Just to add, not really arguing on the basis of the article per say, i think this is more my opinion on gas & electric etc is too expensive and this has been caused by governments allowance of the energy companies being allowed to fleece us.
Dont think half the issues would be an issue if the energy grid was nationalised with common sense being applied.
I personally think it is sad that that housing stock doesnât circulate. I live on a cul de sac of about 20 houses that were built in the seventies as âfamily homesâ and in 2025 on one family live on it. People did used to downsize.
Iâm not particularly kicking off about that, and we canât turf people out of their homes if they donât want to go, and Iâm sure Iâll probably end up being a hypocrite about it when Iâm a pensioner.
But surely to god we shouldnât be giving people in houses bigger than they really need public money to help run them. Thatâs what you seem to be saying.
Contrast this with how generationally fucked young people are when it comes to housing. Young people who will never be able to get on the housing ladder. What are they getting to help them get a house, never mind heat one. The paroxysms of anger about WFP are deeply misplaced.
We donât seem to a have a problem, societally, with telling essential key workers to go find another job if they donât want to live in poverty. But there is a taboo on telling pensioners they might need to downsize?
Why does the need to live within oneâs means apply to everyone except pensioners. What would we say to a family struggling to run a house with three more bedrooms than they need? Here have some public money? I donât think so.
Society should probably be thankful that pensioners keep living in their big houses.
Because when they need to go into care, they have to sell that big house to pay for it, meaning the government saves on all the associated costs of caring for them
This is true, but the proposed changes just appear to be needlessly complicated. It would have been far easier to simply add the winter payment to the state pension and let income tax claw it back for higher earners.
The UK state pension is still far too low. I will qualify for a full UK state pension, but I am already entitled to a third of that amount from a German state pension having worked here for 6 years.
Nah, thatâs much too sensible 
Sensible
@odin_telamon touched on it. It would be far better if the broken energy pricng system could be tackled. Too often I see right whingers moaning about green taxes on energy when a big lump of the bill is driven by the unit price of gas. That is conveniently forgotten by them.
But hey the world is going to burn and Ed once ate a bacon sandwich.
According to the FT this afternoon, that is what Starmer is looking at doing going forwards. ..
I should get an FT subscriptionâŚ
I would get one if it were more affordable.
There are many very good arguments that Ukraine is fighting for Europe and that we cynically use them as a shield, but Israel ?
This is beyond bizarre.
What is the strategic threat to the UK and the rest of Europe that Israel is shielding us from ? What is the logic here ? There is none. Israel is creating threats , not mitigating.
I think this is a low even for Badenboch. Supporting Israel is one thing, but the mental gymnastics needed to claim that Israel is fighting a Proxy War on behalf of EUR and UK is bat shit insane (Ukraine is of course fighting for itself and not a proxy war either, but in that argument there is at least a sliver of logic and sense, although one should never call it such obviously).
She also lies, claiming that Israelâs campaign is all about getting the hostages back. It is clearly a secondary or tertiary Israeli War Goal, as shown by empirical evidence and statements and actions on other, more important War Goals to Israel. Mostly though, this is a grotesque insult to Ukraine.
https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1926560682289279042
Pretty much ânail on the headâ stuff from the former shadow chancellor here, although I would have expected his language to be more excoriating.
You have to ask if the labour party he is talking about is fit for the modern world - with changing demographics, changed industry, high tech etc etc.
I would argue that our political system is no longer fit for the current world. It does not work. We need some radical change not tribal, incremental fixes and people focused on winning elections not on changing the country for the good.
Iâm not a fan of using politics to address emotional issues, but I think Freedlandâs point is an important one. I think thereâs an argument that a lot of the emotions driving politics in the current age (although not exclusive to the here and now) is the sentiment of fairness.
Starmer would do well to heed that lesson. That part of Labourâs fundamental mission has to be about building a fairer society, and the politics of the Labour Party need to be shaped accordingly. Thatâs what Corbyn understood, and Starmer doesnât seem to.
I was reading the above article just now and, as suggested, I went to look at Reformâs manifesto. One thing struck me immediately:
It isnât immigration that has âpushed Britain to breaking pointâ: itâs privatisation. Billions and billions of pounds sucked out of the economy and infrastructure and deposited straight into shareholdersâ pockets and offshore accounts.
And Farage wants to make the state even smaller, peddling this lie. Throw in tax breaks for the rich, another of the rightâs favourite weapons of oppression, and quite how anyone with two brain cells to rub together can support this lot becomes a total mystery.
There was an interview over the weekend with the Reform treasurer (correct title I think) bosdting of ÂŁ300-ÂŁ400 billion cuts to government spending. That included wiping out the total ÂŁ45billion spent on asylum seekers. What a complete load of bullcrap it was. Rwanda cost millions for nothing.
With regards to immigration they will continue to vilify asylum seekers, while maintaining super high legal immigration.
Is that the figure they gave? spending on asylum seekers is around ÂŁ5bn a year isnât it?
They know that no-one ever checks facts or picks them up on their utter nonsense, so yes, they trot this nonsense out.
I wouldnât say itâs just privatisation, itâs a decade of austerity thatâs done the real damage.
The Conservatives slashed funding for public services across the board: schools, hospitals, councils, and social care all saw deep cuts. These werenât isolated or minor reductions they were systemic, longterm underfunding decisions that hollowed out the infrastructure people rely on.
As those services inevitably started to fail or strain under pressure, the government, right wing parties, and lots of the media shifted the blame onto migrants. It was easier to scapegoat immigration than to admit theyâd spent years dismantling the stateâs capacity to function properly.
