I think it’s a mistake to assume that a mainstream party needs to “out X party X” in order to benefit from any move in X‘s direction. It has long been clear that Labour needs to work harder to convince voters and markets that it can be trusted with public finances.

It’s useful to put these build rates in terms of the UK. 3.2% over 3 years would be just over 1% a year; around 300k net additions per year. At 6.3 for that’s ~600k per year, to replicate Austin the Uk needs to build around 900k a year. Our actual 2025 build rate? 200k.

The purpose of such taxes in the 1940s was (a) to raise revenue and (b) control consumption, which is why the standard rate of income was over 30%, rising to almost 50% during the course of the War.

Yes, you too can be denied your beautiful right to be convicted by Ouija Board, and be forced to join our disgusting civil law cousins in Europe. (Yes I know it only happened once (that we know about), and under the current proposals murder would still be tried by jury. One time is too many)

What were they arrested for?

Must be the UK now has evil employers and Italy suddenly has good ones. Cannot be anything else that happened in the period 22-24...

SDLT is a bad tax, but it’s not the primary cause of the decline of housebuilding. That decline pre-dates the rise of SDLT beyond a 1% flat tax on average or above average properties in the last 1990s To the leviathan it now is.

Yes, passing both these measures have made the government immensely popular.

There is an interesting question here re jurisdiction - if the President simply lacks power to tariff (rather than any question of improper purpose etc) then why is a challenge restricted to a particular court?

Tony Benn’s long term legacies as Minister of Technology were a uranium mine in Namibia used to support apartheid, and a machine used to ferry the rich from London to New York.

As long as you know the long s, thorn and yogh, it’s surprisingly comprehensible all the way back to the 1300s, but then it gets quite difficult.

Move over Court of International Trade. Its the Court of Federal Claims' turn now.

I have been picking up a lot of followers on here over basic small c conservative principles like “Dicey was right about Entick v Carrington” and “retrospective punishment is bad”, but I suspect new followers may not like the rest of my content!

I don’t think people can fathom quite how hard this would be to implement. I suspect almost all of the senior judiciary would resign immediately, as would a large proportion of the rest of the CJS.

The ST should be extremely wary before publishing stories suggesting that taking out private finance to pay off student loans is a good strategy. www.thetimes.com/money/family...

The rule in England and every other common law country is not simply that state agents need a warrant. It is that anyone seeking to enter land without permission (including state agents) is a torfeasor, absent a warrant or other special authorisation.

From recollection, there is at least one Roman author who goes into great detail explaining how their “C” was a hard “K” sound, not the modern “Ch” or “s” sound. Meanwhile the Roman for a babies cry was “vagitus” which makes more sense as “waa-g-i-tus” than “vag-itus”

There are quite a few “simple” routes in the sense that they are technically or practically hard to do. They aren’t politically simple because they involve trade offs that politicians don’t want to explain to the public, and potentially the public doesn’t want to make.

"average New Labour minister causes 3 scandals" factoid actualy just statistical error. average minister causes 0 scandals. Scandals Peter, who lives in cave & causes over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

It is an interesting question as to why Ernest Augustus’ title of prince was removed on under the 1917 Act, if it was possible to remove it by prerogative. George V had removed himself from the royal orders already by that point.

Here is the kind of change that the HL might be expected to make in their careful scrutiny which will be ruled out by the Parliament Acts if they are used.

The age of the Parliament Acts makes no difference. What should make a difference is that the only way they can be invoked is to pass the exact same version of the Bill which already passed the HoCs, no matter how important any change suggested by the Lords.

This is literally the thing that AI is proving worst at, giving accurate answers to high stakes questions.

Seeing this as a constitutional issue is part of where this all went wrong. We all know that no one can enter another’s property without special authority - why should state agents be in a different position?

Cant wait to take away rights and security from renters by abolishing their proprietary interest and replacing it with a contract holding relationship.

Also, the PHSO is not “an independent body that exists to hold the government to account“. It is a tool of MPs to assist them in holding the government to account. That is reflected in the original white paper, Crosman’s comments when introducing the 1967 Act, and its lack of any legal powers.

Why is this question only directed at Crown Dependencies and BOTs (and not e.g. other havens like Curacao, Panama or Seychelles)? Is NB expecting the gov to use its colonial era powers to interfere in the running of these territories?

I can't think what might be driving price increases in a labour, property and energy intensive industry with heavy competition and thin margins... Could it be employer-sided NI, minimum wage, warehouse comparator equal pay claims, energy costs and business rate increases?

Zack coming out for a French style independent nuclear deterrent and increase in military spending. He’s getting dangerously close to getting my vote.

www.gov.uk/government/n... DSFO has a very troubled history in recent years. The Gov really needs to get to grips with what is going wrong there.

The BBC should really stop uncritically reporting bad faith NIMBY talking points, such as the idea that only 'affordable units' (sic) will make a difference. They should be talking to economists about the role of chains. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I suspect most people well versed in the bible understand Paul’s significance, which means this is potentially less well understood today than half a century ago.

www.theguardian.com/business/202... If I was the RMT I would be extremely careful about this, as there will be an immediate equal pay claim made using drivers as comparators. if you thought the Birmingham bin strikes were vicious...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I fundamentally beleive that it can be done, it is just we lack the political will or logistical competence as a country to do it.

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/... Good. “Affordable home” requirements are a tax on new developments, which is why NIMBYs love them so much. The only way to affordable homes is building as many as possible.

There is a big difference between an incumbent losing an election and an incumbent being unpopular. I don’t think you can compare the two.

Here’s an alternative - scrap the BSR and instead an offence with up to life imprisonment for anyone convicted of knowingly using unsafe materials, plus a statutory tort for the same to anyone injured by the same, with punitive damages at least equal to that damage.

EU example of drowning small companies in paperwork. UK examples will be easy to find (and let's not start again on ending small company de minimis exemptions...) www.ft.com/content/0797...

Sorry, someone’s been raiding the old Yes Minister storylines again. Specifically the one about the hospital with no patients but fully staffed. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

The fact that jurors subjectively believe they do a good job does nothing to reassure me. Again, the problem is that they do justice in secret, without reasons.

Hahahahahahhaha. We’re really doing this again are we? A 29 year old is just the same as 12 year old? www.bbc.com/news/article...

The responses to this suggest we are all in a lot of trouble if BlueSky ever does get its chosen leaders into office.

This (from: www.ft.com/content/75ce...) is something you can *feel* if you are in the UK, especially if you've experienced living abroad. But infuriatingly successive governments and our entire media are somehow absolutely committed to suggesting anyone who wants to change this is the devil...

“Affordable” homes are built by effectively taxing developers. Building them relies on having developers building profitable developments, some of the profit of which goes into building affordable housing. The BSR has effectively killed such developments in London. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It will never not be surprising to me that the last commercial canal to be opened in England (1905) opened after the last main line railway (1899).

Merely freezing threshold and abolishing salary sacrifice is the definition of politics over good policy. Salary sacrifice is one of the few ways that an employee approaching the £100k cliff edge can avoid falling off while still getting a financial benefit.

Damn every one of these selfish people, who have themselves already got accommodation, but are happy to see other people without homes. www.mylondon.news/news/north-l...

Because we haven't really been trying. We've been saying we would like to have it, without any willingness to consider the necessary trade offs to get there (indeed, pilling on obstacles to growth).

Responses to Dan here as serious as you would expect. "Tax the rich", "the money is there its just being hidden", "Tufton Steet!!!!!"