[The Weeping Angel]

Oh joy. And just before the Budget, just to compound the "nothing works and taxes are up" mood.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... e-november

Bastards.

[Youngian]

There's also the problem that 17.4m, even with deaths and repentant liberal leavers and Lexiters, is rather a lot of voters to tell that (in effect) they made a dumb choice.

Nobody made a dumb choice as all the bad predictions for Brexit were Project Fear. Its not Remain voters Farage needs to be made accountable to. They got the Brexit they voted against.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The problem is that lots of Remain voters are more focussed on Starmer who should "just cancel Brexit ffs"

[Tubby Isaacs]

Reeves considers breaking manifesto pledge with income tax rise to fill £30bn gap
Exclusive: Treasury discussions include possibly adding 1p to basic rate or raising higher or additional tax rates

Roughly translated- Treasury produces spreadsheet.

I'm ok with this but I'll be in a small minority. The general reaction to this is unlikely to be "Great, grown up politics!"

[Tubby Isaacs]

Bastards.

I'd say fools, and inept. They barely make the argument in terms of recruitment, which would be the best argument. Some nonsense rebased to 2008 and dodgily really doesn't cut it.

There's also the drug prices rise coming which it seems nobody is going to be able to do too much about. I'm not saying resident doctors pay for the cost of that, but some recognition of other pressures (which are by no means unique to the health budget) might be sensible.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha ha. Even Kemi seems to have dropped this. What's the point here? He's saying that Labour dictated the statement, or that the statement was subconsciously influenced by their position? Either way Stephen Fry from Gosford Park is on the case.

To mix my metaphors, can I ask who was in Government?
The Tories
No further questions, Your Honour.

[Andy McDandy]

Show me a journalist who doesn't think there's nobody cleverer than them. If he can't figure it out, he assumes nobody can.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Have we heard from "egghead" Matthew Syed on the subject? He's recently joined the Tories, him and that ex-Labour chap who's convinced himself that the Tories are about to go full YIMBY because some of them wrote a pamphlet. Maybe Syed is advising Kemi already.

[Tubby Isaacs]

[The Weeping Angel]

Naturally, it's the government's fault

https://news.sky.com/story/manhunt-for- ... 4aJKUULXcA

A manhunt has been launched for an accidentally released asylum seeker who was jailed for 12 months earlier this year after he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping.

Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu had been staying at The Bell Hotel in the Essex town, with the incident fuelling weeks of protests at the site.

The Ethiopian national was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and harassment without violence earlier this month.

[Youngian]

Naturally, it's the government's fault

In theory its not but home secretary is a thankless task in which you take the blame for every law and order mishap.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

People, especially the rodents of the press, are very poor at discerning the difference between responsibility and fault.

[Abernathy]

So just looking for a prisoner released mistakenly is a "manhunt", is it?

A word that evokes images of prison guards with rifles and shotguns wading through swamps and covering every inch of ground with panting bloodhounds in pursuit of a desperate escaped con in leg irons and a hooped prison uniform.

The reality is more like a few cops sitting in front of a monitor scanning miles of CCTV footage to try and spot where this guy has gone.

They're just fucking addicted to exaggeration and sensationalism, aren't they?

[Killer Whale]

I've already seen it described as "Starmer letting a rapist out", which is clearly wrong on several levels, but this, it appears, is what is in a significant number of people's heads these days. These days.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I absolutely give up. How many average earners have £20k spare to put in an ISA every year? So this bung has to continue forever.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... hel-reeves

The Commons Treasury committee said on Saturday that the chancellor should not cut the cash Isa allowance, arguing this was unlikely to encourage people to put their money into the stock market. What was needed instead, the MPs said, was better financial education so people were able to make informed decisions about their savings.

[Tubby Isaacs]

People, especially the rodents of the press, are very poor at discerning the difference between responsibility and fault.

They know exactly what they're doing. If it was one of their mates, it would be "Nigel to take on politically correct idiots who released sex offender".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Raise £12bn in budget by extending income tax thresholds freeze, says thinktank

The influential Labour thinktank the Fabian Society is urging Rachel Reeves to raise £12bn in next month’s budget by extending the freeze on income tax thresholds for another two years.

Joe Dromey, the Fabians’ general secretary, argues in a new report that the move is the “best available option” for the chancellor as she seeks to offset the impact of weaker economic forecasts in her 26 November statement.

This would have been better done in the first budget. Lots more headroom, which would have meant a more measured approach on PIP. Change it if the economy picks up. If it doesn't, you're going to lose the election anyway. I can only think they didn't create headroom because they didn't want to be hit with "biggest peacetime tax rise". So do it now.

Not that this is the best way to raise income taxes by a. long chalk, but it's been made almost politically impossible to do change rates since about 1992.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Lucy Powell has won Labour’s deputy leadership election, beating her rival Bridget Phillipson, as she said the party would not win by trying to “out-Reform Reform”.

I wasn't aware the Government were ending ILR and leaving the European Convention of Human Rights and supporting net immigration of zero.

You can think they've been shitty on immigration without writing bollocks lines for other parties to attack them with. Say what you disagree with- eg foreign student numbers, making citizenship take 10 years, too much political emphasis on immigration. You're in a position to get these changed.

This first effort doesn't give me much confidence in Powell.

[Boiler]

Say what you disagree with- eg foreign student numbers, making citizenship take 10 years

Sadly there's no-one I can really ask about when my father applied for naturalisation, but it was granted about twenty years after he arrived in the UK.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The UK's at the lower end for citizenship nowadays, as I understand it, but that's a fairly good thing in that it encourages integration. At the very least some sort of faster track than 10 year should exist.

Add migrant surcharges to the bad things. These have been raised to pay for some apprenticeships, which might be clever symbolism, but it's unfair for what's doubtless not a particularly significant number in the government accounts.