Thread 30 Starmer - Magic Roundabouts

[DuncinToffee]

Pull up a chair for some friendly chit chat about politics and beyond

Taxes optional but greatly appreciated.

Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5395939-thread-29-starmer-paint-your-bandwagon?page=1

Those original Paddington books are way above their typical reading age.

This is my favourite.

This isn't an airport, you don't need to announce your arrival.

Especially when you've been gone all of 3 minutes.

Ta da - I’m back! Missed you all terribly, darlings. Perhaps we should all announce our comings and goings. Or we could employ someone to announce us every time we enter the thread.

It's going to fill the thread up pretty quickly if we all do an 'I'm back' post prior to actually posting

Not engaging with a faux Spartacus. Paddington stare.

Paddington children's books always had him as rightly being a bit peeved with attitudes towards him and I'm glad that the films portrayed that clearly.

All going well...

https://insidecroydon.com/2025/08/27/farage-party-picked-a-dead-woman-to-run-for-croydon-mayor/

😂

I'm azed they haven't selected a monkey, yet. It would still get votes.

Angela Rayner saved £40,000 in stamp duty on her new seaside flat after telling tax authorities it was her main home, The Telegraph can disclose.

The Deputy Prime Minister is understood to have removed her name from the deeds of her house in Greater Manchester a few weeks before buying an £800,000 seaside flat in Hove, East Sussex.

The changes enabled Ms Rayner to avoid paying £70,000 in stamp duty, which would have been applicable if Hove was her second home. Instead, she is thought to have paid £30,000 in stamp duty, saving her £40,000 in the process.

If accurate, let’s hope this is the beginning of the end for Ms Rayner.

Improved selection vetting going well then.

Starmer declared his government would put an end to nepotism, cronyism and corruption, didn’t he?

The UK government did not do its own analysis of the cost of the biggest reorganisation of councils in England for decades, the BBC has learned.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said "a significant amount of money" could be saved by merging councils in 21 areas into single authorities.

Rayner's department, the ministry of local government, based its cost estimates on a 2020 report commissioned by the County Council Network (CCN) that said £2.9bn could be saved over five years.

But the CCN has since revised its analysis and now says the reorganisation could make no savings and actually cost money in some scenarios.
Tim Oliver, chairman of the CCN, said local government reorganisation "could unlock billions in efficiency savings to be reinvested in frontline services", if it was delivered at the right scale.

Oliver said the CCN supported the government's reforms but added: "We are concerned over the potential costs of reorganisation where proposals seek to replace the two-tier system with multiple small unitary councils."

As I have previously said, let the news flow and data show us all the path to enlightenment….

😂😂😂

Plus you’ve just reminded me my
annual step stool and ladder training must be due soon too - I work in a school!

And talk more sense!

Speaking of Its getting weird, would it not be more efficient to start a thread about cats, and children’s books etc., with the odd politics post, rather than t’other way round?

If they were going to do it anywhere Hartlepool might be a good choice.

Indeed!

Welfare payments are on course to cost individual taxpayers £3,000 a year by the end of the decade as Britain’s benefits system becomes “unsustainable”, a think tank has warned.

Soaring inflation and rising benefits claims means the size of the welfare state will grow by a fifth by 2030, according to a report by Onward.

The think tank said that government spending had become “uncontrollable” because a large number of welfare payments, including universal credit and personal independence payment (PIP), are uprated in line with inflation.
It means the welfare state is on course to cost individual Britons £3,000 a year by 2030, up from £2,650 currently.

The findings will ramp up pressure on Rachel Reeves who is plotting further tax rises at her autumn Budget to fix a black hole in the country’s finances.

Possibly the only choice worse then Starmer?

He did indeed! A government of service

Fears are growing in the City of London that chancellor Rachel Reeves will target banks to help shore up the UK’s public finances, despite executives warning a tax raid on lenders would damage the government’s growth agenda.

A surcharge on the sector’s profits or even a new bank levy is seen as a possible way to help fill a fiscal hole estimated by economists to be at least £20bn. “Politically it is an easy target,” said one senior banker. “No one likes banks, they are seen as a whipping boy for the government.”

Another City figure said: “We aren’t stupid. There’s a bunch of Labour MPs, including Angela Rayner, who are looking for ways to get more money. Financial services are an obvious target.”

FT

You seem to think that this/these threads are in the politics section @MyNameIsX. We’re in Chat, which means we can chat about anything. Not sure why you seem so keen to police us.

No policing here - just guided by the thread title.

I continue re Starmer and chums, then.