CPR Dave

Absolute mugs. That's what they take you for.

Good stuff

"Opening hours Monday to Sunday from 06:00 to 00:00" Good news for when Co op / M and S are closed early on Sundays.

It's not magistrates that are needed, it's judges and they will rattle through these cases whether the loos are working or not. Barristers get a brief fee and a day rate.

I happen to think jury trials are a good idea and the government should be spending efforts making them more efficient and bringing them to court more quickly. However, criminal barristers have a huge conflict of self interest in lengthy delayed jury trials and I've not seen any of them mention that when they argue against these new proposals.

James Barber used to help get the pavements sorted on Lordship Lane, especially if there were "ponding" issues like this. Vote him back in May is my suggestion.

The markets only react if they think there is risk. The fact that runaway inflation has caused enough of an increase in tax receipts to cover spending with a surplus means there is no increased risk. The new tax rises can therefore be spent wholly on benefits without any increase in borrowing, again minimising risk to existing treasury bond lenders.

I doubt it! They lost £11m in the last year on revenues of £47m They blame it on the current economic malaise. I doubt anyone could turn that round.

We do need to pay the tax though because the Labour front bench can't control the back benches. So they have to bribe them with tax and spend policies to preserve their own skin.

Is the budget unremarkable? I would say slapping huge tax increases on businesses and working people to give 30 billion away to people on benefits is worthy of remark.

Zipcar have just announced they are going to cease all UK operations.

"the hundreds of thousands of new, affordable homes are somehow immune to the same market forces" This is because they are usually built very cheaply, they are very unattractive (often because climate change rules limit things like having usable windows), they are built without any thought as to how the new residents will be offered basic services such as GP surgeries, transport links and schools etc, and no one who had any choice would want to live in them. The secondary market for modern new built homes is completely different to older homes that were built with some aesthetic thought.

There's an indicative map here of whi falls foul. Sevreal dozen in SE 22ml. I dont think this is up to date though. And by the time the government have done their "independent" valuations I think we can expect a lot more to fall into this tax trap. https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/11/27/mansion-tax-map-where-the-money-comes-from/

Maybe start with the council before the papers. They often remove dead / damaged trees that are dangerous and replace them with spritely new young tress that are healthy.

The new tax will go up annually by the rate of CPI which is a lot more than 2.6% under this government. but the threshold is not going to be increased by inflation. So soon enough a lot more of you people will be living in mansions that are subject to this tax.