[Andy McDandy]

I took a look.

His argument is, well, not even there. He spends most of the column arguing why inheritance tax is actually the fairest tax out there. So, why does he say it should be cut?

Because kids these days might need a helping hand and it's nice to think you're getting them on the property ladder. That's it. Small government, leave it to individuals, too bad if you're too poor to pass anything on to your kids, the rich kids need their life on easy street just like their folks had.

[Crabcakes]

If you’re rich enough to pass the inheritance tax threshold by so much that the taxable proportion is a substantial sum, you’re rich enough to leave enough to your kids that a cut won’t materially change much of anything. And the bigger that sum, the richer you were and the less difference it makes.

Maybe Alex is worried Stan might leave him short enough money for new wallpaper.

[Youngian]

Can’t see Bozo leaving enough dosh to be liable for IHT, court enforced child maintenance partially sees to that. Caveat here being that he’s probably never been skint and is a chiseling ponce always on the earhole.

[davidjay]

I can imagine that when the time comes. Bozo won't be as well off as he'd like to think. Sooner or later he'll be a (mangy) footnote in history and I can't for one minute imagine him downsizing his lifestyle once the speech and book money starts drying up.

[Watchman]

Everything in life for de Piffle has been on the never-never, “give me the money today, and I might find something for you tomorrow”
If he does answer your call the next day, “sorry old chap, put it all on the 2:30 at Haydock, but don’t worry, I’ve got something else that might interest you”

[Bones McCoy]

I can imagine that when the time comes. Bozo won't be as well off as he'd like to think. Sooner or later he'll be a (mangy) footnote in history and I can't for one minute imagine him downsizing his lifestyle once the speech and book money starts drying up.

Ancient Rome had a "year of four emperors" AD 69.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Four_Emperors

It isn't remembered as a good time, or for good governance.
Neither should our administration of five prime ministers.

[davidjay]

Which makes me wonder how history will regard the Fallible Five. Will it be like the medieval period where all the Edwards and Henrys merge into one, or will there be a memorable one?

Cameron - if anything he'll be remembered as a Neville Chamberlain figure, present at a turning point in history and getting it hopelessly wrong.

May - three years of drifting. McMillan or Douglas Home.

Bozo - would like to be thought of as Charles II. Will hopefully be remembered as the man who Made Covid Worse.

Truss - the answer to whatever will pass for a pub quiz question by then. Lady Jane Grey with her head intact.

Sunak - controlled by his courtiers and forgotten the week after he gets kicked out of Downing Street. Henry I, or maybe II. Possibly III.

[mattomac]

Depends what happens next if indeed Sunak is ousted and Labour see their own 10-15 years in power that will shape its dialogue

[Youngian]

History might be kinder to 2010 Cameron for presiding over the first coalition in modern politics without any major turmoil. Like Lord North apparently had a some noteworthy domestic achievements.
Hard to see what can be salvaged from the other four except for Theresa May stepping up out of a sense of duty to prevent nutters from taking over. She didn’t fully understand how impossible her situation was so the nutters did take over.

[Dalem Lake]

History might be kinder to 2010 Cameron for presiding over the first coalition in modern politics without any major turmoil.

Well, the Lib Dems hardly put his feet to the fire on anything really and seemed happy to let Osborne rip with austerity. I'd say they were more of a boon to him than his actual own backbenchers.

[slilley]

Which makes me wonder how history will regard the Fallible Five. Will it be like the medieval period where all the Edwards and Henrys merge into one, or will there be a memorable one?

Cameron - if anything he'll be remembered as a Neville Chamberlain figure, present at a turning point in history and getting it hopelessly wrong.

May - three years of drifting. McMillan or Douglas Home.

Bozo - would like to be thought of as Charles II. Will hopefully be remembered as the man who Made Covid Worse.

Truss - the answer to whatever will pass for a pub quiz question by then. Lady Jane Grey with her head intact.

Sunak - controlled by his courtiers and forgotten the week after he gets kicked out of Downing Street. Henry I, or maybe II. Possibly III.

In fairness to Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the premiership landed in his lap late on in the 1959-1964 Parliament after the Government had been shattered by Profumo and a number of other scandals such as the spy John Vassall for example. He was up against a Labour leader in Harold Wilson who was far more media savy and was fighting against the 13 wasted years argument. Despite all that he managed to restrict Wilson's majority to just 5.

Having given up the leadership in 1965, he was happy to serve in Heath's Shadow Cabinet and then the real thing as Foreign Secretary. he was more than happy to do so having been an able Foreign Secretary from 1960-1963.

Simon

[mattomac]

Off we generate a world chess championship team in 2040, Sunak might get kudos for that.

[davidjay]

Off we generate a world chess championship team in 2040, Sunak might get kudos for that.

John Major deserves credit for our Olympics prowess so a precedent has been set.

[satnav]

Despite much of the evidence at the Covid inquiry suggesting that Johnson was out of his depths there are still dozens of right wing hacks prepared to defend Johnson's handling of the Covid pandemic. His defenders are trying to paint a picture of Johnson being outnumbered and bamboozled by the main medical and scientific officers. The problem with this argument is that Johnson had access of dozens of special advisers who could have helped explain the scientific data to him and to have offered alternative advice. He wasn't alone he just chose to surround himself with advisers who were as thick and as lazy as him.

[Bones McCoy]

Or maybe: They pull the advisors from the same limited pool as the politicians and journalists.

Well up on opera, classics, theatre and rhetoric.
But completely bamboozled by atoms, pi, microbes and rates of change.


In a sane (of common sense, as they'd have it) world, the political class would be running a Renaissance Fayre.
Meanwhile some proper claver types would get a shot at government.

Here's C.P. Snow from 1959:

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists.
Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The response was cold: it was also negative.
Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, 'Can you read?' – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language.
So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their Neolithic ancestors would have had.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I think Bones has it.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Johnson asked the security/intelligence stories to plan an invasion of The Netherlands.

No, don't laugh, it's true, it says so in the Guardian and I've checked the date...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... nt-in-2021

Boris Johnson’s appearance before the Covid-19 inquiry is not until Wednesday but it is already making headlines in the Netherlands amid a mixture of amusement and alarm at claims he asked for British spies to plan a “raid” on a Dutch vaccine plant.

The operation – according to sources who briefed Johnson’s employer, the Daily Mail – would have taken place against the backdrop of a tit-for-tat row in March 2021 between the then prime minister and the EU, which was moving towards restricting exports of vaccines across the Channel.

An “enraged” Johnson asked security services to draw up “military options” to obtain “impounded” doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from a plant in Leiden after Britain had negotiated a deal with the company.

Britain’s security services were spared their biggest debacle on Dutch soil since Operation Market Garden

Unbelievably he will use this to counter allegations that he was not involved in policy making because he was writing his fantasy-biography of Shakespeare...

[Youngian]

Did the security services produce a plan to indulge Johnson? A synopsis from an episode of Ultimate Force.

[davidjay]

The ultimate legacy of Boris Johnson - he wanted to invade the Netherlands.

[satnav]

When Keir Starmer first became Labour leader Johnson was always worried about being scrutinised by a lawyer at Question Time. If he was scared of Starmer questioning for 5 minutes a week he must be petrified about the prospect of two days of forensic questioning. Bluff and bluster really isn't going to cut the mustard.