Tonight an Amazon delivery driver let himself into my home.
It was lucky that I was in the right place to confront him immediately, but it shocked me and the question that keeps coming back to me is this: What if my wife or teenage daughter had been standing in my place?
The footage is clear: the driver approaches the door, breathing heavily, he checks the handle, and pushes his way inside. I don’t know what his intentions were, and that is exactly the point. I contacted the police. Their exact words were: “Trespass is a civil matter. There’s nothing we can do.” A senior officer on shift confirmed it. So let’s be absolutely honest with the public: Under current law, if a stranger walks into your house, the police may not attend. At a time when delivery companies are hiring thousands of temporary drivers, Who is turning up at our doors? What level of risk are families being exposed to? And most critically: What message does this legal loophole send to someone with bad intentions? Try your luck. If the homeowner scares you off, just walk away. The police won’t pursue you. Try again. This is utterly unacceptable. I will raise this in Parliament. I will not wait and risk someone being harmed before action is taken. If the law fails to protect people in their own homes, then the law must change."
Having rolled the pitch for income tax rises, Chancellor Reeves has now bottled it, under pressure from 10 Downing Street, which fears Keir Starmer could not survive such a major manifesto breach.
But the debt markets are not keen on a smorgasbord of small tax rises, which never deliver the predicted revenues. So gilt yields are already surging across the curve at the market open, with the yield on the 30-year bond up 14 basis points. Yields on bonds of all maturities are up more than 10 basis points.
Obviously the current lot are politically inept, as I keep saying, but we shouldn't fail to note how bad they also are at governing, and managing expectations, and steadying the markets, and dealing with the press.
There was no doubt in my mind in 2024 that Sunak and Hunt were the better choice, everything since then has simply confirmed that my judgement was sound.
It is one of the most important export centres for Russia. The bottlenecks are making it easier for Ukraine to take out an ever increasing proportion of these exports.
Russia has no tanks left. It has very few IFVs. Its aircraft lob glide bombs in from distance. Even that option ends when Ukraine get long-range missiles (200km+) meshed into their systems. The navy just sits in ever more distant ports, waiting for the latest iteration of the sea drones to find them. All Russia has are huge numbers of bullet-catchers, sent to their doom by officers making money buying and selling them. Whatever Russia has been doing is not sustainable.
Russia is in a bad way, yes.
But, for example, they also have now developed sea drones, which have conducted attacks on port infrastructure in Odesa. They have prioritised drone production so that they have an advantage in drones in front-line battles. They have demonstrated an amazing ability to get help from other countries - most of their artillery ammunition is now imported from North Korea. North Korean workers are manufacturing Shaheds inside Russia. Africans and Cubans are fighting and dying for Russia in Donetsk.
Ukraine have a desperate manpower shortage which is hindering their ability to rotate units out of the front and to do the training that would build a force capable of retaking occupied territory. It is possible that the Ukrainian ability to resist will break before the Russian ability to keep fighting does so - particularly if China is willing to act as a backstop to prevent a Russian collapse.
Europeans have consistently provided only just enough support to Ukraine to keep them fighting. European leaders are still wedded to the idea that a ceasefire on current lines is possible, and they are spending an inordinate amount of time on peace plans and fantasy plans for a post-ceasefire reassurance force, when there is zero sign that Russia or Putin are willing to settle. If Ukraine is to win this war with European support then there needs to be a strategy based on achieving victory, and doing what is necessary to achieve victory.
In principal the frozen Russian assets provide an opportunity to fund such a strategy, but it now seems as though they will be used only to maintain current levels of support for the next few years, a short-term measure to relieve European budget pressures, rather than pushing for victory.
Russia must lose and must be seen to lose. But even nearly four years on most European political leaders do not get this.
I think this is a really good piece, that I mostly agree with.
As far as Russia on the battlefield goes, they are winning. But they are winning incredibly slowly; glacially even. They take a mile here, or a mile there, and they still control less of Ukraine than they did a month into the invasion. The Russian government lives in this dreamworld where, at some point, they burst through Ukrainian lines, the Ukrainian government collapses, and they can dictate terms. I just don't see that happening. But Putin has to believe it, because a ceasefile on current terms, with Zelenskky in power is a death knell for him, because of just how many Russians have died.
On the other hand, the Ukrainian shortages of men are very serious. The only thing in their favour is that defending is a hell of a lot easier than attacking, and the they are losing people at maybe a 1:4 ratio compared to the Russians. Manpower shortages mean that Ukraine has very limited ability to go on the offensive. They are basically sitting back and taking the blows, and hoping that Russia gives up. Which, so far, they've shown no signs of doing.
With that said, the attacks in Russia are (potentially) a game changer. The Russian economy was incredibly reslient the first three years of the war, because higher energy price worldwide (due to the war) meant that Russia could sell oil and gas to China and India and earn more money than they used to.
The attacks on energy infrastructure in Russia mean that the civilian population is feeling the pinch for the very first time. Energy prices for consumers and businesses have gone through the roof, and that's going to be painful.
At the same time, the Russian government is now borrowing like a drunken sailor to make up for lost energy revenue.
If Ukraine can keep reducing the amount of Russian oil available for export (while increasing the price of petrol and diesel in Russia), then life becomes very hard for Russia. Those Africans and North Koreans don't work (and die) for nothing. Russia needs money to pay them.
Weirdly, according to the articles I’ve read, the Ukranian manpower shortage is not to do with a failure of recruitment (although obviously that is an issue, just as it is for the Russians) but the main chokepoint is training - the Ukranians are trapped in a cycle of not having enough men at the front, so they can’t spare any to train up new recruits in the modern way of war, leading to them not having enough men at the front etc etc.
Isn’t that something that the West (not the USA obvs) could throw resource at without any bellowing about escalation? I realise this is being done already but presumably not enough.
Of course the real experts at this new form of warfare are at the front so a bit of Catch 22.
The West has precisely zero experience of fighting a war the way Russia & Ukraine are currently fighting. Very little western doctrine applies, apart from the ”well I wouldn’t start from here” part, which is a) obvious & b) completely unhelpful.
It is one of the most important export centres for Russia. The bottlenecks are making it easier for Ukraine to take out an ever increasing proportion of these exports.
You’ll know it’s over when Russia has to start shutting off the oil wells - there’s no way back from that (in the short-medium term) IIRC.
JD Vance claimed yesterday that he is "a GROK guy" which is perhaps the most embarrassing sentence ever uttered.
Grok's very good. They have a fast coding model that works at lightning speed with pretty decent accuracy that is great value for money.
But what I find most interesting about the LLM Wars is that no one has really pulled ahead: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Grok, and DeepSeek are all really good. And that's very different to what normally happens in tech. Normally one company pulls slightly ahead, and therefore is able to sell more product, can invest more, and then the gap betwee them and competitors widens and widens.
Microsoft did in software. Apple in mobile phones. Amazon in online shopping. SpaceX in rocket launches. (Tesla did it too, but then decided to shoot themselves repeatedly in various parts of their own anatomy.)
But it hasn't happened yet in LLMs/AI. Will it happen? I don't know, it's fascinating.
JD Vance claimed yesterday that he is "a GROK guy" which is perhaps the most embarrassing sentence ever uttered.
Grok's very good. They have a fast coding model that works at lightning speed with pretty decent accuracy that is great value for money.
But what I find most interesting about the LLM Wars is that no one has really pulled ahead: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Grok, and DeepSeek are all really good. And that's very different to what normally happens in tech. Normally one company pulls slightly ahead, and therefore is able to sell more product, can invest more, and then the gap betwee them and competitors widens and widens.
Microsoft did in software. Apple in mobile phones. Amazon in online shopping. SpaceX in rocket launches. (Tesla did it too, but then decided to shoot themselves repeatedly in various parts of their own anatomy.)
But it hasn't happened yet in LLMs/AI. Will it happen? I don't know, it's fascinating.
It will happen when China plunders the best from all of them...
JD Vance claimed yesterday that he is "a GROK guy" which is perhaps the most embarrassing sentence ever uttered.
Grok's very good. They have a fast coding model that works at lightning speed with pretty decent accuracy that is great value for money.
But what I find most interesting about the LLM Wars is that no one has really pulled ahead: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Grok, and DeepSeek are all really good. And that's very different to what normally happens in tech. Normally one company pulls slightly ahead, and therefore is able to sell more product, can invest more, and then the gap betwee them and competitors widens and widens.
Microsoft did in software. Apple in mobile phones. Amazon in online shopping. SpaceX in rocket launches. (Tesla did it too, but then decided to shoot themselves repeatedly in various parts of their own anatomy.)
But it hasn't happened yet in LLMs/AI. Will it happen? I don't know, it's fascinating.
No real secret sauce? Just spend billions on ever larger computer systems. So no real advantage for any of the players. It's more like a death race where the last survivor wins, and then gets to fight all the companies that have bought the assets of the players that went bust for pennies on the dollar.
JD Vance claimed yesterday that he is "a GROK guy" which is perhaps the most embarrassing sentence ever uttered.
Grok's very good. They have a fast coding model that works at lightning speed with pretty decent accuracy that is great value for money.
But what I find most interesting about the LLM Wars is that no one has really pulled ahead: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Grok, and DeepSeek are all really good. And that's very different to what normally happens in tech. Normally one company pulls slightly ahead, and therefore is able to sell more product, can invest more, and then the gap betwee them and competitors widens and widens.
Microsoft did in software. Apple in mobile phones. Amazon in online shopping. SpaceX in rocket launches. (Tesla did it too, but then decided to shoot themselves repeatedly in various parts of their own anatomy.)
But it hasn't happened yet in LLMs/AI. Will it happen? I don't know, it's fascinating.
It will happen when China plunders the best from all of them...
The Chinese have demonstrated that you can build a really good LLM for a fraction of the cost of OpenAI/Anthropic/xAI.
DeepSeek and Kimi were trained for the low 10s of millions, which is properly bonkers.
It will be interesting to see, if here in Newham, we see any kind of electoral "co-operation" between the Greens, Newham Independents and Your Party.
If they all stand against each other, Labour will be laughing all the way to another big majority but if, for example, the Newham Independents fight the Muslim Wards, the Greens stay in Stratford and a few other places and Your Party fight the rest, it could get very difficult for Newham Labour.
Throw in Reform (16% in a Muslim Ward in a by-election) and it's going to be the most interesting local election here in decades.
Could be a rare Your Party v Reform battle on those demographics in some wards or even Your Party v Green in a few
It is one of the most important export centres for Russia. The bottlenecks are making it easier for Ukraine to take out an ever increasing proportion of these exports.
You’ll know it’s over when Russia has to start shutting off the oil wells - there’s no way back from that (in the short-medium term) IIRC.
The combination of lack of acccess to western tech, lack of storage, together with the onset of winter means a lot of pipelines are going to start turning into candles 10s of km long. The closing down of production wells took years and billions to remedy after the fall of the Soviet Union. Ukraine knows it can now repeat this.
I am just absolutely staggered. Reeves is just so out of her depth it is painful now.
How can you call a press conference and basically announce income tax will rise and then a week later decide not to do it?
Just breathtaking.
I'm thinking about what they might do instead. There's that technical wheeze whereby the BoE/Treasury stop paying multi billions per annum to commercial banks under the QE/QT arrangements. Maybe that?
And/or something serious on property?
Its very likely to be pensions. The ending of higher rate tax relief and a substantial drop in what can be taken as a tax free lump sum. Add in a few bits and pieces at the edge, such as increasing fuel duty, and freezing of IT thresholds and they are nearly there.
Yes, I'm expecting the end of higher rate tax relief on pensions. But I thought they were planning to create a much bigger buffer this time to impress the markets and minimise the chances of having to do this again next year. So serious £££ required.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
Russia has no tanks left. It has very few IFVs. Its aircraft lob glide bombs in from distance. Even that option ends when Ukraine get long-range missiles (200km+) meshed into their systems. The navy just sits in ever more distant ports, waiting for the latest iteration of the sea drones to find them. All Russia has are huge numbers of bullet-catchers, sent to their doom by officers making money buying and selling them. Whatever Russia has been doing is not sustainable.
Russia is in a bad way, yes.
But, for example, they also have now developed sea drones, which have conducted attacks on port infrastructure in Odesa. They have prioritised drone production so that they have an advantage in drones in front-line battles. They have demonstrated an amazing ability to get help from other countries - most of their artillery ammunition is now imported from North Korea. North Korean workers are manufacturing Shaheds inside Russia. Africans and Cubans are fighting and dying for Russia in Donetsk.
Ukraine have a desperate manpower shortage which is hindering their ability to rotate units out of the front and to do the training that would build a force capable of retaking occupied territory. It is possible that the Ukrainian ability to resist will break before the Russian ability to keep fighting does so - particularly if China is willing to act as a backstop to prevent a Russian collapse.
Europeans have consistently provided only just enough support to Ukraine to keep them fighting. European leaders are still wedded to the idea that a ceasefire on current lines is possible, and they are spending an inordinate amount of time on peace plans and fantasy plans for a post-ceasefire reassurance force, when there is zero sign that Russia or Putin are willing to settle. If Ukraine is to win this war with European support then there needs to be a strategy based on achieving victory, and doing what is necessary to achieve victory.
In principal the frozen Russian assets provide an opportunity to fund such a strategy, but it now seems as though they will be used only to maintain current levels of support for the next few years, a short-term measure to relieve European budget pressures, rather than pushing for victory.
Russia must lose and must be seen to lose. But even nearly four years on most European political leaders do not get this.
If Putin thinks he is going to lose and be forced from Ukraine completely, he may well use a tactical nuclear weapon. Russia has more nukes than any other nation on earth. The best that can happen at the moment, which even Zelensky agrees now, is a ceasefire on current lines
If Putin ever believes that he will lose then he can simply offer a ceasefire on current lines, and the Europeans would force the Ukrainians to agree.
Russia did not use a nuclear weapon when they lost territory in Kharkiv, or in Kherson, in the autumn of 2022. We know that is an empty threat now. But the attitude of the Europeans means that he can run the risk of pushing Russia to the point of collapse, and still settle for a ceasefire on the lines at that point. The policy of the Europeans encourages Putin to keep fighting for as long as possible. It does nothing to pressure him into a ceasefire. If he knew that he was risking outright defeat then he might make more realistic efforts towards an earlier peace.
Yes but Russia still held territory in Ukraine even if it fell back in 2022.
If Putin risked outright defeat and being forced out of Ukraine completely then his Presidency and his administration would be over and he would have nothing to lose by using nuclear missiles. Keep Putin at current lines yes but going further than that is very risky
Well that's a bad start to the day. The 50 year taboo on increasing the basic rate of income tax is IMO perverse and damaging. When I heard it was finally going to be broken I was cock-a-hoop. I even got a bottle in for the big day - a nice Chilean red that is at its best after two weeks in the larder. Now we find it's not happening and the news is somehow worse for hopes having been raised. If they weren't up for it they should never have hinted it was coming. All it's done is left enthusiasts like me deflated. Lessons learnt anyway. I'm giving up on this one. A hike is never ever going to happen. The 50 years will become 150. Clearly the way to view it is not as a fiscal variable to be adjusted in accordance with financial circumstances but as a numerical constant embedded in the laws of nature. Pi = 3.14159, C = 186,000 mps, the basic rate of income tax in the UK = 20p.
If you want an easier way to remember the speed of light, it's about 300,000 kilometers per second
The ISS is 250-ish miles up, the circumference of the Earth is 25,000-ish miles, geostationary orbit is 25,000-ish miles up, the orbit of the Moon is 250,000-ish miles up. All those numbers are very approx, but it makes it easier to remember and are good enough unless you actually are a rocket scientist.
Rocket science is all very well but it's not exactly brain surgery is it?
JD Vance claimed yesterday that he is "a GROK guy" which is perhaps the most embarrassing sentence ever uttered.
GROK is the noise my cat makes when sicking up a fur ball, so..
GROK always sounds to me like a hardcore BDSM dating site.
Grok is symptomatic of a trend within the broligarchy of stealing words from the language for their brands. We now basically can't use the word grok as a word in the way we'd been able to use it for six decades, because Musk has stolen it.
JD Vance claimed yesterday that he is "a GROK guy" which is perhaps the most embarrassing sentence ever uttered.
GROK is the noise my cat makes when sicking up a fur ball, so..
GROK always sounds to me like a hardcore BDSM dating site.
Grok is symptomatic of a trend within the broligarchy of stealing words from the language for their brands. We now basically can't use the word grok as a word in the way we'd been able to use it for six decades, because Musk has stolen it.
I am just absolutely staggered. Reeves is just so out of her depth it is painful now.
How can you call a press conference and basically announce income tax will rise and then a week later decide not to do it?
Just breathtaking.
I'm thinking about what they might do instead. There's that technical wheeze whereby the BoE/Treasury stop paying multi billions per annum to commercial banks under the QE/QT arrangements. Maybe that?
And/or something serious on property?
Its very likely to be pensions. The ending of higher rate tax relief and a substantial drop in what can be taken as a tax free lump sum. Add in a few bits and pieces at the edge, such as increasing fuel duty, and freezing of IT thresholds and they are nearly there.
Yes, I'm expecting the end of higher rate tax relief on pensions. But I thought they were planning to create a much bigger buffer this time to impress the markets and minimise the chances of having to do this again next year. So serious £££ required.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
I think reducing what can be taken as a lump sum has been ruled out. This maybe because such a measure could be seen as 'retrospective,'. But restricting tax relief to 20% would raise a lot of money, however it's always talked about and never happens.
I can't understand why Starmer isn't making hay with the doctors strike. It can't be popular with anyone. Why aren't Labour declaring war on the BMA. It's a hit to nothing and it'll possibly be a start to repairing his reputation as a wobbly jelly.
There was a Labour MP on Newsnight last night and I could only dream how much better Labour would be faring with this woman in charge (i'll see if I can find her name)
Russia has no tanks left. It has very few IFVs. Its aircraft lob glide bombs in from distance. Even that option ends when Ukraine get long-range missiles (200km+) meshed into their systems. The navy just sits in ever more distant ports, waiting for the latest iteration of the sea drones to find them. All Russia has are huge numbers of bullet-catchers, sent to their doom by officers making money buying and selling them. Whatever Russia has been doing is not sustainable.
Russia is in a bad way, yes.
But, for example, they also have now developed sea drones, which have conducted attacks on port infrastructure in Odesa. They have prioritised drone production so that they have an advantage in drones in front-line battles. They have demonstrated an amazing ability to get help from other countries - most of their artillery ammunition is now imported from North Korea. North Korean workers are manufacturing Shaheds inside Russia. Africans and Cubans are fighting and dying for Russia in Donetsk.
Ukraine have a desperate manpower shortage which is hindering their ability to rotate units out of the front and to do the training that would build a force capable of retaking occupied territory. It is possible that the Ukrainian ability to resist will break before the Russian ability to keep fighting does so - particularly if China is willing to act as a backstop to prevent a Russian collapse.
Europeans have consistently provided only just enough support to Ukraine to keep them fighting. European leaders are still wedded to the idea that a ceasefire on current lines is possible, and they are spending an inordinate amount of time on peace plans and fantasy plans for a post-ceasefire reassurance force, when there is zero sign that Russia or Putin are willing to settle. If Ukraine is to win this war with European support then there needs to be a strategy based on achieving victory, and doing what is necessary to achieve victory.
In principal the frozen Russian assets provide an opportunity to fund such a strategy, but it now seems as though they will be used only to maintain current levels of support for the next few years, a short-term measure to relieve European budget pressures, rather than pushing for victory.
Russia must lose and must be seen to lose. But even nearly four years on most European political leaders do not get this.
I think this is a really good piece, that I mostly agree with.
As far as Russia on the battlefield goes, they are winning. But they are winning incredibly slowly; glacially even. They take a mile here, or a mile there, and they still control less of Ukraine than they did a month into the invasion. The Russian government lives in this dreamworld where, at some point, they burst through Ukrainian lines, the Ukrainian government collapses, and they can dictate terms. I just don't see that happening. But Putin has to believe it, because a ceasefile on current terms, with Zelenskky in power is a death knell for him, because of just how many Russians have died.
On the other hand, the Ukrainian shortages of men are very serious. The only thing in their favour is that defending is a hell of a lot easier than attacking, and the they are losing people at maybe a 1:4 ratio compared to the Russians. Manpower shortages mean that Ukraine has very limited ability to go on the offensive. They are basically sitting back and taking the blows, and hoping that Russia gives up. Which, so far, they've shown no signs of doing.
With that said, the attacks in Russia are (potentially) a game changer. The Russian economy was incredibly reslient the first three years of the war, because higher energy price worldwide (due to the war) meant that Russia could sell oil and gas to China and India and earn more money than they used to.
The attacks on energy infrastructure in Russia mean that the civilian population is feeling the pinch for the very first time. Energy prices for consumers and businesses have gone through the roof, and that's going to be painful.
At the same time, the Russian government is now borrowing like a drunken sailor to make up for lost energy revenue.
If Ukraine can keep reducing the amount of Russian oil available for export (while increasing the price of petrol and diesel in Russia), then life becomes very hard for Russia. Those Africans and North Koreans don't work (and die) for nothing. Russia needs money to pay them.
Weirdly, according to the articles I’ve read, the Ukranian manpower shortage is not to do with a failure of recruitment (although obviously that is an issue, just as it is for the Russians) but the main chokepoint is training - the Ukranians are trapped in a cycle of not having enough men at the front, so they can’t spare any to train up new recruits in the modern way of war, leading to them not having enough men at the front etc etc.
Isn’t that something that the West (not the USA obvs) could throw resource at without any bellowing about escalation? I realise this is being done already but presumably not enough.
Of course the real experts at this new form of warfare are at the front so a bit of Catch 22.
The West has precisely zero experience of fighting a war the way Russia & Ukraine are currently fighting. Very little western doctrine applies, apart from the ”well I wouldn’t start from here” part, which is a) obvious & b) completely unhelpful.
Well all troops need basic training, keep yourself and your weapon clean and which direction to point the latter. Darren from Dagenham could do that while the vets do the more advanced stuff. Not good sense to keep your battle hardened guys on constant operations anyway unless you’re completely desperate. Not an auspicious comparison but the Luftwaffe in WWII had their pilots in constant service which produced lots of 3 figure aces but also rapidly shot down newbies and a big L in 1945.
I can't understand why Starmer isn't making hay with the doctors strike. It can't be popular with anyone. Why aren't Labour declaring war on the BMA. It's a hit to nothing and it'll possibly be a start to repairing his reputation as a wobbly jelly.
There was Labour MP on Newsnight last night and I could only dream how much better Labour would be faring with this woman in charge
A Labour PM going to war with a union that is on strike?
That's one way to make everyone else in the Labour party leave for the Greens....
I am just absolutely staggered. Reeves is just so out of her depth it is painful now.
How can you call a press conference and basically announce income tax will rise and then a week later decide not to do it?
Just breathtaking.
I'm thinking about what they might do instead. There's that technical wheeze whereby the BoE/Treasury stop paying multi billions per annum to commercial banks under the QE/QT arrangements. Maybe that?
And/or something serious on property?
Its very likely to be pensions. The ending of higher rate tax relief and a substantial drop in what can be taken as a tax free lump sum. Add in a few bits and pieces at the edge, such as increasing fuel duty, and freezing of IT thresholds and they are nearly there.
Yes, I'm expecting the end of higher rate tax relief on pensions. But I thought they were planning to create a much bigger buffer this time to impress the markets and minimise the chances of having to do this again next year. So serious £££ required.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
I think reducing what can be taken as a lump sum has been ruled out. This maybe because such a measure could be seen as 'retrospective,'. But restricting tax relief to 20% would raise a lot of money, however it's always talked about and never happens.
If any tax change can be said to have been explicitly rejected by the electorate it would be restricting higher rate tax relief to the basic rate.
As I understand it that was the tax change proposed by Labour in advance of the 1992 GE that was cast as a tax bombshell by the Tories, leading to Major's narrow victory against the odds. I suppose it was 33 years ago now (a generation?) but you could forgive politicians for regarding that specific tax change as particularly verboten.
I am just absolutely staggered. Reeves is just so out of her depth it is painful now.
How can you call a press conference and basically announce income tax will rise and then a week later decide not to do it?
Just breathtaking.
I'm thinking about what they might do instead. There's that technical wheeze whereby the BoE/Treasury stop paying multi billions per annum to commercial banks under the QE/QT arrangements. Maybe that?
And/or something serious on property?
Its very likely to be pensions. The ending of higher rate tax relief and a substantial drop in what can be taken as a tax free lump sum. Add in a few bits and pieces at the edge, such as increasing fuel duty, and freezing of IT thresholds and they are nearly there.
Yes, I'm expecting the end of higher rate tax relief on pensions. But I thought they were planning to create a much bigger buffer this time to impress the markets and minimise the chances of having to do this again next year. So serious £££ required.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
I think reducing what can be taken as a lump sum has been ruled out. This maybe because such a measure could be seen as 'retrospective,'. But restricting tax relief to 20% would raise a lot of money, however it's always talked about and never happens.
So I get taxed 25% when I put money into a pension and taxed again at 45% when I pull the money out of a pension - that simply doesn’t work.
The only purpose of a pension is to save money income tax free now so that it’s taxed later. Tax it now and most people won’t bother with a pension at all - because it would make zero sense.
Looks good until you think about it for 30 seconds
"A third (36%) of Reform supporters are desperate or worried about their finances. This is particularly true for the working right and contrarian youth groups."
I am just absolutely staggered. Reeves is just so out of her depth it is painful now.
How can you call a press conference and basically announce income tax will rise and then a week later decide not to do it?
Just breathtaking.
I'm thinking about what they might do instead. There's that technical wheeze whereby the BoE/Treasury stop paying multi billions per annum to commercial banks under the QE/QT arrangements. Maybe that?
And/or something serious on property?
Its very likely to be pensions. The ending of higher rate tax relief and a substantial drop in what can be taken as a tax free lump sum. Add in a few bits and pieces at the edge, such as increasing fuel duty, and freezing of IT thresholds and they are nearly there.
Yes, I'm expecting the end of higher rate tax relief on pensions. But I thought they were planning to create a much bigger buffer this time to impress the markets and minimise the chances of having to do this again next year. So serious £££ required.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
I think reducing what can be taken as a lump sum has been ruled out. This maybe because such a measure could be seen as 'retrospective,'. But restricting tax relief to 20% would raise a lot of money, however it's always talked about and never happens.
So I get taxed 25% when I put money into a pension and taxed again at 45% when I pull the money out of a pension - that simply doesn’t work.
The only purpose of a pension is to save money income tax free now so that it’s taxed later. Tax it now and most people won’t bother with a pension at all - because it would make zero sense.
Looks good until you think about it for 30 seconds
(Outside of pb) Most people aren't getting higher rate tax relief.
I am just absolutely staggered. Reeves is just so out of her depth it is painful now.
How can you call a press conference and basically announce income tax will rise and then a week later decide not to do it?
Just breathtaking.
I'm thinking about what they might do instead. There's that technical wheeze whereby the BoE/Treasury stop paying multi billions per annum to commercial banks under the QE/QT arrangements. Maybe that?
And/or something serious on property?
Its very likely to be pensions. The ending of higher rate tax relief and a substantial drop in what can be taken as a tax free lump sum. Add in a few bits and pieces at the edge, such as increasing fuel duty, and freezing of IT thresholds and they are nearly there.
Yes, I'm expecting the end of higher rate tax relief on pensions. But I thought they were planning to create a much bigger buffer this time to impress the markets and minimise the chances of having to do this again next year. So serious £££ required.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
I think reducing what can be taken as a lump sum has been ruled out. This maybe because such a measure could be seen as 'retrospective,'. But restricting tax relief to 20% would raise a lot of money, however it's always talked about and never happens.
So I get taxed 25% when I put money into a pension and taxed again at 45% when I pull the money out of a pension - that simply doesn’t work.
The only purpose of a pension is to save money income tax free now so that it’s taxed later. Tax it now and most people won’t bother with a pension at all - because it would make zero sense.
Looks good until you think about it for 30 seconds
Whilstever there is no CGT on your primary residence, then live in your pension fund.
I can't understand why Starmer isn't making hay with the doctors strike. It can't be popular with anyone. Why aren't Labour declaring war on the BMA. It's a hit to nothing and it'll possibly be a start to repairing his reputation as a wobbly jelly.
There was a Labour MP on Newsnight last night and I could only dream how much better Labour would be faring with this woman in charge (i'll see if I can find her name)
"A third (36%) of Reform supporters are desperate or worried about their finances. This is particularly true for the working right and contrarian youth groups."
I am just absolutely staggered. Reeves is just so out of her depth it is painful now.
How can you call a press conference and basically announce income tax will rise and then a week later decide not to do it?
Just breathtaking.
I'm thinking about what they might do instead. There's that technical wheeze whereby the BoE/Treasury stop paying multi billions per annum to commercial banks under the QE/QT arrangements. Maybe that?
And/or something serious on property?
Its very likely to be pensions. The ending of higher rate tax relief and a substantial drop in what can be taken as a tax free lump sum. Add in a few bits and pieces at the edge, such as increasing fuel duty, and freezing of IT thresholds and they are nearly there.
Yes, I'm expecting the end of higher rate tax relief on pensions. But I thought they were planning to create a much bigger buffer this time to impress the markets and minimise the chances of having to do this again next year. So serious £££ required.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
I suggest and hope that they abolish the upper threshold altogether.
Not the income tax higher threshold(s) but the upper employees threshold on Class C NI contributions, still misleadingly described as a "limit".
In other words, let every employee paying NI pay the same rate. 8% for every employee on all earnings above £12.6k. That is, no reduction to 2% for additional earnings above £50k a year and above as currently.
The reduced marginal 2% rate on higher earnings is an absolute anomaly. If Badenoch/Farage want to defend a principle that high earners should pay a marginal rate of NI at a quarter of the rate applied to most average incomes, good luck with that. It needn't even be a "stealth" increase. Labour could shout about it from the rooftops and most of the public would be on their side.
NB, for all those claiming that leaving the EU has had no impact on the UK because we’ve done about as well in economic growth terms over the last five years or so, a new paper published this month by the NBER estimates the total net impact of Brexit at 6-8% of lost GDP!
The paper takes an interesting approach - they use detailed economic data to construct a synthetic control UK economy built out of parts of other economies from countries that stayed in the EU, combined with known macro & investment data. That synthetic economy has ~7% higher GDP today.
Tom Forth (who runs https://thedatacity.com/ ) had one of their research fellowships try to recreate the same model from scratch this summer (presumably inspired by a pre-print) and was surprised to reach the same conclusion - he’d personally estimated the Brexit impact as being much smaller than that.
Obviously this a speculative paper - we can’t actually know the counterfactual GDP we would have today if the UK had not Brexited, but the finding that the impact has been this large is significant, I think. Sadly, Labour seem determined to completely ignore the possibility of making any changes to our relationship with the EU, regarding it as some kind of political third rail that cannot be touched.
Tom Forth is very good on quite a few things.
Here, for example, is a thread where he gives an example how government could very easily, and at very low cost, make far better use of its data for public benefit.
https://x.com/thomasforth/status/1986795159162704089 About 9months ago I had a really frustrating call with people in the UK government following years of frustrating meetings with people in the UK government. An archive of the UK's bus open data, the location of every bus in real time, was going to be too hard to release,...
system architects and data architects, and the cost would be enormous to host all the data online and make it available for download, but a team would look at it for a few years and write a business case,...
So we just started collecting the data every 30s ourselves and put it on the web. It's a 1TB archive now. It costs us basically nothing. It's on my £41/month home broadband, on a £100 old computer I had lying around running Linux, put a £500 SSD in, and it just works...
Interesting, although I wonder what use I would have of the current location of every bus in the UK. The one I want to catch is enough for me.
If you have an archive of the locations of all the buses on each route then you can do some analysis on how that compares to the timetable, and see where the buses regularly fall behind the timetable, and so which pinch points in the route could be addressed to improve reliability, or how you might modify the timetable to be more realistic.
For example - buses in London often become nearly useless, because of the removal of bus lanes to create cycle routes. This means that when traffic snarls up, the buses make it worse, rather than sailing past.
As a result, more and more people are taking the Tube - longer routes, often.
Bus lanes should always come before cycle lanes & I’m saying that as a dedicated cyclist. Buses move more people longer distances & move those who cannot cycle as well. Cycling is great & we should be supporting is as much as possible, but not at the expense of an effective bus network.
I'd normally agree with that - but London is a poor example because there are now 1.3 million trips per day by bicycle which for some reason Malmesbury forgets in his calculation. That's the equivalent to 1.5x Crossrails for only a small proportion of the cost. There hasn't been a discernable impact on bus travel, though that's difficult to measure because of COVID.
My view is there is a symbiotic relationship between cycling and public transport - having the back up option is really important, particularly for the decision to have one car rather than two. I think the 50% cut in services (everywhere except London and Edinburgh, pretty much) has been completely disastrous for the economy - restricting accessibility for the poor and those unable to drive, while forcing people to take on the enormous additional cost of a spare car.
"A third (36%) of Reform supporters are desperate or worried about their finances. This is particularly true for the working right and contrarian youth groups."
Ah, but you see one of these is done my a meek, usually law abiding person who can be bullied into paying an exorbitant fine whereas the other is done by a bunch of hard lads who will come round to your house and explain in excruciating detail why prosecuting them is a very bad idea.
Much less hassle & more profitable for the outsourced companies carrying out these prosecutions to go after the former, if you can find enough of them.
I can't understand why Starmer isn't making hay with the doctors strike. It can't be popular with anyone. Why aren't Labour declaring war on the BMA. It's a hit to nothing and it'll possibly be a start to repairing his reputation as a wobbly jelly.
There was a Labour MP on Newsnight last night and I could only dream how much better Labour would be faring with this woman in charge (i'll see if I can find her name)
You didn't listen to Streeting lay into the BMA on LBC this morning.
"It is extremely unnecessary and the other listeners to this show who have not had a 28.9% pay rise, whose taxes are paying for our National Health Service and who are receiving a substandard service, not least because of the damage that these rounds of industrial action are doing, I think they will be quite shocked, actually, that against the backdrop of a health secretary that wants to work with you, who acknowledges these are challenges and wants to address them, and has given you the biggest pay rise in the public sector two years in a row, I think people will be shocked by the BMA’s reprehensible behaviour. Don’t tell me you don’t want to be out on strike, because that’s exactly where you are. You made that choice, own it and own the damage it will do to your patients."
1) In a fiat attempt to "reduce rubbish", government, national and local has made disposing of rubbish harder and much more expensive. 2) As with everything else, this has created an opportunity for crime - see drugs, alcohol, tobacco.... 3) The sane approach would be to modulate the reduction in rubbish to consider demand. 4) However, in addition to cost cutting, "reducing rubbish" has become a religious issue. To allow an increase would be heresy 5) Enforcement of such laws is generally only against the nice, polite people who fess up. The gang who did the fly tipping above will deny the crime, have alibis, they will even use... sarcasm. they knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire.
I am just absolutely staggered. Reeves is just so out of her depth it is painful now.
How can you call a press conference and basically announce income tax will rise and then a week later decide not to do it?
Just breathtaking.
I'm thinking about what they might do instead. There's that technical wheeze whereby the BoE/Treasury stop paying multi billions per annum to commercial banks under the QE/QT arrangements. Maybe that?
And/or something serious on property?
Its very likely to be pensions. The ending of higher rate tax relief and a substantial drop in what can be taken as a tax free lump sum. Add in a few bits and pieces at the edge, such as increasing fuel duty, and freezing of IT thresholds and they are nearly there.
Yes, I'm expecting the end of higher rate tax relief on pensions. But I thought they were planning to create a much bigger buffer this time to impress the markets and minimise the chances of having to do this again next year. So serious £££ required.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
I think reducing what can be taken as a lump sum has been ruled out. This maybe because such a measure could be seen as 'retrospective,'. But restricting tax relief to 20% would raise a lot of money, however it's always talked about and never happens.
So I get taxed 25% when I put money into a pension and taxed again at 45% when I pull the money out of a pension - that simply doesn’t work.
The only purpose of a pension is to save money income tax free now so that it’s taxed later. Tax it now and most people won’t bother with a pension at all - because it would make zero sense.
Looks good until you think about it for 30 seconds
(Outside of pb) Most people aren't getting higher rate tax relief.
Also, most people (I think) will be in workplace pensions where there is an employer contribution (which is free money) and there is also a legal minimum contribution requirement.
I am just absolutely staggered. Reeves is just so out of her depth it is painful now.
How can you call a press conference and basically announce income tax will rise and then a week later decide not to do it?
Just breathtaking.
I'm thinking about what they might do instead. There's that technical wheeze whereby the BoE/Treasury stop paying multi billions per annum to commercial banks under the QE/QT arrangements. Maybe that?
And/or something serious on property?
Its very likely to be pensions. The ending of higher rate tax relief and a substantial drop in what can be taken as a tax free lump sum. Add in a few bits and pieces at the edge, such as increasing fuel duty, and freezing of IT thresholds and they are nearly there.
Yes, I'm expecting the end of higher rate tax relief on pensions. But I thought they were planning to create a much bigger buffer this time to impress the markets and minimise the chances of having to do this again next year. So serious £££ required.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
I think reducing what can be taken as a lump sum has been ruled out. This maybe because such a measure could be seen as 'retrospective,'. But restricting tax relief to 20% would raise a lot of money, however it's always talked about and never happens.
So I get taxed 25% when I put money into a pension and taxed again at 45% when I pull the money out of a pension - that simply doesn’t work.
The only purpose of a pension is to save money income tax free now so that it’s taxed later. Tax it now and most people won’t bother with a pension at all - because it would make zero sense.
Looks good until you think about it for 30 seconds
A lot of your pension will only be taxed at the basic rate, so it would still make sense to save for a pension that paid out up to the top of the basic rate band.
The saving on higher rate when you pay in and pay basic rate when you take out is an advantage that basic rate taxpayer's can't match.
1) In a fiat attempt to "reduce rubbish", government, national and local has made disposing of rubbish harder and much more expensive. 2) As with everything else, this has created an opportunity for crime - see drugs, alcohol, tobacco.... 3) The sane approach would be to modulate the reduction in rubbish to consider demand. 4) However, in addition to cost cutting, "reducing rubbish" has become a religious issue. To allow an increase would be heresy 5) Enforcement of such laws is generally only against the nice, polite people who fess up. The gang who did the fly tipping above will deny the crime, have alibis, they will even use... sarcasm. they knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire.
Based on 5 I would suggest an immediate investigation into Paul Merton and Ian Hislop.
I am just absolutely staggered. Reeves is just so out of her depth it is painful now.
How can you call a press conference and basically announce income tax will rise and then a week later decide not to do it?
Just breathtaking.
I'm thinking about what they might do instead. There's that technical wheeze whereby the BoE/Treasury stop paying multi billions per annum to commercial banks under the QE/QT arrangements. Maybe that?
And/or something serious on property?
Its very likely to be pensions. The ending of higher rate tax relief and a substantial drop in what can be taken as a tax free lump sum. Add in a few bits and pieces at the edge, such as increasing fuel duty, and freezing of IT thresholds and they are nearly there.
Yes, I'm expecting the end of higher rate tax relief on pensions. But I thought they were planning to create a much bigger buffer this time to impress the markets and minimise the chances of having to do this again next year. So serious £££ required.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
I think reducing what can be taken as a lump sum has been ruled out. This maybe because such a measure could be seen as 'retrospective,'. But restricting tax relief to 20% would raise a lot of money, however it's always talked about and never happens.
So I get taxed 25% when I put money into a pension and taxed again at 45% when I pull the money out of a pension - that simply doesn’t work.
The only purpose of a pension is to save money income tax free now so that it’s taxed later. Tax it now and most people won’t bother with a pension at all - because it would make zero sense.
Looks good until you think about it for 30 seconds
You only get taxed at 45% on a part of it when you pull it out.
Of course the converse can be true. Higher rate taxpayers can get higher tax relief on money going in at the top rate then pull out their 25% tax free allowance and take the rest out that only attracts the 20% rate over the year.
Well that's a bad start to the day. The 50 year taboo on increasing the basic rate of income tax is IMO perverse and damaging. When I heard it was finally going to be broken I was cock-a-hoop. I even got a bottle in for the big day - a nice Chilean red that is at its best after two weeks in the larder. Now we find it's not happening and the news is somehow worse for hopes having been raised. If they weren't up for it they should never have hinted it was coming. All it's done is left enthusiasts like me deflated. Lessons learnt anyway. I'm giving up on this one. A hike is never ever going to happen. The 50 years will become 150. Clearly the way to view it is not as a fiscal variable to be adjusted in accordance with financial circumstances but as a numerical constant embedded in the laws of nature. Pi = 3.14159, C = 186,000 mps, the basic rate of income tax in the UK = 20p.
If you want an easier way to remember the speed of light, it's about 300,000 kilometers per second
The ISS is 250-ish miles up, the circumference of the Earth is 25,000-ish miles, geostationary orbit is 25,000-ish miles up, the orbit of the Moon is 250,000-ish miles up. All those numbers are very approx, but it makes it easier to remember and are good enough unless you actually are a rocket scientist.
Rocket science is all very well but it's not exactly brain surgery is it?
Well that's a bad start to the day. The 50 year taboo on increasing the basic rate of income tax is IMO perverse and damaging. When I heard it was finally going to be broken I was cock-a-hoop. I even got a bottle in for the big day - a nice Chilean red that is at its best after two weeks in the larder. Now we find it's not happening and the news is somehow worse for hopes having been raised. If they weren't up for it they should never have hinted it was coming. All it's done is left enthusiasts like me deflated. Lessons learnt anyway. I'm giving up on this one. A hike is never ever going to happen. The 50 years will become 150. Clearly the way to view it is not as a fiscal variable to be adjusted in accordance with financial circumstances but as a numerical constant embedded in the laws of nature. Pi = 3.14159, C = 186,000 mps, the basic rate of income tax in the UK = 20p.
If you want an easier way to remember the speed of light, it's about 300,000 kilometers per second
The ISS is 250-ish miles up, the circumference of the Earth is 25,000-ish miles, geostationary orbit is 25,000-ish miles up, the orbit of the Moon is 250,000-ish miles up. All those numbers are very approx, but it makes it easier to remember and are good enough unless you actually are a rocket scientist.
Rocket science is all very well but it's not exactly brain surgery is it?
I can't understand why Starmer isn't making hay with the doctors strike. It can't be popular with anyone. Why aren't Labour declaring war on the BMA. It's a hit to nothing and it'll possibly be a start to repairing his reputation as a wobbly jelly.
There was a Labour MP on Newsnight last night and I could only dream how much better Labour would be faring with this woman in charge (i'll see if I can find her name)
You didn't listen to Streeting lay into the BMA on LBC this morning.
"It is extremely unnecessary and the other listeners to this show who have not had a 28.9% pay rise, whose taxes are paying for our National Health Service and who are receiving a substandard service, not least because of the damage that these rounds of industrial action are doing, I think they will be quite shocked, actually, that against the backdrop of a health secretary that wants to work with you, who acknowledges these are challenges and wants to address them, and has given you the biggest pay rise in the public sector two years in a row, I think people will be shocked by the BMA’s reprehensible behaviour. Don’t tell me you don’t want to be out on strike, because that’s exactly where you are. You made that choice, own it and own the damage it will do to your patients."
I'm convinced, time to ditch Starmer and get Streeting in.
I think there's a better chance of the Greens finishing ahead of Labour in terms of seats than the odds indicate.
One of the main impediments to the Greens has been the argument that a vote for the Greens is a wasted vote, and I think we may discover just how much of Labour's vote is a vote against the Tories, rather than a vote for something. Were Labour to fall to fifth in the opinion polling, which is not that much of a stretch from their current position, then this argument would be turned on its head. A vote for Labour would be a wasted vote, and with precious little ideological attachment to the party in preference to either the Greens or the Lib Dems, we could see Labour's position deteriorate much further once past that tipping point. Then it's not hard to see the Greens win more seats than Labour.
Oddly enough, Labour really could do with Your Party having a reasonably successful launch, in order to split the left-of-Labour vote and avoid this scenario coming about.
There is some talk of a seat-sharing deal between the Greens and Your Party, because they have largely different strong areas and no obvious deal-blocking policies. Depending how the Your Party conference goes, and resolution of the dispute with Zarah one way or another, it's possible to see this becoming quite significant. Like lots of leftish Labour supporters (I'm still CLP chair), I wouldn't dream of voting LibDem, as they lack a consistent left-wing approach - might as well carry on with Labour, in that case. I think that right-of-centre commenters on this thread don't really appreciate that and mistakenly imagine that the LibDems would be natural heirs to a further Labour slump.
It's also possible to imagine a failed, squabbling Your Party conference (the absence of any clear leadership is certainly a snag), a dismissal of Green leadership as fanciful, and a gradual Labour recovery. I think the next few months will provide som,e clarity.
If I was an adviser to Polansky I would suggest they kept their distance. It's possible that Zack could be a unique political talent. Corbyn and by association Sultana is a three times loser who almost single handedly destroyed one of the UK's most important political parties. I can't see him bringing anything at all to the party except to make the Greens look jaded
"no obvious deal-blocking policies."
Except there may well be. It seems to be barely noted but a key chunk of the actual MPs for YourParty are not cuddly hairshirt wearing old school lefties who keep Marx close by but Gaza Indies who as far as I can see represent a strand of cultural thinking that is basically appalled by trans rights.
The latter is a massive issue for the New Greens who have literally thrown dozens of long standing activists out of the party over the issue.
I don't see how trans rights doesn't blow up the fledgling YourParty at some point.
The Greens have also elected a Gaza indie-like person as one of their 2 deputy leaders.
Well that's a bad start to the day. The 50 year taboo on increasing the basic rate of income tax is IMO perverse and damaging. When I heard it was finally going to be broken I was cock-a-hoop. I even got a bottle in for the big day - a nice Chilean red that is at its best after two weeks in the larder. Now we find it's not happening and the news is somehow worse for hopes having been raised. If they weren't up for it they should never have hinted it was coming. All it's done is left enthusiasts like me deflated. Lessons learnt anyway. I'm giving up on this one. A hike is never ever going to happen. The 50 years will become 150. Clearly the way to view it is not as a fiscal variable to be adjusted in accordance with financial circumstances but as a numerical constant embedded in the laws of nature. Pi = 3.14159, C = 186,000 mps, the basic rate of income tax in the UK = 20p.
If you want an easier way to remember the speed of light, it's about 300,000 kilometers per second
The ISS is 250-ish miles up, the circumference of the Earth is 25,000-ish miles, geostationary orbit is 25,000-ish miles up, the orbit of the Moon is 250,000-ish miles up. All those numbers are very approx, but it makes it easier to remember and are good enough unless you actually are a rocket scientist.
Rocket science is all very well but it's not exactly brain surgery is it?
Brilliant. More so because you know it's coming the whole way through.
I did go to a talk by a rocket scientist who made a point of saying it wasn't really that complicated - "burn stuff, direct the exhaust in the opposite direction to the one in which you want to go" - but I think he rather underplayed the difficulty in preventing the whole thing exploding.
So you say. Who to believe, random bloke on the internet or...
GROK!
Not just Grok! THe free AI thing on my laptop, Co-Pilot, has assured me all morning that THIS is the correct result for Canterbury Wincheap:-
Guy Meurice Liberal Democrat 356 Jasmin Dallos‑Foreman Labour 291 Peter Campbell Green Party 178 Elliot Curryer Conservative 128 Colin Spooner Reform UK 64
Total votes cast: 1,017 Turnout: 28.9%
Just to be cleaer, thoise figures are completely and totally WRONG. I have just had a ten minute arguement with the wretched thing about this - apparently it constructed the result from "unreliable" sources, but was confidenrt that that would be the correct result eventually.
I am lost for words. This is not the first time I have had trouble using AI for basic factual information (shops' opening hours, football results etc) and it is completely unreliable.
It's going to make for interesting betting markets if bookies can be persuaded to pay out on "what the computer says".
1) In a fiat attempt to "reduce rubbish", government, national and local has made disposing of rubbish harder and much more expensive. 2) As with everything else, this has created an opportunity for crime - see drugs, alcohol, tobacco.... 3) The sane approach would be to modulate the reduction in rubbish to consider demand. 4) However, in addition to cost cutting, "reducing rubbish" has become a religious issue. To allow an increase would be heresy 5) Enforcement of such laws is generally only against the nice, polite people who fess up. The gang who did the fly tipping above will deny the crime, have alibis, they will even use... sarcasm. they knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire.
Based on 5 I would suggest an immediate investigation into Paul Merton and Ian Hislop.
In any case, we are running out of holes in the ground. The holes that exist are practically being dug to put rubbish in as much as for gravel, hardcore, brick clay etc. One contributing factor is the importation of that sort of stuff, and its products e.g. bricks, from Spain, China, etc.
Holes is expensive.
Was rebuilding a garden wall earlier this summer - the chaps discovered too late that their truck of recycled local industrial bricks from old local fireclay bnrickworks didn't match the un-recycled bricks on the wall also from local, and also long closed, but different, pits. Half an inch in length. So I had to buy a pallet of mock industrial bricks new. From China.
Enjoying Dan Hannan's "ancestral voices" theory. Maybe that's why I keep waking up wanting to invade India, or burn down Lindisfarne, or grow some broad beans.
Tonight an Amazon delivery driver let himself into my home.
It was lucky that I was in the right place to confront him immediately, but it shocked me and the question that keeps coming back to me is this: What if my wife or teenage daughter had been standing in my place?
The footage is clear: the driver approaches the door, breathing heavily, he checks the handle, and pushes his way inside. I don’t know what his intentions were, and that is exactly the point. I contacted the police. Their exact words were: “Trespass is a civil matter. There’s nothing we can do.” A senior officer on shift confirmed it. So let’s be absolutely honest with the public: Under current law, if a stranger walks into your house, the police may not attend. At a time when delivery companies are hiring thousands of temporary drivers, Who is turning up at our doors? What level of risk are families being exposed to? And most critically: What message does this legal loophole send to someone with bad intentions? Try your luck. If the homeowner scares you off, just walk away. The police won’t pursue you. Try again. This is utterly unacceptable. I will raise this in Parliament. I will not wait and risk someone being harmed before action is taken. If the law fails to protect people in their own homes, then the law must change."
James McMurdock knows a lot about the law, what with being convicted of the assault of his then-girlfriend and being under investigation for COVID fraud.
Enjoying Dan Hannan's "ancestral voices" theory. Maybe that's why I keep waking up wanting to invade India, or burn down Lindisfarne, or grow some broad beans.
Me, the effect is that I just want to eat mince and tatties, and clootie dumpling, for dinner. And reread Johnnie Gibb of Gushetneuk. Though it's kippers and fruit sponge with custard tonight, so all ok.
So you say. Who to believe, random bloke on the internet or...
GROK!
Not just Grok! THe free AI thing on my laptop, Co-Pilot, has assured me all morning that THIS is the correct result for Canterbury Wincheap:-
Guy Meurice Liberal Democrat 356 Jasmin Dallos‑Foreman Labour 291 Peter Campbell Green Party 178 Elliot Curryer Conservative 128 Colin Spooner Reform UK 64
Total votes cast: 1,017 Turnout: 28.9%
Just to be cleaer, thoise figures are completely and totally WRONG. I have just had a ten minute arguement with the wretched thing about this - apparently it constructed the result from "unreliable" sources, but was confidenrt that that would be the correct result eventually.
I am lost for words. This is not the first time I have had trouble using AI for basic factual information (shops' opening hours, football results etc) and it is completely unreliable.
It's going to make for interesting betting markets if bookies can be persuaded to pay out on "what the computer says".
Well that's a bad start to the day. The 50 year taboo on increasing the basic rate of income tax is IMO perverse and damaging. When I heard it was finally going to be broken I was cock-a-hoop. I even got a bottle in for the big day - a nice Chilean red that is at its best after two weeks in the larder. Now we find it's not happening and the news is somehow worse for hopes having been raised. If they weren't up for it they should never have hinted it was coming. All it's done is left enthusiasts like me deflated. Lessons learnt anyway. I'm giving up on this one. A hike is never ever going to happen. The 50 years will become 150. Clearly the way to view it is not as a fiscal variable to be adjusted in accordance with financial circumstances but as a numerical constant embedded in the laws of nature. Pi = 3.14159, C = 186,000 mps, the basic rate of income tax in the UK = 20p.
If you want an easier way to remember the speed of light, it's about 300,000 kilometers per second
The ISS is 250-ish miles up, the circumference of the Earth is 25,000-ish miles, geostationary orbit is 25,000-ish miles up, the orbit of the Moon is 250,000-ish miles up. All those numbers are very approx, but it makes it easier to remember and are good enough unless you actually are a rocket scientist.
Rocket science is all very well but it's not exactly brain surgery is it?
Brilliant. More so because you know it's coming the whole way through.
I did go to a talk by a rocket scientist who made a point of saying it wasn't really that complicated - "burn stuff, direct the exhaust in the opposite direction to the one in which you want to go" - but I think he rather underplayed the difficulty in preventing the whole thing exploding.
And bang! Another opportunity yet again to flag up the hilarious classic Ignition by John Drury Clark. Thorouhgly recomemnded by Malms, me, and others.
So they’ll freeze the thresholds for most things but probably lower the higher rate threshold a bit and lower the additional rate threshold a little bit more. Probably.
They’ll dress this up as broadest shoulders and that it’s not a technical breach of the manifesto because the rates haven’t changed.
Not convinced they’ll end higher rate relief on pension contributions owing to the admin involved. Very unconvinced they’ll do anything to the cliff edges now - sounds like they’ll be relying on them even more. Salary sacrifice could be the big casualty.
I predict none of this will give them the headroom they really need to have and we’ll be back to square one again next year, when hopefully we’ll have a new Chancellor who might actually have some political nous and common sense.
They managed that in under a month? Must have been some serious tipper traffic, it should be possible to track the vehicles that went there, hence the vehicle operators. BBC had the Buried podcast about an illegal waste dump in N Ireland https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2023/bbc-radio-4-podcast-buried-secret-million-tonne-dump, apparently 20% of waste is now handled by organised crime. It need to be taken more seriously before we end up like Naples.
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-ap1000-loan-debacle With the Westinghouse loan, the Trump Administration has invented a new form of state capitalism, an oxymoron if there ever was one. And it will bury US nuclear in an even more expensive coffin.
Details are almost non-existent. Here’s my limited and quite possibly erroneous understanding of the deal.
1) In exchange for an unspecified amount of tariff relief, Japan will buy $550 billion dollars of ultra-long US bonds, almost certainly a terrible investment as the US inflates away the value of that paper. Japan is either betting that it can get that money back in trade, or this is the price of the US military umbrella. Either way the US taxpayer will end up with the bulk of the bill.
2) Trump will take 80 billion of that public money and loan it to Westinghouse to build “up to” eight AP1000’s. If the resulting monopoly is a success, the government can convert the debt into a one-sixth share of Westinghouse.
It’s hard to imagine a worst plan. It will strangle competition while exacerbating the real problem.
Imagine how you feel if your GE-Hitachi or the other outfits that have NRC certified designs. You’ve spent 100’s of millions fighting your way through all the NRC barriers to entry; and now the US government turns on you and finances your main remaining competitor with taxpayer money. Probably best to concentrate on the Japanese market.
The position for the newcomers is even worse. The taxpayer has already blown over 700 million on NuScale. Do they now have to spend more to defend this investment against themselves?..
..The only real hope for the US was the Koreans showing the way with the APR1400. Whatever chance we had of the Koreans entering the US market, just disappeared.
So you say. Who to believe, random bloke on the internet or...
GROK!
Not just Grok! THe free AI thing on my laptop, Co-Pilot, has assured me all morning that THIS is the correct result for Canterbury Wincheap:-
Guy Meurice Liberal Democrat 356 Jasmin Dallos‑Foreman Labour 291 Peter Campbell Green Party 178 Elliot Curryer Conservative 128 Colin Spooner Reform UK 64
Total votes cast: 1,017 Turnout: 28.9%
Just to be cleaer, thoise figures are completely and totally WRONG. I have just had a ten minute arguement with the wretched thing about this - apparently it constructed the result from "unreliable" sources, but was confidenrt that that would be the correct result eventually.
I am lost for words. This is not the first time I have had trouble using AI for basic factual information (shops' opening hours, football results etc) and it is completely unreliable.
It's going to make for interesting betting markets if bookies can be persuaded to pay out on "what the computer says".
(Best HAL voice):
"What do you want it to be, Augustus?"
*for those who didn't see it, Anthony Hopkins revealed that his Hannibal Lector voice was based on HAL...
So you say. Who to believe, random bloke on the internet or...
GROK!
Not just Grok! THe free AI thing on my laptop, Co-Pilot, has assured me all morning that THIS is the correct result for Canterbury Wincheap:-
Guy Meurice Liberal Democrat 356 Jasmin Dallos‑Foreman Labour 291 Peter Campbell Green Party 178 Elliot Curryer Conservative 128 Colin Spooner Reform UK 64
Total votes cast: 1,017 Turnout: 28.9%
Just to be cleaer, thoise figures are completely and totally WRONG. I have just had a ten minute arguement with the wretched thing about this - apparently it constructed the result from "unreliable" sources, but was confidenrt that that would be the correct result eventually.
I am lost for words. This is not the first time I have had trouble using AI for basic factual information (shops' opening hours, football results etc) and it is completely unreliable.
It's going to make for interesting betting markets if bookies can be persuaded to pay out on "what the computer says".
If there's one thing you really shouldn't be using AI for, it is basic factual information. AI isn't actually intelligent, and has no concept of facts.
So you say. Who to believe, random bloke on the internet or...
GROK!
Not just Grok! THe free AI thing on my laptop, Co-Pilot, has assured me all morning that THIS is the correct result for Canterbury Wincheap:-
Guy Meurice Liberal Democrat 356 Jasmin Dallos‑Foreman Labour 291 Peter Campbell Green Party 178 Elliot Curryer Conservative 128 Colin Spooner Reform UK 64
Total votes cast: 1,017 Turnout: 28.9%
Just to be cleaer, thoise figures are completely and totally WRONG. I have just had a ten minute arguement with the wretched thing about this - apparently it constructed the result from "unreliable" sources, but was confidenrt that that would be the correct result eventually.
I am lost for words. This is not the first time I have had trouble using AI for basic factual information (shops' opening hours, football results etc) and it is completely unreliable.
It's going to make for interesting betting markets if bookies can be persuaded to pay out on "what the computer says".
So they’ll freeze the thresholds for most things but probably lower the higher rate threshold a bit and lower the additional rate threshold a little bit more. Probably.
They’ll dress this up as broadest shoulders and that it’s not a technical breach of the manifesto because the rates haven’t changed.
Not convinced they’ll end higher rate relief on pension contributions owing to the admin involved. Very unconvinced they’ll do anything to the cliff edges now - sounds like they’ll be relying on them even more. Salary sacrifice could be the big casualty.
I predict none of this will give them the headroom they really need to have and we’ll be back to square one again next year, when hopefully we’ll have a new Chancellor who might actually have some political nous and common sense.
Reeves should probably resign. It sounds like Starmer has overruled her on income tax increases and so he's preventing her from doing her job properly.
If she resigned she can lay this out all in the open and it will make the job of the next Chancellor a lot easier.
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-ap1000-loan-debacle With the Westinghouse loan, the Trump Administration has invented a new form of state capitalism, an oxymoron if there ever was one. And it will bury US nuclear in an even more expensive coffin.
Details are almost non-existent. Here’s my limited and quite possibly erroneous understanding of the deal.
1) In exchange for an unspecified amount of tariff relief, Japan will buy $550 billion dollars of ultra-long US bonds, almost certainly a terrible investment as the US inflates away the value of that paper. Japan is either betting that it can get that money back in trade, or this is the price of the US military umbrella. Either way the US taxpayer will end up with the bulk of the bill.
2) Trump will take 80 billion of that public money and loan it to Westinghouse to build “up to” eight AP1000’s. If the resulting monopoly is a success, the government can convert the debt into a one-sixth share of Westinghouse.
It’s hard to imagine a worst plan. It will strangle competition while exacerbating the real problem.
Imagine how you feel if your GE-Hitachi or the other outfits that have NRC certified designs. You’ve spent 100’s of millions fighting your way through all the NRC barriers to entry; and now the US government turns on you and finances your main remaining competitor with taxpayer money. Probably best to concentrate on the Japanese market.
The position for the newcomers is even worse. The taxpayer has already blown over 700 million on NuScale. Do they now have to spend more to defend this investment against themselves?..
..The only real hope for the US was the Koreans showing the way with the APR1400. Whatever chance we had of the Koreans entering the US market, just disappeared.
This is also absolutely applicable to UK nuclear:
...Lack of standardization is indeed a real problem for US nuclear. But it is the regulation that need standardization; not the designs. The Westinghouse loan not only does nothing to standardize regulation, but instead it makes things much worse by allowing the regulator to impose even more expensive requirements.
The AP1000 Choice
If you want a concrete argument why we should not standardize on a single design, look no further than the AP1000. The AP1000 is a cramped, nearly unmaintainable, crappy design. The design philosophy appears to have been to minimize up front CAPEX subject to meeting NRC paperwork requirements. On paper, the AP1000 has a design life of 60 years. Westinghouse knows better. They gave Georgia Power a warranty period of 2 years starting from the date of Substantial Completion, with a cap of 10% of the contract price. You will get a better guarantee with a toaster.
So US nuclear is now a monopoly based on a lousy standardized design using a klunky, brute force technology, regulated by an unstandardized autocracy who can now tap public funds to pay for its whims. It’s hard to imagine that it can get worse.
Ok, in quite interesting* but off topic posting, I had Dzus fasteners on my 748 but just thought it was a made up brand name. Turns out there was a Mr Dzus, he was Ukrainian and he revolutionised aircraft maintenance.
*I realise quite interesting is entirely subjective.
Oh, I don't know. One of the most interesting history of tech papers I ever read was about riveting methods in the aircraft industry in IIRC the 1930s and 1940s. The introduction of new methods had an impact on weight and strength (and therefore again on weight) which was massive.
Well that's a bad start to the day. The 50 year taboo on increasing the basic rate of income tax is IMO perverse and damaging. When I heard it was finally going to be broken I was cock-a-hoop. I even got a bottle in for the big day - a nice Chilean red that is at its best after two weeks in the larder. Now we find it's not happening and the news is somehow worse for hopes having been raised. If they weren't up for it they should never have hinted it was coming. All it's done is left enthusiasts like me deflated. Lessons learnt anyway. I'm giving up on this one. A hike is never ever going to happen. The 50 years will become 150. Clearly the way to view it is not as a fiscal variable to be adjusted in accordance with financial circumstances but as a numerical constant embedded in the laws of nature. Pi = 3.14159, C = 186,000 mps, the basic rate of income tax in the UK = 20p.
If you want an easier way to remember the speed of light, it's about 300,000 kilometers per second
The ISS is 250-ish miles up, the circumference of the Earth is 25,000-ish miles, geostationary orbit is 25,000-ish miles up, the orbit of the Moon is 250,000-ish miles up. All those numbers are very approx, but it makes it easier to remember and are good enough unless you actually are a rocket scientist.
Rocket science is all very well but it's not exactly brain surgery is it?
Brilliant. More so because you know it's coming the whole way through.
I did go to a talk by a rocket scientist who made a point of saying it wasn't really that complicated - "burn stuff, direct the exhaust in the opposite direction to the one in which you want to go" - but I think he rather underplayed the difficulty in preventing the whole thing exploding.
And bang! Another opportunity yet again to flag up the hilarious classic Ignition by John Drury Clark. Thorouhgly recomemnded by Malms, me, and others.
Ok, in quite interesting* but off topic posting, I had Dzus fasteners on my 748 but just thought it was a made up brand name. Turns out there was a Mr Dzus, he was Ukrainian and he revolutionised aircraft maintenance.
*I realise quite interesting is entirely subjective.
Oh, I don't know. One of the most interesting history of tech papers I ever read was about riveting methods in the aircraft industry in IIRC the 1930s and 1940s. The introduction of new methods had an impact on weight and strength (and therefore again on weight) which was massive.
So they’ll freeze the thresholds for most things but probably lower the higher rate threshold a bit and lower the additional rate threshold a little bit more. Probably.
They’ll dress this up as broadest shoulders and that it’s not a technical breach of the manifesto because the rates haven’t changed.
Not convinced they’ll end higher rate relief on pension contributions owing to the admin involved. Very unconvinced they’ll do anything to the cliff edges now - sounds like they’ll be relying on them even more. Salary sacrifice could be the big casualty.
I predict none of this will give them the headroom they really need to have and we’ll be back to square one again next year, when hopefully we’ll have a new Chancellor who might actually have some political nous and common sense.
Reeves should probably resign. It sounds like Starmer has overruled her on income tax increases and so he's preventing her from doing her job properly.
If she resigned she can lay this out all in the open and it will make the job of the next Chancellor a lot easier.
Maybe she will resign on the morning of the Budget. That would make things interesting!
..Cherwell District Council had estimated the cost of removing the waste would be greater than its entire annual budget. "This is not a licensed waste site and we can just see the quantity of waste that has been dumped here, that's illegal, so it's criminal," Mr Miller said. "That's not something that local residents and taxpayers can afford." He says "criminal gangs are dumping waste on this scale" across the country and it will take government intervention before pollutants "leech out" into local rivers...
So supposedly the income tax reversal is because there is £10bn of headroom.
Sorry but that’s utterly insane - take the money (and the pain now) because I don’t trust that forecast and suspect you will need to do it next year because the forecast will be wrong
Also politically, do it now and build up some headroom for some sweeties whether spending or tax cuts by 2029. Don't plan to do the whole term on a shoestring and end up surprised no-one wants more of that.
Yes exactly. Pain early in Parliament for gain later.
Ideally they'd raise lots of money without breaking manifesto... *cough property taxes cough*... but if that's not possible, then for God's sake dont leave yourself needing more tax rises next year.
..Cherwell District Council had estimated the cost of removing the waste would be greater than its entire annual budget. "This is not a licensed waste site and we can just see the quantity of waste that has been dumped here, that's illegal, so it's criminal," Mr Miller said. "That's not something that local residents and taxpayers can afford." He says "criminal gangs are dumping waste on this scale" across the country and it will take government intervention before pollutants "leech out" into local rivers...
But that wasn't true a few years ago when this started. Feels very much like they followed the four-stage strategy.
..Cherwell District Council had estimated the cost of removing the waste would be greater than its entire annual budget. "This is not a licensed waste site and we can just see the quantity of waste that has been dumped here, that's illegal, so it's criminal," Mr Miller said. "That's not something that local residents and taxpayers can afford." He says "criminal gangs are dumping waste on this scale" across the country and it will take government intervention before pollutants "leech out" into local rivers...
It’s similar to the old saying, if you owe the bank £1000 that’s your problem, if you owe the bank £10,000,000 that’s their problem.
So they’ll freeze the thresholds for most things but probably lower the higher rate threshold a bit and lower the additional rate threshold a little bit more. Probably.
They’ll dress this up as broadest shoulders and that it’s not a technical breach of the manifesto because the rates haven’t changed.
Not convinced they’ll end higher rate relief on pension contributions owing to the admin involved. Very unconvinced they’ll do anything to the cliff edges now - sounds like they’ll be relying on them even more. Salary sacrifice could be the big casualty.
I predict none of this will give them the headroom they really need to have and we’ll be back to square one again next year, when hopefully we’ll have a new Chancellor who might actually have some political nous and common sense.
It's someone's fault that the most logical tax to apply has been ruled out in manifestos - and not just Labour's. So whose fault is it? Maybe the guy who first coined the slogan 'Labour's Tax Bombshell' (William Hague?), since then both major parties have had to promise not to raise the main taxes and have had to find obscure taxes to raise instead. The result is worse than if parties had allowed themselves and each other to operate without both hands tied behind their backs. But hold on a minute, parties have to deny that they will raise these major taxes or we won't vote for them. So, it's our fault then?
Well that's a bad start to the day. The 50 year taboo on increasing the basic rate of income tax is IMO perverse and damaging. When I heard it was finally going to be broken I was cock-a-hoop. I even got a bottle in for the big day - a nice Chilean red that is at its best after two weeks in the larder. Now we find it's not happening and the news is somehow worse for hopes having been raised. If they weren't up for it they should never have hinted it was coming. All it's done is left enthusiasts like me deflated. Lessons learnt anyway. I'm giving up on this one. A hike is never ever going to happen. The 50 years will become 150. Clearly the way to view it is not as a fiscal variable to be adjusted in accordance with financial circumstances but as a numerical constant embedded in the laws of nature. Pi = 3.14159, C = 186,000 mps, the basic rate of income tax in the UK = 20p.
If you want an easier way to remember the speed of light, it's about 300,000 kilometers per second
The ISS is 250-ish miles up, the circumference of the Earth is 25,000-ish miles, geostationary orbit is 25,000-ish miles up, the orbit of the Moon is 250,000-ish miles up. All those numbers are very approx, but it makes it easier to remember and are good enough unless you actually are a rocket scientist.
Rocket science is all very well but it's not exactly brain surgery is it?
Having rolled the pitch for income tax rises, Chancellor Reeves has now bottled it, under pressure from 10 Downing Street, which fears Keir Starmer could not survive such a major manifesto breach.
But the debt markets are not keen on a smorgasbord of small tax rises, which never deliver the predicted revenues. So gilt yields are already surging across the curve at the market open, with the yield on the 30-year bond up 14 basis points. Yields on bonds of all maturities are up more than 10 basis points.
Obviously the current lot are politically inept, as I keep saying, but we shouldn't fail to note how bad they also are at governing, and managing expectations, and steadying the markets, and dealing with the press.
There was no doubt in my mind in 2024 that Sunak and Hunt were the better choice, everything since then has simply confirmed that my judgement was sound.
Given Hunt created the fiscal black hole, presumably on the basis that he wouldn't be the one having to deal with the mess - I don't think so.
We can blame Reeves for falling into the trap Hunt set for her, but a responsible Chancellor wouldn't have scorched the earth as Hunt did.
Having rolled the pitch for income tax rises, Chancellor Reeves has now bottled it, under pressure from 10 Downing Street, which fears Keir Starmer could not survive such a major manifesto breach.
But the debt markets are not keen on a smorgasbord of small tax rises, which never deliver the predicted revenues. So gilt yields are already surging across the curve at the market open, with the yield on the 30-year bond up 14 basis points. Yields on bonds of all maturities are up more than 10 basis points.
Obviously the current lot are politically inept, as I keep saying, but we shouldn't fail to note how bad they also are at governing, and managing expectations, and steadying the markets, and dealing with the press.
There was no doubt in my mind in 2024 that Sunak and Hunt were the better choice, everything since then has simply confirmed that my judgement was sound.
Given Hunt created the fiscal black hole, presumably on the basis that he wouldn't be the one having to deal with the mess - I don't think so.
We can blame Reeves for falling into the trap Hunt set for her, but a responsible Chancellor wouldn't have scorched the earth as Hunt did.
Treasury not considering cutting thresholds for higher rates of income tax, sources say
This is from Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, on where we stand this morning after all the fallout from the budget income tax U-turn. She confirms that sources are now ruling out cutting the thresholds for paying higher rates of income tax.
She says government insiders claim the change is all down to better-than-expected fiscal forecasts, and that Labour opposition to the proposal was not a factor.
Where we are on budget after revelation Rachel Reeves will no longer hike income tax rates
- Treasury confirms that stronger than expected OBR forecasts means fiscal gap is closer to £20bn than previously speculated £30-£40bn. Reeves also wants headroom of around £15bn in addition.
---
Where are all the better than expected forecasts coming from, this year was supposed to be the best growth year for a few (and not exactly stellar). We are now undershoting that and all the fiscal indicators are worse, higher inflation, higher unemployment, etc.
Well that's a bad start to the day. The 50 year taboo on increasing the basic rate of income tax is IMO perverse and damaging. When I heard it was finally going to be broken I was cock-a-hoop. I even got a bottle in for the big day - a nice Chilean red that is at its best after two weeks in the larder. Now we find it's not happening and the news is somehow worse for hopes having been raised. If they weren't up for it they should never have hinted it was coming. All it's done is left enthusiasts like me deflated. Lessons learnt anyway. I'm giving up on this one. A hike is never ever going to happen. The 50 years will become 150. Clearly the way to view it is not as a fiscal variable to be adjusted in accordance with financial circumstances but as a numerical constant embedded in the laws of nature. Pi = 3.14159, C = 186,000 mps, the basic rate of income tax in the UK = 20p.
If you want an easier way to remember the speed of light, it's about 300,000 kilometers per second
The ISS is 250-ish miles up, the circumference of the Earth is 25,000-ish miles, geostationary orbit is 25,000-ish miles up, the orbit of the Moon is 250,000-ish miles up. All those numbers are very approx, but it makes it easier to remember and are good enough unless you actually are a rocket scientist.
Rocket science is all very well but it's not exactly brain surgery is it?
Well that's a bad start to the day. The 50 year taboo on increasing the basic rate of income tax is IMO perverse and damaging. When I heard it was finally going to be broken I was cock-a-hoop. I even got a bottle in for the big day - a nice Chilean red that is at its best after two weeks in the larder. Now we find it's not happening and the news is somehow worse for hopes having been raised. If they weren't up for it they should never have hinted it was coming. All it's done is left enthusiasts like me deflated. Lessons learnt anyway. I'm giving up on this one. A hike is never ever going to happen. The 50 years will become 150. Clearly the way to view it is not as a fiscal variable to be adjusted in accordance with financial circumstances but as a numerical constant embedded in the laws of nature. Pi = 3.14159, C = 186,000 mps, the basic rate of income tax in the UK = 20p.
If you want an easier way to remember the speed of light, it's about 300,000 kilometers per second
The ISS is 250-ish miles up, the circumference of the Earth is 25,000-ish miles, geostationary orbit is 25,000-ish miles up, the orbit of the Moon is 250,000-ish miles up. All those numbers are very approx, but it makes it easier to remember and are good enough unless you actually are a rocket scientist.
Rocket science is all very well but it's not exactly brain surgery is it?
Having rolled the pitch for income tax rises, Chancellor Reeves has now bottled it, under pressure from 10 Downing Street, which fears Keir Starmer could not survive such a major manifesto breach.
But the debt markets are not keen on a smorgasbord of small tax rises, which never deliver the predicted revenues. So gilt yields are already surging across the curve at the market open, with the yield on the 30-year bond up 14 basis points. Yields on bonds of all maturities are up more than 10 basis points.
Obviously the current lot are politically inept, as I keep saying, but we shouldn't fail to note how bad they also are at governing, and managing expectations, and steadying the markets, and dealing with the press.
There was no doubt in my mind in 2024 that Sunak and Hunt were the better choice, everything since then has simply confirmed that my judgement was sound.
Given Hunt created the fiscal black hole, presumably on the basis that he wouldn't be the one having to deal with the mess - I don't think so.
We can blame Reeves for falling into the trap Hunt set for her, but a responsible Chancellor wouldn't have scorched the earth as Hunt did.
This new black hole is all of Reeves making.
She raised £20bn in the last budget from the employer NI change - how is the new black hole of Reeve's making?
Having rolled the pitch for income tax rises, Chancellor Reeves has now bottled it, under pressure from 10 Downing Street, which fears Keir Starmer could not survive such a major manifesto breach.
But the debt markets are not keen on a smorgasbord of small tax rises, which never deliver the predicted revenues. So gilt yields are already surging across the curve at the market open, with the yield on the 30-year bond up 14 basis points. Yields on bonds of all maturities are up more than 10 basis points.
Obviously the current lot are politically inept, as I keep saying, but we shouldn't fail to note how bad they also are at governing, and managing expectations, and steadying the markets, and dealing with the press.
There was no doubt in my mind in 2024 that Sunak and Hunt were the better choice, everything since then has simply confirmed that my judgement was sound.
Given Hunt created the fiscal black hole, presumably on the basis that he wouldn't be the one having to deal with the mess - I don't think so.
We can blame Reeves for falling into the trap Hunt set for her, but a responsible Chancellor wouldn't have scorched the earth as Hunt did.
This new black hole is all of Reeves making.
She raised £20bn in the last budget from the employer NI change - how is the new black hole of Reeve's making?
The new black hole of £30-50bn that is long being talked about is that being forecast (e.g. from National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR)) that for the end of the parliament after Reeve's made a load of new spending committments e.g. NHS, which were predicated on levels of taxation and growth.
Having rolled the pitch for income tax rises, Chancellor Reeves has now bottled it, under pressure from 10 Downing Street, which fears Keir Starmer could not survive such a major manifesto breach.
But the debt markets are not keen on a smorgasbord of small tax rises, which never deliver the predicted revenues. So gilt yields are already surging across the curve at the market open, with the yield on the 30-year bond up 14 basis points. Yields on bonds of all maturities are up more than 10 basis points.
Obviously the current lot are politically inept, as I keep saying, but we shouldn't fail to note how bad they also are at governing, and managing expectations, and steadying the markets, and dealing with the press.
There was no doubt in my mind in 2024 that Sunak and Hunt were the better choice, everything since then has simply confirmed that my judgement was sound.
Given Hunt created the fiscal black hole, presumably on the basis that he wouldn't be the one having to deal with the mess - I don't think so.
We can blame Reeves for falling into the trap Hunt set for her, but a responsible Chancellor wouldn't have scorched the earth as Hunt did.
This new black hole is all of Reeves making.
She raised £20bn in the last budget from the employer NI change - how is the new black hole of Reeve's making?
The new black hole of £30-50bn that is long being talked about is that being forecast (e.g. from National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR)) that for the end of the parliament after Reeve's made a load of new spending committments e.g. NHS, which were predicated on levels of taxation and growth.
It appears she is already short £20bn of target.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) – a leading economic think tank – said the chancellor could also look at spending cuts in the autumn Budget as a way to raise the money needed by 2029-30 to remedy a £41.2bn shortfall on her borrowing targets, set out by her self-imposed “stability rule”. In order to restore the £9.9bn buffer the government has maintained since last year’s Budget, the chancellor must therefore raise a total of £51.1bn.
1) In a fiat attempt to "reduce rubbish", government, national and local has made disposing of rubbish harder and much more expensive. 2) As with everything else, this has created an opportunity for crime - see drugs, alcohol, tobacco.... 3) The sane approach would be to modulate the reduction in rubbish to consider demand. 4) However, in addition to cost cutting, "reducing rubbish" has become a religious issue. To allow an increase would be heresy 5) Enforcement of such laws is generally only against the nice, polite people who fess up. The gang who did the fly tipping above will deny the crime, have alibis, they will even use... sarcasm. they knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire.
Based on 5 I would suggest an immediate investigation into Paul Merton and Ian Hislop.
In any case, we are running out of holes in the ground. The holes that exist are practically being dug to put rubbish in as much as for gravel, hardcore, brick clay etc. One contributing factor is the importation of that sort of stuff, and its products e.g. bricks, from Spain, China, etc.
Holes is expensive.
Was rebuilding a garden wall earlier this summer - the chaps discovered too late that their truck of recycled local industrial bricks from old local fireclay bnrickworks didn't match the un-recycled bricks on the wall also from local, and also long closed, but different, pits. Half an inch in length. So I had to buy a pallet of mock industrial bricks new. From China.
You are taking the mick I presume?
I'm in Derbyshire, we've got empty quarries as far as the eye can see, and they are still digging at a rate of knots - the main traffic on the local roads is endless lorries hauling the stone and cement out.
The only correct option for rubbish is incineration, recover the energy as electricity then bury the ash.
Done right, this would actually be profitable. It's merely moronic politicians who have stuffed it all up on bogus environmental grounds, driven by a hard left green agenda which believes that we should all be donning hair-shirts and returning to the stone age.
Drilling for and burning gas for electricity generation whilst we put rubbish in landfill (where it leaks methane into the atmosphere) is utter stupidity.
Having rolled the pitch for income tax rises, Chancellor Reeves has now bottled it, under pressure from 10 Downing Street, which fears Keir Starmer could not survive such a major manifesto breach.
But the debt markets are not keen on a smorgasbord of small tax rises, which never deliver the predicted revenues. So gilt yields are already surging across the curve at the market open, with the yield on the 30-year bond up 14 basis points. Yields on bonds of all maturities are up more than 10 basis points.
Obviously the current lot are politically inept, as I keep saying, but we shouldn't fail to note how bad they also are at governing, and managing expectations, and steadying the markets, and dealing with the press.
There was no doubt in my mind in 2024 that Sunak and Hunt were the better choice, everything since then has simply confirmed that my judgement was sound.
Given Hunt created the fiscal black hole, presumably on the basis that he wouldn't be the one having to deal with the mess - I don't think so.
We can blame Reeves for falling into the trap Hunt set for her, but a responsible Chancellor wouldn't have scorched the earth as Hunt did.
This new black hole is all of Reeves making.
At the time of the election the fiscal gap, as I recall and as estimated by Chief Economists of financial institutions making billion dollar investments off the back of these estimates, was £40 to £50 billion.
So no. This fiscal black hole was inherited from the previous lot. Due to this government's complete inability to look more than a day ahead, Reeves decided it was in her interest to say no new taxes, which would be incompatible with a large fiscal gap, so she downplayed it. She shares blame for how it was managed but the actual black hole was the fault of Hunt
So you say. Who to believe, random bloke on the internet or...
GROK!
Not just Grok! THe free AI thing on my laptop, Co-Pilot, has assured me all morning that THIS is the correct result for Canterbury Wincheap:-
Guy Meurice Liberal Democrat 356 Jasmin Dallos‑Foreman Labour 291 Peter Campbell Green Party 178 Elliot Curryer Conservative 128 Colin Spooner Reform UK 64
Total votes cast: 1,017 Turnout: 28.9%
Just to be cleaer, thoise figures are completely and totally WRONG. I have just had a ten minute arguement with the wretched thing about this - apparently it constructed the result from "unreliable" sources, but was confidenrt that that would be the correct result eventually.
I am lost for words. This is not the first time I have had trouble using AI for basic factual information (shops' opening hours, football results etc) and it is completely unreliable.
It's going to make for interesting betting markets if bookies can be persuaded to pay out on "what the computer says".
This is why AI can't be relied upon. It makes things up.
When ChatGPT first launched I noticed that it invented historical election results, although they've corrected that now.
I can't understand why Starmer isn't making hay with the doctors strike. It can't be popular with anyone. Why aren't Labour declaring war on the BMA. It's a hit to nothing and it'll possibly be a start to repairing his reputation as a wobbly jelly.
There was a Labour MP on Newsnight last night and I could only dream how much better Labour would be faring with this woman in charge (i'll see if I can find her name)
You didn't listen to Streeting lay into the BMA on LBC this morning.
"It is extremely unnecessary and the other listeners to this show who have not had a 28.9% pay rise, whose taxes are paying for our National Health Service and who are receiving a substandard service, not least because of the damage that these rounds of industrial action are doing, I think they will be quite shocked, actually, that against the backdrop of a health secretary that wants to work with you, who acknowledges these are challenges and wants to address them, and has given you the biggest pay rise in the public sector two years in a row, I think people will be shocked by the BMA’s reprehensible behaviour. Don’t tell me you don’t want to be out on strike, because that’s exactly where you are. You made that choice, own it and own the damage it will do to your patients."
Foxy will have a view on this and I've a bias because of the experiences of my nephew. Bottom line is that we are not training enough home based doctors. And the ones out of UK uni's can't find training places. So we import 'hired guns' who don't have the attachment to the country or the NHS that others will have.
There is also no point in saying this was the result of the policies of party A or party B when as a nation we expect everything for nothing. The next government will ride in promising everything for even less such is our communal ignoring the realities. If you hire 'hired guns' expect to have them turn on you at some point.
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@JMcMurdockMP
Tonight an Amazon delivery driver let himself into my home.
It was lucky that I was in the right place to confront him immediately, but it shocked me and the question that keeps coming back to me is this:
What if my wife or teenage daughter had been standing in my place?
The footage is clear: the driver approaches the door, breathing heavily, he checks the handle, and pushes his way inside.
I don’t know what his intentions were, and that is exactly the point.
I contacted the police. Their exact words were:
“Trespass is a civil matter. There’s nothing we can do.”
A senior officer on shift confirmed it.
So let’s be absolutely honest with the public:
Under current law, if a stranger walks into your house, the police may not attend.
At a time when delivery companies are hiring thousands of temporary drivers, Who is turning up at our doors?
What level of risk are families being exposed to?
And most critically:
What message does this legal loophole send to someone with bad intentions?
Try your luck.
If the homeowner scares you off, just walk away.
The police won’t pursue you.
Try again.
This is utterly unacceptable.
I will raise this in Parliament.
I will not wait and risk someone being harmed before action is taken.
If the law fails to protect people in their own homes, then the law must change."
https://x.com/JMcMurdockMP/status/1989084146258571570
There was no doubt in my mind in 2024 that Sunak and Hunt were the better choice, everything since then has simply confirmed that my judgement was sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifwhp6lQgZ0
It is one of the most important export centres for Russia. The bottlenecks are making it easier for Ukraine to take out an ever increasing proportion of these exports.
But what I find most interesting about the LLM Wars is that no one has really pulled ahead: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Grok, and DeepSeek are all really good. And that's very different to what normally happens in tech. Normally one company pulls slightly ahead, and therefore is able to sell more product, can invest more, and then the gap betwee them and competitors widens and widens.
Microsoft did in software. Apple in mobile phones. Amazon in online shopping. SpaceX in rocket launches. (Tesla did it too, but then decided to shoot themselves repeatedly in various parts of their own anatomy.)
But it hasn't happened yet in LLMs/AI. Will it happen? I don't know, it's fascinating.
DeepSeek and Kimi were trained for the low 10s of millions, which is properly bonkers.
Putin has bigly overplayed his hand.
Increasing fuel duty would be interesting. It's not in the 'basic rate of IT' league of taboo but it has become something of one.
Apparently the heavy rain has somehow caused an underground fire at the end of my street
I've had a text to tell me that they hope to have my power back on by 8pm
If Putin risked outright defeat and being forced out of Ukraine completely then his Presidency and his administration would be over and he would have nothing to lose by using nuclear missiles. Keep Putin at current lines yes but going further than that is very risky
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok
There was a Labour MP on Newsnight last night and I could only dream how much better Labour would be faring with this woman in charge (i'll see if I can find her name)
Not good sense to keep your battle hardened guys on constant operations anyway unless you’re completely desperate. Not an auspicious comparison but the Luftwaffe in WWII had their pilots in constant service which produced lots of 3 figure aces but also rapidly shot down newbies and a big L in 1945.
That's one way to make everyone else in the Labour party leave for the Greens....
As I understand it that was the tax change proposed by Labour in advance of the 1992 GE that was cast as a tax bombshell by the Tories, leading to Major's narrow victory against the odds. I suppose it was 33 years ago now (a generation?) but you could forgive politicians for regarding that specific tax change as particularly verboten.
The only purpose of a pension is to save money income tax free now so that it’s taxed later. Tax it now and most people won’t bother with a pension at all - because it would make zero sense.
Looks good until you think about it for 30 seconds
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/13/who-votes-for-reform-and-why-charts-that-show-who-supports-farage-party
That's never happened before....
An envelope is wrongly classified as fly tipping leading to a £1k fine.
Whereas you can build your own industrial rubbish dump without any enforcement.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y4dxlgkp4o
Not the income tax higher threshold(s) but the upper employees threshold on Class C NI contributions, still misleadingly described as a "limit".
In other words, let every employee paying NI pay the same rate. 8% for every employee on all earnings above £12.6k. That is, no reduction to 2% for additional earnings above £50k a year and above as currently.
The reduced marginal 2% rate on higher earnings is an absolute anomaly. If Badenoch/Farage want to defend a principle that high earners should pay a marginal rate of NI at a quarter of the rate applied to most average incomes, good luck with that. It needn't even be a "stealth" increase. Labour could shout about it from the rooftops and most of the public would be on their side.
My view is there is a symbiotic relationship between cycling and public transport - having the back up option is really important, particularly for the decision to have one car rather than two. I think the 50% cut in services (everywhere except London and Edinburgh, pretty much) has been completely disastrous for the economy - restricting accessibility for the poor and those unable to drive, while forcing people to take on the enormous additional cost of a spare car.
Intervention by Tony Blair’s former director of communications comes as the PM is under pressure to sack his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney"
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-morgan-mcsweeney-downing-street-streeting-alastair-campbell-b2864345.html
Labour source: “They’ve pitch- rolled the wrong fucking pitch”
https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1989267122795819196
But then we don’t need a poll to tell us that.
Much less hassle & more profitable for the outsourced companies carrying out these prosecutions to go after the former, if you can find enough of them.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/nov/14/rachel-reeves-income-tax-budget-keir-starmer-labour-uk-politics-latest-news
"It is extremely unnecessary and the other listeners to this show who have not had a 28.9% pay rise, whose taxes are paying for our National Health Service and who are receiving a substandard service, not least because of the damage that these rounds of industrial action are doing, I think they will be quite shocked, actually, that against the backdrop of a health secretary that wants to work with you, who acknowledges these are challenges and wants to address them, and has given you the biggest pay rise in the public sector two years in a row, I think people will be shocked by the BMA’s reprehensible behaviour. Don’t tell me you don’t want to be out on strike, because that’s exactly where you are. You made that choice, own it and own the damage it will do to your patients."
2) As with everything else, this has created an opportunity for crime - see drugs, alcohol, tobacco....
3) The sane approach would be to modulate the reduction in rubbish to consider demand.
4) However, in addition to cost cutting, "reducing rubbish" has become a religious issue. To allow an increase would be heresy
5) Enforcement of such laws is generally only against the nice, polite people who fess up. The gang who did the fly tipping above will deny the crime, have alibis, they will even use... sarcasm. they knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire.
The saving on higher rate when you pay in and pay basic rate when you take out is an advantage that basic rate taxpayer's can't match.
Of course the converse can be true. Higher rate taxpayers can get higher tax relief on money going in at the top rate then pull out their 25% tax free allowance and take the rest out that only attracts the 20% rate over the year.
It won’t happen due to the admin involved anyway.
GROK!
Guy Meurice Liberal Democrat 356
Jasmin Dallos‑Foreman Labour 291
Peter Campbell Green Party 178
Elliot Curryer Conservative 128
Colin Spooner Reform UK 64
Total votes cast: 1,017
Turnout: 28.9%
Just to be cleaer, thoise figures are completely and totally WRONG. I have just had a ten minute arguement with the wretched thing about this - apparently it constructed the result from "unreliable" sources, but was confidenrt that that would be the correct result eventually.
I am lost for words. This is not the first time I have had trouble using AI for basic factual information (shops' opening hours, football results etc) and it is completely unreliable.
It's going to make for interesting betting markets if bookies can be persuaded to pay out on "what the computer says".
Holes is expensive.
Was rebuilding a garden wall earlier this summer - the chaps discovered too late that their truck of recycled local industrial bricks from old local fireclay bnrickworks didn't match the un-recycled bricks on the wall also from local, and also long closed, but different, pits. Half an inch in length. So I had to buy a pallet of mock industrial bricks new. From China.
Are those artificial neural networks networking?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/677285.Ignition_
They’ll dress this up as broadest shoulders and that it’s not a technical breach of the manifesto because the rates haven’t changed.
Not convinced they’ll end higher rate relief on pension contributions owing to the admin involved. Very unconvinced they’ll do anything to the cliff edges now - sounds like they’ll be relying on them even more. Salary sacrifice could be the big casualty.
I predict none of this will give them the headroom they really need to have and we’ll be back to square one again next year, when hopefully we’ll have a new Chancellor who might actually have some political nous and common sense.
Must have been some serious tipper traffic, it should be possible to track the vehicles that went there, hence the vehicle operators.
BBC had the Buried podcast about an illegal waste dump in N Ireland https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2023/bbc-radio-4-podcast-buried-secret-million-tonne-dump, apparently 20% of waste is now handled by organised crime. It need to be taken more seriously before we end up like Naples.
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-ap1000-loan-debacle
With the Westinghouse loan, the Trump Administration has invented a new form of state capitalism, an oxymoron if there ever was one. And it will bury US nuclear in an even more expensive coffin.
Details are almost non-existent. Here’s my limited and quite possibly erroneous understanding of the deal.
1) In exchange for an unspecified amount of tariff relief, Japan will buy $550 billion dollars of ultra-long US bonds, almost certainly a terrible investment as the US inflates away the value of that paper. Japan is either betting that it can get that money back in trade, or this is the price of the US military umbrella. Either way the US taxpayer will end up with the bulk of the bill.
2) Trump will take 80 billion of that public money and loan it to Westinghouse to build “up to” eight AP1000’s. If the resulting monopoly is a success, the government can convert the debt into a one-sixth share of Westinghouse.
It’s hard to imagine a worst plan. It will strangle competition while exacerbating the real problem.
Imagine how you feel if your GE-Hitachi or the other outfits that have NRC certified designs. You’ve spent 100’s of millions fighting your way through all the NRC barriers to entry; and now the US government turns on you and finances your main remaining competitor with taxpayer money. Probably best to concentrate on the Japanese market.
The position for the newcomers is even worse. The taxpayer has already blown over 700 million on NuScale. Do they now have to spend more to defend this investment against themselves?..
..The only real hope for the US was the Koreans showing the way with the APR1400. Whatever chance we had of the Koreans entering the US market, just disappeared.
"What do you want it to be, Augustus?"
*for those who didn't see it, Anthony Hopkins revealed that his Hannibal Lector voice was based on HAL...
If she resigned she can lay this out all in the open and it will make the job of the next Chancellor a lot easier.
...Lack of standardization is indeed a real problem for US nuclear. But it is the regulation that need standardization; not the designs. The Westinghouse loan not only does nothing to standardize regulation, but instead it makes things much worse by allowing the regulator to impose even more expensive requirements.
The AP1000 Choice
If you want a concrete argument why we should not standardize on a single design, look no further than the AP1000. The AP1000 is a cramped, nearly unmaintainable, crappy design. The design philosophy appears to have been to minimize up front CAPEX subject to meeting NRC paperwork requirements. On paper, the AP1000 has a design life of 60 years. Westinghouse knows better. They gave Georgia Power a warranty period of 2 years starting from the date of Substantial Completion, with a cap of 10% of the contract price. You will get a better guarantee with a toaster.
So US nuclear is now a monopoly based on a lousy standardized design using a klunky, brute force technology, regulated by an unstandardized autocracy who can now tap public funds to pay for its whims. It’s hard to imagine that it can get worse.
TBH I’d be fascinated by it too.
"This is not a licensed waste site and we can just see the quantity of waste that has been dumped here, that's illegal, so it's criminal," Mr Miller said.
"That's not something that local residents and taxpayers can afford."
He says "criminal gangs are dumping waste on this scale" across the country and it will take government intervention before pollutants "leech out" into local rivers...
Reeves is way out of her depth and the Speaker must be furious
He needs to take action and summon Reeves to the Commons and publically condemn Reeves and the Treasury
Ideally they'd raise lots of money without breaking manifesto... *cough property taxes cough*... but if that's not possible, then for God's sake dont leave yourself needing more tax rises next year.
So whose fault is it? Maybe the guy who first coined the slogan 'Labour's Tax Bombshell' (William Hague?), since then both major parties have had to promise not to raise the main taxes and have had to find obscure taxes to raise instead. The result is worse than if parties had allowed themselves and each other to operate without both hands tied behind their backs.
But hold on a minute, parties have to deny that they will raise these major taxes or we won't vote for them. So, it's our fault then?
And I think they did the WFH/wanking sketch too...
We can blame Reeves for falling into the trap Hunt set for her, but a responsible Chancellor wouldn't have scorched the earth as Hunt did.
This is from Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, on where we stand this morning after all the fallout from the budget income tax U-turn. She confirms that sources are now ruling out cutting the thresholds for paying higher rates of income tax.
She says government insiders claim the change is all down to better-than-expected fiscal forecasts, and that Labour opposition to the proposal was not a factor.
Where we are on budget after revelation Rachel Reeves will no longer hike income tax rates
- Treasury confirms that stronger than expected OBR forecasts means fiscal gap is closer to £20bn than previously speculated £30-£40bn. Reeves also wants headroom of around £15bn in addition.
---
Where are all the better than expected forecasts coming from, this year was supposed to be the best growth year for a few (and not exactly stellar). We are now undershoting that and all the fiscal indicators are worse, higher inflation, higher unemployment, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk
It appears she is already short £20bn of target.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rachel-reeves-taxes-spending-cuts-budget-b2802222.html
I'm in Derbyshire, we've got empty quarries as far as the eye can see, and they are still digging at a rate of knots - the main traffic on the local roads is endless lorries hauling the stone and cement out.
The only correct option for rubbish is incineration, recover the energy as electricity then bury the ash.
Done right, this would actually be profitable. It's merely moronic politicians who have stuffed it all up on bogus environmental grounds, driven by a hard left green agenda which believes that we should all be donning hair-shirts and returning to the stone age.
Drilling for and burning gas for electricity generation whilst we put rubbish in landfill (where it leaks methane into the atmosphere) is utter stupidity.
So no. This fiscal black hole was inherited from the previous lot. Due to this government's complete inability to look more than a day ahead, Reeves decided it was in her interest to say no new taxes, which would be incompatible with a large fiscal gap, so she downplayed it. She shares blame for how it was managed but the actual black hole was the fault of Hunt
When ChatGPT first launched I noticed that it invented historical election results, although they've corrected that now.
There is also no point in saying this was the result of the policies of party A or party B when as a nation we expect everything for nothing. The next government will ride in promising everything for even less such is our communal ignoring the realities. If you hire 'hired guns' expect to have them turn on you at some point.