[mattomac]

Looks like David Lammy is getting a dose of the pathetic ‘all as bad as each other’ smear nonsense that Angela Rayner is experiencing. And this is so, so feeble it’s laughable.

https://news.sky.com/story/ofcom-launch ... y-13110769

All these organisations need to be looked at.

[Youngian]

LBC maybe guilty of not giving equal time to a Tory MP hosting a show but that’s about it.

A radio show hosted by shadow foreign secretary David Lammy is being investigated by Ofcom after it received more than 50 complaints.

The broadcasting watchdog said it was looking into whether the programme that aired on LBC on Good Friday "broke our rules on politicians acting as news presenters".

[Andy McDandy]

I think it was established that if a story broke when the MP presenter was on air, they could quickly mention it and say it would be covered in more detail at the next bulletin. Of course, if they didn't, they'd be castigated for being unresponsive and out of touch.

The rules are clearly aimed at MPs giving stories a political spin, or soft soaping political allies.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, it's a different thing to me. The idea it's like two politicians of the same party doing an interview is bollocks.

[mattomac]

Didn’t Hunt effectively announce the details of his budget in one interview with them?

[Abernathy]

I am just so pleased that Labour has promised to repeal the Rwanda deportations act, assuming it makes it onto the statute book, immdediately it comes to government.

It is an obscene, deeply immoral, hateful, and unworkable piece of legislation.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Brussels proposes return to pre-Brexit free movement for UK and EU young people

Labour probably doesn't need this at the moment. Control over immigration won the EU referendum for Leave, and the new system is popular. The Lib Dems or Greens will see an opportunity here. Labour just have lost of younger voters to lose.

I see the proposal is for 4 years only, but even so, hard to see how this doesn't raise numbers. If your main policy is building away housing pressure, that might not be that helpful.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Some useful ideas here. Reeves may be planning some stuff like this. If so, she probably won't appreciate the IFS flagging them up and having to express a view on them. Stuff like this is why effective rates of inheritance tax are lower for the richest than people who just have their house to sell- not that those people are hard done by, of course.

IFS says closing 3 inheritance tax loopholes could raise almost £4bn a year by end of decade
Labour has announced only a very small number of measures to increase the amount it would raise through tax and none of them affect what might be described as taxes paid by ordinary people. But Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has in the past suggested that she might raise more by closing “loopholes”, and she so is likely to take a close interest in a report published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies today saying the government could raise almost £3bn by closing three inheritance tax loopholes.

It says removing business relief for AIM (Alternative investment market) shares could raise £1.1bn this year; capping agricultural and business relief at £500,000 per person would raise £1.4bn; and including the value of defined contribution pensions in estates would raise £200m.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Had a chat with a guy who came to price up a new fence, yesterday.

30-40, working class, self-employed - prime gammon territory.

He thinks Brexit is a disaster, and his first complaint is freedom of movement, followed by food price inflation. Generalisation has its dangers.

[Youngian]

Brussels proposes return to pre-Brexit free movement for UK and EU young people

Labour probably doesn't need this at the moment. Control over immigration won the EU referendum for Leave, and the new system is popular. The Lib Dems or Greens will see an opportunity here. Labour just have lost of younger voters to lose.

I see the proposal is for 4 years only, but even so, hard to see how this doesn't raise numbers. If your main policy is building away housing pressure, that might not be that helpful.

Everyone in the Leave campaign said free movement rights for Brits wouldn’t change. There was a good reason why no Poles or Portuguese featured on Farage’s posters, his Powelite anti-immigrant campaign was never about them.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Poles did feature in the longer campaign against FoM though, even if not as heavily as Romanians and Bulgarians.

There's certainly more of a sense now of the opportunities the EU offered now than when we were in it. Is that sufficient to make (limited) FoM popular now? I'm very doubtful, because the numbers are only going to be one way. The current system is popular once you drill down below headline numbers (because people hear that and think they've all come off boats). I don't think anybody messes with that in the short term.

If this doesn't come with some trade liberalisation, then it's dead. Or maybe you can chuck retirment to Spain into the deal.

[Andy McDandy]

Truckers! Why waste time pissing in a field when you could be passing time on a ferry?

Play up the convenience free movement brought.

[Youngian]

The exodus of Central Europeans coincided when Sterling dived following Theresa May’s Red Lines speech. Mainly because it was easy as they weren’t permanent immigrants but young free and single ex-pats. And they’re not coming back even if FoM is reinstated as living standards are now better in Poland and Slovakia than England outside London. European workers are still entitled to apply to fill vacancies but they’re not. Africans and Asians are.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Long term doing an arduous job in a care home isn't that attractive any longer to most Eastern Europeans. But coming for a couple of years or so and doing a much easier job (which probably pays more than care work) while improving your English is a different proposition, and the numbers would be a political problem, with the potential to make Labour's house building much more controversial than it will be already.

Sure, after 4 years the net migration would no longer be rising, but 4 years is a long time in politics. Hence Labour's ruled it out already.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Some good points on this thread.

This is not an obvious EU Commission responsibility here, so the richer nation states could seek to do their own deals with the UK.

[Abernathy]

A little light reading for you all .

https://portland-communications.com/wp ... FsJOI84oaN

[Bones McCoy]

A little light reading for you all .

https://portland-communications.com/wp ... FsJOI84oaN

It's refreshing to see more names with Dr. before them that hyphens within or Oxon after.

[Tubby Isaacs]

What's the betting lots of the stuff submitted here is going to be very localised stuff? Is the Secretary of State, as he hopes to become, going to tell the manager of Ward 30 in Woking what to do?

[Youngian]

Will Wes be working at the coal face like Hugh Abbot?

[Dalem Lake]

Will Wes be working at the coal face like Hugh Abbot?

Has he ever cleaned up his own mother's piss?