Some positives! To the one flagged up by James below I would add the £8+BN commitment to the GCAP fighter programme and the £11bn on munitions + their factories https://x.com/MarkUrban01/status/2071943816060309578
Preserving manufacturing capacity and increasing stocks of munitions are about the most positive things that can be done, outside of radical reform (which is anyway not going to happen quickly).
Also, basic infrastructure.
The good news:
£26 billion over the next decade in Project Royal Oak – the biggest naval base upgrade for over 45 years, including multi-billion-pound upgrades at Faslane, Portsmouth and Devonport. https://x.com/FennellJW/status/2071905637148057957
I have thought (and said here) that Reform can't win the next election. This is becoming more true all the time. Moving on to what happens next is interesting.
Farage is on the downhill, but the reasons for the far right surge have not gone away. Farage not being centre stage leaves a horrible gap for some equally horrible people to fill, even though winning is out of the question.
As things stand only Labour can lead the next government, not because Labour are great but because the Tories are not close to being good enough. The moderate Tory middle class backbone of the country has dissolved, both in party terms and demographically.
Returning politics to sanity requires a Tory leader who, first of all, can set out an affirmative Burkean liberal and democratic vision as well as Burnham can set out his.
Central to this is, because of the far right, affirming the difference between controlling our borders (fine) and demonising millions of people who are already lawfully here (the roots of fascism). The centre right and the far right are not the same but the Tories have no really clarified the difference. I don't think Kemi is the person to do it. It needs a visionary communicator.
In other words,
I think "Margot Leadbetter is dead" is a fairly good statement of where the Conservative Party now sits, tbh.
Audrey Fforbes Hamilton would certainly still be a Tory, she might vote LD only on a forced choice tactical vote to beat Reform or Burnham Labour
She would not face that tactical choice as she would live in a Conservative/LD marginal. I think you are right on Audrey but may well have lost Margot. Both would be conflicted in a way that would have felt inconceivable to them a few decades ago.
Peter de Vere is probably still voting Conservative, but Audrey is too maternalistic, if such a word exists. The sort of lady who believes in fixing the church roof, and that strand of the Tory tradition has very largely wandered off.
Most of our rural church congregation still votes Tory. Peter de Vere likely now votes Reform
Highly improbable given he was an Eastern European immigrant.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’d say that was fair.
A better approach is to use a long term time frame.
What currently happens is inflation is high in year 1. Wages go up in year 2 to reflect the inflation in year 1 and the pension goes up thanks to the wage increase in year 2.
If instead you went over the past 4 years those impacts would be quickly evened out and what is left would be more sustainable
You need a short and long term approach to do this.
I think as a short term measure to get away from the current fine. Longer term change to do something akin to your suggestion.
If you are going to discuss Paraguay, you should mention the Paraguayan War. As is true of almost all extreme examples, we can learn from it:
The Paraguayan War,[6] also known as the War of the Triple Alliance,[7] was a South American war that lasted from 1864 to 1870. It was fought between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance of Argentina, the Empire of Brazil, and Uruguay. It was the deadliest inter-state war in Latin American history.[8] Paraguay sustained immense casualties, but even the approximate numbers are disputed.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’d say that was fair.
I think there is scope for Kemi to work with Burnham on this and make it "sensible government for today's problems." Reform would likely knee-jerk react against it.There might be other areas where a long-term - ie longer than one term - could be agreed. Then ask the voters if they really want to rip it up.
It would give Kemi the opportunity to put a restraining hand on the worst leftist obsessions.
Best chance of a reset for the big two parties.
Big problem would be not so much Reform but the Lib Dem’s, who promise anything to any special interest group,that could buy votes. Especially against the Tories in the Waitrose belt. They’d need to be on board but I’d say it’s unlikely as they’re cynical opportunists. The other issue would be the SNP who would also vigorously oppose for partisan reasons.
snip.. Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Rumour is we might see the same again after the Russian Parliamentary elections this September. After the vote another 500,000 Russians to be mobilised, and the internet shut down to put a lid on them complaining about it. Putin has another deadline for the Russian army to fully occupy Donetsk and Luhansk - 31st December.
Two Weeks Trump. Six Months Putin.
Two twats.
At least he doesn't have to worry about mobilising the middle classes of Moscow and St Petersburg. Because they're not there, they're all here and out of reach. Here being the Black Sea neighbours. I thought they were all in Kadikoy in Istanbul, until I arrived in Batumi. They're all here.
Must say their Rubles have definitely given the place a lick of paint and a makeover. It's even posher than the posh bits of Tbilisi.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
All bad?
You and Malcolmg have an interest tbh, as recipients. I do about the 60% tax trap, because it affects me. Bondegezou does because he's in the largesse university sector and does about 2 hours work a day, and worries they'd come for him next.
We need to reform tax and spend across the board, and both need to be lowered.
We need to spend more on education and defence.
I don’t receive a penny from the state, you cheeky fucker, I’m funding my own retirement until I get to state pension age. Seven years to go.
But you will have an interest then?
This isn't about cheeky. Just acknowledging where our interests lie.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’d say that was fair.
The only thing I'd commit to in an ideal world is inflation, but accept a floor of 2-2.5% just because it's very rare inflation will be beneath that and it's bad politics to have an increase of pennies if it's non-existent.
I have thought (and said here) that Reform can't win the next election. This is becoming more true all the time. Moving on to what happens next is interesting.
Farage is on the downhill, but the reasons for the far right surge have not gone away. Farage not being centre stage leaves a horrible gap for some equally horrible people to fill, even though winning is out of the question.
As things stand only Labour can lead the next government, not because Labour are great but because the Tories are not close to being good enough. The moderate Tory middle class backbone of the country has dissolved, both in party terms and demographically.
Returning politics to sanity requires a Tory leader who, first of all, can set out an affirmative Burkean liberal and democratic vision as well as Burnham can set out his.
Central to this is, because of the far right, affirming the difference between controlling our borders (fine) and demonising millions of people who are already lawfully here (the roots of fascism). The centre right and the far right are not the same but the Tories have no really clarified the difference. I don't think Kemi is the person to do it. It needs a visionary communicator.
In other words,
I think "Margot Leadbetter is dead" is a fairly good statement of where the Conservative Party now sits, tbh.
Audrey Fforbes Hamilton would certainly still be a Tory, she might vote LD only on a forced choice tactical vote to beat Reform or Burnham Labour
She would not face that tactical choice as she would live in a Conservative/LD marginal. I think you are right on Audrey but may well have lost Margot. Both would be conflicted in a way that would have felt inconceivable to them a few decades ago.
Peter de Vere is probably still voting Conservative, but Audrey is too maternalistic, if such a word exists. The sort of lady who believes in fixing the church roof, and that strand of the Tory tradition has very largely wandered off.
Most of our rural church congregation still votes Tory. Peter de Vere likely now votes Reform
Highly improbable given he was an Eastern European immigrant.
The most Reform voting sitcom characters are surely Boycey and Marlene.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
All bad?
You and Malcolmg have an interest tbh, as recipients. I do about the 60% tax trap, because it affects me. Bondegezou does because he's in the largesse university sector and does about 2 hours work a day, and worries they'd come for him next.
We need to reform tax and spend across the board, and both need to be lowered.
We need to spend more on education and defence.
I don’t receive a penny from the state, you cheeky fucker, I’m funding my own retirement until I get to state pension age. Seven years to go.
But you will have an interest then?
This isn't about cheeky. Just acknowledging where our interests lie.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’d say that was fair.
I think there is scope for Kemi to work with Burnham on this and make it "sensible government for today's problems." Reform would likely knee-jerk react against it.There might be other areas where a long-term - ie longer than one term - could be agreed. Then ask the voters if they really want to rip it up.
It would give Kemi the opportunity to put a restraining hand on the worst leftist obsessions.
Best chance of a reset for the big two parties.
Big problem would be not so much Reform but the Lib Dem’s, who promise anything to any special interest group,that could buy votes. Especially against the Tories in the Waitrose belt. They’d need to be on board but I’d say it’s unlikely as they’re cynical opportunists. The other issue would be the SNP who would also vigorously oppose for partisan reasons.
Yes, you don't like the Liberal Democrats as you tell us ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
Apparently the party backs completely open borders (it doesn't) and they are cynical opportunists (as much as any and every other party, perhaps).
As for working or not working with other parties, the LDs have been in Government with both Labour and Conservative in the last 50 years whereas Reform are a set of posturing failures who would have problems running a bath.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
UC compensates a lot of people in work for the poor rates of pay they are offered. Pay people more
Minimum wage is now £12.71 an hour, which equates to £445 a week full time on a 35 hour contract and between £18-21k a year, depending on how many weeks you work and holidays taken.
There is no longer "poor pay" for work, and that's very fair, although we'd all like more money.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
All bad?
You and Malcolmg have an interest tbh, as recipients. I do about the 60% tax trap, because it affects me. Bondegezou does because he's in the largesse university sector and does about 2 hours work a day, and worries they'd come for him next.
We need to reform tax and spend across the board, and both need to be lowered.
We need to spend more on education and defence.
I don’t receive a penny from the state, you cheeky fucker, I’m funding my own retirement until I get to state pension age. Seven years to go.
But you will have an interest then?
This isn't about cheeky. Just acknowledging where our interests lie.
You said I had an interest as a recipient,
I’m not a recipient.
Fair enough. Are you not bothered by the triple-lock for what you pick up in seven years time then?
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
You may have been watching too much Sci Fi.
Um, cyberwarfare is already a thing. A lot of infrastructure depends on things with chips and large sheds by the ring road with racks of things with stuttering LEDs. Civilian passenger aircraft upload software details telling them where the ground is: spoof that, and the engines don't generate enough lift on the runway and you crash.
Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Now spin it out to AI. Millions of online personas, reacting in real time, manipulating you in ways you won't recognise and won't disobey. People live online these days and are soooo easy to manipulate. Play your cards right and the UK will fold without a fight. Sun Tzu would have wet himself.
As I say - too much Sci Fi.
That Iran example was a real example that really happened in real life, really. The Serbian bot farms are a thing. The UK is frequently subject to cyber attacks, as the British Library can sadly attest. This is not sci-fi, it's been current politics for over a decade now. The British Army has a cyberwarfare division brigade/division/whatevs, as I pointed out in my Blob article.
I am deeply sceptical of any claims about AI, which was the original thrust. As in sentient AI attacking nation states. If you are merely suggesting bots, then thats different, and the point you make is valid. We have an enormous issue around social media. In one sense it has liberated information - the old ways of getting news are moribund. But the new issue is trust.
AI models can be used to scan for (and later exploit) vulnerabilities in our cyber-infrastructure. That is why the American government whacked an export ban on recent Anthropic models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5 a week or two back.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
You may have been watching too much Sci Fi.
Um, cyberwarfare is already a thing. A lot of infrastructure depends on things with chips and large sheds by the ring road with racks of things with stuttering LEDs. Civilian passenger aircraft upload software details telling them where the ground is: spoof that, and the engines don't generate enough lift on the runway and you crash.
Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Now spin it out to AI. Millions of online personas, reacting in real time, manipulating you in ways you won't recognise and won't disobey. People live online these days and are soooo easy to manipulate. Play your cards right and the UK will fold without a fight. Sun Tzu would have wet himself.
Over the past two years, a surge in global crisis events – from terrorist attacks and political assassinations to full-scale military conflicts – has tested the societal resilience of democracies and autocracies alike. While online speculation has long distorted public perception during such incidents, recent CETaS research has shown how the increasing integration of AI into our information ecosystem is now worsening these situations.
AI content generators (including image, video, audio and music-generation tools) are enabling those seeking to cause harm to create "evidence" from unfolding scenes to sow confusion or incite violence, while AI chatbots – queried by users seeking real-time updates – often provide unverified or factually incorrect information, further muddying the truth during high-stakes moments.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
UC compensates a lot of people in work for the poor rates of pay they are offered. Pay people more
Minimum wage is now £12.71 an hour, which equates to £445 a week full time on a 35 hour contract and between £18-21k a year, depending on how many weeks you work and holidays taken.
There is no longer "poor pay" for work, and that's very fair, although we'd all like more money.
UC is nowadays paying money because the person (wants to) lives in a really expensive area (London) or they have children.
One reasons NEETs is so high is because we've managed to increase the minimum wage to the point employers can't take any risks and promotions aren't worthwhile as more and more jobs / skillsets have been pulled into the minimum wage band.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
You may have been watching too much Sci Fi.
Um, cyberwarfare is already a thing. A lot of infrastructure depends on things with chips and large sheds by the ring road with racks of things with stuttering LEDs. Civilian passenger aircraft upload software details telling them where the ground is: spoof that, and the engines don't generate enough lift on the runway and you crash.
Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Now spin it out to AI. Millions of online personas, reacting in real time, manipulating you in ways you won't recognise and won't disobey. People live online these days and are soooo easy to manipulate. Play your cards right and the UK will fold without a fight. Sun Tzu would have wet himself.
As I say - too much Sci Fi.
That Iran example was a real example that really happened in real life, really. The Serbian bot farms are a thing. The UK is frequently subject to cyber attacks, as the British Library can sadly attest. This is not sci-fi, it's been current politics for over a decade now. The British Army has a cyberwarfare division brigade/division/whatevs, as I pointed out in my Blob article.
I am deeply sceptical of any claims about AI, which was the original thrust. As in sentient AI attacking nation states. If you are merely suggesting bots, then thats different, and the point you make is valid. We have an enormous issue around social media. In one sense it has liberated information - the old ways of getting news are moribund. But the new issue is trust.
AI models can be used to scan for (and later exploit) vulnerabilities in our cyber-infrastructure. That is why the American government whacked an export ban on recent Anthropic models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5 a week or two back.
Not really - the export ban was more because Anthropic (unlike OpenAI) to do what Trump wants them to do...
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’d say that was fair.
I think there is scope for Kemi to work with Burnham on this and make it "sensible government for today's problems." Reform would likely knee-jerk react against it.There might be other areas where a long-term - ie longer than one term - could be agreed. Then ask the voters if they really want to rip it up.
It would give Kemi the opportunity to put a restraining hand on the worst leftist obsessions.
Best chance of a reset for the big two parties.
Big problem would be not so much Reform but the Lib Dem’s, who promise anything to any special interest group,that could buy votes. Especially against the Tories in the Waitrose belt. They’d need to be on board but I’d say it’s unlikely as they’re cynical opportunists. The other issue would be the SNP who would also vigorously oppose for partisan reasons.
Yes, you don't like the Liberal Democrats as you tell us ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
Apparently the party backs completely open borders (it doesn't) and they are cynical opportunists (as much as any and every other party, perhaps).
As for working or not working with other parties, the LDs have been in Government with both Labour and Conservative in the last 50 years whereas Reform are a set of posturing failures who would have problems running a bath.
So you seriously think the Lib Dem’s wouldn’t use an agreement between Labour govt and the Torys on the triple lock for their own aims rather than doing what’s right for the country. 🙄
I don’t like the Lib Dem’s nationally. Political whores open to any punter
Locally I don’t mind them. Some decent local councillors.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
You may have been watching too much Sci Fi.
Um, cyberwarfare is already a thing. A lot of infrastructure depends on things with chips and large sheds by the ring road with racks of things with stuttering LEDs. Civilian passenger aircraft upload software details telling them where the ground is: spoof that, and the engines don't generate enough lift on the runway and you crash.
Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Now spin it out to AI. Millions of online personas, reacting in real time, manipulating you in ways you won't recognise and won't disobey. People live online these days and are soooo easy to manipulate. Play your cards right and the UK will fold without a fight. Sun Tzu would have wet himself.
As I say - too much Sci Fi.
That Iran example was a real example that really happened in real life, really. The Serbian bot farms are a thing. The UK is frequently subject to cyber attacks, as the British Library can sadly attest. This is not sci-fi, it's been current politics for over a decade now. The British Army has a cyberwarfare division brigade/division/whatevs, as I pointed out in my Blob article.
I am deeply sceptical of any claims about AI, which was the original thrust. As in sentient AI attacking nation states. If you are merely suggesting bots, then thats different, and the point you make is valid. We have an enormous issue around social media. In one sense it has liberated information - the old ways of getting news are moribund. But the new issue is trust.
AI models can be used to scan for (and later exploit) vulnerabilities in our cyber-infrastructure. That is why the American government whacked an export ban on recent Anthropic models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5 a week or two back.
But that's not new. The US government has been slapping export controls on tech that gives them an edge for decades and then relaxing it as they gained a new, better edge. The Biden admin did it over certain GPUs in 2022.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
UC compensates a lot of people in work for the poor rates of pay they are offered. Pay people more
Minimum wage is now £12.71 an hour, which equates to £445 a week full time on a 35 hour contract and between £18-21k a year, depending on how many weeks you work and holidays taken.
There is no longer "poor pay" for work, and that's very fair, although we'd all like more money.
Wage compression is a thing. We want to equalise everyone.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
UC compensates a lot of people in work for the poor rates of pay they are offered. Pay people more
Minimum wage is now £12.71 an hour, which equates to £445 a week full time on a 35 hour contract and between £18-21k a year, depending on how many weeks you work and holidays taken.
There is no longer "poor pay" for work, and that's very fair, although we'd all like more money.
UC is nowadays paying money because the person (wants to) lives in a really expensive area (London) or they have children.
One reasons NEETs is so high is because we've managed to increase the minimum wage to the point employers can't take any risks and promotions aren't worthwhile as more and more jobs / skillsets have been pulled into the minimum wage band.
There is a circular argument here. UC is based on a basket of reasonable "needs". As it Pension Credit. If you abolish NLW then people will earn less than the amounts needed to live.
Some will argue that faced with starvation etc, etc, those on UC will chose to work. And apply this logic to pensioners. If we starved or froze a few would people learn to save for their future?
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
All bad?
You and Malcolmg have an interest tbh, as recipients. I do about the 60% tax trap, because it affects me. Bondegezou does because he's in the largesse university sector and does about 2 hours work a day, and worries they'd come for him next.
We need to reform tax and spend across the board, and both need to be lowered.
We need to spend more on education and defence.
I don’t receive a penny from the state, you cheeky fucker, I’m funding my own retirement until I get to state pension age. Seven years to go.
But you will have an interest then?
This isn't about cheeky. Just acknowledging where our interests lie.
You said I had an interest as a recipient,
I’m not a recipient.
Fair enough. Are you not bothered by the triple-lock for what you pick up in seven years time then?
I’d like to see the triple lock reformed to make it sustainable but also the rest of the benefits bill too.
Here it’s predominantly scrap the triple lock but hose money on UC and PIP. Do nothing about it.
What fresh madness is this? Apparently Starmer plans to cut EU student fees to same as UK students.
The unis are already in massive financial crisis.
Personally don't get many EU students at the moment.
Until Brexit, the EU students paid home fees, of course. When that changed with Brexit, it had a big impact on EU student numbers. They fell, but only by about 50%. We still do get lots. They represent about 9% of all current overseas students. See page 10 of https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7976/CBP-7976.pdf However, no EU country is in the top 10 (2024/5 figures):
India 94,955 China 93,585 Pakistan 34,375 Nigeria 23,160 Nepal 17,385 United States 13,115 Bangladesh 7,550 Hong Kong 5,980 Malaysia 5,195 Saudi Arabia 4,295
(These figures always surprise me because in the teaching I do, we have lots of Chinese students and very few South Asian ones.)
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
UC compensates a lot of people in work for the poor rates of pay they are offered. Pay people more
Minimum wage is now £12.71 an hour, which equates to £445 a week full time on a 35 hour contract and between £18-21k a year, depending on how many weeks you work and holidays taken.
There is no longer "poor pay" for work, and that's very fair, although we'd all like more money.
As was reported yesterday and if correct (I'm now tending to disbelieve everyone and everything which is cynically unhealthy), it seems only 13% of those awarded asylum since 2020 are earning £20k or more.
That is a damning statistic on so many levels - some will see it as vindication of an anti-migrant line, they are sponging off us living on benefits and damaging our finances and of course every one of them is a potential rapist or child molester and they should all be deported.
The other view is it's a dreadful waste of human capital - are these people unwilling or unable to work or unemployable (language skills?). Thre has to be a way to get them productive even at minimum wage and contributing even if in a small way.
What Farage could do is let Sarah Pochin take over as leader for a while and see what happens to Reform's poll ratings. If the experiment works, stay with it. Otherwise Farage could return as leader.
What fresh madness is this? Apparently Starmer plans to cut EU student fees to same as UK students.
The unis are already in massive financial crisis.
Personally don't get many EU students at the moment.
Until Brexit, the EU students paid home fees, of course. When that changed with Brexit, it had a big impact on EU student numbers. They fell, but only by about 50%. We still do get lots. They represent about 9% of all current overseas students. See page 10 of https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7976/CBP-7976.pdf However, no EU country is in the top 10 (2024/5 figures):
India 94,955 China 93,585 Pakistan 34,375 Nigeria 23,160 Nepal 17,385 United States 13,115 Bangladesh 7,550 Hong Kong 5,980 Malaysia 5,195 Saudi Arabia 4,295
(These figures always surprise me because in the teaching I do, we have lots of Chinese students and very few South Asian ones.)
I 'think' the Indians tend to like business, management and engineering. But that's a guess, really. Pharmacy tends to get overseas students from countries that recognise the UK MPharm, for obvious reasons.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’d say that was fair.
I think there is scope for Kemi to work with Burnham on this and make it "sensible government for today's problems." Reform would likely knee-jerk react against it.There might be other areas where a long-term - ie longer than one term - could be agreed. Then ask the voters if they really want to rip it up.
It would give Kemi the opportunity to put a restraining hand on the worst leftist obsessions.
Best chance of a reset for the big two parties.
Big problem would be not so much Reform but the Lib Dem’s, who promise anything to any special interest group,that could buy votes. Especially against the Tories in the Waitrose belt. They’d need to be on board but I’d say it’s unlikely as they’re cynical opportunists. The other issue would be the SNP who would also vigorously oppose for partisan reasons.
Yes, you don't like the Liberal Democrats as you tell us ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
Apparently the party backs completely open borders (it doesn't) and they are cynical opportunists (as much as any and every other party, perhaps).
As for working or not working with other parties, the LDs have been in Government with both Labour and Conservative in the last 50 years whereas Reform are a set of posturing failures who would have problems running a bath.
So you seriously think the Lib Dem’s wouldn’t use an agreement between Labour govt and the Torys on the triple lock for their own aims rather than doing what’s right for the country. 🙄
I don’t like the Lib Dem’s nationally. Political whores open to any punter
Locally I don’t mind them. Some decent local councillors.
You're entitled to that view - you're wrong but you're entitled to be wrong.
You are presumably saying that IF Labour and the Conservatives were to agree to scrap the Triple Lock, the LDs (and Reform presumably) would argue for its maintenance.
Short answer, I don't know. I'd like to think the party would back abolition - Labour and the Conservatives have 530 seats in the Commons - they could push through legislation ending it tomorrow if they wanted and the 72 LDs and 6 or 7 Reform MPs couldn't do anything about it.
I think there's an argument for maintaining Triple Lock for those whose only income is the State pension and end it for everyone else but that's a debate to be had. I'd prefer to see personal tax allowances raised (a good LD idea from the Coalition) along with NI thresholds to lift more out of tax completely and start unwinding years of Conservative and Labour imposed fiscaldrag even if the actual tax rates rose (to cover additional defence expenditure).
As for being "whores", we'll see if the Conservatives are willing to support Reform to keep Labour out or back Labour to keep Reform out.
Jeez. Already the media hyena pack are now off on one wondering out loud how many nights Burnham will sleep at No 10 and how many at home in the North and so on.
FFS.
Focus on something important for a change.
quite astute from burnham, get the meeja interested in frivolous stuff and not policy
It's one thing wanting this to happen, but realistically is there long enough left of this term to put it into practice? It's surely quite a big project, duplicating No 10? Suitable property to buy or build, for one thing.
House of Commons is falling apart anyway and needs a big refurb. Other countries manage having power spread out across different locations. Plus it will be a hugely visible change. It really is quite amusing watching all London elite getting vapours at the idea we might try something different
Closing Westminstrr for 5-10 years and moving Parliament to Manchester for the duration is an excellent idea.
Closing Westminster and moving Parliament elsewhere is a brilliant idea fullstop.
But unless you move Westminster to the NEC it's got to be a permanent move..
A permanent move is a truly stupid idea. It will cost vast billions and achieve nothing
Unless you really wanted to break the Westminster stranglehold on all things in this country.
Still a stupid idea. All you do is cause chaos in Government
The only first world country that has their seat of Government elsewhere than their capital is the Netherlands. And the distance from The Hague to Amsterdam? 37 miles. Almost exactly the same distance as from one side of Greater London to the other.
Only because you are defining it based on the capital and not based on their primary city.
Washington DC is a tertiary city compared to New York, Los Angeles etc Canberra is a tertiary city compared to Sydney and Melbourne. Ottowa is a tertiary city compared to Toronto, Vancouver etc
Actually separating the capital/seat of government from the primary cities which can concentrate on finance and other issues without government being there is quite common across the first world. Move government wholesale out of London.
Like I said an idiotic idea that will set back both governance and the economy in this country for decades. Don't get me wrong, I detest London and do everything I can to avoid going anywhere near it. But tghis is a truly stupid and self harming idea.
Tell me what infrastructure we have had approved by London up here in the past couple of decades?
London keeps getting new train lines. Crossrail, HS2 etc
Have we had any new train lines? Any new motorways? Anything?
The Civil Servants who make the decisions don't give a shit beyond London. Kick them out of the city and see how soon they wake up.
You call that setting things back? I can live with that.
Developed countries with successful cities and separate capitals tend to work very well, not badly.
This isn't true. HS2 was for the North, and there's the Transpennine Upgrade Programme and before that the West Coast Mainline Upgrade.
Northern Rail does get the shitty stick, and that needs to change, but let's not pretend that no-one cares.
PMSL!
Tell me how the absolute hell is a train line in the South of England that goes to London and terminates up in the Midlands in Birmingham is "for the North"?
If HS2 were actually for the North then it would have made sense to start construction with the Northern legs of it and deal with the Chilterns and South of England later on, and scrap that if anything were to be scrapped. But no, it was never for us.
Only a Southerner could think that what the North is desperately crying out for is another line in London.
It was originally for the North, that's why it was planned to go to Manchester and Leeds. The fact it's been cut back is a travesty, but you can't just represent it as a London thing. It was intended to provide a fast spine right up the whole country to deliver better economic integration for the Midlands and the North.
How much would HS2 have to cost before you conceded that cutting it back was not a "travesty"? From the tone of your comment it would be a lot more than the £100bn just for Euston (possibly) to East Birmingham alone, that is about £1 billion per mile.
I'm not here to defend how the Government cliented and sponsored it, I think the line speed spec and all the tunnels in the Chilterns were ridiculous and drove up cost - unnecessarily. Not to mention the flip-flopping.
The whole thing could have been built for £100bn had the scope been stabilised and calibrated properly and Phase 2A to Crewe, in particular, is an affordable one.
The tunnels aren't neccessary, I'm not so sure about the speed - I don't think it cost that much extra.
I think the issue came down to continual tinkering - we really should be deciding on a route and then issuing primary legislation that allows it to be built without court interference.
Equally it's one of a number of projects (electrification is another) where we just need a team of people employed for x decades who move from project to project to complete things.
The speed does cost a lot more because you need far shallower gradients and curves, and therefore much more civil engineering, and slab based track rather than ballast, which is much more expensive. At that speed you also have to consider the pressure waves entering tunnels in front of and around trains due to "air hammer" which is because the trains are so fast you have to consider air as a fluid. It means their diameters are much larger.
We might avoid some of this if just a few more politicians had something even close to an engineering background.
I remember this argument at the start of the interminable arguments over the project. Very few people accepted that the (completely unnecessary) top speed would cost a lot more. A common attitude was the reducing the headline figure was penny pinching.
A better informed debate might have avoided some if the years of delay.
Politicians love things which can be describe as 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe'.
There was lots more money to be made for lawyers and consultants from a high speed railway than an ordinary railway.
Put them together and the mentality of "if we're building a new railway it might as well be high speed".
Now consider how you would view a business which wanted a new car and said "if we're buying a new car it might as well be a Ferrari".
My first act as PM would be to ban the phrase "world beating".
The NHS is the envy of the world, said no-one who’s ever lived in another OECD country.
Well the NHS sits in the mid/high scores among OECD countries, notably on cost per patient treated- the US spends a fortune for pretty ho-hum results. The point about health, as with so many things in the UK is not that it is so terrible, it is that it is so patchy- when it is good it is very very good, when it is bad, it is horrid.
The problem for the UK is not that things are so disastrous, it is that they are so mediocre.
If the purpose of the NHS is to treat patients cheaply, irrespective of outcomes, then you are right. But in terms of medical outcomes the NHS comes last out of the 11 countries regularly compared. At times we are even worse than the US when it comes to medical outcomes.
Personally I would suggest that medical outcomes is the overwhemingly important measure when comparing medical systems. Others may have different ideas.
The figures I have seen - the UK is in the middle of the pack for health outcomes eg:
Health Outcomes BY THE NUMBERS
Average life expectancy in England was 81 years in 2023 (the same as the average in high-income countries).
The avoidable mortality rate in the U.K. was 227 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021 (compared with 237 across OECD countries). [key metric for comparing healthcare systems]
The top three causes of death in England in 2023 were: - Neoplasms (cancer): 75 deaths per 100,000 people - Diseases of the circulatory system: 66 deaths per 100,000 people - Diseases of the respiratory system: 30 deaths per 100,000 people.
The maternal mortality rate in the U.K. was 8.5 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023 (compared with 11 on average in Europe).
The infant mortality rate in the U.K. was 4.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2023 (compared with 4 on average across high-income countries).
In 2021, the share of the U.K. population with mental health disorders was 17 percent (compared with 16% on average in high-income countries).
Guns were responsible for 0.17 deaths per 100,000 in England in 2023.
In 2024, 27 percent of adults in the U.K. were affected by obesity (compared with 26% in high-income countries).
What Farage could do is let Sarah Pochin take over as leader for a while and see what happens to Reform's poll ratings. If the experiment works, stay with it. Otherwise Farage could return as leader.
What Farage could do is let Sarah Pochin take over as leader for a while and see what happens to Reform's poll ratings. If the experiment works, stay with it. Otherwise Farage could return as leader.
What fresh madness is this? Apparently Starmer plans to cut EU student fees to same as UK students.
The unis are already in massive financial crisis.
Whatever the merits of this and the defence policies all of a sudden he seems like a man in a hurry. Now normally I'm in favour of passing legislation and our political masters trying to get things done but this and the defense spend etc all seem like things he should probably leave to the incoming PM (Burnham) to take a view on on the 20th.
What Farage could do is let Sarah Pochin take over as leader for a while and see what happens to Reform's poll ratings. If the experiment works, stay with it. Otherwise Farage could return as leader.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’d say that was fair.
I think there is scope for Kemi to work with Burnham on this and make it "sensible government for today's problems." Reform would likely knee-jerk react against it.There might be other areas where a long-term - ie longer than one term - could be agreed. Then ask the voters if they really want to rip it up.
It would give Kemi the opportunity to put a restraining hand on the worst leftist obsessions.
Best chance of a reset for the big two parties.
Big problem would be not so much Reform but the Lib Dem’s, who promise anything to any special interest group,that could buy votes. Especially against the Tories in the Waitrose belt. They’d need to be on board but I’d say it’s unlikely as they’re cynical opportunists. The other issue would be the SNP who would also vigorously oppose for partisan reasons.
Yes, you don't like the Liberal Democrats as you tell us ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
Apparently the party backs completely open borders (it doesn't) and they are cynical opportunists (as much as any and every other party, perhaps).
As for working or not working with other parties, the LDs have been in Government with both Labour and Conservative in the last 50 years whereas Reform are a set of posturing failures who would have problems running a bath.
So you seriously think the Lib Dem’s wouldn’t use an agreement between Labour govt and the Torys on the triple lock for their own aims rather than doing what’s right for the country. 🙄
I don’t like the Lib Dem’s nationally. Political whores open to any punter
Locally I don’t mind them. Some decent local councillors.
You're entitled to that view - you're wrong but you're entitled to be wrong.
You are presumably saying that IF Labour and the Conservatives were to agree to scrap the Triple Lock, the LDs (and Reform presumably) would argue for its maintenance.
Short answer, I don't know. I'd like to think the party would back abolition - Labour and the Conservatives have 530 seats in the Commons - they could push through legislation ending it tomorrow if they wanted and the 72 LDs and 6 or 7 Reform MPs couldn't do anything about it.
I think there's an argument for maintaining Triple Lock for those whose only income is the State pension and end it for everyone else but that's a debate to be had. I'd prefer to see personal tax allowances raised (a good LD idea from the Coalition) along with NI thresholds to lift more out of tax completely and start unwinding years of Conservative and Labour imposed fiscaldrag even if the actual tax rates rose (to cover additional defence expenditure).
As for being "whores", we'll see if the Conservatives are willing to support Reform to keep Labour out or back Labour to keep Reform out.
We're talking complete hypotheticals anyway. As if the Tories are going to agree with Labour to abolish the triple lock. That's fucking with your remaining core vote - you don't do it.
Every party has a core heartland that it dare not piss off. Labour has public sector and third sector workers. The Lib Dems have graduate professionals who tend to have children at school (hence why the tuition fee debacle was so damaging). Reform has skilled trades and white van man. The Tories have pensioners. If that makes them all "whores", well maybe but it's not surprising.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
All bad?
You and Malcolmg have an interest tbh, as recipients. I do about the 60% tax trap, because it affects me. Bondegezou does because he's in the largesse university sector and does about 2 hours work a day, and worries they'd come for him next.
We need to reform tax and spend across the board, and both need to be lowered.
We need to spend more on education and defence.
I don’t receive a penny from the state, you cheeky fucker, I’m funding my own retirement until I get to state pension age. Seven years to go.
But you will have an interest then?
This isn't about cheeky. Just acknowledging where our interests lie.
You said I had an interest as a recipient,
I’m not a recipient.
Fair enough. Are you not bothered by the triple-lock for what you pick up in seven years time then?
I’d like to see the triple lock reformed to make it sustainable but also the rest of the benefits bill too.
Here it’s predominantly scrap the triple lock but hose money on UC and PIP. Do nothing about it.
I am told that there is (finally) a "Barrier Removal Programme" starting to move - the Council "put aside a fund"! in 2021.
I'd be interested to hear If anyone notices.
This after a friend who is a Professor at York University who has multiple sclerosis, and now uses a 3-wheeled mobility aid (having gone from cycle to stabilised cycle over the years). sued the Council under the Equality Act 2020 after they blocked the entrance to a green space (Hob Moor) with the following custom-made anti-wheelchair obstruction, which was uniquely abusive of them. They spent taxpayers' money installing barriers quite widely, at several thousand a pop to implement law breaking. Before that he attempted to engage the Council for 3 years. They did the usual things - ignore him, ask for more time, dissemble, then cave at a cost of several thousand.
The problems with facilities designed by people who do not understand disability, or without thinking about it, are covered in his article.
There is a deeper issue, here. A structural one.
The “facilities designed by people who do not understand disability, or without thinking about it”
This pattern repeats - something designed and created at great expense, that is rubbish. And often breaks the rules it is supposed to enforce.
The famous Bat Tunnel was founded on a stupid idea - perfect safety for bats rather than an assessed risk. Nothing can be perfectly safe - even at infinite cost. The specification was created by someone without even a passing interest in reading about engineering and managing physical projects.
It is this deep, ingrained, lack of knowledge that causes much damage in our society.
Yet a number of ancient woodlands have been bulldozed to make way for HS2. The inconsistency is what is so baffling - the idea is that you do a CBA that values all this stuff and therefore you reach an efficient outcome - but HS2 decisions seem to made at random.
I think at this point it would have been cheaper and faster to have bored a tunnel from London to Birmingham!
The user experience will mostly consist of tunnels and deep cuttings anyway. Once in a while the hapless passenger will emerge into bright sunlight (the upper Leam Valley viaduct, for example) only to be plunged back into the gloom of a cutting 10 seconds later, followed by a tunnel, followed by another cutting. One of the reasons for the outrageous cost is the need to lower the track due to Home Counties nimbyism.
Indeed, for all the messing about it would have been simpler to get rid of most of the objections by using a tunnel for most of the journey.
A high speed line is a pain to design at surface level, because it has to be very flat and with long corner radii, much easier to put the whole lot underground, with little evidence on the surface bar some air vents and emergency exits.
One of the pleasures of long distance high speed trains ( and quite a few slow ones) is the attractive scenery of Mediterranean France, Italy or Spain rolling past your window.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
Maybe so. But how do you factor that into a defence investment plan? It's a paradigm shift.
Well above my pay grade and understanding. The best I could do is ask Claude......
Maybe look at the Manhattan Project and WWII Bletchley Park. Get the best minds around and give them whatever they need.
Then give it to the Yanks and let them get all the benefits
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’d say that was fair.
A better approach is to use a long term time frame.
What currently happens is inflation is high in year 1. Wages go up in year 2 to reflect the inflation in year 1 and the pension goes up thanks to the wage increase in year 2.
If instead you went over the past 4 years those impacts would be quickly evened out and what is left would be more sustainable
Better if they tied it to junior doctors pay increases, pension would be decent then. be over 30% higher by now.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
All bad?
You and Malcolmg have an interest tbh, as recipients. I do about the 60% tax trap, because it affects me. Bondegezou does because he's in the largesse university sector and does about 2 hours work a day, and worries they'd come for him next.
We need to reform tax and spend across the board, and both need to be lowered.
We need to spend more on education and defence.
Away you moronic halfwit , you whining southern jessie you are not only one in the tax trap. I have an interest having paid for the state pension for 50 years and now pay at least half of it in tax to boot. Nobody has ever given me a penny , I pay shedloads of tax every month as well.
I am told that there is (finally) a "Barrier Removal Programme" starting to move - the Council "put aside a fund"! in 2021.
I'd be interested to hear If anyone notices.
This after a friend who is a Professor at York University who has multiple sclerosis, and now uses a 3-wheeled mobility aid (having gone from cycle to stabilised cycle over the years). sued the Council under the Equality Act 2020 after they blocked the entrance to a green space (Hob Moor) with the following custom-made anti-wheelchair obstruction, which was uniquely abusive of them. They spent taxpayers' money installing barriers quite widely, at several thousand a pop to implement law breaking. Before that he attempted to engage the Council for 3 years. They did the usual things - ignore him, ask for more time, dissemble, then cave at a cost of several thousand.
The problems with facilities designed by people who do not understand disability, or without thinking about it, are covered in his article.
There is a deeper issue, here. A structural one.
The “facilities designed by people who do not understand disability, or without thinking about it”
This pattern repeats - something designed and created at great expense, that is rubbish. And often breaks the rules it is supposed to enforce.
The famous Bat Tunnel was founded on a stupid idea - perfect safety for bats rather than an assessed risk. Nothing can be perfectly safe - even at infinite cost. The specification was created by someone without even a passing interest in reading about engineering and managing physical projects.
It is this deep, ingrained, lack of knowledge that causes much damage in our society.
Yet a number of ancient woodlands have been bulldozed to make way for HS2. The inconsistency is what is so baffling - the idea is that you do a CBA that values all this stuff and therefore you reach an efficient outcome - but HS2 decisions seem to made at random.
I think at this point it would have been cheaper and faster to have bored a tunnel from London to Birmingham!
The user experience will mostly consist of tunnels and deep cuttings anyway. Once in a while the hapless passenger will emerge into bright sunlight (the upper Leam Valley viaduct, for example) only to be plunged back into the gloom of a cutting 10 seconds later, followed by a tunnel, followed by another cutting. One of the reasons for the outrageous cost is the need to lower the track due to Home Counties nimbyism.
Indeed, for all the messing about it would have been simpler to get rid of most of the objections by using a tunnel for most of the journey.
A high speed line is a pain to design at surface level, because it has to be very flat and with long corner radii, much easier to put the whole lot underground, with little evidence on the surface bar some air vents and emergency exits.
One of the pleasures of long distance high speed trains ( and quite a few slow ones) is the attractive scenery of Mediterranean France, Italy or Spain rolling past your window.
No good for the HS2 Birmingham Branch Line, you are in tunnels.
Comments
The good news:
£26 billion over the next decade in Project Royal Oak – the biggest naval base upgrade for over 45 years, including multi-billion-pound upgrades at Faslane, Portsmouth and Devonport.
https://x.com/FennellJW/status/2071905637148057957
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990
(My impression is that it has been, on the whole, a moderate success, but I am not disabled, and I haven't seen series studies of its effects.)
I think as a short term measure to get away from the current fine. Longer term change to do something akin to your suggestion.
The unis are already in massive financial crisis.
One estimate is that about half of all adult Paraguayan men died in the conflict.
Must say their Rubles have definitely given the place a lick of paint and a makeover. It's even posher than the posh bits of Tbilisi.
This isn't about cheeky. Just acknowledging where our interests lie.
The rest is a policy choice.
Don't you remember how shit Leave.EU and Grassroots Out was?
I’m not a recipient.
Apparently the party backs completely open borders (it doesn't) and they are cynical opportunists (as much as any and every other party, perhaps).
As for working or not working with other parties, the LDs have been in Government with both Labour and Conservative in the last 50 years whereas Reform are a set of posturing failures who would have problems running a bath.
There is no longer "poor pay" for work, and that's very fair, although we'd all like more money.
Over the past two years, a surge in global crisis events – from terrorist attacks and political assassinations to full-scale military conflicts – has tested the societal resilience of democracies and autocracies alike. While online speculation has long distorted public perception during such incidents, recent CETaS research has shown how the increasing integration of AI into our information ecosystem is now worsening these situations.
AI content generators (including image, video, audio and music-generation tools) are enabling those seeking to cause harm to create "evidence" from unfolding scenes to sow confusion or incite violence, while AI chatbots – queried by users seeking real-time updates – often provide unverified or factually incorrect information, further muddying the truth during high-stakes moments.
One reasons NEETs is so high is because we've managed to increase the minimum wage to the point employers can't take any risks and promotions aren't worthwhile as more and more jobs / skillsets have been pulled into the minimum wage band.
I don’t like the Lib Dem’s nationally. Political whores open to any punter
Locally I don’t mind them. Some decent local councillors.
https://x.com/hch_hill/status/2071601244670427400?s=61
Some will argue that faced with starvation etc, etc, those on UC will chose to work. And apply this logic to pensioners. If we starved or froze a few would people learn to save for their future?
Here it’s predominantly scrap the triple lock but hose money on UC and PIP. Do nothing about it.
India 94,955
China 93,585
Pakistan 34,375
Nigeria 23,160
Nepal 17,385
United States 13,115
Bangladesh 7,550
Hong Kong 5,980
Malaysia 5,195
Saudi Arabia 4,295
(These figures always surprise me because in the teaching I do, we have lots of Chinese students and very few South Asian ones.)
That is a damning statistic on so many levels - some will see it as vindication of an anti-migrant line, they are sponging off us living on benefits and damaging our finances and of course every one of them is a potential rapist or child molester and they should all be deported.
The other view is it's a dreadful waste of human capital - are these people unwilling or unable to work or unemployable (language skills?). Thre has to be a way to get them productive even at minimum wage and contributing even if in a small way.
https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/2071768865764225064?s=61
You are presumably saying that IF Labour and the Conservatives were to agree to scrap the Triple Lock, the LDs (and Reform presumably) would argue for its maintenance.
Short answer, I don't know. I'd like to think the party would back abolition - Labour and the Conservatives have 530 seats in the Commons - they could push through legislation ending it tomorrow if they wanted and the 72 LDs and 6 or 7 Reform MPs couldn't do anything about it.
I think there's an argument for maintaining Triple Lock for those whose only income is the State pension and end it for everyone else but that's a debate to be had. I'd prefer to see personal tax allowances raised (a good LD idea from the Coalition) along with NI thresholds to lift more out of tax completely and start unwinding years of Conservative and Labour imposed fiscaldrag even if the actual tax rates rose (to cover additional defence expenditure).
As for being "whores", we'll see if the Conservatives are willing to support Reform to keep Labour out or back Labour to keep Reform out.
Health Outcomes
BY THE NUMBERS
Average life expectancy in England was 81 years in 2023 (the same as the average in high-income countries).
The avoidable mortality rate in the U.K. was 227 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021 (compared with 237 across OECD countries). [key metric for comparing healthcare systems]
The top three causes of death in England in 2023 were:
- Neoplasms (cancer): 75 deaths per 100,000 people
- Diseases of the circulatory system: 66 deaths per 100,000 people
- Diseases of the respiratory system: 30 deaths per 100,000 people.
The maternal mortality rate in the U.K. was 8.5 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023 (compared with 11 on average in Europe).
The infant mortality rate in the U.K. was 4.2 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2023 (compared with 4 on average across high-income countries).
In 2021, the share of the U.K. population with mental health disorders was 17 percent (compared with 16% on average in high-income countries).
Guns were responsible for 0.17 deaths per 100,000 in England in 2023.
In 2024, 27 percent of adults in the U.K. were affected by obesity (compared with 26% in high-income countries).
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/england
NEW: Andy Burnham has denied briefings that he is "Labour’s first female PM"
"I never have and never will describe myself as the first female Labour PM"
NEW THREAD
Every party has a core heartland that it dare not piss off. Labour has public sector and third sector workers. The Lib Dems have graduate professionals who tend to have children at school (hence why the tuition fee debacle was so damaging). Reform has skilled trades and white van man. The Tories have pensioners. If that makes them all "whores", well maybe but it's not surprising.