[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.