cellar

Now that's an image

Bloody Starmer

Even though you're clearly just trying to wind up (and insinuate some sort of prejudice again, judging by your next post) - there are plenty of reasons why one might be more concerned with this conflict over others. Probably the most compelling is the number of children killed in the conflict - more than double the annual number in 2020, 2021 and 2022 over all conflicts in the globe, in less than 3 months. Regardless of your stance, that's horrific.

Anything less than a Lab majority would be pretty shocking to be honest - odds are 1/4 for that at the moment (which is lower than last time this came up, I think), while a Minority is at 5/1

Yeah I don't think it'll help anyone, but it's more of a vote winner. We'll see anyway

Yeah I reckon an income tax cut is more likely, makes more sense as a last ditch attempt to win voters.

I think (hope) that the majority of people would see through scrapping IHT. Its not something that affects most people, so why would they care? The people who care are most likely going to vote Tory anyway, so I don't see it as a vote winner.

Completely agree, saving up for a deposit is such a barrier to entry. Next year is a year of big saving for us, but once we can finally get a place our disposable income goes back up (because it'll cost less to pay the mortgage than to save up the massive deposit).

That would show as "Message deleted" though, which she should have to prove in my opinion. And has much more serious connotations.

How depressing. Good video though. I looked up that tactical voting website, pretty cool (overwhelmingly Labour here so no surprise really).

"via disappearing WhatsApp" How topical 😅

Haha, just had a quick scan, found this from Barry: "I don't think for a second having someone else in power would of made much difference. I think the failures where more deeper than that in so many ways a different PM would of made the same mistakes." Say what you like about Barry, he's consistent!

Just to be clear though, That's different to believing they didn't have a policy. I think in fact it supports that there wasn't a policy - otherwise they would have been found to have broken it? Obviously the right thing to have done would be to retain the messages when they get a new phone, but I make a choice to not copy over my messages when I get a new phone, so I can well imagine they did the same (and their reasons for doing that are self preservation, of course). But I don't think it's a joke to believe they didn't have a policy. (Website doing something weird when I tried to type a message, so had to write this in notepad).

Yeah, sorry, "fully" disagree was a bit over the top. We will agree on some things - I will call Hamas terrorists for example. But to be fair, I stopped discussing the whole thing on here after getting a bit too involved earlier on, so I'm happy to not get back into discussing it. I'm just more concerned with what kind of place this really is - if it does turn out that you can abuse people for having opinions that differ to the majority, then I'll probably be out of here myself (the alternative will be to stoop to their level and start abusing people, which I'd rather not).

I think it would be good to know if telling someone to "f**k off, and when you get there, f**k off again" is alright? I would expect if someone (Barry) is winding people up with his posts, he should be warned under the rules if that is what they are. But seems strange to give someone a free pass to speak to someone the way Stevie did. To be clear, I fully disagree with Barry's position on Israel. But he should be able to post his opinions without getting the responses he does.

Happy to move on

Calling out someone for using foul language isn't the same as gatekeeping. You meanwhile have to call put crazyfool for daring to come back and post on this thread, because you have some weird vendetta against him. And then say that someone is attention seeking when they say they're out of this thread, in case they do decide to then come back and post, and you'll be able to throw it right back in their face. Classy. But anyway, if you can just try to behave decently we can move along and continue with the thread.

Yeah it does seem to have been deemed acceptable to be abusive in response to posts like these, but I'd rather Ozanne just try not to gatekeep the thread whilst simultaneously trying to provoke reactions out of people.

Stop trying to be provocative Ozanne, it's really so exhausting.

Wind your neck in, you're not the moral crusader you think you are. Easy enough to just ignore someone, but instead you have to respond like a child. Hope you do get warned/blocked for a while, you clearly need a break from this place. Was only two months ago you had pretty much the same stance as Barry anyway, so not sure why you're so opposed now.

3 headlines tonight from Guardian, Independent and Sky News: "Robert Jenrick quits frontbench over Rwanda bill, piling pressure on Sunak" "Robert Jenrick resigns as immigration minister over Rwanda in huge blow for Sunak" and "Rishi Sunak facing political fight of his life as he wars with right wing Tories over Rwanda bill"

Yeah, and if it had been Starmer in charge, then the exact same things they're criticising would be getting defended right now. Very predictable

Haha, brilliant

The Starmer Thatcher thing is just a bit embarrassing really - a transparent attempt to win over Tory voters. All looks a bit desperate.

The "cuts" are in real terms relative to rising inflation and a lack of action specifically to target services. In fact you're right - receipts are forecast to be much higher than expected, and so this OBR forecast shows lower borrowing as a % of GDP than back in March, if no policy changes were announced. Hunt has chosen to spend this extra money rather than save it though - primarily on NI cuts (£10.4bn) and full expensing (£9.1bn). After a full read, the Autumn forecast was absolutely a much more positive picture than March, helped in no small part by ONS revisions. RHDI (the best measure of living standards) is now only forecast to drop by 3.5%, rather than the 7% predicted in the March statement. So yes, things are still pretty sh*t - but nowhere as sh*t as they were (unless you actually want people to have worae living standards). Ozanne is just regurgitating soundbites for the most part.