Great points, but not only this - look at the other things councils are allowed to spend on - upgrades to their offices, ludicrous statues, rainbow crossings, unsafe cycle paths on main roads, chopping down trees to put unwanted cycle lanes (you mentioned bicycles, and it started me off ...)
70% of council tax wasted on such fripperies, plus gold plated pensions for people in government (Starmer, the hypocrite) £7k expenses for heating for Reeves ...
And every day we see more TV adverts pleading for money for clean water, eye treatments and cleft palate operations for third world countries all of which should be covered by our aid payments and money to the UN.
Makes my blood boil, the sheer waste of it all - and now to be lectured by Labour on what we should all do without? They won't last 5 years, and I will be cheering when they're ousted.
Meanwhile, they can stuff their bigoted opinions where the sun don't shine.
Chin up. You know who I think should get the crown. Anything to destroy Starmer is fair game, anything and whose votes are going up as fast as Starmer's are dropping? a couple of million pensioners for a start. Forget the Tory clown act.
What is the real elephant in the room? It’s the dark forces behind Starmer, behind the Tories, behind ‘The Blob’ and behind the MSM. It is all coordinated. Our managed decline, mass immigration, gradual replacement of the indigenous British is all deliberate. You must know about the ‘Kalergi Plan’, ‘The Lancaster Plan’ and ‘Agenda 30’?
You obviously know about the WEF, Soros, Blair, Gates etc. These are the people and the reasons the country is going to shit, the people pulling Starmer’s strings. Voting won’t change any of this. Political parties won’t change any of this.
It’s got to be exposed, called out and eventually, overthrown. But I can’t see any way other than civil war. Without that nothing will change and the globalists will win and Britain as we know it will collapse.
True - but looking at the big picture is nihilist and leaves you feeling hopeless, so maybe starting small is better. Change the small and obviously stupid decisions first. I agree, politics is cursed, but peoplle in general are not. And Labour isn't the answer for anything except tax and spend - always the same, and with a whole bunch of Communist idealogical crap to go with it. At least the Tories are openly corrupt!
But you could say that about anything, 'stupid decisions being rational decisions for another agenda'. In a mad world, yes.
You have to go with common sense and what works in a practical way. Some politicians 'get it', after a fashion. And bad decisions are sometimes reversed after a public backlash, but we are more compliant since the lockdowns and young adults are more confused about the world than ever and acting out.
Like everywhere else, in Europe particularly, we have a crisis which has been a long time coming. I don't know whether politics can solve anything, but what world order do we look to otherwise? Not Soros, Gates, Schwab or the WEF, surely?
All national and local politicians are bereft of knowledge and incompetent and if there are any who are not they are too scared to speak the truth for fear of the backlash they would face from amongst others the liberal woke who dwell in the unreal world of make believe where windmills work, 22 billion is a black hole and not just a rounding error and everyone feed up with mass immigration is far-right.
Until we get grown up politicians of substances I'm afraid things will only get worse.
Late reply as just returned from two weeks holiday in France and return via Jersey!
I agree up to a point that there is something in what you say but I'd make two additional points.
First It is sadly not the figurehead who rules the roost but the growing 'Establishment' in the basckground and they do what they think right and not what the majority want or need. Take child emporers in China, they didn't rule that was left to the mandarins.
Second, take the issue of the belief in manmade Climate Change and the Net Zero response, having read 30 books on the subject, I can categorically state that politicians are ignorant and thus incompetent. No if or buts completely 100% ignorant fools!!
I don't think we are actually that far apart so I rather resent your suggestion that I'm the one that might be ignorant - I don't claim to be Brain of BritaIn but unlike Lammy I know Henry VII didn't come after Henry VIII!
There is a saying 'that the only lesson of history is that we learn nothing from it' and that is predominately because those that govern us, whether civil servants or politicians, are ignorant of history and for many years now govern on a day to day basis fighting fires and wherever possible signalling their virtue!
On CC I will accept some politicians think Net Zero is a nonsense but carry on with it anyway and to those I add the label COWARDS! However, the majority are IGNORANT of the facts and believe what the likes of the IPCC tell them and if you really think different then you need to read a few more books on the subject!!
Anyway I do accept that to a certain extent it was ever thus but it is IMO several degrees worse now and we will continue our decline, as predicted by Sir John Pasha Glubb, until we hit rock bottom and rise again under new leadership.
Yes to me 'ignorance' means lacking knowledge and you only have to compare O and A level questions form my day in the 60's to the often multiple choice dumbed down questions today.
As to 'incompetence' it means "not showing the skills necessary to do something successfully" and since Mrs T no PM has govern successfully - that's BlaIr, Brown, Cameron/Clegg, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and now Starmer.
The truth is it won't save much money by the time pension credit applications go in and there's no shortage of help offered to fill in tedious forms by local charities, citizens advice, Age UK etc.
The llikely effect will be less spending by at least 2-3 million elderly on small items, coffee shops, bedding plants, Xmas stockings. Many of the better off put their WFA into charities, trusts for grandkids education and so on. The WFA is a low level social lubricant finding its way into the cracks, some returning via VAT, taxes from shops and tax NIC from wages. If 5 million don't need it thats £1 billion taken out of the economy. No 'Growth' there.
Anxiety and dismay aside this political decision has painted them into a corner and attracted disproportionate opprobrium. They had to push it through to avoid looking weak as they'll have to push through outdoor smoking bans.
They're committing slow suicide and they've barely begun. Losing 2-3 million votes from a single sector, never mind sympathetic families and friends? 5 years is looking ambitious.
I can’t believe they haven’t risk assessed this cheap trick for the optics for when the very first pensioner dies of the cold will not be kind to them. They are not only economically junior but politically naive.
They are either stupid or nasty or both but don't mind me, I was naive enough to hope Boris would wipe them off the face of the Earth. However, it may be they sow the seeds of their own destruction. My fervent hope.
It is a strange decision by Reeves. I have just been assuming that their strategy is to do unpopular things early in their term so that the public has forgotten by the next General Election. But that Reeves is setting herself up as a future Prime Minister and wants to be seen as the new Thatcher does seem plausible.
NextDoor is a riot of people complaining about Reeves and the winter fuel payment (I live in Reeves' constituency). But the fact is that she increased her majority even though a boundary change lumped Pudsey - which had a Conservative MP - into Leeds West.
Because - as Peter Hitchens often asserts - communists actually won the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union is the best thing that ever happened to communism. What we have in the west is communist governments who prioritise ideology over pragmatism. So the ideologies of Net Zero and borderless immigration win out over any practical concerns.
well said mate - "yeah this time it's gonna be different, he's changed" or something.
What's baffling me is that the size of the payoff here is minscule - and I mean miniscule in national budgetary terms. The money could be found by easing up on the climate change craziness, shutting down a few quangos and not funding overseas wars. But perhaps these little cliques see all of the above as 'more important' or whatever.
Politically it's a mad thing to do and demonstrates their lack of 'finger on the pulse' in a clear enough way. Now they're talking about 'sorting the NHS out' but I'll believe it when the role of 'smoking cessation officer' or 'LGBTQ co-ordinator' is abolished and the savings put back into frontline care.
We 'might' be able to vote our way out of this one day, but it won't be next month or next year - and it won't be for anyone currently on offer. Reform will either end up 'in the club' themselves or start fighting each other as Farage's outfits always have...
Great points, but not only this - look at the other things councils are allowed to spend on - upgrades to their offices, ludicrous statues, rainbow crossings, unsafe cycle paths on main roads, chopping down trees to put unwanted cycle lanes (you mentioned bicycles, and it started me off ...)
70% of council tax wasted on such fripperies, plus gold plated pensions for people in government (Starmer, the hypocrite) £7k expenses for heating for Reeves ...
And every day we see more TV adverts pleading for money for clean water, eye treatments and cleft palate operations for third world countries all of which should be covered by our aid payments and money to the UN.
Makes my blood boil, the sheer waste of it all - and now to be lectured by Labour on what we should all do without? They won't last 5 years, and I will be cheering when they're ousted.
Meanwhile, they can stuff their bigoted opinions where the sun don't shine.
Chin up. You know who I think should get the crown. Anything to destroy Starmer is fair game, anything and whose votes are going up as fast as Starmer's are dropping? a couple of million pensioners for a start. Forget the Tory clown act.
What is the real elephant in the room? It’s the dark forces behind Starmer, behind the Tories, behind ‘The Blob’ and behind the MSM. It is all coordinated. Our managed decline, mass immigration, gradual replacement of the indigenous British is all deliberate. You must know about the ‘Kalergi Plan’, ‘The Lancaster Plan’ and ‘Agenda 30’?
You obviously know about the WEF, Soros, Blair, Gates etc. These are the people and the reasons the country is going to shit, the people pulling Starmer’s strings. Voting won’t change any of this. Political parties won’t change any of this.
It’s got to be exposed, called out and eventually, overthrown. But I can’t see any way other than civil war. Without that nothing will change and the globalists will win and Britain as we know it will collapse.
True - but looking at the big picture is nihilist and leaves you feeling hopeless, so maybe starting small is better. Change the small and obviously stupid decisions first. I agree, politics is cursed, but peoplle in general are not. And Labour isn't the answer for anything except tax and spend - always the same, and with a whole bunch of Communist idealogical crap to go with it. At least the Tories are openly corrupt!
See mine above. Scrapping the WFA while paying off comfortaby off workers defies rationality if the rationale is to economise..
But you could say that about anything, 'stupid decisions being rational decisions for another agenda'. In a mad world, yes.
You have to go with common sense and what works in a practical way. Some politicians 'get it', after a fashion. And bad decisions are sometimes reversed after a public backlash, but we are more compliant since the lockdowns and young adults are more confused about the world than ever and acting out.
Like everywhere else, in Europe particularly, we have a crisis which has been a long time coming. I don't know whether politics can solve anything, but what world order do we look to otherwise? Not Soros, Gates, Schwab or the WEF, surely?
All national and local politicians are bereft of knowledge and incompetent and if there are any who are not they are too scared to speak the truth for fear of the backlash they would face from amongst others the liberal woke who dwell in the unreal world of make believe where windmills work, 22 billion is a black hole and not just a rounding error and everyone feed up with mass immigration is far-right.
Until we get grown up politicians of substances I'm afraid things will only get worse.
Late reply as just returned from two weeks holiday in France and return via Jersey!
I agree up to a point that there is something in what you say but I'd make two additional points.
First It is sadly not the figurehead who rules the roost but the growing 'Establishment' in the basckground and they do what they think right and not what the majority want or need. Take child emporers in China, they didn't rule that was left to the mandarins.
Second, take the issue of the belief in manmade Climate Change and the Net Zero response, having read 30 books on the subject, I can categorically state that politicians are ignorant and thus incompetent. No if or buts completely 100% ignorant fools!!
I don't think we are actually that far apart so I rather resent your suggestion that I'm the one that might be ignorant - I don't claim to be Brain of BritaIn but unlike Lammy I know Henry VII didn't come after Henry VIII!
There is a saying 'that the only lesson of history is that we learn nothing from it' and that is predominately because those that govern us, whether civil servants or politicians, are ignorant of history and for many years now govern on a day to day basis fighting fires and wherever possible signalling their virtue!
On CC I will accept some politicians think Net Zero is a nonsense but carry on with it anyway and to those I add the label COWARDS! However, the majority are IGNORANT of the facts and believe what the likes of the IPCC tell them and if you really think different then you need to read a few more books on the subject!!
Anyway I do accept that to a certain extent it was ever thus but it is IMO several degrees worse now and we will continue our decline, as predicted by Sir John Pasha Glubb, until we hit rock bottom and rise again under new leadership.
Yes to me 'ignorance' means lacking knowledge and you only have to compare O and A level questions form my day in the 60's to the often multiple choice dumbed down questions today.
As to 'incompetence' it means "not showing the skills necessary to do something successfully" and since Mrs T no PM has govern successfully - that's BlaIr, Brown, Cameron/Clegg, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and now Starmer.
Finally I totally agree with your last sentence!
The truth is it won't save much money by the time pension credit applications go in and there's no shortage of help offered to fill in tedious forms by local charities, citizens advice, Age UK etc.
The llikely effect will be less spending by at least 2-3 million elderly on small items, coffee shops, bedding plants, Xmas stockings. Many of the better off put their WFA into charities, trusts for grandkids education and so on. The WFA is a low level social lubricant finding its way into the cracks, some returning via VAT, taxes from shops and tax NIC from wages. If 5 million don't need it thats £1 billion taken out of the economy. No 'Growth' there.
Anxiety and dismay aside this political decision has painted them into a corner and attracted disproportionate opprobrium. They had to push it through to avoid looking weak as they'll have to push through outdoor smoking bans.
They're committing slow suicide and they've barely begun. Losing 2-3 million votes from a single sector, never mind sympathetic families and friends? 5 years is looking ambitious.
I can’t believe they haven’t risk assessed this cheap trick for the optics for when the very first pensioner dies of the cold will not be kind to them. They are not only economically junior but politically naive.
They are either stupid or nasty or both but don't mind me, I was naive enough to hope Boris would wipe them off the face of the Earth. However, it may be they sow the seeds of their own destruction. My fervent hope.
The triple lock was brought in to increase the state pension to levels seen in other European countries.
After 15+ years? we’re still 15th - below dynamic (sarcasm) countries like Bulgaria Bosnia and Ukraine.
Strange how the UK sends state aid to all these countries as they are deemed poor- but our pensioners aren’t.
It is a strange decision by Reeves. I have just been assuming that their strategy is to do unpopular things early in their term so that the public has forgotten by the next General Election. But that Reeves is setting herself up as a future Prime Minister and wants to be seen as the new Thatcher does seem plausible.
NextDoor is a riot of people complaining about Reeves and the winter fuel payment (I live in Reeves' constituency). But the fact is that she increased her majority even though a boundary change lumped Pudsey - which had a Conservative MP - into Leeds West.
You have summed it up as always. I hate windmills with a passion. Why can't governments focus on the fundamentals?
Because - as Peter Hitchens often asserts - communists actually won the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union is the best thing that ever happened to communism. What we have in the west is communist governments who prioritise ideology over pragmatism. So the ideologies of Net Zero and borderless immigration win out over any practical concerns.
Ignorance and incompetence.
well said mate - "yeah this time it's gonna be different, he's changed" or something.
What's baffling me is that the size of the payoff here is minscule - and I mean miniscule in national budgetary terms. The money could be found by easing up on the climate change craziness, shutting down a few quangos and not funding overseas wars. But perhaps these little cliques see all of the above as 'more important' or whatever.
Politically it's a mad thing to do and demonstrates their lack of 'finger on the pulse' in a clear enough way. Now they're talking about 'sorting the NHS out' but I'll believe it when the role of 'smoking cessation officer' or 'LGBTQ co-ordinator' is abolished and the savings put back into frontline care.
We 'might' be able to vote our way out of this one day, but it won't be next month or next year - and it won't be for anyone currently on offer. Reform will either end up 'in the club' themselves or start fighting each other as Farage's outfits always have...