Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Yeah, if he goes ahead and gets that done, I will give him lots of credit. Unfortunately, I expect Kemi and Farage to counter very effectively with "they're not paying for care with it, they're paying for immigrants". Ed Davey will come up with a more socially acceptable way of putting it, but will oppose it too.

People who laud the brilliant progressive achievement of Corbyn's 2017 manifesto don't tend to mention that two of its biggest campaigning points were more cops and we won't take granny's house. Which I suppose is what made it a good campaign, but lets not kid ourselves he was going round the country telling everyone how many more asylum seekers we would be taking.

Andy's handing out free money again. This doesn't sound like someone who's particularly "wary".

Andy Burnham has proposed a 20% cut to business rates for pubs with many smaller, family-run enterprises taken out of paying the levy altogether, in his first major policy initiative during the Makerfield byelection.

Burnham’s plans amount to a notable criticism of Keir Starmer’s policy in the area. The Greater Manchester mayor said: “Labour have got it wrong on small businesses.”

He has been wary of discussing concrete policy decisions, in part because of a desire to focus on the current contest, but also because he has said he would not want to go beyond what Labour promised in its election manifesto.

Thanks, Andy. Isn't this called "bowing to lobbyists" when Reeves or Starmer does it?

Is straight talking Andy going to put income tax up? Or is this paid for by facing down bond markets?

Landowners paying IHT is worrying this arch critic of Thatcherite neoliberalism.

Nicely aligning with Farage there. Surely the King In The North isn't a populist?

In fairness to him, he could probably design farmer inheritance tax better. Lift the threshold but increase the rate. I have very little confidence that he does intend that.

Andy’s handing out VAT cuts today (to hospitality). This is going to be the first by-election to crash the pound.

Here he goes again. Let's fill up buses with people at peak time with people who don't need to be on them. (Pensioners, not disabled people, I mean).

Burnham said he would like to remove the restriction that stopped older and disabled people using bus passes before 09:30 GMT, and that he would like to see more "essential services" brought under "stronger public control".

This was not remotely controversial in my hometown when I was a kid, though I think it was 9, not 9.30 that was the cut off.

The 9.30 rule does seem a bit dated. If people are going to work on a train they are likely to be getting to their destination station between 7.30 or 8.30 if they are starting work at 8 or 9. Last year my wife was doing an audit at a factory just outside York so I tagged a long so I could go and mooch around York for the day. I was at a train station that was about 2 minutes from the city centre. The train that left at 9.20 was nearly empty but the train at 9.40 was rammed.