"National Security can't come at the cost of Social Security" - WTAF?

But security is having enough food produced and relying less on imports. Not having all utilities owned and run by other countries for profits for their shareholders etc etc. We are wide open to any or all of them deciding to cut us off and we couldn't do a lot about it as we are ill prepared for anything. Especially things like just in time ordering with supermarkets etc.

WRT building new houses, we first need to use the housing stock being sat on and not used. Bring in penalties to those hoarding it and then in can be modernised and made habitable. Would solve a big part of the housing issue without having to build a load more that would be contested in some areas.

Red tape is usually there to protect the worker's rights and often hard won by unions over decades. Ripping it up sounds good but is not in reality.

Seems he failed GCSE Maths,

As I said they have 5 million people.

Its lovely in Norway.

The PP suggested we join up with other countries to manufacture weapons. I said yes good idea and its a shame the EU had a penalty to join their weapons programme. Perhaps the EU could pay to join ours instead. Or maybe we could join in with a country like Norway which is a big weapons manufacturer and not in the EU. Or we could crack on alone. But in any event it wasnt my suggestion in the first place.

The point stands about the EU. So ideological. But I suppose ideology drove the continent to war twice. Seems a shame they are so shortsighted about defence cooeration bearing in mind the UK were fairly helpful in both wars but thems the rules. And cannot be broken! Until later on when they realise they have to...like the brakes on immigration which the EU refused Cameron (leading to Brexit) and yet now have....

Norway has a private sector driving growth. They also pay taxes and high wages to ensure that wealth is redistributed fairly.

Wealth isnt created by the public sector. The public sector spends wealth. Wealth is craeted by the private sector.

Norway has about 3 people so no need to have such a vast state. It also has the sovereign wealth fund as it dealt with its oil profits in a sensible way unlike us.

I understood the context fine.

How does this explain the success of the Nordic model?

Oh yes sorry I did.
You chipped in having missed the point. Have a reread of the chain and then you will have some context.

Is there currently a target for 90% of school leavers to go to university? I think we need some evidence of this.

You've mixed me up with another poster I think!

We left the EU, we knew this was one of the consequences, Brexit voters were not concerned with defence/security impacts unfortunately.

The private sector drives wealth creation. Not the public sector.

The private sector is made up of businesses. So helping businesses will always help the economy. Why would you argue otherwise. You seek to be mistaking the "wealthy" for people who create wealth.

Well you were the one saying wouldnt it be nice if we joined up with other defence manufacturers and I agreed. Shame theres a penalty for us to do so. Perhaps they could pay us instead. Or both of us look to our own national interest and decide its a good idea to rearm Europe in the best and most practical way possible. Rather than being...again...ideological about it.

Which ever way we still need to spend 3.5% GDP. Stopping all non essential training due to budget restrictions does not raise confidence that this will be fulfilled.

No I hope not, but think there will be more cyber, sabotage on infrastructure etc.

The target itself of 50% is a good one. A highly educated workforce tends to increase productivity for the nation as a whole. However, it was the introduction of the student loan system by the Tories in 1990 (Thatcher) that is also hindering our prosperity as a country. The public debt is at £300bn by now (£295bn in March ) and will be over £500bn by 2040.

It will get really painful for the Chancellor in 2042 when likely half the education budget will go direct to paying off the Plan 2 student loans of the first students from 2012 who started to pay £9k/yr in tuition.

We're no longer members of the EU.

I don't get why people still don't understand what leaving the EU means.

Labour's target was 50% go to uni, in line with the US, Japan etc. I thought.

We left the EU, so of course we have to pay the one off non member entry fee.

Helping businesses isn’t necessarily going to help the economy.
You seem to be an advocate of trickle down economics which has always failed and has been widely discredited.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/economics/tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy-only-benefit-the-rich-debunking-trickle-down-economics

Most businesses have tight overheads regardless of size.

In addition, Labour made sure to protect small businesses.

The NI rise for a small business (less than 50 employees) may have increased NI by £4,312/yr (49 employees, aged 21 and over in the UK working a 40-hour week for minimum wage is £26,437 for 2026/27, resulting in approximately £1,109/yr NI per employee of which £88/yr per employee is due to the increase.) Labour doubled the EA deduction from £5k to £10.5k, meaning for many small businesses the entire increase in NI from 13.8% to 15% was offset.

The drop in threshold to £5k/yr earning will have also generated additional NI costs but really that is correcting an injustice for workers in often zero hour contracts or very part time work where no NICs are credited for their future state pension even if they are working several of these jobs so they are working full time overall.

Your local pub is not likely to employ 50+ full time employees. It was likely to be abusing workers rights and preventing them from accruing NICs towards a state pension by using zero hour contracts to keep annual wages below £10k (now £5k). The change removes much of the incentive to use zero hour contracts.

A large business of 10k employees will have many highly paid employees, their bill is going to be around £18m/yr. The EA offset is still only £10.5k. Depending on the overall financials of the business this could be easy or difficult to absorb.

So Labour made things worse. We knew that already. Its rather why Keir Starmer isnt PM any more.

The mental uni target was set under a Labour government.

And do you actually think that will happen?

Perhaps, but that compounds the many stupid moves that came before and resulted in various deregulations, zero hour contracts, the selling off of gas storage, ‘eat out to help out’ austerity, 90% of young people to go to university…

We won’t have an economy if Russia decides to take over.