General News Thread

[CornwallFox]

21 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

3p per mile EV rate being floated.  There's another £450 sucked out of me per year.  Not like the government have been encouraging transition to EVs at all.

Fairly obviously nonsense I would say. 

[danny.]

9 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

Fairly obviously nonsense I would say. 

Hope so! VED and BIK have already had some pretty big increases recently. 

[Free Falling Foxes]

Bloke looks a bit cheesed-off.

All he wanted to do is get home and have a wan k.

[danny.]

“Violence is an artificial construction”, Mamdani sounds unhinged. 

[CornwallFox]

36 minutes ago, danny. said:

Hope so! VED and BIK have already had some pretty big increases recently. 

At this point the papers are just out to cause trouble. We'll all have to watch the budget to find out what's in it. 

[CrazyKopCorner]

15 hours ago, CornwallFox said:

You're easily blinded by your chosen media aren't you? 

You hate her because she had posters of Gordon Brown? 

Her first budget was pretty good. There's room for argument about the effect of NI changes, that I'll grant you, but it's hard to ascribe a single cause to continuing economic stagnation. 

The farmer issue was a non issue blown up by wealthy landowners that aren't farmers. 

She laid the ground to pump £100bn into capital projects which was much needed and should provide an economic boost in time. 

 

Really. 

 

I look at the economic indicators it's as simple as that and her level of (non) performance and how's she's boxed herself in, applied rules she continually breaks but continues to say she is adhering to. 

 

The poster is part of the the narrative and awful story / Jackanory telling. The first female chancellor nonsense (when we had a female PM over 45 years ago and others since), the lying on her CV and making out she' worked at the BoE as a Senior Economist for nearly 10 years (it was 5.5 at best and god knows what she did but you don't go from a Senior Economist at the BoE to managing complaints at HBOS), that she's a supreme chess champion - really? 

 

She's campaigned for a rental licence that she didn't obtain herself (hopefully she's fined and has to resign), the god damn awful speech / lecture she made on  Tuesday blaming everything and everyone but her own truly awful policies. 

 

She is a wannabe and does not have the ability to be Chancellor of the Exchequer - People who are good enough do not make shit up or continually bang on about nonsense in their past. 

 

The farmer issue was a non issue blown up by wealthy landowners that aren't farmers. Really? It showed a complete lack of understanding of the rural economy as far as I could see and thousands of farmers seemed to think the same thing. From April 6, 2026, UK farmers will have a £1 million allowance for agricultural and business property relief at the full 100% rate. Any value above this combined threshold will receive only 50% relief, making it subject to an effective Inheritance Tax (IHT) rate of 20% - That, to me, is a ****ing disgraceful policy. 

 

 If you really think her first budget was pretty good then we'll leave it there because you are on another planet. 

 

 

[leicsmac]

7 hours ago, danny. said:

“Violence is an artificial construction”, Mamdani sounds unhinged. 

Guess it depends on whether one is a cynic who thinks humans have the inherent capacity for beating the shit out of each other. 

 

In any case, the man represents a differing turn from the horrific (and violent) orthodoxy that has taken hold in the US right now, and that's a good thing. 

[CornwallFox]

43 minutes ago, CrazyKopCorner said:

Really. 

 

I look at the economic indicators it's as simple as that and her level of (non) performance and how's she's boxed herself in, applied rules she continually breaks but continues to say she is adhering to. 

 

The poster is part of the the narrative and awful story / Jackanory telling. The first female chancellor nonsense (when we had a female PM over 45 years ago and others since), the lying on her CV and making out she' worked at the BoE as a Senior Economist for nearly 10 years (it was 5.5 at best and god knows what she did but you don't go from a Senior Economist at the BoE to managing complaints at HBOS), that she's a supreme chess champion - really? 

 

She's campaigned for a rental licence that she didn't obtain herself (hopefully she's fined and has to resign), the god damn awful speech / lecture she made on  Tuesday blaming everything and everyone but her own truly awful policies. 

 

She is a wannabe and does not have the ability to be Chancellor of the Exchequer - People who are good enough do not make shit up or continually bang on about nonsense in their past. 

 

The farmer issue was a non issue blown up by wealthy landowners that aren't farmers. Really? It showed a complete lack of understanding of the rural economy as far as I could see and thousands of farmers seemed to think the same thing. From April 6, 2026, UK farmers will have a £1 million allowance for agricultural and business property relief at the full 100% rate. Any value above this combined threshold will receive only 50% relief, making it subject to an effective Inheritance Tax (IHT) rate of 20% - That, to me, is a ****ing disgraceful policy. 

 

 If you really think her first budget was pretty good then we'll leave it there because you are on another planet. 

 

 

The inheritance tax issue was done here a week ago and a poster with more knowledge on the issue than any other I've seen on here explained exactly why it's a non issue. 75% of farms sold last year were sold to investors rather than farmers. People looking to stick their money somewhere good for tax, with no intention of farming anything. The vast majority of farms aren't valued at the thresholds (simplistic numbers of £1m covers machinery and equipment, £3m for land). The average farm has a total value of something like £2.6m. there are then financial instruments that can be used to ensure real farmers won't pay inheritance tax even above those levels. In terms of the land value though, the only reason farmland is valued as highly as it is, is that non farmer investors are buying it to avoid inheritance tax. Farming itself doesn't provide great returns due to low purchase pricing by supermarkets. So the land value for farming isn't really very high, or shouldn't be, as it doesn't return a profit. So by cutting out the investors, land values should fall, taking even more farms out of the tax. The movement against this is led by investors posing as farmers, kicking up trouble in the farming community, which isn't one that is full of accountants and tax experts. They've been told it's bad for them when in reality it's bad for investors trying to avoid tax. 

Edited 6 November 2025 by CornwallFox

[danny.]

2 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Guess it depends on whether one is a cynic who thinks humans have the inherent capacity for beating the shit out of each other. 

 

In any case, the man represents a differing turn from the horrific (and violent) orthodoxy that has taken hold in the US right now, and that's a good thing. 

Of course they do? Are you saying they don’t?

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, danny. said:

Of course they do? Are you saying they don’t?

I'm saying that at the very least we can overcome it with the necessary effort of will - that's the entire basis of a civilised society. 

 

And, quite frankly, I've heard enough paltry justifications for shitty self interested and oppressive violent behaviour because "oh, that's just human" to last me a lifetime. 

 

We can do better. Should. Must. Anything else is just mud-grubbing death worship.

[danny.]

I don’t even know how to reply to that. You seem to have left the planes of reality. 

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, danny. said:

I don’t even know how to reply to that. You seem to have left the planes of reality. 

And likewise, because you appear to view that reality as defined by violence and all the associated suffering, human and otherwise. 

 

I guess leave it at that and let whoever is watching decide which is worse?

[danny.]

I view reality as defined by violence and suffering? Wow, that’s quite a claim out of nowhere. 

[leicsmac]

20 minutes ago, danny. said:

I view reality as defined by violence and suffering? Wow, that’s quite a claim out of nowhere. 

I'm sorry, but if there's another way that viewing humans as inherently violent comes out, then I'd be happy to hear it. 

 

Pardon me for getting frustrated at such a worldview, especially when it's being used by some very powerful, very nasty people to do some very nasty things, both historically and today. 

 

But then worldviews are worldviews and life's too short to take all this too personally. 

[leicsmac]

Anyhow, some news:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2kp8dex14xo

 

Shutdown going well, then. 

[danny.]

21 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I'm sorry, but if there's another way that viewing humans as inherently violent comes out, then I'd be happy to hear it. 

 

Pardon me for getting frustrated at such a worldview, especially when it's being used by some very powerful, very nasty people to do some very nasty things, both historically and today. 

 

But then worldviews are worldviews and life's too short to take all this too personally. 

You seem to be getting really angry over a strawman of your own creation 

[MaidstoneFox]

18 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Anyhow, some news:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2kp8dex14xo

 

Shutdown going well, then. 

The Dems are digging in on this. Rand Paul predicted three weeks ago that they would roll over, but they haven't.  One could certainly argue it is Trump and the Republicans fault for trying to steamroller such an extreme bill through without having the 60/40 majority to do it in the first place.

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, danny. said:

You seem to be getting really angry over a strawman of your own creation 

... or this is a rather good gaslighting attempt. 

 

Or a bit of both is going on, perhaps.

 

Either way, AFAIC things have run their course here because we clearly have polar opposite views that aren't going to change, so I am really going to leave it there, and leave it to other people to be the judge about it all. 

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, MaidstoneFox said:

The Dems are digging in on this. Rand Paul predicted three weeks ago that they would roll over, but they haven't.  One could certainly argue it is Trump and the Republicans fault for trying to steamroller such an extreme bill through without having the 60/40 majority to do it in the first place.

Not before time either - until now, there's been far too little actual resistance to some of the awful policy decisions of the current government from the establishment Dems. 

[MaidstoneFox]

12 hours ago, CornwallFox said:

One of the more right wing posters linked to the treasury saying working people were people earning up to something like £48k, so just under higher tax rate. Presumably getting at the fact that might allow the government to raise the higher rate and claim they haven't touched working people. Tbh there's so much nonsense being put out about the coming budget it's very hard to predict. I'm expecting some surprises on the positive side as well as potential tax rises as they will be keeping it all very heavily under wraps. 

Rags like the telegraph really need calling out for attempting to scare everybody about what's coming leading to people cashing in pensions early, making investment decisions they otherwise wouldn't etc, all based on nonsense.

Yes, lot of nonsense spoken about this.

 

The European Head of Goldman Sachs, was on Bloomberg this morning he said he expected tax levels to be frozen for an extended period of time, which would raise £10 billion from an expected £32 billion needed. He though the rest was most likely to be raised from a range of smaller sources such as an additional tax on gambling. Likely to be some reduction in levies on gas/electricity to help reduce bills, which when you think of it is quite the turnaround from 12 months ago when the winter fuel allowance was scaled back.

[danny.]

16 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

... or this is a rather good gaslighting attempt. 

 

Or a bit of both is going on, perhaps.

 

Either way, AFAIC things have run their course here because we clearly have polar opposite views that aren't going to change, so I am really going to leave it there, and leave it to other people to be the judge about it all. 

If only there was a written trail to see if I said or claimed any of the things you are getting angry about…

[Trav Le Bleu]

The problem with taxes is everyone wants someone else to pay them and for cuts to be to services other people use.

 

You almost never get anyone complaining how a budget will affect anyone but themselves.

[Jattdogg]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

Anyhow, some news:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2kp8dex14xo

 

Shutdown going well, then. 

Republicants would have done the same thing.

 

Here is an idea, sit down, talk and find some solutions for ALL spectrums of Americans. 

 

Politics everywhere is so "us" vs "them" these days and  it has to stop. Politicians need to work for the local people over party and sometimes that might mean going against your own "party affiliation".

[leicsmac]

5 minutes ago, Jattdogg said:

Republicants would have done the same thing.

 

Here is an idea, sit down, talk and find some solutions for ALL spectrums of Americans. 

 

Politics everywhere is so "us" vs "them" these days and  it has to stop. Politicians need to work for the local people over party and sometimes that might mean going against your own "party affiliation".

I think there's always been an element of that, it's just that more people have louder voices these days. 

 

That said, the impeachment proceedings of Nixon (very bipartisan, pretty much everyone accepted the wrongdoing) versus that of Trump (highly partisan, his party refused to censure him despite doing much more wrong than Nixon) shows how things have changed. Perhaps the digital era hasn't really helped there, I don't know. 

[MaidstoneFox]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

Not before time either - until now, there's been far too little actual resistance to some of the awful policy decisions of the current government from the establishment Dems. 

Thanksgiving in 2 weeks. It's going to be a very unpopular government if the airports are still in chaos and Americans can travel to see relatives.