[The Weeping Angel]

Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs, cutting hair and writing newspaper columns.

Is that a quote from a film?

[Tubby Isaacs]

George Burns (with newspaper columnists added by me)

[Tubby Isaacs]

What the fucking fuck. Joke paper. Analysis here was reading the members' register of interests. And then phoning some "campaigners" up.

Ministers who earn profits from privately owned property could be seen as hypocrites by voters who want to see the government’s promised rent reforms become law, campaigners have said.

The warning comes after Guardian analysis revealed four cabinet ministers – including the chancellor, Rachel Reeves – have declared rental income from property in the MPs’ register of interests.

The Renters Rights Bill is going through right now. As far as we know, none of these embryonic Rachmans have sought to thwart it.

The Government could be seen as hypocrites, they write, as if they're in no way trying to create that impression.

[mattomac]

Yup as I said if the bill doesn’t go through that is the issue.

[The Weeping Angel]

Has anyone tried turning the Guardian on and off?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Just off.

[Youngian]

Well, indeed.

The Guardian knows what it's doing with this stuff. BTL is all "bring on the trade war" from people who doubtless don't export cars for a living. The way it's couched in terms of "surrender" etc is very Brexit like. The liberal left (or at least chunks of it) have gone even madder than chunks of the socialist left.

China and India (more quietly) are prepared for a punch up with Trump. But they aren't over reliant on US defence while in an existential conflict with Putin.
If Ursula VDL, Macron, Starmer are in a room with Trump when news arrived that Putin has shot himself and Russian forces surrender, than they can rub cake in Trump's face.

[Boiler]

Has anyone tried turning the Guardian on and off?

I think it needs File -> Preferences -> Restore editorial defaults -> Confirm...

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yup as I said if the bill doesn’t go through that is the issue.

See also gambling tax rises. Gambling got off lightly last year and it would certainly not be particularly fanciful to infer that lobbying by ex-Labour politicians may have helped that. But the word is that they're rising considerably this time. Sadly, the Government won't get any credit. The Guardian will do "source tells us the proposals were watered down and the tax could have raised a billion more, which could have paid for x extra nurses", with a quick phone call to some campaigners who tell you that a big tax rise is actually evidence the Government is in the industry's pockets.

Same will probably happen with the renters rights. Anything short of a rent freeze will bring forth the same sort of stuff, thwarted by the Minister for Paper Clips renting out a one bedroom flat in Catford.

[The Weeping Angel]

They'll say it was Rushanara Ali's fault she somehow managed to water it down.

[Tubby Isaacs]

"Lobbying" has become almost too easy a story for the Guardian, Independent, Private Eye to write. It's worth commenting on, but sometimes, what are called "vested interests" do have a point. Starting NI at a much lower level (even if it's what people have said should happen- "get these low payers to pay the cost of the tax credits their workers have to claim" etc) seems to have reduced employment. It's easy to imaging Reeves having met a delegation of eg fast food providers or someone else not particularly cuddly who complained about it. If Reeves had thought they had a point and started the rise a bit higher, the story would have been "Reeves gives millions to McDonalds, which could have paid for x nurses". Yet perhaps that would have saved jobs, and the tax would have been better coming from somewhere else?

This sort of writing, while putting itself forward as being particularly penetrating and truth telling, doesn't really bother itself with trade offs. The Left loves this sort of stuff because it has strong ideas about good and bad people who they will and won't meet. Anything to do with business is basically bad and a distraction from true politics- where policies are drawn up by party members. You see this with tax in particular. Owen Smith was bad because he'd had someone work in his office from a Big 4 firm. Jez wouldn't do that, he had Richard Murphy there instead (though they seemed to fall out quite badly).

The test to me for lobbying is "Is this decision explicable without it?" You can make a case that gambling lobbying last year worked. And perhaps that Private Equity lobbying worked- got a smaller tax rise than some were predicting. Otherwise, for a government that I keep hearing "is in the pockets of x, y, z", I don't really see much that's unexpected. And hopefully gambling gets taxed properly this year.