Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 12:05 pm 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?

George Burns (with newspaper columnists added by me)

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.

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

Has anyone tried turning the Guardian on and off?

Just off.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 11:24 am 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.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Fri Aug 08, 2025 11:25 pm Has anyone tried turning the Guardian on and off?

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

mattomac wrote: ↑Fri Aug 08, 2025 11:13 pm 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.

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

"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.

Another Brant-like effort here. Rachel Reeves, eh? Fiscal cliff!

"No sense of direction". What does that actually mean?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -thinktank

Comments are the usual binfire.

Labour's decision to follow the same financial path as the previous Tory government makes many question whether the current government should be allowed to call its 'self Labour. Although RR on the face of it is best qualified to look after finance the problem is her experience leads her to follow the Tory path. A great many of the UK public MIGHT be sympathetic towards austerity for the country but have become hacked off with austerity mainly affecting the lowest paid. The UK does not have a LABOUR government no matter what the label says.

Oboogie wrote: ↑Tue Aug 05, 2025 10:47 pm The only other use of supper I've experienced was Aberdeen in the early 90s where fish and chips was described routinely as a "fish supper".

I've been to a chippy in Glasgow that was offering special deals during the daytime on what it called 'lunchtime suppers'.

Not just Aberdeen . Where I grew up in the west of Scotland, fish and chips was, and still is, always referred to as a "fish supper". The nomenclature extends to other items accompanied by chips, viz : haggis supper, pie supper, black pudding supper, sausage supper, etc etc etc.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 11, 2025 1:42 pm Not just Aberdeen . Where I grew up in the west of Scotland, fish and chips was, and still is, always referred to as a "fish supper". The nomenclature extends to other items accompanied by chips, viz : haggis supper, pie supper, black pudding supper, sausage supper, etc etc etc.

Yes, I was aware it was used elsewhere (we explored Scotland pretty thoroughly in the years we were there) but after 30 years I couldn't remember exactly where else I'd come across it.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Mon Aug 11, 2025 1:12 pm Comments are the usual binfire.

Labour's decision to follow the same financial path as the previous Tory government makes many question whether the current government should be allowed to call its 'self Labour. Although RR on the face of it is best qualified to look after finance the problem is her experience leads her to follow the Tory path. A great many of the UK public MIGHT be sympathetic towards austerity for the country but have become hacked off with austerity mainly affecting the lowest paid. The UK does not have a LABOUR government no matter what the label says.

Is that one of the picks?

What did they think all those tax rises on employers and the well-off were? All opposed by the Tories.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Aug 11, 2025 2:36 pm

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Mon Aug 11, 2025 1:12 pm Comments are the usual binfire.

Labour's decision to follow the same financial path as the previous Tory government makes many question whether the current government should be allowed to call its 'self Labour. Although RR on the face of it is best qualified to look after finance the problem is her experience leads her to follow the Tory path. A great many of the UK public MIGHT be sympathetic towards austerity for the country but have become hacked off with austerity mainly affecting the lowest paid. The UK does not have a LABOUR government no matter what the label says.

Is that one of the picks?

What did they think all those tax rises on employers and the well-off were? All opposed by the Tories.

No this is one of the picks.

I know this is a wild idea to put to a Labour Government but why not tax rich people? Maybe tax their property with a Mansion Tax. If Rachel needs a guide perhaps she could take a look at the Lib dem manifesto of about 20 years ago.

Ha ha, the Lib Dems. Charles Kennedy was a nice chap who I wish had replaced the Tories, but leftwing tax raiser he wasn't, Someone calculated that Jo Swinson's 2019 manifesto raised more taxes than every previous Lib Dem manifesto put together (actually maybe not including the Ashdown one with a penny on income tax, which they dropped).

Oh, the joys of Simon Jenkins (PPE, Oxon) telling us university is a waste of time.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... te-britain

As ever, the fact that lots of universities (particularly ones he thinks should close, no doubt) do lots of vocational stuff, including with local employers, has been lost on him. Jenkins' view of university is a bunch of people like him sitting round an broadening the minds, while the others learn trades. Which is a view, and those things suit lots of people, but I don't get what it is with universities that do something in between set people like him off.