The government faces 123 of its own MPs refusing to support important parts of its welfare reform. They seem to be making some important points. It was a pity yesterday that the BBC Today programme hectored and overrode the Chair of the DWP Committee who wanted to set out problems with the welfare reforms . The BBC agenda was to paint her and the opponents as destructive rebels not interested in getting welfare bills down.
As she said, many of the 123 and Conservatives and Reform MPs do think there needs to be welfare reform. They do think too many people are not in work, and see helping more people into work as a win win. The individuals will be better off and there will be substantial welfare savings.
The issues which need exposing are
1. Are too many people granted a sicknote for life who will be able to return to work?
2. Is it sufficiently worthwhile to take a job given the way benefits are removed and the tax/ benefit system hits people on lower incomes?
3 Can’t some more people with mental health issues receive help whilst having a job? Isn’t work itself with the purpose and company it brings sometimes a good part of therapy?
4. If the UK cut migration levels more wouldn’t that make it easier for local unemployed to find a job?
5. Shouldn’t vocational education and training be strengthened to work with young people who will otherwise be on benefits?
6. What conditionality should be linked to benefits? What actions should someone take to get a job? How many jobs can they turn down whilst still
There needs to be a more effective and faster acting set of policies to get more into work and to make work more worthwhile.
June 25, 2025
Good morning.
The solution to benefits can be solved very easily. Just make work pay !
If you stopped taxing people to the eyeballs to pay for people that do not contribute to the economy and, stopped making benefits a more attractive lifestyle choice, you would see more people back to work.
You could also make it easier and cheaper for business to operate in the UK. For that the LibLabCON would have to make a lot of ideological and political U-Turns. ie Abolish Nut-Zero !!
Like most things, Welfare Reform takes political courage.
June 25, 2025
Another way to drastically reduce the welfare is to force (people ed)to get work. The taxpayer should not be supporting cultural differences whereby some sectors don’t ever work. Coincidentally it’s the same demographic that would benefit from lifting the two child cap.
It should also be that drawing benefits straight from school wasn’t an option. A minimum of 5 years paying into the system should be required. Finally all benefits should have a sunset clause except in very rare circumstances.
June 25, 2025
+1
June 25, 2025
Well yes make work pay? But taxes far to high and pay rates are being undercut by open door legal and illegal immigration. Work however pays quite well if you get your hotel, board, a phone, an electric bike £30 all tax free and earn £500 PW tax free doing food deliveries, car valets…
If you train as a doctor in the UK however it will cost you about £150k plus interest and six years to qualify. You will this probably have net zero pay after these costs, tax, ni…until you are about 31-32 so six or seven years of hard paid work for zero. And I mean zero net pay nothing for rent, food, council tax, commuting at all… just enough to pay NI, income tax, the training costs and student loan interest! Some people still think they are overpaid and do not deserve a further increase – how can zero net pay for 14 years since leaving school be overpaid?
Mogg on GB news yesterday was talking about a mad wealth tax proposal of 2% of assets over a certain sum. He said that this would just take tax from 45% top rate to 47%. Not at all Mr Mogg if the assets are earning say 5% it would take the tax rate from 45% to 85% as 2% of the capital not 2% of the earnings. Plus even higher if they are making less or nothing like a valuable painting or similar. Plus you still have CGT when sold on top!
All that expensive Eton and Oxford education (History) and still he struggles to do basic metal arithmetic in real time! Yet he is/was one of the brighter MPs. Most MPs still think the insanity of Net Zero is a good thing.
The existing taxes IT, CGT, IHT, CT, stamp duty, VAT… even without any wealth tax can easily take 90% of your wealth off you over say 20 years do the sums. Is 90% of your wealth not enough for them? A wealth tax will just make even more leave and this pay less!
June 25, 2025
Labour is in a muddle.
June 25, 2025
More medically put ‘ in a complete state of confusion’.
Or I prefer mine ‘ riddled with the less than half-witted determined fools bent on society’s destruction.’
June 25, 2025
Just making work pay is not a silver bullet, particularly for your point 3.
You need a spectrum of work opportunities that suit the lower skilled as well as the higher skilled. Unfortunately these have been off-shored or taken up by lower cost immigrants.
Even then for some types of mental health issues while the type of work is readily achievable it is the environment that is a blocker – the attitudes and behaviour of customers/staff/management. More pronounced issues can need direct support, which increases the cost.
At the lower income end of things transport is an issue, we live in Wokingham borough but it is far easier to get into Reading than to Wokingham, unfortunately borough support services don’t like working in Reading and Reading residents have priority for local opportunities.
Public transport doesn’t go everywhere so either carers have to step in or use taxis – something we are very, very wary of doing in the present lawless environment.
So supported employment is yet another minefield for families caring for individuals with mental health problems while successive governments impose increasing complexity and bureaucratic bullshit.
June 25, 2025
Some within Labour wish to scrap the pensioners free Bus Pass.
Others think London’s Freedom Pass eliminates some reasonable transport costs ( which are alarming expensive for regular workers etc).
June 25, 2025
Labour’s attitude towards the nominally retired has been very clear since the first week they took office.
What do they think will happen to all the charities and activities dependent on volunteers?
June 25, 2025
Surely people look at transport links and other matters which are important to them, before they move to another area do they not.
Agree outside of the M25 and in many other Cities and Towns public transport is patchy at best, but if there is no or little demand, then there is no reason to supply, just to make a thumping loss.
June 26, 2025
We planned well ahead – moved out of London to raise a family, picked a house 100 feet above the river valley to avoid floods, walking distance to school, bus and shops.
But you cannot predict that your dependents or even yourself will become disabled nor the vagaries of public services.
The issue is that we pay rates to Wokingham but have very sub par service, especially transport, compared to settlements closer to that town centre.
PS Who is going to move house at ludicrous expense these days?
June 25, 2025
Global electricity demand is expected to more than double between now and 2050. In the West, this surge in demand is fuelled by the growth of AI, data centres and the electrification of transport and industrial production.
Increasing energy consumption in the East is driven by urbanization and industrialization in developing countries. Across the globe, approximately 17.2 million EVs are estimated to have been sold in 2024 – more than five times the sales of four years ago. Sales are estimated to reach 22.3 million in 2025 (Source: Bloomberg NEF)
Soaring demand for electricity has triggered massive investment in critical materials and infrastructure, which is occurring alongside a global shift that embraces cleaner energy solutions. This shift has created a dynamic energy transition investment market that is growing significantly. Global investment in the energy transition has surged to $2.1 trillion in 2024 and now far exceeds investments made in fossil fuels (Source: BNEF Energy Transition Investment Trends 2025)
Britain has a choice. We either go down the Luddite direction as demanded by Farage, Tice and Reform, cancelling renewable developments and making us more dependent on imported fossil fuels. Or we continue our path to energy independence via nuclear, wind, solar and energy storage solutions.
June 25, 2025
Renewables should compete without subsidies, fossil fuels without prohibitive taxes. The problem for renewables is huge upfront capex at a time capital supply is shrinking in the UK, and it’s cost is rising.
June 25, 2025
Indeed a fair unrigged market with renewable bearing the costs of the back up they need.
June 25, 2025
What has this got to do with welfare reform. Using our hosts good nature to publicise your agenda of the day.
June 25, 2025
@NigL
Whilst I support the SSBN CASD as the deterrent of last resort, anything that reduces the nuclear threshold is to be deplored. As far as I can see the F35A decision will make RAF Marham even more of a nuclear target
June 26, 2025
Social levies, green levies, VAT and standing charges etc on energy bills are very much to do with welfare reform and incentives to stand on one’s own two feet. We are becoming a country where over half of the population gets subsidised on all sorts of bills by the minority.
June 25, 2025
Huge offshore wind farm in north Wales not working/turning at all on nice windy days this week, no doubt paid to not work and to not produce, utter madness, yet Miliband says we need more of them.
I have no problem with wind or solar as part of a mix, but why subsidise such schemes which do not/cannot produce a regular supply (even if it is variable)
June 25, 2025
Back to reality, wind turbines, solar panels, SMRs, and electric cars are produced in China I factories powered by coal, with more coal generation added for years to come. These jobs are taken by workers who don’t need or receive welfare. British workers are losing their jobs because renewables cause electricity and they will claim welfare.
June 25, 2025
expensive electricity
June 25, 2025
We don’t need to be reliant on imported fossil fuel, we have plenty of our own we can extract.
June 25, 2025
+1
June 25, 2025
I support using our own fossil fuels: oil, gas, coal and shale gas and nuclear.
If unreliable and intermittent wind and solar power can compete on a level playing field (ie NO subsidies whatsoever) then I have no objection to using them as well.
June 25, 2025
zero subsidies is not a level playing field though.
We need a rational strategy for sustainable energy provision that exploits resources and technologies in a realistic way. That will likely involve public funds (subsidies) to some extent but strategic assets and services must never be given away to commercial or foreign interests.
There also needs to be a heightened sense of urgency in the process.
Personally I think a key element must be nuclear and while fusion might be a nice dream we should focus on building out a fleet of conventional nuclear standard size and SMR systems. This should be part of a diversified system that incorporates renewables as well, where key elements are not subject to commercial ownership or political whims.
June 25, 2025
SG :
There is no energy security when when China, a state described by our security services as “hostile”, supplies all our energy infrastructure (turbines, solar panels, batteries, transformers etc) plus all the metals and minerals for batteries, cables, motors, generators etc and very shortly all our vehicles. There is no energy security when we have all our energy eggs in one energy basket, electricity, particularly when there is no plan for or even the possibility of grid-scale electricity storage. There is no energy security when the hundreds of thousands of wind turbines spread across the country and the North Sea as well as their subsea cables are totally vulnerable to attack by cheap air and submarine drones. Neither can we protect the thousands of square miles of solar panels. CAGW is a communist hoax to destroy the West’s energy and hence economy and security.
June 25, 2025
Well electricity use could actually go down if we continued to use gas, oil, petrol. This as fridges, lighting and other appliances have got far more efficient especially LEDs. The main things driving increases electrical use is the drive to force people to use EVs and heat pumps to replace gas and oil heating (the latter will drive a huge winter only demand and will need vastly expensive grid and supply expansion. This policy is insane Mr deluded Ed Miliband. Happy to explain reality to you Ed.
Houses and offices and factories that use gas and oils for heating, industrial processes and cooking need rather little electricity in general. Just LED lights and refrigeration and air con perhaps.
June 25, 2025
Plus some for their production lines for motors and computers!
June 25, 2025
SG. All renewable sources od electricity requirements subsidies. Remove these and the projects fold. Renewables are the reason we have the highest electricity prices in the developed world and it’s all down to subsidies.
Fossil fuels will continue to be used for at least a century until technology finds a reliable alternative.
June 25, 2025
If they force us all to switch to heat pump heating it will need 10+ times on cold winter days with this extra grid and generating capacity all wasted and largely idle for the rest of the year. So vast capital expenditure largely wasted. Great plan Ed (PPE Oxon), Chris Stark law of some kind and Emma Pinchbeck Classics Oxon… have you run it past any decent physicists or engineers?
June 25, 2025
Point 4 is definitely a factor. Employers, private and public, employ and agitate for cheap immigrants but do not pay the true cost – that is left to the taxpayer and society in general.
Who, specifically, as in names of individuals, is responsible for blocking the medial training of local people versus importing immigrants? Why is this policy not decried and reversed, why aren’t these individuals held to account.
June 25, 2025
I thought they had a Plan for Change? I guess they must have lost the fag packet it was written on.
Welfare Reform should start with the principle that welfare, which is funded by British taxpayers, should only be paid to current British citizens. No-one who does not already hold British citizenship should qualify for any taxpayer-funded welfare. If immigrants to this country cannot support themselves and their families without recourse to taxpayer funding (including social housing), they should not be here.
June 25, 2025
I think that fag packet is somewhere in the Birmingham piles of uncollected waste.
June 25, 2025
Point 5. is another key factor but apprenticeships depend on industrial demand so step 1 has to be the regrowth of industry.
Even then what role models are there, particularly for young white men? The feminisation of education and society in general has removed purpose and incentive for them, it is so much less stressful to browse the web and play games than deal with the ridiculous stresses of “positive” discrimination, Me-Too, BLM, and all the other destructive bullshit.
June 25, 2025
Biggest mistake was Blaire closing all of the polytechnics, turning them into low grade Universities, and brain washing the kids that any University degree was better than a skilled or semi skilled job, where you may get your hands dirty or get cold working outside.
Far too many people now think they are entitled to a well paid job, working from home, without putting in any ground work, application, or effort, and we support those who cannot be bothered with a whole range of Benefits whilst penalising those who do make the effort with punitive taxation.
Is it any wonder we have a huge number of people that can work but choose not to !
It should not be possible to claim benefits without a 5 year track record of contributions.
June 25, 2025
Typical of the BBC to obfuscate the debate. I watched Farage announce the Britannia card, cost £250,00, to attract billionaires back to Britain. Too many of the media questions that followed revealed financial illiteracy and incomprehension by the reporters asking questions, at least three of them. I found that utterly shocking.
June 25, 2025
Not shocking, just political bias, all too common with opinionated reporters these days.
June 25, 2025
Also notable that the BBC and other leftie pro-EU commentators are as usual so clueless about what happens in the EU that they don’t know that Italy and Greece have somewhat similar schemes actually operating which have been a success.
June 25, 2025
1. Are too many people granted a sicknote for life who will be able to return to work?
Also this crying wolf I’ve got mental issues we all have some sort of mental issue but get on with it , it’s called life , the government says that we need more soldiers/airmen/sailors for our military simple bring in conscription and get these lazy useless off there arses who are clearly swinging the lead into work at the same time start stopping the dinghies and deport the rest
June 25, 2025
I agree ‘life’s a bitch, and then you die’.
June 25, 2025
The danger with your musings today Sir John is letting perfect get in the way of good.
First get eligibility down to those who actually need it. Then if needs be address your other concerns,
You are advocating cradle to the grace support, let those on benefits take responsibility for themselves. Especially the malingerers and chancers of which there are many.
As ever the sceptic hand of immigration looms large but that isn’t a reason to slash the disability (and other) benefits bill where possible.
June 25, 2025
We can all bang out these lists. You have been in the middle of/party to these discussions and probably will have failed many times to get agreement to your views.
You have a weak centre left opposition and a massive left wing majority supported by the muscle of public sector unions.
Using your knowledge please move the debate on from wish lists to how (real actions) can move the dial.
June 25, 2025
House of Commons should challenge hard the Director General of BBC for making one of BBC news presenters say ‘pregnant people’ but she corrected herself live on air and said ‘women’. She and others need protecting. We pay good money for BBC license and not for real gut wrenching WOKE language. H of C needs to protect the BBC presenter and make a strong point here that this is completely unacceptable. And if Director General doesn’t comply, he should be forced to resign. That’s hoe serious this thing is because WOKE language is like a cultural cancer and it’s not what vast majority of BBC license payers want or will tolerate.
June 25, 2025
@EdM. Best in my view is to stop paying the licence fee. I’ve found life better without the TV. Maybe give it a try?
June 25, 2025
TV from varied sources in moderation is OK, TV delivered by BBC is abhorrent lies.
June 25, 2025
But my main point is this WOKE language is a cultural/moral cancer to our children.
(In fairness to BBC they seem to be supporting the news presenter who changed ‘pregnant people’ to ‘women’).
June 25, 2025
Honestly, I hardly watch it. I only have it for friends and family when over!
June 25, 2025
Regarding item 3 society has confused mental strain with mental illness. The two are distinct. The issue the mental strainers are having is a lack of guidance and a lack of spirit in school and a lack of decent parenting at home too.
The afflicted need to know ALL problems have a life span. Thus they go away in time on their own accord. If you’re smart you will be able to speed that process up. The ‘issue’ may very well be permanent as what has happened can’t be undone but its effect as a ‘problem’ is always temporary. They also need to bear in mind they live in a country which offers second chances. You can therefore achieve your goals even if you experience setbacks along the way. The woke-marxist neurodiversity idiots want them all languishing on pills and excuses and they want to see Britain regress. I believe in fixing problems and the afflicted need to be aware their solution is within themselves and if they adopt the above advice they will feel able-minded soon.
This conflates with 6) and young people need to be taught the above in school (given their parents arent doing it) so they are thinking accurately and resiliently. In an economy with about 1 million job vacancies they need to fill them before any benefits are entertained. There is no excuse for anyone being on benefits when there are job openings locally. Welfare should not be a choice. It is a safety net for those who need it. This will help to get welfare back into equilibrium.
June 25, 2025
And should the able-bodied young ever receive any form of benefit while the armed forces aren’t fully manned?
June 25, 2025
“faster acting set of policies”
That the problem this lot as with the previous crowd they like making ‘policies’ and because they then want to be the glory seekers, the hands on ‘look-at-me’ without the wherewithal, the knowledge or ability try to kick the can down the road with it will get done if you vote for me next time.
Ego gets in the way, no one wants to take the responsibility for the here and now. No one wants to work with and enable those that can to do.
June 25, 2025
End immigration and watch the benefits bill drop like a stone.
June 25, 2025
Sir John, all the issues outlined today are only issues if the concern is to be on some sort of message, to do be the doting overlord that grants wishes and hands out money. Take it all away and natural remedies rise to the top and things get solved.
Our Legislators should be releasing the people that pay their wages so they can achieve there full potential, for themselves, and society as a whole. The one size fit all mentality that our ‘group think’ legislators have is that as long as it is in my image should be the diktat that start by denying difference and freedom. They rely on taking from those that can create wealth and a future for all to redistribute the rewards of their achievements before they get going.
June 25, 2025
It’s no good saying we want to get people into work, when the jobs aren’t there because government has made employment too difficult.
Even without the further legislation that’s coming down the line, no business is prepared to offer a job to the long term unemployed. Employers don’t see it as their job to educate people in a work ethic; they expect candidates to come in with that already.
What is needed is slimmed down employment legislation, crucially for entry level employers. For easy hire you need easy fire to go with it. Currently employers are looking at a sort of employment ratchet, where once you get an unsuitable employee you can’t get rid of him.
June 25, 2025
The answer to areas suggested to day came to the fore in a recent interview by a TV reporter at a primary school. When the questions was asked of a class of 8-9 year old’s what would you do if one of your class was having ‘problems’? A young lad succinctly said I would tell them ‘to get a grip!’
We have situations today that seem more media manufactured than honest problems, the the ‘group think’ kicks in of ‘me-to’ The result it dilutes the response to real need.
June 25, 2025
It is not just the BBC that appears not to have read the motion properly; from its report today, the same looks true of the Daily Telegraph, and also of Mrs Badenoch, if the part of the Telegraph’s article that refers to her, is to be believed.
June 25, 2025
I see reported that a single person on universal credit who is deemed fit to work gets monthly £311.68 or £393.45, depending on their age. To be eligible, they need to be looking for work and interact with their local Jobcentre.
By contrast, a person deemed to have limited capability for work currently gets £416.19 a month extra on top of that, so c. £800 and none of the often soul-destroying hassle of seeking work.
My understanding is the government’s reforms seek to close that gap in favour of those seeking work. Meanwhile, it can be regarded as certain that I would develop a limited capacity for work were I applying for universal credit.
June 25, 2025
It’s all about camouflage … Problems have been identified in a failed benefits system. They don’t want to cure the issues or the problems might go away and HMG would be denied the ability to tamper with the rules, on and on.
HMG need an excuse to keep on taxing us more or removing benefits – without ongoing problems they wouldn’t be able to mess about with our lives.
Just like with the review on council tax HMG is showing how to keep a problem alive without solving anything. One of their suggestions is to have council tax payments spread over 12 months rather than 10 —As if that makes any difference to how much unnecessary tax we are robbed of!
Also, with wealth transfer in mind, where councils are failing to budget properly they will in future be supported by those councils that don’t make a mess of their accounts.
What an appalling set of prospective changes – Labour really do know how to keep the problems mounting up – their perverted sense of fairness demonstrates how they will look after labour councils at the expense of those that work properly!
June 25, 2025
Yes, I noticed that yesterday the BBC was promoting the government’s (or is it more Whitehall’s) position on this welfare issue
June 25, 2025
I have several disabled family members. They all work and contribute to society. It doesn’t cost them any more to live than it does an able-bodied person, yet they are showered with benefits and freebies. The government should concentrate on paying for those disabled people who need help, and in many cases, give them services rather than cash. Back in my grandparents’ day, the elderly were eligible for a home help, and nursing homes were free; they didn’t receive disability benefits. Other countries don’t have the excessive welfare system that has grown in this country, courtesy of politicians seeking votes. As the quote says, “show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome”. We now have the perverse situation where poor, fit, working people are subsidising wealthy people who receive un-means tested disability benefits and free Motability cars.
June 25, 2025
No Labour or Conservative government would ever under any circumstances cut government spending in real terms. It will take the IMF to do that. Reform wouldn’t either but I suppose they may improve the growth/revenue side of the equation a small amount.
June 25, 2025
“It was a pity yesterday that the BBC…….The BBC agenda was to paint her and the opponents as destructive rebels not interested in getting welfare bills down.”
The BBC are a communist agitprop organisation. Look how hard they push the entirely false CAGW narrative, a hoax designed to destroy the democratic West’s energy and hence economy, security and democracy. If Ofcom were doing their job they would at the very least insist that the BBC allows alternative views on climate change, Net Zero and renewable energy to be aired and discussed. It is a national disgrace that a country that calls itself a democracy allows the BBC, the national broadcaster, to shut down all debate about CAGW and Net Zero. If the BBC say that leading scientists such as John Clauser the 2022 Physics Nobel prize winner or Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, or William Happer are broadcasting disinformation then why don’t they send their BBC Verify unit to interview them? Because they know they would be eaten alive.
June 25, 2025
Welfare reform? Dangerous ground, all sectors of society are under threat and they are all intertwined.
Before you can ‘just give’ someone something you must have a resilient, self-reliant mechanism to fund it. Tax is not an income stream; welfare can’t just rely on tax. A growing economy causes an income stream therefore tax spending to be available – not visa-versa. It becomes self-funding, self-feeding as the economy rises.
As it was suggested in these pages the other day (I am sorry I have forgotten who said it) if the State was budgeted to run as a percentage of the Countries earning, meaning those that are splashing our cash were constrained by our ability to earn we would be moving forward. The only reason we have the highest tax take and borrowings the country has ever seen in peace time is successive Governments have splashed our cash to blackmail us to get elected once more. That is a nonsense way to run a country.
So, welfare before earnings? The only way that could possible be a thing is if the actual compulsory so-called National Insurance was just that an insurance pot funded by compulsion and separate from State interference. Could it work? Yes, then no as Governments can’t keep their hands of other people’s money
June 25, 2025
In a speech the other day 2TK appeared to nearly understand that it is the States charges on Industry that is holding it back. Government imposed taxes, subsidies, levies that our competitors do NOT have to endure means the UK is paying close on 4 times more for its energy than those we have to compete for jobs with and wealth. Its even 2.5 times more than German Industry pays.
The bit he doesn’t grasp is that it is not just the foreign owned element of UK Industry that is affected by this. It is a trickle-down debilitating more or less disease that has infected the whole of the UK every outlet is feed by another down they chain. In trying to free up one sector you destroy another that they need.
Perversely rather than looking at the complete picture and costing the whole, 2TK wants to simply move cost from electricity to gas!
If sanity existed in our Legislators and even if ‘NetZero’ was a real thing and not just a UK zealot religion from political terrorists, the first thing to have been sorted was how does the Country ‘earn’ the funds to make changes? Remembering taxes, levies, malicious punishment etc. is simply the removal of a valuable resources from the economy and our future.
They have no end game, no rationale, no ability to think, a pronouncement wins elections, reality is just stupid.
So put Welfare on the same Platform and you see reality has left the stage
June 25, 2025
“If the UK cut migration levels more wouldn’t that make it easier for local unemployed to find a job?”
Yes, which is why they’re intent on keeping low-skilled immigration high. Socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor. As well of course as intending to change the electorate.
June 25, 2025
Until our MPs wake up and demand balanced budgets, there will be no real welfare reform. The £5 billion cut Labour MPs and Charities are screaming about is not a cut at all, just a reduction in the total spending on welfare by 2029. Until and unless we get a PM and government committed to living within our means, the UK will continue to decline and eventually go bankrupt!
Welfare should be a safety net, not a way of life.
June 25, 2025
The open ended nature of social benefits is why we are attracting migrants in ever greater umbers as well as why British natives have decided to cease working. The lunacy of the establishment claiming immigration is essential because migrants do work the native Brits won’t do. That sort of circular logic from the controlling agencies is why we are in so much trouble, with both migration and worklessness.
We now have the even more protracted problem of immigrant workers now in charge of doling out benefits.
Things are getting ever more insane and certainly the Labour government nor the Tory predecessor were prepared to tackle the entrenched faults within the benefits structure.
The vampires are now fully in control of the blood bank….
June 25, 2025
“If the UK cut migration levels more wouldn’t that make it easier for local unemployed to find a job?”
Yes, UK citizens are at a severe disadvantage when competing for delivery jobs against illegal immigrants who are getting their accomodation (4 star hotel + heating + food) paid, £40/week pocket money and pay no tax.
June 25, 2025
Reform is desperately need; Yes, but what?
Until Disposable Income, for the poorest People, is higher then their cost for them to Live (Rent and Save), what you are all suggesting is narrow minded, selfish, rubbish!
We need Cultural change; including policy’s that recognise what we all can buy into, not just the spoilt generation (Baby Boomer’s)! ‘all can buy into’ means here; the Policy would need to pass this test, because it must not be some Authoritarian, Marxist, Collectivist diatribe of the past Tory years! In other words; it must be acceptable behaviour, but be SEEN to be worth while, at an individual’s level! Meaning being of Value to the individual! Please remember; Value is not equal to Money!
Side issue;
For GB to be buying the F35A for the delivery of Tactical Nuclear weapons, is short sighted, and wrong!
Here is my reasons why;
It undermines the GB Manufacturing, both, in the shorter term, and long term! We could develop the Typhoon or Tempest to carry these Tactical Weapons!
We should Manufacture all our Strategic weapons, at home! Both the Aircraft, and Bombs!
The Development of Typhoon (or Tempest) adding Stealth, and the large Bomb Hard points, undermines the necessary commitment (Investment) to GB industrial base, and supports someone’s else’s, the USA industrial base!
And, it goes on! Who would accept using Tactical weapons, outside an all out strike, at an enemy! Particularly, a country that can reply (escalate) with a strategic strike, of their own! Also, known as “Mutual Assured Destruction”, which we have already, at great cost to the British People!
Typical British short sighted rubbish, or is there something I have missed? Can we really allow this to go by, without some challenge?
Regards,
RDM
June 25, 2025
Sorry John, but I meant;
“The Development of Typhoon (or Tempest) adding Stealth, and the large Bomb Hard points, undermines the necessary commitment (Investment) to GB industrial base, and supports someone’s else’s, the USA industrial base!”
Not Developing the Typhoon (or Tempest) adding Stealth, and the large Bomb Hard points, undermines the necessary commitment (Investment) to GB industrial base, and supports someone’s else’s, the USA industrial base!
If required, please change; just to make it clear!
Regards,
RDM.
June 25, 2025
In the same way, many years ago, that building society mortgage applicants (after approval) had to then wait for a sufficient number of savers to deposit their savings would it be fair for a new welfare benefits applicant to then have to wait until a sufficient number of new taxpaying workers had started new employment?
June 25, 2025
The idea that there are all these employers begging people to work for them is a fantasy. A white male over 50 is not going to just walk into a job as you imply.
Your “private sector” expects to recruit experienced, ready trained persons that slot in like a machine part. But they do nothing in training and encouraging employees to go up in the world. They are far more likely to take on someone from outside than promote from within.
June 25, 2025
John,
I don’t know if you remember who I am, but out of interest; Are you still living in Wokingham, after you lost your seat, as an MP? Are you standing again, in four years time, or when the seat becomes next available, again.
(ill informed questions about my personal circumstances left out ed)
Do you have a public email address, just in case, I find something you might be interested in? You know the sort of gossip I get, now and then?
Regards,
RDM
Reply. If you have something useful to say send it here with a request it is not published and I will not publish it.
June 26, 2025
Can’t you tell what was sent as a Personal comment?
Reply If you label something as not for publication I will not post it. As you refuse to put your name on anything I do not know who you are or why you want personal information.
June 26, 2025
He did not lose his seat. He resigned for good and honourable reasons.
June 25, 2025
It would seem to me that looking after those in society who really need support has spread beyond this very laudable aim to become a way of life for those who prefer to game the system.
There is a situation, at the lower end of the work chain, where the difference between working and state hand outs is so close that, among those less motivated the choice not to work is too easily the way to go.
Consequently it is not just a matter of forcing the lazy into work by removing their benefits, we also need to substantially move tax thresholds to promote the idea of work. Think abour it, illegal immigrants are happy to work because none of them suffer the penalties of those legitimately in work. For them it is cash in hand.
If there are to be effective money saving changes to welfare benefits then the problem needs to be thought through in depth if it is to work.
June 25, 2025
No money for welfare, but thousands of millions to buy nuclear weapon carrying aircraft ….thought we had no money
P.s That EV car carrier that caught fire 3 weeks ago in the Alaska sea, sank today
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/us/alaska-cargo-ship-vehicles-sinks-pacific.html
June 25, 2025
Cost of welfare including benefits is completely out of control. We have far too much immigration legal and illegal. The taxation regime provides no incentive to work indeed it encourages continued reliance on benefits. Yes sicknotes are granted too readily especially for so called ‘Mental Heath’ issues. And yes those with genuine mental health issues should be helped back into work. Training alongside work should be massively expanded, we have far too many worthless degree courses and we urgently need bricklayers, painters, plumbers, electricians, mechanics and carpenters. I’m staggered at the number of overweight young (and old) people running around in electric invalid buggy’s and the massive increase in ‘disability car badges’. Our benefit system is too generous and clearly unaffordable. Labour’s present Bill does not go far enough, more radical measures are necessary.
June 27, 2025
Pillar of the left wing establishment, Dame Margaret Hillier, tells us, as a former “highly respected” Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, that the cost to the taxpayer of her rebellion is nothing to do with her.