Mailwatch(ed) Forum

I don't know whether that is a fact, but the in-law siblings were fucked up as recently as yesterday, trying to get from Ulm to Brenner. The Austrian train simply left from Munich East without them and a fair few other onward passengers. They will have had the passenger manifest, thanks to integrated ticketing.

Germans will complain about everything and the Bahn is now the preferred subject of their ire...while complaining the lack of border controls which delay so many trains and cause a domino-effect with connections.

Personally, I am reasonably satisfied with the service. 600 km from here to Bavaria in barely four hours for less than fifty euros? That is most agreeable. And, if there is an hour's delay, you will get at least half that back in compo, which will fund a fine schnizel and a couple of pints.

Mmm, schnitzel...

While searching for some more info on this FT paywall story, came across this innovative wheeze by the treasury, confiscate cryptocurrency from crooks and flog it off to mugs. Plenty of them in the US to off load it so maybe that’s what Reeves’s planning with Trump. Bloody hope so, why would markets trust a government that takes cryptocurrency seriously?

Rachel Reeves is eyeing up a £5bn pre-Budget windfall as the government considers selling off seized cryptocurrency to plug a hole in the public finances.

The Home Office is reportedly working with police forces to offload at least £5bn worth of bitcoin and other currencies taken from criminals. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 92402.html

A tax on idiocy. Genius!

Seems like this crypto story has been around since July.

There's another "Starmer just paving the way for Reform" article on the Guardian, I see. I can't be bothered to read it, but one of the good commenters BTL has picked this passage out.

Starmer might observe how much of the UK would simply fall apart without migrants and their children – from your local hospital to the school to the care home. How universities are facing collapse without foreign students and their bumper fees. He might even point out – imagine! – that migrants are human too, with their own lives and dreams for themselves and their families. We could get on to the legacy of empire, and about how the climate crisis and poverty force other populations to move.

Stuff lots of people would accept about students, working visas. Then a last sentence, which means what? Would seem to suggest that what sounds like a very large number of people from the ex-empire should be allowed to migrate to the UK. Note how it's put together in one paragraph as if it's the same (common sense) point, even though it's actually quite a long way on from the first point, and would probably be unpopular.

You can think Labour is drawing the wrong line on international students without agreeing with the second point. I think it would be fatal for Labour to adopt the implied position that objection to large scale economic (as the writer himself says) from much poorer countries makes you basically Farage/Robinson. Tell people they're on Farage's side, and they'll believe you.

Nobody really wants to grapple with the sheer scale of impending displacement due to the climate crisis. Apart from insurers, for example.

https://www.zurich.com/media/magazine/2 ... ed-to-know

Spoiler: There could be 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050.

You can talk about the legacy of Empire, climate change and the lottery of being born in a wealthy nation all you like but the people who are tying flags to lampposts and shouting outside hotels will say:
1) We civilised them
2) Doesn't exist
3) Tough shit darkie.

These investments sound almost too good to be true. I note that the magic phrase "up to" keeps appearing. Of course, everyone does this stuff. but it could bite the government on the arse if it's a lot lower.

Kemi will be pleased as a memorandum of understanding was sort of like a multi billion Dollar trade deal when she was trade secretary or whatever her job was.

Kemi signed memoranda with individual states because Biden thought she was a loon. At least Starmer's dealing with the Federal Government.

Quite the effort here by the BBC to make all this investment into a negative.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2nllgl3q7o

The below is more than a third of the article.

While it is hoped the investments will generate thousands of jobs in the years ahead, it comes at a time when domestic businesses appear to be slowing investment due to higher running costs.
The government says 7,600 jobs will be created by the investments, but over the year to August the number of people on UK payrolls has fallen by an estimated 127,000, according to the Office for National Statistics. Vacancies were down by 119,000 (14%) in June to August 2025 from the level of a year ago.
Many firms have blamed increasing costs, such as having to pay more in National Insurance and the minimum wage, as reasons for slowing investment.
In recent days, pharmaceutical companies have highlighted other challenges to investing in the UK. US giant Merck rowed back on a plan to invest £1bn after blaming successive governments for undervaluing innovative medicines. Instead, it will move research to the US.
AstraZeneca then paused plans to invest £200m at a Cambridge research site, a project expected to create 1,000 jobs. It has also switched investment to the US.

Everything's actually shit forever. Get the message?

See my earlier comment about the media feeding the 'left behind' trope.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... MP=bsky_gu

Ministers are a step closer to abandoning the two-child benefit cap after Downing Street’s preferred candidate to be Labour’s deputy leader said the policy was “spiteful” and had “punished and pushed children into hardship”.

Bridget Phillipson said the cap’s abolition was “on the table” – the clearest sign yet that Downing Street is preparing to scrap the controversial policy.

The education secretary added that if she won the deputy leadership contest she would have a mandate to make tackling child poverty the “unbreakable moral mission” of this government.

Keir Starmer has previously signalled his desire to scrap the limit, which prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children, when economic conditions allow. Child poverty campaigners expect the government to examine the policy as part of the budget on 26 November.

Phillipson said the issue was “profoundly personal” to her because she knew “the sting of growing up in poverty” in Tyne and Wear, where her mother’s home had problems with damp and no heating upstairs.

One winter, a neighbour who saw her playing outside in a jumper pushed an envelope with money through the letterbox. It said: “For Bridget’s coat.”

I think there's going to be a quid pro quo with PIP cuts paying for this. It will please almost nobody, even if there's a rationale for PIP cuts done slowly and carefully.

I don't think they'll have the balls to go after PIP again when they got their fingers burned last time.

They might have won the vote (at least on applying changes to new claimants) if they'd offered the 2 child limit. Very different to just cutting it to help some numbers balance.

Lifting the 2 child cap to a 3 child cap costs about £2.4bn a year at the end of the Parliament.

That's about what the second version of the cuts that Kendall put forward save.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9dgjjnvw54o

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce800enrglzo

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to announce the UK's recognition of a Palestinian state in a statement on Sunday afternoon.

The move comes after the prime minister said in July the UK would shift its position in September unless Israel met conditions including agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza and committing to a long-term sustainable peace deal that delivers a two-state solution.

It represents a major change in British foreign policy after successive governments said recognition should come as part of a peace process and at a time of maximum impact.

Ministers believe that time was now, and argue there was a moral responsibility to act to keep the hope of a long-term peace deal alive.

The move has drawn fierce criticism from the Israeli government, hostage families and some Conservatives, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously saying such a move "rewards terror".

Government sources said the situation on the ground had worsened significantly in the last few weeks. They cited images showing starvation and violence in Gaza, which the Prime Minister has previously described as "intolerable".

Gave free advice to a charity, worra bastard.