CornwallFox

Come back to it in 3 years. Anybody can pick holes in a budget. Nobody likes everything in them. But what's important is general principals. So the guiding force behind 14 years of Tories was cutting spending. But public spending underpins the whole economy so we got nothing but stagnation. My hope is labour turn on the taps to try and kick start some growth but I can't see that happening this budget (they need to see the line term results of £100bn in investment and GB energy which was only launched a few months ago).

Not really Manuel 😜 It is true though that the Tories really don't deserve to be treated like they're economically competent.

They're not, but one of them, which wants to spend on public services and public good, has to balance the books to avoid being sneered at. The other party, who historically have run bigger deficits over the last 50 years, are believed to be economically tighter, and are quite happy to keep pushing versions of austerity and his economics, despite the fact austerity leads to stagnation and terrible public services. They can spend what they like in the form of tax cuts and nobody bats an eyelid.

10 sounds a good deal TBF

Absolutely terrible footballer. How have we ended up with the choice of 3 crap players?

I don't imagine you get invited to many parties

It's a completely different team than we were playing 3/4 games ago. He's got the right defence, right midfield duo, right wingers... It's just number 10 and striker it's hard to get right as we have no good options

Never rated McAteer at all. Fantastic to get such a fee for him. I just had a look on the Ipswich forum and they all think he's crap and we took them to the cleaners. Favourite comment: "he can trap it further than he can kick it".

I think that's how we handle it. Nobody buys a single one ever again.

Paying £1 per poppodum in curry houses is probably the most offensive thing to have ever happened on planet earth.

Last Tory government the only government in history to have disposable income fall from start to end of a parliament. Finances feeling tight? New figures on disposable income help explain why | Money News | Sky News https://share.google/cwJrbVBrUxuGQ8uvR

I am so looking forward to the day - which is possibly just starting to arrive - that 4-4-2 attacking football comes back into fashion!

We've had about five managers in a row where this same thing has been the issue. Other than I suppose the first half of the championship season under Enzo. But since Rodgers' last season, we've been utterly toothless for most of the time, playing different styles with different coaches. I'm not sure it's just down to the manager.

Yeah something is missing. I'm pretty left wing but even I voted for Cameron in 2010. He talked as a centrist and the brown government seemed tired and out of ideas. It's fair to say I've never regretted one of my votes more. Austerity has been the single just damaging policy since mass privatisation of public utilities. It's the single reason for Farage, Brexit and reform imo. But ignoring that bit of politics, on your central point, I'm not sure why it's missing. You may disagree but I think starmar is actually a very decent and honest man who is trying to do what he thinks is right for the country. But he's just not getting it across. The right wing media have been like wolves from the outset and the online bot campaign that is pro reform (we can all have our own guesses as to who is funding it) and it's hard to know if anybody could cut through. I do like streeting though. My GB news obsessed dad seems to quite like Burnham. I think I have concluded that the things that bother left and right - aside from identity politics and immigration - are pretty similar. We all think ordinary people are getting screwed. It's just we have very different answers to how to fix that. Burnham does seem to be able to cut through a little.

I think it's a bit weird. We've been awful. But somehow still 5th. I think it's just a really, really poor division this year. A decent striker and number 10 away from a promotion push. Though at the same time we could easily go on a run of losses if performances don't improve.

I had high hopes for starmar, maybe you're right and he can't overcome this lack of ability to connect. I hope for all our sakes he can though!

Fair enough comment on the lack of energy and positivity in the first year. I think he was trying to get people to be realistic but maybe a more expensive initial package of positive changes would've been better to show a fresh start for the country. On growth, in fairness it takes 18 months for government policy to show results generally. Their last budget/spending review initiated something like £100bn in investments which you would expect to lead to growth, and GB energy should also create growth as it expands. They just need time to show through in the real world. I think the one fundamental issue for the government is cost of living. Not just the current inflation level, but inflation over the last 5 years is a combined 20+% and we all know food and energy prices are massively up in comparison to wages. You would think labour could've taken more direct action to force price reductions (given profits have soared a threat of windfall taxes on supermarkets would be a good start) as even the status quo isn't good enough.

Our current head of recruitment is really poor

Difference is the rate of change. A slow increase recently is not the same as the spike under Truss, which never really came back down, hence a small increase now being called record.

The way the media have sidelined the lib Dems in favour of the grifter farage is appalling and says everything about who owns the media in this country.

In reality though, he tried to means test the winter fuel payment, which actually is fair enough, probably could've been a higher cut off point but they were using the pension credit cut off point to mean zero admin costs. 75% of farms sold last year were sold to institutional investors over farmers, which was targeted by inheritance tax. And he called out people threatening to burn down hotels as far right. Beyond that, nothing good they've done has been reported and the right wing media has been ridiculous. He's not done much wrong. The state of the country after the Tories will take a while to fix. What did people expect? It's utterly crazy he's that disliked, mainly based on the use of social media bots and lies.

I've seen bits. Utterly bizarre. The absolute silence at the end was kinda amusing.

Well it's a labour policy and they aren't suggesting sending everybody home

New virtual hospital to create 8.5m appointments over 3 years. Entirely optional service to remove things like gp appointments that are nothing but onward referrals or quick verbal check ups. Great policy.

Just need to stop the Starbucks orders lad, easy.