One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I spent years reading Star Trek fan fiction. I can assure you it never included a rape of any description. It isn't something that crops up often in science-fiction.
The roots of fanfiction are gay, as it started to become a thing in the 1960’s, when gay and lesbian characters were portrayed as villains or comic relief, in mainstream literature.
I was under the impression that modern Slash was generally viewed to have come out of heterosexual female Star Trek fans who wanted to get off on Kirk and Spock getting it on.
I’m told m/m fiction and porn is actually quite popular with women, but it gets 1% of the attention of the opposite.
Hugely popular
There's a massive market for m/m anime and manga erotica, and the buyers are girls
I know I know. But if you Baxter this with no tactical voting, the Tories only get 7 (seven!) seats. Hunt would be about the only one left perversely.
I don't see how Hunt could survive on Baxter/UNS: compared to the 2024 election, that is the Conservative vote share down 10 percentage points, and the LibDems flat. So, in every seat where the LibDems are less than 10 percentage points behind the Conservatives they will end up ahead of them. And in Godalming and Ash, the Conservatives were just 1.6 percentage points ahead of the LibDems.
(Reform was on 8.8% in the seat, so even with them being up 20 percentage points, they probably wouldn't have the votes to win.)
The govt confirmed the ILR change, once legislated, will apply to the Boriswave.
Let's get the legislation through then, I won't believe it until it's actually the law and the government has used primary legislation to ensure it can't get struck down on some stupid technicality. The 2m have to go home, there is no other alternative if we want to not bankrupt the nation.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
lol, fair
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
Now on to the next
You are just weird. Maybe none of us did it because, now let me guess, we are not writers. Just think about all the other things you rant about and do nothing about. Well that is mainly because you are not a policeman, or politician, or whatever it may be you need to be to do something about it. You do what you do, which is write. We don't because we aren't writers who earn a crust doing it. But many on here, for instance, do get involved in politics rather than just ranting about it. They do that. They do do something. Often a lot.
And of course it is also because often we don't care, aren't interested, etc on something you have just found out about). It isn't because we don't know something. Some of us usually do (eg mice community experiments, tick medicine on dogs, etc).
I can't remember the number of times you come here with revelations of stuff you have just found out about and then assume none of us know about it. But guess what, a significant subset of us usually do.
You also live in a world where you think we are all envious of your travels and your freebies (or getting £500 for 2 hours work). Some might be, but most aren't. Most of us wouldn't swap our lives for yours. We prefer family and local community and our boring hobbies and usually hate airport terminals (with a passion), that on occasions we have to put up with.
You're still bitter about the whole mice thing
TBH actually I'm a bit bored of my travels now. I've done Austria, Scotland, Sardinia, Naples in quick succession, in one month, and now I am off to America in two days, and.... I really wish I wasn't. I'd quite like to sit back and enjoy my ludicrously gay new flat
However, off I go - and then I stop
Of course after a month of sitting still I'll be desperate to move again. What it is to have a restless spirit
Fair enough. It is horses for courses, but you shouldn't assume that because you like something then that is what the rest of us want. We don't. And most jobs that sound fantastic lose their appeal when you have done stuff lots (eg travel with the loss of local roots). Many decades ago I turned down a promotion that would have involved a lot of travel because I was bored with it. Whenever I stay somewhere I look for pubs and quirky b&bs because I am fed up with smart soulless hotels.
I don't understand the mice comment. Suspect it is a wind up, but just to clarify I don't think we disagreed on anything and I mention it because it was one I (and others) were fully aware of when you brought it up. You are either mixing me up with someone else or winding me up. If the latter, well done as I have just written 3 pointless sentences.
And two more months of suppressed economic activity for UK Plc whilst businesses and individuals suspend investment and spending decisions whilst they await the latest clobber.
This lot are utterly clueless.
Remember Reeves did exactly the same when they came into power, dragged it out, rather than rapid budget to set up the financial regime for the parliament. And then only to reversing cuts to things like the super computer, new hospital construction and road building after 12 months. What was the excuse this time given for having such a late budget?
Its like they hadn't done any homework before getting into power....
These morons don't understand that no decision, or a delayed decision, is also a decision.
You could argue that doing nothing allows stability. The last thing people want is people tinkering, especially politicians.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
This is not new, if you go read mainstream 'romance' novels from the 70s and 80s (particularly the mass-market stuff published by Mills and Boon or Harlequin) a good chunk of the writers specialised in stories full of behaviour that's wildly unacceptable by today's social norms and was highly dodgy even then, up to and including stalking, kidnapping and rape. But the arsehole 'hero' is handsome, wealthy and drives a low-slung sports car so the woman falls for him anyway.
The readers of the time lapped it up. I suspect the only thing that's changed is this type of tale being separated out into a specific genre, so the publisher can use a dark, foreboding cover and charge a bit more.
The well established term bodice-ripper suggests something other than gentle wooing has been around in fiction for a while. Long before then Heathcliff was more brooding psycho than husband material.
"Teenager shot dead in US 'after being mistaken for a squirrel' Carson Ryan is said to have been accidentally shot in the back of the head while hunting squirrels in Iowa. An investigation is under way."
What angers me is that they need to be matched with at least equivalent cuts in public spending so that a real and meaningful dent can be made in our scary deficits. When I hear nonsense like removing the 2 child cap after the WFA for millionaires, the rejection of the cuts on disability benefits and the bottomless pit of the NHS to pay ever higher wages with consequential pension liabilities I....am disappointed.
I don't think equating the 2-child limit with WFP is fair. UC is strictly tapered and means-tested in a way that WFP is not. That means that those children affected by the limit really are among the poorest and most vulnerable in the UK. It cements intergenerational poverty etc etc
I understand why people think the limit is fair - people should only have lots of kids if they have the cash to do so. But what is grotesquely unfair is keeping it even while rich pensioners continue to get WFP, and the long term effects of kids growing up in poverty harm both our society and long term spending (just look at rates of crime, health etc etc).
Don't get me started on intergenerational fairness. The greedy bastards of the baby boom are the most selfish generation in history. Voted for governments that ran up horrendous debts, voted for ever more generous entitlements and pensions, voted for massive tax benefits for themselves, voted for student debt, voted for ramping up the housing market to their advantage making it impossible for the young to get on the housing ladder, voted for... (that's enough ed).
Anyone over 50, which includes you and perhaps most on here, benefitted from this boomer settlement.
Anyone under 50 has increasingly been part of generation short shrift.
From one perspective, it’s no wonder that young people are increasingly claiming disabled status in the hope of some kind of handout. Legitimate ways to get ahead are in ever-shorter supply.
It’s late Soviet Britain, innit.
And they're increasingly moving to Australia, Canada or the Middle East.
We have a 1970s brain-drain going on, in the 2020s.
And two more months of suppressed economic activity for UK Plc whilst businesses and individuals suspend investment and spending decisions whilst they await the latest clobber.
This lot are utterly clueless.
Remember Reeves did exactly the same when they came into power, dragged it out, rather than rapid budget to set up the financial regime for the parliament. And then only to reversing cuts to things like the super computer, new hospital construction and road building after 12 months. What was the excuse this time given for having such a late budget?
Its like they hadn't done any homework before getting into power....
These morons don't understand that no decision, or a delayed decision, is also a decision.
You could argue that doing nothing allows stability. The last thing people want is people tinkering, especially politicians.
But it's not doing nothing, it's telegraphing that we need £30bn in tax rises (or spending cuts lol) months before spelling out what they will actually be. That's causing loads of speculation among businesses who don't know whether they should invest or not given what happened last time.
And two more months of suppressed economic activity for UK Plc whilst businesses and individuals suspend investment and spending decisions whilst they await the latest clobber.
This lot are utterly clueless.
Remember Reeves did exactly the same when they came into power, dragged it out, rather than rapid budget to set up the financial regime for the parliament. And then only to reversing cuts to things like the super computer, new hospital construction and road building after 12 months. What was the excuse this time given for having such a late budget?
Its like they hadn't done any homework before getting into power....
These morons don't understand that no decision, or a delayed decision, is also a decision.
You could argue that doing nothing allows stability. The last thing people want is people tinkering, especially politicians.
Except they aren't doing nothing, are they?
They've announced a budget on 26th November that will contain tax rises, and then run for the hills.
They must know who he is. He's dead in that car park
I thought she was the future of the Conservative Party ? Making a cheap political point from a tragedy when a quick look at the video/ stills of the attack would tell you and her the ethnicity of the perpetrator is not big or clever.
The trope originator is The Sheikh, written by Edith Hull, in 1919. The heroine is kidnapped by an Arab Sheikh, and raped repeatedly by him. She naturally falls in love with her rapist. He wants her to marry him, but he is …. an Arab.
But, it has a happy ending, for eventually it’s revealed that he is really an Englishman, kidnapped by Arabs, as a baby. So, the marriage can go ahead.
It was hugely popular with young women.
Samuel Richardson's Pamela, a very early example of the novel form - both at the time scandalous, and hugely popular - follows a similar theme.
A really strange one from Kemi. She does not even explain what she is referring to precisely, never mind link to any actual evidence. Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch 18h Every day under Labour, an extra 1000 people sign on to out of work sickness benefits.
If you’re too weak to fix that, you have no right to increase taxes on people in work.
Louise Murphy, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, points out that approval rates for both face-to-face and remote assessments are largely unchanged since the pandemic. "What has changed is way more people are claiming Pip - the government's own figures show there are around 1,000 new awards made each day," she says.
About 5/6 according to OBR, but it's still not an out-of-work sickness benefit.
(There's a valid question about whether the claims are justified)
All claims are justified every 3 years or sooner. There is a very large form to fill out. I've completed a few and the questions are quite detailed if somewhat intrusive. A lot are rejected by the DWP (poor staff training) but are paid after a visit to a Tribunal and a long delay.
The payments are lawful and justified under the current legislation. If people want it changed then Parliament has to sit down and change the legislation after consultation, impact assessments, reference to linked legislation etc. No-one wants to touch it and Kemi is just making noise as she will be aware of the issue.
She really is a dud.
One would have thought after the blowback Reeves and Starmer received for attacking disabled related benefits, she would steer clear without copper bottomed advice. Suggesting PIP is an out of work benefit suggests she hasn't bothered with any due diligence.
It was Liz Kendall actually and it was simply slowing the rate of growth not cutting the total spent.
When it was said 35% of people would be worse off that simply means the vast majority don’t need the money.
They’re smart enough to know this is not sustainable.
If you read the comments, he says that (a) it includes every non pensioner individual, and (b) it includes NHS as a benefit.
Both of those make the numbers fairly bullshit.
For a start, in any household where there is a sole breadwinner, then the non-working partner will be recieving more in benefits than they pay in tax. (Because NHS.)
It also includes all children. About 23% of the UK are 21 years old or younger. I would estimate 99% of those recieve more in benefits than they pay in taxes because only a very small proportion of this group are in full time work.
I'm also assuming, from the comments, that he divided the NHS's annual budget by the number of people in the UK and added that as a benefit. Which is ridiculous, because the cost for healthcare is not uniform by age.
A much more sensible question would be what proportion of households recieve more in benefits than they pay in taxes?
And two more months of suppressed economic activity for UK Plc whilst businesses and individuals suspend investment and spending decisions whilst they await the latest clobber.
This lot are utterly clueless.
Remember Reeves did exactly the same when they came into power, dragged it out, rather than rapid budget to set up the financial regime for the parliament. And then only to reversing cuts to things like the super computer, new hospital construction and road building after 12 months. What was the excuse this time given for having such a late budget?
Its like they hadn't done any homework before getting into power....
These morons don't understand that no decision, or a delayed decision, is also a decision.
The govt confirmed the ILR change, once legislated, will apply to the Boriswave.
Let's get the legislation through then, I won't believe it until it's actually the law and the government has used primary legislation to ensure it can't get struck down on some stupid technicality. The 2m have to go home, there is no other alternative if we want to not bankrupt the nation.
I’m sure plenty of their backbenchers, the Greens, the Lib Dem’s and the SNP, who’s solution to our financial woes will be ‘wealth tax now’, as well as various ‘charities’ whose income depends on these people will fight it tooth and nail and it won’t happen.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
@Leon , if you are after ideas for American Curiosities, the fundmentalist Bob Jones University in SC I mentioned last night, and their "no interracial dating amongst student" policy which persisted until I think 2002 - and even after it was cancelled they still required a written notification from parents for eg their white son to date a black girl, is worth a look.
There's a lot of cultural rabbit hole around sexual repression to explore there.
They also have a huge collection of European Medieval Art (Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Jusepe de Ribera etc), and were known to paint out the genitalia of the naked Christ Child. *
All across the world my Tibetan strain of Buddhism has statues of topless Tara and Vajrayogini in standard pre-Islamic Indian attire. Except for the USA. Where they have bikini tops painted on.
They must know who he is. He's dead in that car park
His picture is on the front page of the BBC website though, so I don't think we can claim a national cover-up!
I find it disheartening that a future Prime Minister sees a political opportunity to call out the police as being biased in favour of a particular racial or religious group in the face of a national tragedy. Cheap politics from someone who should know better.
One might expect such nonsense from Farage, although he, for the moment seems to have kept his counsel.
They must know who he is. He's dead in that car park
His picture is on the front page of the BBC website though, so I don't think we can claim a national cover-up!
I doubt Ms Lam has a point. I would suggest that Ms Lam smells blood in the water and is positioning herself. The only issue is whether she can be as rabid as Jenrick.
The Tories appear to have some form of Tourette's when it come to Reform adjacent subjects.
In this captivating retelling of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Aurelia is a disgraced celebrity whose plane crashes in the remote Canadian wilderness, leaving her the sole survivor. Instead of three bears, however, she finds three brutal, reclusive mountain men — and she doesn’t have to choose just one bed. “Crucible” is the first book in Reid’s self-published Men of the Wilds duology, which was recently picked up by Bloom Books and will be getting a mainstream rerelease early next year.
You're getting out of touch with the reading matter liked by the laydees
The trope originator is The Sheikh, written by Edith Hull, in 1919. The heroine is kidnapped by an Arab Sheikh, and raped repeatedly by him. She naturally falls in love with her rapist. He wants her to marry him, but he is …. an Arab.
But, it has a happy ending, for eventually it’s revealed that he is really an Englishman, kidnapped by Arabs, as a baby. So, the marriage can go ahead.
It was hugely popular with young women.
Samuel Richardson's Pamela, a very early example of the novel form - both at the time scandalous, and hugely popular - follows a similar theme.
Was fiction so necessary when it was in life, and in the gossip?
As ever, blame the bloody lawyers.
Sexual Subcultures Voices from the Old BaileySeries 2 Episode 2 of 4
Amanda Vickery uses court cases to explore the lives of gay men and cross-dressers in the 18th century. Lesbians did not appear in court as lesbianism was not against the law - but we find and record an 18th century lesbian love song, as well as the hilarious 'Bumography'.
The 3 court cases in the programme range from the tragic to the hilarious. First, the case of a milkman caught in a raid on a gay brothel - and sentenced to death. His father-in-law appears in court to plead for him - it turns out the milkman is a widower, with a daughter to raise. But to no avail: he hangs for the crime of sodomy.
The second case is blackmail, and reveals the vulnerability of all men at the time to accusations of sodomy. The third stars the hilarious 'Princess Seraphina', a cross-dresser with a bevy of female admirers who turn up in court. It gives a priceless insight into 18th century camp. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012ww6h
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
lol, fair
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
Now on to the next
And what’s that £500 going to get you that you couldn’t have had anyway?
Comments
That's life.
"National guidance says police should consider disclosing the ethnicity and nationality of suspects in high profile cases.
"In May, Merseyside Police told the public within two hours that they had arrested a “white British man" for driving into a crowd.
"Why the delay today?"
https://x.com/Katie_Lam_MP/status/1973745161416155294
They must know who he is. He's dead in that car park
There's a massive market for m/m anime and manga erotica, and the buyers are girls
(Reform was on 8.8% in the seat, so even with them being up 20 percentage points, they probably wouldn't have the votes to win.)
I don't understand the mice comment. Suspect it is a wind up, but just to clarify I don't think we disagreed on anything and I mention it because it was one I (and others) were fully aware of when you brought it up. You are either mixing me up with someone else or winding me up. If the latter, well done as I have just written 3 pointless sentences.
We have a 1970s brain-drain going on, in the 2020s.
Two stereotypes spring to my mind and the stereotypical images are so so so very different.
They've announced a budget on 26th November that will contain tax rises, and then run for the hills.
Apparently a Marauding terrorist attack
Both of those make the numbers fairly bullshit.
For a start, in any household where there is a sole breadwinner, then the non-working partner will be recieving more in benefits than they pay in tax. (Because NHS.)
It also includes all children. About 23% of the UK are 21 years old or younger. I would estimate 99% of those recieve more in benefits than they pay in taxes because only a very small proportion of this group are in full time work.
I'm also assuming, from the comments, that he divided the NHS's annual budget by the number of people in the UK and added that as a benefit. Which is ridiculous, because the cost for healthcare is not uniform by age.
A much more sensible question would be what proportion of households recieve more in benefits than they pay in taxes?
But nothing like that !
Katie Lam has done a,out of good work on this.
Except for the USA. Where they have bikini tops painted on.
1) OMG, that's the funniest thing ever
and
2) OMG WTF is wrong you?
https://order-order.com/2025/10/02/bank-of-england-uk-firms-hiring-outlooks-weakest-in-four-years/
One might expect such nonsense from Farage, although he, for the moment seems to have kept his counsel.
It is not far from where I was born and we had a Jewish community nearby then
The Tories appear to have some form of Tourette's when it come to Reform adjacent subjects.
Terror incident declared.
NEW THREAD
As ever, blame the bloody lawyers.
Sexual Subcultures
Voices from the Old BaileySeries 2 Episode 2 of 4
Amanda Vickery uses court cases to explore the lives of gay men and cross-dressers in the 18th century. Lesbians did not appear in court as lesbianism was not against the law - but we find and record an 18th century lesbian love song, as well as the hilarious 'Bumography'.
The 3 court cases in the programme range from the tragic to the hilarious. First, the case of a milkman caught in a raid on a gay brothel - and sentenced to death. His father-in-law appears in court to plead for him - it turns out the milkman is a widower, with a daughter to raise. But to no avail: he hangs for the crime of sodomy.
The second case is blackmail, and reveals the vulnerability of all men at the time to accusations of sodomy. The third stars the hilarious 'Princess Seraphina', a cross-dresser with a bevy of female admirers who turn up in court. It gives a priceless insight into 18th century camp.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012ww6h
Nothing. Right, that sorted then.