Have you stood before for Reform, Dr Goodwin? How did it go? Got a good narrative going, did you? Bit of a common touch, yeah? Didn't come across as a distant, completely out of touch, freakishly empathy-free, total fucking loon too much?
Have you stood before for Reform, Dr Goodwin? How did it go? Got a good narrative going, did you? Bit of a common touch, yeah? Didn't come across as a distant, completely out of touch, freakishly empathy-free, total fucking loon too much?
Yeah, good stuff - you're approved.
I suspect he will have to be in the Reform Cabinet via the House of Lords to be honest.
Have you stood before for Reform, Dr Goodwin? How did it go? Got a good narrative going, did you? Bit of a common touch, yeah? Didn't come across as a distant, completely out of touch, freakishly empathy-free, total fucking loon too much?
Yeah, good stuff - you're approved.
I suspect he will have to be in the Reform Cabinet via the House of Lords to be honest.
If Matt Goodwin doesn't cry himself to sleep every night, comparing who he could have been to what he actually is, then there is no justice.
EXC: The cabinet will present Keir Starmer with a specially engraved carriage clock for his leaving present tomorrow
David Lammy has organised the whip-round
Free Gear Keir to the end ...
Oh come, come Fishing, joking aside, you weren't quite so dismissive of Boris Johnson's exit from Downing Street. Living in a buckshee shed (ok, guest house) in Anthony Bamford's garden* and gratis food parcels for the Johnson family from Carole Bamford's version of Stay Fresh (Daylesford) after he has been defenestrated by the fragrant Liz Truss.
Reports in The Times that the Treasury are looking to bring forward the increase in state pension age to 68 to start from 2037. The current published plan is to phase this increase in from April 2044.
I just hope it still exists in the 40s…
No government will get re elected proposing anything else
I have worked in banking & financial service regulatory affairs for the last fifteen years.
Gordon Brown is entirely responsible for the fuck ups at RBS and Northern Rock that happened thanks to his regulatory changes.
I'll dig out Peter Lilley's warning in 1997/98 that turned out to be prescient.
So bankers are desperate to behave like irresponsible arseholes, and it is only tight regulation that stops them doing so?
Nobody forced the banks to play fast and loose. It was a crisis of their own making.
They were encouraged by politicians.
ALEX Salmond offered the assistance of the Scottish Government to Sir Fred Goodwin for the disastrous takeover of ABN Amro that almost destroyed the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The Scottish Government spent 18 months trying to prevent the release of a secret letter from the First Minister in which he fully endorsed Sir Fred's bid for the Dutch bank.
Mr Salmond offered the chief executive "any assistance my office can provide" and said it would be in Scotland's best interest for the RBS takeover to succeed. Two years later he would describe the deal as a "huge mistake" and one of the bank's many "grievous errors".
RBS bought ABN for 49 billion, a grossly inflated price that was put down to Sir Fred's determination not to lose a bidding war with Barclays. In buying the bank RBS exposed itself during the credit crunch to ABN's toxic assets and, as a result, posted the biggest loss in UK corporate history, 24bn, in 2008.
By 1999, Brown had the banker involved in the kind of charitable work mixed with policy reviews he so likes to bestow on friends: Sir Fred chaired a government task force on the work of credit unions and the New Deal programme, talismanic New Labour projects.
In 2001, Goodwin was in the contingent of businessmen who attended a pre-election lunch at Chequers aimed at securing the backing of the bankers for that year's poll. This was despite Goodwin disliking the limelight and dismissing "networking".
At the height of its success, it will not have gone unnoticed by Brown that RBS channelled £3bn in taxes into the Treasury. Brown and Goodwin did not diverge when RBS performed the takeover of the Dutch bank ABN Amro, the biggest European financial takeover, that proved the undoing of the Scottish bank.
Viscount Ridley is a reasonably good journalist but had no banking or accountancy qualifications to speak of or significant experience in the financial services industry to make him chairman of Northern Rock. Indeed his PhD was on 'the mating system of the common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus)'
But to pay a 17 year old for sex is still an offence today. And he was 39. Yusuf is a creep but the discriminatory laws at the time are not that relevant to this.
But, as he said, the lad said he was older than that. 21 IIRC.
Well Proctor said he did. The difference between a 17 year old boy and a 21 year old man is normally pretty obvious, arguably more obvious than it might be with girls.
But as he points out, the discriminatory age difference is no longer law.
And back then, it was probably not illegal to pay an u-18 for sex, as has been discussed regarding Prince Andrew
Did Andrew pay? It was illegal for Epstein / Maxwell to have procured someone under 21 to have sex with Andrew.
Ooh, so it’s Spain in the final and not France. That might be slightly preferable from an England perspective, so long as we can overcome the Argies tonight.
Ooh, so it’s Spain in the final and not France. That might be slightly preferable from an England perspective, so long as we can overcome the Argies tonight.
You clearly didn't watch the match or the previous 37 games in which Spain haven't lost.
"Investigators are considering whether leftwing, anarchist and single-issue terrorism (LASIT) played a role in the suspect’s alleged motivation, but are keeping an open mind as new material emerges."
What serious leftwing terrorism have we had? I know Germany, for example had it. But us? Not counting old ladies with Palestine Action placards....
The IRA were communists, weren't they? And my guess is that the various Islamic terrorists see themselves on the left hand side of the spectrum. But I don't think either of those fit into the Bader Meinhif category. We periodically had May Day rioters and the like though that has gone away of late. There' the various Sebastians and Jemimas of Just Stop Oil but calling those mithering pricks 'terrorists' gives them a sigjificance they don't deserve. You occasionally get the animal rights lot I suppose.
I had forgotten the animal rights activists digging up the dead grandmother of a pharma executive. Good shout.
The murder of Charlie Kirk is a recent example.
I thought the alleged killer* there was a groyper, not left wing.
Ooh, so it’s Spain in the final and not France. That might be slightly preferable from an England perspective, so long as we can overcome the Argies tonight.
The way the Spanish controlled the previously rampant French suggests not. Hard not to see them winning the cup.
Harry Kane favourite for the Ballon d'Or for the next 24 hours.
If England win, then I suspect that's in the bag - unless Yamal does something very special in the final.
Coral & Ladbrokes offer 19/4 against a Messi assist tomorrow. Mbappé remains second favourite for the Golden Boot because he is leading the pack as things stand.
Heres a question
Does the Third / Fourth Place Play Off game qualify for Golden Boot?...be a bit strange if it did as theoretically you have already been knocked out?
Reports in The Times that the Treasury are looking to bring forward the increase in state pension age to 68 to start from 2037. The current published plan is to phase this increase in from April 2044.
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
And yet, Track and Trace is chicken feed compared to the dystopian surveillance state planned with Starmer's digital ID bullshit. We can only hope Burnham throws that overboard. It'd not only be a good thing in itself, it'll save money too.
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
And yet, Track and Trace is chicken feed compared to the dystopian surveillance state planned with Starmer's digital ID bullshit. We can only hope Burnham throws that overboard. It'd not only be a good thing in itself, it'll save money too.
Sorry to disappoint you but it's coming soon - but we're not being told.
This news genuinely made me laugh out loud because the absolute batshit crazy attempt to give this age group a midnight social media curfew was completely unworkable while giving them the vote at that age was a far more realistic goal with the current Labour majority at Westminster....
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Secondly, Miliband is a key person in Burnham's project. I think he will want Miliband in a senior post. The obvious other position would be Deputy Prime Minister. However I think Burnham would want a woman in either DPM or CoE role so there's a configuration to think about.
The baggage, or pile-on by the media leading to a negative public view of Miliband, is a problem however. Question is how much appetite Burnham has for facing it down. Limited I suspect.
The main thing though is that Burnham is coming into the premiership with very few favours owed to existing cabinet members and he has 400 MPs to choose from. He can make his own team.
Also, possibly, doesn't owe many favours to the Westminster press-pack. If he does push on with the devolution plan and makes Ed.M chancellor - then possibly regional news outlets (what's left of them) become more important to voters. Sad though it would make me to not hear LauraK and ChrisM's thoughts on the rain or who who-said-what-to-who-senior-sources-tell-me, of course.
A key element there is the BBC's Local Democracy Reporting Service, which does much local political reporting. That funds 165 journalists.
Expect Kemi and (especially) Nigel to be targeting that element of the BBC.
EXC: The cabinet will present Keir Starmer with a specially engraved carriage clock for his leaving present tomorrow
David Lammy has organised the whip-round
A carriage clock? Is it 1985?
Blair - standing ovation in the House.
Thatcher - grown male MPs in tears
Churchill - House passes motion of "unbounded admiration and gratitude"
Starmer - carriage clock with the words 'thanks' engraved and then bungled out of the back door on a Monday morning whilst the rest of Britain is recovering from the world cup final.
At least it's not illegitimi non carborundum.
Carriage Clock with a Legion D'Honneur hanging on it.
Harry Kane favourite for the Ballon d'Or for the next 24 hours.
If England win, then I suspect that's in the bag - unless Yamal does something very special in the final.
Coral & Ladbrokes offer 19/4 against a Messi assist tomorrow. Mbappé remains second favourite for the Golden Boot because he is leading the pack as things stand.
Heres a question
Does the Third / Fourth Place Play Off game qualify for Golden Boot?...be a bit strange if it did as theoretically you have already been knocked out?
EXC: The cabinet will present Keir Starmer with a specially engraved carriage clock for his leaving present tomorrow
David Lammy has organised the whip-round
A carriage clock? Is it 1985?
Blair - standing ovation in the House.
Thatcher - grown male MPs in tears
Churchill - House passes motion of "unbounded admiration and gratitude"
Starmer - carriage clock with the words 'thanks' engraved and then bungled out of the back door on a Monday morning whilst the rest of Britain is recovering from the world cup final.
At least it's not illegitimi non carborundum.
Carriage Clock with a Legion D'Honneur hanging on it.
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
And yet, Track and Trace is chicken feed compared to the dystopian surveillance state planned with Starmer's digital ID bullshit. We can only hope Burnham throws that overboard. It'd not only be a good thing in itself, it'll save money too.
Sorry to disappoint you but it's coming soon - but we're not being told.
I think it will need to be a university seat where all the students are rabidly right wing.
Buckingham? Durham? St Andrews?
No hope in St Andrews. NE Fife was a Tory seat until 1987 but is now a Lib Dem/SNP marginal. St Andrews students certainly tend towards the posh but I don't think they are especially political.
Re: On state pension age and learning disabilities.
(For those not aware - I had to check the detail, learning disability = Onset before age of majority AND reduced ability to deal with complexity and learn new skills/information AND reduced ability to live/cope independently. *)
Like the state pension age discussion, life expectancy numbers being COVID-affected are relevant.
Over half of adults with learning disabilities do not live past 65, report says
More than half of adults with learning disabilities in England die before the age of 65, an annual report into mortality suggests.
For the general population, that figure is 15%, according to the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review, which is known as the LeDeR and was commissioned by NHS England.
It looked at deaths recorded between 2021 and 2024 and found those with a learning disability died, on average, 19 years younger than the general population. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnv949z75jmo
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
And yet, Track and Trace is chicken feed compared to the dystopian surveillance state planned with Starmer's digital ID bullshit. We can only hope Burnham throws that overboard. It'd not only be a good thing in itself, it'll save money too.
Sorry to disappoint you but it's coming soon - but we're not being told.
The child health report published this week also called for vaccination and medical records to be tied to each child's digital id. Oppose the surveillance state and you are literally murdering babies. Otoh it might put Palantir out of work so swings and roundabouts.
"Investigators are considering whether leftwing, anarchist and single-issue terrorism (LASIT) played a role in the suspect’s alleged motivation, but are keeping an open mind as new material emerges."
What serious leftwing terrorism have we had? I know Germany, for example had it. But us? Not counting old ladies with Palestine Action placards....
I don't know about you, but obviously many of us recall 15 February 1894 when the anarchist Martial Bourdin blew himself up by accident when preparing for an attack in Greenwich Park.
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
I agree, Covid era spending was nuts.
With hindsight it is impossible not to agree. At the time with medical staff and hospitals keeling over and a world wide shortage of PPE I would have expected my government to do everything they could think of to get it, even take risks if there was a chance. No responsible government would do anything else.
Similarly with track and trace. The government was being presented with exponential graphs showing how this lethal disease was going to spread through the country causing countless deaths. These graphs proved to be rubbish, of course, and it was not thanks to T&T. They completely failed to take account of changes in behaviour . My criticism of T&T , and indeed our whole approach to Covid, is that we stuck to these ideas for far too long, after they had repeatedly been proven to be false. We had absurd protocols built around AIDS, where we worried about what we touched for years with no evidence that this was a viable means of spreading the infection which was largely airborne.
My view is that this inquiry has been a wasted opportunity and a waste of resources. We needed to focus on what worked and what didn’t. We needed to focus on our decision making processes and think about how new information could be utilised. Instead we indulged in the blame game scoring retrospective points with hindsight.
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
And yet, Track and Trace is chicken feed compared to the dystopian surveillance state planned with Starmer's digital ID bullshit. We can only hope Burnham throws that overboard. It'd not only be a good thing in itself, it'll save money too.
Sorry to disappoint you but it's coming soon - but we're not being told.
I've seen little bits about that on TwX (so hard to know how accurate) but that sounds dodgy as hell too.
I'm not voting for any party in favour of that dystopian monstrosity.
The EU bringing in a system like that is not a surprise as they have a different legal system (top down) to the Anglo Saxon areas of influence. Our bottom up system derives from the barons at Runnymede (our founding fathers?) so if it were to be introduced, it would likely be fudged, over budget, and incorrectly maintained. Thank God for the British civil service.
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
If you ever had a ‘free’ covid test that came from that pot. And you are insane if you think Labour under Starmer would somehow have spent less. They were calling for MORE all the time. Get your labour hat off for once.
Ooh, so it’s Spain in the final and not France. That might be slightly preferable from an England perspective, so long as we can overcome the Argies tonight.
The way the Spanish controlled the previously rampant French suggests not. Hard not to see them winning the cup.
Anyone can fluke a win... Just need to beat Argentina...
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
Track and trace spending includes all the covid tests, PCR and lateral flow. That was the vast majority of the spending. A lot more than a spreadsheet.
As it happened we were always a step or two behind the epidemic, so whilst helpful to know when infected, we (often) didn't manage to interrupt transmission.
The Iranians thought they could repost video of Ukrainian drones bombing Russian ships in the Sea of Azov, and present it as their own bombing of ships the Americans told could pass the Straight of Hormuz.
Reports in The Times that the Treasury are looking to bring forward the increase in state pension age to 68 to start from 2037. The current published plan is to phase this increase in from April 2044.
I think it will need to be a university seat where all the students are rabidly right wing.
Buckingham? Durham? St Andrews?
Buckingham students is probably the best bet right-wing-wise, but is it too small to swing a constituency?
Besides, Young Reform is a thing, but a pretty minor one. The core constituency for Reform is whiter, more outright home owning, nostalgic for their 70s/80s youth and, for preference, feeling trapped in a faded seaside town.
Are there any mega inquiries which have been worth it? Maybe some of the Northern Ireland ones have helped achieve closure.
But Chilcott, Covid etc. just seem to cost far too much, take far too long, say little that isn't already known.
I've said this before but mad to me we are basically spending the same on the covid inquiry as we are giving to CEPI (the organisation developing vaccines to address the next pandemic).
Reports in The Times that the Treasury are looking to bring forward the increase in state pension age to 68 to start from 2037. The current published plan is to phase this increase in from April 2044.
Dr Suzy Morrissey is due to report imminently with her findings after last years call for evidence for the third state pension age review following the 2014 act. The govt then works on that.
So there’s a bit of pre emoting of that although the scope also included how future state pension age will be determined.
Final govt report/decision was supposedly not due til 2029
Given the govt is supposedly committed to a 10 year notification of any change in state pension age if that holds this change would need to go through next year. If it is an actual proposed change rather than an assumption.
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
If you ever had a ‘free’ covid test that came from that pot. And you are insane if you think Labour under Starmer would somehow have spent less. They were calling for MORE all the time. Get your labour hat off for once.
Except that whatever Labour said was hypothetical, whereas the Conservatives actually presided over actual, verifiable and outrageous corruption.
It is truly outrageous that not only has Michelle Mone not faced prosecution for fraud, but continues to be a member of the House of Lords, albeit on "leave of absence".
She's tough as nails and Andy rates her. Markets will like it and for all the softy lefty talk that's important.
Also avoids the bad optics of replacing the first F Chancellor with a man.
Preferred to Yvette on that score. Maybe because despite being a woman Yvette has Balls.
I like Shabana, and it would be a sensible appointment especially as labour women are unhappy that they have not had a leader yet
Also her immigration policies passed yesterday
We will see. But she is the clear betting fav now. Ed is out with the washing. Pat still just about hanging in there. There has clearly been some scuttlebut.
On the one hand Burnham can choose whoever he damned well pleases. On the other he does actually need a safe pair of hands as CoE and Mahmood is not that, in general or economics in particular which she has almost no experience of. There's a lot of vibes going around to do wth Mahmood and Miliband that mostly can be ignored. Putting all that together, feels to me like a lay for Mahmood.
But Miliband has so much baggage he needs a goods train. Appointing him could kill a lot of the hope that will accompany Burnham before he even gets started.
I think Miliband has two things in his favour as Burnham's choice as CoE.
First he's best qualified of the front runners for the role. He has significant Treasury experience dating back to Gordon Brown times, he's an effective minister and can be relied on in getting Burnham's policies through. As far as I know he would be acceptable to the markets. You may not agree with me about Miliband's competence but I think Burnham does.
Only in the lunatic world of Labour's anti-economics is being in Gordon Brown's Treasury a plus point.
The regime whose disastrously complacent and incompetent regulation of the financial sector set us up for a massive financial crisis that we're still recovering from; which managed to turn the golden economic legacy the Conservatives left into a, by their own admission, "no money left" national bankruptcy, and which set us on the disastrous regulate, tax and waste economic road we're now, even according to the OBR, reaching the end of.
Added to the destruction of our energy industry and his disastrous defeat as Labour leader, and the phrase Master of Disaster could have been coined for Ed Miliband.
Burnham would be wise to run a million miles from him.
You've fallen for Osborne's 2010 propaganda. Jeremy Hunt said when he went to the Treasury, he was surprised to discover how highly rated was Gordon Brown.
In my view Browns worst legacy was the mountain of PPI he left behind. Hospital needs a light bulb changed? Kerchief that’s 250 quid please… It was a way to spend lots of money off the books, and it still has ramifications today.
On a day when the Conservatives have been roasted by Lady Hallet for the criminal dereliction of duty by spaffing up the wall TEN BILLION pounds on USELESS PPE you Tories have some gaul calling out Brown.
Could be worse - we could also be spaffing £208mn extra up the wall for a useless enquiry.
£10,000,000,000 on PPE spaffed up is appalling...Sequestration of funds of everyone complicit in this appalling corruption should be the starting point.
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
If you ever had a ‘free’ covid test that came from that pot. And you are insane if you think Labour under Starmer would somehow have spent less. They were calling for MORE all the time. Get your labour hat off for once.
Except that whatever Labour said was hypothetical, whereas the Conservatives actually presided over actual, verifiable and outrageous corruption.
It is truly outrageous that not only has Michelle Mone not faced prosecution for fraud, but continues to be a member of the House of Lords, albeit on "leave of absence".
They tied the suspension of the procurement process to the emergency measures, that was in March 2020 (when I wrote to my MP), almost their first act in a national crisis was to enable corruption. A reputable government would have continued to use the trusted suppliers rather than cut them out. The documentary oon this had a statement from one that they had stock and resorted in supplying hospitals direct because they were being ignored.
Comments
Yeah, good stuff - you're approved.
* Poetic licence but largely true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Ridley
Old enough to vote, too young for social media after midnight:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c982857nlrlo#comments
Does the Third / Fourth Place Play Off game qualify for Golden Boot?...be a bit strange if it did as theoretically you have already been knocked out?
This is only the tip of the iceburg though.
Dido Harding / Johnson and all the other Tories complcit spaffed up over £30,000,000,000 on Track and Trace....a fucking glorifies Excel spreadsheet!
https://commission.europa.eu/topics/digital-economy-and-society/european-digital-identity_en
Expect Kemi and (especially) Nigel to be targeting that element of the BBC.
Oxford West and Abingdon would be his best chance on that basis. That tells you just how remote a possibility his winning would be.
https://youtu.be/WbTqxycsQ2Y?is=VAZXiqh33UOQq0NC
I'm not voting for any party in favour of that dystopian monstrosity.
(For those not aware - I had to check the detail, learning disability = Onset before age of majority AND reduced ability to deal with complexity and learn new skills/information AND reduced ability to live/cope independently. *)
Like the state pension age discussion, life expectancy numbers being COVID-affected are relevant.
Over half of adults with learning disabilities do not live past 65, report says
More than half of adults with learning disabilities in England die before the age of 65, an annual report into mortality suggests.
For the general population, that figure is 15%, according to the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review, which is known as the LeDeR and was commissioned by NHS England.
It looked at deaths recorded between 2021 and 2024 and found those with a learning disability died, on average, 19 years younger than the general population.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnv949z75jmo
* Source: https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgnl/health__social_care/Health-and-adult-social-care/Learning-disability/Community-Learning-Disability-Service/What-is-a-learning-disability.aspx
I’ve always said I’m in favour of ID cards, if the following conditions are met:
1) They’re issued for free
2) You don’t have to carry them at all times
3) You can use them chip and pin to access all government services - so they would replace passports and driving licences, not augment them
4) That you had the power to access all information the government holds on you, and amend it where it is wrong
5) That civil servants who access your data are logged, and you can see who they are and why they accessed it
6) That if somebody has accessed your data inappropriately you have the right to take legal action against them, funded by the government.
And numbers 4-6 will not happen while any civil servant breathes air.
So - I oppose them.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3389196/
Similarly with track and trace. The government was being presented with exponential graphs showing how this lethal disease was going to spread through the country causing countless deaths. These graphs proved to be rubbish, of course, and it was not thanks to T&T. They completely failed to take account of changes in behaviour .
My criticism of T&T , and indeed our whole approach to Covid, is that we stuck to these ideas for far too long, after they had repeatedly been proven to be false. We had absurd protocols built around AIDS, where we worried about what we touched for years with no evidence that this was a viable means of spreading the infection which was largely airborne.
My view is that this inquiry has been a wasted opportunity and a waste of resources. We needed to focus on what worked and what didn’t. We needed to focus on our decision making processes and think about how new information could be utilised. Instead we indulged in the blame game scoring retrospective points with hindsight.
Meanwhile the plebs are reduced to observation, monitoring, surveillance, recording, and tracking. Mere numbers in a database.
And you are insane if you think Labour under Starmer would somehow have spent less. They were calling for MORE all the time. Get your labour hat off for once.
As it happened we were always a step or two behind the epidemic, so whilst helpful to know when infected, we (often) didn't manage to interrupt transmission.
https://x.com/dailyirannews/status/2076967451032457361
Treasury officials have told the Office for Budget Responsibility that the state retirement threshold will rise to 68 seven years earlier than legislated
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/state-pension-uk-retirement-age-68-nc50dzgcn (£££)
Besides, Young Reform is a thing, but a pretty minor one. The core constituency for Reform is whiter, more outright home owning, nostalgic for their 70s/80s youth and, for preference, feeling trapped in a faded seaside town.
But Chilcott, Covid etc. just seem to cost far too much, take far too long, say little that isn't already known.
I've said this before but mad to me we are basically spending the same on the covid inquiry as we are giving to CEPI (the organisation developing vaccines to address the next pandemic).
NEW THREAD
So there’s a bit of pre emoting of that although the scope also included how future state pension age will be determined.
https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/third-state-pension-age-review-independent-report-call-for-evidence
Final govt report/decision was supposedly not due til 2029
Given the govt is supposedly committed to a 10 year notification of any change in state pension age if that holds this change would need to go through next year. If it is an actual proposed change rather than an assumption.
It is truly outrageous that not only has Michelle Mone not faced prosecution for fraud, but continues to be a member of the House of Lords, albeit on "leave of absence".
A reputable government would have continued to use the trusted suppliers rather than cut them out. The documentary oon this had a statement from one that they had stock and resorted in supplying hospitals direct because they were being ignored.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Buckingham