Mailwatch(ed) Forum

As long as they keep the spivs and chancers out of the equation it'll be great.

I remember the cunts who wanted to dig up Mrs. B's garden rather than get a cherry-picker to do the cavity insulation (she'd not long died at the time). Having now learned just how many houses have problems with damp and mould because of that stuff and facing huge bills to rectify it, I'm glad I literally told them to get the fuck off my property.

Our old house also had problems caused by cavity wall insulation. It’s not the easy quick win it’s made out to be.

Rachel From Accounts latest.

The UK government borrowed less than expected in December, official figures show, after record-breaking receipts, giving a boost to the chancellor.

Public sector net borrowing – the difference between spending and income – was £11.6bn last month, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, compared with £18.7bn in the same month a year earlier.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected borrowing to be £13bn in December. The figure is closely watched by the City as it shows how much the government is borrowing to finance its spending plans and whether it is exceeding its target for the year.

Ruth Gregory, the deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said: “The public finances are finally showing signs of improvement in recent months.”

Government admits its approval for Buckinghamshire AI datacentre should be quashed
Campaigners hail U-turn during legal challenge over proposed centre an ‘embarrassing climbdown’

Rayner seems to have been at fault here. I don't know if the Government can redo the planning process.

Decarbonising the electricity supply is preceding apace, perhaps faster than it actually needs too (unlike other parts of the climate strategy, like replacing gas boilers with heat pumps). Can we really not supply these data centers sustainably in the near future?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... al-quashed

Lambs to the Slaughter!

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/j ... MP=bsky_gu

The celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has accused the government of cooking up a kitchen nightmare at restaurants across the country with tax changes that he says will make hospitality businesses “lambs to the slaughter”.

Ramsay, whose company operates 34 restaurants in the UK including Bread Street Kitchen, Pétrus and Lucky Cat, said the industry was “facing a bloodbath”. He said restaurants were closing every day as a result of rising business rates, which came on top of higher energy, staffing and ingredient costs and little growth in consumer spending.

“I’ve never seen it so bad,” Ramsay told the Standardnews site. “When I look ahead to April, when the budget measures come in, I think those of us in hospitality are lambs to the slaughter.”

He said the fact that businesses were still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, during which many restaurants were forced to close for months as part of government-ordered lockdowns, meant the situation was even worse than after the 2008 financial crisis.

Cheerful thoughts from Stephen.

Oh god there's more.



Famously, Jack Straw, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke, John Reid, Jacqui Smith, and Alan Johnson were renowned for their social liberalism.

More failing to stand up to Trump.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9jj1j74ggo

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has said the UK will not yet be signing up to US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace over concerns about Russian leader Vladimir Putin's possible participation.

Cooper told the BBC the UK had been invited to join the board but "won't be one of the signatories today" at a ceremony at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The board, which gives Trump wide decision-making powers as chairman, is being billed by the US as a new international organisation for resolving conflicts.

Cooper described the board as a "legal treaty that raises much broader issues" than the initiative's initial focus on ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The charter proposed by the White House does not mention the Palestinian territory and critics say the board appears to be designed to replace some functions of the United Nations.

Some of the US's traditional allies have not agreed to join the board and notably, none of the other permanent members of the UN Security Council - China, France, Russia, and the UK - have committed to participation so far.

The UN Security Council has been the main international platform for global diplomacy and conflict resolution since the end of World War Two.

But launching the board at a signing ceremony alongside world leaders in Davos, Trump said he did not intend it as a replacement for the UN and expressed his belief that it would help forge an "everlasting" peace in the Middle East.

Trump said the board had the chance to be "one of the most consequential bodies ever created".

Trump’s comments that NATO (British) allies weren’t on the frontline in Afghanistan have not gone down well. Won’t stop Kemi and Farage working with Trumpers to destabilise the UK Government though.

Starmer has apparently called what Trump said "wrong".

Well, I understand the need for diplomatic language between heads of state and all that (though Trump doesn't seem to), but surely Keir could have been slightly more emphatic?

What Trump said wasn't just "wrong", it was grotesquely, comprehensively, sickeningly, and offensively wrong.

Keir should have said as much. Al Carns, the Armed Forces Minister, has at least gone a bit further.

Nah, everyone knows what Sir Keir thinks and why he’s phrasing as he is.

The media are basically Chris Morris on The Day Today. They won’t be happy till we’ve declared war live on air.

Nobody likes paying tax. Everyone says that the state needs to be more efficient. And lots of the media/politics has made a particular fuss about the lack of "bold action" from the Labour Government they pretend they really want to support.

So here's something you'd expect to get a favorable response at least in principle.

The number of police constabularies in England and Wales is set to be slashed in what is understood to be the largest overhaul of policing in decades.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will reveal plans next week to significantly cut the number of forces from 43

.

I'm not optimistic about the response. Sure, there will be losers, there are always are. There will be some places that lose their Police HQ that could do with not losing it. Perhaps the chief of a bigger, merged force will deprioritize some stuff that the smaller force did. But the upsides are surely considerable, in terms of rationalizing back office and building up greater expertise in each force. It's what's happened in Scotland, and people are mostly happy with it.

We'll doubtless here that this is "distracting from policing the streets", and the usual bunch of shysters will jump on any suboptimal police operation in the meantime as the fault of the government.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Jan 23, 2026 2:57 pm We'll doubtless here that this is "distracting from policing the streets", and the usual bunch of shysters will jump on any suboptimal police operation in the meantime as the fault of the government.

It's already happening if you read a BBC Speke Yore Branes.

Thornberry was on fire on QT last night.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Fri Jan 23, 2026 3:39 pm .

Jon Portes has been fairer to the Government than most, but he said he didn't see much growth coming soon. It would be extremely good if things did go better than people expected.

Starmer needs to stand up to Trump.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Jan 23, 2026 2:57 pm Nobody likes paying tax. Everyone says that the state needs to be more efficient. And lots of the media/politics has made a particular fuss about the lack of "bold action" from the Labour Government they pretend they really want to support.

So here's something you'd expect to get a favorable response at least in principle.

The number of police constabularies in England and Wales is set to be slashed in what is understood to be the largest overhaul of policing in decades.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will reveal plans next week to significantly cut the number of forces from 43

.

I'm not optimistic about the response. Sure, there will be losers, there are always are. There will be some places that lose their Police HQ that could do with not losing it. Perhaps the chief of a bigger, merged force will deprioritize some stuff that the smaller force did. But the upsides are surely considerable, in terms of rationalizing back office and building up greater expertise in each force. It's what's happened in Scotland, and people are mostly happy with it.

We'll doubtless here that this is "distracting from policing the streets", and the usual bunch of shysters will jump on any suboptimal police operation in the meantime as the fault of the government.

Bots will present this as "The number of police constables in England and Wales is set to be slashed".

Farage and Lowe will play to the outrage on GBN, and nobody at the BBC will display the cojones to correct the story.

This is where Labour messaging is put to the test.
It could be presented in dull bureaucratic terms.
OR
Cutting red tape and head office jobs to release more bobbies to police the streets.

Which message will Labour choose: Place bets now.

Go for the bureaucratic one. Bobbies on the beat sets my teeth on edge.