[Tubby Isaacs]

Just another amoral bread-head*.

* Old counterculture term for "squares" obsessed by nothing buy money. M'lud. (See also: Libertarians).

“Breadhead” is a great word. Late 80s indie band, The House of Love”, broke up after a row in a van where Terry Bickers set fire to a £20 note and shouted “Breadhead” at Guy Chadwick.

[Tubby Isaacs]

3 more polls in 24 hours

Averages

LAB 45.67
CON 26
LD 9.33
RF 7
GRN 6

Team Real World gets 34 at the outside.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Long term decision making here. Cancel infrastructure and use for day to day expenditure.

If there was some evidence that £2 was some sort of figure that would maximise revenue and allow more buses to be run, then fine. I think this is incredibly unlikely though,

[Yug]

They don't care about what happens after December 2024. It won't be the Tories' problem by then.

[Boiler]

They don't care about what happens after December 2024. It won't be the Tories' problem by then.

And not all bus companies cap their fares anyway: the local independent doesn't but Stagecoach <spits> does.

[Yug]

Another vote-winning idea from Inaction Man

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is considering removing the Winter Fuel Payment scheme from all who are currently eligible other than the “poorest pensioners.”

It’s thought this will be implemented by Mr Sunak to keep his pledge over the pension triple lock regardless of its “spiralling costs.”...

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/new ... ensioners/

Raise the energy price cap, turn a blind eye to the ensuing rampant profiteering that made domestic gas and electricity all but unaffordable, then remove the winter fuel payments for pensioners.

Way to go, Ricky!

[Andy McDandy]

Hey, you can't vote Labour if you're dead.....

[Boiler]

Another vote-winning idea from Inaction Man

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is considering removing the Winter Fuel Payment scheme from all who are currently eligible other than the “poorest pensioners.”

It’s thought this will be implemented by Mr Sunak to keep his pledge over the pension triple lock regardless of its “spiralling costs.”...

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/new ... ensioners/

Raise the energy price cap, turn a blind eye to the ensuing rampant profiteering that made domestic gas and electricity all but unaffordable, then remove the winter fuel payments for pensioners.

Way to go, Ricky!

In other words - let's wallow in some golden nostalgia of how winter fuel payments were made in the Good Old Days under the Grocer's Daughter.

Nothing like hypothermia to sort of the country's problems. They'll be re-running the piece that Anna Wing did in the winter of '86(?) on how to keep warm next.

[Crabcakes]

Hey, you can't vote Labour if you're dead.....

Don’t give them ideas…

[Boiler]

Can someone watch PMQs for me? I fear objects will be thrown within chez Boiler otherwise.

[Andy McDandy]

Fairly low key. Gaza dominated.

Starmer pushed for efforts to get civilians out of the area, and for international law to be upheld. Sunak said that Israel had assured him it was obeying international law, and that everything possible was being done to help civilians - adding that Hamas embed themselves within the population, so it's difficult. Reading between the lines, he really can't say much more. Britain just doesn't have the clout to make people listen. There's a dividing line, at least. Labour going "For fuck's sake!", and the Tories with "Fill yer boots!".

SNP went with calls for a ceasefire immediately.

Other news - backbench Tories asked for some of that magic HS2 money to fix their local potholes, DUP asked about an "east-west council" to sort out NI power sharing, or at least to give them another thing to break. Sunak said it was a good idea. In fact he almost said everything was a good idea.

2 things weren't - one was a hospital being demolished. Apparently when they close it's the NHS's fault, but when they open (or are just planned, or dreamed of) they're Tory successes. And a Labour MP asked if he agreed with the Tamworth Charmer and his comments on hungry kids, cue "I'm very proud of my record in blah".

[Yug]

Wasn't Sunak the Chancellor of the Exchequer who refused to release funds for kids to be able to have one meal a day during the school holidays?

Proud of his record vis hungry children.

[Andy McDandy]

It was the standard "We've done X, Y and Z...", missing out that a) those actions wouldn't have been necessary if his side hadn't been such gimps, and b) they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do those things.

[RedSparrows]

It was the standard "We've done X, Y and Z...", missing out that a) those actions wouldn't have been necessary if his side hadn't been such gimps, and b) they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do those things.

And no doubt c) here's a big number you plebs, gawp at it - who cares if it's at all relevant to the scale of the problem.

[Boiler]

If Farage gains a safe seat he’ll be the Tory leader after the next election.

The silver lining to all this would be Farage as opposition leader, and Braverman suddenly finding herself ‘mysteriously’ sidelined by him and out of the shadow cabinet. And also Patel. And Badenoch.

And today?

Nigel Farage Teases Tories That He Could Lead The Party In Three Years (links to: PoliticsHome)

[Yug]

Johnson's protégé learned his lessons well

Rishi Sunak’s controversial fund to support startups during the Covid pandemic invested nearly £2m in companies linked to his wife, Guardian analysis has found.

Carousel Ventures, a company part-owned by Akshata Murty’s venture capital firm, got an investment of £250,000 from the Future Fund to help fund its ownership of a luxury underwear business called Heist Studios, it can be disclosed.

It is the fourth business linked to Murty revealed to have received an investment from the fund set up by Sunak to support startups when he was chancellor during the Covid pandemic...

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... o-his-wife

Johnson's Chancellor is as corrupt as Johnson himself. I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

[AOB]

Johnson's protégé learned his lessons well

Rishi Sunak’s controversial fund to support startups during the Covid pandemic invested nearly £2m in companies linked to his wife, Guardian analysis has found.

Carousel Ventures, a company part-owned by Akshata Murty’s venture capital firm, got an investment of £250,000 from the Future Fund to help fund its ownership of a luxury underwear business called Heist Studios, it can be disclosed.

It is the fourth business linked to Murty revealed to have received an investment from the fund set up by Sunak to support startups when he was chancellor during the Covid pandemic...

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... o-his-wife

Johnson's Chancellor is as corrupt as Johnson himself. I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

I see no difference to the white collar worker who is in jail for diverting/misappropriating company funds for his/her personal benefit. Along with the Tories getting mates with no experience to set up PPE manufacturing companies in order to get millions it's nothing less than organised crime. If this stuff for even just one day made the main TV news headlines or the front pages something might get done. But it doesn't, so collectively the public aren't picqued enough to be arsed.

[Boiler]

I live in hope what comes out of the Covid inquiry will wake some people up... but I doubt it.

[satnav]

According to Sky News presenter Sophie Ridge, Tory MPs are telling her 'that the problem with the PM is that while he may be a first class academic he is a fifth rate politician.' What does this say about the calibre of the current crop of Tory MPs if they regard Rishi as some kind of intellectual heavy weight. It reminds me of the story of Chelsea players referring to Frank Lampard as the 'Professor'. because he had a few GCSE's.

[Bones McCoy]

According to Sky News presenter Sophie Ridge, Tory MPs are telling her 'that the problem with the PM is that while he may be a first class academic he is a fifth rate politician.' What does this say about the calibre of the current crop of Tory MPs if they regard Rishi as some kind of intellectual heavy weight. It reminds me of the story of Chelsea players referring to Frank Lampard as the 'Professor'. because he had a few GCSE's.

Academic has a rather different meaning form my perspactive.

If Sunak's an academic then he's a Professor of sounding clever studies teaching the three word slogans module at the Weatherspoons campus.