[Tubby Isaacs]

Rachel Reeves again.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... hel-reeves

UK house prices rise in February as chancellor avoids ‘negative speculation’
Rachel Reeves’ upcoming spring forecast has not led to slowdown, as property tax rumours did in November

One thing that's helped here is they avoided the mistake of committing to keep within the fiscal rules at the Spring forecast. They just do that for the Budget now. That was a rookie mistake which they seem to have only made in the rookie year, but should have been avoided.

It's worth looking up what the property tax rumors were about.

Reeves considers replacing stamp duty with new property tax

This was something that wonks would almost all say was good, I reckon. But the politics of it would have been disastrous- extra tax for most people every year, rather than just when they moved house. I guess that's what you're elected for, making choices, but don't then complain that they "can't do politics" and "aren't making radical change people voted for".

They may need to do something on stamp duty. Badenoch won some rare pundits for saying it should be got rid of. Of course its easier to do that if you're prepared to make poor kids much poorer.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I'm already seeing a lot of "Starmer, war for Israel" stuff.

In other news.

a joint statement from the US and six allied Gulf states – Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates – condemning Iran’s “indiscriminate and reckless attacks” across the region, which they say “targeted sovereign territories, endangered civilians, and inflicted damage on civilian infrastructure”. The statement goes on:

Zionism must be more widespread in the region than I thought.

[Andy McDandy]

Ah, but they're rich so they don't count.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Jordanians aren't. But yeah, lots of Middle East countries don't like Iran.