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Well, it's easy to make the case that Charterhouse offers a world class education.
Well, it’s easy to make the case that Charterhouse offers a world class education.
And Yet Eton and Oxford inflicted a thick as mince prime minister on us. World class my ass!
Going into an election with a strategist who also works on behalf of a billionaire advocate of NHS Privatisation
Palantir are less interested in NHS privatisation as just creating a private surveillance state.
And Yet Eton and Oxford inflicted a thick as mince prime minister on us. World class my ass!
Seems pretty world class to me at least at the school/uni level. Start with shit and polish it until it sort of shines.
Outcomes for society arent the best but it is pretty much what any good parent would ask for.
Get their child to shine way beyond their abilities.
Talking of 'thick as mince', I see that Rishi's latest appointees are doing well. If anyone expected any upgrade on the last bunch of half-wits then prepare to be disappointed. Ladies and Gentlemen, the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Somewhere a village is mourning for the loss of its idiot...
Today we learned Laura Trott is the unthinking person’s Helen Whately
Somewhere a village is mourning for the loss of its idiot…
They probably noticed that she was missing when she went off to Oxford to study economics.
I still think it will be some feat for Labour to lose. They won;t be winning along the lines of the polls but I do think that a lot of people have now had enough of the tory party and Starmer is the sort of person they could bring themselves to vote for rather than say Corbyn.
Palantir are less interested in NHS privatisation as just creating a private surveillance state.
It's not necessarily about Palantir (except in terms of the latest dodgy NHS contract to nick your data), but more broadly about its owner Peter Thiel's agenda of moving the UK towards a US-style insurance-based model. Having one of his goons at the heart of government is not helpful, regardless of which arm of the Thiel corporate octopus he's attached to right now.
I still think it will be some feat for Labour to lose. They won;t be winning along the lines of the polls but I do think that a lot of people have now had enough of the tory party and Starmer is the sort of person they could bring themselves to vote for rather than say Corbyn.
Read the Starmer thread for more than a page and there's not much positives!
Start with shit and polish
I see a turd but no polish. A world class education system would see through the privilege and not hand out free passes to an imbecile who can't read a ****ing graph.
Having listened to hunt's statement it would be easy to think this was all good news but, as is always the case, detailed analysis of the OBR report is now underway so...
It says the largest contribution to that is the freezing of most income tax thresholds, so they don’t rise with inflation.
That so-called fiscal drag (the "drag" comes from people being dragged into higher tax brackets than they otherwise would have been - or having more of their income caught in a higher bracket) will net the Treasury £45bn by 2029 and create four million new income tax payers, according to the OBR.
Compare that £45bn gain to the cut in the main National Insurance Contribution rate - which will cost the treasury £10bn.
In effect, that tax cut is being funded by raiding our paycheques
and
with all the chat about falling inflation:
“We…expect inflation to remain higher for longer, taking until the second quarter of 2025 to return to the 2 per cent target, more than a year later than forecast in March.”
Only a few months ago, the OBR said inflation would drop to 0.9% next year.
What does this mean? Basically, interest rates will have to remain high for some time in order to control inflation
And, with all the talk of the economy looking up - what about how it feels for individuals?“Real GDP per person remains 0.6 per cent below its pre-pandemic peak and in the central forecast only recovers that peak at the start of 2025,” writes the OBR.
and
The OBR says:
The economy will grow this year by 0.6% - that's compared to a 0.2% fall forecast in March
But in 2024, growth is only expected to be 0.7% - compared to 1.8% forecast in March
And in 2025, growth is forecast to be 1.4%, rather than 2.5%
and
“Living standards, as measured by real household disposable income per person, are forecast to be 3.5 per cent lower in 2024-25 than their pre-pandemic level.
"While this is half the peak-to-trough fall we expected in March, it still represents the largest reduction in real living standards since ONS records began in the 1950s.”
and
In its report on the government's tax and spending plans, the Office for Budget Responsibility says Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has £27bn in fiscal headroom - and most of that has already been spent in the measures he has outlined in the Autumn Statement.
Fiscal headroom is how much money the chancellor has for cutting taxes or raising spending, taking into account the rules the government has set itself. So, for example, one of its key rules is that borrowing must not exceed 3% of GDP at the end of a five year period.
The OBR says in its report: "The chancellor spends virtually all of this on a 2p cut in NICs [National Insurance Contributions], permanent tax relief for business investment, and further welfare reforms, leaving debt falling by a narrow margin in five years."
and
Cost-of-living payments have been a lifeline for many people when it comes to paying the bills, although there is debate over how they were delivered. There is no promise to continue them beyond the spring.
and
Someone has to pay the price: a new age of austerity may be looming.
and
freezing thresholds is generating so much tax revenue, with inflation higher than forecast, that the tax burden remains at a post war high.
The OBR confirmed that by 2028 a truly astonishing £46bn will be raised by the freezes, in just one year.
and
Dr Sarah Hughes, chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, called the Autumn Statement "a backwards step for the UK, which people with mental health problems will feel sharply" with changes to assessments "brazenly motivated by a desire to save money".
Yep, smoke'n'mirrors; deception, really.
Should play well with right wing media, committed tories and the hard of thinking.
I think the odds are shortening on a spring election; budget in March promising more 'goodies' rapidly followed by a GE.
The left-wing (😉) summary of the Autumn Statement.
Having listened to hunt’s statement it would be easy to think this was all good news but, as is always the case, detailed analysis of the OBR report is now underway so…
LOL! Here, some candy for you to soften your stance. (govt "bribing" the people by some NI, tax cut etc)
How can a budget for economic growth not contribute to further inflation? Can someone explain please. Economist anyone?
The positives are it just can’t be as bad as the last 13 years and Starmer could get tory votes that others have failed to do so since Blair.
Starmer needs to spell out what he has in mind to tackle inflation and cost of living rather than wait until GE to reveal his plan. I really want to hear what he has to offer.
Current inflation or cost of living increment is really not some sort of "growth" (normally associated with economy performance) but more like world wide supply side shortage and most are just embarrass to point to the elephant in the room.
Starmer needs to spell out what he has in mind to tackle inflation and cost of living rather than wait until GE to reveal his plan.
I don't think he does.
This budget was designed to set a trap for him, to get him to do exactly what you said above, so that the Tory press can beat him with his plans before an election.
I think he needs to keep his powder dry.
Well, we are buggered but just to make sure, they have buggered us again to make sure that Labour can't un-bugger us as they will have bugger all money to repair all the crumbling institutions that make a happy and functioning society function.
Bugger.
I don’t think he does.
This budget was designed to set a trap for him, to get him to do exactly what you said above, so that the Tory press can beat him with his plans before an election.
I think he needs to keep his powder dry.
Starmer has not reveled his plan yet so that should be interesting the moment the date of GE is made public.
I feel the trap is for more the people rather than Starmer, because any other form of investments etc are not going to reduce the inflation.
In the current climate, in order to reduce the inflation (cost of living) there must be active govt intervention in the basic cost of economy (production), but then this is a market economy so nothing can be done other than making some minor adjustments in the hope that the whole situation will pass.
I blame the clown Boris.
Labour’s proposals to look at doing away with the current system of business rates look a lot like your rants of old chewkw.
Well, policy wise… you used slightly different language to Starmer and Reeves.
😉
LOL! Starmer must be lurking on STW.
The business rates is a good start but must be strategically applied to encourage SME and to keep the MNE sweet.
So inflation is only down because its the month that the energy price cap drops. Itll be back up again soon.
Hunt has more "Fiscal Headroom "(???) because........... inflation is going to be higher than expected, so income tax and VAT receipts will be higher........
How on earth they keep a straight face is beyond me.
He’s ‘fiscal headroom’ because Rishi froze tax allowances which generated hugely increased revenues (as it’s a stealth tax increase), then he’s now playing the hero saying you can have a fraction of that increase back
Hurray for fiscal drag
They’re taking us all for idiots
What’s the blue ties all about?
So inflation is only down because its the month that the energy price cap drops. It'll be back up again soon.
Partly. If the EPC goes up tomorrow as expected doesn't mean inflation will go back up, depends what the price was in Dec last year.
But also remember we all got £66 per month towards energy costs last winter as well. So while the EPC might be lower, what YOU individually are paying might not be a lot different. Hence what we have in our pockets being more than last year is not necessarily true either.
And as Binners has said, the change in tax thresholds outweighs the change to the NI rate.
There’s a Tory MP on Newsnight now telling us that black is in fact white.
Apparently we should all be grateful for this ‘tax cut’, despite it nowhere near compensating for what we’ve already lost through the stealth tax of freezing personal tax allowances
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
How on earth they keep a straight face is beyond me.
Yep my favourites due to things we’ve done inflations down, when they’ve done **** all and everyone knows it.
Yep my favourites due to things we’ve done inflations down,
First rule of economics.
When inflation rate goes up, that's due to war in Ukraine, fuel prices, factors outside Government control.
When inflation rate goes down, that's due to Tory fiscal control and management.
Hook, Line and Sinker!
Which bit of your tax burden will CONTINUE to rise did you miss?
I read somewhere that freezing of tax thresholds means that the current £12.5K limit would have increased to £18.5K by 2028 if adjusted for inflation.
Just heard Hunt say they made the right decision to pay down the covid debt
Lmfao. Does he even look at his own government's finances?
Covid spending 20/21 created - out of thin air = 319-430bn (varies due to Government accounting.) Which created a shortfall of about 300bn in tax receipts on the balance sheet. Of course the economy was mostly on shutdown.
From Parliament.uk publications:
Allegations of deficit financing
72.In 2020, the Bank of England conducted three rounds of quantitative easing, which raised the total amount of Government debt owned by the Bank from £425 billion to £875 billion (an increase of £450 billion). Minutes published by the Monetary Policy Committee set out the Bank of England’s explanations for each round of quantitative easing since March 2020:
That means no covid debt ever existed in plane language because the BoE purchased a suspiciously similar amount of 'debt' in the same period to what the government spent - with brand new money creation.
The whole tax cutting debacle has just become farcical, and nowhere near the truth.
Presumably the BofE will want the debt re-paying on the due dates though?
Or does it cancel it?
Autumn statement what autumn statement !!!!! An inverse dead cat ? or Dead cat to beat all dead cats ?
An inverse dead cat ? or Dead cat to beat all dead cats ?
A budget to **** over Labour if/when they win the next election and have to undo it all. That's all it is. Re-do the tax stuff, they'll be accused of raising taxes the second they're in power. Keep it as is, they'll be accused of leaving the economy to ruin.
It is solely a budget to make sure that Labour have a tough time undoing the mess.
This is the final throes, the full scorched earth policy. Take everything that isn't bolted down. Burn the rest.
it was kind of a reference to net migration figure upgrade raining all over the chancellors parade.
Our Prime Minister, ladies and gentleman, demonstrating on national TV that he doesn’t know how to use a hammer.
Flaperon
Full Memb https://imgur.io/a/YWRnOcvOur Prime Minister, ladies and gentleman, demonstrating on national TV that he doesn’t know how to use a hammer.
F*** me. That's incredible. How sheltered a life must he have lead?
Most 5 year olds could work that out.
somafunk
Full Member
Jesus * Christ…….how are these total * **** allowed to rule our country
I know it's a little thing in reality but it's so bloody telling isn't it? He has and always will live in a parallel universe to most of us.
How much did his education cost I wonder?
He wants to be a Tech Bro too...
some post autumn statement polling
"We are locked in a death spiral, nothing seems to be able to turn things around with this leadership. The poll ratings have been awful."
This never happens to me but I just got back from Tesco and overheard someone say "at least prices will come down now that Sunak's got inflation beaten". I thought these stories were all made up. Obviously I didn't say anything witty or convert them to leftyism, I just died a bit more inside
OTOH while we're talking "things that happened today" I did use a ratchet as a hammer earlier so maybe he's my guy after all.
^^ You have to wonder what they think when they notice that prices are still rising?
"Must be immigrants driving up the cost luv."
OTOH while we’re talking “things that happened today” I did use a ratchet as a hammer earlier so maybe he’s my guy after all.
Yeah but you know it's a bodge and we all appreciate a good bodge.
He however was happy as Larry that he had worked out how to use the "handle with hitty bit on it that poor people use to make stuff with".
This never happens to me but I just got back from Tesco and overheard someone say “at least prices will come down now that Sunak’s got inflation beaten”. I thought these stories were all made up.
You just met the average voter, they are not bright and easily fooled.
My brother lives in the ****’ EU and is convinced that all the problems with the UK are down to uncontrolled immigration.
Well he's kind of right - there's been uncontrolled immigration of ****wits, chancers, spivs and crooks into the House of Lords and House of Commons.
im not sure what Sunak is thinking here
looking childish & petty instead of having a tough conversation with a prime minister
is not going to close a 20pt poll gap
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67549044
I was jus t watching the Greek PM on ITV news. No combative language used all very diplomatic.
Sunak just comes across as a petulant child.
eeessh
no wonder the Greeks were insulted
'talks with Oliver Dowden'
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1729266914038587413?t=-AY5VdYXFouVX0Y8BhdVOA&s=19
^^ You have to wonder what they think when they notice that prices are still rising?
“Must be immigrants driving up the cost luv.”
Well the noise from both Sunak and Starmer is exactly the same... too much imigration. Both are going to get tough on it, though. Apparently.
Talk about ignoring many problems and attacking a perceived symptom...
Reminds me of that rap song, "I've got 99 problems and imigration is all of them. Stop the boats!"*
*lyrics may have been changed for artistic purposes.
For Sunak, the priority for everything is ‘how will this play to the far right wingnuts on my own backbenches?’
It doesn’t matter who he upsets in the process to placate those who, to quote Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton ‘won’t take yes for an answer’
The tail has been wagging the dog since 2016 but never so much as now because Lil Rishi is *ing terrified of the headbangers so just goes along with their ludicrous demands
How many s do you reckon the average person presently gives about some stolen sculptures? Abut the Torygraph will go into meltdown
The funny thing is, immigration figures have actually skyrocketed since brexit, percantage wise...
And now the government and opposition wants to get tough on immigration? Again? tougher than last time, or the time before that?
It's almost as if Brexit was just a smokescreen for government inaction. But the smoke is now clearing and whether you want more or less immigration, is pretty irrelevant... one thing is crystal clear...
The government and opposition (starmer seems to have jumped onto the 'stop the boats' bus)... are less about governing, and more about making loads of money for themselves out of the british public, and the brexiteers fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.
Hell, some of the voting public are so scared about admitting they were wrong that they still willingly play along with the greatest charade in British history, even when it puts them into poverty, because they can handily blame immigrants for decades of government failiure.
Play that one at the christmas family game of charades! 🙂
starmer seems to have jumped onto the ‘stop the boats’ bus
So you think there is nothing wrong with people risking their lives, and sometimes dying, making perilous sea journeys in unsafe crafts?
Of course Labour wants to stop the small boats. So too do the Liberal Democrats, a party which you claim to support.
"Get here anyway you can" is not an acceptable controlled immigration and asylum process for any civilised society.
If you want a free for all immigration policy I suggest that you might want to consider supporting the SWP.
Unbelievable.
Does lil rish! think that many of his backbenchers or, more importantly, their constituents have any knowledge of or thoughts about the Elgin Marbles?
Most of them could't find Elgin on a map, know what or where the Parthenon is or have ever been inside a museum.
If we refer to the acquisition of the sculptures as 'cultural theft' which, in truth, this was, the reaction from backbenchers and constituents would likely be...wtf is that?
If that's the best sunak can come up with, the tories are truly shagged.
I can fully understand why the offer of a meeting with dowden was rejected.
How about broadening the debate about historical artefacts being returned to their country of origin - that would substantially empty many of the UK's museums.
Anyone for colonial misappropriation?
This one feels more like it's aimed at one particular guy he met in his local. Especially the attempt to make attacks on Starmer out of it, since Starmer's position is pretty much "yeah there's a specific law about this stuff and we'd not change it"
So you think there is nothing wrong with people risking their lives, and sometimes dying, making perilous sea journeys in unsafe crafts?
Absolutley not... you take me out of context, a particular trait of yours for the purpose of scoring cheap points.
For the record, I think anyone desperate enough to pay thier life savings for an unsafe sea journey, to let's face it, a bunch of criminals capitalising on them are truly desperate, and deserve full compasion, and a fair asylum process. No iff's, no butt's.
The point I was trying to make (possibly in a clumbersome way) is that the immigration system in the UK is utterly broken and mis-managed. That's not the fault of people coming in on small boats, that's a fault due to a lack of goverance and fair process in the UK.
People are arriving... no matter what your political persuasion, that's just a physical fact.
Another fact is there is no proper process for this...a long drawn out debacle
So far, we have rusty flotillas or fly them off to some random country in Africa in exchange for a few (very fat) brown envelopes, or just ignore it and let them loose into the general population with no control whilst demonizing them, all at huge expence to the UK public purse* just to kick them whilst they are down.
You can't blame the EU for that one, as much as I'm sure you'd love to.
Here's a thought... why don't we (as the UK) spend a lttle bit of time and compassion to process these arrivals both fairly, and quickly?
Surely that would be cheaper on the public purse in the long run, whilst also being fair.
*Unless you own a very big boat or an airline, or you can whip up a cheeky .LTD in the caymans called 'ImmigrantProblemsOver.lol'
I'll be voting the same way I have since I was in my early 20's in the next GE...Liberal Democrat.
Of course Labour wants to stop the small boats. So too do the Liberal Democrats, a party which you claim to support.
Well you know the easiest way of doing that, allow any asylum seekers to come freely into the country by picking them up from France and then processing their claims within days and sending any non successful claimants back to their country.
Is Starmer suggesting assisting their crossing to ensure safety and remove the need for illegal assistance? Do you think he would dare to do that? Does he really care about it?
A dignified quote from the Greece Prime Minister -
“The Greek prime minister told reporters on Monday evening he was disappointed the meeting had been cancelled "mere hours before its slated time", saying: "Those who firmly believe in the correctness and justice of their positions are never hesitant to engage in constructive argumentation and debate."
More posturing from Sunak to supposedly appeal to his “base”, an appropriate word to describe his supporters. There is no reason to stop the stolen Parthenon Marbles going back on loan - this avoids the 1963 Act of Parliament getting involved.
I don't think there are many who would argue that we need to have a workable policy on immigration, and 750k net immigration is too high.
What to do about it is where the parties then differ. Starting Culture Wars certainly isnt the answer. Training our own key workers rather than pillaging the third worlds staff would be a good start. Having an adult conversation in government would also help.
So in 2023 small boat crossings brought less than 30,000 people in whereas 600,000 came in via other routes.
Last night on LBC Andrew Bowie stressed Ukrainian, Syrian and HK immigration - this was circa 150,000, approximately 1/3 HK and 2/3 Ukrainian and not-to-no Syrians.
If you voted Leave in 2016 and/or Tory in 2019 for less immigration, how are you feeling?
you take me out of context, a particular trait of yours for the purpose of scoring cheap points.
LOL that is exactly what you have done with Labour's position on the 'small boats'!
"starmer seems to have jumped onto the ‘stop the boats’ bus" suggests that there is currently no problem and presumably the "bus" is the same one as the Tories.
The current situation is horrific and intolerable.
Labour does not support a policy of sending asylum seekers who arrive in small boats to Rwanda, which is the centrepiece of the Tory policy, and presumably 'the bus'.
The solution to the problem obviously include more resources to deal with the current situation and safe means of asylum applications.
In that respect I know of no significant differences between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Can you point to some, or prove that the LibDems haven't jumped on the small boat bus?
Or was it just cheap party political point scoring?
And whilst we are on the subject of scoring cheap points, which you raised, I love your hypocrisy!
You can’t blame the EU for that one, as much as I’m sure you’d love to.
I almost never talk about the EU, I certainly haven't brought it up on this thread, and definitely didn't in the context of party policy on the small boats.
But you obviously thought you would score a cheap point by completing out of context reminding everyone that I don't support EU membership.
To be fair though pathetic as it might have been it probably had the desired effect.
I don’t think there are many who would argue that we need to have a workable policy on immigration, and 750k net immigration is too high.
I agree with the first part, in that a workable policy on immigration is preferable to an unworkable one (although how you measure what is workable and what is not workable is a bit vague).
The second part, nope.
Maybe most people would agree but that just shows how much this is about the culture wars and not about the needs of the country.
You can't in one breath say you want a workable policy and then in the next boil what is a very complex question that takes into account a multitude of societal and economic factors down to a single number.
Any solution is going to be complex and changeable depending on circumstances.
I don’t think there are many who would argue that we need to have a workable policy on immigration, and 750k net immigration is too high.
Politicians have failed to be honest with us about immigration for decades , we have a huge skills shortage and an ageing population, we are reliant on immigrants for the lowest paid of jobs; care, farming, cleaning etc etc, but also big gaps in higher paid jobs, - doctors, IT etc etc
the nuts thing is Sunak, Braverman etc etc will all be well aware of this but theyll keep banging the same drum
And, while they won't be "banging the drum", any other party that wants to be in power at the UK level needs to be very careful not to upset our aging voters when it comes to immigration.
They’ve painted themselves into a corner by following Farage into the wilds of anti-immigrant populism.
They offered Brexit as the panacea for the countries ills and we all know how that’s gone, so now there’s nowhere left for them to go but Bravermans extremism.
They closed off all sensible and workable options when Johnson purged the party of non-believers
Now they’re just UKIP. The problem with that being that UKIP is essentially a campaign group, not a political party. You can’t run a country on three word slogans, as the last 5 years have proved
They’ve painted themselves into a corner by following Farage into the wilds of anti-immigrant populism
Yep - both main parties feeling the pinch of Reform UK's divisive voting pull.
A change of narrative might not go a miss from either main party, otherwise the right leads the right down a one-way street.
Pretty predictable stuff.
Here's a thing - offer hope and a better way of life? Nah. Let's do too many foreigners.
Its a step up even for Sunak, this though. Is he going to start an international diplomatic incident every time he needs a distraction when he's ****ed up?
The rate he's going at, he'll run out of countries to piss off soon enough
the EU should start trolling UK in solidarity with Greece, every Leader should bring it up in Press confrences when they visit 🙂 Or put out stupid rules on "topics non grata" when Lil Rishi visits then get the press to ask him questions on said topics and then renege and send him home.
I have no problem with the Parthenon Marbles being returned to Greece. But on that basis museums around the world should be emptying their galleries and returning thousands of items removed from their country of origin and returned to them.