Am I in the right place? Was looking for chat about Johnson et al and it’s all talk about love, feelings romance and hedgehogs?? Is it because Valentines Day is nearly upon us?
There's the 1/2 plus 7 rule that the Internet has invented, that being said the gap isn't that big and I've know some very mature 19 year olds and immature 26 year olds so depends on the couple.
Don’t all those challenges apply to pretty much every country? With the exception of currency/central bank for eg members of the Eurozone I guess. Obviously they’re things they’d have to do, but I don’t see why Scotland would be less capable than every peer country of doing these basic things.
What age do you start paying tax at? To take an extreme example there are some West End shows with rotating leads who are all probably about 10, I assume they’re paid pretty well and making taxable amounts of income.
The penalties for carelessness start at 30% and then gets reduced depending on how much you cooperate. For the penalty to be 30% it means he didn't help with the enquiry at all.
So much of tax goes on just sustaining the basic functions of the state that there's very little obvious investment going on. Especially when middle class graduates are looking at marginal tax rates of over 50%, the 'bang for buck' seems incredibly poor.
It would be easier to see it as an investment if the infrastructure in the country reflected the investment as such. As it is, there is a gulf between tax paid and benefits received. I get that it would take some time for an increase in tax to reflect in our lives as improved infrastructure, but there’s also the issue of if it doesn’t reflect quick enough then the burden perspective just becomes reinforced.
Just now watching LK on the Iplayer. This tax stuff is going to really blow up, Cleverly was totally unable to defend it and may of made it worse in some ways.
Like partygate it’s one of these stories that Tories seem politically stupid on. They think they can just get through the weekend but then they have to defend it in Parliament based on very little info.
Can't seem to rely on google maps getting train and bus times right anymore. Been caught out twice in the last week where train lines were cancelled well in advance (not strikes) but google maps is still showing them running. Seems like some line of information is broken.
All the cool kids use citymapper if it's available for the area. Always had issues with google travel and even with citymapper I still check national rail to be certain.
So let's say hypothetically Boris Johnson buggered off to an island somewhere forever, or just died, whatever means zero involvement of him in politics or the press every again..how long do we think it'd be before every bit of sleaze had aired itself? It seems every few weeks, regardless of his current profile, new things come out showing him to just be utterly devoid of morals.
I think it's the other way round. Because there are stories of him potentially making a comeback, those who want to derail that are pushing out stories that damage him.
Is there some kind of dictionary of private eye jargon for things in politics? It seems like there's a lot of things that are just in the aether that have emerged from there (Grauniad comes to mind as the first) but I wanted to look up how they would describe something and have no idea how I would find it
Tricky, isn't it? If Starmer makes light of it, he's belittling a serious and important traffic rule. If he takes it too seriously, he comes across as Captain Killjoy who thinks death by chocolate is a serious medical condition (as The Thick of It put it).
Dad round to visit and talking about politics is always an interesting chat. He basically is of the view that illegality and dodgy things has always been a thing, and a core part of politics and monarchies for hundreds of years, and it’s often the only way to get stuff actually done. Essentially would rather illegally make something happen and progress, than legally be stuck in perpetual limbo.
I heard something similar recently, a guy who said he really does care that they "take care of their own, we all do", but was absolutely raging that they had gone too far, since at the time he had a £500p/m mortgage hike.
So your family equivalent of the BBC voxpop from the last election with some random woman claiming that "they all lie" as her justification for voting for the biggest liar of the lot.
I think the important counter argument to this kind of thinking is that we live in a country that operates by precedent a lot of the time. Approving the means just because you like the end runs the risk of the same being used later for things you don’t like. Prorogation’s the only thing I can think of where Johnson broke the rules really to get something done, and being told to do it properly didn’t stop him from getting it done.
Watching that James Cleverly interview on Sky I once again find myself jealous of the front these ministers have.To just sit there and at best give repeated bizarre answers about the BBC Chairman having a wealth of skills or Zahawi having been a successful businessman (Much like Jeremy Hunt, I hear) and at worst shrug your shoulders and say I "Don't know" - on national television! Gimme some of that thick skin please!
"I appreciate the question, Sophie, however let me say, Nadhim Zahawi's dad is much bigger than your dad, and he works at nintendo so he gets all the games early. And I'm not saying there should be a fight, but if there were a fight, his dad would definitely win."
Are writers under represented in getting knighthoods? Classy actors get them somewhat regularly, as do singers. Lots of business people and civil service and political sorts get them.
Perhaps it's that those in the arts are more likely to refuse an honour? Just as the turner prize shortlist is often made up of those candidates that actually agreed to be nominate , likewise the honours list is only made of those that accept the honour.
Can there be an urgent question asked of the minister without portfolio (currently Nadhim Zahawi) in parliament? I know the minister for sacrifice to the commons would be sent instead anyway but it would make him have to explicitly hide from scrutiny if he declined to attend.
honestly if Ukraine does win I could see Boris fleeing to Ukraine and just living there as its the only place his reputation is intact and the only country in the Europe which would take him in no questions asked.
Don't you just hate that? When you handle your tax affairs in a way that's immoral and sufficiently on the border of illegality that actual HMRC investigations and financial settlements and journalistic questioning and legal threats are involved in sorting it out? And then your workplace and the public find out? And then you get punished by not getting a knighthood?
Been no real progres on the issue by either side, the debate hasn't changed in years (the stuff about powers to hold the ref are adjacent to the issue) so there's only marginal movements.
Listening to Cleverly’s interview on Ridge. I can’t help thinking that the first time he said he doesn’t know anything beyond Zahawi’s public statement and won’t comment on his own views, she should have just said there’s no point doing the interview and given the time to someone else. If the government are only sending someone out to filibuster then we don’t need to hear their irrelevant talking points.
The problem at the moment is that there is no apparent penalty for "don't ask, don't tell". On the press preview segment, you had both the MoS and Grauniad political editors say "I know nothing" is not good enough because it's obvious that they are using ignorance as a defence.
Councils turning down planning permissions for new residential estates is seen as a core party of nimbyism that’s negatively affecting the housing market and country at large, but have you seen the state of some of the proposals and what the housing companies try to get away with?! Looking at local submitted plans because we are in a market town that really doesn’t want to expand and lose its cute market townness feel, and everything from house extensions to full residential estate requests are absolutely shocking.
The main reason for this is the Affordable Housing contribution. Councils usually have excessively long waiting lists for Social Housing; in my Borough, the list is over 10,000 long with only a few hundred a year getting a place at best.
It’s actually incredible how weak Sunak is. I think it really shows his lack of political experience. Someone leading a party with such a large majority having just gone through a turbulent time with leadership changes should have come in and asserted their authority quickly. Look at what Johnson did with expelling MPs that did not tow the line in 2019.
He is very weak but this is a slight misreading I think. Sunak is weak in part because he absolutely needs to appease 4 or 5 factions in order to survive day to day. He's weak because there is no real path to strength. He inherited a party in a far worse position than Birus.
He seems incredibly politically inept, like Corbyn level of political stupidity. By all accounts he is a clever and hard working man, even if I didagree vehemently with his politics, but he lucked into being chancellor and became PM only because of Trusses catastrophic errors.
Even though he's doing it for entirely self serving reasons, I'm glad he's doing it in Ukraine over anywhere else on the planet. He's actually done some good for once there.
Or we link all public sector wages and minimum wage to CPI. Expensive maybe, but necessary to prevent the private sector accelerating its talent advantage over public sector. It would prevent greater wealth inequality as more lower paid work in the public sector.
Just read on BBC that Rachel Reeves has said Labour would 'drain the swamp'. Not so long since Rayner used the same phrase addressing Raab. Do we all agree that it's too soon post Trump for Labour to be using this particular phrase?
Drain the swamp is perfectly fine comments. It’s just Trumps way of saying “sort out Washington”. Issue is you have to show change once in office and Trump spent 4 years with no political reform constantly complaining about Washington politics.
Zahawi being appointed by Boris, and calling for him to go the next day is even more extraordinary when you now realise Boris had pooh poohed any concerns about his tax arrangements. Talk about biting the hand that feeds
Zahawi criticising labour and boasting about how the tories were dealing with tax avoidance (not even evasion) while he was evading tax is quite something
What's so untenable about Zahawai's position and Sunk for not making an example of him is that they is no admittance of wrong doing or apparent punishment. So every UK citizen filling out their tax return right now (which I think is a significant portion who leave it until close to the deadline) will be thinking okay no problem if I forget to declare my side income or transfer stuff to wife/kid/dead dogs name, or fudge some other detail. Just a mistake, totally forgiveable. Especially if money is tight and they can't afford the bill.
I completed my self assessment yesterday, which I have tax due on my return it's telling me I have nothing to pay, whereas in the past it would ask if I wanted to pay right away. Maybe HMRC have decided tax payments are optional now!
Did my tax return yesterday. If I get HMRC smashing down my front door about a little mistake I may have done, I’m just gonna say it was careless and not deliberate.
As someone centre-left (I think) I personally think the problem with "the right" is just a problem with politics in general - there's no time for debate anymore, it's all about the best sounding 3-word slogan to get played on the news and plastered on leaflets and website headlines. It discourages thought beyond the initial monkeybrain response and entrenches people in a view to the point of getting offended if an alternate view is even suggested. This happens both sides I reckon. The various things that all sides stand for have been distilled and infantilised into caricatures of their actual goals and the end result is an extreme position that you just kind of have to support to be a member of that team.
What do you mean by "the Right"? Many people have left the Conservative party, lots of grandees have lost faith, etc because they don't agree with the direction of the party.
In some ways it's fairly straightforward. The right hasn't ensured that enough people are benefitting from the right being in power. Or at least that's how people perceive it.
The 'right' only sustained in the UK, with wide popular support, due to the existence of the welfare state. Who could afford right-wing economics otherwise?
That last tweet is a very good point. I'm just watching the Sophy Ridge interview with Cleverly and he tries to get away with saying HMRC said that it was a "careless but not deliberate error". Thankfully she stops him and points out that is what Zahawi statement says. Reporting what a dodgy bastard has said about a dodgy situation as fact is not good journalism especially when your chairman is also linked to another incredibly dodgy scandal!
It's from earlier in the week and an opinion piece, so not requiring its own post but this description of Sunak's tone by Marina Hyde really spoke to me.
I think I've said it several times but during speeches and budget announcements he always has the air of a vicar giving a sermon decrying what your lord and saviour Jesus Christ the Conservative party has done for you recently and how thankful you should be for it. Almost like every paragraph should end with "...for ever and ever. Amen."
Isn't the Trump version also a sly nod to the officials at public institutions like the DOJ/FBI/EPA/DOE etc? That they've been 'captured by the Biden woke' or whatever.
My guess is they won’t use this super widely. Starmer talked about using "take back control" on News Agents, that he thought there was something legitimate in the concerns of the people that slogan appealed to and he wants to address those concerns. I’m guessing he’s not going to say the same about the Republican voters Trump appealed to any time soon.
Presumably the problem is that "swamp" is just such a good metaphor. Works better in the US where, as I understand it, their capital city was built on what used to be swampland. But it's a pretty good metaphor even by itself.
It's a risky one to be sure, but I doubt it's going to be a centrepiece of Labour's communication going forward, more likely just something Reeves herself thinks is clever.
Just in awe of how quickly the BBC editorial are destroying the BBC’s credibility. Is no great institution of ours safe? Every fabric of our country being destroyed at the altar of the worst and most unpopular government we’ve had in living memory. If you can’t be brave enough to stand up to them now with a year or so left to an election then might as well throw the towel in.
the BBC news I grew up watching has been dead for a while. It's approximately on par with our other outlets at best, definitely behind C4, probably behind Sky.
I like to take a more optimistic view of this: the BBC are placating a group of people who are, I agree, the lowest-quality government we've had in living memory (though my memory isn't as long as some other people's). But it's only temporary, and it's necessary in order to survive,
This megathread has ended.
Is the rest of the West going to tire of Germany eventually?
I think considering their past, nervousness around military and foreign affairs is very understandable.
Am I in the right place? Was looking for chat about Johnson et al and it’s all talk about love, feelings romance and hedgehogs?? Is it because Valentines Day is nearly upon us?
Politics because hedgehogs
How do you feel about that?
On the subject of age:
Lets not be using the relationship advice subreddit for serious discussion LOL
Could they be from a state where the legal age is 18? So to them it might seem like a 19 year old is practically a minor?
I think this would be an issue for straight couples. Gay couples, less so. The dating pool is smaller so you get more leeway either side.
I think in your precise example the 26 year old was being controlling and the combination of the two brought the responses.
There's the 1/2 plus 7 rule that the Internet has invented, that being said the gap isn't that big and I've know some very mature 19 year olds and immature 26 year olds so depends on the couple.
What I think is missing at of the time at the moment is genuine passion.
You need a good YouTube channel. Watch the guy on technology connections produce 3+ videos on the best way to use a dishwasher, it is glorious.
how long will it take for independent scotland to collapse?
Collapse? I'm a unionist, and I see no reason why we would collapse if we went Indy.
Gr8 b8 m8
Scotland has a government
I can only conclude that you assume Scotland is 5m+ low functioning imbeciles.
These are all difficult but not insurmountable. I think that things could be rough for a while, but calling it a collapse is overegging the pudding.
About the same amount of time as it took Ireland
Don’t all those challenges apply to pretty much every country? With the exception of currency/central bank for eg members of the Eurozone I guess. Obviously they’re things they’d have to do, but I don’t see why Scotland would be less capable than every peer country of doing these basic things.
I think it would be possible with some good will from the UK and EU. Tbh they'd also be motivated to not have a failed state on the borders.
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I think your looking for the American Constitution.
But 15 year olds also pay tax.
So are you proposing the abolition of VAT and the like or do you just want an enormous bureaucracy for avoiding charging these people those taxes?
A 5 year old that makes more than the tax threshold pays tax. Say from being a filmstar or whatever. Tax is related income not age.
What age do you start paying tax at? To take an extreme example there are some West End shows with rotating leads who are all probably about 10, I assume they’re paid pretty well and making taxable amounts of income.
They probably don't pay tax anyway.
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How far are we off wage parity with poland?
I think I might need an explanation why what Zahawi did only attracted a 30% fine. That seems like a low deterrent.
30% is for carelessness, ie you made a genuine mistake.
The penalties for carelessness start at 30% and then gets reduced depending on how much you cooperate. For the penalty to be 30% it means he didn't help with the enquiry at all.
Random thought for the day (inspired by something in the latest Eye) -
So much of tax goes on just sustaining the basic functions of the state that there's very little obvious investment going on. Especially when middle class graduates are looking at marginal tax rates of over 50%, the 'bang for buck' seems incredibly poor.
A bigger problem is that we assign so much tax to non productive areas of the economy
I think that would be true if rhetoric and reality weren't essentially decoupled from each other in British politics.
I like what we get with council tax when they tell us what the tax goes on. I think we need more of that
It would be easier to see it as an investment if the infrastructure in the country reflected the investment as such. As it is, there is a gulf between tax paid and benefits received. I get that it would take some time for an increase in tax to reflect in our lives as improved infrastructure, but there’s also the issue of if it doesn’t reflect quick enough then the burden perspective just becomes reinforced.
Just now watching LK on the Iplayer. This tax stuff is going to really blow up, Cleverly was totally unable to defend it and may of made it worse in some ways.
Like partygate it’s one of these stories that Tories seem politically stupid on. They think they can just get through the weekend but then they have to defend it in Parliament based on very little info.
Can't seem to rely on google maps getting train and bus times right anymore. Been caught out twice in the last week where train lines were cancelled well in advance (not strikes) but google maps is still showing them running. Seems like some line of information is broken.
All the cool kids use citymapper if it's available for the area. Always had issues with google travel and even with citymapper I still check national rail to be certain.
So let's say hypothetically Boris Johnson buggered off to an island somewhere forever, or just died, whatever means zero involvement of him in politics or the press every again..how long do we think it'd be before every bit of sleaze had aired itself? It seems every few weeks, regardless of his current profile, new things come out showing him to just be utterly devoid of morals.
I think it's the other way round. Because there are stories of him potentially making a comeback, those who want to derail that are pushing out stories that damage him.
At least he it's still giving Ukraine much needed support right now.
There would be an unlimited source of apocryphal stories of his randy debauchery, like Rasputin. Or a randy, corrupt, Chuck Norris.
Is there some kind of dictionary of private eye jargon for things in politics? It seems like there's a lot of things that are just in the aether that have emerged from there (Grauniad comes to mind as the first) but I wanted to look up how they would describe something and have no idea how I would find it
Tv tropes is actually quite good for this! And Wikipedia
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_jokes_in_Private_Eye
If the Conservative backbenchers are rowdy at this week's PMQ's I'm hoping someone suggests they
Tricky, isn't it? If Starmer makes light of it, he's belittling a serious and important traffic rule. If he takes it too seriously, he comes across as Captain Killjoy who thinks death by chocolate is a serious medical condition (as The Thick of It put it).
Starmers PMQs team furiously scribbling notes rn
Dad round to visit and talking about politics is always an interesting chat. He basically is of the view that illegality and dodgy things has always been a thing, and a core part of politics and monarchies for hundreds of years, and it’s often the only way to get stuff actually done. Essentially would rather illegally make something happen and progress, than legally be stuck in perpetual limbo.
Show your dad the Nolan Principles of Public Life.
I heard something similar recently, a guy who said he really does care that they "take care of their own, we all do", but was absolutely raging that they had gone too far, since at the time he had a £500p/m mortgage hike.
So your family equivalent of the BBC voxpop from the last election with some random woman claiming that "they all lie" as her justification for voting for the biggest liar of the lot.
I think the important counter argument to this kind of thinking is that we live in a country that operates by precedent a lot of the time. Approving the means just because you like the end runs the risk of the same being used later for things you don’t like. Prorogation’s the only thing I can think of where Johnson broke the rules really to get something done, and being told to do it properly didn’t stop him from getting it done.
Then perhaps the problem is that they’re getting caught. In the good old days they knew how to get away with it?
Watching that James Cleverly interview on Sky I once again find myself jealous of the front these ministers have.To just sit there and at best give repeated bizarre answers about the BBC Chairman having a wealth of skills or Zahawi having been a successful businessman (Much like Jeremy Hunt, I hear) and at worst shrug your shoulders and say I "Don't know" - on national television! Gimme some of that thick skin please!
"I appreciate the question, Sophie, however let me say, Nadhim Zahawi's dad is much bigger than your dad, and he works at nintendo so he gets all the games early. And I'm not saying there should be a fight, but if there were a fight, his dad would definitely win."
Are writers under represented in getting knighthoods? Classy actors get them somewhat regularly, as do singers. Lots of business people and civil service and political sorts get them.
Perhaps it's that those in the arts are more likely to refuse an honour? Just as the turner prize shortlist is often made up of those candidates that actually agreed to be nominate , likewise the honours list is only made of those that accept the honour.
Phillip Pullman has one.
British authors who have received UK honours
Hilary Mantel got damed
Can there be an urgent question asked of the minister without portfolio (currently Nadhim Zahawi) in parliament? I know the minister for sacrifice to the commons would be sent instead anyway but it would make him have to explicitly hide from scrutiny if he declined to attend.
Not sure, since it's his personal affairs. The PM themselves is in charge of ethics/integrity I think.
Inb4 Boris claims asylum in Ukraine to avoid the privileges committee and the BBC bribe probe
honestly if Ukraine does win I could see Boris fleeing to Ukraine and just living there as its the only place his reputation is intact and the only country in the Europe which would take him in no questions asked.
Eh, if it finally gets him out of the Commons, and the country, I'll take it...
Grain of salt because it's from a tabloid-employed lobby journalist, but
Did Zahawi just not tell the party about all this? Kind of looking that way.
Fucking Hell. I presume he was put forward by Johnson?
Don't you just hate that? When you handle your tax affairs in a way that's immoral and sufficiently on the border of illegality that actual HMRC investigations and financial settlements and journalistic questioning and legal threats are involved in sorting it out? And then your workplace and the public find out? And then you get punished by not getting a knighthood?
Guess there’s more scrutiny for that than Conservative Chancellor, or Conservative Party Chairman.
I wonder why support for Scottish independence has ended up around roughly 50/50?
Been no real progres on the issue by either side, the debate hasn't changed in years (the stuff about powers to hold the ref are adjacent to the issue) so there's only marginal movements.
They don't include undecided people, so you only get the "engaged/enraged/encouraged" sorts.
Gosh this is funny
Zahawi strong-armed Johnson into power? What’s the story here
Listening to Cleverly’s interview on Ridge. I can’t help thinking that the first time he said he doesn’t know anything beyond Zahawi’s public statement and won’t comment on his own views, she should have just said there’s no point doing the interview and given the time to someone else. If the government are only sending someone out to filibuster then we don’t need to hear their irrelevant talking points.
The problem at the moment is that there is no apparent penalty for "don't ask, don't tell". On the press preview segment, you had both the MoS and Grauniad political editors say "I know nothing" is not good enough because it's obvious that they are using ignorance as a defence.
Councils turning down planning permissions for new residential estates is seen as a core party of nimbyism that’s negatively affecting the housing market and country at large, but have you seen the state of some of the proposals and what the housing companies try to get away with?! Looking at local submitted plans because we are in a market town that really doesn’t want to expand and lose its cute market townness feel, and everything from house extensions to full residential estate requests are absolutely shocking.
The vast majority of developments turned down by planning authorities should be turned down.
The main reason for this is the Affordable Housing contribution. Councils usually have excessively long waiting lists for Social Housing; in my Borough, the list is over 10,000 long with only a few hundred a year getting a place at best.
Don’t know about the proposals but the ones that are actually built are so bad.
Hadn't seen this
Even more disgusting is Met chief saying he cannot fire them arseholes:
I'm beginning to think 'having a scandal' is mandatory behaviour in high office.
Happy New Year to that small crossover of ukpol-ers and folks who are celebrating the lunar year!
It’s actually incredible how weak Sunak is. I think it really shows his lack of political experience. Someone leading a party with such a large majority having just gone through a turbulent time with leadership changes should have come in and asserted their authority quickly. Look at what Johnson did with expelling MPs that did not tow the line in 2019.
He is very weak but this is a slight misreading I think. Sunak is weak in part because he absolutely needs to appease 4 or 5 factions in order to survive day to day. He's weak because there is no real path to strength. He inherited a party in a far worse position than Birus.
He seems incredibly politically inept, like Corbyn level of political stupidity. By all accounts he is a clever and hard working man, even if I didagree vehemently with his politics, but he lucked into being chancellor and became PM only because of Trusses catastrophic errors.
Boris is in Ukraine
The King Over the Water… as long as Sunak bleeds authority, the spectre of Johnson will persist.
Even though he's doing it for entirely self serving reasons, I'm glad he's doing it in Ukraine over anywhere else on the planet. He's actually done some good for once there.
Still see he has it still ingrained in him to go to Ukraine the moment a scandal drops.
Nice to see that the “when things are looking awkward at home, go to Ukraine” trick is still as transparent as ever.
If the Govt raises pay for some workers, they have to raise them for all - & that's unaffordable (if everyone gets the payrise they are demanding).
Unaffordability argument fails morally as long as triple lock remains and is not means tested.
Or we link all public sector wages and minimum wage to CPI. Expensive maybe, but necessary to prevent the private sector accelerating its talent advantage over public sector. It would prevent greater wealth inequality as more lower paid work in the public sector.
First thing that comes to mind when you read the following?
Jav - bus dad
Javid - C*nt
Prime Ministerial
Heroes all
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/21122553/high-profile-tory-mp-fraud/
Isn’t it Boris? Edit: it isn’t
Looks new
Just read on BBC that Rachel Reeves has said Labour would 'drain the swamp'. Not so long since Rayner used the same phrase addressing Raab. Do we all agree that it's too soon post Trump for Labour to be using this particular phrase?
Drain the swamp and take back control. Has the left just ceded all creative decisions to the right now?
Not just too soon, it’s an intellectually lazy phrase to be using at all.
That sounds like Trump.
Drain the swamp is perfectly fine comments. It’s just Trumps way of saying “sort out Washington”. Issue is you have to show change once in office and Trump spent 4 years with no political reform constantly complaining about Washington politics.
Fuck me, who are they trying to appeal to now?
I'd hope the shadow chancellor would be aware of the conspiratorial and antisemitic connotations of such a phrase given its origins.
Zahawi being appointed by Boris, and calling for him to go the next day is even more extraordinary when you now realise Boris had pooh poohed any concerns about his tax arrangements. Talk about biting the hand that feeds
Indeed
Zahawi criticising labour and boasting about how the tories were dealing with tax avoidance (not even evasion) while he was evading tax is quite something
What's so untenable about Zahawai's position and Sunk for not making an example of him is that they is no admittance of wrong doing or apparent punishment. So every UK citizen filling out their tax return right now (which I think is a significant portion who leave it until close to the deadline) will be thinking okay no problem if I forget to declare my side income or transfer stuff to wife/kid/dead dogs name, or fudge some other detail. Just a mistake, totally forgiveable. Especially if money is tight and they can't afford the bill.
I completed my self assessment yesterday, which I have tax due on my return it's telling me I have nothing to pay, whereas in the past it would ask if I wanted to pay right away. Maybe HMRC have decided tax payments are optional now!
Did my tax return yesterday. If I get HMRC smashing down my front door about a little mistake I may have done, I’m just gonna say it was careless and not deliberate.
Questions kicking around in my mind.
Most of the sensible-right hate the Tories, if that's what you mean.
As someone centre-left (I think) I personally think the problem with "the right" is just a problem with politics in general - there's no time for debate anymore, it's all about the best sounding 3-word slogan to get played on the news and plastered on leaflets and website headlines. It discourages thought beyond the initial monkeybrain response and entrenches people in a view to the point of getting offended if an alternate view is even suggested. This happens both sides I reckon. The various things that all sides stand for have been distilled and infantilised into caricatures of their actual goals and the end result is an extreme position that you just kind of have to support to be a member of that team.
What do you mean by "the Right"? Many people have left the Conservative party, lots of grandees have lost faith, etc because they don't agree with the direction of the party.
In some ways it's fairly straightforward. The right hasn't ensured that enough people are benefitting from the right being in power. Or at least that's how people perceive it.
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The 'right' only sustained in the UK, with wide popular support, due to the existence of the welfare state. Who could afford right-wing economics otherwise?
Right: Not right wing enough.
Brief update on me popping in last night and screaming bloody murder about wisdom tooth pain.
Hope you feel better, fingers crossed they can do it right there but the painkillers should be super strong if not
That last tweet is a very good point. I'm just watching the Sophy Ridge interview with Cleverly and he tries to get away with saying HMRC said that it was a "careless but not deliberate error". Thankfully she stops him and points out that is what Zahawi statement says. Reporting what a dodgy bastard has said about a dodgy situation as fact is not good journalism especially when your chairman is also linked to another incredibly dodgy scandal!
I look forward to seeing how Rory addresses this on TRIP.
Well said by reads hand former President of the Oxford University Conservative Association
Government scandals are so thick and fast they can’t cover one for more than a 24 hour cycle
Apologies for the Peter Kay impression but whoooo remembahs when
Well, it was rude. It's completely unacceptable in this country for to us to accuse our betters of things which they absolutely have done.
It's from earlier in the week and an opinion piece, so not requiring its own post but this description of Sunak's tone by Marina Hyde really spoke to me.
I think I've said it several times but during speeches and budget announcements he always has the air of a vicar giving a sermon decrying what your lord and saviour Jesus Christ the Conservative party has done for you recently and how thankful you should be for it. Almost like every paragraph should end with "...for ever and ever. Amen."
I also read that article and singled out that little paragraph - really sums it up beautifully, doesn't it.
[удалено]
Clearly, she should have said “Drain the fens”. No pride in British engineering.
Yes, I didn't like hearing her say it either. I always hear that expression in Trump's voice.
Isn't the Trump version also a sly nod to the officials at public institutions like the DOJ/FBI/EPA/DOE etc? That they've been 'captured by the Biden woke' or whatever.
drain the swamp by taking back control for hard working families
My guess is they won’t use this super widely. Starmer talked about using "take back control" on News Agents, that he thought there was something legitimate in the concerns of the people that slogan appealed to and he wants to address those concerns. I’m guessing he’s not going to say the same about the Republican voters Trump appealed to any time soon.
Labour have pinched a lot of slogans previously used by their opponents. Must be a conscious tactic.
Presumably the problem is that "swamp" is just such a good metaphor. Works better in the US where, as I understand it, their capital city was built on what used to be swampland. But it's a pretty good metaphor even by itself.
Also Washington is built on a swamp and Westminster is not.
Rayner likes to wheel it out once in a while
It's a risky one to be sure, but I doubt it's going to be a centrepiece of Labour's communication going forward, more likely just something Reeves herself thinks is clever.
Just in awe of how quickly the BBC editorial are destroying the BBC’s credibility. Is no great institution of ours safe? Every fabric of our country being destroyed at the altar of the worst and most unpopular government we’ve had in living memory. If you can’t be brave enough to stand up to them now with a year or so left to an election then might as well throw the towel in.
the BBC news I grew up watching has been dead for a while. It's approximately on par with our other outlets at best, definitely behind C4, probably behind Sky.
I like to take a more optimistic view of this: the BBC are placating a group of people who are, I agree, the lowest-quality government we've had in living memory (though my memory isn't as long as some other people's). But it's only temporary, and it's necessary in order to survive,