Matt

I love having a work hotel because of course I'll take a 20 minute shower, have the biggest free breakfast known to man and steal all of the tea and coffee.

You didn't have a rise in council tax and the council has had to declare bankruptcy and is £3bn in debt.

No council is perfect, but if Brummies don't realise that the only way out of this is to pay more then they're going to have to put up with shit roads and shit services.

Yes, for now. My partner is moving in soon. Either way, it doesn't really matter as I'd get that regardless of where I lived.

That discount brings it in line with the Birmingham full rate. They've been underpaying for years.

I pay more for a band B in Stockport than someone in band B in city centre Birmingham pays.

Objectively, Brummies have to pay for their services if they want them. That's how this works.

Have you seen local government finances? The VAST majority goes on health and social care for elderly people, alongside education and a smattering of transport. The budgets are bloody tight, and Birmingham was mismanaged and failed to raise the rates in line with costs.

Because the cost of repairing 15 years of neglect is much much more than one years tax take.

a black and brown dog is sitting on a grey couch ALT: a black and brown dog is sitting on a grey couch

I've settled on hunger games mockingjay but this isn't what I want.

Give me recommendations please

I have a cold and I've been dragged to London for work and I'm in a spoons, desperately looking for something to watch on my laptop, and waiting for my food to arrive.

I don't think anyone has ever had it this hard actually.

Oh sure, absolutely those two things were the tipping point, but there's a reason I've multiple libraries on my doorstep and it's because I pay for it

Also, coming from Birmingham?

Brums council tax is less than mine for the same band

Like sorry, I get that it has gone up 18% in a couple of years, but your council went bankrupt because you all didn't pay enough. Of course you have to pay more. You can't refuse to pay and moan when they're broke.

I am 4 years old. War in Middle East could wipe out growth in UK living standards.
I am 15 years old. War in Middle East could wipe out growth in UK living standards.
I am 25 years old. War in Middle East could wipe out growth in UK living standards.
I am 34 years old. War in Middle East could wipe

"why are we expected to pay more council tax when there's potholes and nothing works"

You need to pay more council tax to fix the potholes and get things working again. That's what your tax pays for. That's literally how it works.

If you smell toast, you might be having a stroke... a stroke of luck that is. It’s toast time.

US troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’, watchdog alleges Religious freedom group says 200 troops sent complaints of superiors using extremist Christian rhetoric to justify war

"Religious freedom group says 200 troops sent complaints of superiors using extremist Christian rhetoric to justify war."

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Three weeks of mass exposure to Matthew Goodwin’s worldview have not done the Reform brand much good

I'm trying to manage my views of Zack Polanski as a political figure. It's still very early days. That said he makes it impossible not to love him. This exchange is a perfect summation of why ordinary working people have had enough of slippery fuckers who won't just answer a fucking question.

Labours attitudes towards water companies is one of the starkest examples of how they'll do anything to protect the status quo.

The case for water nationalisation is so bloody obvious to everyone - yet they'll do anything they can to keep the failed privatisation experiment.

One of the funniest things to come out of this are the brits who won’t leave Dubai even as it’s being bombed. One influencer adjacent guy went on a live stream on his balcony and said he’d rather be killed by Iran than go back to Wigan

'Misleading' school talks compared student loans to £30 phone contracts Graduates hired to deliver the presentations a decade ago were told to avoid using words like

Of course

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

*out

Oh I include nuclear in my umbrella! It's my major grievance with the Greens too, but I'm hoping if enough sensible people join we can drown our scientific illiteracy

Three US fighter jets mistakenly shot down over Kuwait All six crew members ejected safely in apparent ‘friendly fire’ as Kuwait launches investigation into incident

US air defence system shoots down US planes...

Millions of dollars, spent shooting down millions of dollars.

American taxpayers really are just getting rinsed.

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

165 schoolgirls have also been killed.

Once again, the American-Israeli war machine continues to butcher children.

I'm fed up of the Green transition being seen as some crank left wing thing when energy independence from imported fossil fuels is the *only* thing that keeps our energy sovereign and unaffected by Russian aggression and wars in the middle east.

The last 5 years have proven that point so clearly

It genuinely feels like you cannot fucking move for shit being blamed on Jewish people, and incitement of violence towards Jewish people.

And I'll be frank, the likes of people like Starmer have imo singled us out more as a "fifth column" than an integrated part of society worthy of equality.

Oh great. A Clarksons Farm fanpage with 1.2m followers peddling anti-Semitic dog whistles - ones clearly being understood in the comments.

I'm so fucking tired. This isn't Jewish people. It's colonial capitalist governments. It's American imperialism. The fuck does my aunt have to do with it

Oh have HMRC waiting for them at the airport to declare it all

I don't entirely understand why we should use our tax money to save tax dodgers who moved to a slave state because they didn't want to contribute to our country.

Actually zero sympathy for anyone who visits or moved there and is now stuck.

Let me guess, wealthy people who moved to Dubai to avoid paying taxes now want the countries they moved from to protect them?

Hell of a legacy you’re building there, dummy. It doesn’t matter how many times you plaster your name on buildings and ballrooms in tacky gold letters. Your grave will be one big beautiful public urinal.