Gloucester Saint

Christopher Hope of GB News - large pinch of salt naturally - saying this morning that up to nine Tory MPs in advanced talks with Reform. Fair to say that they won’t all be independents first…

Don’t forget who pulls his strings though https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68533351 Vote Trump, support Putin.

Went the way of MLT but without the Premier League football career and earnings behind him. https://www.indy100.com/politics/andrew-bridgen-mp-anti-vax Mind you, saying the Tory Party should do more protect its MPs from extremism and manipulation is ironic when they’ve had the likes of Truss as Prime Minister! I’d say they are a leading cause of extremism since Brexit. 30p Lee joins Reform/BNP/whatever they are now in other news

More like ‘Tanglefoot, Tanglefoot, Tanglefoot’. That should make Duckie appear

Feasible that a CEO could take over a role on one day and then the company is sold the next with the buyers wanting to install their own leadership team? Re Michelle Donelan, what an idiot jumping onto a completely and intentionally misleading tweet by the Policy Exchange, another Tory quango funded by dark money (yes, I know quangos are supposed to be public). On ‘Who Funds You?’, from A to E on transparency of funding, they get an E. The entire Conservative movement needs training in this area, maybe just basic 11+ level literacy. Another of their Peers has had to apologise and pay damages over an allegation over a toy 🐙 and alleged anti-semitism over an episode of University Challenge I think it was, filmed months before the Gaza conflict even started. More about the Policy Exchange here which started in 2002 with centrist Tories but got taken over by hard right American money and yet another route for importing their toxic culture wars. No wonder the British public is moving at pace back to a Western European style democracy https://bylinetimes.com/2023/02/13/government-by-think-tank-the-return-of-policy-exchange/

This reduction was welcome https://portfolio-adviser.com/spring-budget-2024-chancellor-increases-vat-threshold/#:~:text=Among the measures%2C Hunt announced,“still leaves question marks”. More SMEs afloat is a good thing as they battle with energy costs, materials and Brexit. One area Labour can improve on next budget is the energy windfall tax from 2022. Too many caveats and loopholes. They won’t close them all but it’s a politically popular branch of fruit 🍈 https://neweconomics.org/2023/11/the-windfall-tax-was-supposed-to-rein-in-fossil-fuel-profits-instead-it-has-saved-corporations-billions IFS drawing similar conclusions to me - recycling money but the overall burden rising on middle earners with 40% threshold drag https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68489236 I’d rather that he’d just cut the VAT ceiling and left NI - it’s minimal compared to energy costs on households. But it’s set a political trap (I know Brown did the same in 2010) and never mind core public services. Apparently, they can use just more AI or something.

I stand corrected, he’s opted for this as it’s on paper cheaper than income tax cuts. It benefits higher earners most - but far more of those at the lower end of the higher earner rate are being dragged in by the £50k cap being frozen since 2013 https://ifamagazine.com/what-would-a-rumoured-2-cut-in-nics-in-spring-budget-look-like-analysis-and-reaction-from-experts/#:~:text=The cut will therefore benefit,rates are devolved in Scotland. It’s the best worst cut he had available - and least inflation-stoking. I’ve no doubt the tabloids and hard right wanted 2p off income tax instead, fuelling Truss-gate Mk2. If you’re on £30k a year, it’s still only really helpful if you live with your folks saving it up as outgoings have become so horrific over the last few years. And for social mobility, if the person on £30k now that 2p off NI might help a bit then gets a promotion or two and if the £50k start limit for higher rate doesn’t lift, they hit a different glass ceiling that their parents didn’t.

And the civil service posts he’ll announce they are cutting are partially from Covid but mostly from….Brexit. Their Brexit.

Agree with most of those, migration is less of an issue as they are mostly younger, not staying more than 2-3 years and utilising many services. Asylum different story of course but then as we both knew and probably said on here at the time the promise to take back our borders and antagonise our neighbours was particularly moronic. The lockdowns have caused surges in demand for mental health and diets got worse plus cost of living has made fresh produce more costly. Biggest issue is 13 years of austerity and the largely needless reduction in core LA budgets 2010-16 which means for example that the heavier SUVs are navigating and crushing crumbling roads. Some of the B road potholes in the north of the Cotswolds are huge and capable of dismounting/killing a biker from out of the area. At best, if you hit one full on that’s £300 for a new suspension bush. Hunt’s diversity comments are from the Lynton Crosby dead cat school of tactics eg throwing one on the table to distract very simple people from what you’re really up to/fucked up now. It’s probably 0.1% of budgets in metropolitan areas where community relations are vital and saves other services a ton of money. Unlike most of his shit-thick and totally incapable cabinet colleagues, the sad fact is that Hunt is actually more than bright enough to know this too from a long stint as Health Minister. This 23 year old lad via this article gets it, the NI cut only helps the very rich and over-65s. Easy to see why no-one else under that age votes for them https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68448107

Crazy game, great ending. We were superb going forward, could be more clinical still, but at the back a mess. Manning really does need swapping for Bree asap. Bree is actually better with crosses and passing, let alone defensively. Or put Meghoma at LB and Bree RB until KWP fit again. Disrupting the JB/THB partnership is not smart. Their caretaker manager I remember scoring a worldie at SMS in 2001 - check this out for a 25 yard monster https://www.premierleague.com/video/single/863857

Never understood why local authorities in more built up areas don’t have 20mph limits 8-4.30 for the schools Mon-Fri and 30mph rest of the time with clear and frequent signage.

Did you have a colour TV in 1969 WG? My folks bought one of the early ones to see it but not long after it caught 🔥 as some of the very early UK models were prone to do aka ‘Curtain Burners’. The Phillips ones were safer, just very heavy by all accounts. The instrumental soundtrack behind the BBC coverage was by Pink Floyd. A real landmark moment to be around to see.

Quite, far more effective in the 6 role than Smallbone, who is more of a natural 8.

Public debt as a proportion of GDP was 89.2% in 2015 straight after austerity https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/octtodec2015 As for the energy crisis, we are paying for it - straight in to the public pension funds of mainland European neighbours who own our energy firms. Public sector pensions - as I understand it most reduced to average earnings at best and few final salary schemes remaining at all, if any. WFH - what does that cost anybody apart from maybe the railways? And they were already the most expensive in Europe pre-Covid for the worst reliability. Civil service has actually recouped selling buildings and land off. It’s only the Mail that grizzles about WFH because without the advert revenue in the free papers through the major London terminals they nearly went pop. As for benefits - we had 3m unemployed in the 1980s - ‘unemployment is a price worth paying’. Can’t remember whether Howe or Lawson said it. As for COVID, I refer you to the £37bn VIP lane, most were Tory donors and a lot of the PPE didn’t work. In 2010, we had more comprehensive public services, not perfect by any means but different league to now, and much lower public debt to GDP. Its the modern day Tories and Brexit we can’t afford.

An excellent OP and subsequent comments. I don’t work in local government but have held high level non-party political civic positions where I’ve seen the fall-out of the last 13 years and a bit beyond where Labour was starting to re-distribute funds from some LAs SE England in the late 2000s. Most LAs now are reduced to education, social services and if they’ve brought them back in-house, refuse. There’s some small technical expertise left on planning and legal, but it’s a pale shadow of what it was, which is dreadful for local democracy as unwanted schemes get pushed through. So yes, WSS, LAs are totally hollowed out. Pre-Brexit, at least the NHS, FE, HE could all help blunt some of the impact but they are now screwed by people shortages created by a National Front/BNP-type obsession on all net migration (not just asylum seekers) and funding issues of their own operating in a higher inflation environment. That’s why millions can’t afford the dentist anymore. I’ve spent out more than any tax cuts on new suspension bushes wearing out early on our developing country roads. Not as if national debt as a proportion of GDP has dropped either - 74% in 2010, which apparently was a national disgrace, now 96.5% as of January 2024 and has been over 100%. And with public services hollowed out and/or disappearing across the board. The Tories and their shady donors have asset stripped the UK. Not sure how Starmer and Reeves are going to recover the damage to any great extent.

Why doesn’t James Bagge do a Go Fund me for his campaign against Liz Truss? If the other parties can be persuaded to not stand in her seat, and he gets enough finance to sustain a decent campaign plus all of the other papers bar the DT and Mail pile in on Truss, Tufton St’s filthy lucre would take the ultimate bloody nose. It would beat the best moments of 1997 - Martin Bell beating Neil Hamilton, Mellor getting beaten - by a mile. Probably won’t happen but with all-in effort it could happen. I’d donate if he did, my duty as a British citizen to beat the plastic Trumpite https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/liz-truss-turnip-taliban-trump-us-b2502705.html With Tufton St, Telegraph and Mail in her corner, that would level the playing field a little bit to have the rest of the country behind James Bagge.

They really are imploding now https://news.sky.com/story/tory-mp-paul-scully-criticised-for-claiming-london-and-birmingham-have-no-go-muslim-areas-13081675 Andy Street and Jess Phillips calling it out. After the carnage the Daily Mail reader from JDW Mansfield just caused and the billowing smoke trail from Truss platforming with the American far racist right, you’d think the other Tory MPs might show some judgement? Not a bit of it. Brexit has already failed on a policy level but it’s failed politically too because the Tories are fracturing and leaking towards Reform UK/UKIP/BNP/EDL or whatever they are today regardless. Further evidence of it https://news.sky.com/story/tory-mps-believe-lee-anderson-suspension-was-a-mistake-leaked-whatsapps-reveal-13081164 Very rare for me to agree with the IEA on anything but even their broken clock tells the time correctly here with some very clear analysis https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/26/the-tories-have-lost-the-red-wall/

She’s got to leave British politics, let alone the Tory party. Once you’ve called for a convicted felon like Bannon, with a jail sentence hanging over him to come and ‘sort out Britain’, someone who has been trying to organise far right groups across Europe and is an open racist and anti-Semite, you’ve got no future in this country. https://www.thenational.scot/news/24141610.liz-truss-silent-tommy-robinson-called-hero-steve-bannon-podcast/ I think she wants out anyway, loonies abound over there in the various think tanks. If she takes that cunt Matthew Sinclair and her little puppy Alasdair Heath on the ✈️ with her I’d be grateful. Sunak is too much of a weak dick, he’s dealt with Anderson but doesn’t want to upset the funny money in an election year with Tufton St and Truss, even as Liz humiliates him, and most of all herself yet again. He’d get some respect if he expelled her.

Charles at 6 - solid 2-0 win at WBA. Lightweight Smallbone at 6 - losing despite 85% possession, they are cutting us apart on the counter. Funnily enough the same happened before Flynn Downes was fit and since injured again. Even you should be able to work that out. Then again, maybe not. Smallbone is a good 8 but not a 6. Downes (injured) and Charles are 6s. Surprising the manager can’t figure that out.

As well as the crazy conspiracy theories about she lost office in the time it takes a lettuce to go off, she also stayed silent on a panel when Steve Bannon called Tommy Robinson a hero https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68388579 Soggy is going to have fun with that one 😂 Here’s the highlights of loony Yankee Liz’s nutty speech https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68376802 or if you can stand it, the full thing and the largely empty arena. How about a bazooka with a one way ticket to the USA of A with enough room for Rees Mogg on it as well. Us Brits might get some peace that way. I’d love to see her fuck off there if she thinks it’s so great, leach off their think tanks which is clearly her intention after the GE. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reader in Mansfield JDW has been at it again. He can smell the dodgy non-Dom TV cash. This MP business is too much like hard work. Cant remember them imploding this badly in 1997?

Barbados been to a couple of times, once for the Test match in 2004. Amazing place, lots to do. West coast has the best beaches, closely followed by South. North coast beautiful eg Bathsheba in a more wild way. Grenada truly the spice island, some great beaches, not as developed as Barbados BVI gorgeous, Virgin Gourda and the Baths amazing for snorkelling. Nevis and St Kitts good for that too. Dominica a good example of an unspoilt island, beaches are more volcano-like eg Canaries, stunning rainforest walking and such friendly people Aruba has great beaches, very Americanised though. Curacao more unspoilt, Les’s beach but the Dutch influences more obvious there.

I don’t know why anyone would want to get at the centre of such a huge shit show. Yeah, huge £££ too at a huge club but these guys are already on ££ compared to most industries anyway. Tapping on goes on all of the time, including plenty of people on here in their industries, but this is so cack-handed from Utd. Ashworth would be advised to wait until the Glazers have gone wholesale, although you’d expect a bit more savvy from Ratcliffe and Brailsford.

Example A here https://fanbanter.co.uk/under-fire-michael-beale-defends-his-accent-and-demands-more-respect-from-sunderland-fans/ He forgot about his QPR spell when referring to not working in London for 10 years - whoops. The Sunderland equivalent of Adam Blackmore wasn’t too impressed.

That’s a horrific challenge - more than a hint of Gascoigne on Gary Charles in the 1991 FA Cup Final. High, wild and out of control.

Spot on Whelk, they are following the Lynton Crosby and Steve Bannon scripts because they haven’t got anything else. Great article in the FT recently about why hardly anybody u45 votes for the Tories and the u55s who are normally Tories by now are staying away - it’s down to social mobility and faith (lack of) that they’ll have a better quality of life than their parents and grandparents. Whereas in other western countries where more people vote for centre right and far right parties there is less suppression of opportunities. Brexit has been a key watershed in this, another example of the Tories just focusing on the over-60s, as has austerity and the huge scale corruption of the PPE VIP lane of our money. The level of lying has been astonishing and people can see Truss’s trade deals already coming apart (even the farmers now) let alone the month-long PM spell which made Clough at Leeds look a roaring success. Add in the constant factions and civil wars and they really could go the way of the Liberals post WW1. Their forte used to be that economically they were more sound than the other parties but they’ve blown that totally in the last 13 years with public debt as a proportion of GDP what it was in 2010 under Labour. And that was much lower for most of the 2000s with the post-crash stimulus distorting it. So they can’t even say they inherited a bad situation and made it better - they made it far worse, soaring debt, taxes and crumbling infrastructure (look at the roads!). They have some deep problems that won’t resolve in months or even years. It’s obvious they’ll follow the Labour left down the Corbyn rabbit hole and elect another loony after the GE rather than a solid Tugendhat type who might save them as a mainstream centre right party. As for the Mail, people know Ted Verity is basically Tory Party property after Cummings let the cat out of the bag about the anti-WFH campaign by Mogg and Grant Schapps/Michael Green/whatever scammer he is this week. Ironic that they only survive because of civil servants they despise picking up a copy of their free papers which have the bigger advert revenue eg Metro.