* Don't say: "Oh shut up you odious little toad", or emulate The Winter's Tale Act III Scene III: "Coleman made an angry acceptance speech at the count in which he announced that "the king of bling is back" before storming out, accompanied by his mother." (Script: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Coleman)
Also, in terms of the public's willingness to support increased Defence spending I think people underestimate the public and excuse the politicians. We can see other European countries, not just Poland and the Baltic States who are on the front line, but countries like Germany and Denmark who are doing a lot more to increase defence spending than the UK.
Yes, quite - we have a problem of political leadership.
If politicians won't lead us there then why wouldn't many voters prioritise benefits that matter to them personally?
All NATO nations committed to spend 5% of gdp on defence by 2035, even if Labour backbenchers have voted to prioritise welfare spending
Well, that will be the challenge for the next Conservative Government, presumably in 2029. How will they reach the 5% GDP figure in the course of a Parliament - I suppose they could keep defence spending and hope GDP falls to meet the targer but, more realistically, how will they increase the number assuming it can't all be done with growth concurrent with, what I imagine, will be commitments to lower taxes such as stamp duty?
Well they would restore the two child benefit cap for starters Labour have abandoned and reform the likes of PiP Labour also rejected reforms too
Cheap jibes aside, let's get serious on numbers.
I've seen the UK is spending £83 billion on defence this year - defence ranks fifth behind Social Care/Welfare (£379 billion), Health (£277 billion), Education (£146 billion) and Debt Interest Payments (£123 billion).
Instead of wittering on about GDP percentages, what amount would you like the UK to spend on defence and from where does that extra funding originate?
Looking at the income side, £329 billion from Income Tax, £214 billion from VAT, £199 billion from National Insurance.
If you want to double the amount spent on defence to sorry £160 billion, how do you get there? What elements of the other budgets would you reduce or how much additional tax would you seek to raise?
Well you could cut the welfare budget to £290 million for starters
How? What are you going to cut and by how much?
Restore the 2 child benefit cap for starters
From what I've read, restoring the cap would save between £2 billion and £3.5 billion so it's a drop in the ocean as well as a cheap political slogan. Do the Conservatives have any answers or policies on child poverty?
Don't bother - let's get to the substantive. Kemi Badenoch wants to "slash" "welfare". What does she mean by "slash" and, more important, what does she mean by "welfare" - funding for social care for vulnerable adults and children, pensions or, as I expect, Universal Credit and other allowances - what about Carers Allowance, by the way, would you advocate reducing that?
Presumably based on the perception there are millions of "scroungers" all enjoying the best of life thanks to Universal Credit, the plan will be to demonise these people and use that as an argument to carry forward a broad reduction of welfare payments.
Will the age at which individuals can collect the State pension be increased - to what and when? What measures will be taken to cajole people from living on Universal Credit back into work - will the levels of benefit be reduced to the point at which it becomes unviable to have them as your sole source of income? Will the levels of testing be enhanced to weed out the "scroungers" from those in genuine need ?
What of the infamous "Triple Lock" - will the Conservatives be committed to that for the life of the next Parliament or will they challenge what has become the orthodoxy in recent times?
£2billion and £3.5 billion is not a drop in the ocean; government budgets are made up of spending like this, and such attitudes are what leads to chronic waste in public spending.
Child poverty is not solved by dribbling out an extra giro allowance at great cost to working taxpayers; it is solved by stable families in work, and that has always been the Conservative priority.
That's nice rhetoric but in-work poverty increased significantly under the Conservatives, despite a strong record on employment, and is significantly higher than our counterparts elsewhere.
So no, child poverty is not solved by getting people into work. You have to pay them properly too - the kind of wage that allows them to support a family, not make us a cheap cup of coffee.
No, child poverty is absolutely solved by getting people into work. That's precisely how everyone else supports their families - by earning a wage. I agree benefits should provide a basic safety net; I do not agree they should subsidise lifestyles.
Public policy should not be led by the nose by lobby groups like the Rowntree Foundation, nor major spending decisions made on the basis of moving hundreds of thousands of people above or below an arbitrary line on a spreadsheet and then declaring the problem "solved". They will continue to sit wasting away on low incomes with a limited lifestyle and their potential totally unrealised. That's absolutely mad, especially whilst we face one of the biggest geopolitical challenges of the century.
A good example of the paralysing effect of legalism on politics from Darren Jones: "It's not for politicians to make judgements around international law."
Your post is an example of those arguing for an international free for all.
Like this lame brain. CNN: Venezuela is a sovereign nation. Why is it okay for the US to go in, arrest its leader, control its oil, and take over for a time?
In Jones's case he's constrained by the caution/cowardice of the PM over the affair.
Have you read the indictment? It's full of vague assertion * It's laughable that Maduro has anything to answer for under US domestic law. Doesn't mean he won't be convicted of course.
*Basically he's a corrupt guy and associates with gangs who kidnap. Ironic given the circumstances of his capture and who ordered it.
If there’s one thing you can say about Bondi apart from her corruption, it’s that she’s incompetent.
This came across to me like the pleading of a man whose wife has said she’s about to leave him
I know people are frustrated about the pace of change. I am too.
Getting our country back on track will take time, but despite the chaos we inherited, we're making progress.
Wages are rising faster than prices. Waiting lists are down. Inflation and interest rates are falling.
This year, Britain will turn the corner, and you will start to feel the change we promised – in your bills, in your community and in your public services.
Starmer might have a point. There are still three and a half years before a general election is likely, and it is entirely plausible that things might be better by then. The natural state of the economy is growth, albeit sluggish growth, and there do not seem to be as many complaints about GP appointments. England will be well on the way to qualification for the 2030 World Cup after the frustration of losing the 2026 final to Germany. On penalties. And the minor countries will still be in with a shout if Denmark can beat Estonia by a clear eight goals. President Trump ending all wars will mean normalisation of world trade, so food, energy and manufactured goods should fall in price.
As to who will lead Labour into the election...
Hundreds of thousands more people are facing waits of over a month for GP appointments since Labour got into power, new analysis has found.
Around 1.7 million people had to wait over a month for an appointment in November, the analysis from the Liberal Democrats claims, 246,625 higher than when Labour took office in July last year.
The research also finds that 7.6 million patients had to wait more than four weeks to see a GP over the autumn (between September and November), up by over 300,000 since the same period last year.
My GP has been busy texting me for the last month or two basically saying don't bother trying to book appointments (luckily I haven't needed to).
I have to plead with some relatives to persist because they are frustrated by a) the difficulty seeing anyone and b) the hostility they will receive when they dare to try to see someone.
I know those working in health are facing some really tough challenges but damn, the stereotype of the overly aggressive gatekeeper is real.
The Government should force through the online booking systems that are being opposed by the BMA. As I have said many times before our GP surgery uses the 'Ask My GP' system and it works brilliantly. I have never had to wait more than 1 working day for an appointment if necessary and generally get a response from the GP well before midday with arrngments - pharmacy, phone diagnosis or in person appointment. And this is for a GP surgery which has seen a 60% increase in patients in the last decade.
These systems are not perfect but generally they work very well. The BMA should be ashamed for leading resistance to them.
I totally get the huge media attention about the US special ops military strike on Venezuela and the capture of Maduro and his wife and their journey to the US and the implications for this country and the wider global stage after the actions of Trump and the US. What message does it send to Russia and China being the key points while Trump clearly sees what has being going on in this country and its horrific economic downfall under Maduro's dictatorship as a massive and a serious issue for illegal immigration into the US as well as well as the serious drug problem it has created on the US doorstep. But lets not for get or spare Putin's blushes after his unlawful invasion of Ukraine while the broken and dysfunctional UN continues to prove its no longer fit for purpose!
But I still remain utterly frustrated at the lack of media attention about what is going on right now in Iran which has equal if not far more importance and implications on the global stage right now especially for the future wider stability of the Middle East or not, and also for Western countries and both Russia and China if that awful Regime falls?! And PS, North Korea launching a ballistic missile and the UK/French strikes on ISIS targets in Syria barely even got a mention, talk about a bad day to bury bad news while no one is looking with most of the public in the Western world totally unaware!
Protesters in Iran are dying due to the awful Regime there, and absolute tumble weed in the UK media over the last week, but a Trump sanctioned US military coup in Venezuela and the UK media and the left wake up and have something to say?! I grew up as a lassie here in the UK and its hard to fathom that until 1979 girls in Iran grew up wearing the same clothes I did and attended co-ed Universities and now girls over the last decades there have been dying if they did not behave correctly or cover their hair or the youth in Iran dared to raise up and protest against this awful religious regime!
There is something different about this uprising in Iran, its not only as a result of economic factors, the economy is tanking and there are petrol and water shortages while the Iranian regime has been concentrating on funding its State terrorism in Gaza, Yemen and Lebenon as well as Iraq. With the demographics of the Iran age and population its always been a matter of when rather than if the country will finally raise up against this awful religious inspired regime and finally successfully remove it.
The media’s criminal ignoring of Iran is only matched by their lack of attention towards Buggate at Holyrood. Any updates btw?
Not in the least bit surprised at your lack of concern on either issue to the point that you are not only choosing to ignore the seriousness of the lack of coverage of the Iran uprising, but to bring in and also mock the lack of coverage about the fact that male staff were listening into elected SNP female politicians in the Holyrood Parliament. it says it all.
You do realise what happens to females in Iran who stand up to the religious regime there by even daring to make a stand or protest and even take their head covering off in a public place??!! Tin eared doesn't even cover it! And yet here in the banana republic of Scotland we discover that certain female elected SNP politicians were being recorded in their offices and feck all was done about it when it came to light within the SNP government or the further Parliamentary estate?! No, instead this scandal finally came to light in the late afternoon as Holyrood went into Christmas recess despite being known in SNP government circles for a long time.
So lets hope that Scottish journalists do their job unlike SNP supporters on here and we finally get an update when Holyrood opens again in the New Year. Its the sheer arrogance and assumption that because this news was buried at the end of the year here in Scotland you now think that the story is now dead, but then you felt the need to try to link it to my comments about the media coverage of Iran and then you tried to mock both?! Seriously, trying to link into the lack of coverage right now in Iran, especially the implication for female protestors, I have no further words for you as a poster on this site...
This came across to me like the pleading of a man whose wife has said she’s about to leave him
I know people are frustrated about the pace of change. I am too.
Getting our country back on track will take time, but despite the chaos we inherited, we're making progress.
Wages are rising faster than prices. Waiting lists are down. Inflation and interest rates are falling.
This year, Britain will turn the corner, and you will start to feel the change we promised – in your bills, in your community and in your public services.
Starmer might have a point. There are still three and a half years before a general election is likely, and it is entirely plausible that things might be better by then. The natural state of the economy is growth, albeit sluggish growth, and there do not seem to be as many complaints about GP appointments. England will be well on the way to qualification for the 2030 World Cup after the frustration of losing the 2026 final to Germany. On penalties. And the minor countries will still be in with a shout if Denmark can beat Estonia by a clear eight goals. President Trump ending all wars will mean normalisation of world trade, so food, energy and manufactured goods should fall in price.
As to who will lead Labour into the election...
Hundreds of thousands more people are facing waits of over a month for GP appointments since Labour got into power, new analysis has found.
Around 1.7 million people had to wait over a month for an appointment in November, the analysis from the Liberal Democrats claims, 246,625 higher than when Labour took office in July last year.
The research also finds that 7.6 million patients had to wait more than four weeks to see a GP over the autumn (between September and November), up by over 300,000 since the same period last year.
My GP has been busy texting me for the last month or two basically saying don't bother trying to book appointments (luckily I haven't needed to).
I have to plead with some relatives to persist because they are frustrated by a) the difficulty seeing anyone and b) the hostility they will receive when they dare to try to see someone.
I know those working in health are facing some really tough challenges but damn, the stereotype of the overly aggressive gatekeeper is real.
The Government should force through the online booking systems that are being opposed by the BMA. As I have said many times before our GP surgery uses the 'Ask My GP' system and it works brilliantly. I have never had to wait more than 1 working day for an appointment if necessary and generally get a response from the GP well before midday with arrngments - pharmacy, phone diagnosis or in person appointment. And this is for a GP surgery which has seen a 60% increase in patients in the last decade.
These systems are not perfect but generally they work very well. The BMA should be ashamed for leading resistance to them.
Arthur Scargill would be ashamed of how the BMA behave.
This came across to me like the pleading of a man whose wife has said she’s about to leave him
I know people are frustrated about the pace of change. I am too.
Getting our country back on track will take time, but despite the chaos we inherited, we're making progress.
Wages are rising faster than prices. Waiting lists are down. Inflation and interest rates are falling.
This year, Britain will turn the corner, and you will start to feel the change we promised – in your bills, in your community and in your public services.
Starmer might have a point. There are still three and a half years before a general election is likely, and it is entirely plausible that things might be better by then. The natural state of the economy is growth, albeit sluggish growth, and there do not seem to be as many complaints about GP appointments. England will be well on the way to qualification for the 2030 World Cup after the frustration of losing the 2026 final to Germany. On penalties. And the minor countries will still be in with a shout if Denmark can beat Estonia by a clear eight goals. President Trump ending all wars will mean normalisation of world trade, so food, energy and manufactured goods should fall in price.
As to who will lead Labour into the election...
Hundreds of thousands more people are facing waits of over a month for GP appointments since Labour got into power, new analysis has found.
Around 1.7 million people had to wait over a month for an appointment in November, the analysis from the Liberal Democrats claims, 246,625 higher than when Labour took office in July last year.
The research also finds that 7.6 million patients had to wait more than four weeks to see a GP over the autumn (between September and November), up by over 300,000 since the same period last year.
My GP has been busy texting me for the last month or two basically saying don't bother trying to book appointments (luckily I haven't needed to).
I have to plead with some relatives to persist because they are frustrated by a) the difficulty seeing anyone and b) the hostility they will receive when they dare to try to see someone.
I know those working in health are facing some really tough challenges but damn, the stereotype of the overly aggressive gatekeeper is real.
The Government should force through the online booking systems that are being opposed by the BMA. As I have said many times before our GP surgery uses the 'Ask My GP' system and it works brilliantly. I have never had to wait more than 1 working day for an appointment if necessary and generally get a response from the GP well before midday with arrngments - pharmacy, phone diagnosis or in person appointment. And this is for a GP surgery which has seen a 60% increase in patients in the last decade.
These systems are not perfect but generally they work very well. The BMA should be ashamed for leading resistance to them.
The problem is capacity that nowhere meets demand.
No system of booking can create appointments out of thin air.
A good example of the paralysing effect of legalism on politics from Darren Jones: "It's not for politicians to make judgements around international law."
@williamglenn , @viewcode here. Thank you for that: I didn't know there was a word ("legalism") for the phenomenon where MPs abdicate their decisions to law bodies. I've been reading Sumption recently and he is scathing about it. Do you have any other examples?
Comments
NEW THREAD
This is Barnet - just like the good old days of Brian Coleman. *
The Barnet Conservative group leader moved house to Wales in 2022, and stayed on as a Councillor. He left the Blues for Reform UK in May/June 2024.
He resigned from the Council on Dec 31st, leaving his residents unrepresented until elections in May, to .. er .. "spend more time with his family".
What IS going on ? Could he not have left early enough to allow a By-election? Or stayed on for 5 months until the election, having stayed on for the previous 3 years?
https://barnetpost.co.uk/2026/01/01/former-leader-slams-former-party-as-he-departs-council/
* Don't say: "Oh shut up you odious little toad", or emulate The Winter's Tale Act III Scene III: "Coleman made an angry acceptance speech at the count in which he announced that "the king of bling is back" before storming out, accompanied by his mother."
(Script: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Coleman)
Public policy should not be led by the nose by lobby groups like the Rowntree Foundation, nor major spending decisions made on the basis of moving hundreds of thousands of people above or below an arbitrary line on a spreadsheet and then declaring the problem "solved". They will continue to sit wasting away on low incomes with a limited lifestyle and their potential totally unrealised. That's absolutely mad, especially whilst we face one of the biggest geopolitical challenges of the century.
I fundamentally disagree with you.
These systems are not perfect but generally they work very well. The BMA should be ashamed for leading resistance to them.
You do realise what happens to females in Iran who stand up to the religious regime there by even daring to make a stand or protest and even take their head covering off in a public place??!! Tin eared doesn't even cover it! And yet here in the banana republic of Scotland we discover that certain female elected SNP politicians were being recorded in their offices and feck all was done about it when it came to light within the SNP government or the further Parliamentary estate?! No, instead this scandal finally came to light in the late afternoon as Holyrood went into Christmas recess despite being known in SNP government circles for a long time.
So lets hope that Scottish journalists do their job unlike SNP supporters on here and we finally get an update when Holyrood opens again in the New Year. Its the sheer arrogance and assumption that because this news was buried at the end of the year here in Scotland you now think that the story is now dead, but then you felt the need to try to link it to my comments about the media coverage of Iran and then you tried to mock both?! Seriously, trying to link into the lack of coverage right now in Iran, especially the implication for female protestors, I have no further words for you as a poster on this site...
No system of booking can create appointments out of thin air.