Current Affairs

[barney]

Another is that it was spontaneous.
Not true.
Can’t be with a printed itinerary.

[Bensham33]

Sir Keir Starmer.....One curry dinner after a hard days campaigning, okay perhaps a party. No lies to parliament no lies to the British people. The police have already investigated and found no rules were broken. Sir Keir has been up front and honest about what happened not one single Labour MP has spoken out and wants Sir Keir to resign but he will resign if it's found rules were broken and he broke the law.

Boris Johnson....fixed penalty fine. Over 50 parties in No10 and counting. Lie after lie after lie to parliament and the British people. Still Johnson won't accept that he's done nothing wrong.

The Tories really are the nasty party. They get a kicking in the local elections and suddenly 'beergate' rears its ugly head.

What Sir Keir did or didn't do bears no resemblance to what happened in Downing Street. If Sir Keir resigns there will of course be an election to find a new leader. I think you will find that Sir Keir will be re elected unopposed.

[Mervyn and Trish]

One or two errors there. It has never been suggested there were 50 parties in Downing Street. The alleged number is a lot fewer and they were in Whitehall, not all in Downing Street. 50 was the number of fines issued, most to Civil Servants, not politicians. It has never been alleged Boris was present at more than 1 or 2 occasions.

The police have not already investigated Beergate. They are only now doing so after more information emerged.

The latest twists in Beergate began to emerge before the local elections, not after. It was the police that didn't announce their investigation until after the election.

It is emerging that on several details Sir H has not been up front or honest.

And he now only has himself to blame. It was he who kept on being holier than thou and banging on about Partygate and is now hoist by his own petard.

And in the local elections the Tories lost seats as always happens in mid term, but not as many as expected, and Labour were not the big winners on the night. So don't take if for granted Sir H will be re-elected if he stands down. The party may realise he's not the man for the job and take the chance to get rid.

[barney]

It’s amazing how people can look at exactly the same information and come to different conclusions due to preconceived prejudice.
I’ve been a Labour voter and member for many years and I can see the hypocrisy.
I suppose it’s a bit like the Harry saga.
If you support him and his wife, you’ll tolerate any old bull shite.
When Starmer is investigated and the police have finished, we’ll know conclusively whether they thought that he and all of the attendees broke the law, as it stood at that time.

[david63]

Personally I couldn't care less about beergate, or partygate, but what I do find with Starmer is that he is now doing what he has been doing for that last two years and that is playing politics with Covid.

[towny44]

I don't think any of them have committed a grievous sin, it may have been technically against the spirit of the covid rules, but, IMO, whilst most people tried their best to follow the covid guidelines, most of us bent the rules a little bit occasionally, including probably many politicians of all persuasions. So to pick off the higher profile offenders in this way seems manifestly unfair, although I know many puritans will totally disagree with me.

[oldbluefox]

"Angela Rayner was present at Sir Keir Starmer lockdown beers, Labour confirm.
The party acknowledges it previously told journalists she was not present at the gathering last April when coronavirus restrictions were in force, but say it was a "mistake made in good faith".

[Kendhni]

Personally I couldn't care less about beergate, or partygate, but what I do find with Starmer is that he is now doing what he has been doing for that last two years and that is playing politics with Covid.

It isn't the parties and a drink or a pizza that is the big deal to most (although I accept that some have been very upset by the hypocrisy and double standards of the current batch of politicians) ... the majority of people will have bent the lockdown rules to suit themselves. It is the total inability to be honest and stand up and take responsibility that is the bigger problem.

Johnson appears to have decided to play low profile on this, and quite rightly so, for several reasons. There are many more fines to be issued over partygate, there is the Sue Gray report (which is already reported to be damning), but most of all, Starmer could well have enough integrity to resign if found guilty ... and if he does that Johnson will be shamed yet again.

I am not sure about your statement of 'playing politics', that goes across the board, and even exhibited by many 'seasoned' politicians ... there is no doubt that British politics is currently striving to reach the bottom. On the plus side I look forward to what will be unveiled tomorrow ... maybe then we might learn what conservatism means within the UK, what their policies are and see if they have managed to come up with any ideas on how to tackle the current economic and political crisis that the UK is in.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Is anyone else concerned as I am about the energy boss's idea to hand £1000 to the poorest consumers to offset their energy bills? I agree 100% something needs to be done. My concern about this one is the nature of the proposal. A flat £1000 for some, nothing for others. Whatever the means test would be to hand it out if it helps 10m homes, as suggested, the one in the 10,000,001 position on the poverty ladder suddenly becomes the worst off, potentially £999.99p worse off than the last one who got it. Surely any help, while being skewed towards the poorest, has to be on a progressive sliding scale so it doesn't simply turn the poverty scale upside down.

[Kendhni]

Giving people money does not work ... when someone gets something for free then they place no value on it, leading to abuse.

I have always (for over 20 years now) suggested the introduction of domestic stepped tariffs ... the first X units per month at a consistent low price, and then each Y units after that are priced at increasingly higher rates. The size and pricing of 'X' should be set by parliament and covers the very basics of heat/energy based on a small household ... possibly adjusted per month/season (it should be expected that all households will go into the second price step). The number of steps (at least 2) and pricing thereafter is managed by the utility companies to provide revenue for capital expenditure and profits.

I already know that at least some of the systems used by major utility companies can already handle this sort of pricing model.

[Onelife]

Sir Merv/Ken, with posts like these you’ll have people thinking you are nearly as clever as me.

[Ray B]

That's a cracker Onelife, it's the way you tell 'em.

[Manoverboard]

Certainly not me ... I'de never think OL was as clever as Sir Merv

[Mervyn and Trish]

Certainly not me ... I'de never think OL was as clever as Sir Merv

Oh I don't know. It's a pretty low bar to be honest.

I see old Sir H-H is banging on about a windfall tax again. I have no problem with it in principle, the profits the oil companies are making while their customers struggle are obscene. But it has the same problem as the £1000 giveaway idea. Where do you draw the line?

And there is another problem with both ideas. They are one year solutions. In 12 months we're back to square one.

We need more original longer term thinking. Maybe help the worse off with financial planning for a start. To give a real world example my daughter is poorly paid and I recently helped her review her regular outgoings. One thing I spotted was she was paying £71 a month to Sky. It was one of those deals that started off cheap then after 18 months hiked up and relied on customer inertia not to cancel it. And she never actually watched the programmes she was paying for. So a simple switch to a basic fast broadband and calls deal has saved her £500 a year, every year. Enough to cover her increased energy bills. At no cost to the taxpayer.

[towny44]

Certainly not me ... I'de never think OL was as clever as Sir Merv

Oh I don't know. It's a pretty low bar to be honest.

I see old Sir H-H is banging on about a windfall tax again. I have no problem with it in principle, the profits the oil companies are making while their customers struggle are obscene. But it has the same problem as the £1000 giveaway idea. Where do you draw the line?

And there is another problem with both ideas. They are one year solutions. In 12 months we're back to square one.

We need more original longer term thinking. Maybe help the worse off with financial planning for a start. To give a real world example my daughter is poorly paid and I recently helped her review her regular outgoings. One thing I spotted was she was paying £71 a month to Sky. It was one of those deals that started off cheap then after 18 months hiked up and relied on customer inertia not to cancel it. And she never actually watched the programmes she was paying for. So a simple switch to a basic fast broadband and calls deal has saved her £500 a year, every year. Enough to cover her increased energy bills. At no cost to the taxpayer.

Not forgetting that the increased profits will already result in a "windfall" tax anyway.

[Gill W]

"Angela Rayner was present at Sir Keir Starmer lockdown beers, Labour confirm.
The party acknowledges it previously told journalists she was not present at the gathering last April when coronavirus restrictions were in force, but say it was a "mistake made in good faith".

This is the thing, I’ve searched all over the place, and there’s been nothing in the media about her being there, until it was reported in the last week. It hasn’t been an issue until now. Labour appear to have clarified the situation quickly when it became an issue. Which must be better than saying that there had to be an enquiry and nobody could say anything until the outcome of the enquiry was known - this response has been fairly standard with the Conservatives recently,

[oldbluefox]

This was reported on various news outlets on 29th April, not as you say, reported in the last week. I'm surprised Starmer didn't realise his deputy was there with him.

[Onelife]

Certainly not me ... I'de never think OL was as clever as Sir Merv

You need to spend more time in my company Mob

[Onelife]

That's a cracker Onelife, it's the way you tell 'em.

[david63]

the profits the oil companies are making while their customers struggle are obscene

What I am failing to get my head around is why are these companies making such vast additional profits?

Now my simplistic approach to business is that the oil company buys a product (oil) at, say, £b. They then add on their costs (£b) and something for profit (£c). They then sell that product for £a+£b+£c = £d to themselves and then add on their costs (£e) and profit (£f) and sell to Joe Public for £d+£e+£f = £g.

Not sure why they have to sell it to themselves but ignoring that so far so good.

Now as I see it the are only two ways that they can make more profit:
1. They sell more product - in the current climate that is hard to believe, but if it is true then all is well as that is what happens in business.
2. The amount that they add on for profit, and possibly costs, is a percentage of the price at which they are buying the product. Therefore if the cost of the product rises then so do their profits.

If this is the case then the business model is wrong because if the amount that they added on for profit remained the same then so would their total profit (assuming the same level of sales). So the answer is simple the Government cap the level of profit at source to be the same as the previous year and that way there is an instant, and constant, reduction in price to the consumer.

So can somebody tell me what I am missing? (This can be over a beer and curry )

[Kendhni]

The one thing you are missing is 'supply and demand'.
As we come out of COVID and industries open up the demand for 'energy' has soared. With Russia not being flavour of the month there is more competition for oil and gas making the price highly volatile (in particular LPG demand has soared since it can be shipped rather than piped). If, for example, our government decides to enforce a profit cap then the companies will just sell to a higher bidder (there are plenty willing to pay) ... no government wants to tell its population that they cannot secure a supply of oil and gas and ultimately electricity.

Another (lesser) reason for the windfall is that many oil companies cancelled large scale capital investment projects within Russia ... meaning they have not spent/invested that money ... yet!!

Interestingly, demand for oil actually dropped in China in March ... expect more hikes and volatility when they remove city wide lockdowns and their economy opens up ... not forgetting hikes as other countries stop using Russian oil/gas and start competing on the open market for their supply. Given reports that Putin may draw his 'special operation' out for many more months (if not years) then it is likely to be a while before this situation stabilises again ... some governments have mentioned the 'rationing' word already.

[Frank Manning]

Sir Keir Starmer.....One curry dinner after a hard days campaigning, okay perhaps a party. No lies to parliament no lies to the British people. The police have already investigated and found no rules were broken. Sir Keir has been up front and honest about what happened not one single Labour MP has spoken out and wants Sir Keir to resign but he will resign if it's found rules were broken and he broke the law.

Boris Johnson....fixed penalty fine. Over 50 parties in No10 and counting. Lie after lie after lie to parliament and the British people. Still Johnson won't accept that he's done nothing wrong.

The Tories really are the nasty party. They get a kicking in the local elections and suddenly 'beergate' rears its ugly head.

What Sir Keir did or didn't do bears no resemblance to what happened in Downing Street. If Sir Keir resigns there will of course be an election to find a new leader. I think you will find that Sir Keir will be re elected unopposed.

I agree Ben. The Daily Wail has led this campaign against Sir Keir with inflammatory headlines largely with the council elections in mind . The Gammon lap it up, none of them capable of serious consideration as long as they can chant "suck it up". I am afraid that the Tories has my vote for the last time some years ago.

[Gill W]

This was reported on various news outlets on 29th April, not as you say, reported in the last week. I'm surprised Starmer didn't realise his deputy was there with him.

Two weeks then - but nothing about it for the previous year.

[towny44]

This was reported on various news outlets on 29th April, not as you say, reported in the last week. I'm surprised Starmer didn't realise his deputy was there with him.

Two weeks then - but nothing about it for the previous year.

I am surprised you are surprised, it took 12 months for the first party gate stories to hit the media.

[Mervyn and Trish]

I agree Ben. The Daily Wail has led this campaign against Sir Keir with inflammatory headlines largely with the council elections in mind . The Gammon lap it up, none of them capable of serious consideration as long as they can chant "suck it up".

That's it Frank. Wheel out the insults. A sure sign there is no intelligent argument forthcoming. I presume you believe every word in the Guardian but missed the left wing press whipping up partygate hysteria? Oh sorry I forgot, there is no left wing press. Just the right wing press and the truth. Or Pravda as I believe the Russians called it.