things would continue to improve, more carefully expressed than in earlier decades, but still definitely there.
Surprisingly big Cabinet reshuffle after Rayner resigned. Big hitters given big posts like Cooper to Foreign Secretary and Mahmood (rewarded after good work on prison reform and sentencing at Justice) to Home Secretary.
Lammy becomes DPM and will be a popular figure with Labour members as Rayner was but he no longer holds a great Office of State leaving the Foreign Office to replace Mahmood at Justice. The reshuffle means all the holders of a Great Office of State in the Cabinet and the PM have Oxbridge degrees, something which has not been the case in any Labour government before. Starmer going on an intellectually more heavyweight Cabinet then to contrast with Reform, none of whose MPs have Oxbridge degrees and to a lesser extent the Tories, of whom the party leader Kemi Badenoch and Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel are non Oxbridge
It's not UNinteresting - but you seem a little obsessed with which universities people went to. Which is fine, but not a thing I think anyone bases their vote on.
Snobs might, especially some of the middle class voters in London and the South who lent their votes to Starmer last year but refused to vote for Corbyn and think Farage a populist lightweight
I don't think these people who will only vote for parties whose leader went to Oxbridge exist - certainly not in significant numbers. I don't think there is a single voter who would vote Farage if only he had gone to Oxford or Cambridge university.
Certainly not Cambridge. Not after Stanley Baldwin.
This government will self destruct in three, two, oh, damn, too late.
Hardly - it's a distraction which Starmer could have done without but we often see autumn reshuffles and I suspect, after tinkering round the edges, the Prime Minister has gone for a root and branch approach especially at the top level.
We could see, in response, some changes to the Conservative Shadow team - perhaps Stride will be moved on. Philp has had a decent summer and then of course there's the Jenrick issue.
Oh come on. This must be the biggest reshuffle since the night of the long knives in the 1962.
We had plenty in the Thatcher years when she fell out with a Chancellor or three especially in the post-1987 period. Ministers moved round a lot under Johnson as well and when a new leader came in (every few weeks it seemed) there was another upheaval of the top chairs round the Cabinet tables.
It's rare to change Chancellor, Home Secretary AND Foreign Secretary in a reshuffle though I'm sure it has happened and someone will provide an example. Moving two of the three is more frequent and moving one more frequent still.
The DPM role is something we've had on occasion but not all the time. It has usually been with one of the three senior posts but not always. It wasn't with Nick Clegg or Angela Rayner or now with David Lammy but in the past it has been part of the role of one of the three senior offices of State.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
There have been worse decades, but much of the nineties felt stagnant, waiting for something to happen. Thatcherism was dead, but the Major years were a grey twilight. In large part that is what New Labour exploited, being young, fresh, and in full technicolour. I bought into it and for the first few years it worked.
Since then we have been sold different snakeoils, from Brexit to Corbyn to Johnson. Now we await Farage's snakeoil. The nineties only look good in retrospect as a positive contrast to what came after. We never learn. Think things can't get worse? They always can.
The BBC segment about Rayners life was very sympathetic and she really came across well in that . Whether she can come back into government is another matter . She certainly will be missed and is a huge loss to the government.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
The long view! He was defeated in 2015 by the 12 year old Mhairi Black of the SNP. Ms Black, now aged 30 left the SNP earlier this year because trans, Palestine etc. Last seen doing comic turns at the Fringe.
At least Mhairi Black has a sense of humour. Wee Dougie is like the wee free minister that padlocks the Childrens playground gates on a Sunday.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
I don't agree - the turning point was the GFC in 2008. The noughties were very reasonable until the fall of Lehman Brothers - we coped well on cheap food, cheap fuel, cheap money and endlessly rising asset values. Mrs Stodge saw it coming in the early part of 2008 as problems emerged in the financial world and financial jobs were shed by the bucketload before the markets imploded that autumn.
I remember being in Las Vegas in late 2008, in the transition after Obama won the election, seeing the DJIA hit 7500 and telling Mrs Stodge it would be a good time to open a spread betting account and buying the DJIA at $100 a point.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Good things - Kendall taken away from disability affairs, Lammy removed from the Foreign Office, Rayner and Powell booted or resigned. Cooper at Foreign a better role for her
Bad things- Deputy PM is another idiot, Phillipson left in place, Murray sacked for no reason
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
This government will self destruct in three, two, oh, damn, too late.
Hardly - it's a distraction which Starmer could have done without but we often see autumn reshuffles and I suspect, after tinkering round the edges, the Prime Minister has gone for a root and branch approach especially at the top level.
We could see, in response, some changes to the Conservative Shadow team - perhaps Stride will be moved on. Philp has had a decent summer and then of course there's the Jenrick issue.
If Kemi moves Stride on, one of the few heavyweights in her Shadow Cabinet, she will definitely be gone within a year
Good things - Kendall taken away from disability affairs, Lammy removed from the Foreign Office, Rayner and Powell booted or resigned. Cooper at Foreign a better role for her
Bad things- Deputy PM is another idiot, Phillipson left in place, Murray sacked for no reason
Sky News were claiming now with Kendall gone, Starmer will have another go at forcing through welfare cuts.
Bad sign - not that the government had not already kowtowed to the NIMBY lobby. Steve Reed, the new Housing Secretary, has deleted this uber-nimby tweet.
If ever you need a reminder that there are four years for Reform to crash and burn in, watch that.
At the moment we all laugh about it. But at some point people do need to be convinced they want them running the country (the “scales will fall from people’s eyes” argument is overblown, I think - but not completely).
The biggest danger for Nigel is that at some point he stops being cool and becomes instead a bit embarrassing to ever have liked. The entertainment industry is littered with such people: Paul Daniels, Chesney Hawkes, Boris Johnson.
Country in terminal decline because of spineless mediocre LabCon politicians and immigrants.
He has to keep this sentiment alive and growing between now and the election.
It won't be easy but by god he's going to leave it all on the pitch.
Sir Keir might have played a blinder with the Lammy and Mahmood moves. The government can now be as draconian as it likes with immigrants, while blunting charges from the Left that it's slavishly following Reform's racist agenda. Perhaps Sir Keir is a better 9D chess player than we thought.
He's seizing the day. Turning this whole thing into something that looks like the start of something rather than the end. You have to be impressed by the resilience and quick thinking.
Not quite sure why I should be impressed that SKS as Prime Minister can carry out (checks notes) some cabinet appointments? All his predecessors seem to have managed it.
But this one although done in reaction to a sudden crisis has a genuine 'renewal' feel about it. Perhaps despite his image as Mr Ultra Careful Cautious he is in fact one of those people who works best when the heat is on and time is of the essence.
Hope AI wrote that for you, bollox of the first order. He has shuffled a few duds about.
Good things - Kendall taken away from disability affairs, Lammy removed from the Foreign Office, Rayner and Powell booted or resigned. Cooper at Foreign a better role for her
Bad things- Deputy PM is another idiot, Phillipson left in place, Murray sacked for no reason
Sky News were claiming now with Kendall gone, Starmer will have another go at forcing through welfare cuts.
On AI, I have been rewriting a load of prose the last couple of weeks. ChatGPT5 is vastly inferior to 4o at this task and versus Claude, unless I really go "prompt engineering". Its actually so annoying I am not using it, I am just using Claude.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Shifting David Lammy looks like a mistake, and Yvette Cooper looks like a poor replacement. Cooper has done nothing at the Home Office. Shabana Mahmood as Justice Secretary is moved to Home Secretary just as she was taming the Sentencing Council, which may be a deserved promotion but looks ill-timed.
Tinfoil hat time: was Mandelson, our ambassador to Washington and back in London, envious of Lammy's apparent friendship with the Vice President, and quite likely next President before their next election?
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
She might have got an interest only mortgage in the belief that she gets some high paying media or speaking gigs in the future to pay down chunks of capital which would possibly have been a sensible option.
WTF as Lammy done to be demoted? There's a story there for Sunday's papers surely
Is he the sacrificial Lammy?
He'll certainly be displeased, I'd have thought.
Seems a strange decision, Lammy having sacrificed his personal esteem to ingratiate himself with Vance and Cooper having sacrificed her vaguely left-wing credentials as an increasingly authoritarian Home sec.
Foreign sec is currently a really, really hard job: dealing with Trump is horrible, finding an appropriate line to take in Israel is almost impossible, dealing with China is massively challenging. There is an ongoing war in Ukraine we have a constant battle in keeping allies onside for. There are a dozen other foreign governments which while not openly hostile are constantly on the lookout to get one over on the Brits. Lammy was utterly awful for the first few months of his tenure (Chagos and its aftermath sticks in the memory). But to his credit he's managed the big challenges this year, particularly wrt Trump. Best of luck to Cooper.
Someone needs to grow a pair and tell Trump to go F*** himself. He would not be browbeating me , would get his arse on a plate and same for his butt licking team.
Good things - Kendall taken away from disability affairs, Lammy removed from the Foreign Office, Rayner and Powell booted or resigned. Cooper at Foreign a better role for her
Bad things- Deputy PM is another idiot, Phillipson left in place, Murray sacked for no reason
Sky News were claiming now with Kendall gone, Starmer will have another go at forcing through welfare cuts.
Surprisingly big Cabinet reshuffle after Rayner resigned. Big hitters given big posts like Cooper to Foreign Secretary and Mahmood (rewarded after good work on prison reform and sentencing at Justice) to Home Secretary.
Lammy becomes DPM and will be a popular figure with Labour members as Rayner was but he no longer holds a great Office of State leaving the Foreign Office to replace Mahmood at Justice. The reshuffle means all the holders of a Great Office of State in the Cabinet and the PM have Oxbridge degrees, something which has not been the case in any Labour government before. Starmer going on an intellectually more heavyweight Cabinet then to contrast with Reform, none of whose MPs have Oxbridge degrees and to a lesser extent the Tories, of whom the party leader Kemi Badenoch and Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel are non Oxbridge
It's not UNinteresting - but you seem a little obsessed with which universities people went to. Which is fine, but not a thing I think anyone bases their vote on.
Snobs might, especially some of the middle class voters in London and the South who lent their votes to Starmer last year but refused to vote for Corbyn and think Farage a populist lightweight
I don't think these people who will only vote for parties whose leader went to Oxbridge exist - certainly not in significant numbers. I don't think there is a single voter who would vote Farage if only he had gone to Oxford or Cambridge university.
There a number of middle class swing voters who usually vote Tory but voted Labour at the last general election mainly as Starmer seemed reasonably competent and centrist.
They are heavily concentrated in marginal seats in London and the South Labour won from the Tories last year and a few suburban areas of the North and Midlands like Rushcliffe and Altrincham and Sale.
Having a lot of Oxbridge educated Cabinet Ministers makes the Cabinet look more heavyweight like the Tory and LD coalition in background for instance and enables Starmer to put clear blue water between himself and Farage and his Reform spivs and Corbyn and Polanski and their leftist populism, none of those leaders having an Oxbridge degree like him either. Kemi doesn't have an Oxbridge degree as well or even a Stanford one it would seem despite her claims
Good things - Kendall taken away from disability affairs, Lammy removed from the Foreign Office, Rayner and Powell booted or resigned. Cooper at Foreign a better role for her
Bad things- Deputy PM is another idiot, Phillipson left in place, Murray sacked for no reason
Sky News were claiming now with Kendall gone, Starmer will have another go at forcing through welfare cuts.
The fundamentals remain the same. We have a government with no direction, a chancellor with no clue, and a set of MPs who have no desire to grasp the nettle.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
There have been worse decades, but much of the nineties felt stagnant, waiting for something to happen. Thatcherism was dead, but the Major years were a grey twilight. In large part that is what New Labour exploited, being young, fresh, and in full technicolour. I bought into it and for the first few years it worked.
Since then we have been sold different snakeoils, from Brexit to Corbyn to Johnson. Now we await Farage's snakeoil. The nineties only look good in retrospect as a positive contrast to what came after. We never learn. Think things can't get worse? They always can.
In retrospect, we haven’t had a prime minister as good as Major since, apart from pre Iraq Blair. Each PM since has been worse than their predecessor.
Good things - Kendall taken away from disability affairs, Lammy removed from the Foreign Office, Rayner and Powell booted or resigned. Cooper at Foreign a better role for her
Bad things- Deputy PM is another idiot, Phillipson left in place, Murray sacked for no reason
Sky News were claiming now with Kendall gone, Starmer will have another go at forcing through welfare cuts.
WTF as Lammy done to be demoted? There's a story there for Sunday's papers surely
Is he the sacrificial Lammy?
He'll certainly be displeased, I'd have thought.
Seems a strange decision, Lammy having sacrificed his personal esteem to ingratiate himself with Vance and Cooper having sacrificed her vaguely left-wing credentials as an increasingly authoritarian Home sec.
Foreign sec is currently a really, really hard job: dealing with Trump is horrible, finding an appropriate line to take in Israel is almost impossible, dealing with China is massively challenging. There is an ongoing war in Ukraine we have a constant battle in keeping allies onside for. There are a dozen other foreign governments which while not openly hostile are constantly on the lookout to get one over on the Brits. Lammy was utterly awful for the first few months of his tenure (Chagos and its aftermath sticks in the memory). But to his credit he's managed the big challenges this year, particularly wrt Trump. Best of luck to Cooper.
Someone needs to grow a pair and tell Trump to go F*** himself. He would not be browbeating me , would get his arse on a plate and same for his butt licking team.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
There have been worse decades, but much of the nineties felt stagnant, waiting for something to happen. Thatcherism was dead, but the Major years were a grey twilight. In large part that is what New Labour exploited, being young, fresh, and in full technicolour. I bought into it and for the first few years it worked.
Since then we have been sold different snakeoils, from Brexit to Corbyn to Johnson. Now we await Farage's snakeoil. The nineties only look good in retrospect as a positive contrast to what came after. We never learn. Think things can't get worse? They always can.
In retrospect, we haven’t had a prime minister as good as Major since, apart from pre Iraq Blair. Each PM since has been worse than their predecessor.
Neither Blair nor Major were handed the sack of shit that a number of their successors were though. May had Brexit turmoil, Boris had Brexit turmoil, Covid and Ukraine as did Truss and Sunak and to a slightly less immediate nightmare but still the tailwinds did Starmer.
Not saying any did well but we will obviously never know how Blair or Major would have handled such huge disruption to the economy and society.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
Me too, sort of. Easily the most eventful (good and bad) period of my life.
I started the decade living in Fife, ended it living in Barbados. In between I met the love of my life, got two degrees and travelled to all kinds of interesting places, saw lots of great bands, and above all else I was young and it was fantarctic.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
If ever you need a reminder that there are four years for Reform to crash and burn in, watch that.
At the moment we all laugh about it. But at some point people do need to be convinced they want them running the country (the “scales will fall from people’s eyes” argument is overblown, I think - but not completely).
Yep. Their biggest liability and risk - their people. God.
So many re-treads like Jenkyns:
A good gag, although of course that person really was a different man than Homer Simpson, and who had never heard of him.
New material on the sinking of the HMS Hood. A previously unpublished letter from a sailor who was near the bridge of the HMS Prince of Wales when the Hood went down, who is now 108, Len West.
If ever you need a reminder that there are four years for Reform to crash and burn in, watch that.
At the moment we all laugh about it. But at some point people do need to be convinced they want them running the country (the “scales will fall from people’s eyes” argument is overblown, I think - but not completely).
Yep. Their biggest liability and risk - their people. God.
So many re-treads like Jenkyns:
A good gag, although of course that person really was a different man than Homer Simpson, and who had never heard of him.
Guy Incognito was definitely one of the best cameos the Simpsons had.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
WTF as Lammy done to be demoted? There's a story there for Sunday's papers surely
Is he the sacrificial Lammy?
He'll certainly be displeased, I'd have thought.
Seems a strange decision, Lammy having sacrificed his personal esteem to ingratiate himself with Vance and Cooper having sacrificed her vaguely left-wing credentials as an increasingly authoritarian Home sec.
Foreign sec is currently a really, really hard job: dealing with Trump is horrible, finding an appropriate line to take in Israel is almost impossible, dealing with China is massively challenging. There is an ongoing war in Ukraine we have a constant battle in keeping allies onside for. There are a dozen other foreign governments which while not openly hostile are constantly on the lookout to get one over on the Brits. Lammy was utterly awful for the first few months of his tenure (Chagos and its aftermath sticks in the memory). But to his credit he's managed the big challenges this year, particularly wrt Trump. Best of luck to Cooper.
Someone needs to grow a pair and tell Trump to go F*** himself. He would not be browbeating me , would get his arse on a plate and same for his butt licking team.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
There have been worse decades, but much of the nineties felt stagnant, waiting for something to happen. Thatcherism was dead, but the Major years were a grey twilight. In large part that is what New Labour exploited, being young, fresh, and in full technicolour. I bought into it and for the first few years it worked.
Since then we have been sold different snakeoils, from Brexit to Corbyn to Johnson. Now we await Farage's snakeoil. The nineties only look good in retrospect as a positive contrast to what came after. We never learn. Think things can't get worse? They always can.
In retrospect, we haven’t had a prime minister as good as Major since, apart from pre Iraq Blair. Each PM since has been worse than their predecessor.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
There have been worse decades, but much of the nineties felt stagnant, waiting for something to happen. Thatcherism was dead, but the Major years were a grey twilight. In large part that is what New Labour exploited, being young, fresh, and in full technicolour. I bought into it and for the first few years it worked.
Since then we have been sold different snakeoils, from Brexit to Corbyn to Johnson. Now we await Farage's snakeoil. The nineties only look good in retrospect as a positive contrast to what came after. We never learn. Think things can't get worse? They always can.
In retrospect, we haven’t had a prime minister as good as Major since, apart from pre Iraq Blair. Each PM since has been worse than their predecessor.
Neither Blair nor Major were handed the sack of shit that a number of their successors were though. May had Brexit turmoil, Boris had Brexit turmoil, Covid and Ukraine as did Truss and Sunak and to a slightly less immediate nightmare but still the tailwinds did Starmer.
Not saying any did well but we will obviously never know how Blair or Major would have handled such huge disruption to the economy and society.
John Major had a split and very unpopular party after the poll tax, and later the ERM and Black Wednesday.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
The long view! He was defeated in 2015 by the 12 year old Mhairi Black of the SNP. Ms Black, now aged 30 left the SNP earlier this year because trans, Palestine etc. Last seen doing comic turns at the Fringe.
At least Mhairi Black has a sense of humour. Wee Dougie is like the wee free minister that padlocks the Childrens playground gates on a Sunday.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
Me too, sort of. Easily the most eventful (good and bad) period of my life.
I started the decade living in Fife, ended it living in Barbados. In between I met the love of my life, got two degrees and travelled to all kinds of interesting places, saw lots of great bands, and above all else I was young and it was fantarctic.
Just before the 90s, but: The home i made with Bella became a house of pain We weathered it together bound by a ball and chain Is started up in fife, and ended up in tears (oh dear) But i send her my love with a bang on the ear You did better than Mike Scott.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
There have been worse decades, but much of the nineties felt stagnant, waiting for something to happen. Thatcherism was dead, but the Major years were a grey twilight. In large part that is what New Labour exploited, being young, fresh, and in full technicolour. I bought into it and for the first few years it worked.
Since then we have been sold different snakeoils, from Brexit to Corbyn to Johnson. Now we await Farage's snakeoil. The nineties only look good in retrospect as a positive contrast to what came after. We never learn. Think things can't get worse? They always can.
In retrospect, we haven’t had a prime minister as good as Major since, apart from pre Iraq Blair. Each PM since has been worse than their predecessor.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
If ever you need a reminder that there are four years for Reform to crash and burn in, watch that.
At the moment we all laugh about it. But at some point people do need to be convinced they want them running the country (the “scales will fall from people’s eyes” argument is overblown, I think - but not completely).
The biggest danger for Nigel is that at some point he stops being cool and becomes instead a bit embarrassing to ever have liked. The entertainment industry is littered with such people: Paul Daniels, Chesney Hawkes, Boris Johnson.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
There have been worse decades, but much of the nineties felt stagnant, waiting for something to happen. Thatcherism was dead, but the Major years were a grey twilight. In large part that is what New Labour exploited, being young, fresh, and in full technicolour. I bought into it and for the first few years it worked.
Since then we have been sold different snakeoils, from Brexit to Corbyn to Johnson. Now we await Farage's snakeoil. The nineties only look good in retrospect as a positive contrast to what came after. We never learn. Think things can't get worse? They always can.
In retrospect, we haven’t had a prime minister as good as Major since, apart from pre Iraq Blair. Each PM since has been worse than their predecessor.
Neither Blair nor Major were handed the sack of shit that a number of their successors were though. May had Brexit turmoil, Boris had Brexit turmoil, Covid and Ukraine as did Truss and Sunak and to a slightly less immediate nightmare but still the tailwinds did Starmer.
Not saying any did well but we will obviously never know how Blair or Major would have handled such huge disruption to the economy and society.
We will never know, but I suspect that Major would have been a good, reassuring Covid PM.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
There have been worse decades, but much of the nineties felt stagnant, waiting for something to happen. Thatcherism was dead, but the Major years were a grey twilight. In large part that is what New Labour exploited, being young, fresh, and in full technicolour. I bought into it and for the first few years it worked.
Since then we have been sold different snakeoils, from Brexit to Corbyn to Johnson. Now we await Farage's snakeoil. The nineties only look good in retrospect as a positive contrast to what came after. We never learn. Think things can't get worse? They always can.
In retrospect, we haven’t had a prime minister as good as Major since, apart from pre Iraq Blair. Each PM since has been worse than their predecessor.
Shifting David Lammy looks like a mistake, and Yvette Cooper looks like a poor replacement. Cooper has done nothing at the Home Office. Shabana Mahmood as Justice Secretary is moved to Home Secretary just as she was taming the Sentencing Council, which may be a deserved promotion but looks ill-timed.
Tinfoil hat time: was Mandelson, our ambassador to Washington and back in London, envious of Lammy's apparent friendship with the Vice President, and quite likely next President before their next election?
Cooper has done nothing in every post she has held, absolutely amazing that she survives.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
Me too, sort of. Easily the most eventful (good and bad) period of my life.
I started the decade living in Fife, ended it living in Barbados. In between I met the love of my life, got two degrees and travelled to all kinds of interesting places, saw lots of great bands, and above all else I was young and it was fantarctic.
Just before the 90s, but: The home i made with Bella became a house of pain We weathered it together bound by a ball and chain Is started up in fife, and ended up in tears (oh dear) But i send her my love with a bang on the ear You did better than Mike Scott.
A fantastic tune, was talking to a friend about it the other week in the pub.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Your comments of the last few days strongly indicated you'd be delighted to see Rayner humiliated and forced to resign. I'm not quite sure why though I suspect it's to do with what she said about Conservatives while in Opposition.
All of that being said, none of this sits well with me.
Since the Expenses Crisis, successive Governments have imposed levels of probity on Ministers and MPs which are draconian in extremis. As with other Prime Ministers, Starmer wants his Cabinet team to be seen to be beyond reproach when it comes to their personal financial affairs so while we can live with incompetence and stupidity, at least we don't have to live with corruption (apparently).
Rayner has made mistakes and breached the MInisterial Code making her position untenable. Had I done the same, I imagine I'd be looking at having to repay the unpaid Stamp Duty and perhaps a penalty but I wouldn't lose my job over it and this is where I'm uncomfortable with all this and was when it was applied to Conservatives.
We penalise mistakes rather than malevolence. Yes, let's go after Ministers who receive money from third party lobbying companies but this is Rayner's private domestic arrangements. I don't think she should be sacked for what she has done but the Ministerial Code dictates otherwise and them's the rules currently.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h Shabana Mahmood hasn’t been in post more than an hour. And already the racist bile is off the charts.
One of the (unfortunately) grimly relevant questions that will define what happens next.
Is there any amount of racist bile that will cause the "legitimate concerns" crowd, from the PM down, to say "we won't do that"?
Up to now, there hasn't been, really. And the amount that Decent Republicans have swallowed whilst saying "more Trumpism, yummy yummy for my tummy" is a very bad omen.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Your comments of the last few days strongly indicated you'd be delighted to see Rayner humiliated and forced to resign. I'm not quite sure why though I suspect it's to do with what she said about Conservatives while in Opposition.
All of that being said, none of this sits well with me.
Since the Expenses Crisis, successive Governments have imposed levels of probity on Ministers and MPs which are draconian in extremis. As with other Prime Ministers, Starmer wants his Cabinet team to be seen to be beyond reproach when it comes to their personal financial affairs so while we can live with incompetence and stupidity, at least we don't have to live with corruption (apparently).
Rayner has made mistakes and breached the MInisterial Code making her position untenable. Had I done the same, I imagine I'd be looking at having to repay the unpaid Stamp Duty and perhaps a penalty but I wouldn't lose my job over it and this is where I'm uncomfortable with all this and was when it was applied to Conservatives.
We penalise mistakes rather than malevolence. Yes, let's go after Ministers who receive money from third party lobbying companies but this is Rayner's private domestic arrangements. I don't think she should be sacked for what she has done but the Ministerial Code dictates otherwise and them's the rules currently.
For most politicians then most would be a bit fairer but Rayner set herself up as the scourge of those who had made errors whether innocent errors or egregious. If you decide to make yourself the witch finder General make sure you don’t do anything that looks like witchcraft.
She was relentless and unsparing in her calls for resignations and fire aimed at people who structured theor finances tax efficiently. Live by the sword etc.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Your comments of the last few days strongly indicated you'd be delighted to see Rayner humiliated and forced to resign. I'm not quite sure why though I suspect it's to do with what she said about Conservatives while in Opposition.
All of that being said, none of this sits well with me.
Since the Expenses Crisis, successive Governments have imposed levels of probity on Ministers and MPs which are draconian in extremis. As with other Prime Ministers, Starmer wants his Cabinet team to be seen to be beyond reproach when it comes to their personal financial affairs so while we can live with incompetence and stupidity, at least we don't have to live with corruption (apparently).
Rayner has made mistakes and breached the MInisterial Code making her position untenable. Had I done the same, I imagine I'd be looking at having to repay the unpaid Stamp Duty and perhaps a penalty but I wouldn't lose my job over it and this is where I'm uncomfortable with all this and was when it was applied to Conservatives.
We penalise mistakes rather than malevolence. Yes, let's go after Ministers who receive money from third party lobbying companies but this is Rayner's private domestic arrangements. I don't think she should be sacked for what she has done but the Ministerial Code dictates otherwise and them's the rules currently.
This probably isnt the place for detailed discussions of views on her actions etc as everyone will have different opinions based on the information in the public domain. For me, she got what she deserved and good riddance. Other views are available.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Would she perhaps have a life after this disaster, at least for time, writing her memoirs and some bad fiction, doing a column for the Mirror, appearing on chat shows and guest appearances, all of which, SFAICS, makes a few bob if you have the right connections and agent.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Your comments of the last few days strongly indicated you'd be delighted to see Rayner humiliated and forced to resign. I'm not quite sure why though I suspect it's to do with what she said about Conservatives while in Opposition.
All of that being said, none of this sits well with me.
Since the Expenses Crisis, successive Governments have imposed levels of probity on Ministers and MPs which are draconian in extremis. As with other Prime Ministers, Starmer wants his Cabinet team to be seen to be beyond reproach when it comes to their personal financial affairs so while we can live with incompetence and stupidity, at least we don't have to live with corruption (apparently).
Rayner has made mistakes and breached the MInisterial Code making her position untenable. Had I done the same, I imagine I'd be looking at having to repay the unpaid Stamp Duty and perhaps a penalty but I wouldn't lose my job over it and this is where I'm uncomfortable with all this and was when it was applied to Conservatives.
We penalise mistakes rather than malevolence. Yes, let's go after Ministers who receive money from third party lobbying companies but this is Rayner's private domestic arrangements. I don't think she should be sacked for what she has done but the Ministerial Code dictates otherwise and them's the rules currently.
Absolutely. The whole thing is in fact fairly ludicrous. A parody of probity, in a country where a demagogue backed by authentic anc hugely more egregious tax evaders and their press is in the ascendant.
British Victorian political theatre at its worst, with the hypocritical and Victorian press as usual key to it.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Your comments of the last few days strongly indicated you'd be delighted to see Rayner humiliated and forced to resign. I'm not quite sure why though I suspect it's to do with what she said about Conservatives while in Opposition.
All of that being said, none of this sits well with me.
Since the Expenses Crisis, successive Governments have imposed levels of probity on Ministers and MPs which are draconian in extremis. As with other Prime Ministers, Starmer wants his Cabinet team to be seen to be beyond reproach when it comes to their personal financial affairs so while we can live with incompetence and stupidity, at least we don't have to live with corruption (apparently).
Rayner has made mistakes and breached the MInisterial Code making her position untenable. Had I done the same, I imagine I'd be looking at having to repay the unpaid Stamp Duty and perhaps a penalty but I wouldn't lose my job over it and this is where I'm uncomfortable with all this and was when it was applied to Conservatives.
We penalise mistakes rather than malevolence. Yes, let's go after Ministers who receive money from third party lobbying companies but this is Rayner's private domestic arrangements. I don't think she should be sacked for what she has done but the Ministerial Code dictates otherwise and them's the rules currently.
For most politicians then most would be a bit fairer but Rayner set herself up as the scourge of those who had made errors whether innocent errors or egregious. If you decide to make yourself the witch finder General make sure you don’t do anything that looks like witchcraft.
She was relentless and unsparing in her calls for resignations and fire aimed at people who structured theor finances tax efficiently. Live by the sword etc.
Yes and I accept on that basis she was always going to be in trouble once the sharks smelt blood in the water and I suspect Starmer knew that too.
As I said earlier, part of my thoughts on the night of July 4th 2024 was the Conservative losses to the LDs were revenge for 2015 and that was unworthy but it's human nature and those who disliked how she treated the Conservatives while in opposition to them are justifiably pleased she has bene found out.
It's part of the adversarial and partisan nature of our politics.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Would she perhaps have a life after this disaster, at least for time, writing her memoirs and some bad fiction, doing a column for the Mirror, appearing on chat shows and guest appearances, all of which, SFAICS, makes a few bob if you have the right connections and agent.
Strictly come dancing to jungle in the jungle on ice.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
Yes that's a real bridge back to those heady days. Oasis reunion and now this.
Loved the 90s.
It was a glorious time. We didn’t realise how unnaturally, and artificially, lucky a time it was. All the way up until 11 September 2001. What followed was 24 years (and counting) of disaster after disaster, financial crisis after financial crisis, and political and economic stagnation.
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
There have been worse decades, but much of the nineties felt stagnant, waiting for something to happen. Thatcherism was dead, but the Major years were a grey twilight. In large part that is what New Labour exploited, being young, fresh, and in full technicolour. I bought into it and for the first few years it worked.
Since then we have been sold different snakeoils, from Brexit to Corbyn to Johnson. Now we await Farage's snakeoil. The nineties only look good in retrospect as a positive contrast to what came after. We never learn. Think things can't get worse? They always can.
In retrospect, we haven’t had a prime minister as good as Major since, apart from pre Iraq Blair. Each PM since has been worse than their predecessor.
Sunak was better than Truss, Starmer than Sunak.
Sunak was better than Starmer too
I’m beginning to wonder whether even Truss is better than Starmer. Maybe it’s because I had higher expectations of Starmer that I’m so disillusioned with him.
Worldwide things have got a lot better for most humans since the nineties. World hunger down 40%, childhood mortality down by 50% and people living in absolute poverty down by 60%.
UK life expectancy is up 4 years from 2001 too, albeit the increase has stalled in recent years.
Official documents show she has a £650,000 mortgage on the seaside flat through NatWest.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
Confirmed: Douglas Alexander is the new Scotland Secretary.
It is also an incredible comeback. He was in the Cabinet in the last Labour Government and was Scotland Sec under Tony Blair.
How desperate and short of talent can they be.
Only a PB scotch expert would rate wee slimy Dougie.
He did take his defeat by Ms Black pretty well in terms of his conduct at the count. But that is perhaps complimenting him on what should be the absolute default, whatever tantrums we've seen from others in similar shocks.
Comments
Is that why you come to PB?
In the mid to late 1990s we had low energy prices, a post Cold War peace dividend, golden demographics with a very low dependency ratio, affordable but buoyant housing market, naff but energetic popular culture, windfalls from bank demutualisations, a soaring stockmarket, and a string of very good summers peaking in 1995.
The England cricket team was shit though.
I can't imagine a Farage or a Trump in the '90s. There was still an overwhelming sense that things would continue to improve, more carefully expressed than in earlier decades, but still definitely there.
It's rare to change Chancellor, Home Secretary AND Foreign Secretary in a reshuffle though I'm sure it has happened and someone will provide an example. Moving two of the three is more frequent and moving one more frequent still.
The DPM role is something we've had on occasion but not all the time. It has usually been with one of the three senior posts but not always. It wasn't with Nick Clegg or Angela Rayner or now with David Lammy but in the past it has been part of the role of one of the three senior offices of State.
Since then we have been sold different snakeoils, from Brexit to Corbyn to Johnson. Now we await Farage's snakeoil. The nineties only look good in retrospect as a positive contrast to what came after. We never learn. Think things can't get worse? They always can.
I remember being in Las Vegas in late 2008, in the transition after Obama won the election, seeing the DJIA hit 7500 and telling Mrs Stodge it would be a good time to open a spread betting account and buying the DJIA at $100 a point.
The scale of the loan will have left her with mortgage repayments as high as £4,000 a month while her salary against an income of £5,400 a month after tax. As deputy prime minister she was taking home £8,100.
Following her resignation, she will have just £1,400 a month left over with two teenage children to look after, covering food and clothing bills, gas and electricity, holidays and sundry other costs.
She also has a £40,000 tax bill to pay as well as a likely penalty of £12,000 plus interest on top of about £1,000 – a total bill of £53,000.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/05/angela-rayner-may-have-to-sell-hove-flat-after-losing-job/
Bad things- Deputy PM is another idiot, Phillipson left in place, Murray sacked for no reason
Steve Reed, the new Housing Secretary, has deleted this uber-nimby tweet.
He helped lead the campaign against planning reform in the last Parliament.
https://nitter.poast.org/tomhfh/status/1964005379718701068#m
He has to keep this sentiment alive and growing between now and the election.
It won't be easy but by god he's going to leave it all on the pitch.
Tinfoil hat time: was Mandelson, our ambassador to Washington and back in London, envious of Lammy's apparent friendship with the Vice President, and quite likely next President before their next election?
She might have got an interest only mortgage in the belief that she gets some high paying media or speaking gigs in the future to pay down chunks of capital which would possibly have been a sensible option.
They are heavily concentrated in marginal seats in London and the South Labour won from the Tories last year and a few suburban areas of the North and Midlands like Rushcliffe and Altrincham and Sale.
Having a lot of Oxbridge educated Cabinet Ministers makes the Cabinet look more heavyweight like the Tory and LD coalition in background for instance and enables Starmer to put clear blue water between himself and Farage and his Reform spivs and Corbyn and Polanski and their leftist populism, none of those leaders having an Oxbridge degree like him either. Kemi doesn't have an Oxbridge degree as well or even a Stanford one it would seem despite her claims
Not saying any did well but we will obviously never know how Blair or Major would have handled such huge disruption to the economy and society.
New material on the sinking of the HMS Hood. A previously unpublished letter from a sailor who was near the bridge of the HMS Prince of Wales when the Hood went down, who is now 108, Len West.
That is, if such things float your boat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJqfrkjI_ag
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
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1h
Shabana Mahmood hasn’t been in post more than an hour. And already the racist bile is off the charts.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7vlv2gpvvzo
The home i made with Bella became a house of pain
We weathered it together bound by a ball and chain
Is started up in fife, and ended up in tears (oh dear)
But i send her my love with a bang on the ear
You did better than Mike Scott.
As well as being the PM's spreadsheet person looking at delivery?
All of that being said, none of this sits well with me.
Since the Expenses Crisis, successive Governments have imposed levels of probity on Ministers and MPs which are draconian in extremis. As with other Prime Ministers, Starmer wants his Cabinet team to be seen to be beyond reproach when it comes to their personal financial affairs so while we can live with incompetence and stupidity, at least we don't have to live with corruption (apparently).
Rayner has made mistakes and breached the MInisterial Code making her position untenable. Had I done the same, I imagine I'd be looking at having to repay the unpaid Stamp Duty and perhaps a penalty but I wouldn't lose my job over it and this is where I'm uncomfortable with all this and was when it was applied to Conservatives.
We penalise mistakes rather than malevolence. Yes, let's go after Ministers who receive money from third party lobbying companies but this is Rayner's private domestic arrangements. I don't think she should be sacked for what she has done but the Ministerial Code dictates otherwise and them's the rules currently.
Is there any amount of racist bile that will cause the "legitimate concerns" crowd, from the PM down, to say "we won't do that"?
Up to now, there hasn't been, really. And the amount that Decent Republicans have swallowed whilst saying "more Trumpism, yummy yummy for my tummy" is a very bad omen.
She was relentless and unsparing in her calls for resignations and fire aimed at people who structured theor finances tax efficiently. Live by the sword etc.
Shameful.
For me, she got what she deserved and good riddance.
Other views are available.
British Victorian political theatre at its worst, with the hypocritical and Victorian press as usual key to it.
Or are you saying that Trusts are for rich people?
As I said earlier, part of my thoughts on the night of July 4th 2024 was the Conservative losses to the LDs were revenge for 2015 and that was unworthy but it's human nature and those who disliked how she treated the Conservatives while in opposition to them are justifiably pleased she has bene found out.
It's part of the adversarial and partisan nature of our politics.
Edit: cannae spell!
UK life expectancy is up 4 years from 2001 too, albeit the increase has stalled in recent years.