In todays news...

[Taipan]

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,
which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.
Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government... etc

Be careful what you wish for. Oliver Cromwell was a nasty piece of work.

Him or Guy Fawkes would do, provided the UKs future saviour Sir Nigel was given free pass...

[Cousin Jack]

It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,
which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.
Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government... etc

Be careful what you wish for. Oliver Cromwell was a nasty piece of work.

Him or Guy Fawkes would do, provided the UKs future saviour Sir Nigel was given free pass...

Be VERY carefull what you wish for. Overthrowing Parliaments, even bad ones, leads to dictators. And rarely ends well.

[Druid]

SKS seems to lurching from on crisis to another, purely of his own making. I honestly thought he was more of a professional politician than that.*


*Make of that what you will.

Really? He's a technocrat, an administrator with no political instinct. Worst of all he's just continuing to implement the same policies as the Tories did for the last 14 years and expecting different results. This country needs a visionary and a leader who can get things done* but we have a fucking middle managment drone.

It might surprise some to find I don't wholly disagree with some of his policies, but the blatant lies to get votes, WASPI promises being yet another case in point, and the subsequent fuck you, since gaining power is incredible!

I'd say if you're going to do what he's done, then from a damage limitation POV its best to get it out the way early, but I suspect many Labour voters will never forget his back stabbing! I can't even have a wind up about it at work as my Labour voting colleagues are more pissed off with Labour than most other party supporters are!

I don't disagree with some of his policies, but I suspect they're not the same as the ones you agree with He has a massive majority and that gives him the freedom to implement some radical policies but what do we get? Increases in NI, cutting winter fuel allowance and a change to inheritance tax on "agricultural" land that has had a reaction way out of proportion to its actual effect. I'm not a Labour voter - thay're far too right wing - but I was hoping for much better from them. I have a feeling that they will be voted out of office in 2029 having accomplished nothing of note.

*No, not Farage

[gremlin]

I think this speaks volumes about the prioritisation of crimes in this country:

https://bbc.com/news/articles/c623j8k7xy6o

The retailers living in fear of violent shoplifters

"Police have responded by...giving out a life-size cardboard cut-out of a police officer,"

Should have said the shoplifters had posted some naughty words on social media, they'd have their collar felt in minutes.

[Taipan]

Be careful what you wish for. Oliver Cromwell was a nasty piece of work.

Him or Guy Fawkes would do, provided the UKs future saviour Sir Nigel was given free pass...

Be VERY carefull what you wish for. Overthrowing Parliaments, even bad ones, leads to dictators. And rarely ends well.

Its not exactly going swimmingly with Sir Keir Starmer and his Granny Harmers at the helm, which is a great segue as the afore named band has hit number one!

[Saga Lout]

I still fail to see why these Waspi Women are so upset. Their opinion seems to be that they are financially out of pocket?

I don't know why pensioners are so upset about losing their winter fuel allowance. Their opinion seems to be that they're out of pocket.
I don't know why farmers are so upset about inheritance tax. Their opinion seems to be that they're out of pocket.

Isn't "being out of pocket" a valid reason to be upset?

But at the age of 59 11/12ths they could have decided to carry on working. Nothing was taken away from them, so how can they be out of pocket ?

Tim Worstall sums it up:
Train drivers, train drivers matter, see?

“The Government does not believe paying a flat rate to all women at a cost of up to £10.5 billion would be a fair or proportionate use of taxpayers’s money. Not least when the previous government failed to set aside a single penny for any compensation scheme and when they left us a £22 billion black hole in the public finances.”

Even though there was that £22 billion hole, and no money set aside, we did pay the train drivers. Because train drivers is important, see? Not some old biddies.

[Mr. Dazzle]

"Police have responded by...giving out a life-size cardboard cut-out of a police officer,"

Weirdly, they do actually seem to be effective!

[Mr. Dazzle]

Even though there was that £22 billion hole, and no money set aside, we did pay the train drivers. Because train drivers is important, see? Not some old biddies.

Waddaya gonna do old biddies? Go on strike?

I don't get what the old biddies argument really is either BTW, beyond "I didn't want to keep working and I never watched the news/paid attention".

[Count Steer]

Even though there was that £22 billion hole, and no money set aside, we did pay the train drivers. Because train drivers is important, see? Not some old biddies.

Waddaya gonna do old biddies? Go on strike?

I don't get what the old biddies argument really is either BTW, beyond "I didn't want to keep working and I never watched the news/paid attention".

New policy: 'We're going to continue to increase the state pension age gradually/step wise because people are living longer - and staying generally healthier so they can work longer. However, people will miss the money from the years they don't get the pension.....so we'll pay them the difference'.

Sounds like that's what 'the people' (+newspapers) want. Seems logical.

[gremlin]

Don't forget. Old people and pets always get the sympathy vote.

[MyLittleStudPony]

I don't know why pensioners are so upset about losing their winter fuel allowance. Their opinion seems to be that they're out of pocket.
I don't know why farmers are so upset about inheritance tax. Their opinion seems to be that they're out of pocket.

Isn't "being out of pocket" a valid reason to be upset?

But at the age of 59 11/12ths they could have decided to carry on working. Nothing was taken away from them, so how can they be out of pocket ?

Tim Worstall sums it up:
Train drivers, train drivers matter, see?

“The Government does not believe paying a flat rate to all women at a cost of up to £10.5 billion would be a fair or proportionate use of taxpayers’s money. Not least when the previous government failed to set aside a single penny for any compensation scheme and when they left us a £22 billion black hole in the public finances.”

Even though there was that £22 billion hole, and no money set aside, we did pay the train drivers. Because train drivers is important, see? Not some old biddies.

Train drivers are workers. Labour is a party of the ordinary working people. That's how the two party system works.

Old people tend to vote conservative. Horrid, idle, leaching old people; trying to get their hands in the till again. But they've been seen.

[Saga Lout]

Train drivers are workers. Labour is a party of the ordinary working people. That's how the two party system works.

Now use that argument to justify screwing the farmers. I guess farmers don't qualify as working people in your book.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Train drivers are workers. Labour is a party of the ordinary working people. That's how the two party system works.

I guess farmers don't qualify as working people in your book.

Seems to me like the animals and plants do most of the work

[Saga Lout]

Even though there was that £22 billion hole, and no money set aside, we did pay the train drivers. Because train drivers is important, see? Not some old biddies.

Waddaya gonna do old biddies? Go on strike?

I don't get what the old biddies argument really is either BTW, beyond "I didn't want to keep working and I never watched the news/paid attention".

The argument is that Starmer, Rayner, and lots of other senior Labour politicians supported the old biddies when they were in opposition. Yes, I know, politicians' promises and all that, but lies and deception need to be called out when we see them even if we expect politicians to lie and deceive..

[Count Steer]

Train drivers are workers. Labour is a party of the ordinary working people. That's how the two party system works.

I guess farmers don't qualify as working people in your book.

Seems to me like the animals and plants do most of the work

I bet the plants and animals have to pay inheritance tax and don't get red diesel.

AND they don't get a vote.

[Horse]

Now use that argument to justify screwing the farmers. I guess farmers don't qualify as working people in your book.

Do all farmers own their land?

Farmers Weekly gives us some info:

So of the UK’s 60m acres, who owns what?

Author and campaigner Guy Shrubsole has done much to clarify the situation.

According to his research, land ownership is dominated by the aristocracy, who hold almost one-third of the area.

Next come large corporations, which may have invested in land for its tax-saving opportunities, followed by tycoons and the public sector.

In comparison, the Crown and the Church of England now hold less than 2% of the area between them – similar to the area held by charities.

Within this area, figures suggest a small number of individuals, charities and companies own huge swathes of land. About 12% of the UK land area or 7.2m acres is in the hands of the top 50 owners.

https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets- ... s-farmland

That's 'land' in total. Only about half of farm land is owned by the people who farm on it.

[Count Steer]

I said previously something about 'most' farmers were tenants (so the free pass on inheritance didn't affect them either way) but, of course, there are lots of little farms so perhaps it would have been better to say 'most land is worked by tenant farmers'.

The Co-op and local authorities used to have substantial farmland holdings dunno if they still do but I suspect the Co-op had to fire-sale a lot of it.

[Cousin Jack]

Don't forget. Old people and pets always get the sympathy vote.

And old people have votes too. Lots of old people, lots of votes.

[Count Steer]

Don't forget. Old people and pets always get the sympathy vote.

And old people have votes too. Lots of old people, lots of votes.

True. But by the next election they'll have forgotten this ever happened.

[Dodgy69]

It's probably been said many times in the workplace or down the pub, that governments have no money for pensioners, no money for our skint councils and all our other broken institutions, but always managed to find big money to throw overseas.

If I was a pensioner, I'd feel a little pissed off with these lying bstds. Tossers, the lot of em.