The problem is running permanent budget deficits in the hundreds of billions of pounds and then acting as if all is fine as some artificial rule is being met five years from now, then panicking when anything happens in the next year that throws that off kilter.
If we were running balanced budgets, with deficits only for swings and roundabouts, countered by budget surpluses also as swings and roundabouts, then the OBR and the rest of the rules malarkey would be moot.
An under-commented aspect of the budget is that much of the pain has been postponed until 2029. Which is when the election falls due. Maybe this is a betting opportunity, since Labour really can’t afford to be going to the polls in 2029 with its current budget plans; either they intend to go earlier, or those plans will be shredded before 2029 arrives?
And salting the earth for whoever is chancellor after the election.
Which chancellors of the last fifty years have, either through malice, incompetence or circumstances left things worse for their successor?
I can think of a few that left things better, overall, Howe, Lawson, Clarke, Osborne, Hammond (i think, but he did release the grip on finance that Osborne had placed) i can think of a few, whilst not bad overall, left deliberate traps for their successors that deserves a demerit, Darling (under the influence of Brown) and Hunt. Javid and Sunak through circumstance and cowardice blew all the gains on finance control and welfare spending acquired during the 2010s.
We had done the weight watchers, lost six stone, and to celebrate went on a round the world cruise, gained the six back and a further two on top.
Reeves is bad, just awful bad, inherited a dreadful state of finances. Hunt left a series of political traps and the labour party rolled into them. The traps were so severe politically that theyve damaged the public finances overall, not just tarnished the reputation of his successor. Unresolved public pay agreements, NI tax cuts, budget forecasts that had been tweaked. A mess.
Brown could have gone down as one of the greats, but he was a petty, vindicative calculating monster who rapidly increased structural deficit spending that was supposed to be temporary but caused great pain unwinding.
You could either stand firm on unresolved public pay agreements - or roll over and pay what the nation can't afford. Guess what Labour did?
This fellow James Murray is Labour’s go-to lamb to the slaughter. Surely only used to make the rest of them look good, as he uncharismatically defends the indefensible.
I can’t imagine he was ever young. Just the most boilerplate, stereotype of a public sector, “computer says no” bod
Why have you broken your manifesto pledge on National Insurance for a second time?”
“We haven’t”
“You have”
@vicderbyshire challenges James Murray MP on the Government’s decision to freeze income tax and National Insurance thresholds.
The problem is running permanent budget deficits in the hundreds of billions of pounds and then acting as if all is fine as some artificial rule is being met five years from now, then panicking when anything happens in the next year that throws that off kilter.
If we were running balanced budgets, with deficits only for swings and roundabouts, countered by budget surpluses also as swings and roundabouts, then the OBR and the rest of the rules malarkey would be moot.
An under-commented aspect of the budget is that much of the pain has been postponed until 2029. Which is when the election falls due. Maybe this is a betting opportunity, since Labour really can’t afford to be going to the polls in 2029 with its current budget plans; either they intend to go earlier, or those plans will be shredded before 2029 arrives?
And salting the earth for whoever is chancellor after the election.
Which chancellors of the last fifty years have, either through malice, incompetence or circumstances left things worse for their successor?
I can think of a few that left things better, overall, Howe, Lawson, Clarke, Osborne, Hammond (i think, but he did release the grip on finance that Osborne had placed) i can think of a few, whilst not bad overall, left deliberate traps for their successors that deserves a demerit, Darling (under the influence of Brown) and Hunt. Javid and Sunak through circumstance and cowardice blew all the gains on finance control and welfare spending acquired during the 2010s.
We had done the weight watchers, lost six stone, and to celebrate went on a round the world cruise, gained the six back and a further two on top.
Reeves is bad, just awful bad, inherited a dreadful state of finances. Hunt left a series of political traps and the labour party rolled into them. The traps were so severe politically that theyve damaged the public finances overall, not just tarnished the reputation of his successor. Unresolved public pay agreements, NI tax cuts, budget forecasts that had been tweaked. A mess.
Brown could have gone down as one of the greats, but he was a petty, vindicative calculating monster who rapidly increased structural deficit spending that was supposed to be temporary but caused great pain unwinding.
You could either stand firm on unresolved public pay agreements - or roll over and pay what the nation can't afford. Guess what Labour did?
To be fair, the budget for pay awards hadnt factored in the much bigger demands due to inflation. They were never going to accept 2% coming off the back of an inflation of 9%.
Does Trump not understand that by putting lots of pressure on Zelensky he makes Putin less likely to agree a deal? With Zelensky cornered the temptation for Putin is to ask for more.
I think Trump understands which side he can most directly punish and bully to get what he wants, so focuses on that angle above all else, that's how he operates and in his personal and political affairs it has always worked out for him.
But he doesn't understand he is negotiating between two parties. How you treat one affects the behaviour of the other.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
Yes you even know how to spell his name unlike me obviously!
Does Trump not understand that by putting lots of pressure on Zelensky he makes Putin less likely to agree a deal? With Zelensky cornered the temptation for Putin is to ask for more.
I think Trump understands which side he can most directly punish and bully to get what he wants, so focuses on that angle above all else, that's how he operates and in his personal and political affairs it has always worked out for him.
But he doesn't understand he is negotiating between two parties. How you treat one affects the behaviour of the other.
Indeed, but he doesn't seem to get that. From the beginning he seems to have regarded Ukraine as at best an irritant in his own dealings with Putin, to at worst the principal opponent of the USA in this mess.
My Labour-voting brother has given the view that Labour are 'worse than the Tories' on the back of the budget.
The policies on NI on pension contributions ('should be encouraging people to save so they don't have to rely on the state in the future') and freezing tax bands for even longer that main targets of his ire.
I'm starting to wonder if we may start to see a recovery in Tory polling. As their time in office fades into the past, many in the mainstream will simply switch back to the other party of government.
Personally I think it'd be great to have Badenoch-led Tories leading in the polls over the traitorous Farage-led Reform. Albeit I won't be voting for either.
This fellow James Murray is Labour’s go-to lamb to the slaughter. Surely only used to make the rest of them look good, as he uncharismatically defends the indefensible.
I can’t imagine he was ever young. Just the most boilerplate, stereotype of a public sector, “computer says no” bod
Why have you broken your manifesto pledge on National Insurance for a second time?”
“We haven’t”
“You have”
@vicderbyshire challenges James Murray MP on the Government’s decision to freeze income tax and National Insurance thresholds.
Freezing tax thresholds not being a tax rise is a well established piece of political dishonesty. It's equivalent to claiming unchanged nominal spending isn't a spending cut. Of course it's bollocks but if you squint at it hard enough you can just about claim it's true.
Does Trump not understand that by putting lots of pressure on Zelensky he makes Putin less likely to agree a deal? With Zelensky cornered the temptation for Putin is to ask for more.
This fellow James Murray is Labour’s go-to lamb to the slaughter. Surely only used to make the rest of them look good, as he uncharismatically defends the indefensible.
I can’t imagine he was ever young. Just the most boilerplate, stereotype of a public sector, “computer says no” bod
Why have you broken your manifesto pledge on National Insurance for a second time?”
“We haven’t”
“You have”
@vicderbyshire challenges James Murray MP on the Government’s decision to freeze income tax and National Insurance thresholds.
Freezing tax thresholds not being a tax rise is a well established piece of political dishonesty. It's equivalent to claiming unchanged nominal spending isn't a spending cut. Of course it's bollocks but if you squint at it hard enough you can just about claim it's true.
I like them, because usually when newspapers and politicians complain about 'stealth taxes' they are referring to things which have been announced very clearly, often a long time in advance. which they just happen not to like, whereas using the label for such freezing at least has some logic behind it.
A couple of notes on device hoarding. First, it's largely irrelevant, at least here. The greater effect is the growing used or refurbished market, especially for phones but for some also laptops as knowing consumers buy second hand business models.
Never understood why people don't buy used phones more often. Flagship phones from 2-3 years ago can be had in excellent condition, with a warranty, for half the launch price or less. Innovation has slowed enough a 3 year old phone isn't notably less capable than current models, they just have less AI crap installed.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
I've seen 5 Chalamet projects. He was a charisma vacuum in all of them until Dune Part II, which has made me angrier as now I know he could have been good in other stuff.
Incidentally, the new of net migration falling to 200k is welcome. It's down to under a quarter of the figure from 2 years ago, which was clearly an unsustainable pace whatever your politics.
I don't know what the right figure to target. But 0.3% population growth a year is probably not a million miles off a sustainable figure for a country with an otherwise aging population and falling number of births.
A couple of notes on device hoarding. First, it's largely irrelevant, at least here. The greater effect is the growing used or refurbished market, especially for phones but for some also laptops as knowing consumers buy second hand business models.
Never understood why people don't buy used phones more often. Flagship phones from 2-3 years ago can be had in excellent condition, with a warranty, for half the launch price or less. Innovation has slowed enough a 3 year old phone isn't notably less capable than current models, they just have less AI crap installed.
People don't generally trust old electronics very much, even though that new is still fine.
12 Angry Men. There is a treatise somewhere on how the camera angle changes through the film to reflect the tension in the jury room. The first third is shot from below, then level, and finally from above (or possibly vice versa, it's been a while).
Brilliant film. I've watched it about six times.
We all hope we'd be Henry Fonda in that situation, don't we?
Mrs PtP kind of was. She was the only dissenting juror in a drugs trial but by sheer persistence, logic and force of personality she managed to convince the others that the defendant was guilty.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
Yes you even know how to spell his name unlike me obviously!
Amongst my friends he hits this perfect Venn diagram of geekiness for me and for my gay friends The Straight Prince of Twinks.
Labour need a miracle and growth to far exceed current forecasts .
I did laugh though at the OBR whose growth forecast just one year ahead for this year was wrong by 50% and yet Reeves is making all the budget decisions for forecasts several years ahead .
No 10 and 11 need to be able to shelve the extra freezing on tax thresholds and this is I suspect what they’re hoping for behind the scenes .
A couple of notes on device hoarding. First, it's largely irrelevant, at least here. The greater effect is the growing used or refurbished market, especially for phones but for some also laptops as knowing consumers buy second hand business models.
Never understood why people don't buy used phones more often. Flagship phones from 2-3 years ago can be had in excellent condition, with a warranty, for half the launch price or less. Innovation has slowed enough a 3 year old phone isn't notably less capable than current models, they just have less AI crap installed.
The problem is that they struggle with system updates, which do include AI slop, and batteries are often past their best.
Leaving the dilemma of not updating the software, and leaving the phone vulnerable.
A couple of notes on device hoarding. First, it's largely irrelevant, at least here. The greater effect is the growing used or refurbished market, especially for phones but for some also laptops as knowing consumers buy second hand business models.
Never understood why people don't buy used phones more often. Flagship phones from 2-3 years ago can be had in excellent condition, with a warranty, for half the launch price or less. Innovation has slowed enough a 3 year old phone isn't notably less capable than current models, they just have less AI crap installed.
The issue is security updates. Some more than others. This is very useful:
Labour need a miracle and growth to far exceed current forecasts .
I did laugh though at the OBR whose growth forecast just one year ahead for this year was wrong by 50% and yet Reeves is making all the budget decisions for forecasts several years ahead .
No 10 and 11 need to be able to shelve the extra freezing on tax thresholds and this is I suspect what they’re hoping for behind the scenes .
I did see a good visualisation on the BBC live blog during the budget of how bad some of the forecasts have been for so long, but I'm jiggered if I can find it right now.
A couple of notes on device hoarding. First, it's largely irrelevant, at least here. The greater effect is the growing used or refurbished market, especially for phones but for some also laptops as knowing consumers buy second hand business models.
Never understood why people don't buy used phones more often. Flagship phones from 2-3 years ago can be had in excellent condition, with a warranty, for half the launch price or less. Innovation has slowed enough a 3 year old phone isn't notably less capable than current models, they just have less AI crap installed.
If you care about security updates, a new phone has several years more of those than an older one. Iphones are much better than Android ones here, and Google has gradually been improving for their own Pixel phones. But https://endoflife.date/pixel says if you bought a Pixel 7 Pro (released three years ago) today, you would have less than two years before it stopped getting secuity updates and you needed to replace it.
Incidentally, the new of net migration falling to 200k is welcome. It's down to under a quarter of the figure from 2 years ago, which was clearly an unsustainable pace whatever your politics.
I don't know what the right figure to target. But 0.3% population growth a year is probably not a million miles off a sustainable figure for a country with an otherwise aging population and falling number of births.
One ominous stat is that 99% of Britons emigrating are under age 65. (Not far different for the EU emigrants and non-EU emigrants too).
We are no longer exporting retirees to the Costas. The age structure of the population is worsening.
Q: Did Labour keep their promise not to increase IT/NI/VAT?
Yes 16 No 57
Wow. Might as well have gone for the 1p on income tax then.
Hence why it was a stupidly short sighted budget from the perspective of electoral politics.
Reeves and Starmer are desperately unpopular and generally considered deeply untrustworthy. They were going to get slated however this budget went. So they should have taken this opportunity to actually do some big ticket stuff. Get the income tax rate up. Reform the triple lock. Do something to NI. Abolish stamp duty. Etc, etc.
But I strongly suspect the true reason they can’t do any of that is because they are now utterly petrified of their backbenchers, and going nuclear in the budget was going to make a leadership challenge much more likely in May. Hence, a fudge that pleases no-one.
Anecdotes are just that, but from my personal experience this budget has cut through, particularly, it seems to me on the salary sacrifice stuff. I’ve had a lot of people speaking to me about it in the past 24 hours who I don’t consider particularly political, and a number of whom I think are on what could be casually termed the professional “soft left” - and they genuinely are, unprompted, saying how annoyed/concerned they are about it.
Does Trump not understand that by putting lots of pressure on Zelensky he makes Putin less likely to agree a deal? With Zelensky cornered the temptation for Putin is to ask for more.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
Yes you even know how to spell his name unlike me obviously!
Amongst my friends he hits this perfect Venn diagram of geekiness for me and for my gay friends The Straight Prince of Twinks.
A couple of notes on device hoarding. First, it's largely irrelevant, at least here. The greater effect is the growing used or refurbished market, especially for phones but for some also laptops as knowing consumers buy second hand business models.
Never understood why people don't buy used phones more often. Flagship phones from 2-3 years ago can be had in excellent condition, with a warranty, for half the launch price or less. Innovation has slowed enough a 3 year old phone isn't notably less capable than current models, they just have less AI crap installed.
The problem is that they struggle with system updates, which do include AI slop, and batteries are often past their best.
Leaving the dilemma of not updating the software, and leaving the phone vulnerable.
Phones from 2-3 years ago don't have the specific hardware for much of the latest AI stuff, the only AI I get on my S21 is Google's assistant and Bixby, both of which can be turned off. The battery is a warranty item, if it's degraded get it replaced.
Other may disagree, but I also feel much more comfortable carrying a used £250 phone than a £1000 new one. Less terror of smashing it.
12 Angry Men. There is a treatise somewhere on how the camera angle changes through the film to reflect the tension in the jury room. The first third is shot from below, then level, and finally from above (or possibly vice versa, it's been a while).
Brilliant film. I've watched it about six times.
We all hope we'd be Henry Fonda in that situation, don't we?
Mrs PtP kind of was. She was the only dissenting juror in a drugs trial but by sheer persistence, logic and force of personality she managed to convince the others that the defendant was guilty.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
I've seen 5 Chalamet projects. He was a charisma vacuum in all of them until Dune Part II, which has made me angrier as now I know he could have been good in other stuff.
I have just googled his films and note that he was in Ladybird, which I have seen but don't remember him in it. This rather proves you point.
On the other hand, I have vivid memories of the scene with the peach in Call Me By Your Name.
Sir Keir has been trading in hypocrisy and double standards since he becam an MP. People just assumed he was an Angel because they thought Boris a devil
Why are we still debating the loss of faith in politicians. At the election Starmer said he wouldn't scrap the 2 child benefit cap, or raise taxes on working people. He's just scrapped that cap, and raised taxes on working people. And then acts with outrage when he's challenged.
What about faith in journalists? The Labour manifesto only promised to take children out of poverty, which they have now done in the most effective way possible.
What does Hodges want? Starmer promised to eat babies for breakfast [which he didn't]. Now he hasn't and is outraged to be "challenged" ?
Putin says it’s impossible from a legal standpoint to sign any agreement with Ukraine because it doesn’t have a legitimate government. There we go again. https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1994062033684152808
If true Trump needs to realise he’s being dicked about and tell Putin to swivel
Since he's surrounded very largely by individuals hostile to Ukraine, from the VP down, that is extremely unlikely. Rubio, for all his faults, seems to be one of the few senior members of the administration still with some sort of commitment to European security,
I take it back about Rubio.
BREAKING: Rubio Announces Bold New Strategy, Says Ukraine Must Reach Peace Before Receiving the One Thing That Would Help Them Reach Peace
Politico reports that Marco Rubio has informed European allies that the United States wants a peace deal before offering any security guarantee to Ukraine, a plan experts describe as “giving someone a parachute after they hit the ground.”
Diplomats were left blinking in confusion as Rubio explained that Ukraine must first negotiate a peace agreement without the security guarantee that is literally the entire reason anyone signs a security guarantee... https://x.com/Microinteracti1/status/1993930142993805594
There was a good briefing room on R4 this afternoon about this with David Abramovich. I think it would be fair to say that the universal response was just bewilderment. The short answer is that the US, and Trump in particular, want a headline (oh, and a Nobel would be nice), not a solution.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
I've seen 5 Chalamet projects. He was a charisma vacuum in all of them until Dune Part II, which has made me angrier as now I know he could have been good in other stuff.
I genuinely don't get the appeal. Particularly with the wispy tache he's adopted.
12 Angry Men. There is a treatise somewhere on how the camera angle changes through the film to reflect the tension in the jury room. The first third is shot from below, then level, and finally from above (or possibly vice versa, it's been a while).
Brilliant film. I've watched it about six times.
We all hope we'd be Henry Fonda in that situation, don't we?
Mrs PtP kind of was. She was the only dissenting juror in a drugs trial but by sheer persistence, logic and force of personality she managed to convince the others that the defendant was guilty.
Incidentally, the new of net migration falling to 200k is welcome. It's down to under a quarter of the figure from 2 years ago, which was clearly an unsustainable pace whatever your politics.
I don't know what the right figure to target. But 0.3% population growth a year is probably not a million miles off a sustainable figure for a country with an otherwise aging population and falling number of births.
One ominous stat is that 99% of Britons emigrating are under age 65. (Not far different for the EU emigrants and non-EU emigrants too).
We are no longer exporting retirees to the Costas. The age structure of the population is worsening.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
Yes you even know how to spell his name unlike me obviously!
Amongst my friends he hits this perfect Venn diagram of geekiness for me and for my gay friends The Straight Prince of Twinks.
12 Angry Men. There is a treatise somewhere on how the camera angle changes through the film to reflect the tension in the jury room. The first third is shot from below, then level, and finally from above (or possibly vice versa, it's been a while).
Brilliant film. I've watched it about six times.
We all hope we'd be Henry Fonda in that situation, don't we?
Mrs PtP kind of was. She was the only dissenting juror in a drugs trial but by sheer persistence, logic and force of personality she managed to convince the others that the defendant was guilty.
They need to do a sequel.
Great story! Particularly that it goes against the usual notion that miscarriage of justice means wrongful conviction. In fact most of them are the guilty getting off.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
Yes you even know how to spell his name unlike me obviously!
Amongst my friends he hits this perfect Venn diagram of geekiness for me and for my gay friends The Straight Prince of Twinks.
That's funny.
He's also a surprisingly good actor.
He is, I adore him.
He was fabulous as Bob Dylan in A complete unknown. Just terrific. It was like the picture on Freewheelin had just walked off the page.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
Yes you even know how to spell his name unlike me obviously!
Amongst my friends he hits this perfect Venn diagram of geekiness for me and for my gay friends The Straight Prince of Twinks.
That's funny.
He's also a surprisingly good actor.
I found him weak as Henry V in “the King”. He was blown off the screen by Robert Pattinson as the Duke de Guyenne.
Sir Keir has been trading in hypocrisy and double standards since he becam an MP. People just assumed he was an Angel because they thought Boris a devil
Why are we still debating the loss of faith in politicians. At the election Starmer said he wouldn't scrap the 2 child benefit cap, or raise taxes on working people. He's just scrapped that cap, and raised taxes on working people. And then acts with outrage when he's challenged.
What about faith in journalists? The Labour manifesto only promised to take children out of poverty, which they have now done in the most effective way possible.
What does Hodges want? Starmer promised to eat babies for breakfast [which he didn't]. Now he hasn't and is outraged to be "challenged" ?
Hodges is a journalist? I thought he was a social media troll. Live and learn.
12 Angry Men. There is a treatise somewhere on how the camera angle changes through the film to reflect the tension in the jury room. The first third is shot from below, then level, and finally from above (or possibly vice versa, it's been a while).
Brilliant film. I've watched it about six times.
We all hope we'd be Henry Fonda in that situation, don't we?
Mrs PtP kind of was. She was the only dissenting juror in a drugs trial but by sheer persistence, logic and force of personality she managed to convince the others that the defendant was guilty.
They need to do a sequel.
"One Rational Woman".
It sounds like a fiction but it's true. I was incredibly impressed when she told me about it.
The defendant was of Colombian origin. He had an interpreter throughout the trial and made much of his inability to understand proceedings and the evidence against him. The other jurors were inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt but she swung most of them behind her when she said: 'He's been in this country fifteen years, and has successfully managed a business and his personal affairs as well as most people. He's as much a Londoner as any of us.'
The remaining diehards were easily picked off after that.
Putin says it’s impossible from a legal standpoint to sign any agreement with Ukraine because it doesn’t have a legitimate government. There we go again. https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1994062033684152808
If true Trump needs to realise he’s being dicked about and tell Putin to swivel
Since he's surrounded very largely by individuals hostile to Ukraine, from the VP down, that is extremely unlikely. Rubio, for all his faults, seems to be one of the few senior members of the administration still with some sort of commitment to European security,
I take it back about Rubio.
BREAKING: Rubio Announces Bold New Strategy, Says Ukraine Must Reach Peace Before Receiving the One Thing That Would Help Them Reach Peace
Politico reports that Marco Rubio has informed European allies that the United States wants a peace deal before offering any security guarantee to Ukraine, a plan experts describe as “giving someone a parachute after they hit the ground.”
Diplomats were left blinking in confusion as Rubio explained that Ukraine must first negotiate a peace agreement without the security guarantee that is literally the entire reason anyone signs a security guarantee... https://x.com/Microinteracti1/status/1993930142993805594
There was a good briefing room on R4 this afternoon about this with David Abramovich. I think it would be fair to say that the universal response was just bewilderment. The short answer is that the US, and Trump in particular, want a headline (oh, and a Nobel would be nice), not a solution.
I think Trump would literally die if a week went by without him leading the news
Putin says it’s impossible from a legal standpoint to sign any agreement with Ukraine because it doesn’t have a legitimate government. There we go again. https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1994062033684152808
If true Trump needs to realise he’s being dicked about and tell Putin to swivel
Since he's surrounded very largely by individuals hostile to Ukraine, from the VP down, that is extremely unlikely. Rubio, for all his faults, seems to be one of the few senior members of the administration still with some sort of commitment to European security,
I take it back about Rubio.
BREAKING: Rubio Announces Bold New Strategy, Says Ukraine Must Reach Peace Before Receiving the One Thing That Would Help Them Reach Peace
Politico reports that Marco Rubio has informed European allies that the United States wants a peace deal before offering any security guarantee to Ukraine, a plan experts describe as “giving someone a parachute after they hit the ground.”
Diplomats were left blinking in confusion as Rubio explained that Ukraine must first negotiate a peace agreement without the security guarantee that is literally the entire reason anyone signs a security guarantee... https://x.com/Microinteracti1/status/1993930142993805594
There was a good briefing room on R4 this afternoon about this with David Abramovich. I think it would be fair to say that the universal response was just bewilderment. The short answer is that the US, and Trump in particular, want a headline (oh, and a Nobel would be nice), not a solution.
I think Trump would literally die if a week went by without him leading the news
Sir Keir has been trading in hypocrisy and double standards since he becam an MP. People just assumed he was an Angel because they thought Boris a devil
Why are we still debating the loss of faith in politicians. At the election Starmer said he wouldn't scrap the 2 child benefit cap, or raise taxes on working people. He's just scrapped that cap, and raised taxes on working people. And then acts with outrage when he's challenged.
What about faith in journalists? The Labour manifesto only promised to take children out of poverty, which they have now done in the most effective way possible.
What does Hodges want? Starmer promised to eat babies for breakfast [which he didn't]. Now he hasn't and is outraged to be "challenged" ?
Hodges is a journalist? I thought he was a social media troll. Live and learn.
If Starmer is as awful as Hodges says he is, couldn't he have easily found examples of bad things Starmer has actually done instead of inventing them?
12 Angry Men. There is a treatise somewhere on how the camera angle changes through the film to reflect the tension in the jury room. The first third is shot from below, then level, and finally from above (or possibly vice versa, it's been a while).
Brilliant film. I've watched it about six times.
We all hope we'd be Henry Fonda in that situation, don't we?
Mrs PtP kind of was. She was the only dissenting juror in a drugs trial but by sheer persistence, logic and force of personality she managed to convince the others that the defendant was guilty.
They need to do a sequel.
"One Rational Woman".
It sounds like a fiction but it's true. I was incredibly impressed when she told me about it.
The defendant was of Colombian origin. He had an interpreter throughout the trial and made much of his inability to understand proceedings and the evidence against him. The other jurors were inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt but she swung most of them behind her when she said: 'He's been in this country fifteen years, and has successfully managed a business and his personal affairs as well as most people. He's as much a Londoner as any of us.'
The remaining diehards were easily picked off after that.
Isn't discussing what went on in the Jury room severely frowned upon in our legal system?
Putin says it’s impossible from a legal standpoint to sign any agreement with Ukraine because it doesn’t have a legitimate government. There we go again. https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1994062033684152808
If true Trump needs to realise he’s being dicked about and tell Putin to swivel
Since he's surrounded very largely by individuals hostile to Ukraine, from the VP down, that is extremely unlikely. Rubio, for all his faults, seems to be one of the few senior members of the administration still with some sort of commitment to European security,
I take it back about Rubio.
BREAKING: Rubio Announces Bold New Strategy, Says Ukraine Must Reach Peace Before Receiving the One Thing That Would Help Them Reach Peace
Politico reports that Marco Rubio has informed European allies that the United States wants a peace deal before offering any security guarantee to Ukraine, a plan experts describe as “giving someone a parachute after they hit the ground.”
Diplomats were left blinking in confusion as Rubio explained that Ukraine must first negotiate a peace agreement without the security guarantee that is literally the entire reason anyone signs a security guarantee... https://x.com/Microinteracti1/status/1993930142993805594
There was a good briefing room on R4 this afternoon about this with David Abramovich. I think it would be fair to say that the universal response was just bewilderment. The short answer is that the US, and Trump in particular, want a headline (oh, and a Nobel would be nice), not a solution.
I think Trump would literally die if a week went by without him leading the news
Food for thought there.
And then rub it in by not covering his death on the news.
Putin says it’s impossible from a legal standpoint to sign any agreement with Ukraine because it doesn’t have a legitimate government. There we go again. https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1994062033684152808
If true Trump needs to realise he’s being dicked about and tell Putin to swivel
Since he's surrounded very largely by individuals hostile to Ukraine, from the VP down, that is extremely unlikely. Rubio, for all his faults, seems to be one of the few senior members of the administration still with some sort of commitment to European security,
I take it back about Rubio.
BREAKING: Rubio Announces Bold New Strategy, Says Ukraine Must Reach Peace Before Receiving the One Thing That Would Help Them Reach Peace
Politico reports that Marco Rubio has informed European allies that the United States wants a peace deal before offering any security guarantee to Ukraine, a plan experts describe as “giving someone a parachute after they hit the ground.”
Diplomats were left blinking in confusion as Rubio explained that Ukraine must first negotiate a peace agreement without the security guarantee that is literally the entire reason anyone signs a security guarantee... https://x.com/Microinteracti1/status/1993930142993805594
There was a good briefing room on R4 this afternoon about this with David Abramovich. I think it would be fair to say that the universal response was just bewilderment. The short answer is that the US, and Trump in particular, want a headline (oh, and a Nobel would be nice), not a solution.
I think Trump would literally die if a week went by without him leading the news
Food for thought there.
Certainly worth the experiment.
Though given that leads to President Vance, maybe we should be careful what we wish for.
Incidentally, the new of net migration falling to 200k is welcome. It's down to under a quarter of the figure from 2 years ago, which was clearly an unsustainable pace whatever your politics.
I don't know what the right figure to target. But 0.3% population growth a year is probably not a million miles off a sustainable figure for a country with an otherwise aging population and falling number of births.
One ominous stat is that 99% of Britons emigrating are under age 65. (Not far different for the EU emigrants and non-EU emigrants too).
We are no longer exporting retirees to the Costas. The age structure of the population is worsening.
Do you think if someone emigrates they should forfeit their UK pension? Interesting but leaving the country doesn't necessarily mean you stop being tax domiciled in the UK.
"AIUI, the job of a court is to determine whether or not defendants are guilty of breaking laws. I'd have thought the best people to decide on this would be those who are experts in law. That's how it works in every other field. The use of juries seems completely anachronistic to me."
A fundamental misunderstanding. If the facts are A, B and C then defendant X has broken law Y. What happens in a trial and what the jury determines is whether facts A, B and C happened. These are not matters of law but fact which then have a legal consequence. Ordinary people are well able to determine facts and whether or not someone is being honest or not. And they can often do so better than lawyers, frankly.
Incidentally, the new of net migration falling to 200k is welcome. It's down to under a quarter of the figure from 2 years ago, which was clearly an unsustainable pace whatever your politics.
I don't know what the right figure to target. But 0.3% population growth a year is probably not a million miles off a sustainable figure for a country with an otherwise aging population and falling number of births.
One ominous stat is that 99% of Britons emigrating are under age 65. (Not far different for the EU emigrants and non-EU emigrants too).
We are no longer exporting retirees to the Costas. The age structure of the population is worsening.
Do you think if someone emigrates they should forfeit their UK pension? Interesting but leaving the country doesn't necessarily mean you stop being tax domiciled in the UK.
In some cases, the state pension is frozen in cash terms. No inflation upgrade. Depends on the details of the agreement with the host country. Many people have been very badly caught out.
"I'm sure the Maxwell brothers would not have got off if the jury had understood more about company law."
I sat through every day of that trial. The reason they got off was because the wrong charges were brought against them because the prosecution wanted to nail them over the pensions. It was a stupid decision because it could not be theft of the pensions because of the way pensions law worked, it was easy to blame their dead Dad and there was too much evidence that banks were willing to lend Maxwell money which undermined the claim that they could not reasonably believe that the shares behind the pensions would be returned.
There was a much better clearer charge of the theft of £50 million which could have been made. It was really poor prosecution strategy.
Q: Did Labour keep their promise not to increase IT/NI/VAT?
Yes 16 No 57
Wow. Might as well have gone for the 1p on income tax then.
Hence why it was a stupidly short sighted budget from the perspective of electoral politics.
Reeves and Starmer are desperately unpopular and generally considered deeply untrustworthy. They were going to get slated however this budget went. So they should have taken this opportunity to actually do some big ticket stuff. Get the income tax rate up. Reform the triple lock. Do something to NI. Abolish stamp duty. Etc, etc.
But I strongly suspect the true reason they can’t do any of that is because they are now utterly petrified of their backbenchers, and going nuclear in the budget was going to make a leadership challenge much more likely in May. Hence, a fudge that pleases no-one.
Anecdotes are just that, but from my personal experience this budget has cut through, particularly, it seems to me on the salary sacrifice stuff. I’ve had a lot of people speaking to me about it in the past 24 hours who I don’t consider particularly political, and a number of whom I think are on what could be casually termed the professional “soft left” - and they genuinely are, unprompted, saying how annoyed/concerned they are about it.
Mrs Stodge's Conservative/Reform supporting friends have naturally offered a hostile response to the Budget. Not one of them apparently mentioned the rise in pensions though they are all pensioners but all mentioned "the mansion tax" even though none of them live in property worth anywhere near £2 million.
From my perspective, it's an opportunity (or series of opportunities) missed and whether, as you say, it's a result of the febrile nature of internal Labour politics or wider electoral concerns I'm not sure but so much could and arguably should have been done and it's all a mushy amount of nothingness which will do little, I suspect, to slow the borrowing train.
The problem is running permanent budget deficits in the hundreds of billions of pounds and then acting as if all is fine as some artificial rule is being met five years from now, then panicking when anything happens in the next year that throws that off kilter.
If we were running balanced budgets, with deficits only for swings and roundabouts, countered by budget surpluses also as swings and roundabouts, then the OBR and the rest of the rules malarkey would be moot.
An under-commented aspect of the budget is that much of the pain has been postponed until 2029. Which is when the election falls due. Maybe this is a betting opportunity, since Labour really can’t afford to be going to the polls in 2029 with its current budget plans; either they intend to go earlier, or those plans will be shredded before 2029 arrives?
Of course the pain has been postponed until 2029.
The rules are like fusion. The budget will balanced in five years, and always will be.
2029 is towards the end of the five year window so that is time for the pain. Come 2029 that pain will somehow be postponed until 2033, and the five year rule will be 'met'.
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
Yes you even know how to spell his name unlike me obviously!
Amongst my friends he hits this perfect Venn diagram of geekiness for me and for my gay friends The Straight Prince of Twinks.
That's funny.
He's also a surprisingly good actor.
He is, I adore him.
He was fabulous as Bob Dylan in A complete unknown. Just terrific. It was like the picture on Freewheelin had just walked off the page.
Talking of Bob Dylan and surprisingly good actors, I just saw a cover version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" on Instagram by none other than Tom Watt aka Lofty from EastEnders.
On topic, I think we need a finance day when we focus on the books but what has made our Budget day ridiculous and unproductive is the tendency of Chancellors of all stripes to make endless announcements of matters that have nothing to do with them because "they" are funding it. If we could strip all of that nonsense away and just focus on borrowing, spending and tax it would be much better.
What, for example, did the Motability changes have to do with the Chancellor? The funding of a shipyard on the Clyde? Changes in pension allowances? Each of these things, particularly 1 and 3 need careful examination by the departments responsible, not stuck in some paragraph of a Budget statement with a paucity of detail.
"In some cases the facts are so complex that it is unrealistic to expect a jury to do it. A lot of fraud cases are like that. It's also arguable that cases like Letby are so complex that a decision on guilt or innocence requires expert assessment alongside lay opinion, and also would benefit from a reasoned, and appealable, judgment."
I have done a lot of fraud cases. And in all of them the central question is the defendant's honesty which ordinary people are very well able to assess.
Incidentally, the new of net migration falling to 200k is welcome. It's down to under a quarter of the figure from 2 years ago, which was clearly an unsustainable pace whatever your politics.
I don't know what the right figure to target. But 0.3% population growth a year is probably not a million miles off a sustainable figure for a country with an otherwise aging population and falling number of births.
One ominous stat is that 99% of Britons emigrating are under age 65. (Not far different for the EU emigrants and non-EU emigrants too).
We are no longer exporting retirees to the Costas. The age structure of the population is worsening.
Do you think if someone emigrates they should forfeit their UK pension? Interesting but leaving the country doesn't necessarily mean you stop being tax domiciled in the UK.
Someone retiring abroad is surely much better for the exchequer than one that stays in the UK, even if both receive the same pension.
Putin says it’s impossible from a legal standpoint to sign any agreement with Ukraine because it doesn’t have a legitimate government. There we go again. https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1994062033684152808
If true Trump needs to realise he’s being dicked about and tell Putin to swivel
Since he's surrounded very largely by individuals hostile to Ukraine, from the VP down, that is extremely unlikely. Rubio, for all his faults, seems to be one of the few senior members of the administration still with some sort of commitment to European security,
I take it back about Rubio.
BREAKING: Rubio Announces Bold New Strategy, Says Ukraine Must Reach Peace Before Receiving the One Thing That Would Help Them Reach Peace
Politico reports that Marco Rubio has informed European allies that the United States wants a peace deal before offering any security guarantee to Ukraine, a plan experts describe as “giving someone a parachute after they hit the ground.”
Diplomats were left blinking in confusion as Rubio explained that Ukraine must first negotiate a peace agreement without the security guarantee that is literally the entire reason anyone signs a security guarantee... https://x.com/Microinteracti1/status/1993930142993805594
There was a good briefing room on R4 this afternoon about this with David Abramovich. I think it would be fair to say that the universal response was just bewilderment. The short answer is that the US, and Trump in particular, want a headline (oh, and a Nobel would be nice), not a solution.
I think Trump would literally die if a week went by without him leading the news
Food for thought there.
Certainly worth the experiment.
Though given that leads to President Vance, maybe we should be careful what we wish for.
One problem at a time Stuart, one problem at a time.
"I'm sure the Maxwell brothers would not have got off if the jury had understood more about company law."
I sat through every day of that trial. The reason they got off was because the wrong charges were brought against them because the prosecution wanted to nail them over the pensions. It was a stupid decision because it could not be theft of the pensions because of the way pensions law worked, it was easy to blame their dead Dad and there was too much evidence that banks were willing to lend Maxwell money which undermined the claim that they could not reasonably believe that the shares behind the pensions would be returned.
There was a much better clearer charge of the theft of £50 million which could have been made. It was really poor prosecution strategy.
Incidentally, the new of net migration falling to 200k is welcome. It's down to under a quarter of the figure from 2 years ago, which was clearly an unsustainable pace whatever your politics.
I don't know what the right figure to target. But 0.3% population growth a year is probably not a million miles off a sustainable figure for a country with an otherwise aging population and falling number of births.
One ominous stat is that 99% of Britons emigrating are under age 65. (Not far different for the EU emigrants and non-EU emigrants too).
We are no longer exporting retirees to the Costas. The age structure of the population is worsening.
Do you think if someone emigrates they should forfeit their UK pension? Interesting but leaving the country doesn't necessarily mean you stop being tax domiciled in the UK.
Someone retiring abroad is surely much better for the exchequer than one that stays in the UK, even if both receive the same pension.
Not sure on that. That means the Exchequer loses VAT etc on the spending, as well as local businesses losing it too.
Them being abroad for the last year or two of their life, when spending is the highest on healthcare, may save the Exchequer money. But someone who is healthy and retires at 67 and spends next two decades healthy and spending money, then those taxes are being forfeited. As well as the multiplier effect that expenditure has as it ripples through the economy.
I know people who retired in Spain, then years later when health conditions mounted returned back to the UK. That's probably the worst combination for the Exchequer.
"In some cases the facts are so complex that it is unrealistic to expect a jury to do it. A lot of fraud cases are like that. It's also arguable that cases like Letby are so complex that a decision on guilt or innocence requires expert assessment alongside lay opinion, and also would benefit from a reasoned, and appealable, judgment."
I have done a lot of fraud cases. And in all of them the central question is the defendant's honesty which ordinary people are very well able to assess.
Sorry, but plenty of (most?) people are pretty bad at assessing honesty. If that weren't the case, both the stats for fraud and the results of elections would look very different.
(OK, I'm talking up my own skillset, such as it is. But most of human judgement of character is first-impression instinct, and way too easy to spoof. The reason scientific method works is that it's a set of habits to learn to ignore instinct, and work slowly through the logic of the details. Which is why scientists are such ghastly people.)
Sir Keir has been trading in hypocrisy and double standards since he becam an MP. People just assumed he was an Angel because they thought Boris a devil
Why are we still debating the loss of faith in politicians. At the election Starmer said he wouldn't scrap the 2 child benefit cap, or raise taxes on working people. He's just scrapped that cap, and raised taxes on working people. And then acts with outrage when he's challenged.
What about faith in journalists? The Labour manifesto only promised to take children out of poverty, which they have now done in the most effective way possible.
What does Hodges want? Starmer promised to eat babies for breakfast [which he didn't]. Now he hasn't and is outraged to be "challenged" ?
Hodges is a journalist? I thought he was a social media troll. Live and learn.
If Starmer is as awful as Hodges says he is, couldn't he have easily found examples of bad things Starmer has actually done instead of inventing them?
What has Hodges invented? Starmer did say he wouldn't scrap the 2 child cap, and that he wouldn't raise taxes on working people, and he has done both hasn't he? He suspended seven MPs for voting against keeping the 2 child cap
Last Christmas I bought my pal an elephant for his room.
He thanked me profusely, but I just said “don’t mention it”.
What do you make of Popbitch giving credence to the conspiracy theory that Scouse drill artist Esdeekid is actually Timothy Chalamet? My son is a big fan of scouse drill and has been on at me about this theory for months, it would blow his mind if it were true.
My knowledge of drill music is only matched by my knowledge about being subtle.
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
Yes you even know how to spell his name unlike me obviously!
Amongst my friends he hits this perfect Venn diagram of geekiness for me and for my gay friends The Straight Prince of Twinks.
That's funny.
He's also a surprisingly good actor.
He is, I adore him.
He was fabulous as Bob Dylan in A complete unknown. Just terrific. It was like the picture on Freewheelin had just walked off the page.
Talking of Bob Dylan and surprisingly good actors, I just saw a cover version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" on Instagram by none other than Tom Watt aka Lofty from EastEnders.
To be honest I would not have recognised him but that is very good. I once made the mistake of trying to sing (I use the word very loosely) that at a Karaoke event. A car crash really doesn't cover it. Speaking that fast without losing your diction is really hard.
"In some cases the facts are so complex that it is unrealistic to expect a jury to do it. A lot of fraud cases are like that. It's also arguable that cases like Letby are so complex that a decision on guilt or innocence requires expert assessment alongside lay opinion, and also would benefit from a reasoned, and appealable, judgment."
I have done a lot of fraud cases. And in all of them the central question is the defendant's honesty which ordinary people are very well able to assess.
Back in 1994 (I was only 18!) I was called up for duty at Snaresbrook Crown Court. We had three cases. The first was sexual assault - we found the defendant Guilty, unanimously. The second was causing injury by dangerous driving, and we found the defendant Not Guilty. But the third was a case of fraud, and for this we couldn't agree a verdict, and we were discharged! And because it was the penultimate day of the fortnight's duty, we were let home a day early! However, I can still remember the defendant banging on about not having "'ooky cheques"
Gibraltar is not happy with Reeves's increases in Remote Gaming Duty and Remote Betting Duty. Between a rock and a hard place
The bookies have been moaning about it even though horse racing is of the view it has "won" and dodged a bullet. The position of greyhound racing is unclear though I suspect that was an oversight by the Treasury rather than any deliberate policy and I expect it may already have been clarified it's part of General Betting Duty and remains at 15%.
We're hearing from the bookies dire warnings of shop closures, sponsorship cutbacks and all the rest but for an industry which has £2 billion to spend on its own self-promotion, I suspect this is more for effect than actual though I'd expect some really unprofitable shops to close (it's retail estate at the end of the day). The problem is where the greater majority of the shop's incomeand profitability derives from the FOBTs rather from betting on sports.
Sir Keir has been trading in hypocrisy and double standards since he becam an MP. People just assumed he was an Angel because they thought Boris a devil
Why are we still debating the loss of faith in politicians. At the election Starmer said he wouldn't scrap the 2 child benefit cap, or raise taxes on working people. He's just scrapped that cap, and raised taxes on working people. And then acts with outrage when he's challenged.
What about faith in journalists? The Labour manifesto only promised to take children out of poverty, which they have now done in the most effective way possible.
What does Hodges want? Starmer promised to eat babies for breakfast [which he didn't]. Now he hasn't and is outraged to be "challenged" ?
Hodges is a journalist? I thought he was a social media troll. Live and learn.
He's a political commentator - some commentators are also journalists, but I don't think many are in the sense most people would think about journalism.
12 Angry Men. There is a treatise somewhere on how the camera angle changes through the film to reflect the tension in the jury room. The first third is shot from below, then level, and finally from above (or possibly vice versa, it's been a while).
Brilliant film. I've watched it about six times.
We all hope we'd be Henry Fonda in that situation, don't we?
Mrs PtP kind of was. She was the only dissenting juror in a drugs trial but by sheer persistence, logic and force of personality she managed to convince the others that the defendant was guilty.
They need to do a sequel.
"One Rational Woman".
It sounds like a fiction but it's true. I was incredibly impressed when she told me about it.
The defendant was of Colombian origin. He had an interpreter throughout the trial and made much of his inability to understand proceedings and the evidence against him. The other jurors were inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt but she swung most of them behind her when she said: 'He's been in this country fifteen years, and has successfully managed a business and his personal affairs as well as most people. He's as much a Londoner as any of us.'
The remaining diehards were easily picked off after that.
Isn't discussing what went on in the Jury room severely frowned upon in our legal system?
Senior officials in the Trump Administration believe that the leaked call in October between U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, that was published in an article yesterday by Bloomberg, was recorded and leaked to the news organization by a foreign intelligence agency - likely one based in Europe - that was targeting a phone utilized by Ushakov, according to the Wall Street Journal. https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1993898531510472921
Our intelligence services aren't useless, after all.
Perhaps it's more likely to be Witkoff inviting a Russian agent into his insecure call, on past experience.
Incidentally, the new of net migration falling to 200k is welcome. It's down to under a quarter of the figure from 2 years ago, which was clearly an unsustainable pace whatever your politics.
I don't know what the right figure to target. But 0.3% population growth a year is probably not a million miles off a sustainable figure for a country with an otherwise aging population and falling number of births.
One ominous stat is that 99% of Britons emigrating are under age 65. (Not far different for the EU emigrants and non-EU emigrants too).
We are no longer exporting retirees to the Costas. The age structure of the population is worsening.
Do you think if someone emigrates they should forfeit their UK pension? Interesting but leaving the country doesn't necessarily mean you stop being tax domiciled in the UK.
No, of course not. My point is that the positive effect on our population pyramid of people moving to Spain is not quite what foxy suggested. There may be a healthcare saving, perhaps.
"AIUI, the job of a court is to determine whether or not defendants are guilty of breaking laws. I'd have thought the best people to decide on this would be those who are experts in law. That's how it works in every other field. The use of juries seems completely anachronistic to me."
A fundamental misunderstanding. If the facts are A, B and C then defendant X has broken law Y. What happens in a trial and what the jury determines is whether facts A, B and C happened. These are not matters of law but fact which then have a legal consequence. Ordinary people are well able to determine facts and whether or not someone is being honest or not. And they can often do so better than lawyers, frankly.
I know other systems exist, but the idea that it's 'inexpert' to have juries involved seems to me to be one of the poorer arguments for scrapping them.
Is there not a place for the non-expert in application of the law or, indeed, politics?
"In some cases the facts are so complex that it is unrealistic to expect a jury to do it. A lot of fraud cases are like that. It's also arguable that cases like Letby are so complex that a decision on guilt or innocence requires expert assessment alongside lay opinion, and also would benefit from a reasoned, and appealable, judgment."
I have done a lot of fraud cases. And in all of them the central question is the defendant's honesty which ordinary people are very well able to assess.
As long as the Prosecution focus on that issue. All too often, and the Maxwell brothers is a good example, prosecutors seems to go for complex, technical charges rather than basic honesty. Its nearly always a mistake.
A candidate for the reason for the next 'unexpected' economic crisis: Making the fiscal rules relate to targets 5 years away and the policies which will (notionally) get you there, instead of the fiscal rules being about taxing, spending and borrowing in the current year.
hidden in the budget was an increase in projected borrowing of, IIRC, £57 billion. So none of the earlier projections have been met. This is typical. By magic it falls rapidly in 5 years time. It won't, but by then the fiscal rule will be looking to 2035 in a similarly bogus way.
Lammy faces huge fight to scrap jury trials, warn Labour grandees
Justice Secretary ‘will definitely have a battle in the Lords’, says Sir Tony Blair’s attorney general
David Lammy faces a battle to get plans to scrap jury trials for most crimes through the House of Lords, Labour grandees have warned.
The Justice Secretary is proposing to scrap the right to a jury trial for defendants accused of offences likely to result in prison sentences of under five years.
The reforms mean defendants charged with scores of offences, including burglary, affray, fraud, some sexual crimes and criminal damage up to £10,000, will be stripped of their right to elect trial by jury.
However, Lord Goldsmith, Sir Tony Blair’s attorney general – who was thwarted in his efforts to push through similar reforms in 2003 – said Mr Lammy faced a similar fight in the face of opposition from senior peers.
Sir Keir has been trading in hypocrisy and double standards since he becam an MP. People just assumed he was an Angel because they thought Boris a devil
Why are we still debating the loss of faith in politicians. At the election Starmer said he wouldn't scrap the 2 child benefit cap, or raise taxes on working people. He's just scrapped that cap, and raised taxes on working people. And then acts with outrage when he's challenged.
What about faith in journalists? The Labour manifesto only promised to take children out of poverty, which they have now done in the most effective way possible.
What does Hodges want? Starmer promised to eat babies for breakfast [which he didn't]. Now he hasn't and is outraged to be "challenged" ?
Hodges is a journalist? I thought he was a social media troll. Live and learn.
If Starmer is as awful as Hodges says he is, couldn't he have easily found examples of bad things Starmer has actually done instead of inventing them?
What has Hodges invented? Starmer did say he wouldn't scrap the 2 child cap, and that he wouldn't raise taxes on working people, and he has done both hasn't he? He suspended seven MPs for voting against keeping the 2 child cap
Google AI: "Previously, as Leader of the Opposition and in the initial months after becoming Prime Minister in July 2024, Starmer indicated that he would not immediately scrap the cap, citing fiscal constraints."
@DavidL "I must say that I find it astonishing that you might have a jury trial for something as trivial as that. If that is the state of play in England there may be more in the arguments for reform than I had realised (* ducks in anticipation of a low flying thunderbolt from @Cyclefree*)."
I would gently point out that, given that the Supreme Court has recently ruled that Scottish judges misunderstood and misapplied the law (wot they are meant to be expert in) in relation to rape trials and therefore may have been responsible for miscarriages of justice, the argument that judges are better at determining guilt and innocence has already had an Exocet lobbed at it and is now lying, a smoking ruin, on the floor of whatever courts our cheese-paring government has left open.
"In some cases the facts are so complex that it is unrealistic to expect a jury to do it. A lot of fraud cases are like that. It's also arguable that cases like Letby are so complex that a decision on guilt or innocence requires expert assessment alongside lay opinion, and also would benefit from a reasoned, and appealable, judgment."
I have done a lot of fraud cases. And in all of them the central question is the defendant's honesty which ordinary people are very well able to assess.
As long as the Prosecution focus on that issue. All too often, and the Maxwell brothers is a good example, prosecutors seems to go for complex, technical charges rather than basic honesty. Its nearly always a mistake.
Reminds me of following the FTX trial - despite some overly complex financial wrangling to muddle the waters (itself an element of the fraud involved), the ultimate crimes were pretty darn simple in that Sam Bankman-Fried was an arrogant idiot who took money he knew he was not supposed to and spent it on himself and his investments and then lied about it repeatedly.
His own defence was that he was an honest idiot who did not know what was going on, which will make it slightly awkward when he gets pardoned and starts soliciting money as a genius again.
As noted upthread, Jeremy Hunt left one hell of a shitty bundle for Reeves to inherit. By and large she’s now cleaned it up. Much of the criticism is off-base. There really was no alternative to raising both spend and taxation, and freezing the bands is actually one of the least worst choices given that the lower paid tend to be somewhat undertaxed (at least by OECD relative standards).
To be clear, this is a pass mark only. Of Labour’s growth agenda there is next to no sign. People paying student loans have a right to be extremely aggrieved and the lack of revisiting the triple lock is tragic cowardice.
From the executive summary: "This report shows how the President has leveraged his office to make himself a crypto billionaire and how he has extended broad protection to fraudsters, scam artists, and other online criminals—who, in turn, repay the President and his family with millions of dollars in tribute. Perhaps most troublingly, these crypto ventures allow anyone— including foreign governments, organized crime groups, corporate interests, and criminals seeking pardons and persons seeking government contracts, appointments, or other presidential favors—to secretly place huge sums of money directly into the President’s pockets."
"I'm sure the Maxwell brothers would not have got off if the jury had understood more about company law."
I sat through every day of that trial. The reason they got off was because the wrong charges were brought against them because the prosecution wanted to nail them over the pensions. It was a stupid decision because it could not be theft of the pensions because of the way pensions law worked, it was easy to blame their dead Dad and there was too much evidence that banks were willing to lend Maxwell money which undermined the claim that they could not reasonably believe that the shares behind the pensions would be returned.
There was a much better clearer charge of the theft of £50 million which could have been made. It was really poor prosecution strategy.
Thanks Cyclefree, but may I ask whether you were able to judge the extent to which the jury understood proceedings. My suspicion, based on purely anecdotal evidence of course, is that juries often do not understand complex fraud cases and many miscarriages of justice result as a consequence.
We really don't need polling companies to tell us, that the British public, consistently like taxes on thee but not on me.
Things that people don't like: a three part tragedy
1) being told that they can't have what they want, because it will have negative consequences 2) the negative consequences of being given the things that they want 3) being told "you were warned that this was going to happen"
On topic, I think we need a finance day when we focus on the books but what has made our Budget day ridiculous and unproductive is the tendency of Chancellors of all stripes to make endless announcements of matters that have nothing to do with them because "they" are funding it. If we could strip all of that nonsense away and just focus on borrowing, spending and tax it would be much better.
What, for example, did the Motability changes have to do with the Chancellor? The funding of a shipyard on the Clyde? Changes in pension allowances? Each of these things, particularly 1 and 3 need careful examination by the departments responsible, not stuck in some paragraph of a Budget statement with a paucity of detail.
Happy days when men in suits droned on in the budget about money supply, M0, M4, tapering relief on CGT, capital allowances on agricultural widgets and in the last five minutes put a penny on income tax, a shilling on Scotch, threepence on a gallon of petrol, traduced the opposition and commended the budget to a house who, apart from some sharp suited Tories understood not a word of it.
All she ever does is moan . Perhaps she’d like a Reform or Tory government and let’s see then what happens to workers rights .
The compromise of 6 months is sensible .
I haven't really noticed her.
Has she pissed away 10s of millions of members' funds on a vanity hotel, and tried to manipulate the Labour Party internally as cynically as Ken McClusterfuck, and lost a million pound bruised ego libel action to a Labour MP?
As noted upthread, Jeremy Hunt left one hell of a shitty bundle for Reeves to inherit. By and large she’s now cleaned it up. Much of the criticism is off-base. There really was no alternative to raising both spend and taxation, and freezing the bands is actually one of the least worst choices given that the lower paid tend to be somewhat undertaxed (at least by OECD relative standards).
To be clear, this is a pass mark only. Of Labour’s growth agenda there is next to no sign. People paying student loans have a right to be extremely aggrieved and the lack of revisiting the triple lock is tragic cowardice.
I'd agree on the tone, but I would point the finger at failure to do serious reform in what is a once a decade or once a generation opportunity.
A couple of notes on device hoarding. First, it's largely irrelevant, at least here. The greater effect is the growing used or refurbished market, especially for phones but for some also laptops as knowing consumers buy second hand business models.
Never understood why people don't buy used phones more often. Flagship phones from 2-3 years ago can be had in excellent condition, with a warranty, for half the launch price or less. Innovation has slowed enough a 3 year old phone isn't notably less capable than current models, they just have less AI crap installed.
The problem is that they struggle with system updates, which do include AI slop, and batteries are often past their best.
Leaving the dilemma of not updating the software, and leaving the phone vulnerable.
Phones from 2-3 years ago don't have the specific hardware for much of the latest AI stuff, the only AI I get on my S21 is Google's assistant and Bixby, both of which can be turned off. The battery is a warranty item, if it's degraded get it replaced.
Other may disagree, but I also feel much more comfortable carrying a used £250 phone than a £1000 new one. Less terror of smashing it.
Top tip: Make friends with the person at work who hands out phones. Invite them out for a drink. Happen to mention that your work phone has a cracked screen. Sorted.
Senior officials in the Trump Administration believe that the leaked call in October between U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, that was published in an article yesterday by Bloomberg, was recorded and leaked to the news organization by a foreign intelligence agency - likely one based in Europe - that was targeting a phone utilized by Ushakov, according to the Wall Street Journal. https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1993898531510472921
Our intelligence services aren't useless, after all.
Perhaps it's more likely to be Witkoff inviting a Russian agent into his insecure call, on past experience.
You can imagine that Witkoff, being a property man and not a diplomat, goes to Moscow and is treated like a king. Hot and cold running beautiful hostesses, great food and wines. No sign of struggle in safe Moscow.
Witkoff goes to Ukraine, huge security, bunkers, armed soldiers everywhere and everyone dressed for action. Understandably the hosting will be restrained as should be in a country at war.
Witless then concludes that only one side is winning and it’s Russia.
The tragedy of him being made lead negotiator is one of history’s great follies and stupidities rather than an experienced State Department person.
As noted upthread, Jeremy Hunt left one hell of a shitty bundle for Reeves to inherit. By and large she’s now cleaned it up. Much of the criticism is off-base. There really was no alternative to raising both spend and taxation, and freezing the bands is actually one of the least worst choices given that the lower paid tend to be somewhat undertaxed (at least by OECD relative standards).
To be clear, this is a pass mark only. Of Labour’s growth agenda there is next to no sign. People paying student loans have a right to be extremely aggrieved and the lack of revisiting the triple lock is tragic cowardice.
Damn you with your reasonableness. Shifting some costs of the energy transition from electricity bills to the general taxation pot was probably the right thing to do and decent retail politics.
But most of the growth handles aren't Reeves's to pull- planning is key but not her department, energy is probably going as well as can be expected, Europe is still taboo and global stability is decided in places far from London. Hoping that something will turn up isn't great, but... [at this point, a gang of heavies burst in to stop me completing that sentence.]
The problem is running permanent budget deficits in the hundreds of billions of pounds and then acting as if all is fine as some artificial rule is being met five years from now, then panicking when anything happens in the next year that throws that off kilter.
If we were running balanced budgets, with deficits only for swings and roundabouts, countered by budget surpluses also as swings and roundabouts, then the OBR and the rest of the rules malarkey would be moot.
An under-commented aspect of the budget is that much of the pain has been postponed until 2029. Which is when the election falls due. Maybe this is a betting opportunity, since Labour really can’t afford to be going to the polls in 2029 with its current budget plans; either they intend to go earlier, or those plans will be shredded before 2029 arrives?
And salting the earth for whoever is chancellor after the election.
Which chancellors of the last fifty years have, either through malice, incompetence or circumstances left things worse for their successor?
I can think of a few that left things better, overall, Howe, Lawson, Clarke, Osborne, Hammond (i think, but he did release the grip on finance that Osborne had placed) i can think of a few, whilst not bad overall, left deliberate traps for their successors that deserves a demerit, Darling (under the influence of Brown) and Hunt. Javid and Sunak through circumstance and cowardice blew all the gains on finance control and welfare spending acquired during the 2010s.
We had done the weight watchers, lost six stone, and to celebrate went on a round the world cruise, gained the six back and a further two on top.
Reeves is bad, just awful bad, inherited a dreadful state of finances. Hunt left a series of political traps and the labour party rolled into them. The traps were so severe politically that theyve damaged the public finances overall, not just tarnished the reputation of his successor. Unresolved public pay agreements, NI tax cuts, budget forecasts that had been tweaked. A mess.
Brown could have gone down as one of the greats, but he was a petty, vindicative calculating monster who rapidly increased structural deficit spending that was supposed to be temporary but caused great pain unwinding.
There were no 'gains on finance control and welfare spending acquired during the 2010s'. The national debt rose by £555 billion.
"I'm sure the Maxwell brothers would not have got off if the jury had understood more about company law."
I sat through every day of that trial. The reason they got off was because the wrong charges were brought against them because the prosecution wanted to nail them over the pensions. It was a stupid decision because it could not be theft of the pensions because of the way pensions law worked, it was easy to blame their dead Dad and there was too much evidence that banks were willing to lend Maxwell money which undermined the claim that they could not reasonably believe that the shares behind the pensions would be returned.
There was a much better clearer charge of the theft of £50 million which could have been made. It was really poor prosecution strategy.
Did it have top be one or the other?
No it didn't. But I believe the prosecution thought that having the 2 charges together would make the trial too long and complicated. They were then stuffed because after being found not guilty on the pensions charge, they (the Maxwell brothers) were successful in arguing that it would be an abuse of process for them to go through the second trial.
It was a bad decision by the prosecution, probably influenced, unconsciously at least, by the political furore over the missing pension funds. But it also shows the danger of having state officials make decisions because they will be pressured in a way juries cannot be.
"I'm sure the Maxwell brothers would not have got off if the jury had understood more about company law."
I sat through every day of that trial. The reason they got off was because the wrong charges were brought against them because the prosecution wanted to nail them over the pensions. It was a stupid decision because it could not be theft of the pensions because of the way pensions law worked, it was easy to blame their dead Dad and there was too much evidence that banks were willing to lend Maxwell money which undermined the claim that they could not reasonably believe that the shares behind the pensions would be returned.
There was a much better clearer charge of the theft of £50 million which could have been made. It was really poor prosecution strategy.
Thanks Cyclefree, but may I ask whether you were able to judge the extent to which the jury understood proceedings. My suspicion, based on purely anecdotal evidence of course, is that juries often do not understand complex fraud cases and many miscarriages of justice result as a consequence.
Both in that and other fraud trials I have done the jurors did follow and understand, based on the questions they asked and how they appeared during the trial.
Q: Did Labour keep their promise not to increase IT/NI/VAT?
Yes 16 No 57
Wow. Might as well have gone for the 1p on income tax then.
Hence why it was a stupidly short sighted budget from the perspective of electoral politics.
Reeves and Starmer are desperately unpopular and generally considered deeply untrustworthy. They were going to get slated however this budget went. So they should have taken this opportunity to actually do some big ticket stuff. Get the income tax rate up. Reform the triple lock. Do something to NI. Abolish stamp duty. Etc, etc.
But I strongly suspect the true reason they can’t do any of that is because they are now utterly petrified of their backbenchers, and going nuclear in the budget was going to make a leadership challenge much more likely in May. Hence, a fudge that pleases no-one.
Anecdotes are just that, but from my personal experience this budget has cut through, particularly, it seems to me on the salary sacrifice stuff. I’ve had a lot of people speaking to me about it in the past 24 hours who I don’t consider particularly political, and a number of whom I think are on what could be casually termed the professional “soft left” - and they genuinely are, unprompted, saying how annoyed/concerned they are about it.
I think he's doing fine. People don't know whether they're going to do well out of the budget yet. The stock market or at least my shares mainly iin UK stocks haven't been higher and removing the two child cap is going to seriously help people who need it which makes me feel better about our government.
I think they're genuinely trying to make a differnce and it's going to take time. Meanwhile the looming sight of Farage scares the hellout of me. So add me to your focus group and I give them a thumbs up.
Martin Lewis on the Energy Changes. TLDR "What I asked for".
I had not twigged that the policy costs were purely on the Electricity Element, so this will rebalance costs towards use of electricity, which is a positive.
We're seeing some progress on a couple of high profile goals - energy prices (I still do not know whether the £500 reduction promise is real or cash terms), immigration down (net imigration down 80% from peak) and NHS Waiting Lists.
For the general public, that will still be one cheer at most, even for the sympathetic. And most of the goals are still bubbling under.
As noted upthread, Jeremy Hunt left one hell of a shitty bundle for Reeves to inherit. By and large she’s now cleaned it up. Much of the criticism is off-base. There really was no alternative to raising both spend and taxation, and freezing the bands is actually one of the least worst choices given that the lower paid tend to be somewhat undertaxed (at least by OECD relative standards).
To be clear, this is a pass mark only. Of Labour’s growth agenda there is next to no sign. People paying student loans have a right to be extremely aggrieved and the lack of revisiting the triple lock is tragic cowardice.
I'd agree on the tone, but I would point the finger at failure to do serious reform in what is a once a decade or once a generation opportunity.
This is my criticism time and time again of this government. They haven't done any hard thinking, so they don't have any well thought through plans and the few they have had they chuck them overboard.
For example, if you are going to have a mansion tax, lets get rid of stamp duty, reform council tax and have a wider property taxation. Same with how you tax all income. Same with pay per mile. Instead we get this drip drip drip on more taxation but always with more complexity and no doubt loopholes / wide open to abuse.
A couple of notes on device hoarding. First, it's largely irrelevant, at least here. The greater effect is the growing used or refurbished market, especially for phones but for some also laptops as knowing consumers buy second hand business models.
Never understood why people don't buy used phones more often. Flagship phones from 2-3 years ago can be had in excellent condition, with a warranty, for half the launch price or less. Innovation has slowed enough a 3 year old phone isn't notably less capable than current models, they just have less AI crap installed.
The problem is that they struggle with system updates, which do include AI slop, and batteries are often past their best.
Leaving the dilemma of not updating the software, and leaving the phone vulnerable.
Phones from 2-3 years ago don't have the specific hardware for much of the latest AI stuff, the only AI I get on my S21 is Google's assistant and Bixby, both of which can be turned off. The battery is a warranty item, if it's degraded get it replaced.
Other may disagree, but I also feel much more comfortable carrying a used £250 phone than a £1000 new one. Less terror of smashing it.
Top tip: Make friends with the person at work who hands out phones. Invite them out for a drink. Happen to mention that your work phone has a cracked screen. Sorted.
If you get a Mous case you can (allegedly) drop it from the Milau Viaduct.
Comments
That said I am a big fan of Timothée Chalamet.
The policies on NI on pension contributions ('should be encouraging people to save so they don't have to rely on the state in the future') and freezing tax bands for even longer that main targets of his ire.
I'm starting to wonder if we may start to see a recovery in Tory polling. As their time in office fades into the past, many in the mainstream will simply switch back to the other party of government.
Personally I think it'd be great to have Badenoch-led Tories leading in the polls over the traitorous Farage-led Reform. Albeit I won't be voting for either.
I don't know what the right figure to target. But 0.3% population growth a year is probably not a million miles off a sustainable figure for a country with an otherwise aging population and falling number of births.
They need to do a sequel.
I did laugh though at the OBR whose growth forecast just one year ahead for this year was wrong by 50% and yet Reeves is making all the budget decisions for forecasts several years ahead .
No 10 and 11 need to be able to shelve the extra freezing on tax thresholds and this is I suspect what they’re hoping for behind the scenes .
Leaving the dilemma of not updating the software, and leaving the phone vulnerable.
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/mobile-phones/article/mobile-phone-security-is-it-safe-to-use-an-old-phone-a6uXf1w6PvEN
Edit: Which forced Mrs C and me to ditch otherwise perfectly acceptable phones.
Ah - this one, post at 12.56.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cy8vz032qgpt?page=8
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/is-timothee-chalamet-the-rapper-esdeekid-a-rigorous-journalistic-investigation
We are no longer exporting retirees to the Costas. The age structure of the population is worsening.
Incidentally some interesting similarity to NZ:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/26/i-love-my-country-i-dont-want-to-leave-readers-reflect-on-the-exodus-from-new-zealand?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Reeves and Starmer are desperately unpopular and generally considered deeply untrustworthy. They were going to get slated however this budget went. So they should have taken this opportunity to actually do some big ticket stuff. Get the income tax rate up. Reform the triple lock. Do something to NI. Abolish stamp duty. Etc, etc.
But I strongly suspect the true reason they can’t do any of that is because they are now utterly petrified of their backbenchers, and going nuclear in the budget was going to make a leadership challenge much more likely in May. Hence, a fudge that pleases no-one.
Anecdotes are just that, but from my personal experience this budget has cut through, particularly, it seems to me on the salary sacrifice stuff. I’ve had a lot of people speaking to me about it in the past 24 hours who I don’t consider particularly political, and a number of whom I think are on what could be casually termed the professional “soft left” - and they genuinely are, unprompted, saying how annoyed/concerned they are about it.
He's also a surprisingly good actor.
Other may disagree, but I also feel much more comfortable carrying a used £250 phone than a £1000 new one. Less terror of smashing it.
On the other hand, I have vivid memories of the scene with the peach in Call Me By Your Name.
What does Hodges want? Starmer promised to eat babies for breakfast [which he didn't]. Now he hasn't and is outraged to be "challenged" ?
Pad pad 31/6 at Baikonur suffered major damage after the Soyuz (MS-28) launch to the International Space Station
It's the only active pad for missions to ISS for Russia. May take years to repair.
So no Russia manned missions, cargo or reboosts for a while.
And people wonder why NASA keeps trying to punt Starliner across the line.
- Chalamet with wispy tache I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9gSuKaKcqM
- Chalamet with wispy tache II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L13JffIpHGA
Basically a shaved rat with bad skin.Sarah Lancashire to star?
The defendant was of Colombian origin. He had an interpreter throughout the trial and made much of his inability to understand proceedings and the evidence against him. The other jurors were inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt but she swung most of them behind her when she said: 'He's been in this country fifteen years, and has successfully managed a business and his personal affairs as well as most people. He's as much a Londoner as any of us.'
The remaining diehards were easily picked off after that.
Food for thought there.
"AIUI, the job of a court is to determine whether or not defendants are guilty of breaking laws. I'd have thought the best people to decide on this would be those who are experts in law. That's how it works in every other field. The use of juries seems completely anachronistic to me."
A fundamental misunderstanding. If the facts are A, B and C then defendant X has broken law Y. What happens in a trial and what the jury determines is whether facts A, B and C happened. These are not matters of law but fact which then have a legal consequence. Ordinary people are well able to determine facts and whether or not someone is being honest or not. And they can often do so better than lawyers, frankly.
"I'm sure the Maxwell brothers would not have got off if the jury had understood more about company law."
I sat through every day of that trial. The reason they got off was because the wrong charges were brought against them because the prosecution wanted to nail them over the pensions. It was a stupid decision because it could not be theft of the pensions because of the way pensions law worked, it was easy to blame their dead Dad and there was too much evidence that banks were willing to lend Maxwell money which undermined the claim that they could not reasonably believe that the shares behind the pensions would be returned.
There was a much better clearer charge of the theft of £50 million which could have been made. It was really poor prosecution strategy.
From my perspective, it's an opportunity (or series of opportunities) missed and whether, as you say, it's a result of the febrile nature of internal Labour politics or wider electoral concerns I'm not sure but so much could and arguably should have been done and it's all a mushy amount of nothingness which will do little, I suspect, to slow the borrowing train.
The rules are like fusion. The budget will balanced in five years, and always will be.
2029 is towards the end of the five year window so that is time for the pain. Come 2029 that pain will somehow be postponed until 2033, and the five year rule will be 'met'.
I'll link, but from YouTube just to be safe!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRCBQTY47zY
What, for example, did the Motability changes have to do with the Chancellor? The funding of a shipyard on the Clyde? Changes in pension allowances? Each of these things, particularly 1 and 3 need careful examination by the departments responsible, not stuck in some paragraph of a Budget statement with a paucity of detail.
Between a rock and a hard place
"In some cases the facts are so complex that it is unrealistic to expect a jury to do it. A lot of fraud cases are like that. It's also arguable that cases like Letby are so complex that a decision on guilt or innocence requires expert assessment alongside lay opinion, and also would benefit from a reasoned, and appealable, judgment."
I have done a lot of fraud cases. And in all of them the central question is the defendant's honesty which ordinary people are very well able to assess.
The major piece of infrastructure below the pad is trashed.
Them being abroad for the last year or two of their life, when spending is the highest on healthcare, may save the Exchequer money. But someone who is healthy and retires at 67 and spends next two decades healthy and spending money, then those taxes are being forfeited. As well as the multiplier effect that expenditure has as it ripples through the economy.
I know people who retired in Spain, then years later when health conditions mounted returned back to the UK. That's probably the worst combination for the Exchequer.
(OK, I'm talking up my own skillset, such as it is. But most of human judgement of character is first-impression instinct, and way too easy to spoof. The reason scientific method works is that it's a set of habits to learn to ignore instinct, and work slowly through the logic of the details. Which is why scientists are such ghastly people.)
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1994134328226533714?s=19
We're hearing from the bookies dire warnings of shop closures, sponsorship cutbacks and all the rest but for an industry which has £2 billion to spend on its own self-promotion, I suspect this is more for effect than actual though I'd expect some really unprofitable shops to close (it's retail estate at the end of the day). The problem is where the greater majority of the shop's incomeand profitability derives from the FOBTs rather from betting on sports.
Is there not a place for the non-expert in application of the law or, indeed, politics?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkhV3zIvcH0
Arising out of which, one comment.
A candidate for the reason for the next 'unexpected' economic crisis: Making the fiscal rules relate to targets 5 years away and the policies which will (notionally) get you there, instead of the fiscal rules being about taxing, spending and borrowing in the current year.
hidden in the budget was an increase in projected borrowing of, IIRC, £57 billion. So none of the earlier projections have been met. This is typical. By magic it falls rapidly in 5 years time. It won't, but by then the fiscal rule will be looking to 2035 in a similarly bogus way.
"I must say that I find it astonishing that you might have a jury trial for something as trivial as that. If that is the state of play in England there may be more in the arguments for reform than I had realised (* ducks in anticipation of a low flying thunderbolt from @Cyclefree*)."
I would gently point out that, given that the Supreme Court has recently ruled that Scottish judges misunderstood and misapplied the law (wot they are meant to be expert in) in relation to rape trials and therefore may have been responsible for miscarriages of justice, the argument that judges are better at determining guilt and innocence has already had an Exocet lobbed at it and is now lying, a smoking ruin, on the floor of whatever courts our cheese-paring government has left open.
His own defence was that he was an honest idiot who did not know what was going on, which will make it slightly awkward when he gets pardoned and starts soliciting money as a genius again.
As noted upthread, Jeremy Hunt left one hell of a shitty bundle for Reeves to inherit. By and large she’s now cleaned it up. Much of the criticism is off-base. There really was no alternative to raising both spend and taxation, and freezing the bands is actually one of the least worst choices given that the lower paid tend to be somewhat undertaxed (at least by OECD relative standards).
To be clear, this is a pass mark only.
Of Labour’s growth agenda there is next to no sign.
People paying student loans have a right to be extremely aggrieved and the lack of revisiting the triple lock is tragic cowardice.
From the executive summary:
"This report shows how the President has leveraged his office
to make himself a crypto billionaire and how he has extended broad protection to fraudsters,
scam artists, and other online criminals—who, in turn, repay the President and his family with
millions of dollars in tribute. Perhaps most troublingly, these crypto ventures allow anyone—
including foreign governments, organized crime groups, corporate interests, and criminals
seeking pardons and persons seeking government contracts, appointments, or other presidential
favors—to secretly place huge sums of money directly into the President’s pockets."
1) being told that they can't have what they want, because it will have negative consequences
2) the negative consequences of being given the things that they want
3) being told "you were warned that this was going to happen"
Has she pissed away 10s of millions of members' funds on a vanity hotel, and tried to manipulate the Labour Party internally as cynically as Ken McClusterfuck, and lost a million pound bruised ego libel action to a Labour MP?
(I'll leave mistresses out of it.)
If not, it's perhaps just a quiet life.
Witkoff goes to Ukraine, huge security, bunkers, armed soldiers everywhere and everyone dressed for action. Understandably the hosting will be restrained as should be in a country at war.
Witless then concludes that only one side is winning and it’s Russia.
The tragedy of him being made lead negotiator is one of history’s great follies and stupidities rather than an experienced State Department person.
But most of the growth handles aren't Reeves's to pull- planning is key but not her department, energy is probably going as well as can be expected, Europe is still taboo and global stability is decided in places far from London. Hoping that something will turn up isn't great, but... [at this point, a gang of heavies burst in to stop me completing that sentence.]
I think she's very good.
And I'd be careful what you wish for - Sharon could well plump for Nige, and take her funding with her.
It was a bad decision by the prosecution, probably influenced, unconsciously at least, by the political furore over the missing pension funds. But it also shows the danger of having state officials make decisions because they will be pressured in a way juries cannot be. Both in that and other fraud trials I have done the jurors did follow and understand, based on the questions they asked and how they appeared during the trial.
I think they're genuinely trying to make a differnce and it's going to take time. Meanwhile the looming sight of Farage scares the hellout of me. So add me to your focus group and I give them a thumbs up.
I had not twigged that the policy costs were purely on the Electricity Element, so this will rebalance costs towards use of electricity, which is a positive.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cy8vz032qgpt
We're seeing some progress on a couple of high profile goals - energy prices (I still do not know whether the £500 reduction promise is real or cash terms), immigration down (net imigration down 80% from peak) and NHS Waiting Lists.
For the general public, that will still be one cheer at most, even for the sympathetic. And most of the goals are still bubbling under.
For example, if you are going to have a mansion tax, lets get rid of stamp duty, reform council tax and have a wider property taxation. Same with how you tax all income. Same with pay per mile. Instead we get this drip drip drip on more taxation but always with more complexity and no doubt loopholes / wide open to abuse.