What should happen is that pension credit boundaries are raised to cover more pensioners as those at the bottom of the state pension pot are still poor, this can be more than funded by dropping triple lock. I still want to see the top 10% of pensioners who qualify for higher rate income tax see their state pension dropped ASAP., another sizable chunk of money.

The good thing about pension credit is that it looks at all aspects of your finances, so it should spot and exclude those who don’t actually need the money who are at the threshold of state pension.

I am all for using the metric to improve the Pension Credit as that is rigorously means tested and is there to help the poorest pensioners. I would like the thresholds increased slightly to cover those right at the bottom who do not currently qualify, but who do live in poverty. Completely agree that now is the time to do it, ideally scrap it entirely for pensioners who are in the 40% bracket (about three quarters of a million pensioners), and let it rise at the same percentage as minimum wage for those outside of pension credit.

I agree with whoever said it was likely written by Gove, it has his fingerprints all over it.

The blatant attacks on equality legislation is the most worrying part of her campaign.

Long overdue, now do the triple lock and switch that to pension credit only

My concern with this is that they have been cosying up to the likes of BlackRock so we’ll see a for profit shared ownership scheme that will be just awful in practice and future governments can make it even worse.

For the private market all I want is simpler planning, a ban on building on flood plains, stricter regulations around new build sizing and construction, and taxing land banks at full value of any planning permission they hold or land value, which ever is higher.

Couple that with a mix of social housing based around council housing and not for profit social housing and we are good. However I cannot shake that they are trying to do this on the cheap up front and that costs us in the long term.

Ever since it got expensive. It also used to be possible to get it pre approved but heads are reluctant to do so now even if it for something special.

However it was being used by schools to hide chronic persistent absence, just massage the figures for those kids who take a lot of time off by saying some of it was “approved” holidays.

In reality all it does it is protect the vastly inflated holiday prices out of term time as parents have to balance the cost of the fine vs. money saved on the holiday.

The problem is that a lot of those type of loons post some really easy to find batshit craziness online, the kind that means they have to be booted from the party.

With the speed of reforms decision to run and field so many candidates running properly vetted selection would have been very difficult and expensive. The money Farage talked about spending on vetting was nowhere near enough to do a proper job.

So I am not surprised if they invented fake people, far harder for the press to out loons if they don’t actually exist. It’s right on brand for the likes of Farage to break the rules like that.

I don’t buy that at all. The Tories yeah 100%, but they aren’t there anymore, the adults are back in charge and the EU is going to want to shutdown right wing morons that have been spreading across the EU by showing Brexit was always a shit idea.

The stages of Brexit copium are very similar to the narcissist prayer, we are at the point equivalent to you deserved it right now with the excuses to stay out.

Turn out was down close to that in 97 as Tory voters would rather not vote than vote anyone else. I suspect that had a part here and will come out in the research done as it did then.

Are you forgetting Starmers statements around women only spaces as it seems like it.

Farages entire point of existence is to drag the overton window to the right, which he succeed yet again, particularly around Brexit.

The other big concession Starmer made, this time because of the Tories, was not to raise taxes, which was also incredibly dumb. As was honouring triple lock.

My biggest issue with Starmer making claims like these is that he will stick to them. Someone like Boris is too lazy and an out and out liar so has no problem dropping things. Starmers big pitch to be different is that he will stick with what he says.

By sticking to what he said around terfs issues, Brexit, taxes, he really fucks his options in these areas, and for what? As you and I have both said, toil not out crazy Farage or be trusted by people who these are important issues for, so it’s a massively stupid thing to do.

Just makes starmers buffoonery of stating we will not rejoin in his lifetime, likely to be another 30 years, look daft. Labour was never going to be a trusted choice for ex ukippers choosing who to vote for this time no matter what he said. It’s pointless pandering that will cost him long-term as either we stay out and carry on costing the economy or he rejoins and looks a flipper.

So looking forward to the next five years…

Looking at how Reform and Lib Dems made significant gains in vote share you have to wonder if its still worth Labour chasing after the right wing vote that Reform achieved. I just do not see the where the voters who voted Reform actually believe Starmer on the key issues that Reform campaigned on, immigration, anti “woke”, and Brexit. I cannot see Labour ever gaining the lead on those issues over someone like Farage who will always position himself to the right of whatever Labour or the Tories campaign on. I cant even see Labour being trusted at the voting booth on these right wing issues over a rebuilt Tory party. Its a fools errand to try.

The Lib Dem vote share, as with Reform, boosted by previous Tory voters but Lib Dems campaigned on almost the opposite of Reform (with some tactical, local, NIMBYism) and achieved way more seats on a lower overall percentage vote than Reform. If you are going to pick a direction to go in, wouldn’t it make more sense to move towards the Lib Dems position to shore up in time for the next election?

Labour did worse total percentage of the vote than 2017, its more that the Tories collapsed losing about 20% of their vote that caused this swing in seats. The Tories will rally next time around and a lot of the seats look winnable for them with only a small local swing. The current stance of Labour simply isn’t popular enough to be a vote winner against a rebuilt Tory party.

Didn’t she have literally one of the safest seats in the country? Lol

If she loses it’s 100% certainty that she blames the deep state for election fraud. No way she takes her loss with good graces.

Please tell me she is on course to lose her seat

If he was any good as a CEO he’d have a senior role at his in laws company that has a market cap of $75bn as he’d be able to generate billions for them of extra revenue. The fact that he doesn’t speaks volumes about his ability.

Everything Dies by Spirted Adrift, its a cover of the Type O Negative song

It’s a decent machine for the money but compared to its competitors from gaggia and rancilio what they lose in fancy programming or the pid or the easy steaming (which is still way off mine) they gain in actually having an opv (depending which one you have), build quality and self service.

I’ve seen far too many people have issues with breville stuff and then problems returning it. It’s not that good ones don’t exist it’s just that more reliable does.

To put your seven years into perspective I should be getting 30 to 40 years out of mine with some regular servicing.

They nice machines but I wanted more consistent with its pressure and water flow, better steaming, not made by breville,and made with industry standard components that can last decades.

There is a few steps before then. We are currently at the stage of privatising previously state ran services within the NHS such as radiology and buying extra capacity from private business This is being done at a local level using existing budgets so it means money for actual services gets reduced or quality of service drops as no outsourcer works at a loss for very long.

Other step that happens is you can pay to jump the queue by paying the heavily subsidised private offerings in the UK. This is often the same person you would have seen via the NHS. There isnt this huge magical pool of extra doctors in the UK who only work private (outside cosmetic) so anybody you see privately will almost certainly have a NHS case load. More work private, less work NHS as there is only so many hours they can and will work.

Next stage is national privatisation of some of the bigger services, for example the recent agreement with Palantir that sells off our data for far less than its worth and without explicit patient permission.

I would imagine as that will increase costs it will then become optional to pay for the NHS and instead you can pay for private cover (rather than paying for both as we do currently if you want private cover). Once this happens its only a matter of time before the NHS becomes an empty shell as the middle earners who pay the most tax towards the NHS will simply stop paying. Then at that point does private start getting way more expensive and the exclusions start.

Usually some privatisation apologist will appear and say that we do not have to follow the American model, to which I always say what exactly about this government has ever given you the complete confidence that anything other than the shitest option will happen. Its nice to wish for unicorns but they are not going to happen here.

No, its a smart thing switch as I have the hub, so its z wave. However I have a lot of smart home switches, lights and so on so that makes sense for me. Plenty of options if you do not want a hub now.

The espresso machine has a proper on off button so I just leave it in on position and the switch turns the power on and off