to believe Rachel Reeves was crying because

[LargeDeviation]

1. she was upset when Lindsay Hoyle told her to keep her answers short

2. she had an argument with Keir Starmer (possibly about her keeping her job, or about how to handle the inevitable questions about the new £5.5bn per annum black hole) just before PMQs

3. Keir Starmer refused to say she would keep her job in front of the whole country. If he genuinely wanted her to stay, he would just say 'of course she's going to still be Chancellor' and that would be that.

4. she is under immense pressure because she knows she will have soon to breach her fiscal rules, she knows she is responsible for many of the decisions that will lead to that, and she knows the how serious the consequences of her failure will be. We have seen recently (even just today) how vicious the bond market can be.

In short, I believe she was crying because of professional pressures (understandable ones, though largely of her own making, and about which I have little sympathy) and not nebulous 'personal' reasons.

If her parent or partner or child or grandparent or pet is ill the natural thing is to just say 'sorry, a close relative is in hospital and my emotions got the better of me'. Everybody would understand. You don't need huge reams of evidence but you need to give the bare bones of an explanation. She is trying to style it out but we can all see through it.

I will apologise if I'm wrong but long experience shows that 'personal reasons' almost always means 'I'm skiving or jobhunting' when a colleague in the workplace uses it to excuse their time off.

I believe it means even less when uttered by a politican.

I reckon the IMF might force the issue.

It can’t. It doesn’t have that power.

@blossomtoes
We’ll see. It’s going to be pretty hard to stick around once the IMF have to step in and that is going to be sooner than people realise if the budget goes the way I think it will.

What a mature comment - similar to your beloved Labour Government, one born of spite.

I repeat, Labour may be in government, but they are barely in power. Error after error, volte face after volte face, a rebellion, with others to follow.

I doubt the news flow will improve over the coming weeks, and months. I shall rejoice at every negative for Starmer, Rayner, Reeves and Co.

There is no point fighting over Labour vs Tories, both are beholden to the bond markets now and their hands are tight. Same will apply to Reform if they get in. Unless they sort out the sovereign debt volatility issues it is all window dressing, and hopefully even the staunch far Left backbenchers love their country enough to have woken up to this fact post the issues with Reeves last week. Because they caused that. There is no scope for bleeding hearts in a capitalist system with huge sovereign debt. Perhaps they could actually put their thinking caps on, if they have one, and come up with a solution.

Reform may change things because it is possible they would push through the sort of cuts needed to make actually make a dent. Though they are a bit all over the place so it is impossible to know if they will. Some potential Reform MPs would definitely vote for it, others would be too populist to risk it. But it would make Labours WFA and proposed Disability cuts look like child’s play.

Yes at this point it’s just a window dressing as you say, no one can make a move to increase the debt.

Yes, that’s what I said it. The 50% net recipients figure includes benefits in kind, like education and healthcare. Less than half of working age people are net recipients.

Do you mean me specifically? Because that would be an odd leap, given you know nothing about my tax bill.

The more than 50% figure includes households people of all ages, not only taxpayers. Most working age people are net contributors.

Who gives a fuck. She has people dying on the breadline because of her rules - I could give 2 shots if she’s upset she loses her job.

as for the pensioners choosing between heating and eating? For shame!!!!

Yes you specifically, based on your views. One follows the other.

Most working people are NOT net contributors, both the mean and median average salary is below the threshold.

LOL

And, LOL. Stay ignorant 🤷‍♀️

The problem is the huge corporations effectively paying zero tax - when they're not actually being subsidised. Investment income is a wage like any other , why is it not taxed at the same rate as any other?

Off topic a bit - but it's amusing to see all the Tories on here larping as Corbynites to have a pop at Labour. But if Rachel took their advice they'd shit themselves....

It might seem harsh, but I don’t want to take money off my children to subsidise your lifestyle anymore. Any pretence of we’re in this together stopped for me with the education tax spite, I’m going to vote accordingly.

😛😛😛

If you’re taking money from your kids to pay your tax bill, that’s not my fault. But I can assure you my life is in no way funded by you.

I apologise, I’d assumed from your posts you were one of the takers.

What does your last para refer to? Can you give an example of a post that does that. Not sure what you’re getting at

I’m curious what you used from any of my posts to come to that wild conclusion?

But also slightly creeped out by the idea of you sitting there and deciding which posters you’re happy to pay tax for. Bizarre behaviour. Go live in Dubai if you don’t want to be part of society.

Comments like this to be honest. It’s usually people who don’t contribute anything who think society is just endlessly taking with no regard for anyone else.

Socialism: The belief that forcibly taking somebody else's economic output for oneself is somehow virtuous, but a person wanting to keep it for themselves is selfish.

Or “if we can’t all be rich let’s all be equally poor”

So this comment, which I made after your strange little gotcha, made you come up with it.

Taking with no regard for anyone else is the very essence of people who want to live in a society, benefit from civil and criminal law, from large scale healthcare and all that brings (vaccination programmes, emergency medicine, treatment for long-term
conditions), from a road network, environmental health and food safety and security, clean water and sanitation systems, financial regulations, and who employ people who benefit from all of those things. And then moan about paying tax.

The healthiest, safest and happiest countries in the world are those where people pay higher tax than here. But you’ll probably never venture there, because you think you’re paying for the ‘lifestyle’ of anyone who thinks differently to you. It’s pitiful really, the quality of our education system has definitely declined.

I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, I think everyone should pay tax and not just a minority. There are only a few of us paying Scandinavian levels of tax and we’re also being increasingly means tested out of the services we pay for. It’s time for everyone to do their share and that doesn’t just mean people earning over £100k, it means you as well I’m afraid.