Alasdair

Sure, but Blue Labour types never mean “free childcare” when they say these things. They always mean “stick the boot into some people our imagined version of the white working class doesn’t like”.

You can argue about the individual measures (and lots did), and it didn’t save the governing coalition at the next election, but it’s the kind of thing governments should be doing when there’s a short(ish) price shock.

The German government at the time coupled a fairly chunky fuel price cut (30ct/l) with a flat €9/month ticket for all public transport ticket; subsidies for consumer and industrial gas and electricity; €300 “helicopter money” to every tax payer and a one-off tax free allowance on additional pay.

Massive subsidies to get over the price shock - it’s essentially what Germany did in 2022, and it helped somewhat (albeit maybe not enough for the political pain it would cause in Britain).

Yet again, central bankers responding to a price shock with catastrophic rate rises. Madness.

What does this mean, though? Which new laws would the Labour Party bring in to appeal specifically to that social consercatism that aren’t either racist or bigoted?

What do you want Labour to be “socially conservative” about, @connornaismithmp.bsky.social? If you’re going to write things like this, at least have the guts to admit whether it’s trans people, gay people or minorities you want to push under the bus. Or is it all three?

Genuinely forgot they weren’t still racing when I first read this. 👴🏻

“Difficult choices” always seems to mean “whatever I think the bond market will like” and never “maybe the state should step in to spend some money when there’s a massive price shock”.

I think this overlooks the fact that it’s usually a reaction to how white collar work has been made simultaneously abstract and simple, difficult and useless. These people don’t so much want manual labour as they want less alienation, which they imagine seeing a physical output of work giving them.

Every Scot’s worst nightmare. We’ve got to support England next week.

My daughter is 12 weeks old. Scotland have been qualified for the World Cup for her entire life and now Scotland are in the hunt for the Six Nations. I fear this is setting her up for disappointment in later life.

I’m…stunned. #sixnations

AAAARGH.

(A propos of nothing in particular. Just getting it out of the way before the second half of Scotland - France…)

At what point is it ok to wonder if the players are just trying to trigger their relegation clauses for a cheap move…? #spurs

This is even funnier than the tax exiles discovering Dubai is next to Iran.

His wartime leadership was also increasingly erratic and out of touch as the war went on. Peak was from the summer of 1940 until just after the US entry into the war. By 43/44 he was pretty delusional about Britain’s role in the world, coming up with more and more madcap ideas and annoying FDR.

Came to this from a post about Talarico winning the primary, and as a European sitting in the 3rd story of a single stair as we speak, I'm a bit mind blown that it's illegal in the US...

Gaspreis geht durch die Decke: Reiche ruft Taskforce in Deutschland zusammen Der Iran-Krieg hat direkte Auswirkungen auf die europäischen Gaspreise. Ein Land stellt die Produktion von Flüssigerdgas vorübergehend ein.

Mann bin ich froh, das wir Gasheizungen wieder einbauen dürfen. 🙄

www.t-online.de/heim-garten/...

But weirdly, neither is Rachel Reeves? So with a Blue Labour Home Secretary and a Treasury Brained Chancellor, you kind of get…the Tories? (I don’t like the ‘Red Tory’ narrative usually, as the Labour Right are their own kind of awful rather than just being another type of Tory, but in this case…)

And how much long-term damage to the “they’ll all just leave and go to Dubai” argument against a wealth tax in western countries.

Sanchez Is The Moderate Social Democrat Starmer Should Have Been No. 4721

Rescue, no, but if there was a chance they could do a “reverse Ukraine” to the US by supplying the Iranians with air defence gear they could fairly easily replace anyway, you would think they would’ve taken that.

Not saying you’re a fascist. Simply that “high trust” is a dog whistle buzzword that fascists use a lot.

“I want to live in a high-trust society” is what twitter fash types say when they mean they want to live in a town without people of colour. 🤷🏻‍♂️

And I say that from a perspective far to the left of Sanchez.

This is what frustrates me most, really. Sanchez is the moderate social democrat that Starmer should’ve been.

Sorry, but “high trust” is a nonsense far-right dog whistle. Nobody uses it seriously other than to imply that you can’t trust brown people.

Probably just getting the government planes out of harm’s way. Although I wouldn’t put it past the German government.

And they’re not even saying that first bit out loud. Starmer, Macron and Merz put out statements that read almost the same as they would if Iran were the aggressor, not the US/Israel.