Anyone else having trouble telling the News and The Traitors apart tonight?

Kemi discovering after 15 months that Robert Jenrick has been plotting in "secret"

'Another Warrington has hit the North-West'.

One of the few things that might actually get some kind of reaction from Musk would be the government and all MPs simply leaving X. This doesn't require regulatory or legal action. There are no barriers. They could *and should* just do it.

My weekly column for This is Money is up. This week I respond to a reader who is paying into a personal pension (aside from a workplace pension) whilst on UC. The pension contribs should be deducted from income, but too many DWP frontline staff don't seem to know the rules!

There are always Trumps. And so that is why the United States constitution has checks and balances for the misuse of presidential power. The real story of Trump’s presidency is not only what he has done, but also what Congress and the Supreme Court have not done.

Excellent to see @marymcd.bsky.social with a full page pensions piece in today’s FT. Politics and pensions mix badly.

On which note: bsky.app/profile/did:...

Former pensions minister calls for change as frozen tax thresholds mean even those whose only income is their state pension are getting dreaded brown letters from HMRC

New Year's resolution to post more on here! So, here's our new FOI-based story on the surge in people getting self-assessment tax demands, now that the tax threshold has been repeatedly frozen. Govt's 2027 'fix' for (some) pensioners won't make much difference: www.thesun.co.uk/money/378170...

Lots of parallels between #Ashes defeat and what Labour voters in 2024 are feeling about the govt right now.. "its the hope that kills you". "It was supposed to be different this time". you wait 15 years for a win in Australia/regain power and then it all falls to pieces super quickly

It's four days away, that's not much of a prediction.

Inflation can be the Chancellor's friend. 'Fiscal drag' measures such as freezing tax thresholds raise more money when inflation is high. So today's drop in inflation is not unalloyed good news for CX (Though if it paves the way for lower interest rates on the national debt it might be!)

Money Box Live next week is looking at the finances of blended families. If you have a story, comment or a question then please get in touch with me - it’s [email protected]

Person who actually deserves a trophy is the artist who made the FIFA peace prize trophy look like everyone in the entire world holding their head in their hands out of secondhand embarrassment

Really enjoying the latest series of ‘the Naked Week’ on Radio 4 @andrewhunterm.bsky.social - last week’s ’News in Haikus’ was a classic!

Red Book says that the £2k cap on salary sacrifice: "shields 74% of basic rate taxpayers using salary sacrifice". But if 5 million basic rate taxpayers use it, then that's over 1 million 'ordinary workers' losing?

Incredible that the OBR just leaked the Budget!

Today @stevewebb1.bsky.social and I released a report setting out our views on where State Pension Age (SPA) needs to go. We submitted to this to the Government SPA review last month. We recommend sharp increases to SPA, but with a guaranteed payout of 5 years. 🧵 www.lcp.com/en/insights/...

Paul Johnson would actually like the economy to work better for all, to see incomes grow and social mobility expand. He supports effective pro-growth policies. He is less keen on posturing politicians who pretend they have simple solutions and whose policies would damage all the above.

Farage: epic grifter

Everything you ever wanted to know about pensions (but were afraid to ask)... My colleague (and former Pensions Minister) @stevewebb1.bsky.social now has his own YouTube channel - a free searchable library of 3-minute explainer videos on pension topics. www.youtube.com/@stevewebbexplains

People who have come to the United Kingdom legally, played by the rules and made it their home do not need to “go home”. This is their home. I've written to Kemi Badenoch to give her the chance to reject these divisive calls from her frontbencher Katie Lam.

If the Chancellor were to cap or scrap tax-free lump sums from your pension, could she literally do it 'over night' on Budget Day? This is a reader question to which I reply in my column this week. I'm pretty sceptical that this will happen, but people are obviously concerned. #pensions

Man United fans asking Starmer to intervene and prevent them from going to matches

“When you take over the world, remember how polite I was”. A fellow train passengers justifies her position on saying “please” and “thank you” whilst using #ChatGPT

The reason the Right are so invested in the myth that the arts have no value isn’t because the arts don’t generate wealth (they do); it’s that studying the arts teaches people to imagine better ways of judging the value of an idea than by counting how much money it makes…

@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk is always good, but this - on post-literate political communication - is really, really good. www.joxleywrites.jmoxley.co.uk/p/playing-po...

Lib Dem Tim Farron MP: "I'm a proud patriot, but I am no nationalist...You can tell the difference. "Patriots love their country. Nationalists hate their neighbours. I am a patriot." He says he's ashamed racists have tried to steal the flag. Farron hits out at the "poison of nationalism".

Very much agree with this - defections in themselves don’t change a lot, but they are a strong signal of the relative health of the ‘ceding’ party and the ‘receiving party’!

Reminds me of this gag-

Average earnings up 4.7% in latest ONS figures - this is likely to drive the 'triple lock' increase next April. New state pension will be less than £1 per week under the income tax threshold in 2026, and will exceed it in 2027.

Tweaking NI thresholds to make employing part time workers vastly more expensive is one of the craziest things a party of labour could possibly do. Single mums, full time students, all the workers who efficiently fill gaps, punished.

Few things make me feel as nuts these days as having conversations with friends in aid about how global humanitarian aid has effectively been destroyed - which is going to kill millions, and is already killing them - then shifting back to normal discourse, where basically no one talks about it.

My column this week for This is Money responds to a reader who used ChatGPT to answer a question about pensions and IHT. The answer is 'kind of' correct, but the reader had drawn the wrong conclusion! www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensio...

Looks like an additional round of ministerial announcements - mostly ministers of state - has just landed: www.gov.uk/government/n...

Hope you had your mobile phone with you @torstenbell.bsky.social …!

Great that Radio 4 Moneybox and BBC Breakfast are continuing to raise awareness of unclaimed Home Responsibilities Protection!

If you do find your name, go here to file to get your money! www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

Pensions Minister Torsten Bell has always been one to watch for swift promotion ….

Timeline cleanse

Can the UK pension system adapt to an ageing population? In Episode 6, I talk with former Pensions Minister @stevewebb1.bsky.social about: 🕰️ Future of the State Pension & Triple Lock 👥 Retirement for today's workers 🏠 Housing costs for future pensioners 💔 Widowhood 🎧 www.lcp.com/en/podcasts/...

Who’s talking PENSIONS?! Please share the starter pack and encourage more debate here! @stevewebb1.bsky.social @sarabenwell.bsky.social @stephawthorne.bsky.social @henrytapper.bsky.social @marymcd.bsky.social @daviesofbrixton.bsky.social @josephinecumbo.bsky.social @prospectpension.bsky.social

Reform will have to reselect in Croydon, as their initial candidate for Mayor had been dead for 6 months when they selected her, Inside Croydon report Being dead is one way to pass the social media vetting but was likely to get noticed eventually insidecroydon.com/2025/08/27/f...

Imagine having to explain a headline that says “Taliban ‘ready and willing’ to work with Nigel Farage” to a time-traveller from, say, 2011.

One of the nice things about writing a weekly column answering reader questions is that you often learn something new. This week, a reader who deferred her state pension, backdated her claim 12 months to get a lump sum, and got an unexpected HMRC demand for tax for last year...

Seeing this on the news last night and just thinking: really, well done, you've bought the hammer down hardest on the thing the country most needs, just congratulations to everyone involved.

The worst thing about racist Robert Jenrick’s pretence that his racism is justified to protect his daughters from men from ‘ backwards’ countries is that 97% of women who contacted Rape Crisis said they knew the person who raped them. 43% of girls questioned in a national survey