Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
Just to say the best example of this probably is a park of some kind. It's entirely public - anyone can have a wander round without hurting anyone else - but the overall impact is highly progressive, because those in tiny box flats without a garden get the biggest benefit. This is the kind of thing you'd hope a Labour government would put more emphasis on.
It's a massive problem for councils. Nearly all the spending goes on social care, because that costs what it costs and you can't wish it away. That spending is spent on a minority of a minority of the local population, so it's largely invisible. Most of us just see a monthly bill that we get very little benefit from.
No wonder we're all so hacked off.
Very little benefit!
You get to live in a community where the weak and vulnerable are looked after. That’s why it’s a community charge, you contribute to your community for the benefit of all in it.
Really. Labour about to "lurch to the left", and yet the Tories can't benefit from centrists having a nosebleed.
A very daft point.
Nobody answering this poll thinks there is going to be a 'lurch to the left' - we don't know that there will be. This is a standard new leader bounce (or more accurately an unpopular leader leaving bounce) - drawn equally from all the other main parties.
From all the news reports and his own statements we know Burnham will increase tax on property, capital gains etc and won't make any welfare cuts. His premiership will almost certainly be a shift even further left than Starmer is and the biggest losers in most polls from that are the Greens.
The Ipsos poll is one still with Starmer as PM
You are an avid politics follower and you are drawing fairly high level inferences. All the wider public will really have absorbed is that Starmer is going, and a nice guy who seems to have done a good job being Mayor of Manchester is replacing him. Even we don't actually know that Burnham will pull the party leftward. He doesn't have to do that, given that he has skipped election by the Labour Party rank and file and his first electoral test will be the next General Election.
The point is that there is no way on earth that Kemi could reasonably expect to be a beneficiary of Burnham's leftward march at this stage. Let's see what happens after the first budget.
There is, for example the latest MiC poll on Burnham has Labour up 6% with Burnham relative to Starmer to 27%, Reform down 2% to 26%, the Greens down 2% to 8% and the LDs down 2% to 10%. The Tories though would be up 1% to 23%. The first Burnham budget will almost certainly be more tax and more spending so Kemi can draw clear blue water after with Burnham Labour
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
Just to say the best example of this probably is a park of some kind. It's entirely public - anyone can have a wander round without hurting anyone else - but the overall impact is highly progressive, because those in tiny box flats without a garden get the biggest benefit. This is the kind of thing you'd hope a Labour government would put more emphasis on.
It's a massive problem for councils. Nearly all the spending goes on social care, because that costs what it costs and you can't wish it away. That spending is spent on a minority of a minority of the local population, so it's largely invisible. Most of us just see a monthly bill that we get very little benefit from.
No wonder we're all so hacked off.
Very little benefit!
You get to live in a community where the weak and vulnerable are looked after. That’s why it’s a community charge, you contribute to your community for the benefit of all in it.
Peter.
The benefit isn't visible unless there is someone in your street being visited a few times a day.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
Just to say the best example of this probably is a park of some kind. It's entirely public - anyone can have a wander round without hurting anyone else - but the overall impact is highly progressive, because those in tiny box flats without a garden get the biggest benefit. This is the kind of thing you'd hope a Labour government would put more emphasis on.
It's a massive problem for councils. Nearly all the spending goes on social care, because that costs what it costs and you can't wish it away. That spending is spent on a minority of a minority of the local population, so it's largely invisible. Most of us just see a monthly bill that we get very little benefit from.
No wonder we're all so hacked off.
Very little benefit!
You get to live in a community where the weak and vulnerable are looked after. That’s why it’s a community charge, you contribute to your community for the benefit of all in it.
Peter.
Absolutely we should. But Council Tax is far too flimsy a way to collect what needs to be spent. And funding social care by making it almost impossible for local councils to do anything nice for anyone else at all, ever, is one of the key reasons that our surroundings and politics are the way they are.
But, as TMexPM found out, knowing what needs to be done is rather different to knowing how to get elected promising to do it.
Really. Labour about to "lurch to the left", and yet the Tories can't benefit from centrists having a nosebleed.
A very daft point.
Nobody answering this poll thinks there is going to be a 'lurch to the left' - we don't know that there will be. This is a standard new leader bounce (or more accurately an unpopular leader leaving bounce) - drawn equally from all the other main parties.
From all the news reports and his own statements we know Burnham will increase tax on property, capital gains etc and won't make any welfare cuts. His premiership will almost certainly be a shift even further left than Starmer is and the biggest losers in most polls from that are the Greens.
The Ipsos poll is one still with Starmer as PM
You are an avid politics follower and you are drawing fairly high level inferences. All the wider public will really have absorbed is that Starmer is going, and a nice guy who seems to have done a good job being Mayor of Manchester is replacing him. Even we don't actually know that Burnham will pull the party leftward. He doesn't have to do that, given that he has skipped election by the Labour Party rank and file and his first electoral test will be the next General Election.
The point is that there is no way on earth that Kemi could reasonably expect to be a beneficiary of Burnham's leftward march at this stage. Let's see what happens after the first budget.
There is, for example the latest MiC poll on Burnham has Labour up 6% with Burnham relative to Starmer to 27%, Reform down 2% to 26%, the Greens down 2% to 8% and the LDs down 2% to 10%. The Tories though would be up 1% to 23%. The first Burnham budget will almost certainly be more tax and more spending so Kemi can draw clear blue water after with Burnham Labour
However, Burnham remains somewhat sphinx-like. There is a small part of me that thinks he will be pragmatic enough to allow more drilling in the North Sea to raise tax revenues for his plans (as an example).
Also, his Chancellor pick will be fascinating.
He has said the choice is immaterial, because whoever is Chancellor will have to be fully signed up to the Burnham agenda. That could be seen as a reassurance that it will be Ed, but not full fat Ed.
But to me, Burnham must know that Ed Milliband isn't the right choice for a submissive Chancellor. If he gets the job he will absolutely resist power being taken from the Treasury. Burnham's plans for the Treasury make far more sense with Cooper or even Streeting in the role. Milliband as Foreign Secretary, take it or leave it, is the pragmatic way forward.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
Just to say the best example of this probably is a park of some kind. It's entirely public - anyone can have a wander round without hurting anyone else - but the overall impact is highly progressive, because those in tiny box flats without a garden get the biggest benefit. This is the kind of thing you'd hope a Labour government would put more emphasis on.
It's a massive problem for councils. Nearly all the spending goes on social care, because that costs what it costs and you can't wish it away. That spending is spent on a minority of a minority of the local population, so it's largely invisible. Most of us just see a monthly bill that we get very little benefit from.
No wonder we're all so hacked off.
Very little benefit!
You get to live in a community where the weak and vulnerable are looked after. That’s why it’s a community charge, you contribute to your community for the benefit of all in it.
Peter.
Absolutely we should. But Council Tax is far too flimsy a way to collect what needs to be spent. And funding social care by making it almost impossible for local councils to do anything nice for anyone else at all, ever, is one of the key reasons that our surroundings and politics are the way they are.
But, as TMexPM found out, knowing what needs to be done is rather different to knowing how to get elected promising to do it.
Council tax doesn't even cover social care -- the Institute for Government figures I just found show councils spend more than two thirds of their income on adult and children's social care, and they get less than half their income from council tax. Maybe what we need is to fund and provide this more centrally, like we do the NHS, and have councils able to focus on local services funded by local taxation? But as you say, not clear how we get there from here...
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Obviously nothing about cracking down on freeloaders and parasites or encouraging self-reliance.
Just screwing the hard-working and enterprising even more and wasting the proceeds.
As the Wall Street Journal once said, "Goodbye, Great Britain, it was nice knowing you".
What would your "cracking down on freeloaders and parasites" consist of? How would it work?
Please do explain, I am sure we'd all love to hear.
Again another person using "we" would love to hear. There is no "we" on PB or shouldn't be. This idea emanating from 'progressives' on here is just another load of bollocks used to put down anyone with other views. "We'd all love to know who exactly these "we" are.
Fair cop. I did preface it with "I'm sure" which as 'we' all know means, "I think it possible".
However, I fully retract and hereby recognise that some on PB have no interest whatsoever in @Fishing or anyone else having to give any detail to support his frankly populist war-cry about "cracking down on freeloaders and parasites".
I for one though would like to understand what that might actually mean and how it might be achieved, and there may be other PBers who are also interest.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
Just to say the best example of this probably is a park of some kind. It's entirely public - anyone can have a wander round without hurting anyone else - but the overall impact is highly progressive, because those in tiny box flats without a garden get the biggest benefit. This is the kind of thing you'd hope a Labour government would put more emphasis on.
It's a massive problem for councils. Nearly all the spending goes on social care, because that costs what it costs and you can't wish it away. That spending is spent on a minority of a minority of the local population, so it's largely invisible. Most of us just see a monthly bill that we get very little benefit from.
No wonder we're all so hacked off.
Very little benefit!
You get to live in a community where the weak and vulnerable are looked after. That’s why it’s a community charge, you contribute to your community for the benefit of all in it.
Peter.
Absolutely we should. But Council Tax is far too flimsy a way to collect what needs to be spent. And funding social care by making it almost impossible for local councils to do anything nice for anyone else at all, ever, is one of the key reasons that our surroundings and politics are the way they are.
But, as TMexPM found out, knowing what needs to be done is rather different to knowing how to get elected promising to do it.
Council tax doesn't even cover social care -- the Institute for Government figures I just found show councils spend more than two thirds of their income on adult and children's social care, and they get less than half their income from council tax. Maybe what we need is to fund and provide this more centrally, like we do the NHS, and have councils able to focus on local services funded by local taxation? But as you say, not clear how we get there from here...
That’s been the obvious answer for such a long time. But government doesn’t want to pick up the bill, neither do the relatives of the people in care, thus it has been politically expedient to leave the escalating costs with local councils, driving many of them towards bankruptcy.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
Just to say the best example of this probably is a park of some kind. It's entirely public - anyone can have a wander round without hurting anyone else - but the overall impact is highly progressive, because those in tiny box flats without a garden get the biggest benefit. This is the kind of thing you'd hope a Labour government would put more emphasis on.
It's a massive problem for councils. Nearly all the spending goes on social care, because that costs what it costs and you can't wish it away. That spending is spent on a minority of a minority of the local population, so it's largely invisible. Most of us just see a monthly bill that we get very little benefit from.
No wonder we're all so hacked off.
Very little benefit!
You get to live in a community where the weak and vulnerable are looked after. That’s why it’s a community charge, you contribute to your community for the benefit of all in it.
Peter.
Absolutely we should. But Council Tax is far too flimsy a way to collect what needs to be spent. And funding social care by making it almost impossible for local councils to do anything nice for anyone else at all, ever, is one of the key reasons that our surroundings and politics are the way they are.
But, as TMexPM found out, knowing what needs to be done is rather different to knowing how to get elected promising to do it.
Council tax doesn't even cover social care -- the Institute for Government figures I just found show councils spend more than two thirds of their income on adult and children's social care, and they get less than half their income from council tax. Maybe what we need is to fund and provide this more centrally, like we do the NHS, and have councils able to focus on local services funded by local taxation? But as you say, not clear how we get there from here...
Local Councils should be funding local priorities and decisions made locally.
The criteria for care is set nationally, not locally, so it should be funded by those who have made the decision - Westminster and central funds.
If local Councils are spending the cash they should be making the decisions and free to say "we don't want to give care to ..." and back that up.
To be 'generous' by saying people have an entitlement, but then not fund that entitlement and make someone else do so is no way to run a country.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
Just to say the best example of this probably is a park of some kind. It's entirely public - anyone can have a wander round without hurting anyone else - but the overall impact is highly progressive, because those in tiny box flats without a garden get the biggest benefit. This is the kind of thing you'd hope a Labour government would put more emphasis on.
It's a massive problem for councils. Nearly all the spending goes on social care, because that costs what it costs and you can't wish it away. That spending is spent on a minority of a minority of the local population, so it's largely invisible. Most of us just see a monthly bill that we get very little benefit from.
No wonder we're all so hacked off.
Very little benefit!
You get to live in a community where the weak and vulnerable are looked after. That’s why it’s a community charge, you contribute to your community for the benefit of all in it.
Peter.
Absolutely we should. But Council Tax is far too flimsy a way to collect what needs to be spent. And funding social care by making it almost impossible for local councils to do anything nice for anyone else at all, ever, is one of the key reasons that our surroundings and politics are the way they are.
But, as TMexPM found out, knowing what needs to be done is rather different to knowing how to get elected promising to do it.
Council tax doesn't even cover social care -- the Institute for Government figures I just found show councils spend more than two thirds of their income on adult and children's social care, and they get less than half their income from council tax. Maybe what we need is to fund and provide this more centrally, like we do the NHS, and have councils able to focus on local services funded by local taxation? But as you say, not clear how we get there from here...
That’s been the obvious answer for such a long time. But government doesn’t want to pick up the bill, neither do the relatives of the people in care, thus it has been politically expedient to leave the escalating costs with local councils, driving many of them towards bankruptcy.
If government does not want to pick up the bill, then don't pass laws giving entitlements.
Government has a right to say no and pass a law accordingly. If Councils don't want to then, they could say no too and the person goes without.
The problem is government wants to have its cake and eat it too. Say "yes you can have this entitlement" - but we're not going to fund it.
Really. Labour about to "lurch to the left", and yet the Tories can't benefit from centrists having a nosebleed.
A very daft point.
Nobody answering this poll thinks there is going to be a 'lurch to the left' - we don't know that there will be. This is a standard new leader bounce (or more accurately an unpopular leader leaving bounce) - drawn equally from all the other main parties.
From all the news reports and his own statements we know Burnham will increase tax on property, capital gains etc and won't make any welfare cuts. His premiership will almost certainly be a shift even further left than Starmer is and the biggest losers in most polls from that are the Greens.
The Ipsos poll is one still with Starmer as PM
You are an avid politics follower and you are drawing fairly high level inferences. All the wider public will really have absorbed is that Starmer is going, and a nice guy who seems to have done a good job being Mayor of Manchester is replacing him. Even we don't actually know that Burnham will pull the party leftward. He doesn't have to do that, given that he has skipped election by the Labour Party rank and file and his first electoral test will be the next General Election.
The point is that there is no way on earth that Kemi could reasonably expect to be a beneficiary of Burnham's leftward march at this stage. Let's see what happens after the first budget.
There is, for example the latest MiC poll on Burnham has Labour up 6% with Burnham relative to Starmer to 27%, Reform down 2% to 26%, the Greens down 2% to 8% and the LDs down 2% to 10%. The Tories though would be up 1% to 23%. The first Burnham budget will almost certainly be more tax and more spending so Kemi can draw clear blue water after with Burnham Labour
However, Burnham remains somewhat sphinx-like. There is a small part of me that thinks he will be pragmatic enough to allow more drilling in the North Sea to raise tax revenues for his plans (as an example).
Also, his Chancellor pick will be fascinating.
He has said the choice is immaterial, because whoever is Chancellor will have to be fully signed up to the Burnham agenda. That could be seen as a reassurance that it will be Ed, but not full fat Ed.
But to me, Burnham must know that Ed Milliband isn't the right choice for a submissive Chancellor. If he gets the job he will absolutely resist power being taken from the Treasury. Burnham's plans for the Treasury make far more sense with Cooper or even Streeting in the role. Milliband as Foreign Secretary, take it or leave it, is the pragmatic way forward.
Yes, if Ed Miliband is Chancellor we know for certain he will use that agenda to further shift Labour left on tax and spend and his powerbase to tax fossil fuel companies, including those drilling for North Sea oil more
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
"Obviously dodgy geezer has surprise downfall as politician for being a bit too blatant in his dodgyness
In other news, Boris Johnson in surprise divorce due to excessive infidelity"
I don't know about you but its shocked me to the core, same as finding out Russell Brand and David Sullivan have a "colourful" past when it comes to women.
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
If you search George Cottrell on PB we were discussing his dodginess and links with Farage back in 2024.
Its not really been a big secret, its not like he hides away in the shadows, he is there at Farage's side all the time at events and photos. The difference is now the media are willing to highlight it more. He has been asked a bit in the past about it but they are now running all these things back to back to build the momentum.
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
If you search George Cottrell on PB we were discussing his dodginess and links with Farage back in 2024.
Its not really been a big secret, its not like he hides away in the shadows, he is there at Farage's side all the time at events and photos. The difference is now the media are willing to highlight it more. He has been asked a bit in the past about it but they are now running all these things back to back to build the momentum.
So why has this story broken now? One possibility is that some key bits of the jigsaw have only just come into the hands of the hacks. I'm not entirely sure I buy that. Another is that it was convenient not to talk about all of this while Nigel looked like a winner. If the media barons have decided that Nigel looks more like a loser, and therefore it's both safe and satisfying to pour buckets of sewage over him... that feels significiant.
If Burnham can take over in government and not feel that he has to look anxiously at what Farage is up to, he starts to look very lucky, in the Napoleonic sense.
A barrister who was kicked out of the profession after falsely claiming he attended the University of Oxford during a job interview has won a High Court appeal against the decision.
Why would anybody lie about going to such a second rate university? Also claims studied medicine in 2 years....should have had warning alarms going off.
More seriously, he has told an absolute load of lies e.g. playing cricket for various high profile clubs. How dishonest do you have to be to actually get kicked out of the profession?
I suspect most of his clients will be perfectly happy to have him lie repeatedly on their behalf.
I thought telling lies was an intrinsic part of a lawyer’s job. How else would they get not guilty verdicts for their guilty clients, or compensation for chancers?
Scream. This kind of comment winds me up. It is not for the defence to lie on their client's behalf and lawyers will almost never do so.
The onus of proving guilt is on the Crown. If I or my colleagues do not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the jury to acquit. Pointing out gaps, inconsistencies or discrepancies in the Crown case is not lying. It is giving the accused the protection that beyond a reasonable doubt means.
When making a speech for the defence the defence will very properly make the point that if the jury believe the accused, or if his evidence even creates a reasonable doubt in their minds their duty is to acquit. That is also not lying. Defence counsel do not say that the accused was telling the truth. They invite the jury to consider that.
The real challenge for lawyers in this case for instance is to claim the BBC defamed EVRI, without dissolving into helpless laughter:
Evri has filed a claim that it lost prospective clients after the broadcast of the Panorama documentary Evri: Where’s my parcel?
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
If you search George Cottrell on PB we were discussing his dodginess and links with Farage back in 2024.
Its not really been a big secret, its not like he hides away in the shadows, he is there at Farage's side all the time at events and photos. The difference is now the media are willing to highlight it more. He has been asked a bit in the past about it but they are now running all these things back to back to build the momentum.
So why has this story broken now? One possibility is that some key bits of the jigsaw have only just come into the hands of the hacks. I'm not entirely sure I buy that. Another is that it was convenient not to talk about all of this while Nigel looked like a winner. If the media barons have decided that Nigel looks more like a loser, and therefore it's both safe and satisfying to pour buckets of sewage over him... that feels significiant.
If Burnham can take over in government and not feel that he has to look anxiously at what Farage is up to, he starts to look very lucky, in the Napoleonic sense.
What we know about Cottrell is that he is a supposed expert on money laundering and entered into a plea bargain with the US authorities on that basis, but apart from a weird "daddy" complex with Farage he doesn't appear to have money of his own. If he's passing undeclared "gifts" to Farage where did he get that money?
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
Just to say the best example of this probably is a park of some kind. It's entirely public - anyone can have a wander round without hurting anyone else - but the overall impact is highly progressive, because those in tiny box flats without a garden get the biggest benefit. This is the kind of thing you'd hope a Labour government would put more emphasis on.
It's a massive problem for councils. Nearly all the spending goes on social care, because that costs what it costs and you can't wish it away. That spending is spent on a minority of a minority of the local population, so it's largely invisible. Most of us just see a monthly bill that we get very little benefit from.
No wonder we're all so hacked off.
Very little benefit!
You get to live in a community where the weak and vulnerable are looked after. That’s why it’s a community charge, you contribute to your community for the benefit of all in it.
Peter.
Absolutely we should. But Council Tax is far too flimsy a way to collect what needs to be spent. And funding social care by making it almost impossible for local councils to do anything nice for anyone else at all, ever, is one of the key reasons that our surroundings and politics are the way they are.
But, as TMexPM found out, knowing what needs to be done is rather different to knowing how to get elected promising to do it.
Council tax doesn't even cover social care -- the Institute for Government figures I just found show councils spend more than two thirds of their income on adult and children's social care, and they get less than half their income from council tax. Maybe what we need is to fund and provide this more centrally, like we do the NHS, and have councils able to focus on local services funded by local taxation? But as you say, not clear how we get there from here...
It might be that that's the only way to get people on board with funding it, sadly. A night in the rehab ward on the Royal Edinburgh Hospital costs 500-600 a night, and at any given moment there's 60 people waiting to be discharged but lack of funding in Social Care means that the legal conditions for their discharge can't be met, so they're not allowed to leave. So one extra month is maybe 4-5 years of PIP or ADP or whatever it is where you live, and these people will be stuck in there for many months more than needed. But there's no scandal. Funding the NHS has support beyond that which is rational or beneficial - institutionalisation is objectively disabling - but funding Social Care doesn't.
And because institutionalisation is disabling, that means more people spending more time in say, IPCU, or complex needs units, where it's £1000-£1400 a night. But people would rather pay that?
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Andy Burnham has both been supremely entitled about his journey to power, and entirely unwilling to open himself up to scrutiny.
He said in his speech last week that his overarching political direction is "not up for negotiation", and then refused to take any questions from journalists.
We are now 2 weeks away from having a PM imposed on us who has no mandate, no clear policies, no clear cabinet, no challengers, and has allowed no questions, but will claim his vision is law and won't call an election. His response to anyone who criticises him is to be cold-shouldered or quietly threatened by 'friends of' or 'sources close to Andy Burnham'. Briefings I haven't seen since the Brown years.
That's not the behaviour of a democrat, nor of someone who's not going to come unstuck very quickly.
I do not know if Burnham will be very good, but almost the whole of this diatribe is distorted, irrelevant or untrue.
A couple of real facts:
Government is led by the person who has the confidence of 325+ members of the House. How they fix that, as long as it is not corrupt, is a matter for the 650 people we elected for a 5 year term. No-one can impose on 325 MPs.
No mandate is required. We don't elect mandated delegates, we elect accountable representatives.
No-one can become Labour leader, and thus PM in this case, without an open nomination process in which up to about five candidates are possible. If there were only one candidate, that tells you something about the opinions of 400 elected Labour MPs.
You produce no evidence that he uses threats, and I won't accept it without it.
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
Any England fan who would allow the paper he edits to fake a story about British Troops committing crimes should be banned from ever posting about anything again, hey Piers.
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
The really interesting thing there is that the Greens have lost about half of the Polanski Peak; down from about 16% in late April to about 12% now.
One thing we can all agree on is the biggest loser from a Burnham Premiership is Polanski and the Greens as many of their voters return to Labour as Labour shifts back left again
Certainly that's what's kept me in Labour instead of switching to the Greens as I was minded to, though I don't expect anything very radical from Andy - a general shift in direction will do me. I imagine that a chunk of the Labour vote is similar.
The really interesting thing there is that the Greens have lost about half of the Polanski Peak; down from about 16% in late April to about 12% now.
One thing we can all agree on is the biggest loser from a Burnham Premiership is Polanski and the Greens as many of their voters return to Labour as Labour shifts back left again
Certainly that's what's kept me in Labour instead of switching to the Greens as I was minded to, though I don't expect anything very radical from Andy - a general shift in direction will do me. I imagine that a chunk of the Labour vote is similar.
I know we're not really supposed to mention it as Ashcroft is not a BPC member but that poll from last week that has Labour, Reform, and the Conservatives each on 21% is a scream isn't it? Baxter that!
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
If you search George Cottrell on PB we were discussing his dodginess and links with Farage back in 2024.
Its not really been a big secret, its not like he hides away in the shadows, he is there at Farage's side all the time at events and photos. The difference is now the media are willing to highlight it more. He has been asked a bit in the past about it but they are now running all these things back to back to build the momentum.
So why has this story broken now? One possibility is that some key bits of the jigsaw have only just come into the hands of the hacks. I'm not entirely sure I buy that. Another is that it was convenient not to talk about all of this while Nigel looked like a winner. If the media barons have decided that Nigel looks more like a loser, and therefore it's both safe and satisfying to pour buckets of sewage over him... that feels significiant.
If Burnham can take over in government and not feel that he has to look anxiously at what Farage is up to, he starts to look very lucky, in the Napoleonic sense.
What we know about Cottrell is that he is a supposed expert on money laundering and entered into a plea bargain with the US authorities on that basis, but apart from a weird "daddy" complex with Farage he doesn't appear to have money of his own. If he's passing undeclared "gifts" to Farage where did he get that money?
Acutally its the opposite being expet money launderer. More a con man. He took $20k to launder, then said give me $80k pr i will ship you to the FBI. Problem is it was FBI undercover. An expert money launderer isnt doing $20k, its not worth the risk.
As where he has money, he ran a grey market sportsbook that took crypto.
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
Reform's Mayoral candidate Sian Astley was featured on an old episode of Property Ladder, which charts her rise from first-time solo renovator to BTL empress. She's a quarrelsome customer, frequently disagreeing with Sarah Beeney, but ultimately emerges as a successful risk-taker.
I am glad Reform didn't waste her on Makerfield. I don't think she'll win the Manchester Mayoralty, but I do think she is probably the best candidate Reform could have selected.
A barrister who was kicked out of the profession after falsely claiming he attended the University of Oxford during a job interview has won a High Court appeal against the decision.
Why would anybody lie about going to such a second rate university? Also claims studied medicine in 2 years....should have had warning alarms going off.
More seriously, he has told an absolute load of lies e.g. playing cricket for various high profile clubs. How dishonest do you have to be to actually get kicked out of the profession?
I suspect most of his clients will be perfectly happy to have him lie repeatedly on their behalf.
I thought telling lies was an intrinsic part of a lawyer’s job. How else would they get not guilty verdicts for their guilty clients, or compensation for chancers?
Scream. This kind of comment winds me up. It is not for the defence to lie on their client's behalf and lawyers will almost never do so.
The onus of proving guilt is on the Crown. If I or my colleagues do not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the jury to acquit. Pointing out gaps, inconsistencies or discrepancies in the Crown case is not lying. It is giving the accused the protection that beyond a reasonable doubt means.
When making a speech for the defence the defence will very properly make the point that if the jury believe the accused, or if his evidence even creates a reasonable doubt in their minds their duty is to acquit. That is also not lying. Defence counsel do not say that the accused was telling the truth. They invite the jury to consider that.
The real challenge for lawyers in this case for instance is to claim the BBC defamed EVRI, without dissolving into helpless laughter:
Evri has filed a claim that it lost prospective clients after the broadcast of the Panorama documentary Evri: Where’s my parcel?
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
If you search George Cottrell on PB we were discussing his dodginess and links with Farage back in 2024.
Its not really been a big secret, its not like he hides away in the shadows, he is there at Farage's side all the time at events and photos. The difference is now the media are willing to highlight it more. He has been asked a bit in the past about it but they are now running all these things back to back to build the momentum.
So why has this story broken now? One possibility is that some key bits of the jigsaw have only just come into the hands of the hacks. I'm not entirely sure I buy that. Another is that it was convenient not to talk about all of this while Nigel looked like a winner. If the media barons have decided that Nigel looks more like a loser, and therefore it's both safe and satisfying to pour buckets of sewage over him... that feels significiant.
If Burnham can take over in government and not feel that he has to look anxiously at what Farage is up to, he starts to look very lucky, in the Napoleonic sense.
What we know about Cottrell is that he is a supposed expert on money laundering and entered into a plea bargain with the US authorities on that basis, but apart from a weird "daddy" complex with Farage he doesn't appear to have money of his own. If he's passing undeclared "gifts" to Farage where did he get that money?
Acutally its the opposite being expet money launderer. More a con man. He took $20k to launder, then said give me $80k pr i will ship you to the FBI. Problem is it was FBI undercover. An expert money launderer isnt doing $20k, its not worth the risk.
As where he has money, he ran a grey market sportsbook that took crypto.
I quite like his style really. Bit of a modern-day Simon Templar.
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
A barrister who was kicked out of the profession after falsely claiming he attended the University of Oxford during a job interview has won a High Court appeal against the decision.
Why would anybody lie about going to such a second rate university? Also claims studied medicine in 2 years....should have had warning alarms going off.
More seriously, he has told an absolute load of lies e.g. playing cricket for various high profile clubs. How dishonest do you have to be to actually get kicked out of the profession?
I suspect most of his clients will be perfectly happy to have him lie repeatedly on their behalf.
I thought telling lies was an intrinsic part of a lawyer’s job. How else would they get not guilty verdicts for their guilty clients, or compensation for chancers?
Scream. This kind of comment winds me up. It is not for the defence to lie on their client's behalf and lawyers will almost never do so.
The onus of proving guilt is on the Crown. If I or my colleagues do not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the jury to acquit. Pointing out gaps, inconsistencies or discrepancies in the Crown case is not lying. It is giving the accused the protection that beyond a reasonable doubt means.
When making a speech for the defence the defence will very properly make the point that if the jury believe the accused, or if his evidence even creates a reasonable doubt in their minds their duty is to acquit. That is also not lying. Defence counsel do not say that the accused was telling the truth. They invite the jury to consider that.
The real challenge for lawyers in this case for instance is to claim the BBC defamed EVRI, without dissolving into helpless laughter:
Evri has filed a claim that it lost prospective clients after the broadcast of the Panorama documentary Evri: Where’s my parcel?
A barrister who was kicked out of the profession after falsely claiming he attended the University of Oxford during a job interview has won a High Court appeal against the decision.
Why would anybody lie about going to such a second rate university? Also claims studied medicine in 2 years....should have had warning alarms going off.
More seriously, he has told an absolute load of lies e.g. playing cricket for various high profile clubs. How dishonest do you have to be to actually get kicked out of the profession?
I suspect most of his clients will be perfectly happy to have him lie repeatedly on their behalf.
I thought telling lies was an intrinsic part of a lawyer’s job. How else would they get not guilty verdicts for their guilty clients, or compensation for chancers?
Scream. This kind of comment winds me up. It is not for the defence to lie on their client's behalf and lawyers will almost never do so.
The onus of proving guilt is on the Crown. If I or my colleagues do not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the jury to acquit. Pointing out gaps, inconsistencies or discrepancies in the Crown case is not lying. It is giving the accused the protection that beyond a reasonable doubt means.
When making a speech for the defence the defence will very properly make the point that if the jury believe the accused, or if his evidence even creates a reasonable doubt in their minds their duty is to acquit. That is also not lying. Defence counsel do not say that the accused was telling the truth. They invite the jury to consider that.
The real challenge for lawyers in this case for instance is to claim the BBC defamed EVRI, without dissolving into helpless laughter:
Evri has filed a claim that it lost prospective clients after the broadcast of the Panorama documentary Evri: Where’s my parcel?
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
A barrister who was kicked out of the profession after falsely claiming he attended the University of Oxford during a job interview has won a High Court appeal against the decision.
Why would anybody lie about going to such a second rate university? Also claims studied medicine in 2 years....should have had warning alarms going off.
More seriously, he has told an absolute load of lies e.g. playing cricket for various high profile clubs. How dishonest do you have to be to actually get kicked out of the profession?
I suspect most of his clients will be perfectly happy to have him lie repeatedly on their behalf.
I thought telling lies was an intrinsic part of a lawyer’s job. How else would they get not guilty verdicts for their guilty clients, or compensation for chancers?
Scream. This kind of comment winds me up. It is not for the defence to lie on their client's behalf and lawyers will almost never do so.
The onus of proving guilt is on the Crown. If I or my colleagues do not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the jury to acquit. Pointing out gaps, inconsistencies or discrepancies in the Crown case is not lying. It is giving the accused the protection that beyond a reasonable doubt means.
When making a speech for the defence the defence will very properly make the point that if the jury believe the accused, or if his evidence even creates a reasonable doubt in their minds their duty is to acquit. That is also not lying. Defence counsel do not say that the accused was telling the truth. They invite the jury to consider that.
The real challenge for lawyers in this case for instance is to claim the BBC defamed EVRI, without dissolving into helpless laughter:
Evri has filed a claim that it lost prospective clients after the broadcast of the Panorama documentary Evri: Where’s my parcel?
A barrister who was kicked out of the profession after falsely claiming he attended the University of Oxford during a job interview has won a High Court appeal against the decision.
Why would anybody lie about going to such a second rate university? Also claims studied medicine in 2 years....should have had warning alarms going off.
More seriously, he has told an absolute load of lies e.g. playing cricket for various high profile clubs. How dishonest do you have to be to actually get kicked out of the profession?
I suspect most of his clients will be perfectly happy to have him lie repeatedly on their behalf.
I thought telling lies was an intrinsic part of a lawyer’s job. How else would they get not guilty verdicts for their guilty clients, or compensation for chancers?
Scream. This kind of comment winds me up. It is not for the defence to lie on their client's behalf and lawyers will almost never do so.
The onus of proving guilt is on the Crown. If I or my colleagues do not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the jury to acquit. Pointing out gaps, inconsistencies or discrepancies in the Crown case is not lying. It is giving the accused the protection that beyond a reasonable doubt means.
When making a speech for the defence the defence will very properly make the point that if the jury believe the accused, or if his evidence even creates a reasonable doubt in their minds their duty is to acquit. That is also not lying. Defence counsel do not say that the accused was telling the truth. They invite the jury to consider that.
The real challenge for lawyers in this case for instance is to claim the BBC defamed EVRI, without dissolving into helpless laughter:
Evri has filed a claim that it lost prospective clients after the broadcast of the Panorama documentary Evri: Where’s my parcel?
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
If you search George Cottrell on PB we were discussing his dodginess and links with Farage back in 2024.
Its not really been a big secret, its not like he hides away in the shadows, he is there at Farage's side all the time at events and photos. The difference is now the media are willing to highlight it more. He has been asked a bit in the past about it but they are now running all these things back to back to build the momentum.
So why has this story broken now? One possibility is that some key bits of the jigsaw have only just come into the hands of the hacks. I'm not entirely sure I buy that. Another is that it was convenient not to talk about all of this while Nigel looked like a winner. If the media barons have decided that Nigel looks more like a loser, and therefore it's both safe and satisfying to pour buckets of sewage over him... that feels significiant.
If Burnham can take over in government and not feel that he has to look anxiously at what Farage is up to, he starts to look very lucky, in the Napoleonic sense.
What we know about Cottrell is that he is a supposed expert on money laundering and entered into a plea bargain with the US authorities on that basis, but apart from a weird "daddy" complex with Farage he doesn't appear to have money of his own. If he's passing undeclared "gifts" to Farage where did he get that money?
Acutally its the opposite being expet money launderer. More a con man. He took $20k to launder, then said give me $80k pr i will ship you to the FBI. Problem is it was FBI undercover. An expert money launderer isnt doing $20k, its not worth the risk.
As where he has money, he ran a grey market sportsbook that took crypto.
I quite like his style really. Bit of a modern-day Simon Templar.
A barrister who was kicked out of the profession after falsely claiming he attended the University of Oxford during a job interview has won a High Court appeal against the decision.
Why would anybody lie about going to such a second rate university? Also claims studied medicine in 2 years....should have had warning alarms going off.
More seriously, he has told an absolute load of lies e.g. playing cricket for various high profile clubs. How dishonest do you have to be to actually get kicked out of the profession?
I suspect most of his clients will be perfectly happy to have him lie repeatedly on their behalf.
I thought telling lies was an intrinsic part of a lawyer’s job. How else would they get not guilty verdicts for their guilty clients, or compensation for chancers?
Scream. This kind of comment winds me up. It is not for the defence to lie on their client's behalf and lawyers will almost never do so.
The onus of proving guilt is on the Crown. If I or my colleagues do not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt it is the duty of the jury to acquit. Pointing out gaps, inconsistencies or discrepancies in the Crown case is not lying. It is giving the accused the protection that beyond a reasonable doubt means.
When making a speech for the defence the defence will very properly make the point that if the jury believe the accused, or if his evidence even creates a reasonable doubt in their minds their duty is to acquit. That is also not lying. Defence counsel do not say that the accused was telling the truth. They invite the jury to consider that.
Hence why he's going to be immensely popular, especially as a commercial lawyer.
What I don't understand about this is that he is a KC. That means he has been doing this for a long time. At a high level. In England you won't get KC without having been in and having performed in a significant number of complex cases. This seems to refer back to a much, much earlier part of his career.
I can hear @Cyclefree pointing out that dishonesty like this is a red flag indicative of risky and unacceptable behaviour. I generally agree. But it does look someone has tried quite hard here to stir the pot and make trouble for this man. I wonder what their motivation is.
Not that much earlier. It was in 2013, after he became a KC.
But I suspect it was to do with his role at Essex CC, where he oversaw a series of major crises and was thoroughly unpopular.
After being found guilty of professional misconduct he had to resign, which was extremely popular at Essex.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
It's also not healthy to always look at tax as transferring money between groups in the present. In practice, taxes mainly redistribute over our lives. We pay taxes during our working years to pay for the education we had in childhood, and for the pensions and healthcare we will receive when older.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
It's also not healthy to always look at tax as transferring money between groups in the present. In practice, taxes mainly redistribute over our lives. We pay taxes during our working years to pay for the education we had in childhood, and for the pensions and healthcare we will receive when older.
That is unionists for you, rich BTL landlord denigrating the poor , who would have thought.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Andy Burnham has both been supremely entitled about his journey to power, and entirely unwilling to open himself up to scrutiny.
He said in his speech last week that his overarching political direction is "not up for negotiation", and then refused to take any questions from journalists.
We are now 2 weeks away from having a PM imposed on us who has no mandate, no clear policies, no clear cabinet, no challengers, and has allowed no questions, but will claim his vision is law and won't call an election. His response to anyone who criticises him is to be cold-shouldered or quietly threatened by 'friends of' or 'sources close to Andy Burnham'. Briefings I haven't seen since the Brown years.
That's not the behaviour of a democrat, nor of someone who's not going to come unstuck very quickly.
I do not know if Burnham will be very good, but almost the whole of this diatribe is distorted, irrelevant or untrue.
A couple of real facts:
Government is led by the person who has the confidence of 325+ members of the House. How they fix that, as long as it is not corrupt, is a matter for the 650 people we elected for a 5 year term. No-one can impose on 325 MPs.
No mandate is required. We don't elect mandated delegates, we elect accountable representatives.
No-one can become Labour leader, and thus PM in this case, without an open nomination process in which up to about five candidates are possible. If there were only one candidate, that tells you something about the opinions of 400 elected Labour MPs.
You produce no evidence that he uses threats, and I won't accept it without it.
I mean it was Gabriel Pogrund who broke the stories, inter alia, on the Lord Alii donations and the story that led to Angela Rayner resigning.
He is half right, in that Pogrund is on record saying he hates Farage and what Farage has caused. But they aren't the BBC they don't have to pretend to be impartial, and the Insight team behind these stories have a pretty decent record of investigating all teams.
Reform's Mayoral candidate Sian Astley was featured on an old episode of Property Ladder, which charts her rise from first-time solo renovator to BTL empress. She's a quarrelsome customer, frequently disagreeing with Sarah Beeney, but ultimately emerges as a successful risk-taker.
I am glad Reform didn't waste her on Makerfield. I don't think she'll win the Manchester Mayoralty, but I do think she is probably the best candidate Reform could have selected.
Building up a BTL empire in a time of low interest rates and rising prices doesn't shout 'risk-taking entrepreneur creating value for themselves and the wider community'.
Although tbf it does indicate a good head for money and an ability to organise and negotiate.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
It's also not healthy to always look at tax as transferring money between groups in the present. In practice, taxes mainly redistribute over our lives. We pay taxes during our working years to pay for the education we had in childhood, and for the pensions and healthcare we will receive when older.
You're right - it's a function of inequality more than anything else, coupled with very low tax rates on people with incomes less than the median. The latter is a good thing but does lead to the scenario where a smaller and smaller proportion of the population makes a net contribution in cash terms. That's distinct from an economic contribution - ultimately it's people on low wages which enables people to generate large incomes (shelf stacker v Tesco CEO).
Not sure how to fix it. Feels like a doom loop. And while it's wrong to think like that, there's no doubt that many people do use this as a proxy for identifying shirkers. Unpaid carers is another example - no income tax contribution, but their underlying value is enormous.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Hardly worth doing - raises an estimated extra £170m over the existing planned mansion tax. The Defence review alone needs £4.7bn.
Burnham needs something more radical imo. I'd exempt principal residences (one per couple) and pension pots below a new LTA (say £1.5m), then tax all other wealth above a threshold of £0.5m at 1% pa. Apply the existing Deprivation of Capital and 'couples' rules - the rules that are happily applied to benefit claimants.
Extend NI to all income, maybe by reducing employees NI rate and increasing the basic ICT rate.
Even with principal residence exemption, a wealth tax over £500k would hit a lot of people in London and the South East.
Extending NI to all incomes would hit pensioners, increasing the basic ICT rate would be very unpopular with most voters who pay it
With NI - the politically smart thing to do is to merge it into income tax, but have a pensioner *basic* rate that is the same as before.
So only pensioners on £50k+ a year pay more.
No, NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA in my view
My view is that ringfenced taxes are always a silly idea. There is one pot and it needs to be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Anything that gets in the road of that should be removed.
No, we need more contributory welfare not less
We absolutely don't. We need welfare to go to those in greatest need. The idea that a generation that elected politicians who were happy to spend more than receipts and to borrow the difference in any way "paid" for their old age pension or any other benefit is delusional, dishonest and inefficient. It results in nonsense like WFA going to those on their international cruises. It results in those in work paying high taxes on their hard earned to subsidise those with far greater resources and more net free income. We really need to stop this nonsense.
Inclined to agree with this but... I think part of the reason for the current strife in our politics is so much government spending goes on private goods like healthcare and welfare, versus public goods like parks and defence. In academic circles benefits-in-kind are frowned upon because direct cash transfers are usually much more efficient for reducing things like child poverty. But there is considerable value in the "all in this together" vibe, and I think we should slowly move back to that kind of public service.
In Scotland only 1/3rd of households are net contribtors in a direct tax v social security sense, and increasingly most of our spending goes on welfare/health. That is not healthy.
It's also not healthy to always look at tax as transferring money between groups in the present. In practice, taxes mainly redistribute over our lives. We pay taxes during our working years to pay for the education we had in childhood, and for the pensions and healthcare we will receive when older.
That is unionists for you, rich BTL landlord denigrating the poor , who would have thought.
30th percentile on wealth, got a long way to go before I catch you up Malc.
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Andy Burnham has both been supremely entitled about his journey to power, and entirely unwilling to open himself up to scrutiny.
He said in his speech last week that his overarching political direction is "not up for negotiation", and then refused to take any questions from journalists.
We are now 2 weeks away from having a PM imposed on us who has no mandate, no clear policies, no clear cabinet, no challengers, and has allowed no questions, but will claim his vision is law and won't call an election. His response to anyone who criticises him is to be cold-shouldered or quietly threatened by 'friends of' or 'sources close to Andy Burnham'. Briefings I haven't seen since the Brown years.
That's not the behaviour of a democrat, nor of someone who's not going to come unstuck very quickly.
I do not know if Burnham will be very good, but almost the whole of this diatribe is distorted, irrelevant or untrue.
A couple of real facts:
Government is led by the person who has the confidence of 325+ members of the House. How they fix that, as long as it is not corrupt, is a matter for the 650 people we elected for a 5 year term. No-one can impose on 325 MPs.
No mandate is required. We don't elect mandated delegates, we elect accountable representatives.
No-one can become Labour leader, and thus PM in this case, without an open nomination process in which up to about five candidates are possible. If there were only one candidate, that tells you something about the opinions of 400 elected Labour MPs.
You produce no evidence that he uses threats, and I won't accept it without it.
You're a traitor.
Is this another example of your grown-up arguments?
I mean it was Gabriel Pogrund who broke the stories, inter alia, on the Lord Alii donations and the story that led to Angela Rayner resigning.
This is the sort of witless take that really pees me off
Sneering at politicians fine
Demonising voters for daring to vote how you don’t want them to is pathetic. A quarter of the uk supports Reform.
Looking down your nose at people not like you is deeply unpleasant
If politics worked for many communities they’d not vote Reform
Would you prefer I called them 'mugs'?
Anyhoo, I look down on people I like too.
So what
Call them what you like I’ll call it out. They’re not mugs, dupes, fools or idiots voting against their self interest in spite of what privileged middle class centrist say and demonising voters parties want to win back won’t exactly do the job
I mean it was Gabriel Pogrund who broke the stories, inter alia, on the Lord Alii donations and the story that led to Angela Rayner resigning.
This is the sort of witless take that really pees me off
Sneering at politicians fine
Demonising voters for daring to vote how you don’t want them to is pathetic. A quarter of the uk supports Reform.
Looking down your nose at people not like you is deeply unpleasant
If politics worked for many communities they’d not vote Reform
Would you prefer I called them 'mugs'?
Anyhoo, I look down on people I like too.
So what
Call them what you like I’ll call it out. They’re not mugs, dupes, fools or idiots voting against their self interest in spite of what privileged middle class centrist say and demonising voters parties want to win back won’t exactly do the job
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
I mean it was Gabriel Pogrund who broke the stories, inter alia, on the Lord Alii donations and the story that led to Angela Rayner resigning.
This is the sort of witless take that really pees me off
Sneering at politicians fine
Demonising voters for daring to vote how you don’t want them to is pathetic. A quarter of the uk supports Reform.
Looking down your nose at people not like you is deeply unpleasant
If politics worked for many communities they’d not vote Reform
Would you prefer I called them 'mugs'?
Anyhoo, I look down on people I like too.
So what
Call them what you like I’ll call it out. They’re not mugs, dupes, fools or idiots voting against their self interest in spite of what privileged middle class centrist say and demonising voters parties want to win back won’t exactly do the job
But it will get a like from Roger 👍
What about the 'mugs' who bought Trump's crypto?
Go back to baiting Casino. They’re not comparable. A commercial transaction is different to voting for a party based on policy pledges
Burnham is certainly already looking at wealth taxes which don't come in the no income or NI tax rises pledge in the Labour manifesto. He would certainly like to increase the additional rate of income tax back up to 50% but may need a Labour manifesto commitment and general election win for that.
''Andy Burnham is set to launch a financial raid on swathes of middle–class homeowners by dragging them into the punitive 'mansion tax' regime, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Plans to lower the threshold for the extra levy to include homes worth £1.5million would mean more than 150,000 families – particularly in the South of England – being hit with four–figure tax hikes.
It could prove a double whammy for homeowners in the region, as Mr Burnham is also considering replacing council tax with a system based on land values likely to leave people living in the South paying up to three times as much as those in the North, where property is generally cheaper.Sources told this newspaper that Mr Burnham is considering lowering the threshold for Chancellor Rachel Reeves's so–called mansion tax – due to hit in April 2028 – from £2 million to £1.5 million.
In parts of London, a relatively modest four–bedroomed terraced house would fall above that threshold.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch attacked the plans as another example of Labour's 'politics of envy'.
It comes as the prime minister–in–waiting faces increasing pressure from backbenchers and unions to levy 'wealth taxes' on the middle classes to cover the spiralling cost of welfare and public services.'
Andy Burnham has both been supremely entitled about his journey to power, and entirely unwilling to open himself up to scrutiny.
He said in his speech last week that his overarching political direction is "not up for negotiation", and then refused to take any questions from journalists.
We are now 2 weeks away from having a PM imposed on us who has no mandate, no clear policies, no clear cabinet, no challengers, and has allowed no questions, but will claim his vision is law and won't call an election. His response to anyone who criticises him is to be cold-shouldered or quietly threatened by 'friends of' or 'sources close to Andy Burnham'. Briefings I haven't seen since the Brown years.
That's not the behaviour of a democrat, nor of someone who's not going to come unstuck very quickly.
No mandate is required. We don't elect mandated delegates, we elect accountable representatives.
Apologies for snipping the quote but while that is the legally correct constitutional position, I think it downplays the political issue. The lack of mandate will be a criticism of every divisive or unpopular policy enacted by Burnham. As different interest groups are invariably pissed off over time, that criticism has the potential to accumulate and could put the next election in doubt. If that's in doubt, well, rivals start to come out of the woodwork.
In Shipman's book (the second one, I think), May's cabinet were reluctant to act contrary to the 2015 manifesto for this reason and the ability to get a mandate was an important reason for May going to the country. Brown was dogged by this criticism also.
It probably won't matter if the Government is popular (or more popular than it's challengers) but it certainly has the potential to be pernicious and set the mood music very early on, which can feed a narrative.
But as we saw with Lady Donaldson you can be an unconvicted criminal.
Former DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has been found guilty of 18 child sex abuse charges, including one count of rape.
A trial of the facts is an option that is open to prosecutors if a court determines that a person is unfit to stand trial and criminal proceedings cannot go ahead.
It takes the place of a criminal trial and is used to determine whether an accused committed the acts alleged.
It cannot result in a conviction, but if the court is not satisfied that the accused committed the acts alleged, then he/she will be acquitted.
The procedure is allowed for in legislation by Article 49A of the Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order 1986.
The mechanism is not used often but one high-profile example was in the trial of former IRA leader Ivor Bell in 2019.
Fifa's Code of Ethics, external has restrictions on offering and accepting gifts, with article 21 stating that such gifts can only be offered or accepted if they "have symbolic or trivial value".
Fifa's Code of Ethics, external has restrictions on offering and accepting gifts, with article 21 stating that such gifts can only be offered or accepted if they "have symbolic or trivial value".
I mean it was Gabriel Pogrund who broke the stories, inter alia, on the Lord Alii donations and the story that led to Angela Rayner resigning.
This is the sort of witless take that really pees me off
Sneering at politicians fine
Demonising voters for daring to vote how you don’t want them to is pathetic. A quarter of the uk supports Reform.
Looking down your nose at people not like you is deeply unpleasant
If politics worked for many communities they’d not vote Reform
Would you prefer I called them 'mugs'?
Anyhoo, I look down on people I like too.
So what
Call them what you like I’ll call it out. They’re not mugs, dupes, fools or idiots voting against their self interest in spite of what privileged middle class centrist say and demonising voters parties want to win back won’t exactly do the job
But it will get a like from Roger 👍
What about the 'mugs' who bought Trump's crypto?
Go back to baiting Casino. They’re not comparable. A commercial transaction is different to voting for a party based on policy pledges
Comments
Somehow, I am sure that it is all Obamas fault...
You get to live in a community where the weak and vulnerable are looked after. That’s why it’s a community charge, you contribute to your community for the benefit of all in it.
Peter.
https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/2069778743808110859?s=20
But, as TMexPM found out, knowing what needs to be done is rather different to knowing how to get elected promising to do it.
However, Burnham remains somewhat sphinx-like. There is a small part of me that thinks he will be pragmatic enough to allow more drilling in the North Sea to raise tax revenues for his plans (as an example).
Also, his Chancellor pick will be fascinating.
He has said the choice is immaterial, because whoever is Chancellor will have to be fully signed up to the Burnham agenda. That could be seen as a reassurance that it will be Ed, but not full fat Ed.
But to me, Burnham must know that Ed Milliband isn't the right choice for a submissive Chancellor. If he gets the job he will absolutely resist power being taken from the Treasury. Burnham's plans for the Treasury make far more sense with Cooper or even Streeting in the role. Milliband as Foreign Secretary, take it or leave it, is the pragmatic way forward.
https://x.com/NotHoodlum/status/2073404423032697022
The criteria for care is set nationally, not locally, so it should be funded by those who have made the decision - Westminster and central funds.
If local Councils are spending the cash they should be making the decisions and free to say "we don't want to give care to ..." and back that up.
To be 'generous' by saying people have an entitlement, but then not fund that entitlement and make someone else do so is no way to run a country.
Government has a right to say no and pass a law accordingly. If Councils don't want to then, they could say no too and the person goes without.
The problem is government wants to have its cake and eat it too. Say "yes you can have this entitlement" - but we're not going to fund it.
@DPJHodges
I suspect George Cottrell is about to become for Nigel Farage what Peter Mandelson was for Keir Starmer. There are too many different angles to the story for Farage to be able to effectively shut it down. There’s no way of drawing a line.
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/2073747784079904989
In other news, Boris Johnson in surprise divorce due to excessive infidelity"
The onslaught on Farage by the media is a joy to behold, but if he survives this then teflon Nigel doesn't come near
https://x.com/Telegraph/status/2073765005678215416
Do we think the relaxing of the physical standards required to be a police officer might be a bit of an issue?
If Burnham can take over in government and not feel that he has to look anxiously at what Farage is up to, he starts to look very lucky, in the Napoleonic sense.
Evri has filed a claim that it lost prospective clients after the broadcast of the Panorama documentary Evri: Where’s my parcel?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/05/delivery-firm-evri-sues-bbc-for-12m-over-panorama-documentary
Max Verstappen crashes.
Charles Leclerc needs to take one for the team and let Sir Lewis Hamilton past.
Any England fan who doesn’t stay up to watch the England game live tonight, is not an actual fan and should be banned from ever posting about football again.
https://x.com/piersmorgan/status/2073758475209842864
And because institutionalisation is disabling, that means more people spending more time in say, IPCU, or complex needs units, where it's £1000-£1400 a night. But people would rather pay that?
A couple of real facts:
Government is led by the person who has the confidence of 325+ members of the House. How they fix that, as long as it is not corrupt, is a matter for the 650 people we elected for a 5 year term. No-one can impose on 325 MPs.
No mandate is required. We don't elect mandated delegates, we elect accountable representatives.
No-one can become Labour leader, and thus PM in this case, without an open nomination process in which up to about five candidates are possible. If there were only one candidate, that tells you something about the opinions of 400 elected Labour MPs.
You produce no evidence that he uses threats, and I won't accept it without it.
Off to bed at 10 and set the alarm for 00:45. Two or three hours of torture, then back to bed.
Yellow flag infringement.
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Lord-Ashcroft-Polls-June-2026-survey-Full-data-tables-1.xls
Take gullible fools money and give them nothing in return.
As where he has money, he ran a grey market sportsbook that took crypto.
My organisational skills are unmatched.
And as I'll be getting behind the wheel in half an hour, best that I stay awake.
Reform's Mayoral candidate Sian Astley was featured on an old episode of Property Ladder, which charts her rise from first-time solo renovator to BTL empress. She's a quarrelsome customer, frequently disagreeing with Sarah Beeney, but ultimately emerges as a successful risk-taker.
I am glad Reform didn't waste her on Makerfield. I don't think she'll win the Manchester Mayoralty, but I do think she is probably the best candidate Reform could have selected.
Has no one at Evri heard of the Streisand effect?
When I first started working I was working 100+ hours a week so I have learned how to optomise my sleeping patterns
But I suspect it was to do with his role at Essex CC, where he oversaw a series of major crises and was thoroughly unpopular.
After being found guilty of professional misconduct he had to resign, which was extremely popular at Essex.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpw17nkddp0o
Just important Dan that people understand Pogrund is a Labour stooge who hates us
https://x.com/TiceRichard/status/2073775712348090532
I mean it was Gabriel Pogrund who broke the stories, inter alia, on the Lord Alii donations and the story that led to Angela Rayner resigning.
You will not regret it.
Although tbf it does indicate a good head for money and an ability to organise and negotiate.
Not sure how to fix it. Feels like a doom loop. And while it's wrong to think like that, there's no doubt that many people do use this as a proxy for identifying shirkers. Unpaid carers is another example - no income tax contribution, but their underlying value is enormous.
It’s the fault of each investor
Starmer Labour is Blue Tory Israeli Labour.
So attacking them is True Labour.
Sneering at politicians fine
Demonising voters for daring to vote how you don’t want them to is pathetic. A quarter of the uk supports Reform.
Looking down your nose at people not like you is deeply unpleasant
If politics worked for many communities they’d not vote Reform but they’re the problem but the system they’ve been let down by
Anyhoo, I look down on people I like too.
https://x.com/RobDorsettSky/status/2073785141822996926?s=20
At this rate Jordan Henderson is going to end up playing right back....
Call them what you like I’ll call it out. They’re not mugs, dupes, fools or idiots voting against their self interest in spite of what privileged middle class centrist say and demonising voters parties want to win back won’t exactly do the job
But it will get a like from Roger 👍
https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/2073799359766867991?s=20
You said you were off around 10am too
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yzzw5vk8vo
"convicted criminal" strange term. Convicted non-criminal? Unconvicted criminal?
In Shipman's book (the second one, I think), May's cabinet were reluctant to act contrary to the 2015 manifesto for this reason and the ability to get a mandate was an important reason for May going to the country. Brown was dogged by this criticism also.
It probably won't matter if the Government is popular (or more popular than it's challengers) but it certainly has the potential to be pernicious and set the mood music very early on, which can feed a narrative.
IIRC he has asked Trump for a pardon.
But as we saw with Lady Donaldson you can be an unconvicted criminal.
Former DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has been found guilty of 18 child sex abuse charges, including one count of rape.
A trial of the facts is an option that is open to prosecutors if a court determines that a person is unfit to stand trial and criminal proceedings cannot go ahead.
It takes the place of a criminal trial and is used to determine whether an accused committed the acts alleged.
It cannot result in a conviction, but if the court is not satisfied that the accused committed the acts alleged, then he/she will be acquitted.
The procedure is allowed for in legislation by Article 49A of the Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order 1986.
The mechanism is not used often but one high-profile example was in the trial of former IRA leader Ivor Bell in 2019.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg530n6v7dlo
Things are somewhat confused by Australians; they’re not all criminals
The one thing I’ve learned in my life is never to pay any attention to what the physicists say – Linus Pauling
Unsolved crimes, that is. Not Australians.