[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, since today. I just signed up but will never post. It's surprisingly easy not to post.

[Boiler]

Yeah, since today. I just signed up but will never post. It's surprisingly easy not to post.

I'll learn to live without it. I've managed to live without it, Facebook and Instagram (although I am warming to that latter) until now.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I'd find that very hard, but good luck.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This is poor. Sure, there's a political trap and all that, but.

[Tubby Isaacs]

No coming back from this for Sir Keir. He's delayed a reshuffle that hardly anybody heard was happening.

[The Weeping Angel]

I first heard heard about this reshuffle a couple of weeks ago when people were OUTRAGED that Nandy might be moved, it's ;supposed' to occur after the by-elections, Patrick Maguire should know this already as he was the one who broke the story in the first place.

[The Weeping Angel]

[Tubby Isaacs]

This is awful.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Why?
There will have to be a period of fiscal restraint as we rebuild. Things take time...

[Tubby Isaacs]

It's a massive contributor to child poverty which the party is saying it wants to abolish, and it's relatively cheap (£1.3bn a year) when you consider the downside of not abolishing it.

Sam Freedman (who I don't agree with on his specialism but talks sense about lots of other stuff) makes a good point, I think. Politicians tend to be those who've done very well at school, so they overestimate the power of education in alleviating poverty. You need other things, like a reasonable benefits policy to do that.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

And the optics?

Have patience...

[Tubby Isaacs]

The optics of relieving child poverty are probably not universally bad, I reckon. The SNP have the rape clause attacks ready for re-use. (They're liars who pretend they can't do anything about it, but that's not the point).

It's not when we can afford it, as far as I understand it. It's a firm no.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

No such thing as a firm 'no' in politics.

First phrase I learned: "That was then, this is now."

[Tubby Isaacs]

Obviously, I massively prefer Starmer to Corbyn, but mostly that's on grounds of what will work as much as what's electable. I'm glad that we're not going to spend a fortune buying a load of utilities we wouldn't run any better than the people who run them now (no dividends, but costs will rise probably by more). I'm glad that we've ended the fiction of getting everything we want through someone else paying.

But I see the £1.3bn to fix such an awful policy as cheap and easily fundable, if you even have to fund the whole amount.

[Tubby Isaacs]

No such thing as a firm 'no' in politics.

First phrase I learned: "That was then, this is now."

That doesn't seem to have been the impression, deliberately I'm sure, that he gave.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Of course not!

[Tubby Isaacs]

Why does it get politically easier to restore it in later years? Think it's very unlikely that they'd lose an election because of promising to do it straight up. Plus it adds to the sense that Starmer is unreliable and dishonest, because he promised to abolish it before.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Remember the priceless vase.

[Tubby Isaacs]

21 points ahead v the worst PM ever, with more economic shit heading our way. I think they can afford £1,3bn a year in that context.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

It's not me you need to convince, it's the Mail, the Telegraph, the Express...