But only the Lib Dems have dodgy bar charts.

Keir Starmer to woo voters and MPs with new year plan to cut cost of living PM to highlight energy bill and interest rate cuts, plus end to two-child benefit cap, and to invite his MPs to Chequers

I find it interesting that this article is written in terms of what Labour have already done:
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

If this is the work there needs to be a substantive promise of more, with actual noticeable change.

My favourite "well actually" is that the tuition fee reforms of the coalition meant monthly repayments (ie what people saw in their payslips) were lower for the new (coalition) approach than the old (Labour) approach. But of course fees went up. And taxes have gone up in real terms under Labour.

IHT is only double taxation if VAT is double taxation, and stamp duty is double taxation, and so on. The key point is that money moves around and there are taxes after various transactions. Why should IHT be any different?

Imagine if the BBC had actually done what Mason suggests, on Brexit!

Surely the immigration numbers are a disaster for any government with a number one priority of growth, and urgent action is needed to increase the numbers again? ;)

The updated net migration figures are a disaster for any government with a number one priority of growth.

Doing it piecemeal surely makes it more likely they have to come back needing more yet again next year (especially if the reason for the economy doing 'better' is inflation so pay awards etc will be higher with more spending). So they are just dragging the political misery out into the longer term.

And I'm sure the free speech union will be along any minute to complain about this decision from the BBC... [silence]

See, the good news is that I live off hot air.

That won't be as radical as activists would like, but it would need to be - for want of a better word - liberal.

But also a gap between where the voters are and where the party leadership are.

Given how similar Lab and LD voters are, there is a genuine opportunity for the LDs to pick up those disgruntled with the government...but that requires the LD leadership to say something that appeals.

Plus changing the thresholds will be seen as a tax rise. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.

"The finances are actually better now so no need to raise taxes" also just delays the tax raises to the next budget rather than doing the difficult thing now. It just gives multiple years of bad headlines instead of a few months.

This is fascinating, and yet another study that Labour and Lib Dem voters (as with issue polling) are pretty much indistinguishable - at this stage they are separated mostly by simply which seat they live in, rather than any specific views.

Labour's approach to the world is so victim blame-y. Far right people are doing bad things, best to be meaner to refugees. Same with the approach on trans rights. And so on. And so on.

Listening to the FT podcast (given the cricket situation) and @stephenkb.bsky.social is spot on: "since [the general election] we have had a government which can only bring itself to condemn racism every six months".

When Labour got into power into power I wasn't overly optimistic that they would be "better" on migrants rights, trans and non-binary rights, human rights etc, but even I didn't expect them to be so much worse than the last government on all of them. 1/

To be fair to Labour, when Lib Dems were going "the Tories governing alone would be worse" during coalition, the Labour party was very understanding and accepting of this argument.

BREAKING: The UK’s response to Covid was “too little, too late”, a damning official report on the handling of the pandemic has concluded, saying the introduction of a lockdown even a week earlier than happened could have saved more than 20,000 lives.

Covid inquiry: Lockdown could have been avoided and other key findings The long-awaited report is published into how well or badly the government handled the Covid pandemic.

Eh? How on earth is this your headline, BBC News website, when surely the main finding of the report is that tens of thousands of people died unnecessarily because, on more than one occasion and for all sorts of reasons (complacency, toxic culture etc.), those in charge didn't lockdown early enough?

VERY funny that Labour are being pointlessly cruel and haemorrhaging support from their base and yet none of what they're offering is ever going to be enough for the people whose approval they're seeking, WHO could have predicted it

[or even KC. Old habits etc etc]

Do you think Sir Keir Starmer, QC, thinks that it's right that the courts minister is able to decide who is guilty _before the trial_?

www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov...

The EHRC want to exclude women from femal single-sex spaces based on how "female" they look.

This is off the scale sexism and misogyny.

Millions of women will face harassment as result of this insanity.

Because clearly you already know before the trial whether someone is guilty.

I don't use the word lightly, but this is really just evil isn't it. "Your identity makes us uncomfortable so be gone from public spaces." Fuck off.

Today is Trans Day of Remembrance.

Today we remember and grieve all those we have lost. But we also commit – collectively – to fighting for those of us who are left. There will be hope as long as we continue to stand together.
https://goodlaw.social/n1jn

Starting point: trans men are men, trans women are women, and non-binary identities are real and valid.

I feel the biggest lesson of the Caerphilly by-election was that the 'Not-Reform' block in a Labour-held seat is able to quickly and relatively easily move to a candidate that is also 'Not-Labour'.