To wonder what could Starmer do, to turn things around?

You funny!!

They love the power trip and the freebies. They’re not gonna give that up so easily.

I say let them continue with the cronyism, the greed, the hypocrisy, the lies, the student politics, the lack of understanding about business, investment, innovation, energy. They’ll never get voted back in and don’t they just know it. Useless the lot of them, they’re an embarrassment.

How undemocratic of you. Are you an SNP fan? They’re not good at accepting they lost either.

Step down.

Me too @BIossomtoes ... such a pleasant diversion of an already interesting thread. It must be because it's the third Monday in January, and probably our endless current phase of medical stuff, but I have really loved the derailment into sunshine and holidays. So thanks to pp who've played.

At least two of the links in that article lead directly to Keir Starmer - are we supposed to infer that Starmer sits under the 'far-right umbrella' as well?

Similarly, Mudde breaks down the term far-right further into the following:
The radical right which “accepts the essence of democracy, but opposes fundamental elements of liberal democracy”.

Oh, how I love that view of Valletta.

Agree! The average daily temperature in Malta in July / August is higher than that…those, I think are more likely to be the average minimum temperatures - ie it is unlikely to be cooler than that. It regularly hits 30 at that time of year!

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/travel/holiday-weather/europe/malta

That wasn’t unusual according to the hotel staff, it was pretty normal.

Anywhere can have unusual/freak temperatures. I'm talking about averages.

Right, I'm thinking that the first 90 days of 2026 would be good... but what to do about DDog? Anything to escape the low grey skies sounds marvellous ATM.

To be fair if you lived there you wouldn’t be doing much sightseeing as you can cover both the main islands in two or three weeks. It is lovely sitting outside without a coat in February. Ideally I’d like to spend November to March there but obviously Brexit’s made that impossible.

Lonely Planet reckons that summer days in Malta (June to September) average 30-38C, which is too hot for me to enjoy sightseeing, BadBadbunny. But the other nine months sound lovely.

It’s hotter than that in October. Or at least it was when I was there last year. Every day was 27/28.

@Badbadbunny

"To grow the economy, more people need to be working and businesses need to be growing. There is no other way. Tax and spend doesn't work in the long term - it's a short term sticking plaster, i.e. after a catastrophic event like WW2."

I don't disagree with you on tax and spend not working in the long term, indeed it doesn't even work in the short term.

To quote Churchill:

"I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

The question then is how to ensure more people are working and what can be done to encourage businesses to grow. And if this costs money then where does the money come from given that increasing debt is now looking much harder.

Malta's average temperature in July/August is 22/23 degrees. I've never been there when it's been anywhere near 40!

Depends what you call hot I guess. 40 degrees day after day would be too much for me. I wouldn’t want to be there from June to August.

I wouldn't say Malta is "outrageously hot" in Summer. I'd reserve that for Greek Islands and Cyprus if you're talking about the Med. I've always found Malta to be hot but pleasant in the Summer months. But Cyprus - not pleasant at all - too hot to even sit by the pool and mostly sheltering indoors with air conditioning when I've been there in July!

To grow the economy, more people need to be working and businesses need to be growing. There is no other way. Tax and spend doesn't work in the long term - it's a short term sticking plaster, i.e. after a catastrophic event like WW2.

@NameChangedForThis2025

"If the borrowing is invested in the appropriate areas - education, health, job creation, basically anything that will over the long term improve population health and decrease poverty - would this not put more money back in government coffers through more people working and reduced spending on benefits? Therefore debt could be decreased long term.

Or maybe I’m being naive. "

Not at all naive indeed what you are describing is Keynesian economics which for the period 1930 to 1980 was the established economic theory of Governments around the world.

The problem is that firstly the return on the state investment must be higher than the interest cost of the debt and as you borrow more the interest rate goes up. Secondly the state is really bad at investing money compared to the private sector because its decisions are heavily influenced by politics (and vote catching) and not just the return on investment. Thirdly investment by the state crowds out investment by the private sector so overall investment in the economy doesn't change that much. Fourthly not all the money from state investment stays in the country, for example if the state invested in a new solar farm then the panels will be coming from say China.

I could be equally critical about the right wing economic theory of boosting growth by tax cuts funded by debt.

The point is trying to grow the economy (either through spending more or cutting taxes) through increasing debt is no longer an option as Liz Truss found out and Rachel Reeves is finding out.

That's my worry too! Warm is good; outrageously hot is a deal breaker.

Worship the Golden Ass, that's what USA demands.

If the borrowing is invested in the appropriate areas - education, health, job creation, basically anything that will over the long term improve population health and decrease poverty - would this not put more money back in government coffers through more people working and reduced spending on benefits? Therefore debt could be decreased long term.

Or maybe I’m being naive.

Problem is I’m not seeing Labour do anything truly innovative that would tackle those issues.

Resign

Ricky G has entered the chat 🙄😬