36 minutes ago, Rooney said:

🎣

Most patriotic people we can find, yet willing to subject consumers to needless price increases and break the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland. What patriotic people we have, will throw their toys out the pram but offer no pragmatic solutions to problems.

This deal was on the table for ages, yet no Brexiteer has been able to get it. By all accounts the Tories tried to get the passport gates and failed.

You call surrender a solution? No thank you. As for the e-gates. I’ve been abroad many times since Brexit. Never had an issue. I don’t really know what the fuss is about. I’m assuming privileged people in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s had to spend an extra 5 minutes due to not having an EU passport anymore and decided everyone must be losing sleep over it and suddenly it’s a pressing issue. God forbid their lives were mildly inconvenienced for a split second. I promise you for 90% of people it’s not in their top 100 concerns. Besides it seems optional if it even happens. Fabulous negotiating.

31 minutes ago, Iz 🌟 said:

Just gonna quote what J00p rightly said about the fish last week and also add that the deal is literally the current status quo. If the main concession for this objectively good deal was the status quo continues in an insignificant industry, I'll take it. 🐟

Never f***ing Happy.

Not sure why you’d quote that post. To reiterate this is a benefit to the EU not the UK hence why it’s called a CONCESSION. UK fisherman have derided the deal.

The deal was due to expire. It’s something valuable that the EU wants and the UK not only rejected the ability to have a big exporter and grow the fishing industry they further decimated AND took away and negotiating power by making a 12 year deal 7 years longer than the EU were even asking for. Objectively good? Please be serious.

14 minutes ago, J00prstar said:

Who do you actually support, given the Tory party was singlehandedly in charge of this for the last decade and f***ed every conceivable element of it up?

Might come as a shock to you but I’m not a card carrying member of a political party. Yes they did hence why they’re polling at 17% Labour were elected to improve the country not mirror the Tories

12 minutes ago, J00prstar said:

Having a temper tantrum and refusing to offer anything remotely practical or workable seems to be the M.O. of their supporters as well.

I can't imagine being so angry all the time and simultaneously being so ineffective. I'd be embarrassed to show my face.

I’m just giving my view it’s not something I’m punching walls over. I don’t know why you’re wording things in this way? It is possible to discuss political things without trying to sniff racism somewhere or thinking someone is headbutting tables. Try it buddy.

That’s all I got to say about that anyway because you guys live in a diff world to me it seems.

Clearly you're reading the BBC news feed Liam, so it's curious you're only cherrypicking negative reactions.

That last one's even about fishing!

Yes it's good when we can sell our produce to the EU and receive goods and services in return. Plenty of details to be worked out yet, but I think if you were having an honest conversation with us, you'd be giving some ideas about what the government could have done instead of the concessions we chose to get this deal through.

Check your counterfactual. I certainly wouldn't have liked it if we'd been held hostage from a good trade deal because of a tiny 0.4% industry of fishermen.

3 hours ago, Iz 🌟 said:

Clearly you're reading the BBC news feed Liam, so it's curious you're only cherrypicking negative reactions.

That last one's even about fishing!

Yes it's good when we can sell our produce to the EU and receive goods and services in return. Plenty of details to be worked out yet, but I think if you were having an honest conversation with us, you'd be giving some ideas about what the government could have done instead of the concessions we chose to get this deal through.

Check your counterfactual. I certainly wouldn't have liked it if we'd been held hostage from a good trade deal because of a tiny 0.4% industry of fishermen.

Because like loads of people, it's just an excuse to be angry. I notice Reform have been really quiet on this whole issue today too, when clearly they will have been briefed. Ultimately, I don't think there's anything to be mad about. And those that are mad are mad because Twitter tells them to be mad. Crazy how people complain there is so much waste in Government, don't actually realise how much waste and red tape Brexit created not just across Brexit, but across the entire food import & export business.

Liam you mention the passport borders earlier? It's a huge issue when it's just a waste of time. If I'm travelling with work or going on holiday, I don't really want to be wasting 1-2 hours in line waiting to queue when it should be a 20 minute max job. Name me 5 benefits we have got from Brexit in return? (I'm not expecting an answer for this). All this is doing is re-enacting and opening up all the wonderful trade deals Brexit was sold that we could do. Instead you had absolute gammons who couldn't negotiate a single thing, infact everything they did negotiate was worse than we already had!

Immediately after the referendum, I predicted that Leave voters would soon be looking for new scapegoats when leaving the EU didn't magically solve all the country's problems. Subsequent events have proved me right, and hardline Quitters just find any reason to get angry. They won't even look at the facts if they have the likes of Farage to tell them what to think.

Scottish fishers were explicitly told this would happen before Brexit and they still voted for it in numbers because they’re the only demographic in Scotland that pays attention to Farage. If they’re too stupid to listen to reason again and again then they can reap what they sow. Scottish fishers have always been f***ed over by London since the inception of the CFP. They were told in IndyRef that London would continue to do this to them, they ignored it. They were told in Brexit they were a bargaining chip that would always be cashed, they ignored it. The turkey have voted time and time again for Christmas, let them be roasted.

And for what it’s worth, Luxembourg is one of the worlds wealthiest countries per capita on earth. Their public transport is free to all, they have public services in great condition and they have a similar personal tax rate to the uk. So yes, please Liam, let Brussels burocrats turn us into Luxembourg. I’d hate to have a better life

Starmer pretty much saying he will be reversing at least some of the cuts to winter fuel today.

Mixed about this as ever. Mixed because out of all the 'sins' people keep attacking the government over, it's clearly the least important and most outsized in its importance by discourse, well, perhaps trumped by the irrelevant topic of farms, but far less important than PIP payments and employer NI tax rises, whatever you think of those. Also because it confirms that while you can cut benefits from younger people all you like, our media-enabled gerontocracy will not allow a single inconvenience against the grey vote to stand - I swear when it was initially announced, before the outcry set in, I just saw the conversation around it being a bunch of anecdotes about how it was clearly being used by a good few sets of grandparents for an extra holiday etc, and now of course it is going to cost them more than if they'd never done it.

Yet it has become totemic of all the things a Labour government shouldn't be about, and cutting to save from the vulnerable should be one of the last things Labour do. This hopefully opens something up at least in PIP payments too - while one of the strengths of this government has been their sticking to their guns so far, such that this IS their first major U-turn, when a policy is wrong, and they change course after a period of reconsideration, they should get credit for doing so.

Will they though? What does everyone else think on this?

1 hour ago, Iz 🌟 said:

Starmer pretty much saying he will be reversing at least some of the cuts to winter fuel today.

Mixed about this as ever. Mixed because out of all the 'sins' people keep attacking the government over, it's clearly the least important and most outsized in its importance by discourse, well, perhaps trumped by the irrelevant topic of farms, but far less important than PIP payments and employer NI tax rises, whatever you think of those. Also because it confirms that while you can cut benefits from younger people all you like, our media-enabled gerontocracy will not allow a single inconvenience against the grey vote to stand - I swear when it was initially announced, before the outcry set in, I just saw the conversation around it being a bunch of anecdotes about how it was clearly being used by a good few sets of grandparents for an extra holiday etc, and now of course it is going to cost them more than if they'd never done it.

Yet it has become totemic of all the things a Labour government shouldn't be about, and cutting to save from the vulnerable should be one of the last things Labour do. This hopefully opens something up at least in PIP payments too - while one of the strengths of this government has been their sticking to their guns so far, such that this IS their first major U-turn, when a policy is wrong, and they change course after a period of reconsideration, they should get credit for doing so.

Will they though? What does everyone else think on this?

I think the issue is, as much as I agree with the cuts, the winter fuel payments have been a political disaster and clearly for something insignificant in the grand scheme of things, it has certainly damaged Labour. Would have been much better if this hit was taken on the pension triple lock for example, which costs the taxpayer way more, but I can't see Labour doing anything with that now after the disaster of the winter fuel payments.

On 19/05/2025 at 18:52, Liam Sota said:

You call surrender a solution? No thank you. As for the e-gates. I’ve been abroad many times since Brexit. Never had an issue. I don’t really know what the fuss is about. I’m assuming privileged people in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s had to spend an extra 5 minutes due to not having an EU passport anymore and decided everyone must be losing sleep over it and suddenly it’s a pressing issue. God forbid their lives were mildly inconvenienced for a split second.

I work at Geneva Airport and since 2021 British people can easily end up queuing 1.5 hours going through passport control on landing the early afternoon. This routinely causes people to miss onward transport. It can be the same at Zurich. Split-second mild inconvenience?

I can go through European gates and I've never queued more than 5 minutes.

Net migration fell by about 50% year on year - down to 450,000.

Successful for the anti-immigration crowd, plenty for Labour to crow about with 'getting migration under control', Conservatives will look to claim that it was because of their dying gasps this has happened, only reason I find that desirable is that high immigration numbers are always used as a distraction.

probably more to do with the tail of covid non-migration finally catching up tbh

Winter fuel payment back and now for all pensioners with an income of under £35,000

Bad in all directions tbh

a) still means-tested so still wasting money on means testing

b) absolutely no signs that pensioners will forgive them so goes against their initial strategy of being unpopular first and reaping the benefits later

c) the threshold is set so high that pensioners who out-earn workers are getting money to pay their bills without having to pay NI, work all day, or (likely) pay off a mortgage or have childcare costs so confirms unequal gerontocracy

d) it still doesn't have to be used on energy bills which is the craziest thing

At least this can be an end to the irrelevant political capital wasting sideshow, right? right?

Decent Labour-ite spending review for the summer.

Useful information we didn't know before include a firm commitment to end asylum hotels by the end of the parliament, and extending the current bus cap to 2027 (shouldn't have been raised but fine).

Investment in housing, NHS and nuclear is all pretty good too. Obviously departments like Home Office, Education and Foreign Office not getting as much as they need isn't great but overall it seems like a decent investment-led financial event.

Winter fuel payment should only go to those in genuine poverty, regardless of age, and be credited directly to their power/gas account

Not here for Rosemary at number 23 who’s no had a mortgage/rent payment to make in 20 years on a house that cost her £23.71 to begin with getting £300 tax free when her disposable income is leagues higher than a struggling single mum of 2 who has 3p in her bank account and starves herself in the winter to be able to heat the house for an hour a day.

There are people who genuinely struggle in winter with being able to afford heating. They should get help. All the help they need. But universal and restricted to the coffin dodgers is a big no.

To save 1.7 billion it wasn’t worth ever doing. If they said it at the election it would have been okay. Instead they looked like shifty people doing something they never said they’d do. They didn’t explain it well so most pensioners thought everyone was losing it. Then they made the bar too low so it looked like it was making people choose between food or heating.

Then they look weak and reactionary reversing it and they reversed it too much to where they’re now giving people who don’t need it the money again. Pretty much every decision they made was the wrong one at every stage.

It was poorly communicated but it was the right policy imo!

59 minutes ago, Steve201 said:

It was poorly communicated but it was the right policy imo!

Agree with this. I think the £35k threshold is still way too high and it sounds like everyone will still get it, but tax codes will just be adjusted by HMRC to claim it back for higher earners. It shows the power of the pensioners, reducing the benefit was the right thing to do, but Labour made a botched job of it and under estimated the political influence. It ate in to the Reform narrative. The bigger issue is the Triple Lock needs to go, but not sure they will even attempt that. Again, it's the right thing to do for the Country, but not the noise will be so big.

Anyway, from this budget the hidden noise is Council Tax will be go up and there's an extra tax on energy bill. Suspect some form of tax rises will be inevitable, just not sure where they'll do this. Looks like the Markets haven't responded too badly to this.

same with PIP they’ll never be able to reduce it.

Frankly I'm still baffled we live in a country that took two years off everyone's life to protect pensioners and gave the population that sacrificed the square root of nothing for it, not even a thanks, and then afterwards took more of everyone's money away to give to those same pensioners who are also the richest demographic of society.

And who on aggregate consistently vote to make the lives of younger people harder and who on social media crow about it.

Unfort pensioners are most likely to vote!

Spent all that time refusing to give a national inquiry just to give one anyway. Better late than never I guess

BBC News

Sir Keir Starmer announces national inquiry into grooming...

Sir Keir Starmer said he had accepted the recommendations of an audit into the nature and scale of the abuse.

1 hour ago, Liam Sota said:

Spent all that time refusing to give a national inquiry just to give one anyway. Better late than never I guess

BBC News

Sir Keir Starmer announces national inquiry into grooming...

Sir Keir Starmer said he had accepted the recommendations of an audit into the nature and scale of the abuse.

He's followed the advice of the audit and the auditor has now changed her mind and suggested we do need one. I'd also suggest politically there is some motivation too.