I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
About this homelessness and needing more homes lark. Seems this generation are wimps if my sojourn into genealogy is anything to go by. One grandfather had 8 children in a 2 roomed flat somewhere way up north. In looking at my wife's side it was similar but she is clearly of better stock as they had 3 rooms for 9 children.
Thought this might be something that MalcolmG would agree with.
There is a lot of truth to this. While your examples are rather overcrowded it is obvious that many British homes are under occupied. We have a vast number of single person households and many more like mine with Mrs Foxy and I in a 4 bed detached, all double bedrooms. There is little financial incentive to downsize even if we wanted to do so.
A family of eight once lived in this. Always blows my mind that.
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
When GWB was president, a Canada anti-nuclear activist was screaming about the fact that American anti-missile defence would draw in Canada. This was on a Canadian radio show.
An American general, on the show, replied that they wouldn’t dream of it. If Canada didn’t want be involved, they would program the keep-out zone for the system so as not to defend Canada.
The anti-nuke activist immediately started screaming that that was immoral…
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 45% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
The very fact we're now discussing people put off salaried work at certain levels shows that taxation is now punitive.
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
The country with the highest GDP/capita in the EU.
Join NATO proper and invest in your own military. The rest of Europe has a large and crazy bear problem to its East.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
The country with the highest GDP/capita in the EU.
Join NATO proper and invest in your own military.
No, they want NATO to defend them, while enjoying the self-righteousness that comes from neutrality.
So the oldest person ever to become president keeps falling asleep in his office during public events and there’s no big public discussion on how this is a coverup or how republicans are lying to us about how this government is running?
Decompensating: the final functional collapse of a declining bodily system that has previous been kept running by compensatory actions or medications.
E.g. You can compensate for the effects of aging by injecting your President with stimulant drugs for a while, but eventually their cognitive decline will be too advanced for those treatments to have any positive effect.
Newsom: "Think about the state of mind of the VP. How do you square the circle when you go to a prayer breakfast? Old testament, new testament. What's the fundamental thing that connects John to Matthew to Proverbs? It's this notion of hunger, feeding the poor, the sick, the tired. It's not an option, it's central to advancing God's will." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1987524116870508640
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
With teachers it's primarily the workload.
Also. The vast majority of teachers are in academies. Like GP's they aren't properly public sector.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
The country with the highest GDP/capita in the EU.
Join NATO proper and invest in your own military.
No, they want NATO to defend them, while enjoying the self-righteousness that comes from neutrality.
Sweden and Finland came running once Russia attacked Ukraine after years of not wanting to know.
Should have told them to fuck off and take their chances.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I think Rishi may go, reputationally, the same way as John Major. Presided over an election smash but now rather more popular than the successor who won the huge majority.
The budget is still two weeks away and it feel like Reeves has been leaking rumours of tax grabs for months.
I am surprised there is any economy left in the UK.
The general impression is of a scandal-ridden retirement home with a country attached.
Reeves looks and sounds like a grudge-carrying HR apparatchik intent on closing down the afternoon tea service because of “colonial overtones”. Starmer appears to be essentially redundant, sequestered from reality and having outsourced his social media output to AI.
Lucy Powell appears have decided her role is essentially to speak in opposition to current leadership. Perhaps she should consider resignation!
I really don't recall Tony Blair's government behaving like this in 1998! Or either of Harold Wilson's in 1964 or 1974.
Blair, I’d agree, but I’m too young (even though I’m retired now) to really remember much of the other two.
To be fair Wilson did make a bit of a bog over appointing his Foreign Secretary in 1964. Patrick Gordon Walker, who was Shadow, lost his Smethwick seat in '64; the Labour member for Leyton was 'persuaded' to resign and Gordon Walker promptly lost the by-election!
Newsom: "Think about the state of mind of the VP. How do you square the circle when you go to a prayer breakfast? Old testament, new testament. What's the fundamental thing that connects John to Matthew to Proverbs? It's this notion of hunger, feeding the poor, the sick, the tired. It's not an option, it's central to advancing God's will." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1987524116870508640
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Yep - my partner, a GP, is on 4 days a week and that's without kids and a big mortgage to pay off. I'll probably do the same at some point.
Newsom: "Think about the state of mind of the VP. How do you square the circle when you go to a prayer breakfast? Old testament, new testament. What's the fundamental thing that connects John to Matthew to Proverbs? It's this notion of hunger, feeding the poor, the sick, the tired. It's not an option, it's central to advancing God's will." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1987524116870508640
So the oldest person ever to become president keeps falling asleep in his office during public events and there’s no big public discussion on how this is a coverup or how republicans are lying to us about how this government is running?
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
It's not just the money, TBF: a significant part of it is governments of the last decade or so making the job a lot shittier.
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
The country with the highest GDP/capita in the EU.
Join NATO proper and invest in your own military.
No, they want NATO to defend them, while enjoying the self-righteousness that comes from neutrality.
Sweden and Finland came running once Russia attacked Ukraine after years of not wanting to know.
Should have told them to fuck off and take their chances.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Decompensating: the final functional collapse of a declining bodily system that has previous been kept running by compensatory actions or medications.
E.g. You can compensate for the effects of aging by injecting your President with stimulant drugs for a while, but eventually their cognitive decline will be too advanced for those treatments to have any positive effect.
I was in Chester Cathedral today (and saw the Lego model). There is a narrative there of Jack Cornwell who was killed in the battle of Jutland aboard the HMS Cheshire. He stood by his gun with pieces of shrapnel in his chest trying to set it up to fire at the German fleet. He died of his wounds and was posthumously awarded the VC. He was 16. He was one of 5 "boys" killed on that ship on that day.
Today, of all days, it brought the horror and tragedy of war home to me like nothing else. I am becoming an old softy but by the time I had finished I had tears in my eyes.
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
The country with the highest GDP/capita in the EU.
Join NATO proper and invest in your own military.
No, they want NATO to defend them, while enjoying the self-righteousness that comes from neutrality.
Sweden and Finland came running once Russia attacked Ukraine after years of not wanting to know.
Should have told them to fuck off and take their chances.
One welcomes the sinner that repents.
The Finns fought the Red Army to a standstill in 1940, in the Winter War.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
Wait to you see the introduction of NI on salary sacrifice pensions.
That’s going to remove any incentive working beyond £100,000 so we will be seeing people work 3 day weeks and not increasing their hours
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
The country with the highest GDP/capita in the EU.
Join NATO proper and invest in your own military.
No, they want NATO to defend them, while enjoying the self-righteousness that comes from neutrality.
Sweden and Finland came running once Russia attacked Ukraine after years of not wanting to know.
Should have told them to fuck off and take their chances.
Bit different, really. Sweden and Finland have substantial militaries and make a useful contribution to NATO, strengthening the northern Baltic flank.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Ambition doesn’t pay the bills.
To echo Casino’s point I have been a Supply Chain departmental Manager three times in my career. The first time I was ambitious. The last two I ended up with all this extra work and hassle and being expected to be on call pretty much 24-7 for what, a few meaningless perks I got taxed on, like BUPA, and losing a large chunk of the extra cash.
Fuck that. I’d rather have the time and less hassle and a job paying just under the threshold. So I took a step back and refused any other opportunities that I was asked to consider.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
Wait to you see the introduction of NI on salary sacrifice pensions.
That’s going to remove any incentive working beyond £100,000 so we will be seeing people work 3 day weeks and not increasing their hours
It comes across that the whole plan is to drag hundreds of thousands more into that 60% trap at £100k.
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
The country with the highest GDP/capita in the EU.
Join NATO proper and invest in your own military.
No, they want NATO to defend them, while enjoying the self-righteousness that comes from neutrality.
Sweden and Finland came running once Russia attacked Ukraine after years of not wanting to know.
Should have told them to fuck off and take their chances.
One welcomes the sinner that repents.
Both Sweden and Finland are very heavily armed and always have been.
Their neutrality was a bit of a Cold War fiction. The Soviet plan for invading Europe included attacking both at the start of a war.
Both countries assumed that in the event of war they would be fighting with NATO and planned accordingly.
The reason they finally, officially joined NATO, was that it became clear that the provocation of it to Russia didn’t matter a damn in the age of Putin just invading countries when he felt like it.
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
The country with the highest GDP/capita in the EU.
Join NATO proper and invest in your own military.
No, they want NATO to defend them, while enjoying the self-righteousness that comes from neutrality.
Sweden and Finland came running once Russia attacked Ukraine after years of not wanting to know.
Should have told them to fuck off and take their chances.
Don't be silly.
They are a significant enhancement to NATO, and are increasing defence spending quite rapidly, along with aid to Ukraine.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
Wait to you see the introduction of NI on salary sacrifice pensions.
That’s going to remove any incentive working beyond £100,000 so we will be seeing people work 3 day weeks and not increasing their hours
It comes across that the whole plan is to drag hundreds of thousands more into that 60% trap at £100k.
Humans don’t work like that.
Growth, growth, growth.....in the numbers of high earners working part time fron abroad..
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 45% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
As someone in that category...
For all sorts of reasons to do with career, family and temperament, money is fairly low down my list of priorities now. And that's mostly because of having a paid-off mortgage.
More pay or less tax is pretty unlikely to motivate me, though I accept that my personal Laffer Curve tops out unusually low. (And that I may have been allowed to accumulate sufficient 'go away please' money too easily and too soon.) On the other hand, people who insist on getting to the top are equally freakish, just the other way.
But... As society gets richer, I'm pretty sure that using money to motivate people to do work they wouldn't otherwise do is facing diminishing returns. It's a tricky problem that someone needs to solve sometime. (I suspect that there's an awkward paradox in that a lot of efficiency gains come from the kind of remote control and automation that make work less intrinsically satisfying.)
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Ambition doesn’t pay the bills.
To echo Casino’s point I have been a Supply Chain departmental Manager three times in my career. The first time I was ambitious. The last two I ended up with all this extra work and hassle and being expected to be on call pretty much 24-7 for what, a few meaningless perks I got taxed on, like BUPA, and losing a large chunk of the extra cash.
Fuck that. I’d rather have the time and less hassle and a job paying just under the threshold. So I took a step back and refused any other opportunities that I was asked to consider.
I'm a part timer. I went part time when my wife went back to work after her second maternity leave, because I was no better off working and paying for two nursery places than I was spending the day looking after them myself. The kids are older now and that's no longer the case. I could go back to full time and earm more. But I'd be doing 25% more work for about 15% more take-home pay. It doesn't seem worth it.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
With teachers it's primarily the workload.
Also. The vast majority of teachers are in academies. Like GP's they aren't properly public sector.
Their pay and conditions are nationally agreed, and wholly funded through taxation. It's like saying local councils aren't public sector.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Ambition doesn’t pay the bills.
To echo Casino’s point I have been a Supply Chain departmental Manager three times in my career. The first time I was ambitious. The last two I ended up with all this extra work and hassle and being expected to be on call pretty much 24-7 for what, a few meaningless perks I got taxed on, like BUPA, and losing a large chunk of the extra cash.
Fuck that. I’d rather have the time and less hassle and a job paying just under the threshold. So I took a step back and refused any other opportunities that I was asked to consider.
If we are going to have genuine growth in this country we need to find ways of not disincentivising people from making that extra effort that could push things forward. Doing this and getting close to paying the bills, at present, would of course be extremely hard but the price we are paying for not doing this is becoming prohibitive.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Yep - my partner, a GP, is on 4 days a week and that's without kids and a big mortgage to pay off. I'll probably do the same at some point.
nothing personal, but I Think that problem has been around for a long time. I don't know what the point of training all these doctors and they end up part time. The teacher thing I think is weird. Why do younger teachers seek and find part time jobs? As a young teacher back in the day I needed as much salary as possible to pay the bills.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Effective indeed.
I’m sure he was modest about those achievements, just not in the way Churchill’s snark suggested.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Effective indeed.
There is a story that someone on the pacifist side of Labour asked how he could serve under that ghastly war lover, Churchill.
Attlee was said to have replied “The country needs someone who loves war.”
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Effective indeed.
Didn't do much that was positive for the UK economy, though.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
It is going to be very interesting to read the post-mortem of this period of Labour government, particularly from those on the inside.
Reeves’ trajectory is fascinating. This is someone who keeps trying to play political games - WFA, messaging over last years budget, welfare cuts, manifesto pledges etc - and just seems to fail to land it every time that she tries.
She was never the most dynamic or exciting political figure but I will say that I think the past 18 months have taken a huge toll on her. I commented the other day that she looks haunted. She is now much less confident and much more stilted in her delivery. She can’t get through a sentence without about 5 or 6 “errs” or “umms”. She seems to have had a severe crisis of confidence, in my opinion, as a result of seeing all of her previous actions seemingly fail.
Politics is a rough game. I think she’s been found wanting in this role, and I think she’s should really be stepping down (she won’t, of course).
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Ambition doesn’t pay the bills.
To echo Casino’s point I have been a Supply Chain departmental Manager three times in my career. The first time I was ambitious. The last two I ended up with all this extra work and hassle and being expected to be on call pretty much 24-7 for what, a few meaningless perks I got taxed on, like BUPA, and losing a large chunk of the extra cash.
Fuck that. I’d rather have the time and less hassle and a job paying just under the threshold. So I took a step back and refused any other opportunities that I was asked to consider.
I'm a part timer. I went part time when my wife went back to work after her second maternity leave, because I was no better off working and paying for two nursery places than I was spending the day looking after them myself. The kids are older now and that's no longer the case. I could go back to full time and earm more. But I'd be doing 25% more work for about 15% more take-home pay. It doesn't seem worth it.
I think, were it not for nursery and school fees, I'd drop back to a job sub-100k
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
The thing that we inevitably overlook which actually explains her attitude and performance in government is she is incredibly stupid. Probably more stupid than Lammy. Unfortunately no-one has ever bitten the bullet and pointed out to her that she is incredibly stupid.
I assume she was put into the Chess thing as a kid because she couldn't handle the thing she had the greatest aptitude for, failure and wasn't bright enough to study anything worth studying.
I mean, how stupid do you have to be to have a corporate credit card removed for over spending ? How stupid do you have to be to claim to be an economist when you aren't ? How stupid do you have to be to rent your house to your sister at an over-inflated rent so the taxpayer pays parliamentary allowance way over the odds, and then fall down over the licence to rent ?
The only person she seems to have taken in is Starmer, himself self-evidently dis-numerate.
Personally I think she should be held to account for what she has done, tried to do. It is one thing to claim you can hypnotise a woman and make her tits bigger. But what she is trying to do is just as malicious, and as evil as someone claiming to be a Surgeon because they dissected a frog in O Level Biology, or claiming to be able to drive a five axle lorry because she rode a push bike once. You would be locked up for those, and rightly so. And you would have to pay a hell of a lot of compensation to your victims. Medium Term doesn't look good for her, or her vile husband.
I had entirely missed that the rentee was her sister in the housing debacle.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Yep - my partner, a GP, is on 4 days a week and that's without kids and a big mortgage to pay off. I'll probably do the same at some point.
nothing personal, but I Think that problem has been around for a long time. I don't know what the point of training all these doctors and they end up part time. The teacher thing I think is weird. Why do younger teachers seek and find part time jobs? As a young teacher back in the day I needed as much salary as possible to pay the bills.
In both cases, people find doing the job full-time too knackering. So, as soon as they can afford to, they don't.
(Which is a problem with pay as a recruitment handle. Current pay doesn't get enough people through the door. Current pay plus a bit gets more people through the door, but allows them to make enough money from fewer hours, so it helps less than it should. The holy grail is to find a way of making jobs things that people want to do full-time for most of their lifetime, which is tricky.)
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Good stuff, though his characterisation of the commonwealth as an alternative looks anachronistic now. I think even if we hadn't joined the EU, commonwealth ties would have tailed off pretty quickly.
Ireland is considering asking larger EU nations for security assistance during its forthcoming EU presidency, including sending a warship to Dublin for air defence. https://x.com/NavyLookout/status/1987508681190060419
Maybe we should offer them the black and tans?
Just declare themselves neutral like against the Germans last time.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Good stuff, though his characterisation of the commonwealth as an alternative looks anachronistic now. I think even if we hadn't joined the EU, commonwealth ties would have tailed off pretty quickly.
Not really, he's arguing that the Commonwealth is the progressive choice and the open-minded one.
A perfectly reasonable view and, indeed, a logical one.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Yep - my partner, a GP, is on 4 days a week and that's without kids and a big mortgage to pay off. I'll probably do the same at some point.
nothing personal, but I Think that problem has been around for a long time. I don't know what the point of training all these doctors and they end up part time. The teacher thing I think is weird. Why do younger teachers seek and find part time jobs? As a young teacher back in the day I needed as much salary as possible to pay the bills.
In both cases, people find doing the job full-time too knackering. So, as soon as they can afford to, they don't.
(Which is a problem with pay as a recruitment handle. Current pay doesn't get enough people through the door. Current pay plus a bit gets more people through the door, but allows them to make enough money from fewer hours, so it helps less than it should. The holy grail is to find a way of making jobs things that people want to do full-time for most of their lifetime, which is tricky.)
TLR are in abundance. A new teacher can get themselves a few bumps, and then drop down the days.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
It is going to be very interesting to read the post-mortem of this period of Labour government, particularly from those on the inside.
Reeves’ trajectory is fascinating. This is someone who keeps trying to play political games - WFA, messaging over last years budget, welfare cuts, manifesto pledges etc - and just seems to fail to land it every time that she tries.
She was never the most dynamic or exciting political figure but I will say that I think the past 18 months have taken a huge toll on her. I commented the other day that she looks haunted. She is now much less confident and much more stilted in her delivery. She can’t get through a sentence without about 5 or 6 “errs” or “umms”. She seems to have had a severe crisis of confidence, in my opinion, as a result of seeing all of her previous actions seemingly fail.
Politics is a rough game. I think she’s been found wanting in this role, and I think she’s should really be stepping down (she won’t, of course).
Her main achievement in office, probably only one, is being the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Who’d replace her ? Darren Jones ?
Could any chancellor get measures that annoy vocal parts of the electorate past labours stupid backbenchers. Many of whom, like the Lib Dem’s, still want to give billions we don’t have to the likes of the WASPI women
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 48% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Yep - my partner, a GP, is on 4 days a week and that's without kids and a big mortgage to pay off. I'll probably do the same at some point.
nothing personal, but I Think that problem has been around for a long time. I don't know what the point of training all these doctors and they end up part time. The teacher thing I think is weird. Why do younger teachers seek and find part time jobs? As a young teacher back in the day I needed as much salary as possible to pay the bills.
I can offer the explanation for teachers - Because women often have to care for young children, but cannot afford to give up work due to the cost of living. Going to three days a week sometimes means that a parent can pick up at least one day of care, meaning that they only have to pay for two days of childcare. Two female teachers in my team at work are PT for this reason.
The other reason is people moving towards retirement - once you're into the last few years, you can drop down to PT without it adversely affecting your career average earnings for the pension. So if you have a partner who is still working, or you have paid off your mortgage and/or the kids are out of university, there isn't a massive impact on you dropping to 0.6 FTE - you can still clear £2k a month if you're an experienced teacher. This also accounts for two male members of staff in my team.
Most of the younger staff are all full time as they're either paying off mortgages and student loans, or living with parents and saving up for a house deposit (we're in the north west, so this is a realistic aspiration).
Decompensating: the final functional collapse of a declining bodily system that has previous been kept running by compensatory actions or medications.
E.g. You can compensate for the effects of aging by injecting your President with stimulant drugs for a while, but eventually their cognitive decline will be too advanced for those treatments to have any positive effect.
I was in Chester Cathedral today (and saw the Lego model). There is a narrative there of Jack Cornwell who was killed in the battle of Jutland aboard the HMS Cheshire. He stood by his gun with pieces of shrapnel in his chest trying to set it up to fire at the German fleet. He died of his wounds and was posthumously awarded the VC. He was 16. He was one of 5 "boys" killed on that ship on that day.
Today, of all days, it brought the horror and tragedy of war home to me like nothing else. I am becoming an old softy but by the time I had finished I had tears in my eyes.
Reading Max Hastings’ account of Operation Pedestal, it was full of similar acts of suicidal heroism, by people whose deaths were utterly horrific.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
What I find fascinating is that she's been told by virtually everyone that talking down the economy - and talking up every possible tax rise - for months on end does real damage to economic confidence, investment and consumption. And yet she keeps doing it - and some.
Rishi was equally awful; Hunt markedly better. But neither actually levelled with the British public or offered a viable platform for the future.
Though with Hunt, you have to separate Hunt-the-fixer-of-the-Trusstasrophe (pretty good) from pre-election-Hunt (who did the fiscal equivalent of a large and stinky poo on the Treasury carpet on the way out).
But yes, Sunak-Hunt were even less honest with the public than Starmer-Reeves. The question is- with the public in the mood it's in, and the media happy to egg them on, how does anyone offer an honest viable platform for the future and still get elected?
Over fifteen years on, and the world is no nearer to an answer to Jean-Claude Juncker's question from 2008.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
What I find fascinating is that she's been told by virtually everyone that talking down the economy - and talking up every possible tax rise - for months on end does real damage to economic confidence, investment and consumption. And yet she keeps doing it - and some.
Why?
It was devastating the last time she did it, and messed up the whole context of her economic policy. She talked the economy into the doldrums. I did think of this episode of The West Wing: https://youtu.be/B_3kELe0M8A?si=9AGiLmjz_B2ETpRA&t=35
Just talking about something can turn the markets into a panic.
The top 10% of UK income earners are incredibly steeply taxed.
Wealth is barely taxed.
So we simply penalise strivers and entrepreneurs to pay for elderly home-owners to take cruises.
It's remarkable the personal resentment I now feel when I see a group of laughing bronzed retirees sitting around enjoying themselves - and there really are rather a lot of them - whilst criticising the young for not working hard enough and complaining all the time.
The top 10% of UK income earners are incredibly steeply taxed.
Wealth is barely taxed.
So we simply penalise strivers and entrepreneurs to pay for elderly home-owners to take cruises.
The cliff edge at £100k is all politics. Its inconcievable that if that didn't exist we would see more people earning £100-150k and 5 days a week and the tax man getting more revenue. On an individual level it is absolutely pointless entertaining cash pay rise that puts you over that £100k level unless it is going to be a huge increase.
Suella's greatest crime seems to have been being right.
She's a nasty woman, her homelessness is a lifestyle choice comments were vile, given the number of people with mental health/ex military people who are homeless, very few people choose to be homeless. I know somebody who was made homeless through no fault of her own, her partner had got himself into debt, and they banks/lender repossessed the property, she was 'lucky' because her family and friends stepped up, not everybody has that support system.
I told Boris Johnson that one of his proudest achievements as PM was to end rough sleeping at the start of the pandemic, one of his biggest failures was to ensure rough sleeping was a thing of the past.
A couple of points
- ex-military rough sleepers. A couple of years ago, a military charity, working with the military did a survey. What they found was - of the genuine ex-military, something like 95%+ among rough sleepers had been let go during *training*. For having suspected mental health issues. That’s interesting because that suggests an opportunity to help earlier.
- simply stuffing rough sleepers into hotels etc does very little. The issues that lead to people sleeping in cardboard boxes are not easy to solve
- the bigger problem is homelessness. Which isn’t rough sleeping. But not having a permanent home - see rooms in shitty “B&Bs” paid for by the council.
It’s almost as if a significant part of the problem can be fixed by allowing a lot more houses to be built.
The homelessness - people without a permanent home - yes
Rough sleeping is harder. Essentially it’s drugs + alcohol + mental health + {something} that makes people pretty much incapable of steadily living inside. Just talk to people who run shelters about what happens.
In The Goode Olde Dayz, people like that were locked up when the place was getting untidy. Otherwise they were Tramps & Vagabonds.
Bombing them up on pharmaceuticals to make them docile won’t work - the drugs don’t make them feel good. The reverse in fact. So they stop taking them. And forcing people, against their will, to take such drugs is pretty much impossible, legally. At least these days.
So we can’t shove them in a madhouse (prison for the mentally unfixable) can’t turn them into zombies…
What’s left is trying to provide an avenue off the street for the small number who can/will get out if that life.
Which is why I support the charities that do that
I don't agree about locking people away, nor forcing medication upon them. It should only be done in extreme circumstances, but if it must be done to protect the public, it must be done. It's completely inchorent philosophically to suggest otherwise, because it introduces a hierarchy of human rights - the human rights of the insane to freedom being placed above those of the sane to life.
If they have committed no crime then yes of course their liberty comes first.
If they commit a crime, they should be incarcerated.
The idea that the homeless are a danger to the public is very American. If you look at the stats, it simply isn’t so, in the U.K.
The mad stabby types aren’t street people.
But seeing them (rightly) makes the rest of us feel uncomfortable, guilty and sad. Ralph McTell sang about it, and that was over fifty years ago.
Strong message follows
I’d rather they were on the street than drugged up against their will or imprisoned for the crime of being untidy and upsetting people.
Which literally nobody has suggested, but it would be a shame to waste an opportunity to promote your own virtue wouldn't it?
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
It is going to be very interesting to read the post-mortem of this period of Labour government, particularly from those on the inside.
Reeves’ trajectory is fascinating. This is someone who keeps trying to play political games - WFA, messaging over last years budget, welfare cuts, manifesto pledges etc - and just seems to fail to land it every time that she tries.
She was never the most dynamic or exciting political figure but I will say that I think the past 18 months have taken a huge toll on her. I commented the other day that she looks haunted. She is now much less confident and much more stilted in her delivery. She can’t get through a sentence without about 5 or 6 “errs” or “umms”. She seems to have had a severe crisis of confidence, in my opinion, as a result of seeing all of her previous actions seemingly fail.
Politics is a rough game. I think she’s been found wanting in this role, and I think she’s should really be stepping down (she won’t, of course).
Her main achievement in office, probably only one, is being the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Who’d replace her ? Darren Jones ?
Could any chancellor get measures that annoy vocal parts of the electorate past labours stupid backbenchers. Many of whom, like the Lib Dem’s, still want to give billions we don’t have to the likes of the WASPI women
One of Labour’s problems is strangely due to them having such a huge majority in that it means that party discipline is not there to an extent. So on the radio the other morning they were interviewing Nadia Whitome about the Danish policy for asylum seekers and basically as Nick Robinson went through aspects of it she was clear that she, and her cohort, wouldn’t accept lots of elements so again it will be a policy that gets watered down due to a large rump of the party’s left whereas if that rump was smaller, or the majority was smaller they might not be so brave to block their government’s policies.
Rishi was equally awful; Hunt markedly better. But neither actually levelled with the British public or offered a viable platform for the future.
Though with Hunt, you have to separate Hunt-the-fixer-of-the-Trusstasrophe (pretty good) from pre-election-Hunt (who did the fiscal equivalent of a large and stinky poo on the Treasury carpet on the way out).
But yes, Sunak-Hunt were even less honest with the public than Starmer-Reeves. The question is- with the public in the mood it's in, and the media happy to egg them on, how does anyone offer an honest viable platform for the future and still get elected?
Over fifteen years on, and the world is no nearer to an answer to Jean-Claude Juncker's question from 2008.
I knew you’d say that.
But Labour came in with the second-largest majority since the war. It’s not good enough to complain that “we know what to do, but we don’t know how to win an election afterwards”.
In any case, there’s no evidence at all that Labour “know what to do”, and much evidence to the contrary.
As far as I’m concerned the British state faces an existential crisis. The entire politico-media complex that governs the UK from their various redoubts in Islington, Surrey, Oxford etc are fiddling while Rome burns.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Good stuff, though his characterisation of the commonwealth as an alternative looks anachronistic now. I think even if we hadn't joined the EU, commonwealth ties would have tailed off pretty quickly.
You don't offer a reason why you think that though.
Suella's greatest crime seems to have been being right.
She's a nasty woman, her homelessness is a lifestyle choice comments were vile, given the number of people with mental health/ex military people who are homeless, very few people choose to be homeless. I know somebody who was made homeless through no fault of her own, her partner had got himself into debt, and they banks/lender repossessed the property, she was 'lucky' because her family and friends stepped up, not everybody has that support system.
I told Boris Johnson that one of his proudest achievements as PM was to end rough sleeping at the start of the pandemic, one of his biggest failures was to ensure rough sleeping was a thing of the past.
A couple of points
- ex-military rough sleepers. A couple of years ago, a military charity, working with the military did a survey. What they found was - of the genuine ex-military, something like 95%+ among rough sleepers had been let go during *training*. For having suspected mental health issues. That’s interesting because that suggests an opportunity to help earlier.
- simply stuffing rough sleepers into hotels etc does very little. The issues that lead to people sleeping in cardboard boxes are not easy to solve
- the bigger problem is homelessness. Which isn’t rough sleeping. But not having a permanent home - see rooms in shitty “B&Bs” paid for by the council.
It’s almost as if a significant part of the problem can be fixed by allowing a lot more houses to be built.
The homelessness - people without a permanent home - yes
Rough sleeping is harder. Essentially it’s drugs + alcohol + mental health + {something} that makes people pretty much incapable of steadily living inside. Just talk to people who run shelters about what happens.
In The Goode Olde Dayz, people like that were locked up when the place was getting untidy. Otherwise they were Tramps & Vagabonds.
Bombing them up on pharmaceuticals to make them docile won’t work - the drugs don’t make them feel good. The reverse in fact. So they stop taking them. And forcing people, against their will, to take such drugs is pretty much impossible, legally. At least these days.
So we can’t shove them in a madhouse (prison for the mentally unfixable) can’t turn them into zombies…
What’s left is trying to provide an avenue off the street for the small number who can/will get out if that life.
Which is why I support the charities that do that
I don't agree about locking people away, nor forcing medication upon them. It should only be done in extreme circumstances, but if it must be done to protect the public, it must be done. It's completely inchorent philosophically to suggest otherwise, because it introduces a hierarchy of human rights - the human rights of the insane to freedom being placed above those of the sane to life.
If they have committed no crime then yes of course their liberty comes first.
If they commit a crime, they should be incarcerated.
The idea that the homeless are a danger to the public is very American. If you look at the stats, it simply isn’t so, in the U.K.
The mad stabby types aren’t street people.
But seeing them (rightly) makes the rest of us feel uncomfortable, guilty and sad. Ralph McTell sang about it, and that was over fifty years ago.
Strong message follows
I’d rather they were on the street than drugged up against their will or imprisoned for the crime of being untidy and upsetting people.
Which literally nobody has suggested, but it would be a shame to waste an opportunity to promote your own virtue wouldn't it?
Well, those are the alternatives. The drugging and imprisoning got banned as inhumane.
Or we could do what Denmark does. Sweep them up into the Christiana and let them really do what they want.
A hero who tried to fight off the Huntingdon train attacker has been refused a refund by Ryanair after his injuries left him unable to fly.
Stephen Crean, 61, had planned to fly to Austria on Wednesday to watch his beloved Nottingham Forest take on SK Sturm Graz in the Europa League.
But Mr Crean was left unable to travel after being stabbed six times in the attack on the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) Doncaster to London Kings Cross train on Nov 1.
The top 10% of UK income earners are incredibly steeply taxed.
Wealth is barely taxed.
So we simply penalise strivers and entrepreneurs to pay for elderly home-owners to take cruises.
It's remarkable the personal resentment I now feel when I see a group of laughing bronzed retirees sitting around enjoying themselves - and there really are rather a lot of them - whilst criticising the young for not working hard enough and complaining all the time.
Biting my tongue isn't snough.
As a retiree I don’t blame you. I know my grandchildren are working hard. And Mrs C and I are proud of the work they’re doing.
Rishi was equally awful; Hunt markedly better. But neither actually levelled with the British public or offered a viable platform for the future.
Though with Hunt, you have to separate Hunt-the-fixer-of-the-Trusstasrophe (pretty good) from pre-election-Hunt (who did the fiscal equivalent of a large and stinky poo on the Treasury carpet on the way out).
But yes, Sunak-Hunt were even less honest with the public than Starmer-Reeves. The question is- with the public in the mood it's in, and the media happy to egg them on, how does anyone offer an honest viable platform for the future and still get elected?
Over fifteen years on, and the world is no nearer to an answer to Jean-Claude Juncker's question from 2008.
I knew you’d say that.
But Labour came in with the second-largest majority since the war. It’s not good enough to complain that “we know what to do, but we don’t know how to win an election afterwards”.
In any case, there’s no evidence at all that Labour “know what to do”, and much evidence to the contrary.
As far as I’m concerned the British state faces an existential crisis. The entire politico-media complex that governs the UK from their various redoubts in Islington, Surrey, Oxford etc are fiddling while Rome burns.
They are not fiddling while Rome burns.
They are twiddling knobs on a dashboard connected to nothing. And wondering why people don’t love them.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Good stuff, though his characterisation of the commonwealth as an alternative looks anachronistic now. I think even if we hadn't joined the EU, commonwealth ties would have tailed off pretty quickly.
Not really, he's arguing that the Commonwealth is the progressive choice and the open-minded one.
A perfectly reasonable view and, indeed, a logical one.
Did nothing for the economy; probably the opposite.
In July 2025, the international court of justice delivered a landmark decision that clarified that all states were bound under international law to tackle the human-made climate crisis, which the judges unanimously concluded posed an “urgent and existential threat” to the planet’s life-sustaining systems and therefore humanity itself.
The ICJ advisory opinion built on rulings from hundreds of climate lawsuits across the world over the past decade or more, and added further legal weight to strong decisions from the inter-American court of human rights in July 2025 and the international tribunal on the law of the sea in May 2024.
But the ICJ case in particular, which brought the world’s biggest problem to the world’s highest court, has been hailed as a gamechanger for climate justice and accountability.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 45% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I missed an important point - there are many, many more people earning in and around £50k than £100k. So while I think sorting the silly cliff edge out is important, this incessant focus on the highest earners is unwarranted imo - there is more potential to generate more output lower down the pay distribution.
I like the idea of a £10k tax allowance per child to boost hours during the most productive parts of our careers.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 45% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I missed an important point - there are many, many more people earning in and around £50k than £100k. So while I think sorting the silly cliff edge out is important, this incessant focus on the highest earners is unwarranted imo - there is more potential to generate more output lower down the pay distribution.
There’s also a significant cliff edge for many at £50k with the child benefit withdrawal. A number that hasn’t risen with inflation.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Good stuff, though his characterisation of the commonwealth as an alternative looks anachronistic now. I think even if we hadn't joined the EU, commonwealth ties would have tailed off pretty quickly.
Not really, he's arguing that the Commonwealth is the progressive choice and the open-minded one.
A perfectly reasonable view and, indeed, a logical one.
Did nothing for the economy; probably the opposite.
If we had worked *with* India to help them out if autarkic isolation, they would be where China is now, economically.
The top 10% of UK income earners are incredibly steeply taxed.
Wealth is barely taxed.
So we simply penalise strivers and entrepreneurs to pay for elderly home-owners to take cruises.
The cliff edge at £100k is all politics. Its inconcievable that if that didn't exist we would see more people earning £100-150k and 5 days a week and the tax man getting more revenue. On an individual level it is absolutely pointless entertaining cash pay rise that puts you over that £100k level unless it is going to be a huge increase.
The stupid thing is they could bring the 45% tax band down to £100k, add a percent or two onto the tax rate, and you'd still get far fewer complaints or behaviour changes than the current system. The headline politics would still be a tax rise on high earners, but it's make our economy more efficient.
Suella's greatest crime seems to have been being right.
She's a nasty woman, her homelessness is a lifestyle choice comments were vile, given the number of people with mental health/ex military people who are homeless, very few people choose to be homeless. I know somebody who was made homeless through no fault of her own, her partner had got himself into debt, and they banks/lender repossessed the property, she was 'lucky' because her family and friends stepped up, not everybody has that support system.
I told Boris Johnson that one of his proudest achievements as PM was to end rough sleeping at the start of the pandemic, one of his biggest failures was to ensure rough sleeping was a thing of the past.
A couple of points
- ex-military rough sleepers. A couple of years ago, a military charity, working with the military did a survey. What they found was - of the genuine ex-military, something like 95%+ among rough sleepers had been let go during *training*. For having suspected mental health issues. That’s interesting because that suggests an opportunity to help earlier.
- simply stuffing rough sleepers into hotels etc does very little. The issues that lead to people sleeping in cardboard boxes are not easy to solve
- the bigger problem is homelessness. Which isn’t rough sleeping. But not having a permanent home - see rooms in shitty “B&Bs” paid for by the council.
It’s almost as if a significant part of the problem can be fixed by allowing a lot more houses to be built.
The homelessness - people without a permanent home - yes
Rough sleeping is harder. Essentially it’s drugs + alcohol + mental health + {something} that makes people pretty much incapable of steadily living inside. Just talk to people who run shelters about what happens.
In The Goode Olde Dayz, people like that were locked up when the place was getting untidy. Otherwise they were Tramps & Vagabonds.
Bombing them up on pharmaceuticals to make them docile won’t work - the drugs don’t make them feel good. The reverse in fact. So they stop taking them. And forcing people, against their will, to take such drugs is pretty much impossible, legally. At least these days.
So we can’t shove them in a madhouse (prison for the mentally unfixable) can’t turn them into zombies…
What’s left is trying to provide an avenue off the street for the small number who can/will get out if that life.
Which is why I support the charities that do that
I don't agree about locking people away, nor forcing medication upon them. It should only be done in extreme circumstances, but if it must be done to protect the public, it must be done. It's completely inchorent philosophically to suggest otherwise, because it introduces a hierarchy of human rights - the human rights of the insane to freedom being placed above those of the sane to life.
If they have committed no crime then yes of course their liberty comes first.
If they commit a crime, they should be incarcerated.
The idea that the homeless are a danger to the public is very American. If you look at the stats, it simply isn’t so, in the U.K.
The mad stabby types aren’t street people.
But seeing them (rightly) makes the rest of us feel uncomfortable, guilty and sad. Ralph McTell sang about it, and that was over fifty years ago.
Strong message follows
I’d rather they were on the street than drugged up against their will or imprisoned for the crime of being untidy and upsetting people.
Which literally nobody has suggested, but it would be a shame to waste an opportunity to promote your own virtue wouldn't it?w
Well, those are the alternatives. The drugging and imprisoning got banned as inhumane.
Or we could do what Denmark does. Sweep them up into the Christiana and let them really do what they want.
It doesn't strike me that those are the only alternatives. You say there are many young men, many of whom have tried the forces and not made it, or done it and come out. I don't think it's a massive leap to suggest that many of those men could be usefully employed, get clean, and get a sense of purpose in some form of auxiliary role that is not being a full soldier but is still valuable. There could be something between the TA and the French pompiers, an organisation that could help people in all sorts of ways. Disaster relief, security - they could even be organised to provide agricultural labour in extremis.
It takes seeing people as valuable, not a problem.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 45% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I missed an important point - there are many, many more people earning in and around £50k than £100k. So while I think sorting the silly cliff edge out is important, this incessant focus on the highest earners is unwarranted imo - there is more potential to generate more output lower down the pay distribution.
There’s also a significant cliff edge for many at £50k with the child benefit withdrawal. A number that hasn’t risen with inflation.
Being a single parent on £50-60k is really poor position now. Earning too much money for tax credits, cliff edge and liable for everything a couple would be, while into the 40% tax IC rate, energy costs, council tax, etc etc etc. it isn't a large income now.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
It is going to be very interesting to read the post-mortem of this period of Labour government, particularly from those on the inside.
Reeves’ trajectory is fascinating. This is someone who keeps trying to play political games - WFA, messaging over last years budget, welfare cuts, manifesto pledges etc - and just seems to fail to land it every time that she tries.
She was never the most dynamic or exciting political figure but I will say that I think the past 18 months have taken a huge toll on her. I commented the other day that she looks haunted. She is now much less confident and much more stilted in her delivery. She can’t get through a sentence without about 5 or 6 “errs” or “umms”. She seems to have had a severe crisis of confidence, in my opinion, as a result of seeing all of her previous actions seemingly fail.
Politics is a rough game. I think she’s been found wanting in this role, and I think she’s should really be stepping down (she won’t, of course).
Her main achievement in office, probably only one, is being the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Who’d replace her ? Darren Jones ?
Could any chancellor get measures that annoy vocal parts of the electorate past labours stupid backbenchers. Many of whom, like the Lib Dem’s, still want to give billions we don’t have to the likes of the WASPI women
You seen obsessed with WASPI women. Which is the party that, when in opposition, hasn't given the WASPI women a promise? Even the Tories, having turned them down flat when in power, tried to make capital out of Labour doing precisely the same, criticised their rejection of the compensation, and accusing them of "betrayal"
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 45% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I missed an important point - there are many, many more people earning in and around £50k than £100k. So while I think sorting the silly cliff edge out is important, this incessant focus on the highest earners is unwarranted imo - there is more potential to generate more output lower down the pay distribution.
I like the idea of a £10k tax allowance per child to boost hours during the most productive parts of our careers.
Be interesting to know whether there’s a similar spike around £50k as the one at £100k:
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 45% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I missed an important point - there are many, many more people earning in and around £50k than £100k. So while I think sorting the silly cliff edge out is important, this incessant focus on the highest earners is unwarranted imo - there is more potential to generate more output lower down the pay distribution.
Another aspect is how different public sector pension contributions are increased as salaries are higher. For instance with teachers, up to £35k its 7.4% of salary, at £47k its 9.9%.
The rumours of dropping the higher rate to £46k has been enough for the Mrs to put her papers in for four day week. Her pension contributions have more or less netted her salary so it only just dips into the higher rate. Well done Rachel..
A hero who tried to fight off the Huntingdon train attacker has been refused a refund by Ryanair after his injuries left him unable to fly.
Stephen Crean, 61, had planned to fly to Austria on Wednesday to watch his beloved Nottingham Forest take on SK Sturm Graz in the Europa League.
But Mr Crean was left unable to travel after being stabbed six times in the attack on the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) Doncaster to London Kings Cross train on Nov 1.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Good stuff, though his characterisation of the commonwealth as an alternative looks anachronistic now. I think even if we hadn't joined the EU, commonwealth ties would have tailed off pretty quickly.
Not really, he's arguing that the Commonwealth is the progressive choice and the open-minded one.
A perfectly reasonable view and, indeed, a logical one.
Did nothing for the economy; probably the opposite.
If we had worked *with* India to help them out if autarkic isolation, they would be where China is now, economically.
For example.
Would they ? Could we even have done that effectively ? I think that's a real stretch.
Rishi was equally awful; Hunt markedly better. But neither actually levelled with the British public or offered a viable platform for the future.
Though with Hunt, you have to separate Hunt-the-fixer-of-the-Trusstasrophe (pretty good) from pre-election-Hunt (who did the fiscal equivalent of a large and stinky poo on the Treasury carpet on the way out).
But yes, Sunak-Hunt were even less honest with the public than Starmer-Reeves. The question is- with the public in the mood it's in, and the media happy to egg them on, how does anyone offer an honest viable platform for the future and still get elected?
Over fifteen years on, and the world is no nearer to an answer to Jean-Claude Juncker's question from 2008.
The poo was a purely political poo which could have been undone very quickly and is almost step for step the same as Brown's 50p top tax rate. Designed as a political trap.
I think for Labour, even with their manifesto commitments they could have quite easily undone the NI cuts, and said needed for unfunded public sector pay agreements, which was true, it would have been done in the first few weeks and no one would have really battered an eye lid. " a political poisoning of the well, the type of thing that showed just how wreckless the conservatives were with the public finances".
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Atlee had a somewhat brutal effectiveness. Some say it came from the trenches in WWI.
There were few who thought him a starter, Many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM, an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Good stuff, though his characterisation of the commonwealth as an alternative looks anachronistic now. I think even if we hadn't joined the EU, commonwealth ties would have tailed off pretty quickly.
Not really, he's arguing that the Commonwealth is the progressive choice and the open-minded one.
A perfectly reasonable view and, indeed, a logical one.
Did nothing for the economy; probably the opposite.
If we had worked *with* India to help them out if autarkic isolation, they would be where China is now, economically.
For example.
An India with the economy of China might be a bigger threat to the world.
My dislike of Reeves was kindled when I heard her pre-election chit-chat with Bad Al and Rory Stewart.
In a generally soft-ball interview, Stewart innocently asked whether her tax plans would be sufficient, and Reeves jumped down his throat and started ranting about Tory effrontery.
She’s obviously quite a bitter individual, and as we’ve now discovered, destructively useless as well.
She's bitter that she never held a real job in the city and I think she not so secretly hates the economic engine of the UK because it chewed her up and spat her out early in her career and shunted her into a customer service role for a retail bank.
The rumour is that the top rate or tax will go up to 49% (47% IT and 2% NI) or a 64% marginal rate in the £100-125k income band. Any of the last few Labour supporters want to tell me that either of these rates aren't work disincentives?
This country is a joke and the Laboir party are having a laugh at our expense.
I think there is a bigger problem lower down in the payscale.
From my anecdotal experience the people dropping to 4 day weeks are typically people on £50k - £80k who are paired up, have a mortgage, and/or have kids, so the leisure/work balance has hit the top rate of tax at 45% here in Scotland and the decision is obvious. Those on £100k in my line of work tend to be highly driven and for them, frankly, the cash is only a small part of why they work so hard - it's more about prestige/power. I think this is why the £100k band effect is difficult to discern in the data.
Essentially the Treasury is taking advantage of the hustle of people working for their first flat or are highly driven, and the inversion point on the laffer curve is actually very high for these individuals - possibly even as high as 70%. If I were Reeves, I'd be much more concerned about how to keep parents and people with mortgages working 35+ hours, where the point could be as low as 30%.
I missed an important point - there are many, many more people earning in and around £50k than £100k. So while I think sorting the silly cliff edge out is important, this incessant focus on the highest earners is unwarranted imo - there is more potential to generate more output lower down the pay distribution.
There’s also a significant cliff edge for many at £50k with the child benefit withdrawal. A number that hasn’t risen with inflation.
£60k now after it was changed but the point remains
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
What I find fascinating is that she's been told by virtually everyone that talking down the economy - and talking up every possible tax rise - for months on end does real damage to economic confidence, investment and consumption. And yet she keeps doing it - and some.
Why?
Because having spent the past 18 months blaming everyone but themselves they are being confronted by the direct effects of their own poor decision making and they simply can't face it. It's much easier to just continue to pretend.
@PronouncedAlva SCOOP: Tim Davie is about to announce his resignation as Director General of the BBC, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Champagne corks popping in BBC HQ I would imagine. Won't change the core cultural issues. All the problems they have got themselves into, Fake Hamas documentaries, Bobby anti-semtism at Glasto, editting Trump speeches, BBC poorly verified consistently fucking up, wasn't directly his decisions.
He should really have gone though over Huw paedo scandal.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Attlee’s view of Reeves would have been;
“Sorry, not up to it.”
It is going to be very interesting to read the post-mortem of this period of Labour government, particularly from those on the inside.
Reeves’ trajectory is fascinating. This is someone who keeps trying to play political games - WFA, messaging over last years budget, welfare cuts, manifesto pledges etc - and just seems to fail to land it every time that she tries.
She was never the most dynamic or exciting political figure but I will say that I think the past 18 months have taken a huge toll on her. I commented the other day that she looks haunted. She is now much less confident and much more stilted in her delivery. She can’t get through a sentence without about 5 or 6 “errs” or “umms”. She seems to have had a severe crisis of confidence, in my opinion, as a result of seeing all of her previous actions seemingly fail.
Politics is a rough game. I think she’s been found wanting in this role, and I think she’s should really be stepping down (she won’t, of course).
Her main achievement in office, probably only one, is being the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Who’d replace her ? Darren Jones ?
Could any chancellor get measures that annoy vocal parts of the electorate past labours stupid backbenchers. Many of whom, like the Lib Dem’s, still want to give billions we don’t have to the likes of the WASPI women
One of Labour’s problems is strangely due to them having such a huge majority in that it means that party discipline is not there to an extent. So on the radio the other morning they were interviewing Nadia Whitome about the Danish policy for asylum seekers and basically as Nick Robinson went through aspects of it she was clear that she, and her cohort, wouldn’t accept lots of elements so again it will be a policy that gets watered down due to a large rump of the party’s left whereas if that rump was smaller, or the majority was smaller they might not be so brave to block their government’s policies.
The Conservative governments of 2015-2019 are famous for having small majority or minorities, and yet still having a rebelling rump.
I had a chat in the playground this weekend with another middle-class parent which, after about 15 minutes of chat and the cost of living, finally gravitated onto politics.
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
I keep telling you.... Fickle, them voters.
Remember all those people before GE2024 saying things couldn't possibly be any worse with Labour?
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
We certainly wouldn't have spunked £40bn on public sector pay rises and the NHS that's for damn sure. What a complete disaster this bunch of idiots have been. £60bn in extra borrowing per year and literally nothing to show for it.
Comments
She described herself as a floating voter. When I mentioned the economy, the upcoming budget and Rachel Reeves, she grimaced, said 'Rachel Thieves'. She said Reform are too far out there, and not for her, but she can't stand this govt, and she'd vote Conservative now. She rapidly followed up with, "Bring back Rishi."
Words I wasn’t expecting to hear.
https://www.visitlakedistrict.com/things-to-do/the-bridge-house-ambleside-p1373371
An American general, on the show, replied that they wouldn’t dream of it. If Canada didn’t want be involved, they would program the keep-out zone for the system so as not to defend Canada.
The anti-nuke activist immediately started screaming that that was immoral…
State already investing in drone defences ahead of visits from ministers and heads of state next year
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/11/08/ireland-considers-asking-eu-nations-for-security-help-during-presidency-including-warship/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/07/one-in-four-teachers-now-part-time/?msockid=286f17fc1c606c5a0eb002b31dff6dac
I agree that the really high earners tend not to be motivated by money as much as by status or ambition but an ever increasing share of our work force are looking at the numbers and saying sod this.
Join NATO proper and invest in your own military. The rest of Europe has a large and crazy bear problem to its East.
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1987524116870508640
Also. The vast majority of teachers are in academies. Like GP's they aren't properly public sector.
Well, here we are.
We'd be in a much better place economically had we retained Rishi/Hunt, which of course is why we voted for them at the time.
Should have told them to fuck off and take their chances.
GOP Jesus
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ2L-R8NgrA
“Sorry, not up to it.”
Today, of all days, it brought the horror and tragedy of war home to me like nothing else. I am becoming an old softy but by the time I had finished I had tears in my eyes.
That’s going to remove any incentive working beyond £100,000 so we will be seeing people work 3 day weeks and not increasing their hours
Ireland? Not so much.
To echo Casino’s point I have been a Supply Chain departmental Manager three times in my career. The first time I was ambitious. The last two I ended up with all this extra work and hassle and being expected to be on call pretty much 24-7 for what, a few meaningless perks I got taxed on, like BUPA, and losing a large chunk of the extra cash.
Fuck that. I’d rather have the time and less hassle and a job paying just under the threshold. So I took a step back and refused any other opportunities that I was asked to consider.
Humans don’t work like that.
Their neutrality was a bit of a Cold War fiction. The Soviet plan for invading Europe included attacking both at the start of a war.
Both countries assumed that in the event of war they would be fighting with NATO and planned accordingly.
The reason they finally, officially joined NATO, was that it became clear that the provocation of it to Russia didn’t matter a damn in the age of Putin just invading countries when he felt like it.
They are a significant enhancement to NATO, and are increasing defence spending quite rapidly, along with aid to Ukraine.
For all sorts of reasons to do with career, family and temperament, money is fairly low down my list of priorities now. And that's mostly because of having a paid-off mortgage.
More pay or less tax is pretty unlikely to motivate me, though I accept that my personal Laffer Curve tops out unusually low. (And that I may have been allowed to accumulate sufficient 'go away please' money too easily and too soon.) On the other hand, people who insist on getting to the top are equally freakish, just the other way.
But... As society gets richer, I'm pretty sure that using money to motivate people to do work they wouldn't otherwise do is facing diminishing returns. It's a tricky problem that someone needs to solve sometime. (I suspect that there's an awkward paradox in that a lot of efficiency gains come from the kind of remote control and automation that make work less intrinsically satisfying.)
The kids are older now and that's no longer the case. I could go back to full time and earm more. But I'd be doing 25% more work for about 15% more take-home pay. It doesn't seem worth it.
Many who thought themselves smarter.
But he ended PM,
CH and OM,
an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Effective indeed.
Attlee was said to have replied “The country needs someone who loves war.”
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c4TWM9dEvdE
Reeves’ trajectory is fascinating. This is someone who keeps trying to play political games - WFA, messaging over last years budget, welfare cuts, manifesto pledges etc - and just seems to fail to land it every time that she tries.
She was never the most dynamic or exciting political figure but I will say that I think the past 18 months have taken a huge toll on her. I commented the other day that she looks haunted. She is now much less confident and much more stilted in her delivery. She can’t get through a sentence without about 5 or 6 “errs” or “umms”. She seems to have had a severe crisis of confidence, in my opinion, as a result of seeing all of her previous actions seemingly fail.
Politics is a rough game. I think she’s been found wanting in this role, and I think she’s should really be stepping down (she won’t, of course).
It really isn't worth it.
And had we joined Europe at the outset we'd have had far more influence.
Sometimes I wonder whether Attlee was up to it.
He was undoubtedly effective leading his party. The direction he took the country in, less so.
https://x.com/myarrse/status/1987559751874437122?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
(Which is a problem with pay as a recruitment handle. Current pay doesn't get enough people through the door. Current pay plus a bit gets more people through the door, but allows them to make enough money from fewer hours, so it helps less than it should. The holy grail is to find a way of making jobs things that people want to do full-time for most of their lifetime, which is tricky.)
But neither actually levelled with the British public or offered a viable platform for the future.
A perfectly reasonable view and, indeed, a logical one.
Who’d replace her ? Darren Jones ?
Could any chancellor get measures that annoy vocal parts of the electorate past labours stupid backbenchers. Many of whom, like the Lib Dem’s, still want to give billions we don’t have to the likes of the WASPI women
The other reason is people moving towards retirement - once you're into the last few years, you can drop down to PT without it adversely affecting your career average earnings for the pension. So if you have a partner who is still working, or you have paid off your mortgage and/or the kids are out of university, there isn't a massive impact on you dropping to 0.6 FTE - you can still clear £2k a month if you're an experienced teacher. This also accounts for two male members of staff in my team.
Most of the younger staff are all full time as they're either paying off mortgages and student loans, or living with parents and saving up for a house deposit (we're in the north west, so this is a realistic aspiration).
Why?
Wealth is barely taxed.
So we simply penalise strivers and entrepreneurs to pay for elderly home-owners to take cruises.
I'd certainly rate him above Starmer who flip-flops all over the place and is totally insincere.
But yes, Sunak-Hunt were even less honest with the public than Starmer-Reeves. The question is- with the public in the mood it's in, and the media happy to egg them on, how does anyone offer an honest viable platform for the future and still get elected?
Over fifteen years on, and the world is no nearer to an answer to Jean-Claude Juncker's question from 2008.
I did think of this episode of The West Wing:
https://youtu.be/B_3kELe0M8A?si=9AGiLmjz_B2ETpRA&t=35
Just talking about something can turn the markets into a panic.
Biting my tongue isn't snough.
But Labour came in with the second-largest majority since the war. It’s not good enough to complain that “we know what to do, but we don’t know how to win an election afterwards”.
In any case, there’s no evidence at all that Labour “know what to do”, and much evidence to the contrary.
As far as I’m concerned the British state faces an existential crisis. The entire politico-media complex that governs the UK from their various redoubts in Islington, Surrey, Oxford etc are fiddling while Rome burns.
He was a hyper-numerate idiot, and a philistine to boot.
I agree his manifesto was a mess. But that wasn't the best case against the Conservatives.
The best case was that their party had become virtually ungovernable and riven by infighting.
Or we could do what Denmark does. Sweep them up into the Christiana and let them really do what they want.
Stephen Crean, 61, had planned to fly to Austria on Wednesday to watch his beloved Nottingham Forest take on SK Sturm Graz in the Europa League.
But Mr Crean was left unable to travel after being stabbed six times in the attack on the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) Doncaster to London Kings Cross train on Nov 1.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/09/huntingdon-train-victim-denied-ryanair-refund-after-injury/
They are twiddling knobs on a dashboard connected to nothing. And wondering why people don’t love them.
The ICJ advisory opinion built on rulings from hundreds of climate lawsuits across the world over the past decade or more, and added further legal weight to strong decisions from the inter-American court of human rights in July 2025 and the international tribunal on the law of the sea in May 2024.
But the ICJ case in particular, which brought the world’s biggest problem to the world’s highest court, has been hailed as a gamechanger for climate justice and accountability.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/09/what-impact-will-icj-climate-ruling-have-on-cop30
How much is Starmer going to sign away in what definitely isn't a shake down?
I like the idea of a £10k tax allowance per child to boost hours during the most productive parts of our careers.
For example.
It takes seeing people as valuable, not a problem.
Be interesting to know whether there’s a similar spike around £50k as the one at £100k:
The rumours of dropping the higher rate to £46k has been enough for the Mrs to put her papers in for four day week. Her pension contributions have more or less netted her salary so it only just dips into the higher rate. Well done Rachel..
I think that's a real stretch.
I think for Labour, even with their manifesto commitments they could have quite easily undone the NI cuts, and said needed for unfunded public sector pay agreements, which was true, it would have been done in the first few weeks and no one would have really battered an eye lid. " a political poisoning of the well, the type of thing that showed just how wreckless the conservatives were with the public finances".
SCOOP: Tim Davie is about to announce his resignation as Director General of the BBC, according to a person familiar with the matter.
He should really have gone though over Huw paedo scandal.