Starmergeddon: They Came And Ate Us

[Slick]

Agreed, the weight of these new SUVs is farcical. Our roads are just not designed for it.

Also 90% of the people driving them can’t handle them but not sure taxation is the way to handle that

Would be very easy to handle that , just have more classes of car category by weight that you have to pass , so that if you move from a mini to a Range Rover just because you have popped out a baby, you need to retake your test because the vehicle weight has doubled.
Air and sea licences have this sort of licence categorisation by size.

I would also require licence and tax from any bike that has a form of battery assist propulsion , as they have become a haven for lawbreakers with poor road skills

I believe a lot of the e bikes causing a menace are illegal anyway, the police just don’t enforce the law

They can't catch the wee cunts, they are forever chasing them around her. Although people are beginning to fight back, have seen them on the main prom for a while after a couple got punched off their bikes.

[sockwithaticket]

Agreed, the weight of these new SUVs is farcical. Our roads are just not designed for it.

Also 90% of the people driving them can’t handle them but not sure taxation is the way to handle that

Dimensions are fucked too. My local station car park has a pedestrian path marked out in front of the parking bays and there was a Range Rover almost completely obstructing it the other day. I assumed they'd just been lazy and not reversed all the way into their space after getting something out of the boot, but nope. There was maybe a smidge more space they could've used, but it would still be obstructing the path because it was absurdly long.

Personally I'd just ban SUV's / 4x4s except for certain professions. 90% of owners have no need of them other than they want a physically large vehicle. An estate or people carrier is fine if they've got a load of sprogs.

[Hugo]

https://news.sky.com/story/adolescence- ... sf-twitter

Avoid the problem, create an alternate narrative, fix the wrong thing.

If you are really concerned about toxic masculinity and violence against women you don't do it on the basis of works of fiction, but on hard statistical data. These people are unserious.

[Yeeb]

Have actually worked out a fair vehicle tax system for Uk:

A. Co2 , seems to range from nearly zero (let’s say 1) to 320 g for a large petrol luxury
B. Length in metres, so most would be 4 to 5.98 for a rolls Royce cullinan
C. Width, say 1.8m fiesta up to a 2.2m Roller
D. Weight in mteric tonne 1.0 little car up to 2.5t for a big thing

A+ ( (B*C) * D) = the £ you pay

I got to £80 per year for a low emission 4m x1.8 1100kg fiesta , and £616 for a the roller culinnane.

Every car would be rated off its official stats , the >£40k new surcharge thing is separate and on top. If Starmer wanted more cash, he could apply a multiplier at the end like +20% as that’s the base tax rate.

It would be fair, could be steered to earn more tax revenue overall, and encourage the tampax and chocs brigade not to buy as much stupidly heavy wide long vehicles they invariably can’t park well, without paying for the privaledge.

[shaggy]

Have actually worked out a fair vehicle tax system for Uk:

A. Co2 , seems to range from nearly zero (let’s say 1) to 320 g for a large petrol luxury
B. Length in metres, so most would be 4 to 5.98 for a rolls Royce cullinan
C. Width, say 1.8m fiesta up to a 2.2m Roller
D. Weight in mteric tonne 1.0 little car up to 2.5t for a big thing

A+ ( (B*C) * D) = the £ you pay

I got to £80 per year for a low emission 4m x1.8 1100kg fiesta , and £616 for a the roller culinnane.

Every car would be rated off its official stats , the >£40k new surcharge thing is separate and on top. If Starmer wanted more cash, he could apply a multiplier at the end like +20% as that’s the base tax rate.

It would be fair, could be steered to earn more tax revenue overall, and encourage the tampax and chocs brigade not to buy as much stupidly heavy wide long vehicles they invariably can’t park well, without paying for the privaledge.

A and D are indelibly linked for EVs, as is the surcharge. Weighting needs some work if they want to maintain the switch away from ICE cars.

[Yeeb]

Have actually worked out a fair vehicle tax system for Uk:

A. Co2 , seems to range from nearly zero (let’s say 1) to 320 g for a large petrol luxury
B. Length in metres, so most would be 4 to 5.98 for a rolls Royce cullinan
C. Width, say 1.8m fiesta up to a 2.2m Roller
D. Weight in mteric tonne 1.0 little car up to 2.5t for a big thing

A+ ( (B*C) * D) = the £ you pay

I got to £80 per year for a low emission 4m x1.8 1100kg fiesta , and £616 for a the roller culinnane.

Every car would be rated off its official stats , the >£40k new surcharge thing is separate and on top. If Starmer wanted more cash, he could apply a multiplier at the end like +20% as that’s the base tax rate.

It would be fair, could be steered to earn more tax revenue overall, and encourage the tampax and chocs brigade not to buy as much stupidly heavy wide long vehicles they invariably can’t park well, without paying for the privaledge.

A and D are indelibly linked for EVs, as is the surcharge. Weighting needs some work if they want to maintain the switch away from ICE cars.

Weight can’t be ignored though , small EV’s are heavier than our dads Sierras & cavaliers and are helping the roads churn up (commercial vehicles are also heavier than 30 years ago)

[dpedin]

Have actually worked out a fair vehicle tax system for Uk:

A. Co2 , seems to range from nearly zero (let’s say 1) to 320 g for a large petrol luxury
B. Length in metres, so most would be 4 to 5.98 for a rolls Royce cullinan
C. Width, say 1.8m fiesta up to a 2.2m Roller
D. Weight in mteric tonne 1.0 little car up to 2.5t for a big thing

A+ ( (B*C) * D) = the £ you pay

I got to £80 per year for a low emission 4m x1.8 1100kg fiesta , and £616 for a the roller culinnane.

Every car would be rated off its official stats , the >£40k new surcharge thing is separate and on top. If Starmer wanted more cash, he could apply a multiplier at the end like +20% as that’s the base tax rate.

It would be fair, could be steered to earn more tax revenue overall, and encourage the tampax and chocs brigade not to buy as much stupidly heavy wide long vehicles they invariably can’t park well, without paying for the privaledge.

A and D are indelibly linked for EVs, as is the surcharge. Weighting needs some work if they want to maintain the switch away from ICE cars.

Weight can’t be ignored though , small EV’s are heavier than our dads Sierras & cavaliers and are helping the roads churn up (commercial vehicles are also heavier than 30 years ago)

My mate has a Porsche Taycan station wagon thingy - beautiful car but a bit of a beast and weighs around 2.5 tonnes when loaded up. He still needs to put the rear seats down to get a couple of sets of golf clubs in. Currently in garage due to problems with electrics! Meanwhile my diesel Skoda Octavia VRS estate is running fine and can get 2+ sets of clubs and carts etc into boot without dropping rear seats and is over a ton lighter.

[shaggy]

Have actually worked out a fair vehicle tax system for Uk:

A. Co2 , seems to range from nearly zero (let’s say 1) to 320 g for a large petrol luxury
B. Length in metres, so most would be 4 to 5.98 for a rolls Royce cullinan
C. Width, say 1.8m fiesta up to a 2.2m Roller
D. Weight in mteric tonne 1.0 little car up to 2.5t for a big thing

A+ ( (B*C) * D) = the £ you pay

I got to £80 per year for a low emission 4m x1.8 1100kg fiesta , and £616 for a the roller culinnane.

Every car would be rated off its official stats , the >£40k new surcharge thing is separate and on top. If Starmer wanted more cash, he could apply a multiplier at the end like +20% as that’s the base tax rate.

It would be fair, could be steered to earn more tax revenue overall, and encourage the tampax and chocs brigade not to buy as much stupidly heavy wide long vehicles they invariably can’t park well, without paying for the privaledge.

A and D are indelibly linked for EVs, as is the surcharge. Weighting needs some work if they want to maintain the switch away from ICE cars.

Weight can’t be ignored though , small EV’s are heavier than our dads Sierras & cavaliers and are helping the roads churn up (commercial vehicles are also heavier than 30 years ago)

Not ignoring the weight, but if you need/want an EV that can carry 5 people and do over 200 miles on a single charge it is not going be the size of a Ford Focus.

[Yeeb]

A and D are indelibly linked for EVs, as is the surcharge. Weighting needs some work if they want to maintain the switch away from ICE cars.

Weight can’t be ignored though , small EV’s are heavier than our dads Sierras & cavaliers and are helping the roads churn up (commercial vehicles are also heavier than 30 years ago)

Not ignoring the weight, but if you need/want an EV that can carry 5 people and do over 200 miles on a single charge it is not going be the size of a Ford Focus.

Gut feel that would be under 1% of all EV journeys, cars are rarely full , and the average UK trip is something like 7 miles. A Renault Zoe (now replaced by the Five) would do that weighing 1500kg as would the chap above Taycan at 2300kg

[shaggy]

Weight can’t be ignored though , small EV’s are heavier than our dads Sierras & cavaliers and are helping the roads churn up (commercial vehicles are also heavier than 30 years ago)

Not ignoring the weight, but if you need/want an EV that can carry 5 people and do over 200 miles on a single charge it is not going be the size of a Ford Focus.

Gut feel that would be under 1% of all EV journeys, cars are rarely full , and the average UK trip is something like 7 miles. A Renault Zoe (now replaced by the Five) would do that weighing 1500kg as would the chap above Taycan at 2300kg

Maybe, but the government wants to accelerate adoption of EVs and if they are fundamentally not able to support such simple tasks as stated above, plus being penalised by a taxation regime, it will fail.

[Sandstorm]

Maybe, but the government wants to accelerate adoption of EVs and if they are fundamentally not able to support such simple tasks as stated above, plus being penalised by a taxation regime, it will fail.

Yeeb should chuck-in a purchase price element to his road-tax changes, If you want to spend £90k+ on the most powerful twin-motor BMW or Tesla with Long Range batteries that also happens to weigh 2300kg, then you should pay more tax. Cheaper and lighter versions of your 5 seater prestige EV are available.....

[Hal Jordan]

I believe the average motorway speed is 50 mph, so 200 miles is four hours non-stop. I don't know about anyone else, but my bladder's not up to that.

[Sandstorm]

I believe the average motorway speed is 50 mph, so 200 miles is four hours non-stop. I don't know about anyone else, but my bladder's not up to that.

Waiting for a working charger at a Motorway Services, you can have two shits and a shave too.

[Paddington Bear]

On the subject of two shits and a shower whilst you wait, Heathrow closed all day after a fire at a sub-station. For all we talk about troop deployments in eastern Europe, our resilience at home is atrocious and we surely have to work on the assumption that if anything were to kick off it’s likely just about everything would go down

[shaggy]

Maybe, but the government wants to accelerate adoption of EVs and if they are fundamentally not able to support such simple tasks as stated above, plus being penalised by a taxation regime, it will fail.

Yeeb should chuck-in a purchase price element to his road-tax changes, If you want to spend £90k+ on the most powerful twin-motor BMW or Tesla with Long Range batteries that also happens to weigh 2300kg, then you should pay more tax. Cheaper and lighter versions of your 5 seater prestige EV are available.....

I have already missed the last moments of a dying friend because I had to drive 260 miles at no notice and my EV needed to charge twice to get there. If you are ok with making such sacrifices fine, but to bring this back to the point of Yeeb’s formula there are fundamental aspects of an EV that mean weight is needed to give people confidence that they can switch from an ICE.

Not wishing to sound flippant, I can afford the additional cost likely from such a formula, many people cannot and will not be willing to deliberately make their lives harder at extra cost.

[Yeeb]

Maybe, but the government wants to accelerate adoption of EVs and if they are fundamentally not able to support such simple tasks as stated above, plus being penalised by a taxation regime, it will fail.

Yeeb should chuck-in a purchase price element to his road-tax changes, If you want to spend £90k+ on the most powerful twin-motor BMW or Tesla with Long Range batteries that also happens to weigh 2300kg, then you should pay more tax. Cheaper and lighter versions of your 5 seater prestige EV are available.....

I have already missed the last moments of a dying friend because I had to drive 260 miles at no notice and my EV needed to charge twice to get there. If you are ok with making such sacrifices fine, but to bring this back to the point of Yeeb’s formula there are fundamental aspects of an EV that mean weight is needed to give people confidence that they can switch from an ICE.

Not wishing to sound flippant, I can afford the additional cost likely from such a formula, many people cannot and will not be willing to deliberately make their lives harder at extra cost.

EV owners would pay less because of the emissions , and a bit more because of the weight. Their emissions are good for environment, but their weight is poorer for roads.

I think a sliding scale formula is fine as a start point, but the end ‘factor’ like the +20% thing I mentioned earlier could be steered a bit to influence vehicle choice , such as:

Smaller cars 100%
Smaller EV’s 90%
Commercial vehicles 80%
Vehicles over £80k purchase 110%
White Audis 200%

Am sure you could amend the formula so that co2 has greater weighting than weight. But a 310 mile range 1500kg Kona should absolutely be paying less tax per year than a 310 mile range 2300kg Taycan imho

[shaggy]

Yeeb should chuck-in a purchase price element to his road-tax changes, If you want to spend £90k+ on the most powerful twin-motor BMW or Tesla with Long Range batteries that also happens to weigh 2300kg, then you should pay more tax. Cheaper and lighter versions of your 5 seater prestige EV are available.....

I have already missed the last moments of a dying friend because I had to drive 260 miles at no notice and my EV needed to charge twice to get there. If you are ok with making such sacrifices fine, but to bring this back to the point of Yeeb’s formula there are fundamental aspects of an EV that mean weight is needed to give people confidence that they can switch from an ICE.

Not wishing to sound flippant, I can afford the additional cost likely from such a formula, many people cannot and will not be willing to deliberately make their lives harder at extra cost.

EV owners would pay less because of the emissions , and a bit more because of the weight. Their emissions are good for environment, but their weight is poorer for roads.

I think a sliding scale formula is fine as a start point, but the end ‘factor’ like the +20% thing I mentioned earlier could be steered a bit to influence vehicle choice , such as:

Smaller cars 100%
Smaller EV’s 90%
Commercial vehicles 80%
Vehicles over £80k purchase 110%
White Audis 200%

Am sure you could amend the formula so that co2 has greater weighting than weight. But a 310 mile range 1500kg Kona should absolutely be paying less tax per year than a 310 mile range 2300kg Taycan imho

Well yes, but your original method would just put off potential EV owners as you penalise them for weight when it is a necessary evil of the batteries.

[Hal Jordan]

To be honest, cars of any propulsion system aren't really the problem, it's bigger stuff, just compare the inside and outside lanes of a dual carriageway in terms of damage.

[tabascoboy]

Putting this here as it's now the current Government's responsibility for oversight...but I'm sure this would work out really well for the customers given the current state of affairs in the US:

Thames Water names US private equity group KKR as preferred bidder

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crldrylyy9do

[Sandstorm]

Putting this here as it's now the current Government's responsibility for oversight...but I'm sure this would work out really well for the customers given the current state of affairs in the US:

Thames Water names US private equity group KKR as preferred bidder

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crldrylyy9do

Cnuts. Our bills just went up 40% under the old crowd "because fixing leaks...."

[Tichtheid]

Putting this here as it's now the current Government's responsibility for oversight...but I'm sure this would work out really well for the customers given the current state of affairs in the US:

Thames Water names US private equity group KKR as preferred bidder

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crldrylyy9do

That'll end well, I'm sure.

[_Os_]

Putting this here as it's now the current Government's responsibility for oversight...but I'm sure this would work out really well for the customers given the current state of affairs in the US:

Thames Water names US private equity group KKR as preferred bidder

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crldrylyy9do

Angus Hanton's book is doing well in the Trump era, he's doing another round of media interviews off the back of it. But these interviews from a year ago still hold up, a short video from the Times and a long video from Bastani & co.

The UK has basically been sold to America. Why anyone thinks this is a good idea, fuck knows. The point of Thatcher's privatisations was supposed to be to create a share owning democracy (don't laugh), not for everything to become a wealth extraction vehicle for the benefit of people on a different continent.

[_Os_]

Does anyone have a good article on Labour austerity, comparisons to the Tories etc? I've looked and cannot find anything. If it really is as bad as the media are saying, then Labour obviously risks fucking itself and giving Frog Face an easier route to power.

May not matter, Labour's plan so far seems very much in the "improve everything 1% but change nothing fundamentally" direction. No structural improvement means the economic conditions which created Brexit then a Tory majority remain in play, which opens the way for Frog Face. Starmer's focus on immigration and all the promises he's making around it help Frog Face further.

[petej]

Putting this here as it's now the current Government's responsibility for oversight...but I'm sure this would work out really well for the customers given the current state of affairs in the US:

Thames Water names US private equity group KKR as preferred bidder

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crldrylyy9do

That'll end well, I'm sure.

It is absolute insanity. Also an area where the public is already fed up of parasitic behaviour from overseas owners. KKR will only own this with guarantees that the public and state will fork out shit loads of money while they have zero risk.

[petej]

Putting this here as it's now the current Government's responsibility for oversight...but I'm sure this would work out really well for the customers given the current state of affairs in the US:

Thames Water names US private equity group KKR as preferred bidder

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crldrylyy9do

Cnuts. Our bills just went up 40% under the old crowd "because fixing leaks...."

Fixing leaks = siphoning money and loading the company with debt.

[Yeeb]

Does anyone have a good article on Labour austerity, comparisons to the Tories etc? I've looked and cannot find anything. If it really is as bad as the media are saying, then Labour obviously risks fucking itself and giving Frog Face an easier route to power.

May not matter, Labour's plan so far seems very much in the "improve everything 1% but change nothing fundamentally" direction. No structural improvement means the economic conditions which created Brexit then a Tory majority remain in play, which opens the way for Frog Face. Starmer's focus on immigration and all the promises he's making around it help Frog Face further.

Am sure their austerity measures and effects will be totally different from the Tory led austerity measures .

See also building houses , planting trees, improving nhs, fixing roads…

[Paddington Bear]

Reeves is staggeringly out of her depth, has no real ideas for growth beyond a few hail marys like Heathrow expansion (not that this is a bad thing in itself), and looks more miserable by the day. Never get your dream job…

[tabascoboy]

Don't think there is anyone in the entire political field who is capable of doing the Chancellor's job judging by the last few years. Well Sunak was probably the most competent but chose to run the economy for the benefit of his family mostly

[Biffer]

Don't think there is anyone in the entire political field who is capable of doing the Chancellor's job judging by the last few years. Well Sunak was probably the most competent but chose to run the economy for the benefit of his family mostly

Not with the self imposed tax restraints. I said before the election they needed to caveat things with ‘unless the Tories have been hiding how bad it is’, and being ok with the NI cut. Reverse that due to the cover up / black hole. Then a hypothecated three year defence regeneration tax that will expire a year before the next GE. Follow the Germans by excluding defence from the debt rules. Then you can increase defence spending and invest in other science/tech dev, infrastructure construction and skills.

Then use your amped up planning powers in central government to push things through x both infrastructure and things like the ridiculous council in England that’s holding up production of armaments for Ukraine (we can produce ten times what we do in large shells in the UK, but don’t because we can’t get hold of the explosive - we can produce that in the UK too, but the company who does it has had planning to expand their plant turned down three times since 2022).

[dpedin]

Don't think there is anyone in the entire political field who is capable of doing the Chancellor's job judging by the last few years. Well Sunak was probably the most competent but chose to run the economy for the benefit of his family mostly

Not with the self imposed tax restraints. I said before the election they needed to caveat things with ‘unless the Tories have been hiding how bad it is’, and being ok with the NI cut. Reverse that due to the cover up / black hole. Then a hypothecated three year defence regeneration tax that will expire a year before the next GE. Follow the Germans by excluding defence from the debt rules. Then you can increase defence spending and invest in other science/tech dev, infrastructure construction and skills.

Then use your amped up planning powers in central government to push things through x both infrastructure and things like the ridiculous council in England that’s holding up production of armaments for Ukraine (we can produce ten times what we do in large shells in the UK, but don’t because we can’t get hold of the explosive - we can produce that in the UK too, but the company who does it has had planning to expand their plant turned down three times since 2022).

Sunak was completely out of his depth and basically created the huge black hole we now have to try and address. All he did was spend profligately - Eat Out to Help the Virus Out, PPE procurement, Test, Track and Trace, Covid Loans, etc - without any idea how to control the spend, ensure value for money or how it was going to be repaid. I could have done his job, all he did was write cheques with money he didn't have! Why do you think he called the early suicidal general election?

Problem for Labour is they have bet on a medium term investment program which should see a return on 2-3 years onwards. Major capital investment programmes, higher NHS spend, building housing, planning reform, etc will all take time to bear fruit ie by the next election. In the short term they were happy to blame the Tory incompetence for the short term pain, however Trump came along and has blown up their plans. There was never any plan for huge growth in defence spending or waging tariff wars! Growth will only slow down as a result of tariffs and trade restrictions and the one move they could make - move closer to the EU and sign up to the SM and CU - is politically seen as a no go, despite the vast majority of the public now supporting it.

Hang on to your hats, its going to get rocky!

[Paddington Bear]

Interestingly the government are fighting and winning battles with ‘the blob’, first abolishing NHS England and now having forced the scrapping of two tier sentencing guidelines.

[C69]

Interestingly the government are fighting and winning battles with ‘the blob’, first abolishing NHS England and now having forced the scrapping of two tier sentencing guidelines.

They abolished NHS England on the basis of the Darzi report FFS.
It was always deemed to be unnecessary and inefficient and ineffective and duplicating mich of what the ICBs do

[dpedin]

Interestingly the government are fighting and winning battles with ‘the blob’, first abolishing NHS England and now having forced the scrapping of two tier sentencing guidelines.

They abolished NHS England on the basis of the Darzi report FFS.
It was always deemed to be unnecessary and inefficient and ineffective and duplicating mich of what the ICBs do

NHS England was a legacy of the Lansley Reforms and the whole idea of internal markets within the NHS. and the need for arms length management from Government Policy makers. It houses a lot of functions which were duplicated in Dept, are now unnecessary or can be transferred elsewhere - either to Dept for Health or into ICBs. From up here in Scotland, which I appreciate is smaller in scale, the NHS in England always seemed to have an extra few layers of management which seemed redundant these days?

[fishfoodie]

Don't think there is anyone in the entire political field who is capable of doing the Chancellor's job judging by the last few years. Well Sunak was probably the most competent but chose to run the economy for the benefit of his family mostly

Not with the self imposed tax restraints. I said before the election they needed to caveat things with ‘unless the Tories have been hiding how bad it is’, and being ok with the NI cut. Reverse that due to the cover up / black hole. Then a hypothecated three year defence regeneration tax that will expire a year before the next GE. Follow the Germans by excluding defence from the debt rules. Then you can increase defence spending and invest in other science/tech dev, infrastructure construction and skills.

Then use your amped up planning powers in central government to push things through x both infrastructure and things like the ridiculous council in England that’s holding up production of armaments for Ukraine (we can produce ten times what we do in large shells in the UK, but don’t because we can’t get hold of the explosive - we can produce that in the UK too, but the company who does it has had planning to expand their plant turned down three times since 2022).

Sunak was completely out of his depth and basically created the huge black hole we now have to try and address. All he did was spend profligately - Eat Out to Help the Virus Out, PPE procurement, Test, Track and Trace, Covid Loans, etc - without any idea how to control the spend, ensure value for money or how it was going to be repaid. I could have done his job, all he did was write cheques with money he didn't have! Why do you think he called the early suicidal general election?

Problem for Labour is they have bet on a medium term investment program which should see a return on 2-3 years onwards. Major capital investment programmes, higher NHS spend, building housing, planning reform, etc will all take time to bear fruit ie by the next election. In the short term they were happy to blame the Tory incompetence for the short term pain, however Trump came along and has blown up their plans. There was never any plan for huge growth in defence spending or waging tariff wars! Growth will only slow down as a result of tariffs and trade restrictions and the one move they could make - move closer to the EU and sign up to the SM and CU - is politically seen as a no go, despite the vast majority of the public now supporting it.

Hang on to your hats, its going to get rocky!

Yep.

All I'd add is that anyone expecting Politicians to be able to Grow an Economy hasn't been paying attention. Politicians & Governments don't grow an Economy, all they can do is create the conditions where the Business Leaders, (Small & Large), who actually can, are confident enough to do so; & they do that by being predictable, & not continually fucking around with important things just to curry short term favour with political fringe groups.

Governments can work on Education systems to provide a broad spectrum of skills, they can fund Universities to do research, & have visa policies that support this, & they can even have funding programs to support startups that might eventually grow into businesses, but they can't just flick a switch that makes the economy grow !!

[C69]

Interestingly I believe the NHS pay review body is apparently going to give it's recommendations in May.
I suspect that if they recommend as reported a 2.8% increase the Gove will be facing more industrial action.
Especially given that inflation may well be above that.
It does fly in the face of the stated sustained increases in pay for NHS staff.
Let's see how Streeting and Reid play this one out
Interestingly if the CPI is high in September then the triple lock will mean pensions are going to increase significantly again next April.
If Trump continues to watch the World burn with tarrifs then it's going to get very spicy indeed.
Surely we will have to take sides with Europe and Canada if the trade war takes off.
Brinkmanship from Trump?
Who the fuck knows?

[robmatic]

Interestingly the government are fighting and winning battles with ‘the blob’, first abolishing NHS England and now having forced the scrapping of two tier sentencing guidelines.

I can imagine Starmer being better at the bureaucratic dogfighting than the Tory spivs we had to put up with for 14 years.

[Paddington Bear]

Interestingly the government are fighting and winning battles with ‘the blob’, first abolishing NHS England and now having forced the scrapping of two tier sentencing guidelines.

I can imagine Starmer being better at the bureaucratic dogfighting than the Tory spivs we had to put up with for 14 years.

He does appear to have taken that tough step 1 that eluded the Conservative Party - ‘trying’.

Telling the Sentencing Council that they’d legislate was the killer, a Tory Lord Chancellor would have written a column in the Telegraph

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Interestingly the government are fighting and winning battles with ‘the blob’, first abolishing NHS England and now having forced the scrapping of two tier sentencing guidelines.

I can imagine Starmer being better at the bureaucratic dogfighting than the Tory spivs we had to put up with for 14 years.

He does appear to have taken that tough step 1 that eluded the Conservative Party - ‘trying’.

Telling the Sentencing Council that they’d legislate was the killer, a Tory Lord Chancellor would have written a column in the Telegraph

This was a fight on turf Starmer feels very comfortable on

[Paddington Bear]

I can imagine Starmer being better at the bureaucratic dogfighting than the Tory spivs we had to put up with for 14 years.

He does appear to have taken that tough step 1 that eluded the Conservative Party - ‘trying’.

Telling the Sentencing Council that they’d legislate was the killer, a Tory Lord Chancellor would have written a column in the Telegraph

This was a fight on turf Starmer feels very comfortable on

Absolutely, but the Sentencing Council is a grand old institution younger than Leigh Halfpenny’s career and ‘we will legislate if you don’t cut it out’ is not exactly a solution that requires years in a barrister’s chambers to work out

[Yeeb]

Only c69 has mentioned the key elephant in room about what can a govt do about Uk economy , whilst all you armchair Tory and Labour bashers waffle - that elephant being state pension & the triple lock. It’s by far and away the single biggest drain on UK plc finances, and as 75% of health spending is on the oldies , they alone directly take up about 40% of govt spending.

By directly I mean via new hips and pension paid, rather than indirectly such as benefitting from nice roads, police and fire cover, armed forces stopping us being invaded , street lighting they can use at night…

Arguably neither pension nor the nhs is adequately or appropriately funded , governments of various hues have kicked these cans down the road since ww2 & nhs formation. Until someone has the balls to change these (and abolishing triple lock seems easier to me than fixing the black hole of nhs quickly) then any budget is merely tinkering for political point scoring.