[Watchman]

Rights at work are "French", apparently. Because that sounds better than German, Scandinavian, or whatever.

Catholic. Mediterranean. Swarthy. Greasy. Degenerate. No work ethic, and they probably shit in the street.

Thank Christ we voted out then!!!!! I love these Brexit benefits

[davidjay]

So DP World are attending the investment summit, Lou Haigh is still in post. Who could have foreseen these eventualities?

Not the Mail, certainly.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Budget could include rise in employers’ national insurance, minister suggests
Jonathan Reynolds says Labour pledge not to increase NICs applies to employees and does not rule out other changes

This would be rather sharp practice. But fuck it, they hid billions of spending from the Government. I think a tax rise on this to cover the cost of that would be perfectly reasonable.

I notice BlueSky has an increasing number of bores on it. A couple were doing the "Labour carrying on with Tory policies". When someone asked which policies, one said "austerity, transphobia and bashing immigrants".

"Austerity" is a word that bugs me. It properly, as I understand it, means fiscal tightening, ie tax rises and/or cuts. I assume that this person wanted tax rises (doubtless all on somebody else). That's austerity. If half of what we've heard about the budget is true, that's going to be pretty different to what was promised by Sunak for after the election.

[Abernathy]

I don’t think increasing employers’ NI contributions is “sharp practice” at all. The pledge was explicitly about not increasing income tax, NICs, or VAT on working people, which increasing employers’ NI contributions clearly does not breach. Arguably, almost everybody with a modicum of sense would have realised, even before the £22 bn “black hole” was discovered, that revenue would need to be recouped by some other means than increasing any of the three key tax pledge areas. Pearls-clutching isn’t really in order.

[Andy McDandy]

After years of study, I've worked out that what the Trots want is:

No nukes
Community centres
Free never ending higher education for people like them
Cheap public transport

Basically as self centred as any Bullingdon or Golf club twat.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I don’t think increasing employers’ NI contributions is “sharp practice” at all. The pledge was explicitly about not increasing income tax, NICs, or VAT on working people, which increasing employers’ NI contributions clearly does not breach. Arguably, almost everybody with a modicum of sense would have realised, even before the £22 bn “black hole” was discovered, that revenue would need to be recouped by some other means than increasing any of the three key tax pledge areas. Pearls-clutching isn’t really in order.

I'm not pearl clutching! I said "do it if you need, they stitched you up with a load of hidden spending". And I think the big political danger is stuff not getting better, not breaking a silly pledge you were forced into by silly politics.

But the rise in employers NI will come out of wage packets. That won't be what most people understood.

[The Weeping Angel]

It's a real mystery as to why the Government won't invite Elon Musk to their investment summit.

[The Weeping Angel]

Budget could include rise in employers’ national insurance, minister suggests
Jonathan Reynolds says Labour pledge not to increase NICs applies to employees and does not rule out other changes

This would be rather sharp practice. But fuck it, they hid billions of spending from the Government. I think a tax rise on this to cover the cost of that would be perfectly reasonable.

I notice BlueSky has an increasing number of bores on it. A couple were doing the "Labour carrying on with Tory policies". When someone asked which policies, one said "austerity, transphobia and bashing immigrants".

"Austerity" is a word that bugs me. It properly, as I understand it, means fiscal tightening, ie tax rises and/or cuts. I assume that this person wanted tax rises (doubtless all on somebody else). That's austerity. If half of what we've heard about the budget is true, that's going to be pretty different to what was promised by Sunak for after the election.

Austerity has become the new neo-liberalism just a word devoid of all meaning used to mean thing I don't agree with by people.

[Oboogie]

As far as I'm aware, austerity just means cutting overall public spending. Reducing spending on one particular area is not austerity if you're taking that money and spending on something else.

[Youngian]

Marvelous news, a Tory donor mate of Gove's called David Meller, top Aussie moron Tony Abbot and Tory superbrain Dan Hannan. Good fucking riddance.

Labour dumps Tory appointees to the Board of Trade https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/polit ... ed-384085/

[Tubby Isaacs]

As far as I'm aware, austerity just means cutting overall public spending. Reducing spending on one particular area is not austerity if you're taking that money and spending on something else.

That’s what we used to call spending cuts, and probably still should.

Austerity I understand as reducing demand and can be 100% done by tax rises. This as far as I can tell is what lots of people moaning about austerity want to happen.

[Oboogie]

As far as I'm aware, austerity just means cutting overall public spending. Reducing spending on one particular area is not austerity if you're taking that money and spending on something else.

That’s what we used to call spending cuts, and probably still should.

Austerity I understand as reducing demand and can be 100% done by tax rises. This as far as I can tell is what lots of people moaning about austerity want to happen.

Spending cuts are when you, erm, cut spending, if you haven't reduced spending, merely redistributed that money, by definition it's not a spending cut.
The objective is for revenue (from taxation) to exceed costs (spending), therefore, if your tax rises are matched by spending increases it's not austerity.

[Tubby Isaacs]

There’s more to it than that. George Osborne didn’t cut total spending but hard to say it wasn’t austere or involve cuts. There are things like debt interest which can rise and increase total spending.

[The Weeping Angel]

Richard Murphy descending into parody.

[Youngian]

You can only conclude from Murphy's analogy that he believes you can eat chips all day and not put on weight if you take this drug.
I attempted to put on some winter trousers and bloomin eck I've piled it on this year. A slight rise in drinking, apple crumble, the butcher's yummy pies but nothing out of the ordinary. It creeps on week after week even with physical activity and a mainly healthy diet.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Lots of people are “this is cheating” with obesity. Murphy takes that judgement from the individual to society. And adds a silly analogy.

[davidjay]

You can only conclude from Murphy's analogy that he believes you can eat chips all day and not put on weight if you take this drug.
I attempted to put on some winter trousers and bloomin eck I've piled it on this year. A slight rise in drinking, apple crumble, the butcher's yummy pies but nothing out of the ordinary. It creeps on week after week even with physical activity and a mainly healthy diet.

Same here. I used to shed the holiday excess in a couple of weeks, now there's no chance.

[Crabcakes]

Every time the people I work for release a new guideline on obesity, any medical help - surgical or pharmaceutical - is shouted down by certain groups as being unnecessarily because it’s all really about willpower. Completely ignoring that for some people it is an addiction as strong as nicotine, or they simply don’t have the ability to exercise for whatever reason, or a myriad of other causes and factors. And the results of these treatments are astonishing - they stop diabetes, cancers, joint damage, heart disease, allow people to work and contribute to society and comparably cost peanuts. But what does actual cost and life benefits matter when you lose an easy target, eh?

As ever, the cruelty is the point.

(And also, if an anti-cancer drug came along people like Murphy would 100% be pushing for it to be freely available to smokers because the fag companies would be lobbying themselves rigid for the lifting of any and all restrictions)

[RedSparrows]

And even if it was just about willpower, who gives a shit?
Make it easier for people to be healthy, lower the cost long-term
Stop pretending everything's a zero-sum morality play and we're all performing for God/mammon, w/e

[davidjay]

And even if it was just about willpower, who gives a shit?
Make it easier for people to be healthy, lower the cost long-term
Stop pretending everything's a zero-sum morality play and we're all performing for God/mammon, w/e

As has been said before - in ye olde days you were fat because you could afford to eat. Now you're fat if you can't afford to eat properly.