So I bought a Chinese car and it has all these totally broken safety features that you can't turn off (or you can but they come back on again when you reboot the car) like showing a really annoying flashing 40km/h icon when you're on the motorway and it sees a speed limit sign on a slip-road. Apparently these are due to Euro NCAP regulations. I'm considering starting a campaign for China and Japan to leave the EU.
Good luck with jailbreaking your car!
My current plan if I am unable to reconfigure the global world order is to make a little round sticker and stick it to the screen.
That’s the Hillbilly way of dealing with that darn check engine light that won’t go off.
I had that a few years and cars ago. A minor rear end shunt for which I accepted 500 quid from the insurance (and assumed no damage) led to the engine warning light coming on. Reset it and it would come on again after 9 miles. No fault was ever found, just a dodgy sensor. The garage even suggested the black tape...
The problem with this is it can put the car into limp mode with no fix available. My friend's perfectly serviceable Fiesta met this fate despite lots of trips to the mechanic.
Yes, I had that too with my Fiesta - the limp mode kicked in repeatedly for no apparent reason, and the problem was only eventually solved by replacement of the testing system. The ability to switch off limp mode if one doesn't believe the warning would be a strong sales argument when I get round to replacing it, but perhaps that's illegal? I hired a car recently when my Fiesta was in the garage, and it bombarded me with messages about every real or imagined infringement, from driving at 21 in a 20 mph zone to straying over the lane boundary in a wide road at night. Some of the messages were reasonable, but the cumulative effect was to ignore them all. Is that a feature of all new cars?
The speed limit indicator would be more useful if it had a bit of margin for error. More of a "taking the piss" indicator. The lane thing is just annoying - and likely to be inducing phone use which is far more dangerous.
Until the ISA regulations came in, you could set it to trigger, in those cars that had it, at 5mph above the limit, but I believe that facility is now no longer available?
The favorite trick of my bossy Vitara is to warn me stridently about incorrect tire pressures and keep warning me long after I have adjusted them to the prescribed amounts. I have to visit the local garage to be rid of this nuisance and have developed a much closer relationship with them than I would like as a result.
I'm determined to avoid a Japanese car next time as a result of this, but I am told all cars are like it now in their own idiosynchratic and idiotic ways.
I don't think those figures mean much - I don't know if "Europe" is in the political background as much as it was for us from rebates via Bruges via Maastricht to the Euro to Lisbon etc. We had 35 years of Europe being in our politics from Thatcher to Major to Blair to Brown to Cameron - each one of them had "issues" with the EEC and later the EU.
Arguably, it destroyed the Conservative Party - now, whether you think that's another "dividend" or not is up to you but I'm certain the party would not be where it is now otherwise but every party had a fracture on this issue of some degree.
Claims of the death of the Tory party are massively premature. They were in government last year and lost an election after 14 years in power. People were and still are sick of them. Add in the purge of the pro Europeans and a lot of ‘talent’ and centrism has gone from the MP roster. But. They are still polling more than Ed Daley’s apparently hugely sucessful Lib Dem’s, and pretty close to the party who won a huge majority last year.
Those who would welcome the extinction of conservatism should be careful what they wish. Conservative politics isn’t right wing nastiness. It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
And if you have no conservatives, you risk being left with Reform.
There speaks a loyal Conservative.
The Conservatives clearly aren't "dead" but they aren't well - look at the results in Surrey last week. Towns like Caterham and Whyteleafe were once strongholds of the party - now, it's not just they are a close second to the LDs, they are a poor third .
Yes, you can be as waspish about the LDs as you like but in their historical context, 72 seats is a success, albeit for the most part built on the Conservative Party's collapse (but you can say the same about Labour, Reform and Green - we are all picking over the corpse of a once formidable electoral winning machine).
It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
As the cobbler would tell you, time wounds all heels and in a couple of decades, there may be an opportunity for a "new" Conservative Party, predicated on the old principles of one nation Conservatism, to emerge and in all probability return to Government but that requires a clearout of augean proportions both of who are in the Party now and of their half-baked thinking.
I'm not a conservative, I'm a centrist who hangs to the right. I voted Lib Dem at the last election, voted to remain, despite being sceptical of the EU political project (something Ydoethur has made an excellent point above).
We seem to have very short memories on here. How long ago was it that Labour was dead? Yet now they are in power with a whopping majority. Of course the current Tory party is struggling. They were in power for 14 years, culminating in covid (not their fault) and the war in Ukraine (not their fault). They are paying the price for that and are now making some really poor choices, desperately flailing for anything that stops the rot.
But the challenge for wider politics is that what once motivated anti-EU feeling (hence UKIP) is now driving Reform. A sense of failure from the traditional parties. And thats all of them. I think any one in Labour or the Lib Dems who believed that their success last year was down to their brilliance and campaigning and people thinking they have the right policies are somewhat mistaken. It was very much a get the Tories out vote, across the board.
Many on PB will not like it, but a large number of people in the country simply think that immigration is too high and that this is the reason for all their ills.
Thats almost certainly not true, but it doesn't stop them believing it. My neighbour completely unprompted talks to me about Farage - 'He's right!', he says. My neighbour doesn't talk about politics in general, but Farage, ever the populist has once again found the right scab to pick at. How the grown ups counter it is crucial. The Tories seem to think being like Reform is the way - I don't, personally. Politicians are meant to lead the country - at the moment too many are following what the voters 'think' they want.
But ultimately the way to kill Farage and Reform is to get the economy growing, get peoples lives improving. Get the good times back. And part of that is to acknowledge that if we are borrowing 20 Billion to pay the bills a month, maybe we need to stop some spending. And look better are taxing fairly.
A cogent and thoughtful response and not much with which anyone could disagtee.
Labour were out of office for 18 years and then 14 but they have a history of long periods of opposition as do the LDs, the Conservatives do not. Whether you think of them as "the natural party of Government" or not, the truth is the period out of office from 1997 to 2010 was the longest period of continuous opposition since the introduction of universal suffrage.
Yes, you could also argue, having won his mandate in December 2019, Boris was incredibly unfortunate to run into Covid but it happened on his watch as did the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and that's the thing about politics - if it's on your watch, it's on you.
There are facts about immigration and perceptions - IF the economy were growing at 4 or 5% per annum we wouldn't be talking about immigration or immigrants or at least not in the same way. It becomes an issue in harder economic times as in the 1970s with the rise of the National Front.
The Conservative Party, if it's serious about returning to power, needs to reconcile the anti-immigration and pro-business policies. Deporting potentially critical members of the work force won't sit well with a party supposedly supporting business and growing the economy.
Is this actual party policy then, or just a few words from an obscure backbencher, a bit like in Labour John McDonnell demanding money for the WASPI women, and being used as a stick to beat the Tories with.
So I bought a Chinese car and it has all these totally broken safety features that you can't turn off (or you can but they come back on again when you reboot the car) like showing a really annoying flashing 40km/h icon when you're on the motorway and it sees a speed limit sign on a slip-road. Apparently these are due to Euro NCAP regulations. I'm considering starting a campaign for China and Japan to leave the EU.
Good luck with jailbreaking your car!
My current plan if I am unable to reconfigure the global world order is to make a little round sticker and stick it to the screen.
That’s the Hillbilly way of dealing with that darn check engine light that won’t go off.
I had that a few years and cars ago. A minor rear end shunt for which I accepted 500 quid from the insurance (and assumed no damage) led to the engine warning light coming on. Reset it and it would come on again after 9 miles. No fault was ever found, just a dodgy sensor. The garage even suggested the black tape...
The problem with this is it can put the car into limp mode with no fix available. My friend's perfectly serviceable Fiesta met this fate despite lots of trips to the mechanic.
Yes, I had that too with my Fiesta - the limp mode kicked in repeatedly for no apparent reason, and the problem was only eventually solved by replacement of the testing system. The ability to switch off limp mode if one doesn't believe the warning would be a strong sales argument when I get round to replacing it, but perhaps that's illegal? I hired a car recently when my Fiesta was in the garage, and it bombarded me with messages about every real or imagined infringement, from driving at 21 in a 20 mph zone to straying over the lane boundary in a wide road at night. Some of the messages were reasonable, but the cumulative effect was to ignore them all. Is that a feature of all new cars?
The speed limit indicator would be more useful if it had a bit of margin for error. More of a "taking the piss" indicator. The lane thing is just annoying - and likely to be inducing phone use which is far more dangerous.
Until the ISA regulations came in, you could set it to trigger, in those cars that had it, at 5mph above the limit, but I believe that facility is now no longer available?
The favorite trick of my bossy Vitara is to warn me stridently about incorrect tire pressures and keep warning me long after I have adjusted them to the prescribed amounts. I have to visit the local garage to be rid of this nuisance and have developed a much closer relationship with them than I would like as a result.
I'm determined to avoid a Japanese car next time as a result of this, but I am told all cars are like it now in their own idiosynchratic and idiotic ways.
There will be a hidden button somewhere that you have to press to reset the pressure monitors, after you have topped up the tyres
Rejoin is going to happen. Look at the US and spend a few months in the EU, We're watching the most happening club in the world having a ball and the only thing missing is us who have chosen to blackball ourselves........
Some political Party is going to pick up the baton and beg them to let us back in. Labour the Lib Dems and the Greens probably. The United colours of the centre left.,,,,,,,,,,We'll promise to behave like civilised members this time and to leave our blackshirts at the door,,,,,
The only things happening in Europe are economic stagnation, generational inequality and political turmoil.
That you're drivelling on about 'blackshirts' when you have a FN deputy is baffling.
On those measures the UK is prime EU membership material.
The Farewell Dear residents of Highgate, of the neighbouring villages, of North London, and of London in general, Don Ciccio – Osteria Italiana has closed today, exactly six years after its opening in October 2019. We have closed due to a lack of customers.
It wasn’t enough to be Traveller’s Choice 2023 – 2024 – 2025 on Tripadvisor.
It wasn’t enough to be told we had one of the best pizzas in London.
It wasn’t enough to hold 4.7 stars on Google, with 700 reviews, for every one of those six years.
Nor to change our menu each season, roaming through the flavours of Italy.
We are guests in this country, and as guests, we will not complain. We’ll simply say: addio. And now, with gratitude:
To our staff — Roberto, Diego, Daniele, the many waiters and chefs who came and went — thank you for your passion, and for enduring the humiliation of entire evenings with an empty dining room.
To our faithful customers — we’ll miss you. Perhaps one day we’ll meet again, in Italy.
To the community of Highgate and its neighbours —thank you for never supporting us, not even once.
To those we served during lockdown, when we were the only restaurant open, thank you for never visiting us once the pandemic ended.
To the Highgate Society — thank you for never replying to any of our proposals for collaboration.
To those who lived a few doors away yet ordered delivery from somewhere else — thank you for your commitment to distance.
In short: thank you all for supporting us so perfectly.
WE MAY BE THE FIRST ITALIAN RESTAURANT TO CLOSE... ...not for bad food, bad reviews, or bad luck — but for the sheer indifference of our neighbours.
To those who said, back in 2019, “they’ll close within three months” —congratulations ! You were only off by five years and nine months. We’re proud to have served the elderly, the children, the families, the lonely, the joyful and the broken alike. At least we did our duty.
It’s only a drop — soon it will dry. Unless, of course, it’s the beginning of a storm.
Isn't this fantastic news? It just needs to be endorsed by other forces.
"Met to end all non-crime hate investigations Force says officers ‘should not be policing toxic culture-war debates’ after dropping case against Graham Linehan"
A truly glorious day. Despite multiple Home Secretaries telling the police to pack it in, they carried on regardless.
Before we get too excited, and it is good news as the Police have merely been useful idiots for a small minority of TRA’s to enact vendettas against people who disagree with them- toxic masculine aggression probably, will these still be recorded and show up on DBS checks ?
The Farewell Dear residents of Highgate, of the neighbouring villages, of North London, and of London in general, Don Ciccio – Osteria Italiana has closed today, exactly six years after its opening in October 2019. We have closed due to a lack of customers.
It wasn’t enough to be Traveller’s Choice 2023 – 2024 – 2025 on Tripadvisor.
It wasn’t enough to be told we had one of the best pizzas in London.
It wasn’t enough to hold 4.7 stars on Google, with 700 reviews, for every one of those six years.
Nor to change our menu each season, roaming through the flavours of Italy.
We are guests in this country, and as guests, we will not complain. We’ll simply say: addio. And now, with gratitude:
To our staff — Roberto, Diego, Daniele, the many waiters and chefs who came and went — thank you for your passion, and for enduring the humiliation of entire evenings with an empty dining room.
To our faithful customers — we’ll miss you. Perhaps one day we’ll meet again, in Italy.
To the community of Highgate and its neighbours —thank you for never supporting us, not even once.
To those we served during lockdown, when we were the only restaurant open, thank you for never visiting us once the pandemic ended.
To the Highgate Society — thank you for never replying to any of our proposals for collaboration.
To those who lived a few doors away yet ordered delivery from somewhere else — thank you for your commitment to distance.
In short: thank you all for supporting us so perfectly.
WE MAY BE THE FIRST ITALIAN RESTAURANT TO CLOSE... ...not for bad food, bad reviews, or bad luck — but for the sheer indifference of our neighbours.
To those who said, back in 2019, “they’ll close within three months” —congratulations ! You were only off by five years and nine months. We’re proud to have served the elderly, the children, the families, the lonely, the joyful and the broken alike. At least we did our duty.
It’s only a drop — soon it will dry. Unless, of course, it’s the beginning of a storm.
Also very much to the point, it's made public. Compulsorily. And permanently, no need to mess around in 5 years old copies of the local paper to see the court news, even if it bothers with such stuff those days.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
We are heading for a means tested state pension and later retirement
Means tested state pension certainly, UK pension age already up to 67 but the French riots and parliamentary opposition have blocked their PM even raising it above 62 there
I don't think those figures mean much - I don't know if "Europe" is in the political background as much as it was for us from rebates via Bruges via Maastricht to the Euro to Lisbon etc. We had 35 years of Europe being in our politics from Thatcher to Major to Blair to Brown to Cameron - each one of them had "issues" with the EEC and later the EU.
Arguably, it destroyed the Conservative Party - now, whether you think that's another "dividend" or not is up to you but I'm certain the party would not be where it is now otherwise but every party had a fracture on this issue of some degree.
Claims of the death of the Tory party are massively premature. They were in government last year and lost an election after 14 years in power. People were and still are sick of them. Add in the purge of the pro Europeans and a lot of ‘talent’ and centrism has gone from the MP roster. But. They are still polling more than Ed Daley’s apparently hugely sucessful Lib Dem’s, and pretty close to the party who won a huge majority last year.
Those who would welcome the extinction of conservatism should be careful what they wish. Conservative politics isn’t right wing nastiness. It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
And if you have no conservatives, you risk being left with Reform.
There speaks a loyal Conservative.
The Conservatives clearly aren't "dead" but they aren't well - look at the results in Surrey last week. Towns like Caterham and Whyteleafe were once strongholds of the party - now, it's not just they are a close second to the LDs, they are a poor third .
Yes, you can be as waspish about the LDs as you like but in their historical context, 72 seats is a success, albeit for the most part built on the Conservative Party's collapse (but you can say the same about Labour, Reform and Green - we are all picking over the corpse of a once formidable electoral winning machine).
It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
As the cobbler would tell you, time wounds all heels and in a couple of decades, there may be an opportunity for a "new" Conservative Party, predicated on the old principles of one nation Conservatism, to emerge and in all probability return to Government but that requires a clearout of augean proportions both of who are in the Party now and of their half-baked thinking.
I'm not a conservative, I'm a centrist who hangs to the right. I voted Lib Dem at the last election, voted to remain, despite being sceptical of the EU political project (something Ydoethur has made an excellent point above).
We seem to have very short memories on here. How long ago was it that Labour was dead? Yet now they are in power with a whopping majority. Of course the current Tory party is struggling. They were in power for 14 years, culminating in covid (not their fault) and the war in Ukraine (not their fault). They are paying the price for that and are now making some really poor choices, desperately flailing for anything that stops the rot.
But the challenge for wider politics is that what once motivated anti-EU feeling (hence UKIP) is now driving Reform. A sense of failure from the traditional parties. And thats all of them. I think any one in Labour or the Lib Dems who believed that their success last year was down to their brilliance and campaigning and people thinking they have the right policies are somewhat mistaken. It was very much a get the Tories out vote, across the board.
Many on PB will not like it, but a large number of people in the country simply think that immigration is too high and that this is the reason for all their ills.
Thats almost certainly not true, but it doesn't stop them believing it. My neighbour completely unprompted talks to me about Farage - 'He's right!', he says. My neighbour doesn't talk about politics in general, but Farage, ever the populist has once again found the right scab to pick at. How the grown ups counter it is crucial. The Tories seem to think being like Reform is the way - I don't, personally. Politicians are meant to lead the country - at the moment too many are following what the voters 'think' they want.
But ultimately the way to kill Farage and Reform is to get the economy growing, get peoples lives improving. Get the good times back. And part of that is to acknowledge that if we are borrowing 20 Billion to pay the bills a month, maybe we need to stop some spending. And look better are taxing fairly.
A cogent and thoughtful response and not much with which anyone could disagtee.
Labour were out of office for 18 years and then 14 but they have a history of long periods of opposition as do the LDs, the Conservatives do not. Whether you think of them as "the natural party of Government" or not, the truth is the period out of office from 1997 to 2010 was the longest period of continuous opposition since the introduction of universal suffrage.
Yes, you could also argue, having won his mandate in December 2019, Boris was incredibly unfortunate to run into Covid but it happened on his watch as did the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and that's the thing about politics - if it's on your watch, it's on you.
There are facts about immigration and perceptions - IF the economy were growing at 4 or 5% per annum we wouldn't be talking about immigration or immigrants or at least not in the same way. It becomes an issue in harder economic times as in the 1970s with the rise of the National Front.
The Conservative Party, if it's serious about returning to power, needs to reconcile the anti-immigration and pro-business policies. Deporting potentially critical members of the work force won't sit well with a party supposedly supporting business and growing the economy.
Is this actual party policy then, or just a few words from an obscure backbencher, a bit like in Labour John McDonnell demanding money for the WASPI women, and being used as a stick to beat the Tories with.
Indeed, Lam is a Jenrick supporter and not even in the Shadow Cabinet
We're moving in the right direction. We could do it faster. There is still work to do. But oftentimes a technological transition develops a momentum of its own and moves faster than expected. I think that's happening with solar now.
i finally did it: someone was talking on the phone with loud speaker sitting close to me while we were inside the bus.
so I joined the conversation with full confidence. when she gave me that “are you mad?” look, I said, “sorry,I thought it was a group call since you put it on loudspeaker for all of us.”
The one abiding Brexit bonus is that nearly a decade on, Remainers are still desperate to prove that there are no Brexit bonuses...
A bold claim under an article by a Remainer pointing out a Brexit bonus!
Seriously, I think there is a case for saying we did the rest of the EU a big favor by showing how effing stupid it was to leave the world's largest and most successful free trade association. Shame we had to pay the price, but from a broadly European standpoint you could well say Brexit was a good thing.
Absolutely, we did the rest of the EU a massive favour. Given the rise of global bullies like Trump, Putin and Xi I don't think anyone else in Europe would want to be as lonely as we are right now.
Given that EU foreign and defence policy requires the approval of Viktor Orban I'm not seeing the advantages.
The starting point for the discussion is not at any individual objection or turbulence. The starting point for the UK is that both our independent post Brexit UK and also the EU as currently constituted which we left are both profoundly flawed projects.
(As to how it might be in a sensible world: an independent UK would have brilliantly able governance and a well balanced economy with global leadership in lots of fields and a sustainable migration policy. A sensible European 'ever closer union' project would be based from the start on NATO membership, common defence policy and a free trade single market without compulsory FOM)
I don't think those figures mean much - I don't know if "Europe" is in the political background as much as it was for us from rebates via Bruges via Maastricht to the Euro to Lisbon etc. We had 35 years of Europe being in our politics from Thatcher to Major to Blair to Brown to Cameron - each one of them had "issues" with the EEC and later the EU.
Arguably, it destroyed the Conservative Party - now, whether you think that's another "dividend" or not is up to you but I'm certain the party would not be where it is now otherwise but every party had a fracture on this issue of some degree.
Claims of the death of the Tory party are massively premature. They were in government last year and lost an election after 14 years in power. People were and still are sick of them. Add in the purge of the pro Europeans and a lot of ‘talent’ and centrism has gone from the MP roster. But. They are still polling more than Ed Daley’s apparently hugely sucessful Lib Dem’s, and pretty close to the party who won a huge majority last year.
Those who would welcome the extinction of conservatism should be careful what they wish. Conservative politics isn’t right wing nastiness. It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
And if you have no conservatives, you risk being left with Reform.
There speaks a loyal Conservative.
The Conservatives clearly aren't "dead" but they aren't well - look at the results in Surrey last week. Towns like Caterham and Whyteleafe were once strongholds of the party - now, it's not just they are a close second to the LDs, they are a poor third .
Yes, you can be as waspish about the LDs as you like but in their historical context, 72 seats is a success, albeit for the most part built on the Conservative Party's collapse (but you can say the same about Labour, Reform and Green - we are all picking over the corpse of a once formidable electoral winning machine).
It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
As the cobbler would tell you, time wounds all heels and in a couple of decades, there may be an opportunity for a "new" Conservative Party, predicated on the old principles of one nation Conservatism, to emerge and in all probability return to Government but that requires a clearout of augean proportions both of who are in the Party now and of their half-baked thinking.
I'm not a conservative, I'm a centrist who hangs to the right. I voted Lib Dem at the last election, voted to remain, despite being sceptical of the EU political project (something Ydoethur has made an excellent point above).
We seem to have very short memories on here. How long ago was it that Labour was dead? Yet now they are in power with a whopping majority. Of course the current Tory party is struggling. They were in power for 14 years, culminating in covid (not their fault) and the war in Ukraine (not their fault). They are paying the price for that and are now making some really poor choices, desperately flailing for anything that stops the rot.
But the challenge for wider politics is that what once motivated anti-EU feeling (hence UKIP) is now driving Reform. A sense of failure from the traditional parties. And thats all of them. I think any one in Labour or the Lib Dems who believed that their success last year was down to their brilliance and campaigning and people thinking they have the right policies are somewhat mistaken. It was very much a get the Tories out vote, across the board.
Many on PB will not like it, but a large number of people in the country simply think that immigration is too high and that this is the reason for all their ills.
Thats almost certainly not true, but it doesn't stop them believing it. My neighbour completely unprompted talks to me about Farage - 'He's right!', he says. My neighbour doesn't talk about politics in general, but Farage, ever the populist has once again found the right scab to pick at. How the grown ups counter it is crucial. The Tories seem to think being like Reform is the way - I don't, personally. Politicians are meant to lead the country - at the moment too many are following what the voters 'think' they want.
But ultimately the way to kill Farage and Reform is to get the economy growing, get peoples lives improving. Get the good times back. And part of that is to acknowledge that if we are borrowing 20 Billion to pay the bills a month, maybe we need to stop some spending. And look better are taxing fairly.
Excellent post
Yes , however if they don't stop illegal immigration and curb legal immigration to sensible numbers it will matter not a jot, Farage will prevail. Alea iacta est
We're moving in the right direction. We could do it faster. There is still work to do. But oftentimes a technological transition develops a momentum of its own and moves faster than expected. I think that's happening with solar now.
I would like to think so. But reducing CO2 output (which has not yet happened) is like reducing inflation: CO2 in the atmosphere is still rising, just as with lower inflation prices are still going up. This is being ignored.
Don’t you need to have rats running around the kitchen and staff with no shoes on, to get a zero star rating?
I once worked in a pub with a decent kitchen. One day, when the boss was on holiday, we were inspected. Fair number of points to put right. But we did a clean and organised what need to be organised (even to the level of different chopping boards for different types of food*) and on re-inspection all was well.
So I bought a Chinese car and it has all these totally broken safety features that you can't turn off (or you can but they come back on again when you reboot the car) like showing a really annoying flashing 40km/h icon when you're on the motorway and it sees a speed limit sign on a slip-road. Apparently these are due to Euro NCAP regulations. I'm considering starting a campaign for China and Japan to leave the EU.
I flagged this a while back - it's down to EU compulsory ISA regulations, which despite Brexit the car manufacturers aren't willing to vary for models sold into the UK. The most annoying feature is that you have to turn the feature off every time you start the car (and the EU intends to monitor drivers' usage of this with the implied threat of removing the ability to turn it off, down the line), although some manufacturers like BMW and Mercedes have made it easier for drivers to disable with one-click or one-button actions by the driver; the Asian makers, presumably less willing to undermine their reputation for safety, leave you having to scroll through multiple screens on settings menus to do so.
It's the main reason I haven't replaced my current car with a new one, as I originally intended to do this year or next. I can't believe I'm the only one, suggesting that the new rules will hit new car sales. And any motoring forum is full of posts from angry and frustrated drivers who have got a new car and can't stop it beeping at them all the time.
The bottom line is what evidence eventually emerges that compulsory ISA has reduced accident and road casualty rates. Meanwhile, clever though the systems are, even if you never stray an mph/kmh above any speed limit, there are tons of things that mislead your car into getting the speed limit wrong, including speed signs on slip or parallel roads in France, signs imposing lower speed limits when there is fog in Italy, (sometimes) the speed signs with yellow backgrounds in Finland and Sweden, and the Norwegian habit of not signing the return to normal speed limits after roadworks, and (sometimes) speed limits up on digital gantries and the like.
Thank you for confirming what I was wondering. I hired a car in Europe this summer, and for the first time had all these wonderful features and it was utterly annoying. And also dangerous, several times the lane control made me swerve because I thought I'd hit something and over corrected - luckily there was nothing coming the other way. Oddly, the one time I actually hit the kerb it didn't try to stop me.
There is no way I'm buying a car with all these features unless I can turn them off once for all time. I'm looking forward to a manufacturer who is prepared to give us a real Brexit bonus when I buy a new EV in about 5 years' time.
Otherwise I will have to ensure the 2nd hand car I'm about to buy to tide me over until then will last indefinitely!
I don't want to exaggerate, modern cars (ie the electric ones) are totally great. And a lot of the safety features are really good, for example the car stopping instead of letting you crash into the car in front is a good idea.
I just brought it up on this thread because the only badly-implemented thing about the car (and I can fix it with stationary from the 100-yen shop) somehow seems to be the EU's fault.
OK, it's also missing some features in the app like setting the charging schedule on your phone but that one seems to be the Japanese government's fault, they have the feature in other countries but Japan seem to think Xí Jìnpíng has a masterplan to take down the electric grid by charging all 5000 BYD cars at the same time or something.
I don't think those figures mean much - I don't know if "Europe" is in the political background as much as it was for us from rebates via Bruges via Maastricht to the Euro to Lisbon etc. We had 35 years of Europe being in our politics from Thatcher to Major to Blair to Brown to Cameron - each one of them had "issues" with the EEC and later the EU.
Arguably, it destroyed the Conservative Party - now, whether you think that's another "dividend" or not is up to you but I'm certain the party would not be where it is now otherwise but every party had a fracture on this issue of some degree.
Claims of the death of the Tory party are massively premature. They were in government last year and lost an election after 14 years in power. People were and still are sick of them. Add in the purge of the pro Europeans and a lot of ‘talent’ and centrism has gone from the MP roster. But. They are still polling more than Ed Daley’s apparently hugely sucessful Lib Dem’s, and pretty close to the party who won a huge majority last year.
Those who would welcome the extinction of conservatism should be careful what they wish. Conservative politics isn’t right wing nastiness. It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
And if you have no conservatives, you risk being left with Reform.
There speaks a loyal Conservative.
The Conservatives clearly aren't "dead" but they aren't well - look at the results in Surrey last week. Towns like Caterham and Whyteleafe were once strongholds of the party - now, it's not just they are a close second to the LDs, they are a poor third .
Yes, you can be as waspish about the LDs as you like but in their historical context, 72 seats is a success, albeit for the most part built on the Conservative Party's collapse (but you can say the same about Labour, Reform and Green - we are all picking over the corpse of a once formidable electoral winning machine).
It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
As the cobbler would tell you, time wounds all heels and in a couple of decades, there may be an opportunity for a "new" Conservative Party, predicated on the old principles of one nation Conservatism, to emerge and in all probability return to Government but that requires a clearout of augean proportions both of who are in the Party now and of their half-baked thinking.
I'm not a conservative, I'm a centrist who hangs to the right. I voted Lib Dem at the last election, voted to remain, despite being sceptical of the EU political project (something Ydoethur has made an excellent point above).
We seem to have very short memories on here. How long ago was it that Labour was dead? Yet now they are in power with a whopping majority. Of course the current Tory party is struggling. They were in power for 14 years, culminating in covid (not their fault) and the war in Ukraine (not their fault). They are paying the price for that and are now making some really poor choices, desperately flailing for anything that stops the rot.
But the challenge for wider politics is that what once motivated anti-EU feeling (hence UKIP) is now driving Reform. A sense of failure from the traditional parties. And thats all of them. I think any one in Labour or the Lib Dems who believed that their success last year was down to their brilliance and campaigning and people thinking they have the right policies are somewhat mistaken. It was very much a get the Tories out vote, across the board.
Many on PB will not like it, but a large number of people in the country simply think that immigration is too high and that this is the reason for all their ills.
Thats almost certainly not true, but it doesn't stop them believing it. My neighbour completely unprompted talks to me about Farage - 'He's right!', he says. My neighbour doesn't talk about politics in general, but Farage, ever the populist has once again found the right scab to pick at. How the grown ups counter it is crucial. The Tories seem to think being like Reform is the way - I don't, personally. Politicians are meant to lead the country - at the moment too many are following what the voters 'think' they want.
But ultimately the way to kill Farage and Reform is to get the economy growing, get peoples lives improving. Get the good times back. And part of that is to acknowledge that if we are borrowing 20 Billion to pay the bills a month, maybe we need to stop some spending. And look better are taxing fairly.
A cogent and thoughtful response and not much with which anyone could disagtee.
Labour were out of office for 18 years and then 14 but they have a history of long periods of opposition as do the LDs, the Conservatives do not. Whether you think of them as "the natural party of Government" or not, the truth is the period out of office from 1997 to 2010 was the longest period of continuous opposition since the introduction of universal suffrage.
Yes, you could also argue, having won his mandate in December 2019, Boris was incredibly unfortunate to run into Covid but it happened on his watch as did the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and that's the thing about politics - if it's on your watch, it's on you.
There are facts about immigration and perceptions - IF the economy were growing at 4 or 5% per annum we wouldn't be talking about immigration or immigrants or at least not in the same way. It becomes an issue in harder economic times as in the 1970s with the rise of the National Front.
The Conservative Party, if it's serious about returning to power, needs to reconcile the anti-immigration and pro-business policies. Deporting potentially critical members of the work force won't sit well with a party supposedly supporting business and growing the economy.
Is this actual party policy then, or just a few words from an obscure backbencher, a bit like in Labour John McDonnell demanding money for the WASPI women, and being used as a stick to beat the Tories with.
Indeed, Lam is a Jenrick supporter and not even in the Shadow Cabinet
That's not quite how it works. We live in a 24 hour news cycle. If Lam and Jenrick are somehow utterly out of line then the 24 hour a day Tory party rebuttal system - they have a leader and a set of press officers and a big media operation running all the time - will let us know.
So I bought a Chinese car and it has all these totally broken safety features that you can't turn off (or you can but they come back on again when you reboot the car) like showing a really annoying flashing 40km/h icon when you're on the motorway and it sees a speed limit sign on a slip-road. Apparently these are due to Euro NCAP regulations. I'm considering starting a campaign for China and Japan to leave the EU.
Good luck with jailbreaking your car!
My current plan if I am unable to reconfigure the global world order is to make a little round sticker and stick it to the screen.
That’s the Hillbilly way of dealing with that darn check engine light that won’t go off.
I had that a few years and cars ago. A minor rear end shunt for which I accepted 500 quid from the insurance (and assumed no damage) led to the engine warning light coming on. Reset it and it would come on again after 9 miles. No fault was ever found, just a dodgy sensor. The garage even suggested the black tape...
The problem with this is it can put the car into limp mode with no fix available. My friend's perfectly serviceable Fiesta met this fate despite lots of trips to the mechanic.
Yes, I had that too with my Fiesta - the limp mode kicked in repeatedly for no apparent reason, and the problem was only eventually solved by replacement of the testing system. The ability to switch off limp mode if one doesn't believe the warning would be a strong sales argument when I get round to replacing it, but perhaps that's illegal? I hired a car recently when my Fiesta was in the garage, and it bombarded me with messages about every real or imagined infringement, from driving at 21 in a 20 mph zone to straying over the lane boundary in a wide road at night. Some of the messages were reasonable, but the cumulative effect was to ignore them all. Is that a feature of all new cars?
The speed limit indicator would be more useful if it had a bit of margin for error. More of a "taking the piss" indicator. The lane thing is just annoying - and likely to be inducing phone use which is far more dangerous.
Until the ISA regulations came in, you could set it to trigger, in those cars that had it, at 5mph above the limit, but I believe that facility is now no longer available?
The favorite trick of my bossy Vitara is to warn me stridently about incorrect tire pressures and keep warning me long after I have adjusted them to the prescribed amounts. I have to visit the local garage to be rid of this nuisance and have developed a much closer relationship with them than I would like as a result.
I'm determined to avoid a Japanese car next time as a result of this, but I am told all cars are like it now in their own idiosynchratic and idiotic ways.
The only objective for the Tories at the next election is to hang on to second place as the leading party to the right of Labour.
They will say anything and do anything to achieve that goal. If they achieve it then Farage will be 70 by the time of the general election afterwards (in 2034), and the Tories can reasonably hope that FPTP will make them the main choice for voters wishing to be rid of Labour.
The danger is that this strategy is doomed to failure, and all they're achieving is to make BNP policy more widely acceptable to Reform's benefit. No-one will believe that the Tories will reverse the immigration that happened when they were in government.
Lam is of course a long standing ally of Jenrick, if Jenrick became Tory leader before the next GE the Tories may as well merge with Farage's Reform anyway as there now looks to be little difference between Jenrick and Farage. Indeed Jenrick is 20 years younger than Farage and clearly wants to be Farage's successor as leader of the populist nationalist right and Farage all but anointed Jenrick his heir when he praised Jenrick's conference speech on his GB news show.
The danger for Kemi is if she goes further and further down the Jenrick policy route as she has over leaving the ECHR, scrapping net zero and now deporting immigrants, then Jenrick supporters will say they may as well have him do it more articulately and with more energy than she can.
If she sees significant Tory losses in the May local and devolved elections and the Tories remain at 15 to 20% in the polls she almost certainly will face a VONC and lose it. Most Tory MPs would then I suspect back Cleverly over Jenrick, probably by coronation, given the failure of Kemi's Jenrick lite policy. Some former Kemi backing MPs are also starting to move to Cleverly to stop Jenrick. Cleverly could then at least put clear blue water with Farage and Reform as well as Starmer and Labour and also would be more likely to get Labour and LD tactical votes in Conservative held seats to beat Reform
You seem to have become a Cleverly fan and, but for his own bad gaming of the election for leader he would have won
Your post is sensible and I would be happy to see Cleverly win and let Jenrick and Lam join Reform, their natural home
I think for the next general election Cleverly would be the only viable alternative to Kemi to take on Farage as well as Starmer yes.
Lam it should be noted is not in Kemi's Shadow Cabinet and backed Jenrick for leader last year
I agree with @HYUFD here. I think main (perhaps only) advantage Tories have over Reform is that they are a traditional party of govt and that voters will find it easier to imagine them in Govt than Reform (despite the Truss bequest).
Nigel is a skilled pot-stirrer and media personality but is few people's idea of a PM and Reform are few people's idea of a government-in-waiting. Although the UK MAGA crowd won't care about that, a lot of people will, particularly disenchanted former Tory voters in the Blue Wall.
However for the Tories to take advantage they really need a leader who looks prime ministerial. Sadly, it seems Kemi became leader too early, like Hague, so won't really do. Cleverly, OTOH, does look a quite reasonable fit. He's less wooden than Starmer, has a sense of humour, a bit of gravitas, and won't be rattled by Farage in debates. The best choice in the circs.
Admittedly, may not shift the dial much in the polls, but when it comes to actual polling day, and pencils are hovering over ballot papers, may well make a crucial difference.
Indeed and Cleverly is a heavyweight, former Home and Foreign Secretary, has a bit of charisma and warmth.
I can also see some Labour and LD voters who live in seats the Tories held last year holding their nose and voting for a Cleverly led Conservatives to beat Reform but I can't see as many tactically voting for a Kemi led Conservatives and barely any would tactically vote for a Jenrick led Conservatives. Not least as a Jenrick led Conservatives may as well merge with Reform anyway
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
Mainly future pensioners not current ones. Reducing tax free lump sum would be a nightmare to implement. Having said that I agree with those suggestions. Obvious one to me would be merging NI into tax.
My flatmate who has a degree in chemical engineering and came here for Primary school faces a future in Lithuania (a country she barely recalls and a language she doesn't speak) under these plans. For the misdemeanour of not being born British.
To put it in stark PB terms, Katie Lam’s proposals will see Sunil get deported.
Sunil. If you're reading this don't misconstrue my 'like'!
I don't think those figures mean much - I don't know if "Europe" is in the political background as much as it was for us from rebates via Bruges via Maastricht to the Euro to Lisbon etc. We had 35 years of Europe being in our politics from Thatcher to Major to Blair to Brown to Cameron - each one of them had "issues" with the EEC and later the EU.
Arguably, it destroyed the Conservative Party - now, whether you think that's another "dividend" or not is up to you but I'm certain the party would not be where it is now otherwise but every party had a fracture on this issue of some degree.
Claims of the death of the Tory party are massively premature. They were in government last year and lost an election after 14 years in power. People were and still are sick of them. Add in the purge of the pro Europeans and a lot of ‘talent’ and centrism has gone from the MP roster. But. They are still polling more than Ed Daley’s apparently hugely sucessful Lib Dem’s, and pretty close to the party who won a huge majority last year.
Those who would welcome the extinction of conservatism should be careful what they wish. Conservative politics isn’t right wing nastiness. It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
And if you have no conservatives, you risk being left with Reform.
There speaks a loyal Conservative.
The Conservatives clearly aren't "dead" but they aren't well - look at the results in Surrey last week. Towns like Caterham and Whyteleafe were once strongholds of the party - now, it's not just they are a close second to the LDs, they are a poor third .
Yes, you can be as waspish about the LDs as you like but in their historical context, 72 seats is a success, albeit for the most part built on the Conservative Party's collapse (but you can say the same about Labour, Reform and Green - we are all picking over the corpse of a once formidable electoral winning machine).
It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
As the cobbler would tell you, time wounds all heels and in a couple of decades, there may be an opportunity for a "new" Conservative Party, predicated on the old principles of one nation Conservatism, to emerge and in all probability return to Government but that requires a clearout of augean proportions both of who are in the Party now and of their half-baked thinking.
I'm not a conservative, I'm a centrist who hangs to the right. I voted Lib Dem at the last election, voted to remain, despite being sceptical of the EU political project (something Ydoethur has made an excellent point above).
We seem to have very short memories on here. How long ago was it that Labour was dead? Yet now they are in power with a whopping majority. Of course the current Tory party is struggling. They were in power for 14 years, culminating in covid (not their fault) and the war in Ukraine (not their fault). They are paying the price for that and are now making some really poor choices, desperately flailing for anything that stops the rot.
But the challenge for wider politics is that what once motivated anti-EU feeling (hence UKIP) is now driving Reform. A sense of failure from the traditional parties. And thats all of them. I think any one in Labour or the Lib Dems who believed that their success last year was down to their brilliance and campaigning and people thinking they have the right policies are somewhat mistaken. It was very much a get the Tories out vote, across the board.
Many on PB will not like it, but a large number of people in the country simply think that immigration is too high and that this is the reason for all their ills.
Thats almost certainly not true, but it doesn't stop them believing it. My neighbour completely unprompted talks to me about Farage - 'He's right!', he says. My neighbour doesn't talk about politics in general, but Farage, ever the populist has once again found the right scab to pick at. How the grown ups counter it is crucial. The Tories seem to think being like Reform is the way - I don't, personally. Politicians are meant to lead the country - at the moment too many are following what the voters 'think' they want.
But ultimately the way to kill Farage and Reform is to get the economy growing, get peoples lives improving. Get the good times back. And part of that is to acknowledge that if we are borrowing 20 Billion to pay the bills a month, maybe we need to stop some spending. And look better are taxing fairly.
A cogent and thoughtful response and not much with which anyone could disagtee.
Labour were out of office for 18 years and then 14 but they have a history of long periods of opposition as do the LDs, the Conservatives do not. Whether you think of them as "the natural party of Government" or not, the truth is the period out of office from 1997 to 2010 was the longest period of continuous opposition since the introduction of universal suffrage.
Yes, you could also argue, having won his mandate in December 2019, Boris was incredibly unfortunate to run into Covid but it happened on his watch as did the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and that's the thing about politics - if it's on your watch, it's on you.
There are facts about immigration and perceptions - IF the economy were growing at 4 or 5% per annum we wouldn't be talking about immigration or immigrants or at least not in the same way. It becomes an issue in harder economic times as in the 1970s with the rise of the National Front.
The Conservative Party, if it's serious about returning to power, needs to reconcile the anti-immigration and pro-business policies. Deporting potentially critical members of the work force won't sit well with a party supposedly supporting business and growing the economy.
Is this actual party policy then, or just a few words from an obscure backbencher, a bit like in Labour John McDonnell demanding money for the WASPI women, and being used as a stick to beat the Tories with.
Indeed, Lam is a Jenrick supporter and not even in the Shadow Cabinet
That's not quite how it works. We live in a 24 hour news cycle. If Lam and Jenrick are somehow utterly out of line then the 24 hour a day Tory party rebuttal system - they have a leader and a set of press officers and a big media operation running all the time - will let us know.
For sure. It was an article in the Sunday Times. It's now Wednesday. Tick tock as they say.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Last week we had the "good news" that the IMF had predicted the UK GDP would grow at 1.3% and "second-fastest in the G7". I believe that the government were quite keen to crow about this.
Which is rather missing the point that the government's entire economic prospectus hangs upon achieving above trend GDP growth. i.e. Grow faster than we have in a long time.
We'll be lucky if we even sustain the longer term trend, never mind grow significantly above that line, and inflation is proving to be a real bugbear.
Nobody is saying it yet, but I am all but certain that the treasury must now be working on Plan B where the current plan gets torn up because it becomes clear that it can't or won't be achieved.
Don’t you need to have rats running around the kitchen and staff with no shoes on, to get a zero star rating?
I once worked in a pub with a decent kitchen. One day, when the boss was on holiday, we were inspected. Fair number of points to put right. But we did a clean and organised what need to be organised (even to the level of different chopping boards for different types of food*) and on re-inspection all was well.
Its not hard.
*I do this at home still
My brother did a few years in the kitchen as a young man, and he still uses colour-coded chopping boards at home. It’s really bad to have cooked and raw food in the same place.
The only objective for the Tories at the next election is to hang on to second place as the leading party to the right of Labour.
They will say anything and do anything to achieve that goal. If they achieve it then Farage will be 70 by the time of the general election afterwards (in 2034), and the Tories can reasonably hope that FPTP will make them the main choice for voters wishing to be rid of Labour.
The danger is that this strategy is doomed to failure, and all they're achieving is to make BNP policy more widely acceptable to Reform's benefit. No-one will believe that the Tories will reverse the immigration that happened when they were in government.
Lam is of course a long standing ally of Jenrick, if Jenrick became Tory leader before the next GE the Tories may as well merge with Farage's Reform anyway as there now looks to be little difference between Jenrick and Farage. Indeed Jenrick is 20 years younger than Farage and clearly wants to be Farage's successor as leader of the populist nationalist right and Farage all but anointed Jenrick his heir when he praised Jenrick's conference speech on his GB news show.
The danger for Kemi is if she goes further and further down the Jenrick policy route as she has over leaving the ECHR, scrapping net zero and now deporting immigrants, then Jenrick supporters will say they may as well have him do it more articulately and with more energy than she can.
If she sees significant Tory losses in the May local and devolved elections and the Tories remain at 15 to 20% in the polls she almost certainly will face a VONC and lose it. Most Tory MPs would then I suspect back Cleverly over Jenrick, probably by coronation, given the failure of Kemi's Jenrick lite policy. Some former Kemi backing MPs are also starting to move to Cleverly to stop Jenrick. Cleverly could then at least put clear blue water with Farage and Reform as well as Starmer and Labour and also would be more likely to get Labour and LD tactical votes in Conservative held seats to beat Reform
You seem to have become a Cleverly fan and, but for his own bad gaming of the election for leader he would have won
Your post is sensible and I would be happy to see Cleverly win and let Jenrick and Lam join Reform, their natural home
I think for the next general election Cleverly would be the only viable alternative to Kemi to take on Farage as well as Starmer yes.
Lam it should be noted is not in Kemi's Shadow Cabinet and backed Jenrick for leader last year
I agree with @HYUFD here. I think main (perhaps only) advantage Tories have over Reform is that they are a traditional party of govt and that voters will find it easier to imagine them in Govt than Reform (despite the Truss bequest).
Nigel is a skilled pot-stirrer and media personality but is few people's idea of a PM and Reform are few people's idea of a government-in-waiting. Although the UK MAGA crowd won't care about that, a lot of people will, particularly disenchanted former Tory voters in the Blue Wall.
However for the Tories to take advantage they really need a leader who looks prime ministerial. Sadly, it seems Kemi became leader too early, like Hague, so won't really do. Cleverly, OTOH, does look a quite reasonable fit. He's less wooden than Starmer, has a sense of humour, a bit of gravitas, and won't be rattled by Farage in debates. The best choice in the circs.
Admittedly, may not shift the dial much in the polls, but when it comes to actual polling day, and pencils are hovering over ballot papers, may well make a crucial difference.
Indeed and Cleverly is a heavyweight, former Home and Foreign Secretary, has a bit of charisma and warmth.
I can also see some Labour and LD voters who live in seats the Tories held last year holding their nose and voting for a Cleverly led Conservatives to beat Reform but I can't see as many tactically voting for a Kemi led Conservatives and barely any would tactically vote for a Jenrick led Conservatives. Not least as a Jenrick led Conservatives may as well merge with Reform anyway
I liked that post and it's nice to see you doing analytical stuff on the Tories @hyufd and not being too partisan. Good to see this stuff from a Tory and would be nice to see at other times as well, when the Tories are not in a state of flux.
We're moving in the right direction. We could do it faster. There is still work to do. But oftentimes a technological transition develops a momentum of its own and moves faster than expected. I think that's happening with solar now.
I would like to think so. But reducing CO2 output (which has not yet happened) is like reducing inflation: CO2 in the atmosphere is still rising, just as with lower inflation prices are still going up. This is being ignored.
I don't think anyone is ignoring it.
But it's the nature of a transition that it doesn't look like anything is being achieved at first. At the moment we are in the stage where Coal's share of electricity production is declining, but overall coal use is still rising because electricity demand is rising. However we do see that the rate of increase of coal use has declined.
The next stage will see coal use peak and start to decline.
We will see the same with combustion of oil. With half of new cars sold in China now being EVs, that will start to have an impact on demand for road fuel - though of course it also increases electricity demand and so slows the decrease in coal use.
Don’t you need to have rats running around the kitchen and staff with no shoes on, to get a zero star rating?
I once worked in a pub with a decent kitchen. One day, when the boss was on holiday, we were inspected. Fair number of points to put right. But we did a clean and organised what need to be organised (even to the level of different chopping boards for different types of food*) and on re-inspection all was well.
Its not hard.
*I do this at home still
I once worked as a barmaid. The landlords had a Great Dane and a Yorkie. While they were away on holiday, the Yorkie had a heart attack and died. The head barmaid said the landlady would want to pay her respects to it and we should keep it in the freezer until she returned. She was talked out of this on hygiene grounds but I've often wondered what a health inspector would have made of a dead dog in the freezer.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
Reduction of tax free lump sum would be difficult to do retrospectively ie on lump sum already accrued, not impossible of course. Could be done for future accrual. Of course it's already limited to £268,750 ISH for the vast majority of people
Move from salary sacrifice would not in itself raise much
As I understand it restricting pension tax relief to basic rate would raise £HUGE, maybe £20bn a year? I stand to be corrected. Easy to do for DC pensions and not actually that difficult for DB pensions. Unlikely as it would impact Labour's public sector vote most
Don’t you need to have rats running around the kitchen and staff with no shoes on, to get a zero star rating?
I once worked in a pub with a decent kitchen. One day, when the boss was on holiday, we were inspected. Fair number of points to put right. But we did a clean and organised what need to be organised (even to the level of different chopping boards for different types of food*) and on re-inspection all was well.
Its not hard.
*I do this at home still
You want to try a kosher kitchen. This wouldn't det you onto the first runk of acceptable hygene and kashrut.
So the Lam policy is to deport any migrant whose ever claimed benefits including those who claimed maternity leave .
At the time of course they weren’t to know that doing this would further down the line end up putting them in the deportation category .
Has Lam worked out yet how many families will be torn apart , how many businesses will see workers deported .
The performative cruelty of the policy is something we’re seeing in the USA where some people seem to get off on watching others suffer .
All I can say is Lam is a vile loathsome individual who has ignored her own family history . These really are dark times for anyone who has a shred of humanity .
The one abiding Brexit bonus is that nearly a decade on, Remainers are still desperate to prove that there are no Brexit bonuses...
A bold claim under an article by a Remainer pointing out a Brexit bonus!
Seriously, I think there is a case for saying we did the rest of the EU a big favor by showing how effing stupid it was to leave the world's largest and most successful free trade association. Shame we had to pay the price, but from a broadly European standpoint you could well say Brexit was a good thing.
Absolutely, we did the rest of the EU a massive favour. Given the rise of global bullies like Trump, Putin and Xi I don't think anyone else in Europe would want to be as lonely as we are right now.
Given that EU foreign and defence policy requires the approval of Viktor Orban I'm not seeing the advantages.
Not for much longer, I suspect. (And that not only because he's likely to lose power.)
I've been reading comments like that for the past three years.
When the EU forces Ireland to increase defence spending and deploy troops to Eastern Europe will be the day it can be taken seriously on defence matters.
Really ? This, for example, is quite new (and not irrelevant to our future intentions).
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
Reduction of tax free lump sum would be difficult to do retrospectively ie on lump sum already accrued, not impossible of course. Could be done for future accrual. Of course it's already limited to £268,750 ISH for the vast majority of people
Move from salary sacrifice would not in itself raise much
As I understand it restricting pension tax relief to basic rate would raise £HUGE, maybe £20bn a year? I stand to be corrected. Easy to do for DC pensions and not actually that difficult for DB pensions. Unlikely as it would impact Labour's public sector vote most
DB pensions have defined payments in and the tax is dealt with as part of PAYE, so even more easily handled.
We're moving in the right direction. We could do it faster. There is still work to do. But oftentimes a technological transition develops a momentum of its own and moves faster than expected. I think that's happening with solar now.
I would like to think so. But reducing CO2 output (which has not yet happened) is like reducing inflation: CO2 in the atmosphere is still rising, just as with lower inflation prices are still going up. This is being ignored.
I don't think anyone is ignoring it.
But it's the nature of a transition that it doesn't look like anything is being achieved at first. At the moment we are in the stage where Coal's share of electricity production is declining, but overall coal use is still rising because electricity demand is rising. However we do see that the rate of increase of coal use has declined.
The next stage will see coal use peak and start to decline.
We will see the same with combustion of oil. With half of new cars sold in China now being EVs, that will start to have an impact on demand for road fuel - though of course it also increases electricity demand and so slows the decrease in coal use.
Thanks. I shall accept that point of view when the projected figures based on the actual current trend and actual future plans globally for reducing net CO2 to more or less zero, with dates and milestones, are presented to the public in a form which they can comprehend by a body globally competent to do so.
(For a comparison: it is not difficult to comprehend that with falling birthrates the global population will rise for now and then fall, but 'number of babies being born per woman falling following massive global population increase' is a relatively simple concept to get hold of. Getting to net zero isn't.)
PMQs (I will not mention the substantive topic discussed).
Starmer’s performance is slipping a bit as he gets more decisions to have to stand behind. Badenoch continues to be clunky but her questioning has got better and her attacks sharper. Their exchanges are very ill mannered now - don’t think there’s any love lost. Neither are great but I do sense a slight shift in fortunes.
The one abiding Brexit bonus is that nearly a decade on, Remainers are still desperate to prove that there are no Brexit bonuses...
A bold claim under an article by a Remainer pointing out a Brexit bonus!
Seriously, I think there is a case for saying we did the rest of the EU a big favor by showing how effing stupid it was to leave the world's largest and most successful free trade association. Shame we had to pay the price, but from a broadly European standpoint you could well say Brexit was a good thing.
Absolutely, we did the rest of the EU a massive favour. Given the rise of global bullies like Trump, Putin and Xi I don't think anyone else in Europe would want to be as lonely as we are right now.
Given that EU foreign and defence policy requires the approval of Viktor Orban I'm not seeing the advantages.
Not for much longer, I suspect. (And that not only because he's likely to lose power.)
I've been reading comments like that for the past three years.
When the EU forces Ireland to increase defence spending and deploy troops to Eastern Europe will be the day it can be taken seriously on defence matters.
If the EU decided to organise it's defence on a Eurozone-style basis, where willing countries pooled their resources and policy without waiting for every country to join in, I think it could create something serious, just like the Euro.
I don't think that's likely to happen, because I don't think Poland is going to want to trust its defence decision-making to others, and if Poland isn't involved then it's pointless. But forcing Ireland to contribute isn't the yardstick for seriousness for the EU as a whole.
Poland plus the Scands and Balts (and potentially us) would provide a useful core.
JEF + Poland
Where JEF = Nordics + Baltics + UK + NL
One of the stumbling blocks for a deeper EU integration on defence is that some of the European countries most serious about defence aren't in the EU (i.e. UK and Norway). So, we're more likely to see developments with new structures, such as JEF.
But my point is that the EU can do things seriously on defence without unanimity. A lot can be done without Ireland and other nations that haven't yet got the memo on Russia.
Which will need to happen. Because although it makes sense to build a joint European defence capability to replace NATO, given the US looks like checking out, this isn't realistic in a timeframe that's of use for the war in Ukraine.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Hasn’t the prof claimed refugee status in the Kingdom of Trumpania yet?
He's already moved in his head. As @Leon presciently said, people live online these days. Where we differ is whether this is a good thing - I think it's appalling and unpatriotic - but since it is happening, with Kemi Badenoch its latest casualty, I have to take it into account.
We're moving in the right direction. We could do it faster. There is still work to do. But oftentimes a technological transition develops a momentum of its own and moves faster than expected. I think that's happening with solar now.
I would like to think so. But reducing CO2 output (which has not yet happened) is like reducing inflation: CO2 in the atmosphere is still rising, just as with lower inflation prices are still going up. This is being ignored.
I don't think anyone is ignoring it.
But it's the nature of a transition that it doesn't look like anything is being achieved at first. At the moment we are in the stage where Coal's share of electricity production is declining, but overall coal use is still rising because electricity demand is rising. However we do see that the rate of increase of coal use has declined.
The next stage will see coal use peak and start to decline.
We will see the same with combustion of oil. With half of new cars sold in China now being EVs, that will start to have an impact on demand for road fuel - though of course it also increases electricity demand and so slows the decrease in coal use.
Thanks. I shall accept that point of view when the projected figures based on the actual current trend and actual future plans globally for reducing net CO2 to more or less zero, with dates and milestones, are presented to the public in a form which they can comprehend by a body globally competent to do so.
(For a comparison: it is not difficult to comprehend that with falling birthrates the global population will rise for now and then fall, but 'number of babies being born per woman falling following massive global population increase' is a relatively simple concept to get hold of. Getting to net zero isn't.)
The first order approximation is that almost everything that we currently do with fossil fuels (surface transport, home heating, etc), will in the future be done with electricity, and that our electricity will be generated by renewables and nuclear.
There are a few exceptions and complications, and other factors, but that's the core of it.
In terms of dates and milestones the only thing that matters is that it's always better to do this sooner rather than later. I don't think we should worry overmuch about a specific timeline. We should concentrate on identifying the factors that are slowing us down and where we can intervene to speed it up.
For example, in Britain, a few things that seem important right now are domestic production of battery storage (for EVs and the grid), expanding the public EV charging network, and changing the electricity market so that we can maximise our use of renewable electricity and incentivise upgrades to the grid (i.e with regional pricing).
I'm sure people can think of other useful things to do.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Integration of Islam into the totality of the UK setup is the only non fascist/non racist option. It makes no difference that lots of people think, and thought at the time, that this wasn't a great idea. It has occurred over decades and isn't going to reverse without a policy which is repugnant to most minds.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Integration of Islam into the totality of the UK setup is the only non fascist/non racist option. It makes no difference that lots of people think, and thought at the time, that this wasn't a great idea. It has occurred over decades and isn't going to reverse without a policy which is repugnant to most minds.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
You said this yesterday and I have no idea what you mean by it. What laws would your integration project introduce?
Incidentally, somebody has pointed out that Elon talks a pile of shit, and Musk is throwing a strop.
For all those who don't know, NASA picked SpaceX to build a lunar lander. Elon took the money, then ignored the Moon entirely and concentrated on his Mars rocket (which one day may even reach Earth orbit!). NASA noticed that Elon was playing silly buggers and have reopened the contract.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Integration of Islam into the totality of the UK setup is the only non fascist/non racist option. It makes no difference that lots of people think, and thought at the time, that this wasn't a great idea. It has occurred over decades and isn't going to reverse without a policy which is repugnant to most minds.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
You said this yesterday and I have no idea what you mean by it. What laws would your integration project introduce?
Sounds like making Islam an established Episcopal religion with Imams appointed by a hierarchy ultimately controlled by the State. And with a few imams in the House of Lords.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Integration of Islam into the totality of the UK setup is the only non fascist/non racist option. It makes no difference that lots of people think, and thought at the time, that this wasn't a great idea. It has occurred over decades and isn't going to reverse without a policy which is repugnant to most minds.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
You said this yesterday and I have no idea what you mean by it. What laws would your integration project introduce?
Sounds like making Islam an established Episcopal religion with Imams appointed by a hierarchy ultimately controlled by the State. And with a few imams in the House of Lords.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Integration of Islam into the totality of the UK setup is the only non fascist/non racist option. It makes no difference that lots of people think, and thought at the time, that this wasn't a great idea. It has occurred over decades and isn't going to reverse without a policy which is repugnant to most minds.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
You said this yesterday and I have no idea what you mean by it. What laws would your integration project introduce?
Sounds like making Islam an established Episcopal religion with Imams appointed by a hierarchy ultimately controlled by the State. And with a few imams in the House of Lords.
An Islamic Church Of England would work, but the question of consent arises, and how to get from there to here. How would you start? Issue licences to mosques and imams? How do your nationalise a religion?
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Integration of Islam into the totality of the UK setup is the only non fascist/non racist option. It makes no difference that lots of people think, and thought at the time, that this wasn't a great idea. It has occurred over decades and isn't going to reverse without a policy which is repugnant to most minds.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
You said this yesterday and I have no idea what you mean by it. What laws would your integration project introduce?
Sounds like making Islam an established Episcopal religion with Imams appointed by a hierarchy ultimately controlled by the State. And with a few imams in the House of Lords.
That worked for Christianity - but only because we had the other side as well. A chunk of the radical preachers (and adherents) who wouldn’t accept secular/royal/establishment authority were squeezed into emigration, imprisoned or, in some cases, disposed of.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Integration of Islam into the totality of the UK setup is the only non fascist/non racist option. It makes no difference that lots of people think, and thought at the time, that this wasn't a great idea. It has occurred over decades and isn't going to reverse without a policy which is repugnant to most minds.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
You said this yesterday and I have no idea what you mean by it. What laws would your integration project introduce?
Sounds like making Islam an established Episcopal religion with Imams appointed by a hierarchy ultimately controlled by the State. And with a few imams in the House of Lords.
The Islamic Church Of England, so to speak.
Not sure what that would achieve, other than multiplying Tommy Robinson's support by about fifty million when he portrays it as the Islam becoming Britain's official religion.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Integration of Islam into the totality of the UK setup is the only non fascist/non racist option. It makes no difference that lots of people think, and thought at the time, that this wasn't a great idea. It has occurred over decades and isn't going to reverse without a policy which is repugnant to most minds.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
You said this yesterday and I have no idea what you mean by it. What laws would your integration project introduce?
Sounds like making Islam an established Episcopal religion with Imams appointed by a hierarchy ultimately controlled by the State. And with a few imams in the House of Lords.
An Islamic Church Of England would work, but the question of consent arises, and how to get from there to here. How would you start? Issue licences to mosques and imams? How do your nationalise a religion?
It's a 16th century solution to a religion which in some aspects is behaving in the same way as the 16th century Catholic church, so I can see why it would be suggested, but I don't see how a 21st century democracy implements it.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
The burqa definitely shouldn't be banned in ordinary public spaces because banning things isn't the British way of doing things.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
Excellent time to fix the cliff edge, then.
Not a chance in hell of that occurring
Also decent amount in pension and no reason to go above £100,000 and I will switch to a 3 day week or take 4 months fully off a year...
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
Excellent time to fix the cliff edge, then.
I will be absolutely gobsmacked if she does. Whatever the rights or wrongs of it Labour simply won’t see that as a priority.
The Farewell Dear residents of Highgate, of the neighbouring villages, of North London, and of London in general, Don Ciccio – Osteria Italiana has closed today, exactly six years after its opening in October 2019. We have closed due to a lack of customers.
It wasn’t enough to be Traveller’s Choice 2023 – 2024 – 2025 on Tripadvisor.
It wasn’t enough to be told we had one of the best pizzas in London.
It wasn’t enough to hold 4.7 stars on Google, with 700 reviews, for every one of those six years.
Nor to change our menu each season, roaming through the flavours of Italy.
We are guests in this country, and as guests, we will not complain. We’ll simply say: addio. And now, with gratitude:
To our staff — Roberto, Diego, Daniele, the many waiters and chefs who came and went — thank you for your passion, and for enduring the humiliation of entire evenings with an empty dining room.
To our faithful customers — we’ll miss you. Perhaps one day we’ll meet again, in Italy.
To the community of Highgate and its neighbours —thank you for never supporting us, not even once.
To those we served during lockdown, when we were the only restaurant open, thank you for never visiting us once the pandemic ended.
To the Highgate Society — thank you for never replying to any of our proposals for collaboration.
To those who lived a few doors away yet ordered delivery from somewhere else — thank you for your commitment to distance.
In short: thank you all for supporting us so perfectly.
WE MAY BE THE FIRST ITALIAN RESTAURANT TO CLOSE... ...not for bad food, bad reviews, or bad luck — but for the sheer indifference of our neighbours.
To those who said, back in 2019, “they’ll close within three months” —congratulations ! You were only off by five years and nine months. We’re proud to have served the elderly, the children, the families, the lonely, the joyful and the broken alike. At least we did our duty.
It’s only a drop — soon it will dry. Unless, of course, it’s the beginning of a storm.
If they were so good, why weren't they getting enough customers? Either their prices were too high or they weren't quite as good as they believed themselves to be.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Integration of Islam into the totality of the UK setup is the only non fascist/non racist option. It makes no difference that lots of people think, and thought at the time, that this wasn't a great idea. It has occurred over decades and isn't going to reverse without a policy which is repugnant to most minds.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
You said this yesterday and I have no idea what you mean by it. What laws would your integration project introduce?
Sounds like making Islam an established Episcopal religion with Imams appointed by a hierarchy ultimately controlled by the State. And with a few imams in the House of Lords.
An Islamic Church Of England would work, but the question of consent arises, and how to get from there to here. How would you start? Issue licences to mosques and imams? How do your nationalise a religion?
It's a 16th century solution to a religion which in some aspects is behaving in the same way as the 16th century Catholic church, so I can see why it would be suggested, but I don't see how a 21st century democracy implements it.
An insane idea really - tantamount to fusing the British state with Islam. Not something we should be contemplating.
Incidentally, somebody has pointed out that Elon talks a pile of shit, and Musk is throwing a strop.
For all those who don't know, NASA picked SpaceX to build a lunar lander. Elon took the money, then ignored the Moon entirely and concentrated on his Mars rocket (which one day may even reach Earth orbit!). NASA noticed that Elon was playing silly buggers and have reopened the contract.
SpaceX is behind, but has fulfilled a large number of milestones in the fixed price contract for the lander.
This is about (a) finding someone to blame when Artemis III slips beyond the end of Trump’s term in office (b) power play by the temporary head of NASA - MAGA loon to the max. (c) poking Musk
So they need a lander in 30 months.
- Fiddle with Blue Origin Mk1 lander. Which is small and designed for cargo only. Might or might not work - Give $20Bn to the Usual Suspects to build a lander in 30 months. Which can’t work. It would take Boeing and LockMart 30 months to decide the colours for the font for the project.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
Excellent time to fix the cliff edge, then.
It apparently costs several billion to fix the cliff edge, there’s approx 1.6m people who earn above £100k, at £12,000 each is £12bn, minus what’s currently been avoided with pension payments. It’s going to be at least £6bn.
Which explains why no Chancellor has touched it since it was introduced.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
I remember when I got it being flabbergasted by the generosity. I thought it was a mistake until I checked.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
The second order effects could be positive for the Chancellor. Instead of saving into pension, many people will take the salary and pay 40%/45% tax rather than 20% on money they can't easily access. In the long run, maybe it's bad if this category of people save less into their pension.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
The burqa definitely shouldn't be banned in ordinary public spaces because banning things isn't the British way of doing things.
...banning things isn't the British way of doing things...
From memory, the number of people who were investigated for speech violations are in the tens of thousands. The number of people who have been arrested/convicted/lost their jobs due to an incorrect opinion is also non-trivial.
We are banned from taking drugs (eg heroin), whether totally or including those who are not on the Misuse of Drugs list (eg steroids) without a scrip. Thanks to the new wave of internet regulation such as the OSA, we cannot discuss certain matters online. We are banned from viewing images on imgur, AI options on phones are restricted.
Banning things is exactly the British way of doing things
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
I remember when I got it being flabbergasted by the generosity. I thought it was a mistake until I checked.
Seems that the Boomers have made off with the tax benefits and it's the up and coming *working* generation that is going to be hammered for triple lock and the like. Perhaps the boomers could make a gesture and forego triple lock.
The Farewell Dear residents of Highgate, of the neighbouring villages, of North London, and of London in general, Don Ciccio – Osteria Italiana has closed today, exactly six years after its opening in October 2019. We have closed due to a lack of customers.
It wasn’t enough to be Traveller’s Choice 2023 – 2024 – 2025 on Tripadvisor.
It wasn’t enough to be told we had one of the best pizzas in London.
It wasn’t enough to hold 4.7 stars on Google, with 700 reviews, for every one of those six years.
Nor to change our menu each season, roaming through the flavours of Italy.
We are guests in this country, and as guests, we will not complain. We’ll simply say: addio. And now, with gratitude:
To our staff — Roberto, Diego, Daniele, the many waiters and chefs who came and went — thank you for your passion, and for enduring the humiliation of entire evenings with an empty dining room.
To our faithful customers — we’ll miss you. Perhaps one day we’ll meet again, in Italy.
To the community of Highgate and its neighbours —thank you for never supporting us, not even once.
To those we served during lockdown, when we were the only restaurant open, thank you for never visiting us once the pandemic ended.
To the Highgate Society — thank you for never replying to any of our proposals for collaboration.
To those who lived a few doors away yet ordered delivery from somewhere else — thank you for your commitment to distance.
In short: thank you all for supporting us so perfectly.
WE MAY BE THE FIRST ITALIAN RESTAURANT TO CLOSE... ...not for bad food, bad reviews, or bad luck — but for the sheer indifference of our neighbours.
To those who said, back in 2019, “they’ll close within three months” —congratulations ! You were only off by five years and nine months. We’re proud to have served the elderly, the children, the families, the lonely, the joyful and the broken alike. At least we did our duty.
It’s only a drop — soon it will dry. Unless, of course, it’s the beginning of a storm.
If they were so good, why weren't they getting enough customers? Either their prices were too high or they weren't quite as good as they believed themselves to be.
Or potential customers had seen their hygiene rating. 0/5, as mentioned upthread.
A short commentary on the upcoming Welsh by-election from The Rest is Politics, in which:
a - Rory the Former Tory uses the phrase "unless I am blowing smoke in my arse" (personally I blow smoke OUT of my arse. Is the other a Tory thing?). b - Odds are explained.
Also some decent chatter. I have had mercy and the deep link avoids the Google AI promotional spot.
I take a pretty dim view of, for instance, Islamist migrants who come to live in the UK and see their primary allegiance as being to the ummah. It's also rather fanciful to believe we can integrate such people into our society. However I'm not sure what you can do about people who have been afforded settled status already. Rather we should think more carefully about who we allow into the country in future.
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Integration of Islam into the totality of the UK setup is the only non fascist/non racist option. It makes no difference that lots of people think, and thought at the time, that this wasn't a great idea. It has occurred over decades and isn't going to reverse without a policy which is repugnant to most minds.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
You said this yesterday and I have no idea what you mean by it. What laws would your integration project introduce?
Sounds like making Islam an established Episcopal religion with Imams appointed by a hierarchy ultimately controlled by the State. And with a few imams in the House of Lords.
An Islamic Church Of England would work, but the question of consent arises, and how to get from there to here. How would you start? Issue licences to mosques and imams? How do your nationalise a religion?
It's a 16th century solution to a religion which in some aspects is behaving in the same way as the 16th century Catholic church, so I can see why it would be suggested, but I don't see how a 21st century democracy implements it.
An insane idea really - tantamount to fusing the British state with Islam. Not something we should be contemplating.
Not to mention that the current (since the 1970s) Islamic Revival thing was as a response to the state control of Islam in various countries. Which was seen as sclerotic and corrupt.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
Yep been there done that (well my wife). 60% relief with an AVC. The upper tax band relief should have been got rid of ages ago.
We moan about benefits for the less well off yet the well off get some huge huge benefits with these sort of tax reliefs. Give it at 20% so it is still attractive to all but get rid of the 40% - 60% relief.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
One alternative i think could be like the Roth IRA scheme in the US... where you pay tax on income saved into a pension, but when you draw down pension, that money is tax free (perhaps increases your personal allowance,).
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
I remember when I got it being flabbergasted by the generosity. I thought it was a mistake until I checked.
Seems that the Boomers have made off with the tax benefits and it's the up and coming *working* generation that is going to be hammered for triple lock and the like. Perhaps the boomers could make a gesture and forego triple lock.
Taxing property wealth would be a good way to hit the people you have in mind.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
The second order effects could be positive for the Chancellor. Instead of saving into pension, many people will take the salary and pay 40%/45% tax rather than 20% on money they can't easily access. In the long run, maybe it's bad if this category of people save less into their pension.
I still think it’s important that an incentive exists. I suppose you’re only reducing the incentive rather than removing it entirely, but it doesn’t sit entirely right with me.
If I were going to do anything, I’d change the annual allowance. £60k is, I think, very generous. You can still build a very large pot on much lower than that.
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
I remember when I got it being flabbergasted by the generosity. I thought it was a mistake until I checked.
Seems that the Boomers have made off with the tax benefits and it's the up and coming *working* generation that is going to be hammered for triple lock and the like. Perhaps the boomers could make a gesture and forego triple lock.
Absolutely time to scrap the triple lock. State pension should be uplifted by CPI inflation only
The Farewell Dear residents of Highgate, of the neighbouring villages, of North London, and of London in general, Don Ciccio – Osteria Italiana has closed today, exactly six years after its opening in October 2019. We have closed due to a lack of customers.
It wasn’t enough to be Traveller’s Choice 2023 – 2024 – 2025 on Tripadvisor.
It wasn’t enough to be told we had one of the best pizzas in London.
It wasn’t enough to hold 4.7 stars on Google, with 700 reviews, for every one of those six years.
Nor to change our menu each season, roaming through the flavours of Italy.
We are guests in this country, and as guests, we will not complain. We’ll simply say: addio. And now, with gratitude:
To our staff — Roberto, Diego, Daniele, the many waiters and chefs who came and went — thank you for your passion, and for enduring the humiliation of entire evenings with an empty dining room.
To our faithful customers — we’ll miss you. Perhaps one day we’ll meet again, in Italy.
To the community of Highgate and its neighbours —thank you for never supporting us, not even once.
To those we served during lockdown, when we were the only restaurant open, thank you for never visiting us once the pandemic ended.
To the Highgate Society — thank you for never replying to any of our proposals for collaboration.
To those who lived a few doors away yet ordered delivery from somewhere else — thank you for your commitment to distance.
In short: thank you all for supporting us so perfectly.
WE MAY BE THE FIRST ITALIAN RESTAURANT TO CLOSE... ...not for bad food, bad reviews, or bad luck — but for the sheer indifference of our neighbours.
To those who said, back in 2019, “they’ll close within three months” —congratulations ! You were only off by five years and nine months. We’re proud to have served the elderly, the children, the families, the lonely, the joyful and the broken alike. At least we did our duty.
It’s only a drop — soon it will dry. Unless, of course, it’s the beginning of a storm.
If they were so good, why weren't they getting enough customers? Either their prices were too high or they weren't quite as good as they believed themselves to be.
Or potential customers had seen their hygiene rating. 0/5, as mentioned upthread.
Would anyone here step into a place with a 0/5?
Given that Italian places with a 5/5 aren’t exactly rare in Hampstead….
BBC News: "good news for the chancellor that inflation has stayed at 3.8%". Not really, it ought to be no higher than 2%.
Indeed but crucially it is below the 4.8% rise in average earnings
Pensioners though will get 4.8% next April through the idiotic and unsustainable triple lock
Though the state pension is below the minimum wage now of course, let alone average earnings.
It looks like those with significant private pensions will be taxed more by Reeves anyway
Re your second point @hyufd how do you think she will do that? I can't see a mechanism, although I might be having a blind spot.
Reduce tax free lump sum for one, move from salary sacrifice, change the ability for top earners to get higher rate reliefs.
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
The total net cost of all pension tax relief is estimated to be £48.7 billion in the 2022/23 tax year.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
Yes, pension tax relief at the higher rates is just about the biggest thing left that you can do without raising income tax, corporation tax, or VAT.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
I remember when I got it being flabbergasted by the generosity. I thought it was a mistake until I checked.
Seems that the Boomers have made off with the tax benefits and it's the up and coming *working* generation that is going to be hammered for triple lock and the like. Perhaps the boomers could make a gesture and forego triple lock.
And pay NI on their pension contributions. Fix the nil rate band and the NI upper earnings limit at the level of the basic state pension to simplify tax collection.
I don't think those figures mean much - I don't know if "Europe" is in the political background as much as it was for us from rebates via Bruges via Maastricht to the Euro to Lisbon etc. We had 35 years of Europe being in our politics from Thatcher to Major to Blair to Brown to Cameron - each one of them had "issues" with the EEC and later the EU.
Arguably, it destroyed the Conservative Party - now, whether you think that's another "dividend" or not is up to you but I'm certain the party would not be where it is now otherwise but every party had a fracture on this issue of some degree.
Claims of the death of the Tory party are massively premature. They were in government last year and lost an election after 14 years in power. People were and still are sick of them. Add in the purge of the pro Europeans and a lot of ‘talent’ and centrism has gone from the MP roster. But. They are still polling more than Ed Daley’s apparently hugely sucessful Lib Dem’s, and pretty close to the party who won a huge majority last year.
Those who would welcome the extinction of conservatism should be careful what they wish. Conservative politics isn’t right wing nastiness. It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
And if you have no conservatives, you risk being left with Reform.
There speaks a loyal Conservative.
The Conservatives clearly aren't "dead" but they aren't well - look at the results in Surrey last week. Towns like Caterham and Whyteleafe were once strongholds of the party - now, it's not just they are a close second to the LDs, they are a poor third .
Yes, you can be as waspish about the LDs as you like but in their historical context, 72 seats is a success, albeit for the most part built on the Conservative Party's collapse (but you can say the same about Labour, Reform and Green - we are all picking over the corpse of a once formidable electoral winning machine).
It’s personal responsibility, a state which lets individuals get on with their lives, but includes a safety net for those who struggle. It believes that those who can work, should. It believes in wealth creation, which aids all.
As the cobbler would tell you, time wounds all heels and in a couple of decades, there may be an opportunity for a "new" Conservative Party, predicated on the old principles of one nation Conservatism, to emerge and in all probability return to Government but that requires a clearout of augean proportions both of who are in the Party now and of their half-baked thinking.
I'm not a conservative, I'm a centrist who hangs to the right. I voted Lib Dem at the last election, voted to remain, despite being sceptical of the EU political project (something Ydoethur has made an excellent point above).
We seem to have very short memories on here. How long ago was it that Labour was dead? Yet now they are in power with a whopping majority. Of course the current Tory party is struggling. They were in power for 14 years, culminating in covid (not their fault) and the war in Ukraine (not their fault). They are paying the price for that and are now making some really poor choices, desperately flailing for anything that stops the rot.
But the challenge for wider politics is that what once motivated anti-EU feeling (hence UKIP) is now driving Reform. A sense of failure from the traditional parties. And thats all of them. I think any one in Labour or the Lib Dems who believed that their success last year was down to their brilliance and campaigning and people thinking they have the right policies are somewhat mistaken. It was very much a get the Tories out vote, across the board.
Many on PB will not like it, but a large number of people in the country simply think that immigration is too high and that this is the reason for all their ills.
Thats almost certainly not true, but it doesn't stop them believing it. My neighbour completely unprompted talks to me about Farage - 'He's right!', he says. My neighbour doesn't talk about politics in general, but Farage, ever the populist has once again found the right scab to pick at. How the grown ups counter it is crucial. The Tories seem to think being like Reform is the way - I don't, personally. Politicians are meant to lead the country - at the moment too many are following what the voters 'think' they want.
But ultimately the way to kill Farage and Reform is to get the economy growing, get peoples lives improving. Get the good times back. And part of that is to acknowledge that if we are borrowing 20 Billion to pay the bills a month, maybe we need to stop some spending. And look better are taxing fairly.
A cogent and thoughtful response and not much with which anyone could disagtee.
Labour were out of office for 18 years and then 14 but they have a history of long periods of opposition as do the LDs, the Conservatives do not. Whether you think of them as "the natural party of Government" or not, the truth is the period out of office from 1997 to 2010 was the longest period of continuous opposition since the introduction of universal suffrage.
Yes, you could also argue, having won his mandate in December 2019, Boris was incredibly unfortunate to run into Covid but it happened on his watch as did the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and that's the thing about politics - if it's on your watch, it's on you.
There are facts about immigration and perceptions - IF the economy were growing at 4 or 5% per annum we wouldn't be talking about immigration or immigrants or at least not in the same way. It becomes an issue in harder economic times as in the 1970s with the rise of the National Front.
The Conservative Party, if it's serious about returning to power, needs to reconcile the anti-immigration and pro-business policies. Deporting potentially critical members of the work force won't sit well with a party supposedly supporting business and growing the economy.
Is this actual party policy then, or just a few words from an obscure backbencher, a bit like in Labour John McDonnell demanding money for the WASPI women, and being used as a stick to beat the Tories with.
The Farewell Dear residents of Highgate, of the neighbouring villages, of North London, and of London in general, Don Ciccio – Osteria Italiana has closed today, exactly six years after its opening in October 2019. We have closed due to a lack of customers.
It wasn’t enough to be Traveller’s Choice 2023 – 2024 – 2025 on Tripadvisor.
It wasn’t enough to be told we had one of the best pizzas in London.
It wasn’t enough to hold 4.7 stars on Google, with 700 reviews, for every one of those six years.
Nor to change our menu each season, roaming through the flavours of Italy.
We are guests in this country, and as guests, we will not complain. We’ll simply say: addio. And now, with gratitude:
To our staff — Roberto, Diego, Daniele, the many waiters and chefs who came and went — thank you for your passion, and for enduring the humiliation of entire evenings with an empty dining room.
To our faithful customers — we’ll miss you. Perhaps one day we’ll meet again, in Italy.
To the community of Highgate and its neighbours —thank you for never supporting us, not even once.
To those we served during lockdown, when we were the only restaurant open, thank you for never visiting us once the pandemic ended.
To the Highgate Society — thank you for never replying to any of our proposals for collaboration.
To those who lived a few doors away yet ordered delivery from somewhere else — thank you for your commitment to distance.
In short: thank you all for supporting us so perfectly.
WE MAY BE THE FIRST ITALIAN RESTAURANT TO CLOSE... ...not for bad food, bad reviews, or bad luck — but for the sheer indifference of our neighbours.
To those who said, back in 2019, “they’ll close within three months” —congratulations ! You were only off by five years and nine months. We’re proud to have served the elderly, the children, the families, the lonely, the joyful and the broken alike. At least we did our duty.
It’s only a drop — soon it will dry. Unless, of course, it’s the beginning of a storm.
If they were so good, why weren't they getting enough customers? Either their prices were too high or they weren't quite as good as they believed themselves to be.
Or potential customers had seen their hygiene rating. 0/5, as mentioned upthread.
Would anyone here step into a place with a 0/5?
Given that Italian places with a 5/5 aren’t exactly rare in Hampstead….
In Wales they have to put the rating on the door. I feel hesitant about going in somewhere with a 3/5!
Incidentally, somebody has pointed out that Elon talks a pile of shit, and Musk is throwing a strop.
For all those who don't know, NASA picked SpaceX to build a lunar lander. Elon took the money, then ignored the Moon entirely and concentrated on his Mars rocket (which one day may even reach Earth orbit!). NASA noticed that Elon was playing silly buggers and have reopened the contract.
SpaceX is behind, but has fulfilled a large number of milestones in the fixed price contract for the lander.
This is about (a) finding someone to blame when Artemis III slips beyond the end of Trump’s term in office (b) power play by the temporary head of NASA - MAGA loon to the max. (c) poking Musk
So they need a lander in 30 months.
- Fiddle with Blue Origin Mk1 lander. Which is small and designed for cargo only. Might or might not work - Give $20Bn to the Usual Suspects to build a lander in 30 months. Which can’t work. It would take Boeing and LockMart 30 months to decide the colours for the font for the project.
Putting it more simply, SpaceX was the only game in town. As Bezos (and in due course others) start to get their act together, it isn't anymore.
Comments
I'm determined to avoid a Japanese car next time as a result of this, but I am told all cars are like it now in their own idiosynchratic and idiotic ways.
Not surprising no-one was going in.
https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/food-hygiene-rating-scheme
I was wrong - 0 out of 5 on food safety….
https://www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk/business/don-ciccio-osteria-siciliana-1356956.html
We're moving in the right direction. We could do it faster. There is still work to do. But oftentimes a technological transition develops a momentum of its own and moves faster than expected. I think that's happening with solar now.
so I joined the conversation with full confidence. when she gave me that “are you mad?” look, I said, “sorry,I thought it was a group call since you put it on loudspeaker for all of us.”
she quietly told the person, “I’ll call you back,” and ended the call immediately. 🙂
https://x.com/Freyy_is/status/1980529937212748116
https://x.com/SpencerJJoseph/status/1980590941980197225
Summary of the Maccabi Tel Aviv fiasco :
1. A decision to ban the entire away support from a football match has not been made by a Safety Advisory Group in England for almost 25 years.
2. A former Hezbollah terrorist was a ‘community advisor’ on security issues.
3. Most clubs with a record of hooliganism in Europe get a UEFA ban, not just restrictions from local police.
4. Maccabi have no history of problems with Aston Villa or any other English clubs.
5. The Dutch prosecution service made it clear that Maccabi fans were attacked by a group of Islamists in Amsterdam.
6. There are many clubs with a worse record of hooliganism than Maccabi who have not been banned in England.
7. Every club has a few idiots who can be identified as individuals and banned - not the entire club.
8. Some activists are now trying to get the game called off, showing a political agenda has always been at work.
(As to how it might be in a sensible world: an independent UK would have brilliantly able governance and a well balanced economy with global leadership in lots of fields and a sustainable migration policy. A sensible European 'ever closer union' project would be based from the start on NATO membership, common defence policy and a free trade single market without compulsory FOM)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg435gg66gpo
Alea iacta est
Its not hard.
*I do this at home still
It’s all small stuff. Won’t yield the tens of billions
I just brought it up on this thread because the only badly-implemented thing about the car (and I can fix it with stationary from the 100-yen shop) somehow seems to be the EU's fault.
OK, it's also missing some features in the app like setting the charging schedule on your phone but that one seems to be the Japanese government's fault, they have the feature in other countries but Japan seem to think Xí Jìnpíng has a masterplan to take down the electric grid by charging all 5000 BYD cars at the same time or something.
@GoodwinMJ
Last night Labour voted down an amendment that would have forced the release of all immigrant crime data"
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1980945047055978889
It's now Wednesday. Tick tock as they say.
Which is rather missing the point that the government's entire economic prospectus hangs upon achieving above trend GDP growth. i.e. Grow faster than we have in a long time.
We'll be lucky if we even sustain the longer term trend, never mind grow significantly above that line, and inflation is proving to be a real bugbear.
Nobody is saying it yet, but I am all but certain that the treasury must now be working on Plan B where the current plan gets torn up because it becomes clear that it can't or won't be achieved.
But it's the nature of a transition that it doesn't look like anything is being achieved at first. At the moment we are in the stage where Coal's share of electricity production is declining, but overall coal use is still rising because electricity demand is rising. However we do see that the rate of increase of coal use has declined.
The next stage will see coal use peak and start to decline.
We will see the same with combustion of oil. With half of new cars sold in China now being EVs, that will start to have an impact on demand for road fuel - though of course it also increases electricity demand and so slows the decrease in coal use.
Because every crime would have the ID of the criminal attached.
Wonderful, eh?
I'd also be sceptical of banning the burka (do they mean niqab?). That in itself exposes the problem. What would the law be? That you have to show your face in public?
Move from salary sacrifice would not in itself raise much
As I understand it restricting pension tax relief to basic rate would raise £HUGE, maybe £20bn a year? I stand to be corrected. Easy to do for DC pensions and not actually that difficult for DB pensions. Unlikely as it would impact Labour's public sector vote most
At the time of course they weren’t to know that doing this would further down the line end up putting them in the deportation category .
Has Lam worked out yet how many families will be torn apart , how many businesses will see workers deported .
The performative cruelty of the policy is something we’re seeing in the USA where some people seem to get off on watching others suffer .
All I can say is Lam is a vile loathsome individual who has ignored her own family history . These really are dark times for anyone who has a shred of humanity .
(For a comparison: it is not difficult to comprehend that with falling birthrates the global population will rise for now and then fall, but 'number of babies being born per woman falling following massive global population increase' is a relatively simple concept to get hold of. Getting to net zero isn't.)
Starmer’s performance is slipping a bit as he gets more decisions to have to stand behind. Badenoch continues to be clunky but her questioning has got better and her attacks sharper. Their exchanges are very ill mannered now - don’t think there’s any love lost. Neither are great but I do sense a slight shift in fortunes.
A very large proportion of this multi-billion-pound relief goes to higher and additional-rate taxpayers, as they contribute more to pensions and receive relief at a higher rate (40% or 45%)
Reducing the higher rate to 20% would save about £14.5 billion. pa It's not small stuff. I think she should do it.
There are a few exceptions and complications, and other factors, but that's the core of it.
In terms of dates and milestones the only thing that matters is that it's always better to do this sooner rather than later. I don't think we should worry overmuch about a specific timeline. We should concentrate on identifying the factors that are slowing us down and where we can intervene to speed it up.
For example, in Britain, a few things that seem important right now are domestic production of battery storage (for EVs and the grid), expanding the public EV charging network, and changing the electricity market so that we can maximise our use of renewable electricity and incentivise upgrades to the grid (i.e with regional pricing).
I'm sure people can think of other useful things to do.
Three starting points for thinking about it: Most Muslims in this country are sane decent people; coverage of the Islamaic world in the west, as well as aspects of foreign policy, has been sub-optimal; Islamic integration in the USA has been more stable than here.
Everything is impossible until it isn't, and necessity is the mother of invention. In the quieter world of moderate religious thought, the three great monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianty and Judaism are all taken with deep seriousness as major forces with great potential for good.
For all those who don't know, NASA picked SpaceX to build a lunar lander. Elon took the money, then ignored the Moon entirely and concentrated on his Mars rocket (which one day may even reach Earth orbit!). NASA noticed that Elon was playing silly buggers and have reopened the contract.
There will be quite the second-order effects though, of early retirements and four-day weeks, there’s a lot of people who stuff their pension to avoid the £100k cliff edge at the moment.
Also decent amount in pension and no reason to go above £100,000 and I will switch to a 3 day week or take 4 months fully off a year...
SpaceX is behind, but has fulfilled a large number of milestones in the fixed price contract for the lander.
This is about (a) finding someone to blame when Artemis III slips beyond the end of Trump’s term in office (b) power play by the temporary head of NASA - MAGA loon to the max. (c) poking Musk
So they need a lander in 30 months.
- Fiddle with Blue Origin Mk1 lander. Which is small and designed for cargo only. Might or might not work
- Give $20Bn to the Usual Suspects to build a lander in 30 months. Which can’t work. It would take Boeing and LockMart 30 months to decide the colours for the font for the project.
Which explains why no Chancellor has touched it since it was introduced.
Instead of saving into pension, many people will take the salary and pay 40%/45% tax rather than 20% on money they can't easily access. In the long run, maybe it's bad if this category of people save less into their pension.
From memory, the number of people who were investigated for speech violations are in the tens of thousands. The number of people who have been arrested/convicted/lost their jobs due to an incorrect opinion is also non-trivial.
We are banned from taking drugs (eg heroin), whether totally or including those who are not on the Misuse of Drugs list (eg steroids) without a scrip. Thanks to the new wave of internet regulation such as the OSA, we cannot discuss certain matters online. We are banned from viewing images on imgur, AI options on phones are restricted.
Banning things is exactly the British way of doing things
A short commentary on the upcoming Welsh by-election from The Rest is Politics, in which:
a - Rory the Former Tory uses the phrase "unless I am blowing smoke in my arse" (personally I blow smoke OUT of my arse. Is the other a Tory thing?).
b - Odds are explained.
Also some decent chatter. I have had mercy and the deep link avoids the Google AI promotional spot.
https://youtu.be/F-ivM2L2dHQ?t=1739
“Take the religion back to The Word Of God”.
If that sounds familiar….
We moan about benefits for the less well off yet the well off get some huge huge benefits with these sort of tax reliefs. Give it at 20% so it is still attractive to all but get rid of the 40% - 60% relief.
https://ifs.org.uk/articles/raising-revenue-reforms-pensions-taxation
One alternative i think could be like the Roth IRA scheme in the US... where you pay tax on income saved into a pension, but when you draw down pension, that money is tax free (perhaps increases your personal allowance,).
If I were going to do anything, I’d change the annual allowance. £60k is, I think, very generous. You can still build a very large pot on much lower than that.
Given that Italian places with a 5/5 aren’t exactly rare in Hampstead….
The Home Office have said: "Individuals who are returned under the pilot and subsequently attempt to re-enter the UK illegally will be removed."
I guess we'll see what happens with that.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/oct/22/man-sent-to-france-under-one-in-one-out-scheme-returns-to-uk-on-small-boat
42 people have now been returned to France under the swapping scheme pilot. Although I guess that total is now 41 until this guy is sent back again.
Welcome back to competition.