Bus cap definitely being reduced to £2 got reported on today, starting from January excellent news. As I've said on it before, you need to encourage the use of public transport because it drives economic activity in other areas and eases the car burden on commercial centres.

also Ed Miliband has one of the most impressive careers of any parliamentarian currently sitting in the house and has numerous great moments far more important than his election loss, I've not been banging on about him doing a stellar job at energy for the last 2 years for nothing - and the right-wing rags' seething hatred of him only confirms how right I am.

they're also briefing about how Miatta Fahnbulleh called for net zero target to be accelerated, as if that's a bad thing.

13 hours ago, Iz様 🌟 said:

Bus cap definitely being reduced to £2 got reported on today, starting from January excellent news. As I've said on it before, you need to encourage the use of public transport because it drives economic activity in other areas and eases the car burden on commercial centres.

also Ed Miliband has one of the most impressive careers of any parliamentarian currently sitting in the house and has numerous great moments far more important than his election loss, I've not been banging on about him doing a stellar job at energy for the last 2 years for nothing - and the right-wing rags' seething hatred of him only confirms how right I am.

You should read what they're saying in the newspaper comments underneath articles about him. Calling him Milibland and an imbecile. Trump dislikes him over net zero so bound to fail they say! Worse FS than even Boris and he was bad. Also never forgetting how he betrayed his poor brother who's actually made millions more than him on the US. And that bacon sandwich....lol.

Edited July 23Jul 23 by CRAZY CHRIS

4 minutes ago, CRAZY CHRIS said:

You should read what they're saying in the newspaper comments underneath articles about him. Calling him Milibland and an imbecile. Trump dislikes him over net zero so bound to fail they say! Worse FS than even Boris and he was bad. Also never forgetting how he betrayed his poor brother who's actually made millions more than him ion the US. And that bacon sandwich....lol.

It's like these people weren't consciously aware of anything for the last decade given they resort to such old trite lines.

As always: Discussing current actually happening policy announcements >>> reliving the past.

20% cut on business rates for hospitality from next April announced this morning as Burnham's quickfire turns to helping out pubs and restaurants. The places people want to see in their communities, so far paid for by taxing those we don't want, e.g. vape shops, more.

Excellent strategy.

Yes two good first policies but as one of the papers said, most single stop bus fares are less than £2 anyway. Here, £1.75 with an Oyster. Daily cap is £4,50. We have free OAP passes anyway now.

Very clever strategy to drip feed good news policies slowly over the first few days in office, it means it dominates the headlines for a day and sticks in people's minds.

They're good policies, but nothing groundbreaking so far. That said, it is nice to see something positive after the effective continued austerity of 'short term pain for long term gain' or 'tough but fair decisions'. Starmer's government occasionally had some good policies as well, they just a) didn't communicate them well and b) were often too incremental. The way this has been delivered at least (so far), sorts the first problem, if not the second.

Cutting VAT on energy is welcome, even if it won't come to much with prices rising, but at least it's a counterbalance. Lower bus fares will help a lot of people, and always up for supporting pubs and live music venues, they desperately need something at the moment. Don't know if targeting vape shops to pay for it is enough, but no one really likes them and it's one kind of shop I wouldn't mind see closing down in droves.

Hoping to see something on student loans (specifically that threshold freeze), income tax thresholds, nationalisation of water and energy (I know there's been murmuring on all of these, but nothing official yet), and dare I say in terms of funding, windfall taxes on oil and gas companies raking in record profits*, closing loopholes for tax avoiding companies such as Amazon or even individual wealth taxes over £10 million and a capital gains review. But I'm not holding my breath.

*Also, on this note, if this North Sea nonsense is going ahead, can it at least be set up like Norway so it's not all sold on the global market by private companies with no benefit to the UK? Thanks. x

Mr Devolution wants to give out oil and gas licenses that Holyrood already denied…. Excellent work Andy.

At least with Burnham in charge Scotlands oil wealth will be spent closer to home this time. Will only have to travel to Manchester to enjoy the infrastructure instead of all the way to London

Someone mentioned an energy markets restructure that Miliband did? Very curious about that? Coz currently transmission charges are structured as so: London and SE England generate zero power, take all the power, pay f*** all transmission charges. Northern Scotland: generates all the power, needs a wee bit for themselves, pays some of the worlds highest transmission charges. Surely that’s backwards right. If you choose to live far away from where the power is generated you should pay for the cost of getting the power to you. So what reform did he actually bring in?

Bravo Red Ed, proving again why he’s one of the best minister in the Labour Party currently. Once again showing his credentials in another dept.

Telegraph reporting the government reviewing a proposal to increase capital gains tax and end interest payments on Bank of England reserves, to pay for an increase on the Personal allowance from £12,570 to £15,570.

Interesting to see if something like this gets pushed in to the budget, likely effective from next April in any case in the event it did but Labour must be sensing people are going to feel the pinch at the pumps and over winter with energy prices.

5 minutes ago, Rooney said:

Interesting to see if something like this gets pushed in to the budget, likely effective from next April in any case in the event it did but Labour must be sensing people are going to feel the pinch at the pumps and over winter with energy prices.

Honestly if they did raise the personal allowance that would help a lot of people. People would be ~£600 better off per year or ~£50/month if I'm calculating it right.

Edited September 21Sep 21 by Envoirment

An increase in the personal allowance would benefit millions of people., That would be the best way of increasing Capital Gains Tax which would affect far fewer people. It is worth remembering that the last government to make CGT rates the same as income tax rates was a Tory government.

Here we go, all the lobbies for the triple lock have started 😂 Another sign of the general intelligence levels looking at the broader picture.

Brave to signal the end of the triple lock, though I'm sceptical about the wage growth being the one to have been removed, I'd have rather removed either of the others to keep pensioner wealth tied to the wealth of working people. Doesn't save too much but it's a needed first step.

Interested to see how Labour putting electoral reform in their next manifesto will shake out, could be a good ploy to make the next election all about both that and Europe, both areas in which progressives have been beaten down on over the last decade and need some reversion to the mean.

good speech overall, no complaints on the water, care and leasehold signals

1 hour ago, Iz様 🌟 said:

Brave to signal the end of the triple lock, though I'm sceptical about the wage growth being the one to have been removed, I'd have rather removed either of the others to keep pensioner wealth tied to the wealth of working people. Doesn't save too much but it's a needed first step.

Interested to see how Labour putting electoral reform in their next manifesto will shake out, could be a good ploy to make the next election all about both that and Europe, both areas in which progressives have been beaten down on over the last decade and need some reversion to the mean.

good speech overall, no complaints on the water, care and leasehold signals

It is brave, but I think on reflection if you do it now, in 3 years time it doesn't become a discussion point. I was a big sceptic of Burnham when he entered office, but that's a bold move and one I applaud. Ending the triple lock (personally, I'm not quite sure it goes far enough.. but another debate) needs to happen. He's having a long term look in terms of loads of short termish. I'd guess the etam have learned from the winter fueld debacle. Guess ther Tories and Reform will push to keep the Triple Lock, or maybe they won't.

2 hours ago, Iz様 🌟 said:

Brave to signal the end of the triple lock, though I'm sceptical about the wage growth being the one to have been removed, I'd have rather removed either of the others to keep pensioner wealth tied to the wealth of working people. Doesn't save too much but it's a needed first step.

Interested to see how Labour putting electoral reform in their next manifesto will shake out, could be a good ploy to make the next election all about both that and Europe, both areas in which progressives have been beaten down on over the last decade and need some reversion to the mean.

good speech overall, no complaints on the water, care and leasehold signals

They should just reform it now!

I'm delighted that Burnham has stuck to his support for a reform of the electoral system. I hope that the Lib Dems and Greens join his proposed commission. When Farage founded Reform UK his stated aim was electoral reform, but he has been rather quiet on the issue recently. It will be interesting to see whether they join the commission. Clearly, the Tories won't.

Ideally, the process will result in a recommendation for a system that Labour, Lib Dems and Greens can all support. If Reform support it as well, it is likely that parties supporting it will receive over 50% of the vote at the next election, making implementation without a referendum easier to justify.

I can't see the EU agreeing to allow us to rejoin while we have an electoral system that could see a party with a commitment to leave get a Commons majority with less than one-third of the vote. Therefore, I see electoral reform as a higher priority than Rejoin.