A Streeting named desire – politicalbetting.com
A Streeting named desire – politicalbetting.com
I like Wes Streeting when he’s angry. pic.twitter.com/shzPca08Rf
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I like Wes Streeting when he’s angry. pic.twitter.com/shzPca08Rf
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I now would be proud to work for HSBC and will be moving my main bank account to HSBC.
On a totally unrelated note.
BREAKING: George Osborne, the former chancellor, has emerged as a shock contender to become the next chairman of HSBC Holdings, one of the world's top banking jobs.
https://news.sky.com/story/former-chancellor-osborne-is-shock-contender-to-head-hsbc-13470375
So your argument seems to be you will drive a BYD or EV Skoda and be happy.
The whole idea was supposed to be EVs cost a bit more, but a) the government will provide a really good subsidsy so they are on par if not cheaper than an ICE vehicle, so you don't need to worry about base cost (remember most people buy on finance), no luxury car tax, no road tax and also no horrid congestion charges etc.
Now, even some Skoda EVs (which are ok cars but nobody would describe as luxury), but certainly the average car could cost you £2.5k in luxury car tax, plus if true another £300-400 in this PPM (which will of course only go up in cost over the years), plus you have to pay congestion charge.
Those are nudges all in the wrong direction if your policy is to get eveybody in an EV by 2035. Most people who foot the upfront cost of the car on finance will more than likely just go fuck it, cost me same in luxury car tax, same in road tax, same in congestion car, might as well just get an ICE car that is cheaper monthly.
The Budget is sunk and there's still a week and a half before they unveil it. McSweeney will go, Reeves surely must go, I struggle to see how Starmer doesn't go.
The LabCon in full effect. Labour are the Tories, Labour are the Tories, naah naah naah naah etc
Marvellous
Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, is an exceptional politician. Under her leadership there has been political stability in Italy for the first time in over 15 years
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JYZ3OdkfRM4
Three minutes from the Economist on Meloni.
The claim it will be boring but enjoy the calm, the competence, well that is out the window.
3p a mile in tax is less than the 6.7p a mile the average petrol car pays. And if you mostly charge at home you're paying 5% VAT not 20% VAT, so that's another saving.
Road pricing is inevitable. Though knowing this government they will announce that they are going to raise £3bn by trialling it with a 5p a mile tax on Hydrogen cars.
Avoiding £2.5k in luxury car tax is a pretty good nudge in the EV direction. But that is gone unless you want to drive a shit box EV from China (China make some very good EVs, low end BYDs aren't them).
Youi are all in on EVs, nothing wrong with that. I am just pointing out from the general public perspective, getting a subsidy on an EV, no luxury car tax, no road tax, no congestion charge, ohhh that's interesting. Or yeah it costs more up front, yeah you have to pay luxury car tax, and PPM road tax and congestion charge. Ohhhh come on Maureen lets look at those ICE powered Toyotas. Not let me get the Excel spreadsheet out and work this out to the penny.
Anyroadup, Ken Clarke's evisceration of Reform on Thursday's QT seems to have struck a few nerves among the Reform commentariat on social media and I doubt he'll be getting any Christmas cards from any of them.
The truth is he's forgotten more about politics and government than most of us will ever remember.
I can't speak for other parties but in the LDs, candidates for local elections in target areas were always summoned to meetings in advance and given a briefing on what to do if you get elected. Said candidates were often activists so had a degree of political nous (to a point) but if a paper candidate suddenly found themselves elected, there was an unholy rush to bring said surprising winner up to speed.
It helped if you had some pre-existing presence on the Council or even former Councillors on whom you could call for advice and guidance.
Reform appear to have done very little of this - those who stood for the party who were or had been Councillors from other parties obviously could provide some insight but it looks as though the incoming ruling groups were completely unprepared for what faced them when they turned up to be sworn in at the Council HQ on the Monday or Tuesday after the election.
https://x.com/tatarigami_ua/status/1989535986653827135
https://x.com/angelshalagina/status/1989620376507125908
Bow before your new 4chan rulers, puny libs.
Homeland Security
@DHSgov
Womp womp, cry all you want. These criminal illegal aliens aren’t getting released.
Like clockwork, violent rioters have arrived at the Broadview ICE facility to demand the release of some of the worst human beings on planet earth.
Get a job you imbecilic morons.
https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1989402784316493957?s=20
I understand your cynicism, but for me there is a real fear that the damage Starmer and Reeves are inflicting on our county is far worse than Truss/ Kwarteng as they were booted out after a few weeks, whereas this pair together with the idiotic behaviour of their back benches refusing cutting spending is taking us into a huge economic crisis
The answer is not Reform or the Greens, but a centrist government that is needed is as far away as ever
Despair is very real
"The Environment Agency would only step in and clear this or any site if it was abandoned, had no identifiable person, or the waste posed an imminent threat to life – we operate under the Polluter Pays Principle."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y4dxlgkp4o
Put a letter in the wrong bin, £1000 fine, undertake massive industrial fly tipping, sorry no money to look into it, not our job to clean it up.
Unfortunately, there's little sign of "centrism" in the modern Conservative Party which I suspect is a cause of anxiety for you. I'd like to hear more from the LDs on what they would do to reduce borrowing - a windfall tax on banks is all very well and good but it's a drop in the ocean when you are looking at £150 billion borrowing.
Property reform, by which I mean updating the Council Tax (more bands, bringing more houses into higher bands recognising what has happened since 1991) and Land Value Taxation are interesting options (the carrot, both political and economic, might be to abolish Stamp Duty), is long overdue.
I think I made the right decision.
😐
Except all the others. (Ed Davey maybe not included)
I lament the failure of this incarnation of Labour to be radical much as I did that of Blair in 1997. Perhaps there was going to be a radical second term pace Thatcher after 1983 but the events of September 11th 2001 changed everything as we know.
The lesson, and I think it's one of Stodge's Political Laws (seventeen or eighteen), is it's never too early to be radical. Both Asquith and Attlee were radical from the minute they got into Government but it seems political timidity in the face of a hostile media (whether written, broadcat or social) is the order of the day for non-Conservative Governments - presumably there is a sense of the fragility of the voting coalition which got them elected.
From my earliest political stirrings in the 1970s doing my homework by candlelight, I had the sense Labour and the Conservatives were two cheeks of the same arse. Not sure it's as true now as it was then back in the days of the duopoly and let's not forget they still got 58% of the vote and won 532 seats out of 650 between them last time so rumours of its demise may yet be exaggerated.
Are in-work benefits lifting people out of poverty or subsidising abusive employers?
Are housing benefits tackling homelessness or subsidising bad landlords?
Are we promoting the take-up of EVs to help the environment, or writing subsidy cheques to an often hostile dictatorship and the richest man on the planet?
Is Wes Streeting saving the NHS or paying for American private healthcare?
Starmer's dismalness has been on full display this week. But it still looks like everyone else would be worse, and I don't know what the answer to that systemic problem is. In my lifetime, the job of PM has always defeated the person doing it, even Thatcher and Blair, and now it does so within a couple of years.
I'd love to think that a really really good politician could educate the electorate the choice is between paying more taxes and getting less stuff, and yes that includes you, Mr Average-Voter. But when the misinformation system is as toxic as it currently is, I don't think it's possible.
Now it seems councils going bankrupt are two a penny. Deggsy was a pioneer.
My car (Japanese origin, not Chinese, self-charging non-plug in petrol hybrid) set me back ~£14k, new, 2 years ago. RRP then was £18k but negotiated a discount. RRP now is still less than £20k, and presumably can be attained for even cheaper if you negotiate hard as I did.
However yes, I don't see why everyone would with the way the market is going switch beyond hybrids to EVs, especially for those without off-road parking it is already not just more expensive to buy the vehicle, but to charge it too, so it makes no sense whatsoever. Which always gets some "I'm alright Jack" fool to retort "oh I pay this little when I charge it at home" which is not an option for millions without off road parking. 🤦♂️
I am bemused that most people will be considering the congestion charge. I've never paid a penny of congestion charge in my life, thankfully those living in nearby Manchester had the good sense to reject that stupid policy and it hasn't happened anywhere else up here either. Most people don't live in London.
The utter joy from the PB Tories in this instance is well deserved. Although I would like to remind them who broke Britain and that the earth salting for the next government by Sunak and Hunt was pure genius if only Reform hadn't surprised them as the challengers to Labour for government in 2029.
I have had some sympathy with Starmer trying to govern in the face of a relentless storm of shit from the Telegraph, Mail, GBNews and social media, although the position they find themselves in today after the last ten days is entirely of their own making. Starmer putting 12 year old schoolboy Morgan McSweeney in charge of everything was of itself a schoolboy error.
OK for those who can charge at home, but other than those, what do you do? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
MJG has gone up in my estimation.
"“I am withdrawing my support and endorsement of ‘Congresswoman’ Marjorie Taylor Greene, of the great state of Georgia,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday evening. “All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!”"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/14/trump-marjorie-taylor-greene-support
This quickly becomes quite complicated - the new car market is made up of some of the highest income people in country, if you consider that the average car is now over 10 years old and car owners in general tend to be the highest income people anyway. So while I agree with FrancisUrquhart that all the incentives are pointing in the wrong direction at the moment, I would suggest that the current price of them isn't as massive an issue as people sometimes think - it doesn't matter if people like me are priced out at the moment.
Imagine a scenario where both electricity and petrol had kept pace with general inflation over the last decade. Electricity would be 30% cheaper than it is now, and fuel would be 20% more expensive. If that was the case I think the EV transition would have happened much, much quicker and with much less of the angst that we see today.
Oh, and Starmer didn't kill the Queen.
Although Mrs May is coming across as a Titan of British politics by way of contrast.
I didn't know Trump, Miller and Hegseth had even been locked up.
The E7 Wedgetail looks like another MoD procurement disaster, where we order a highly expensive US system, which becomes massively more expensive after we reduce the order - barely saving any money overall, and ending up with half the capability.
For the same cost, you could have the Saab, plus scores of military satellites (which is what the US is planning to replace it with).
Our military procurement is a disaster, powered by hubris and incompetence.
The desire to have the 'best' system regularly means committing to something we can't really afford, which ends up delivered late, at a stupid unit cost, often obsolescent, and in insufficient numbers.
Meanwhile the basics - enough ammunition to fight a war that lasts beyond a week, for example - are neglected.
Electricity prices are not.
If fuel taxes had been ramped up beyond their already astronomical levels, then that would just widen the black hole the government would be facing when the tax is phased out.
And no, you can't just transfer petrol taxes to 'per mile' or electricity to replace it, since the electricity is already too expensive. Government will just need to find its revenues from everyone and not just drivers anymore.
And no, car owners in general do not tend to be the highest income people. More than three quarters of the country own a car, the highest earners in the country are not more than three quarters of the country. Oh and don't forget London has more higher earners, but considerable lower car ownership, and subsidised public transport.
rising to average of £42,340 in May 2024
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/opinion/363624/average-new-car-price-ps40k-simply-too-high-most-people
With the average EV purchase price hovering around £46,000. - 2025
https://wecovr.com/guides/average-cost-of-an-electric-car-in-the-uk-2025/
average new petrol car £45,218
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/06/old-bangers-dominate-uk-roads-average-car-is-10-years-old/
According to Philip Nothard, insight director at Cox Automotive, a key factor is the rising price of new cars, up 129% over the past 15 years from an average of £22,868 to £52,342. - 26 November 2024
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/consumer/average-car-age-grows-new-car-prices-rocket-129-15-years
Basically whichever number you want to go with they are all above luxury car tax level. Its again big time fiscal drag. It came in in 2017, when £40k was the cost of a "proper" luxury car, now a slightly above average car or an average car with some extras.
Congestion / clean air zones have been popping up all over the place after the last government allowed locals council to introduce them. Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Bradford. Its an obvious tax grab, and the goal posts keep moving for the ones that have been introduced.
Median being just above the threshold doesn't mean all are above the threshold of course, but it does mean that most are. Nearly half the market (approximately) will be below it, with some vehicles like my own less than half the cost of that threshold.
If not, that is outrageous.
Also luxury car tax is not to be sniffed at, you have to pay ~£2.5k in total from years 2-6.
Its not joined up thinking by the government if your mission if to get everybody into an EV in a few year time.
Plug In Hybrids are a fast growing sector of the car market.
Anyway, what else am I doing about it? Growing a tache for Movember and raising money for mental health. £660 in the pot so far and we're only half way through the month.
Since then: nothing. I've been checking their website to get the later guesses
When the power went off for three days at our house because my mother is on the PSR, Northern PowerGrid came round with power banks/portable generators so our electricity could work.
https://thepsr.co.uk/
The PM is the “prime” minister, not the only minister. We have a Cabinet system - in an ideal world, Cabinet Ministers would be “big beasts” with their own thoughts and policies and be given enough time in post to execute. The PM should be setting the strategy (like an executive chair) and then allow ministers to get on with it and only get directly involved in the most sensitive big events (budget, foreign policy, etc).
However:
1. Our PMs lack the confidence to have strong independent politicians in cabinets
2. Our Cabinet ministers are schemers rather than people with a policy vision and the patience to execute
3. Our media is always demanding to know “what does the PM think” (I’d love to see the PM answer “X is responsible for that - talk to them”). The PM’s public interventions should be rare and powerful (eg people pay more attention when John Major speaks then when Boris Johnson does because the former is more selective about when he gets involved)
4. The voters don’t care enough to demand better
For me, the fundamental answer is to allow Cabinet Ministers to be drawn from outside Parliament. The skills needed are different. I would make the Commons focused on scrutiny and legislating - beef up the committees, for example and resource them properly. You need to make sure that the Cabinet can be held accountable by parliament but that doesn’t necessarily require them to be members. I would, however, require the PM to be a member of parliament.
My concern with any new tax, government just can't help themselves but use it to increase the overall tax take.
I'm supposed to be going back to work in a couple of days, so I'm not confident that I could get on it now
Starmer and Reeves' embrace of the 'crashed the economy' narrative on Truss has already begun to sink its fangs into their generous behinds, and that will not stop until what little is left of their economic reputations lies in smouldering ruins.
‘Leccy went out - big storm . First he knew was when the wife called him on the “funny phone” (satellite phone and she was very non-techical) - all the phones were dead, including mobile.
His house was fine, because he had a generator that ran on fuel oil, and a UPS. Main power going out caused the UPS to fire up the generator.
His house was the only one with heating and lights for a week.
People who don't learn how to express controlled anger can be those who are more likely to bottle up their emotions until they erupt and lose it.
Now there would be complaints from the countryside but that can be rectified by implementing a lower rate if your car is registered in the middle of nowhere.
That would require more thinking through of steps than this Government is capable of though..
Days in office. Truss wasn't allowed to sink further than the cataclysm she unleashed.
The BMA definitely seems out of control. The hard left is re-emerging as a proper menace. But will voters resort to the traditional conservative response anymore?
In order to prevent their food defrosting they balanced their freezer on a toboggan, chained it to a tractor and took it down to the nearest village to plug it into a friend’s garage…
Has it ever occurred to you that you might be a lone voice on this matter not because everyone else is thinking like a 10 year old, but because you are in fact... wrong?
No? Well keep dishing out the puerile insults if it makes you feel better.
This may reflect the bank chairman role now being more of a political one. What does that say about where we are?
They’re awesome, they let you run your house all day at the overnight tariff, and give backup when your utility fails you.
For a start Starmer is not a patch on Wilson, and Badenoch is certainly no Thatcher.
Labour at that time was were governing, but the result was failure. You can argue about the policies, but they had them and were applying them.
This time around, they are directionless. Apart from adding regulatory and cost burdens, they have no policies. Certainly none that they are trying to implement with any vigour.
Instead, they appear to have elevated the courts to be the third, highest chamber of Parliament.
We’ve been looking into battery storage to complement our solar array. Prices keep dropping and capacity increasing so the question is when to take the plunge.
And for a lot of people, that's all that matters.
So when the demand price *from the utility* goes over a set value, your PowerWall sells power to them. If you want - there’s also a reserve of x% of the PowerWall you can reserve, that won’t be sold.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/11/14/reeves-plots-new-tax-on-middle-class-homeowners/
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/nov/15/ashes-england-cricket-mark-wood-injury