You can actually see the moment Ed Miliband thinks, what's the point burning through whatever political credibility I've got left energetically defending a man who's going to be gone in a matter of weeks.
NEW: More than 160,000 private renters on low incomes face rent shortfalls worth up to hundreds or even thousands of pounds a year due to Labour’s housing benefit cuts
Greater Manchester and the West Midlands are particularly badly hit
By me, for the Big Issue: www.bigissue.com/news/housing...
Interesting new development in the wave of arson attacks that have hit London in recent weeks
Counter Terrorism Policing say they have made 7 arrests in relation to conspiracy to commit arson against a "venue related to the Jewish community." The statement said that the specific target is unknown
"There should be no mystery why younger Americans are as pro-Palestinian today as their forebears were once pro-Israeli. Rabin staked his life on peace. What will posterity say of Netanyahu?" My column on why America is falling out of love with Israel. www.ft.com/content/353e...
that's not Sarah Owen on the right is it?
I just think if the government was to become this unpopular this quickly, they might as well have done it by increasing taxes on median+ earners.
The first one of those is basically down to the leader. Obv the Chancellor has to be on board but without the leader it doesn't happen
No, the point is that housing benefit is meant to keep pace with rising rents up to the 30th percentile of local private rents. That's what's meant to happen. If the government arbitrarily freezes it, then rents rise but the benefit limit doesn't
ofc there's a supply constraint outside the very cheapest areas, that's the point. if raising housing benefit raised rents, then the housing benefit freeze would be freezing rents and we wouldn't have had the rising numbers facing a shortfall
Just look at the last 2 years and ask yourself if that's how a government that was elected with a 170+ majority should have been performing. Obviously not. Reform and the Greens are so beatable, but not by Starmer. Get rid. There's nothing else to say. We will lose with him in charge.
would also be why Corbyn was (reportedly) closer to quitting in 2016 (when nobody thought he could be PM) than in 2019 (when some of them did)
the fucking dried pasta would last longer than that
a therapist and child in school doing speech therapy
On SNJ Today: A good idea built on wishful thinking and shaky foundations. @captaink77.bsky.social finds the DfE's Experts at Hand may sound promising, but the #SENDreforms rely on vague delivery plans, faulty assumptions and a workforce that doesn't exist: www.specialneedsjungle.com/experts-at-h...
definitely gonna have normal conversations when I can see the recording device that will preserve what everyone says indefinitely
a product with zero market
could be
Giles co-authored the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act with Justin, and I was delighted to work with him on other projects too. I was, frankly, terrified of Giles’ razor-sharp intelligence but soothed by his kindness and great good humour. God, we will miss him.
maybe he thought Hartlepool *was* his fault - perhaps in terms of the candidate selection or something - while what's gone wrong in government *isn't* his fault
ofc having power may simply have turned his head. wouldn't be the first!
Keir Starmer famously said there was "no such thing" as Starmerism. He was half-right: there is no such ideology. There is however an approach to managing and running the country that is core to so many of the government's difficulties that we probably should call 'Starmerism'. In tomorrow's paper:
Local Housing Allowance concerns private rents, so it wouldn't be determining housing association rents (which will be lower than private rents anyway)
Don't really see why Rayner would be Truss-bad - in fact it's quite obvious she wouldn't be. I don't know how you've even worked out whether someone would be a "lightweight on the big stage" (what does that even mean?)
not sure why "or I'll name you" is meant to be such an onerous threat lol
"YouTube video by The National" everyone's getting what they wanted
The political equivalent of watching tv and saying ‘what was he in, dear, do you remember that programme we used to watch?’
Dowden! that's the name! I saw his face but couldn't remember the name
Quite exciting watching Parliament and seeing lots of cameos from stars you were sure had been killed off by the screenwriters in previous seasons - Burgon, Abbott, McVey, Davis, Duncan Smith.
there's a line spoken by Christine Baranski's character in The Good Wife - "just because it's a bad idea doesn't mean it's a good idea"
Giles was so generous with his time and so helpful when it came to explaining to journalists very clearly and with quotable precision exactly how a wrong un landlord was being a wrong un. But mostly I just remember thinking he was a really, really kind human who cared about the state of others.
