Tom Joyce retweeted
If it's as reported, the 'quadruple lock' creates a new and nasty cliff edge in the tax system. If you earn £1 extra as a pensioner, you'll get taxed on the proportion of the state pension above the income tax threshold (currently £466). So £1 in earnings -> £93 in tax.
Tom Joyce retweeted
Why should a pensioner on a £13K income be exempt from income tax when a person of working age is not? Those of working age do not receive free travel or all sorts of other discounts to which pensioners are entitled. We do not exempt people from tax based on how many dependents they have, or how much housing in their area costs, so why exempt individuals based on age?
John Healey, the chancellor, is expected to announce a 3.9 per cent rise to the full state pension while protecting those on lower incomes from income tax thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…
Tom Joyce retweeted
Best anecdote in Carol Thatcher's book about her father is when Sir Denis boarded a train at Paddington in which the only empty compartment was reserved for Rosewood Psychiatric Hospital.
Denis travelled alone and in comfort as far as Reading when "all these chaps piled in", accompanied by a male nurse, who counted them before the train moved off.
'One, two, three, four ... who are you?"
"I'm the Prime Minister's husband."
"Six, seven, eight, nine..."
Tom Joyce retweeted
The volume of propaganda pumped out by the BBC—even, as we now know, unto the embedding of government staff inside the corporation—is gobsmacking in itself, but it also exposes the fatuousness of people who obsess about GBNews.
BREAKING: BBC forced to take down its education website used by millions after it was found to contain all sorts of devices and articles promoting the Labour Party, leftist politics, as well as ‘extreme views on migration and Net Zero’ (via @DailyMail) dailymail.com/news/article-1…
Tom Joyce retweeted
It is hardly surprising that someone open to rejoining the EU would be open to free movement.
Burnham's romanticised picture of EU membership ignores the fact that we literally had no idea who was coming into the country before 2016. We were always told there were 3 million EU citizens in Britain. When we counted them we discovered there were 6 million.
Any attempt to return to free movement has to reckon with the fact that a country like Spain has legalised the status of a million plus illegal migrants since then, and with the very visible tensions and anxieties amongst EU member states on the subject.
There can be no viable policy which doesn't involve HMG having full control over who comes into this country. We aren't there at the moment, but we will need to get there in the end. Andy Burnham may not understand this now, but he will have to do so eventually.
❗️EXCLUSIVE❗️
Andy Burnham has opened the door to Britain rejoining the EU’s free movement rules, arguing an “honest discussion” about the idea is needed
The PM said the nature of immigration has been “different” since Brexit, with more foreigners moving permanently to the UK rather than returning home
Burnham noted how his father, Roy, an engineer, took advantage of the EU rules in the 1990s to work in Germany
He also said since leaving the bloc Britain has lost access to ‘Eurodac’, an EU database on border crossings
“I think you have to have a very factual, quite evidence-based debate about this,” he said
Burnham made clear staying out of free movement would **not** be a red line for talks (unlike adopting the Euro or rejoining the Schengen Area)
Burnham made the comments to me in one of four interviews conducted during his first 100 days in office. All unpacked in tomorrow’s Sunday Times.
It’s big news. Free movement seen as a key reason why the country voted Brexit in 2016. No PM has made the argument for potentially rejoining since… until now.
(Important to note: Burnham accepts there were ‘very significant challenges’ too with free movement. Hasn’t reached a firm decision yes or no. He continues to mull over ‘options’ for closer EU ties)
KEY BURNHAM QUOTE
“Freedom of movement had very significant challenges associated with it and I spoke about them in my previous time in Parliament. But, at the same time, it was a type of immigration that perhaps wasn’t as difficult (as now).
“Revolving door migration where people would come and then go back is different. The balance of migration has changed, hasn’t it, since then? I think we’ve just got to have an honest discussion about those things.”
Read the full story here:
‘Andy Burnham is open to adopting EU free movement’
thetimes.com/article/491a046…
Tom Joyce retweeted
Andy Burnham is the platonic midwit. No wonder he's popular with a portion of the electorate. He's the personification of representative government, in that he represents the British public in all its idiocy, shallowness and unseriousness - but he can emote, so it's fine.
Tom Joyce retweeted
It's like they actually want everyone to leave. ...The HMRC letter asking rich people to reveal what they own
thetimes.com/article/1d92cd6…
Tom Joyce retweeted
For Sale:- Porsche 911 Turbo S (Type 991.1)
Guards Red with Black Seat.
Supplied new from OPC Cambridge when I was the boss.
2 x careful former owners who are too big for it now.
Horn works.
Minor age related marks.
£50 collection only in St Albans
First to reply will buy
Tom Joyce retweeted
Zionism is a historic term that doesn’t make sense in the current context. It means you believe Israel has a right to exist, which it does. It has *already been* established and, despite repeated genocidal efforts by Muslim armies to annihilate it, it *still* exists. Being an ‘anti-Zionist’ in this context can only mean that you want to eradicate that tiny state. No other state on earth, just that one. Whether that’s because you’re antisemitic, or just coincidentally want the tiny sliver of democratic non-Muslim land to be conquered by Islam and destroyed, is to some extent a moot point. The debate is between people who want to destroy a state full of Jews that already exists, and those who don’t.
Tom Joyce retweeted
Problem Andy Burnham has with appearing on the Gogglebox sofa is the juxtaposition with his Defence Secretary telling the population to prepare for a national emergency while not giving us any sense the govt is making its own preparations to keep us safe. It just looks unserious.
Tom Joyce retweeted
I would like to give my informed consent to be putting back on display at Kelvingrove, I dont like it in this cupboard with the mops and buckets
@GlasgowCC
Tom Joyce retweeted
Now, states do this to businesses all the time--rideshare, suntanning beds, what have you. But a personal wealth tax is, well, personal. If the initiative passes, California will be levying a unique tax on a small number of persons. It is adversarial.
Obviously being a loose forward is easier than being in the front row. You can tell by the way there's no need to nominate soecifically trained and experienced players to play there...
Tom Joyce retweeted
Minimum pricing is working so well that Scotland needs higher alcohol taxes, says grifting, state-funded pressure group. heraldscotland.com/news/2666…
Tom Joyce retweeted
Repeal. We can't just accept a new bad status quo that doesn't fix the issues that it was created to solve.
And yet the New Statesman is putting out hagiographic tests about him...
Tom Joyce retweeted
A Jewish child had to explain why gas chamber taunts were wrong. Now adults are sneering at evidence of antisemitism in schools. What the fuck has happened to this country? My latest on the Bell report and the people trying to discredit it.
mrandrewfox.substack.com/p/t…
Tom Joyce retweeted
Reminder that the Russians are creating a catastrophic situation in the Sahel which will drive refugees into North Africa and Europe.
Mali’s armed forces and the allied Russia-controlled Africa Corps have committed new atrocities against civilians in central Mali during renewed fighting.
Concerned governments and international institutions should press the Malian authorities to conduct credible investigations into military abuses. hrw.org/news/2026/10/22/mali…
Tom Joyce retweeted
A few days ago the New Statesman egregiously compared Sally Rooney (whose own publisher pulled her books from UK bookshelves with her approval) to the plight of Salmon Rushdie (who has a fatwa against him and lost sight an eye when someone attempted to murder him).
Now they are describing Owen Jones as a ‘man of enormous courage, integrity, and truthfulness’ the day after he called a government report on antisemitism in British schools a ‘travesty’.
Not great.
Owen Jones has, for the last three years, revealed himself to be a man of enormous courage, integrity and truthfulness. No one should think for a minute that his relentless defence of Palestinian rights and historical truth is easy or comes without heavy personal costs. Throughout the genocide in Gaza, Jones remained a tireless bur rigorous and supremely decent voice. I suspect part of what initially moved him was the strong displeasure in being treated like an idiot by the official propaganda – a noble motive in itself – but there is no question he has been genuinely touched by the images of suffering arriving daily from Gaza. And yet, how does his intellectual fixation on a battle between left and right help us understand the horrors of Gaza, or move us to stop them? My impression is that the opposite has happened. People look at what is happening in Gaza and ask themselves what a person on the right or on the left should think. In many cases this is ideology. In most, simply careerism and group association. Jones shows how limited the perspective really is. How about, like the author himself, asking how a human being should feel? How about returning to the world of facts and feelings rather than our endless Marvel franchise? newstatesman.com/culture/boo…
