Westminstenders: "He's in trouble". No he's not.

[RedToothBrush]

All day I've seen nothing but comments and tweets about he Johnson is in trouble and he's losing it.

They are wrong. He's far from done.

Take a step through the Looking Glass and the world looks different.

Those tweeting and reporting all care about events and are following closely. They are unrepresentative of the population as a whole who don't give two shiny shits.

And so we have the Trump dynamic.

The Liberal elite of broadcasters and journalists who are only seeing through the lens of their own judgement, not from the repackaged marketing.

Instead they are unwittingly publishing the images and slogans in the format Johnson wants and enter the minds of the public as planned.

The media are out of step with perceptions. And that's worrying. They don't see what's coming.

Johnson will have an election at some point. With the Tory party cleansed of moderates it is the Brexit Party one way or another, whether it be by takeover or coalition. And its riding high in the polling.

Even though even his brother has abandoned him, the future looks positive for Johnson as his opponents have a complete lack of self awareness and no understanding of the opposition they are taking on; they are campaigning in a way that plays into the hands of Johnson.

Despite his lack of majority and apparently absence of plan or speech notes, the biggest mistake you can make now is to write off Johnson.

You do so at your own peril.

Pay close attention to how authoritarians work and what's already happened in the US. We are on course to repeat it.

No issues with Thatcher enabling people to buy there own homes.

Massive issue with her not replacing them though.

On means testing - or rather, the need not to have it - I'm with Justanotherposter00 and we've frequently disagreed

Having all these "benefits" means tested just creates a society of "deserving" and "undeserving" poor and undermines the concept of societal responsibility.

It's what the Beveridge Report and the foundation of the Welfare State was supposed to be about: a move away from means testing and towards common access to basic services as part of a caring and equitable society.

In the long run, everyone benefits. It's a bit like free prescriptions in Scotland (I know that's a sore point to some in England ): quite apart from the cost of policing the means testing/eligibility for free prescriptions , the fact that people will fill their scripts and not put it off and the fact that doctors can write prescriptions for shorter periods (as my Welsh GP, who had initially been sceptical, pointed out) as there's no financial penalty, means that people then don't present with worse symptoms (therefore more expensive to treat) and drugs aren't wasted.

But then, I've always been a left winger if no longer a Labour voter who believes in taxation in return for the services that I think that a decent society should offer - even when it costs me personally.

And I fundamentally disagree with the concept of "trickle down economics" - although I get the sense that the Right Wing are no longer even trying to use that fig leaf of justification for why the top echelons should pay less

Do or Die
Die in a ditch...

Hmmm

Anyway, yes die in a ditch a very familiar expression to me ( Northern.) And discussion of it had me reaching for my copy of Brewer's Dictionary to find the origin.

Which led on to these , some familiar, others not

Died for want of lobster sauce someone who suffers severely over a minor matter or wounded vanity

Die in harness - to die working the fate of many when state pension age rises

Die like Roland (of Roncesvalles) ie of starvation

Now I must put Brewers away otherwise the dog will miss her walk!

I feel for all the MEPs (not the Brexit party ones) who don't know if they will still have a job at the end of October. And those waiting in the wings who don't know if they will get a job at the end of October.

And we didn't elect a Commissioner - we'll need to do that if there is an extension. And I know someone who's the language officer at the EU office in London, not sure what will happen with his job - another was based in Luxembourg and now has a Luxembourg passport so can keep his job with the EU.

Re lobster sauce: originated from a chef of Louis 14 who ran himself through with his sword on heating that the lobster order had not arrived, unable to face the disgrace

Hearing

The proposed increase on tax for £80k plus isn’t going to fund it - it’s not enough of a difference

Corporation tax £19.4bn
Raising the headline rate to 21% from 2018-19, 24% from 2019-20 and £26% from 2020-21

Income tax £6.4bn
Increase for top 5% of earners by lowering the threshold for the 45p additional rate to £80k (top 5%) and reintroducing the 50p rate on earnings above £123k

Excessive pay levy £1.3bn
A payroll tax, charged against the employer of any individual earning more than a defined limit

Offshore company property levy £1.6bn
A charge made against purchases of residential property by offshore trusts located in known tax havens

Tax avoidance £6.5bn
Linked to Labour's programme to tackle tax avoidance and evasion

Stamp duty £5.6bn
Extension of stamp duty reserve tax to derivatives and removal of exemption

Corporate tax £3.8bn
Efficiency review of corporate tax reliefs

Reversing tax giveaways £3.7bn
On capital gains tax, inheritance tax, bank levy and scrapping the married persons’ tax allowance

VAT on private school fees £1.6bn

Other £2.6bn
Savings on discretionary housing payments from scrapping bedroom tax, soft drinks industry levy spend redirected from capital to revenue, higher rate IPT on medical insurance, reform controlled foreign companies corporation tax regime

It also kickstarts the keynesian economics that McDonnell believes will benefit Britain as valid a viewpoint as Thatchers was about neo-liberalism

@RedToothBrush I would love to see figures on unoccupied houses - before I commit to the housing crisis..... and maybe this is because I live on the outskirts of London , in a town that since we have lived here, house prices have gone up 50-75%. (Lived in this town 5years). That price incr was driven by London. What drove lonodon house prices ? A huge factor is foreign nationals - non residents owning property. I do not understand why this is allowed (it's the same with Farms) . Part of this problem should be laid at BJ's feet, as major he encouraged huge high end development. My brother in law was seconded to London, and an apartment was rented for him. That building only had 10% occupancy. The vast majority of those apartments were owned by Chinese and Singaporeans (incl his)who saw London as an attractive place to park money. The apartments themselves would have been aimed at young professionals- without family - but no one in that bracket would realistically be able to afford.
The biggest thing the uk could do is introduce a law (many other countries have it) that prevent foreign nationals that are not resident from buying property- and at the moment property here has become a commodity.

@DGRossetti I am perhaps being old-fashioned in expecting a Prime Minister to want to present a good image on the world stage.

You mean old "fuck business Boris" ?

Dead in a ditch for me is the parental admonishment as detailed above. Never in any other context.

Good to see the opposition parties not being goaded into a VoNC, which is what BoJo wants when he says he won't ask for an extension even when Benn's Bill is law (as he knows he can't succeed with a FTPA vote).

They are very specific sums with very little detail - evasion / avoidance / efficiency.........

It’s a bit like me saying I could get my food bill down by £100 a month - it might be true but it depends where I’m starting from and how much effort I put into achieving it - it cannot be used today to pay for something else.

The Tory manifesto that you voted for was very very vague in its funding details Bear, turns out it was us disabled people that needed to pay for people like Sajid Javids greed while at Deutsche Bank

Re the ‘dead in a ditch’ stuff - do people think it really was scripted?

I know the bus making stuff was scripted but that was in an interview wasn’t it?

The ditch thing was in response to a press question - I just always feel that BJ is too maverick to be coached into stock responses to potential questions - he’d forget them all

The ditch thing was in response to a press question

Dont be suprised if it wasnt a set piece question

Peter Stefanovic
@PeterStefanovi2
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1m
Boris Johnson resignation: Number 10 refuses rule out PM stepping down after series of crushing Brexit defeats

The Tory manifesto that you voted for was very very vague in its funding details Bear, turns out it was us disabled people that needed to pay for people like Sajid Javids greed while at Deutsche Bank

And I’m not defending that either.

I just don’t understand your polarised view of ‘Labour good, Tory bad’

I don’t know who I’d vote for in a GE but sadly where I live it makes no difference anyway as a pig with a blue rosette would win

Don’t be suprised if it wasnt a set piece question

Maybe, but it still relies on BJ doing as he’s told which is something I don’t associate with him

I find myself idly wondering what powers Boris will have when parliament goes dark ?

Red if Johnson resigns leaving no incumbent PM while Tories fight another leadership election who would be expected to negotiate the extension if theirs no sitting PM to call a VONC on? Does that make sense?

Johnson would certainly get his wish of going down in history if he resigned - just not quite for the reasons he wanted 😂😂😂

Poster I'm in agreement with you again
(this is alarming me ! )

I am comfortably off and can afford private health insurance
I would still be massively pissed off if I move back to the UK and was not allowed NHS care

It is a question of what is now regarded as essential, because this should be provided universally

Also, means testing is so expensive that it can sometimes bring little if any saving,
so this cost has to be factored in any decision on whether to use it

It can also add stress for those who claim it when they have to jump through hoops,
especially people with irregular income, e.g. self-employed

I am happily childfree, but imo childcare is an essential service, because of the massive difference it makes to the standard of living for probably most families
It certainly makes a difference to women who are pushed into becoming an SAHM with all the vulnerability that brings

In Germany, my colleague pays Eur 110- monthly for ft childcare per child
This is obviously subsidised and all political parties support this, as part of the "social contract"

He is comfortably on 6 figures
His wife is on a lower income
She would be an SAHM if they had to pay UK prices

I just don’t understand your polarised view of ‘Labour good, Tory bad’

BecauseI'm from a poor Welsh village and I'm disabled, havent always been disabled I used to be a playwright (spelling always has and is a problem of mine though) and a college lecturer until my world got turned upside down by shitty luck and shitty genetics. I watched my community suffer in the 80's because of Thatcher and her policies, 3 million unemployed and my father was 1 of them, Blair came in and while I wasnt impressed fully but dutifully voted and life did get better and a bit fairer, I could see that in the prosperity that some of the colleges clearly had due to funding, then disability hit and then eventually austerity comes along and fucks my disabled life around, 1 of my favorite moments Bear is when being assessed for my PIP by Capita I was asked why hadnt I killed myself yet? 1 of those high moments you remember

Poster I'm in agreement with you again

BCF we need to stop this

It is established wisdom in most political systems, that
many people won't support paying for a service from which they are excluded

Hence, the first step in getting rid of a popular universal benefit - that you daren't abolish immediately - is to start excluding groups, usually by income
Then exclude more people

Eventually, resentment for those who receive the benefit drops sufficiently for its total abolition to be politically possible / popular.
Job done.

Die in a ditch
Dead in a ditch

Yes, I know these and other variants
Probably depends on one's choice of reading matter