Mailwatch(ed) Forum

As Lewis Baston points out, it's not just votes for 16-year-olds, it's other measures as well



Like Lewis, I would scrap voter ID, but at least it's being widened.

The only other thing I’d like to see (other than a prportional system), would be mandatory voting.

Big majorities support photo ID, so I think accepting bank cards are a fairly brave thing.

There are some reforms on corporate donations in there. I haven't read much commentary on them, but we were told recently that Lord Ali had vetoed anything like this.

I see Richard Murphy has already predicted a crash before Reeves has published detailed proposals. He’ll have a lot more engagement than Nils Pratley. There’s really no incentive to do any proper work if you’re a commentator these days

For a nice example of the Left chucking any old shit at the Government, here's Mike Sivier (remember him?). He popped up on Bluesky.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com

Among the things it criticizes Reeves for is- get this- raising the minimum wage by too much. He's also become some sort of inflation hawk.

Also outright rubbish like Reeves "has all but ruled out borrowing for investment, preferring instead to stick to "fiscal rules"". How can you not know that the fiscal rules were changed to allow for a lot more investment? And some rubbish about "austerity", when borrowing went up a lot. The result is "paralysis", whatever that means, rather than the economy slowing for a bit, which isn't exactly unknown in the last few years. The economy hasn't grown since the last quarter, we're not exactly in the Great Depression. I thought people had learned from the Osborne era where many made silly predictions that the economy was stuck forever. But I guess if it's Starmer in charge, that's what everybody does.

He's also said that wages are down, when they aren't. Hard to tell the difference sometimes between the left and Kemi Badenoch.

More of that "same as Reform" business. Worth reading the rest of the thread, says that it's only really in financial services and AI that the UK is that divergent.

I'm not really sure this is alignment by stealth, as another poster calls it. The Government's been fairly open that this is what it's doing, and that it sees economic advantages in it. I think the issue is that there are so many people who aren't interested in anything short of "just rEJOIN nOW".

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Jul 17, 2025 9:23 pm I see Richard Murphy has already predicted a crash before Reeves has published detailed proposals. He’ll have a lot more engagement than Nils Pratley. There’s really no incentive to do any proper work if you’re a commentator these days

A pioneer is another accountant Terry Smith who somehow managed to set himself up as a pundit on the Eurozone PIIGS crisis around 2010. He would turn up on Newsnight predicting unsubstantiated horse shit about the Eurozone's fate while the presenter looked sagely at Terry.

This is positive. At the risk of sounding too negative, couldn't this have been ready to go earlier?

I think the Government get some unfair criticism for not having more stuff ready, often politically motivated "they were too busy expelling socialists" sort of stuff. But this seems to be a case of handing out a relatively small amount of money. Hard to see why that couldn't have happened in the first year.

Youngian wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 1:40 pm
A pioneer is another accountant Terry Smith who somehow managed to set himself up as a pundit on the Eurozone PIIGS crisis around 2010. He would turn up on Newsnight predicting unsubstantiated horse shit about the Eurozone's fate while the presenter looked sagely at Terry.

He's a fund manager, but I was wondering where his profile had come from.

Here he in 2012 writing rubbish about austerity.

https://www.privateequitywire.co.uk/fun ... le-debate/

There is simply no source of additional money to spend to stimulate growth. The bond markets have had enough of governments who continually run unsustainable deficits. You cannot borrow your way out of a debt crisis.



In the month he published this, UK 10 year bonds were 1.69%.

Ofwat is being abolished, presumably to be combined with other water related regulators. It's been getting better lately and requiring much more investment, even if that pushes bills up, but their reputation is probably holed below the water, so to speak.

Not looking good on planning.

Why is that, then ?

Because

We wanted to take our time to analyse the changes the Government has made to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Here's my take:

The Bill remains a step in the right direction towards getting Britain building again.

Replacing the broken status quo of site by site protections that delivered bat tunnels and fish discos with a more strategic approach to environmental recovery through Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) is a good thing. It is reassuring that they remain part of the bill.

*However* even before these amendments there was a risk that EDPs would be hard to implement. The new amendments will make EDPs harder, slower, and more expensive to prepare. Opportunities for legal challenge will increase. More often than not infrastructure projects won't be covered and will have to fall back on an unreformed status quo.

With Natural England in charge of delivery without direct ministerial oversight, I remain concerned that the Bill will fail to consign the bat tunnels and fish discos to history.

The Bill should have been a watershed moment for unleashing growth across Britain, but these amendments widen the cracks in the central pillar of the Government’s growth strategy.

Your take ? You appear to be quoting someone. Why ?

I'm quoting the tweet that I linked to because this forum wouldn't display it in full.

So, not “your take” then. Plagiarism is generally to be avoided.

I never said it was my take. Seriously, just click on the fucking tweet.

A quoting error doesn't need to be the source of an argument. Pointless.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Fri Jul 18, 2025 3:50 pm Not looking good on planning.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. It was always going to get amended.

The problem is that these amendments will make it harder to build houses, plus they seem to be very familiar to amendments put forth by Chris Hinchcliff.