[Tubby Isaacs]

Oh God. Someone called Bridget Chapman.

The government cannot legitimately implement a policy which they know does not have the support of conference.

This idea that the small number of people who join political parties have a veto on the government is absolute horseshit. What would she have said if Rishi Sunak had come out with this?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Beth Rigby (political editor at Sky News) reacted by ignoring the speech entirely and trying for gotchas on donations with Rachel Reeves and Bridget Phillipson...

(And I got suspended for Twitter for suggesting that they got Kay Burley to give her a slap).

Donations to politicians are completely new, or something. In the meantime, here's Rishi Sunak receiving a load of very expensive free helicopter rides.

https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/mp ... disclosure

[NevTheSweeper]

Starmer's excellent speech seems to have gone down well so far. I wonder how the Right (and their comrades) will spin it? I can't wait to see if they try to run with Starmer's misspeak (he referred to Jewish hostages as "sausages" before quickly correcting himself) as antisemitism and PROOF of Labour's anti-Israeli bias.

It will take more than one major speech to convince the public that the government will deliver on their meagre promises.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Ooh yes, matron...

[kreuzberger]

I am no fan of boosterism. I hate it, in fact, but being whelmed to even the most modest degree would have been, well, quite nice. This government looks to be playing a janitorial rôle in a school play, while waiting for something to happen.

That "something" might be the budget, with a sexy stripper in red excitingly emerging from that all-too familiar shit sandwich known by everyone who does not and cannot frequent Prêt.

For five more long weeks, it's going looking like we ordered Blair on Temu.

[Tubby Isaacs]

It will take more than one major speech to convince the public that the government will deliver on their meagre promises.

We haven't even had the spending review or budget yet. What do you expect them to be promising now?

[kreuzberger]

We haven't even had the spending review or budget yet. What do you expect them to be promising now?

Change. In spades.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Change. In spades.

That requires a budget.

[kreuzberger]

Fair point but a budget is about the gubbins. A conference speech should be where the vision and the magic happens. It might be me, but I just didn't get it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's a fair point, but I can understand why they're wary of unfunded commitments.

[The Weeping Angel]

Oh gawd Richard Murphy's gone off the deep end

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha ha. That's up there with "Blair is fascist because he said Third Way".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Starmer disaster latest.

[Dalem Lake]

Starmer's excellent speech seems to have gone down well so far. I wonder how the Right (and their comrades) will spin it? I can't wait to see if they try to run with Starmer's misspeak (he referred to Jewish hostages as "sausages" before quickly correcting himself) as antisemitism and PROOF of Labour's anti-Israeli bias.

They'll be dining on that for years, if not decades. See Dianne Abbott.

[davidjay]

Oh gawd Richard Murphy's gone off the deep end

Who does it belong to, then?

[AOB]

Prince, or King Charles as he's known these days, the Duke of Westminster and the Royal Family in general seem to own most of it.

[Youngian]

England, Scotland and Wales will still be here if Britain ceased to exist. What will I miss, the opportunity to bow and scrape for an OBE?

[mattomac]

Suppose if you think splitting the Union was easy as a click of figures the way Murphy thought then I can see what he means.

Of course splitting a 200+ year old Union is a lot harder. Then again others thought it was easy to leave Europe and that had only been 40 years

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.ft.com/content/9ed9df4c-1c6 ... 7c84de8429

UK will increase capital spending in the Budget, Starmer signals
Prime minister hints he backs changes to Treasury fiscal rules to boost investment

Good. U-turn, obviously, but what are the Tories going to do? "Cut investment now!"?

Had they run on this in the election, they'd have probably got more votes.

[Tubby Isaacs]

"Just tax the rich" latest.

Labour crackdown on non-doms may raise no money, officials fear
Exclusive: Watchdog may conclude that emigration of wealthy individuals could actually cost Treasury revenue

We'll see how this works out, but the rich have a nasty habit of not sitting still and saying "shucks!" I think there's still a strong argument for it in terms of reducing anomalies and unfairness in the tax system.

It also shows up the difficulty of raising taxes without touching NI, VAT, income tax and corporation tax headline rates. I wonder if Labour would have been better just breaking this promise.