Telegraph reporting Reeves might raise income tax and cut a corresponding amount from employees NI.
That seems more plausible to me than a straightforward rise.
Interesting if it's a straight fiscal swap or not. Cutting NICs by 3ppt and raising Income Tax by 3ppt sounds fair but would actually increase revenues.
Pensioners would not be happy, they pay income tax but not NI (maybe they should pay both but they don't now) so would be a clear tax rise for pensioners.
After the winter fuel debacle I suggest Starmer and Reeves avoid Skegness, Bexhill, Eastbourne etc unless they want to be pelted with rotten fruit
Separate IT tax rate for basic rate pensioners, held at the current level.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has admitted to breaking housing regulations after unlawfully renting out her family home for £3,200 a month without a licence after moving in to No 11. She has tonight referred herself to the Independent Ethics Adviser
Why would she need a licence to rent out a property?
Its in the article linked,
Southwark Council, the local authority, requires that private landlords in certain areas - including where her house is located - obtain a ‘selective’ licence to rent out their property. But tonight she admitted that she was unaware of the licencing requirement and, following inquiries by the Mail, applied for the licence.
This has applied to most private residential properties rented to single families or unrelated tenants in the borough, since November 2023.
Surely her agency must have told her? Or is she renting without an agency to a family friend?
‘Since becoming Chancellor Rachel Reeves has rented out her family home through a lettings agency.'
She claims nobody from the agency told her.
If the agency can prove they did tell her she's deep in the mire. If not, I reckon she'll be ok.
Southwark can apparently force her to pay back the rent to the tenant. Or fine her up to £30k.
Or just say “oops it was an oversight, file the paperwork and we’ll let you off”
I wonder which option the Labour controlled council will select for the Labour chancellor who has the ability to allocate or withhold central government grants to Southwark council
Telegraph reporting Reeves might raise income tax and cut a corresponding amount from employees NI.
That seems more plausible to me than a straightforward rise.
Interesting if it's a straight fiscal swap or not. Cutting NICs by 3ppt and raising Income Tax by 3ppt sounds fair but would actually increase revenues.
Pensioners would not be happy, they pay income tax but not NI (maybe they should pay both but they don't now) so would be a clear tax rise for pensioners.
After the winter fuel debacle I suggest Starmer and Reeves avoid Skegness, Bexhill, Eastbourne etc unless they want to be pelted with rotten fruit
A good move but come the GE it will be "Labour increased Income tax by 3%" no one will mention the NI reduction.
They'll need to shut Janet Street Porter in a sound-proof room for everyone's safety!!! They should livestream Rachel Reeves telling her first to give everyone a laugh.
Note: this will also hit outside IR35 consultants
Did this comparison yesterday, which explains the issue caused by demographics, longer life expectancy, etc Your reminder that pensions are paid from current tax receipts. All £s in 2025 values Year In Work (m) State Pensioners (m) Workers/Pensioner State Pension (2025 £) Cost/worker (£) 2025 34.2 13.1 2.69 11973 4583 2000 27.5 11.5 2.39 6709 2807 1975 24.9 8.0 3.13 4712 1507
OTOH they have saved so much time cumulatively over the years - decades, now - that Westminster must be weeks behind. Holyrood can easily afford the odd few hours.
Though they ought to devise the voting equivalent of cash, with pen and paper, and a way of doing the recording, as a backup.
Edit: I recommend tokens with names on them, put in locked jars, and decanted later to record who did what.
Telegraph reporting Reeves might raise income tax and cut a corresponding amount from employees NI.
That seems more plausible to me than a straightforward rise.
That at least mitigates the furore over breaking a manifesto pledge .
I don't know how the numbers work out but the clever approach would be to increase ICT by x% and reduce employees NI by x+0.5% and still raise revenue.
There must be a value of x that does that given all those (like me now) whose income is not from employment.
That was the suggestion behind reducing employee NI to zero over a parliament and increasing income tax.
In fact, because there is a smaller tax base for NI, you could reduce NI *faster* than you increase income tax - in percentage terms. So you could do revenue neutral on PAYE employees and just increase tax on others. And still bring in an increased tax take.
I wonder they will do about pensions and basic rate of tax? I would increase the personal allowance to match the pension - so no basic pensioners pay tax. I would keep the old rate of IT tax (before the NI transfer) for those over the pensionable age. So only pensioners on 50K+ would pay more.
At which point you've just removed 95% of the increased income tax revenue...
Finnish world shotgun champion Kim Leppänen took on FPV drones simulating attacking him. He failed on the first straight-on attack, not prepared for the high speed of the FPV. He successfully adapted but he is the best shooter in the world, and you don’t get a redo in Ukraine. https://x.com/GrandpaRoy2/status/1983582779616194960
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has admitted to breaking housing regulations after unlawfully renting out her family home for £3,200 a month without a licence after moving in to No 11. She has tonight referred herself to the Independent Ethics Adviser
Why would she need a licence to rent out a property?
Its in the article linked,
Southwark Council, the local authority, requires that private landlords in certain areas - including where her house is located - obtain a ‘selective’ licence to rent out their property. But tonight she admitted that she was unaware of the licencing requirement and, following inquiries by the Mail, applied for the licence.
This has applied to most private residential properties rented to single families or unrelated tenants in the borough, since November 2023.
Surely her agency must have told her? Or is she renting without an agency to a family friend?
‘Since becoming Chancellor Rachel Reeves has rented out her family home through a lettings agency.'
She claims nobody from the agency told her.
If the agency can prove they did tell her she's deep in the mire. If not, I reckon she'll be ok.
Southwark can apparently force her to pay back the rent to the tenant. Or fine her up to £30k.
Or just say “oops it was an oversight, file the paperwork and we’ll let you off”
I wonder which option the Labour controlled council will select for the Labour chancellor who has the ability to allocate or withhold central government grants to Southwark council
The question is, assuming there is a referral, can ethics supremo Sir Laurence Magnus see the Reeves case differently from Rayner's?
ETA if it is referred, then Hills, Ladbrokes and Corals are 7/1 against a 2025 exit (caution: there is not a great deal of 2025 left).
Telegraph reporting Reeves might raise income tax and cut a corresponding amount from employees NI.
That seems more plausible to me than a straightforward rise.
That at least mitigates the furore over breaking a manifesto pledge .
This was floated at least a month ago - how is it now a massive Telegraph story???
They've got to post something every day - repeating a story from a month ago is fine provided their readers have forgotten about it.
See the Daily Express and its loop between a bad winter, Princess Di and Brexit...
Your hypoithesis reminds me irresistibly of the novel Kramer's War by Derek Robinson about a shot down USAAF pilot creating havoc in the occupied Channel Islands in WW2 in the fond belief that that was what the Allies wanted. There's a character in there, a very elderly and mentally ill/incapacitated army officer, whose nurse carefully gives him old copies of the Times every day on a strict cycle to keep him happy that it's still 1939 and thje cricket is on at Lords. (In the end, the 'hero' meets and disabuses him, on which said officer (ret) toddles down the drive way and meets a German in coal scuttle helmet with predictable results.)
Telegraph reporting Reeves might raise income tax and cut a corresponding amount from employees NI.
That seems more plausible to me than a straightforward rise.
Interesting if it's a straight fiscal swap or not. Cutting NICs by 3ppt and raising Income Tax by 3ppt sounds fair but would actually increase revenues.
Pensioners would not be happy, they pay income tax but not NI (maybe they should pay both but they don't now) so would be a clear tax rise for pensioners.
After the winter fuel debacle I suggest Starmer and Reeves avoid Skegness, Bexhill, Eastbourne etc unless they want to be pelted with rotten fruit
Separate IT tax rate for basic rate pensioners, held at the current level.
That would be an insanely unfair policy. And would lead us down an inevitable route to high taxes on the young and low taxes for the old, leading to the eventual economic collapse of the UK and possible civil war.
Telegraph reporting Reeves might raise income tax and cut a corresponding amount from employees NI.
That seems more plausible to me than a straightforward rise.
Interesting if it's a straight fiscal swap or not. Cutting NICs by 3ppt and raising Income Tax by 3ppt sounds fair but would actually increase revenues.
Pensioners would not be happy, they pay income tax but not NI (maybe they should pay both but they don't now) so would be a clear tax rise for pensioners.
After the winter fuel debacle I suggest Starmer and Reeves avoid Skegness, Bexhill, Eastbourne etc unless they want to be pelted with rotten fruit
Separate IT tax rate for basic rate pensioners, held at the current level.
That would be an insanely unfair policy. And would lead us down an inevitable route to high taxes on the young and low taxes for the old, leading to the eventual economic collapse of the UK and possible civil war.
90% chance I reckon.
It could mean lower/neutral taxes on PAYE employees (already paying NI + IT), no change for basic rate pensioners
Paid for by increased tax on income that is not NI’d.
Unlicensed properties You may be able to apply for a rent repayment order if:
you're a tenant of an unlicensed property you've lived in an unlicensed property in the past 12 months This order allows you to recover up to 12 months of your rent back from your landlord.
We work closely with Justice for Tenants. These are a not-for-profit tenant's rights organisation.
They can help with your rent repayment order application.
Whoopsie.
Whoopsie? The Labour High Command are idiots.
Internal Labour politics will be at play here, if Rach survives but Ang found guilty from similar sounding swindles of public money. KotN and his Useless Lucy glove puppet, will make hay if Reeves survives this scandal.
On topic. Bollocks. Voters will vote for the King over President Boris or President Gordon Brown by massive majority in any plebiscite you wish to set up!
Yes - as someone who endured this and worse at 14 and on numerous occasions since then it is creepy and criminal and very common.
And it is very common because men like you, I'm sorry to say, do not take it seriously, underplay it because it has happened "since time immemorial" (your words) so girls should just put up with it and it is far too much expense and bother to build the facilities to lock up the men who make women and girls' life a misery with this sort of behaviour.
What is needed instead is for us to clamp down hard on men who do this, the first time they do it to send a very clear message that this is intolerable and will not be tolerated. Instead of expecting women to endure it, letting such men carry on with their repellent behaviour for years then being all shocked when they carry out some appalling crime and we learn of all the previous occasions when we turned a blind eye or were far too lenient because .... Well why? Because men can never be expected to behave or accept the consequences of their actions, apparently.
Women are so fucking fed up and furious at being thought of as second class citizens whose interests don't matter, whose rights to basic decency must always come second to those of men. Every single fucking day in this country we see example after example of this contempt for women and girls, even from professionals such as @ Foxy who might be expected to know better.
I did not deny that it was an act that neded dealing with by the police, and that it is an offense. I stressed in my first post on this that it should not be tolerated at 0756 today.
All I called into question was whether a custodial sentence was appropriate.
Why would a custodial sentence be inappropriate?
And if a custodial sentence is not given in what way are we showing - not just saying - that such acts should not be tolerated?
See for instance the number of men convicted of having child porn images, some of the very worst kind, who are very often sent to prison. Listen to the excuses given: "stress" and "good character" and so on. Then we wonder at why it is so prevalent.
As for @maxh's question - sentiments, even horrible ones, are not crimes. It is actions which are crimes and words which incite violence. Thoughts are not crimes. So if someone attacks an immigrant or a trans person etc of course they should be dealt with firmly. Equally if those groups commit crimes they should be dealt with firmly. I would only note that the police do not take an even handed approach on this. It is apparently ok to make all kinds of threats of violence or commit actual violence against women, often in public places, with the police doing nothing at all.
I think there are reasonable alternatives to prison for many offences, and that prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse.
While his circumstances are more unusual, in that there probably is significant flight risk so remand probably required, but if he was a British citizen then he probably would be better punished by being placed on the sexual offenders register and a suspended sentence.
If you really want to tackle the issue of preventing re-offending by paedophiles then systems like "circles of support" are probably the best system.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Would have been funnier had it been the Home Secretary.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
How is it difference than what Ang resigned for? It’s exactly the same excuse being made for embezzling public money by not paying it as rules stated - oh I didn’t know, silly me.
"Australia deports foreign criminals to remote Pacific island Murderers, paedophiles, drug smugglers and other migrants are being sent to the tiny atoll of Nauru"
Doesn’t suggest that Nauru’s an attractive place to visit!
Doesn't say whether the crims come from Nauru in the first place.
It's about 8 sq miles and basically a derelict birdshit mine (worked out). Population about 10K, which is a lot for somewhere smaller than the Isle of Eigg.
"Australia deports foreign criminals to remote Pacific island Murderers, paedophiles, drug smugglers and other migrants are being sent to the tiny atoll of Nauru"
Doesn’t suggest that Nauru’s an attractive place to visit!
Doesn't say whether the crims come from Nauru in the first place.
It's about 8 sq miles and basically a derelict birdshit mine (worked out). Population about 10K, which is a lot for somewhere smaller than the Isle of Eigg.
I don’t think they're ‘native Naureans’; if indeed there are any such. Deeply unattractive, anyway.
They have the highest rate of obesity in the world, but there's no need to shame them for it.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
How is it difference than what Ang resigned for? It’s exactly the same excuse being made for embezzling public money by not paying it as rules stated - oh I didn’t know, silly me.
As the story stands tonight it is completely different.
Reeves says her letting agency did not mention anything about a licence being required.
Rayner's advisors told her to get more, and detailed, legal and financial advice iirc and she didn't.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
It is -of course- worth remembering that when your population is in secular decline, it means the value of any debts the government passes down weigh more heavily because they are spread over fewer people.
Yes - as someone who endured this and worse at 14 and on numerous occasions since then it is creepy and criminal and very common.
And it is very common because men like you, I'm sorry to say, do not take it seriously, underplay it because it has happened "since time immemorial" (your words) so girls should just put up with it and it is far too much expense and bother to build the facilities to lock up the men who make women and girls' life a misery with this sort of behaviour.
What is needed instead is for us to clamp down hard on men who do this, the first time they do it to send a very clear message that this is intolerable and will not be tolerated. Instead of expecting women to endure it, letting such men carry on with their repellent behaviour for years then being all shocked when they carry out some appalling crime and we learn of all the previous occasions when we turned a blind eye or were far too lenient because .... Well why? Because men can never be expected to behave or accept the consequences of their actions, apparently.
Women are so fucking fed up and furious at being thought of as second class citizens whose interests don't matter, whose rights to basic decency must always come second to those of men. Every single fucking day in this country we see example after example of this contempt for women and girls, even from professionals such as @ Foxy who might be expected to know better.
I did not deny that it was an act that neded dealing with by the police, and that it is an offense. I stressed in my first post on this that it should not be tolerated at 0756 today.
All I called into question was whether a custodial sentence was appropriate.
Why would a custodial sentence be inappropriate?
And if a custodial sentence is not given in what way are we showing - not just saying - that such acts should not be tolerated?
See for instance the number of men convicted of having child porn images, some of the very worst kind, who are very often sent to prison. Listen to the excuses given: "stress" and "good character" and so on. Then we wonder at why it is so prevalent.
As for @maxh's question - sentiments, even horrible ones, are not crimes. It is actions which are crimes and words which incite violence. Thoughts are not crimes. So if someone attacks an immigrant or a trans person etc of course they should be dealt with firmly. Equally if those groups commit crimes they should be dealt with firmly. I would only note that the police do not take an even handed approach on this. It is apparently ok to make all kinds of threats of violence or commit actual violence against women, often in public places, with the police doing nothing at all.
I think there are reasonable alternatives to prison for many offences, and that prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse.
While his circumstances are more unusual, in that there probably is significant flight risk so remand probably required, but if he was a British citizen then he probably would be better punished by being placed on the sexual offenders register and a suspended sentence.
If you really want to tackle the issue of preventing re-offending by paedophiles then systems like "circles of support" are probably the best system.
You were claiming his sentence was racism this morning 🙄
Not quite what I said. Indeed very few of the replies to me have accurately quoted me or my argument.
DavidL, who is a lawyer who prosecutes sexual offenders, posted this morning at 10:03 that he thinks other similar offences would not normally get a custodial sentence.
I think he was remanded in custody in part for his housing situation (people without a fixed address are often remanded as a flight risk) and in part for his own safety. If he had been discharged to the Bell Hotel then the disturbances may well have turned into a lynch mob.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
He’d have the Kleenex out and his Y-fronts round his ankles if it was Reform or a Tory.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
He’d have the Kleenex out and his Y-fronts round his ankles if it was Reform or a Tory.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
How is it difference than what Ang resigned for? It’s exactly the same excuse being made for embezzling public money by not paying it as rules stated - oh I didn’t know, silly me.
As the story stands tonight it is completely different.
Reeves says her letting agency did not mention anything about a licence being required.
Rayner's advisors told her to get more, and detailed, legal and financial advice iirc and she didn't.
Regarding Rachel Reeves and the landlord's license, it is fair to say it's complicated, and so I actually have some sympathy.
We -for example- rent out our house in Hampstead, because we live in the US. We don't have a landlord's license, and I'd never even heard of the thing, and the letting agent never even mentioned it to us.
So, when I read the story my first instinct was to think... f*ck... do I need a license?
Fortunately, I don't. But I can understand why you might not realise that you need one.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
She's the Chancellor of the Exchequer - "how many people even think they'd need one" is completely fucking irrelevant
Should the CoE be as ignorant as the average idiot?
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
How is it difference than what Ang resigned for? It’s exactly the same excuse being made for embezzling public money by not paying it as rules stated - oh I didn’t know, silly me.
As the story stands tonight it is completely different.
Reeves says her letting agency did not mention anything about a licence being required.
Rayner's advisors told her to get more, and detailed, legal and financial advice iirc and she didn't.
Rayner didn't admit her advisors told her that
Neither has Reeves
What's the difference at this stage?
The main difference at this stage is the government already leaning on the ethics advisor by already speaking to him, to stop a proper investigation even starting. Rayner didn’t get any support like that.
Regarding Rachel Reeves and the landlord's license, it is fair to say it's complicated, and so I actually have some sympathy.
We -for example- rent out our house in Hampstead, because we live in the US. We don't have a landlord's license, and I'd never even heard of the thing, and the letting agent never even mentioned it to us.
So, when I read the story my first instinct was to think... f*ck... do I need a license?
Fortunately, I don't. But I can understand why you might not realise that you need one.
The agent is shit if they don't know this stuff applies in their catchment area
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
How is it difference than what Ang resigned for? It’s exactly the same excuse being made for embezzling public money by not paying it as rules stated - oh I didn’t know, silly me.
I don't think that Rachel Reeves garnered any financial advantage, so it's rather different, no?
If she had -say- AirBnBed her property out (without a licence) for more than the permitted number of days a year, then she would have had an advantage. But she was just unaware that her council required a license, which - for single family residences rented to a single family - are essentially automatically given.
Regarding Rachel Reeves and the landlord's license, it is fair to say it's complicated, and so I actually have some sympathy.
We -for example- rent out our house in Hampstead, because we live in the US. We don't have a landlord's license, and I'd never even heard of the thing, and the letting agent never even mentioned it to us.
So, when I read the story my first instinct was to think... f*ck... do I need a license?
Fortunately, I don't. But I can understand why you might not realise that you need one.
The difference is, Reeves is the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Telegraph reporting Reeves might raise income tax and cut a corresponding amount from employees NI.
That seems more plausible to me than a straightforward rise.
Interesting if it's a straight fiscal swap or not. Cutting NICs by 3ppt and raising Income Tax by 3ppt sounds fair but would actually increase revenues.
Pensioners would not be happy, they pay income tax but not NI (maybe they should pay both but they don't now) so would be a clear tax rise for pensioners.
After the winter fuel debacle I suggest Starmer and Reeves avoid Skegness, Bexhill, Eastbourne etc unless they want to be pelted with rotten fruit
Separate IT tax rate for basic rate pensioners, held at the current level.
That would be an insanely unfair policy. And would lead us down an inevitable route to high taxes on the young and low taxes for the old, leading to the eventual economic collapse of the UK and possible civil war.
90% chance I reckon.
It could mean lower/neutral taxes on PAYE employees (already paying NI + IT), no change for basic rate pensioners
Paid for by increased tax on income that is not NI’d.
Why would this be unfair?
-- I may have misunderstood what you are suggesting --
It's all very complicated because you have different rates and different thresholds for NICs and IT. If you had a different basic rate for pensioners, that would mean that pensioners with income of up to £37,700 - the median salary - would be taxed at a lower rate than people in work. In addition to the fact they still won't be paying what remains of NICs on pension income.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
Nothing to gain? The money involved here is a lot of money she now must fork out.
Yes - as someone who endured this and worse at 14 and on numerous occasions since then it is creepy and criminal and very common.
And it is very common because men like you, I'm sorry to say, do not take it seriously, underplay it because it has happened "since time immemorial" (your words) so girls should just put up with it and it is far too much expense and bother to build the facilities to lock up the men who make women and girls' life a misery with this sort of behaviour.
What is needed instead is for us to clamp down hard on men who do this, the first time they do it to send a very clear message that this is intolerable and will not be tolerated. Instead of expecting women to endure it, letting such men carry on with their repellent behaviour for years then being all shocked when they carry out some appalling crime and we learn of all the previous occasions when we turned a blind eye or were far too lenient because .... Well why? Because men can never be expected to behave or accept the consequences of their actions, apparently.
Women are so fucking fed up and furious at being thought of as second class citizens whose interests don't matter, whose rights to basic decency must always come second to those of men. Every single fucking day in this country we see example after example of this contempt for women and girls, even from professionals such as @ Foxy who might be expected to know better.
I did not deny that it was an act that neded dealing with by the police, and that it is an offense. I stressed in my first post on this that it should not be tolerated at 0756 today.
All I called into question was whether a custodial sentence was appropriate.
Why would a custodial sentence be inappropriate?
And if a custodial sentence is not given in what way are we showing - not just saying - that such acts should not be tolerated?
See for instance the number of men convicted of having child porn images, some of the very worst kind, who are very often sent to prison. Listen to the excuses given: "stress" and "good character" and so on. Then we wonder at why it is so prevalent.
As for @maxh's question - sentiments, even horrible ones, are not crimes. It is actions which are crimes and words which incite violence. Thoughts are not crimes. So if someone attacks an immigrant or a trans person etc of course they should be dealt with firmly. Equally if those groups commit crimes they should be dealt with firmly. I would only note that the police do not take an even handed approach on this. It is apparently ok to make all kinds of threats of violence or commit actual violence against women, often in public places, with the police doing nothing at all.
I think there are reasonable alternatives to prison for many offences, and that prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse.
While his circumstances are more unusual, in that there probably is significant flight risk so remand probably required, but if he was a British citizen then he probably would be better punished by being placed on the sexual offenders register and a suspended sentence.
If you really want to tackle the issue of preventing re-offending by paedophiles then systems like "circles of support" are probably the best system.
You were claiming his sentence was racism this morning 🙄
Not quite what I said. Indeed very few of the replies to me have accurately quoted me or my argument.
DavidL, who is a lawyer who prosecutes sexual offenders, posted this morning at 10:03 that he thinks other similar offences would not normally get a custodial sentence.
I think he was remanded in custody in part for his housing situation (people without a fixed address are often remanded as a flight risk) and in part for his own safety. If he had been discharged to the Bell Hotel then the disturbances may well have turned into a lynch mob.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
She's the Chancellor of the Exchequer - "how many people even think they'd need one" is completely fucking irrelevant
Should the CoE be as ignorant as the average idiot?
Ask 99% of the public and they’d have no idea you’d need a licence to rent out your own home . She had nothing to gain by not getting the licence and actually could be out of pocket . I have no time for Reeves and she’s been dismal as CoE but really I could care less about this story .
Is that the same BBC that substituted footage of Prime Minister Johnson tossing a wreath upside down at the Cenotaph in 2019 with footage of Mayor Johnson getting it right in 2016?
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
Nothing to gain? The money involved here is a lot of money she now must fork out.
Exactly the error could cost her a lot . So the pearl clutchers can just do one and find a life .
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
The presumption in law is that you need to be aware of all your legal obligations as a landlord and deal with them.
Everyone else who is a landlord has to live by these rules.
The answer to @Foxy saying that because prisons currently don't work effectively we should not give custodial sentences is to work on making prisons effective, both in keeping people off the streets and ensuring they don't reoffend.
To say to a woman or child who has been assaulted, your offender is free to reoffend repeatedly because we can't be arsed to do this is to add insult to injury. Using Foxy's logic we wouldn't put anyone in prison.
There needs to be punishment. More importantly, we need men to understand that certain behaviours are wrong and there will be real accountability for them if they behave in such ways. We TALK a lot about stopping violence against women & girls. We TALK a lot about the evils of child sexual abuse. But in reality we DO very little or, rather, we do not do anything like enough, even taking into account the efforts of people like @DavidL. We also ignore the effects on women and girls who see offences against them treated as somehow not important.
@nico67 made an interesting point earlier about not making women feel that they must feel traumatised by everything that happens to them. This is certainly true in that we all need to learn resilience etc and that women will react in different ways because they will find different ways of coping with bad stuff that happens to them.
My point is a different one: women see such offences minimised etc and it just makes them feel as if they are not important. They have to find a way to cope because they feel abandoned by a society which does not effectively either ensure this stuff does not happen or deal effectively with the perpetrators. The trauma - to use a wide term - is not in just what happens but also in the subsequent feeling of being abandoned.
"Earlier in the programme (from about 7:14 am), Wera Hobhouse had been interviewed on the same topic. In February 2019 thanks to her efforts, upskirting became a criminal offence. She too was concerned at the disregard for sexual offences —
“Where are we if these attacks on women continue to be normalised?”
She too wanted a “complete culture change” so that all sexual offences, however minor, were properly reported and investigated.
Then this —
“The traumatising effect that any of these offences have on women has been completely underestimated….. Women are deeply traumatised. It’s a proper offence. It leads to ultimately the feeling in women that they’re very vulnerable, that they’re not being listened to, ….that what they feel is a proper attack on them, their freedom, their liberty, their way of life is not seen as such.”
It is this which is not really appreciated by far too many men.
Is that the same BBC that substituted footage of Prime Minister Johnson tossing a wreath upside down at the Cenotaph in 2019 with footage of Mayor Johnson getting it right in 2016?
Have they still not replied to your earnest complaint letter?
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
The presumption in law is that you need to be aware of all your legal obligations as a landlord and deal with them.
Everyone else who is a landlord has to live by these rules.
The estate agents should have known this info and told her . She should sue them when her tenants end up getting a years rent back !
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
How is it difference than what Ang resigned for? It’s exactly the same excuse being made for embezzling public money by not paying it as rules stated - oh I didn’t know, silly me.
I don't think that Rachel Reeves garnered any financial advantage, so it's rather different, no?
If she had -say- AirBnBed her property out (without a licence) for more than the permitted number of days a year, then she would have had an advantage. But she was just unaware that her council required a license, which - for single family residences rented to a single family - are essentially automatically given.
Maybe you only showing sympathy because a few posts ago you were going to jail for fraudulent property baroning. And that would have been embarrassing.
Anyone not paying a fine to a socialist council can be jailed.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
The presumption in law is that you need to be aware of all your legal obligations as a landlord and deal with them.
Everyone else who is a landlord has to live by these rules.
I agree. It's extremely hard luck on Reeves considering that you have this completely mad and inconsistent system in England, and her ridiculous agent didn't advise her, but... the rules are the rules. It feels very much like the Rayner thing where if she'd waited 6 months the tax wasn't an issue anyway.
Labour are - rightly - cracking down on rogue landlords and these registration rules help in that endeavour. It's not a good look.
Is that the same BBC that substituted footage of Prime Minister Johnson tossing a wreath upside down at the Cenotaph in 2019 with footage of Mayor Johnson getting it right in 2016?
Have they still not replied to your earnest complaint letter?
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
Nothing to gain? The money involved here is a lot of money she now must fork out.
Exactly the error could cost her a lot . So the pearl clutchers can just do one and find a life .
Is that the same BBC that substituted footage of Prime Minister Johnson tossing a wreath upside down at the Cenotaph in 2019 with footage of Mayor Johnson getting it right in 2016?
Dragging that old chestnut from 6 years hence? You don’t believe their version of events (cock-up, not conspiracy)?
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
The presumption in law is that you need to be aware of all your legal obligations as a landlord and deal with them.
Everyone else who is a landlord has to live by these rules.
I agree. It's extremely hard luck on Reeves considering that you have this completely mad and inconsistent system in England, and her ridiculous agent didn't advise her, but... the rules are the rules. It feels very much like the Rayner thing where if she'd waited 6 months the tax wasn't an issue anyway.
Labour are - rightly - cracking down on rogue landlords and these registration rules help in that endeavour. It's not a good look.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
Is that the same BBC that substituted footage of Prime Minister Johnson tossing a wreath upside down at the Cenotaph in 2019 with footage of Mayor Johnson getting it right in 2016?
Dragging that old chestnut from 6 years hence? You don’t believe their version of events (cock-up, not conspiracy)?
Yes it's totally plausible that footage from 2016 was accidentally edited into a bulletin because the 2019 footage for any reason other than to spare the blushes of the Government of the day.
I'll never mention the event again if no PB Tory mentions Gordon Brown selling the gold reserves back in the 1990s.
The answer to @Foxy saying that because prisons currently don't work effectively we should not give custodial sentences is to work on making prisons effective, both in keeping people off the streets and ensuring they don't reoffend.
To say to a woman or child who has been assaulted, your offender is free to reoffend repeatedly because we can't be arsed to do this is to add insult to injury. Using Foxy's logic we wouldn't put anyone in prison.
There needs to be punishment. More importantly, we need men to understand that certain behaviours are wrong and there will be real accountability for them if they behave in such ways. We TALK a lot about stopping violence against women & girls. We TALK a lot about the evils of child sexual abuse. But in reality we DO very little or, rather, we do not do anything like enough, even taking into account the efforts of people like @DavidL. We also ignore the effects on women and girls who see offences against them treated as somehow not important.
@nico67 made an interesting point earlier about not making women feel that they must feel traumatised by everything that happens to them. This is certainly true in that we all need to learn resilience etc and that women will react in different ways because they will find different ways of coping with bad stuff that happens to them.
My point is a different one: women see such offences minimised etc and it just makes them feel as if they are not important. They have to find a way to cope because they feel abandoned by a society which does not effectively either ensure this stuff does not happen or deal effectively with the perpetrators. The trauma - to use a wide term - is not in just what happens but also in the subsequent feeling of being abandoned.
"Earlier in the programme (from about 7:14 am), Wera Hobhouse had been interviewed on the same topic. In February 2019 thanks to her efforts, upskirting became a criminal offence. She too was concerned at the disregard for sexual offences —
“Where are we if these attacks on women continue to be normalised?”
She too wanted a “complete culture change” so that all sexual offences, however minor, were properly reported and investigated.
Then this —
“The traumatising effect that any of these offences have on women has been completely underestimated….. Women are deeply traumatised. It’s a proper offence. It leads to ultimately the feeling in women that they’re very vulnerable, that they’re not being listened to, ….that what they feel is a proper attack on them, their freedom, their liberty, their way of life is not seen as such.”
It is this which is not really appreciated by far too many men.
Indeed
I further note that when the subject of a custodial sentence was the racial Incitement moron from the riots, no one said that prison was unlikely to reform her.
In both this case and that, the sentencing remarks clearly demonstrated why the sentence was what it was. There is no vast leeway in the sentencing system. Judges and magistrates can’t send people to prison because they feel it’s a good idea. It needs to be justified, point by point.
My point really is for women to not be made to feel like victims if they don’t actually feel that way. And they shouldn’t be forced to think they’re now damaged and need hours of therapy to get over an incident .
My point really is for women to not be made to feel like victims if they don’t actually feel that way. And they shouldn’t be forced to think they’re now damaged and need hours of therapy to get over an incident .
Regarding Rachel Reeves and the landlord's license, it is fair to say it's complicated, and so I actually have some sympathy.
We -for example- rent out our house in Hampstead, because we live in the US. We don't have a landlord's license, and I'd never even heard of the thing, and the letting agent never even mentioned it to us.
So, when I read the story my first instinct was to think... f*ck... do I need a license?
Fortunately, I don't. But I can understand why you might not realise that you need one.
Nevertheless, under Blanche rules you should resign from PB forthwith.
Regarding Rachel Reeves and the landlord's license, it is fair to say it's complicated, and so I actually have some sympathy.
We -for example- rent out our house in Hampstead, because we live in the US. We don't have a landlord's license, and I'd never even heard of the thing, and the letting agent never even mentioned it to us.
So, when I read the story my first instinct was to think... f*ck... do I need a license?
Fortunately, I don't. But I can understand why you might not realise that you need one.
The difference is, Reeves is the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I think being co-editor of PB is a little more important than CotE. 😊
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
Nothing to gain? The money involved here is a lot of money she now must fork out.
Exactly the error could cost her a lot . So the pearl clutchers can just do one and find a life .
Rule makers cannot be rule breakers.
The public tend to get hacked off when politicians make an error that could be seen to help them financially. I really don’t care about the latest Reeves story . If she’s to go it’s because she’s made some poor economic decisions not over this ridiculous overblown story .
This Reeves thing is nothing and I'd say the same if it were Mel Stride.
Ministers who make an error have to go, yet people in the last Government who spawned the PPE fast lane grift are rewarded with a seat in the House of Lords.
It is odd that the Mail and the Robbie Gibb BBC see the splinter in the eye of one and not the plank in the eye of others.
The answer to @Foxy saying that because prisons currently don't work effectively we should not give custodial sentences is to work on making prisons effective, both in keeping people off the streets and ensuring they don't reoffend.
To say to a woman or child who has been assaulted, your offender is free to reoffend repeatedly because we can't be arsed to do this is to add insult to injury. Using Foxy's logic we wouldn't put anyone in prison.
There needs to be punishment. More importantly, we need men to understand that certain behaviours are wrong and there will be real accountability for them if they behave in such ways. We TALK a lot about stopping violence against women & girls. We TALK a lot about the evils of child sexual abuse. But in reality we DO very little or, rather, we do not do anything like enough, even taking into account the efforts of people like @DavidL. We also ignore the effects on women and girls who see offences against them treated as somehow not important.
@nico67 made an interesting point earlier about not making women feel that they must feel traumatised by everything that happens to them. This is certainly true in that we all need to learn resilience etc and that women will react in different ways because they will find different ways of coping with bad stuff that happens to them.
My point is a different one: women see such offences minimised etc and it just makes them feel as if they are not important. They have to find a way to cope because they feel abandoned by a society which does not effectively either ensure this stuff does not happen or deal effectively with the perpetrators. The trauma - to use a wide term - is not in just what happens but also in the subsequent feeling of being abandoned.
"Earlier in the programme (from about 7:14 am), Wera Hobhouse had been interviewed on the same topic. In February 2019 thanks to her efforts, upskirting became a criminal offence. She too was concerned at the disregard for sexual offences —
“Where are we if these attacks on women continue to be normalised?”
She too wanted a “complete culture change” so that all sexual offences, however minor, were properly reported and investigated.
Then this —
“The traumatising effect that any of these offences have on women has been completely underestimated….. Women are deeply traumatised. It’s a proper offence. It leads to ultimately the feeling in women that they’re very vulnerable, that they’re not being listened to, ….that what they feel is a proper attack on them, their freedom, their liberty, their way of life is not seen as such.”
It is this which is not really appreciated by far too many men.
Prison is not just to punish the guilty, but to protect the innocent from their actions. Therefore, men that use violence against women and children, whether sexual or otherwise, should be jailed. I don’t have a problem with protesters, or even fraudsters being released in order to free spaces for violent men.
This Reeves thing is nothing and I'd say the same if it were Mel Stride.
Obtaining three thousand pound a month illegally? In a country people can’t either eat or heat? Emancipated parents go without to let their children eat the breakfast before going to school. £3K every month illegally is not nothing. It was so easy to double check, as RCS has just done it quickly.
Unless they block an investigation, as they are scrambling to do tonight, it’s not going to exonerate her saying she did nothing wrong, broke no rules, is it?
Or the government knew they'd win, so why bother getting everyone in to vote?
Some more on the story;
...The initial instruction to Labour MPs was to not vote...
How about a three-line whip to tell them all to vote against? Honestly, what is wrong with Labour?
Frit, as someone once said. And that after a couple of days where it looked like they had eaten their Weetabix.
But there are some disappointing names on that Conservative list.
It was, I think, on a Private Member's 10 Minute Rule Bill with no chance of progressing into law. I know as a former MP that it's unusual to force a vote at all in those circumstances. I'm very critical of aspects of Government policy, but in this particular case the "offence" is likely to have been an effect of Parliament;s archaic rules.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
The presumption in law is that you need to be aware of all your legal obligations as a landlord and deal with them.
Everyone else who is a landlord has to live by these rules.
True, but she should be sacked or resign not because she broke some rules, but because she's a dismally incompetent and out-of-her-depth Chancellor who has no idea how to get the economy back to a decent level of growth, and in fact is making things much worse while she clings to office.
The landlord thing is stupid, like her repeated lies on her CV, but if the economy were booming and she were cutting taxes, and setting business free, I wouldn't care in the slightest. Same with Boris and his house parties.
My point really is for women to not be made to feel like victims if they don’t actually feel that way. And they shouldn’t be forced to think they’re now damaged and need hours of therapy to get over an incident .
Yes, obviously they need to “man up”….
Therapy is not right for everyone . And it shouldn’t be forced on people .
Or the government knew they'd win, so why bother getting everyone in to vote?
Some more on the story;
...The initial instruction to Labour MPs was to not vote...
How about a three-line whip to tell them all to vote against? Honestly, what is wrong with Labour?
Frit, as someone once said. And that after a couple of days where it looked like they had eaten their Weetabix.
But there are some disappointing names on that Conservative list.
It was, I think, on a Private Member's 10 Minute Rule Bill with no chance of progressing into law. I know as a former MP that it's unusual to force a vote at all in those circumstances. I'm very critical of aspects of Government policy, but in this particular case the "offence" is likely to have been an effect of Parliament;s archaic rules.
Yes, but the Government should have been more aware of the likely media backlash.
I rent a flat out (to one of my daughters, as it happens - ever so cheap). I suspect I'm not alone in rapidly googling tonight to find out if my local authority has any local bye-laws necessitating me to have a licence to do so. I've certainly not heard of it before. I don't think it's a problem for Reeves, unless she was told by the lettings agency that Southwark demands a licence.
Oh God more pearl clutching by the media . It’s a total non story but I’m sure will be cremated to death by the usual suspects who will call for Reeves to resign .
Do you believe that the media or Starmer would have kept quiet if a Tory Chancellor had done the same?
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
I mean how many people even think they’d need a licence to rent out their own home . There’s lots of things to criticize Reeves for but this story is really just a simple error in which she had nothing to gain by not getting the licence.
The presumption in law is that you need to be aware of all your legal obligations as a landlord and deal with them.
Everyone else who is a landlord has to live by these rules.
I agree. It's extremely hard luck on Reeves considering that you have this completely mad and inconsistent system in England, and her ridiculous agent didn't advise her, but... the rules are the rules. It feels very much like the Rayner thing where if she'd waited 6 months the tax wasn't an issue anyway.
Labour are - rightly - cracking down on rogue landlords and these registration rules help in that endeavour. It's not a good look.
What's the usual penalty for failing to obtain the license as Reeves did ?
My point really is for women to not be made to feel like victims if they don’t actually feel that way. And they shouldn’t be forced to think they’re now damaged and need hours of therapy to get over an incident .
Yes, obviously they need to “man up”….
This site - not all posters, but certainly some - has been at its absolute worst over the last few days in terms of its attitudes towards women, and its belittling of violence against women.
Cyclefree and I may disagree on the precise definition of a woman, but on her substantive points raised downthread, and her frequent observations about men on this site repeatedly and systematically belittling women's so-called lived experience, I couldn't agree more.
Regarding Rachel Reeves and the landlord's license, it is fair to say it's complicated, and so I actually have some sympathy.
We -for example- rent out our house in Hampstead, because we live in the US. We don't have a landlord's license, and I'd never even heard of the thing, and the letting agent never even mentioned it to us.
So, when I read the story my first instinct was to think... f*ck... do I need a license?
Fortunately, I don't. But I can understand why you might not realise that you need one.
This sort of random stealth taxation and pointless petty bureaucracy is a terrible idea. I'm therefore generally pretty sympathetic to anyone who finds themselves ensnared by it.
However, the big difference between people like you and me and Rachel Reeves is that she is part of the government, and we are not. Ultimately the existence of this stupid licencing is something she has control over. And given that, she should get shafted for it to the maximum extent the law allows, and then resign in disgrace. If that happened to politicians more often, maybe we'd get less daft bureaucracy in the first place.
Kemi skewered Sir Keir on his tax pledges at PMQs, and it was quite beautifully done
At prime minister’s questions, Kemi Badenoch used her first question to ask precisely that. Does the manifesto commitment not to raise those three taxes still stand?
“I’m glad she wants to talk about the economy,” came the answer, followed by more than a minute of untranscribable waffle. It was a yes/no question. A yes or a no would have done.
Down on the opposition front benches, Badenoch did not try especially hard to conceal her delight. She grinned a grin of pure, malign pleasure. She looked, for a moment, like Tim Curry’s evil hotel concierge in Home Alone 2.
“Well, well, well,” came her reply, eventually. “A fascinating answer.” Not even the most assiduous PMQs nerd could have seen what was coming next. She had, she explained, asked the exact same question, word for word, three months ago. And what reply did she get then? “He said the word ‘yes’ and sat down again with his smug grin.”
As the late Richie Benaud liked to put it: “ash everywhere”. Starmer’s middle stump was doing cartwheels. It has been one of the prime minister’s preferred tactics, for a while, to give a one-word “yes” or “no” to a question that he considers beneath him, then sit down again and fail to conceal his self-satisfaction. It’s a tactic that would eventually come back to bite him, and it has.
Well, it is a New Deal for Farmers. The new deal is that they have to pay some inheritance tax, just like others.
As they already did if it was not for agricultural purposes. now this useless government have taxed land used to grow crops as well
That’s right, government useless, as no one pays this tax to the government, we pay it to experts down the con club who help us by pass it. But it was never intended to bring in money to government, as you see from PBers liking it and thinking it good, some people up for pointless class war gimmicks. Farmers spend their own money and time repairing, maintaining and cleaning up the countryside, and this stealth tax was an ignorant slap in the face to the backbone of England.
Kemi skewered Sir Keir on his tax pledges at PMQs, and it was quite beautifully done
At prime minister’s questions, Kemi Badenoch used her first question to ask precisely that. Does the manifesto commitment not to raise those three taxes still stand?
“I’m glad she wants to talk about the economy,” came the answer, followed by more than a minute of untranscribable waffle. It was a yes/no question. A yes or a no would have done.
Down on the opposition front benches, Badenoch did not try especially hard to conceal her delight. She grinned a grin of pure, malign pleasure. She looked, for a moment, like Tim Curry’s evil hotel concierge in Home Alone 2.
“Well, well, well,” came her reply, eventually. “A fascinating answer.” Not even the most assiduous PMQs nerd could have seen what was coming next. She had, she explained, asked the exact same question, word for word, three months ago. And what reply did she get then? “He said the word ‘yes’ and sat down again with his smug grin.”
As the late Richie Benaud liked to put it: “ash everywhere”. Starmer’s middle stump was doing cartwheels. It has been one of the prime minister’s preferred tactics, for a while, to give a one-word “yes” or “no” to a question that he considers beneath him, then sit down again and fail to conceal his self-satisfaction. It’s a tactic that would eventually come back to bite him, and it has.
She did very well on the first two questions, and made him look a fool. Unfortunately she then wasted the next question suggesting that the solution to our economic woes is to abolish stamp duty. Some of the attacks after that on the lack of welfare reform were better, but she'd lost the momentum she had coming out of the first couple of questions. 4/10 - could have easily been a 10/10 if she'd kept him squirming on the "but you promised not to increase taxes - if you do, you'll be a liar" hook she had half impaled him on.
Kemi skewered Sir Keir on his tax pledges at PMQs, and it was quite beautifully done
At prime minister’s questions, Kemi Badenoch used her first question to ask precisely that. Does the manifesto commitment not to raise those three taxes still stand?
“I’m glad she wants to talk about the economy,” came the answer, followed by more than a minute of untranscribable waffle. It was a yes/no question. A yes or a no would have done.
Down on the opposition front benches, Badenoch did not try especially hard to conceal her delight. She grinned a grin of pure, malign pleasure. She looked, for a moment, like Tim Curry’s evil hotel concierge in Home Alone 2.
“Well, well, well,” came her reply, eventually. “A fascinating answer.” Not even the most assiduous PMQs nerd could have seen what was coming next. She had, she explained, asked the exact same question, word for word, three months ago. And what reply did she get then? “He said the word ‘yes’ and sat down again with his smug grin.”
As the late Richie Benaud liked to put it: “ash everywhere”. Starmer’s middle stump was doing cartwheels. It has been one of the prime minister’s preferred tactics, for a while, to give a one-word “yes” or “no” to a question that he considers beneath him, then sit down again and fail to conceal his self-satisfaction. It’s a tactic that would eventually come back to bite him, and it has.
Comments
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/10/29/keir-starmer-opens-door-to-income-tax-increase/
Or just say “oops it was an oversight, file the paperwork and we’ll let you off”
I wonder which option the Labour controlled council will select for the Labour chancellor who has the ability to allocate or withhold central government grants to Southwark council
They'll need to shut Janet Street Porter in a sound-proof room for everyone's safety!!!
They should livestream Rachel Reeves telling her first to give everyone a laugh.
Note: this will also hit outside IR35 consultants
Did this comparison yesterday, which explains the issue caused by demographics, longer life expectancy, etc
Your reminder that pensions are paid from current tax receipts. All £s in 2025 values
Year In Work (m) State Pensioners (m) Workers/Pensioner State Pension (2025 £) Cost/worker (£)
2025 34.2 13.1 2.69 11973 4583
2000 27.5 11.5 2.39 6709 2807
1975 24.9 8.0 3.13 4712 1507
https://adviser.royallondon.com/technical-central/rates-and-factors/state-pension/
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator
ONS for in work, no of state pensioners is from google, doesn't seem to be regularly recorded by ONS
Far from perfect, but shows the trend
Though they ought to devise the voting equivalent of cash, with pen and paper, and a way of doing the recording, as a backup.
Edit: I recommend tokens with names on them, put in locked jars, and decanted later to record who did what.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/france-aslyum-seeker-accomodation-uk-ff8rfpmfs
The Green Party
@TheGreenParty
🚨BREAKING : The Green Party has passed 150,000 members 🥳
https://x.com/TheGreenParty/status/1982749151625388418
I'm late to this, so not breaking - two days old, but even so.
Is there any point now in Corbyn leaving his allotment?
He failed on the first straight-on attack, not prepared for the high speed of the FPV.
He successfully adapted but he is the best shooter in the world, and you don’t get a redo in Ukraine.
https://x.com/GrandpaRoy2/status/1983582779616194960
ETA if it is referred, then Hills, Ladbrokes and Corals are 7/1 against a 2025 exit (caution: there is not a great deal of 2025 left).
There is a tide in the affairs of man...
No wonder Sultana broke the agreement and tried to get things moving before she was supposed to.
90% chance I reckon.
Paid for by increased tax on income that is not NI’d.
Why would this be unfair?
Internal Labour politics will be at play here, if Rach survives but Ang found guilty from similar sounding swindles of public money. KotN and his Useless Lucy glove puppet, will make hay if Reeves survives this scandal.
On topic. Bollocks. Voters will vote for the King over President Boris or President Gordon Brown by massive majority in any plebiscite you wish to set up!
Centrist liberals head for shock victory in Dutch election, exit poll says
BBC News online
Reeves says her letting agency did not mention anything about a licence being required.
Rayner's advisors told her to get more, and detailed, legal and financial advice iirc and she didn't.
And would you be bitching about the non-storyness of it all?
DavidL, who is a lawyer who prosecutes sexual offenders, posted this morning at 10:03 that he thinks other similar offences would not normally get a custodial sentence.
I think he was remanded in custody in part for his housing situation (people without a fixed address are often remanded as a flight risk) and in part for his own safety. If he had been discharged to the Bell Hotel then the disturbances may well have turned into a lynch mob.
Neither has Reeves
What's the difference at this stage?
We -for example- rent out our house in Hampstead, because we live in the US. We don't have a landlord's license, and I'd never even heard of the thing, and the letting agent never even mentioned it to us.
So, when I read the story my first instinct was to think... f*ck... do I need a license?
Fortunately, I don't. But I can understand why you might not realise that you need one.
Should the CoE be as ignorant as the average idiot?
If she had -say- AirBnBed her property out (without a licence) for more than the permitted number of days a year, then she would have had an advantage. But she was just unaware that her council required a license, which - for single family residences rented to a single family - are essentially automatically given.
It's all very complicated because you have different rates and different thresholds for NICs and IT. If you had a different basic rate for pensioners, that would mean that pensioners with income of up to £37,700 - the median salary - would be taxed at a lower rate than people in work. In addition to the fact they still won't be paying what remains of NICs on pension income.
I think that's pretty intolerable tbh.
… do not include anything of what you said (above)
Causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual
Activity varies a sentence of up to 14 years.
Everyone else who is a landlord has to live by these rules.
To say to a woman or child who has been assaulted, your offender is free to reoffend repeatedly because we can't be arsed to do this is to add insult to injury. Using Foxy's logic we wouldn't put anyone in prison.
There needs to be punishment. More importantly, we need men to understand that certain behaviours are wrong and there will be real accountability for them if they behave in such ways. We TALK a lot about stopping violence against women & girls. We TALK a lot about the evils of child sexual abuse. But in reality we DO very little or, rather, we do not do anything like enough, even taking into account the efforts of people like @DavidL. We also ignore the effects on women and girls who see offences against them treated as somehow not important.
@nico67 made an interesting point earlier about not making women feel that they must feel traumatised by everything that happens to them. This is certainly true in that we all need to learn resilience etc and that women will react in different ways because they will find different ways of coping with bad stuff that happens to them.
My point is a different one: women see such offences minimised etc and it just makes them feel as if they are not important. They have to find a way to cope because they feel abandoned by a society which does not effectively either ensure this stuff does not happen or deal effectively with the perpetrators. The trauma - to use a wide term - is not in just what happens but also in the subsequent feeling of being abandoned.
I wrote about this in greater detail here - https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/joined-up-thinking/
See this section -
See also this quote from it:
"Earlier in the programme (from about 7:14 am), Wera Hobhouse had been interviewed on the same topic. In February 2019 thanks to her efforts, upskirting became a criminal offence. She too was concerned at the disregard for sexual offences —
“Where are we if these attacks on women continue to be normalised?”
She too wanted a “complete culture change” so that all sexual offences, however minor, were properly reported and investigated.
Then this —
“The traumatising effect that any of these offences have on women has been completely underestimated….. Women are deeply traumatised. It’s a proper offence. It leads to ultimately the feeling in women that they’re very vulnerable, that they’re not being listened to, ….that what they feel is a proper attack on them, their freedom, their liberty, their way of life is not seen as such.”
It is this which is not really appreciated by far too many men.
Anyone not paying a fine to a socialist council can be jailed.
Labour are - rightly - cracking down on rogue landlords and these registration rules help in that endeavour. It's not a good look.
https://x.com/lukejcr/status/1983642691897585760/photo/1
Includes: New Deal For Farmers
"Oh yes he is! Oh no he isn't!"
I'll never mention the event again if no PB Tory mentions Gordon Brown selling the gold reserves back in the 1990s.
I further note that when the subject of a custodial sentence was the racial
Incitement moron from the riots, no one said that prison was unlikely to reform her.
In both this case and that, the sentencing remarks clearly demonstrated why the sentence was what it was. There is no vast leeway in the sentencing system. Judges and magistrates can’t send people to prison because they feel it’s a good idea. It needs to be justified, point by point.
Once again, someone point out the flaws in this -
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Hadush-Kebatu-Sentence-Remarks.pdf
Or this
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Connollysentence.pdf
My point really is for women to not be made to feel like victims if they don’t actually feel that way. And they shouldn’t be forced to think they’re now damaged and need hours of therapy to get over an incident .
https://app.nos.nl/nieuws/tk2025
It is odd that the Mail and the Robbie Gibb BBC see the splinter in the eye of one and not the plank in the eye of others.
Unless they block an investigation, as they are scrambling to do tonight, it’s not going to exonerate her saying she did nothing wrong, broke no rules, is it?
The landlord thing is stupid, like her repeated lies on her CV, but if the economy were booming and she were cutting taxes, and setting business free, I wouldn't care in the slightest. Same with Boris and his house parties.
So sack Reeves, but for the right reason.
I suspect I'm not alone in rapidly googling tonight to find out if my local authority has any local bye-laws necessitating me to have a licence to do so. I've certainly not heard of it before.
I don't think it's a problem for Reeves, unless she was told by the lettings agency that Southwark demands a licence.
Cyclefree and I may disagree on the precise definition of a woman, but on her substantive points raised downthread, and her frequent observations about men on this site repeatedly and systematically belittling women's so-called lived experience, I couldn't agree more.
However, the big difference between people like you and me and Rachel Reeves is that she is part of the government, and we are not. Ultimately the existence of this stupid licencing is something she has control over. And given that, she should get shafted for it to the maximum extent the law allows, and then resign in disgrace. If that happened to politicians more often, maybe we'd get less daft bureaucracy in the first place.
At prime minister’s questions, Kemi Badenoch used her first question to ask precisely that. Does the manifesto commitment not to raise those three taxes still stand?
“I’m glad she wants to talk about the economy,” came the answer, followed by more than a minute of untranscribable waffle. It was a yes/no question. A yes or a no would have done.
Down on the opposition front benches, Badenoch did not try especially hard to conceal her delight. She grinned a grin of pure, malign pleasure. She looked, for a moment, like Tim Curry’s evil hotel concierge in Home Alone 2.
“Well, well, well,” came her reply, eventually. “A fascinating answer.” Not even the most assiduous PMQs nerd could have seen what was coming next. She had, she explained, asked the exact same question, word for word, three months ago. And what reply did she get then? “He said the word ‘yes’ and sat down again with his smug grin.”
As the late Richie Benaud liked to put it: “ash everywhere”. Starmer’s middle stump was doing cartwheels. It has been one of the prime minister’s preferred tactics, for a while, to give a one-word “yes” or “no” to a question that he considers beneath him, then sit down again and fail to conceal his self-satisfaction. It’s a tactic that would eventually come back to bite him, and it has.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/bd45d0ec-7049-402e-afa5-63d570f0e982?shareToken=e49618dcb47162a0830d519d41eac712
4/10 - could have easily been a 10/10 if she'd kept him squirming on the "but you promised not to increase taxes - if you do, you'll be a liar" hook she had half impaled him on.
Whisper it perhaps, but as betting people we must always consider the possibilities.
Will Badenoch still be leader at next GE in 2029?
I'm liking the 5/1 BF are offering on her still be leader.
Just taken a nibble.