Yes seeing Dua Lipa for less money is certainly more important than getting arrested for terrorism or being sent to jail for words :-)
Somewhat bizarre slant on priorities.
They are gonna have to get the big things right and start to look more unified and competent, its not your vote that will do for them as it seems that is set in stone anyhow. Being a constant cheer leader on here wont save em mate.just a small piece of the pie, stronger measures on immigration controls, Renters rights bill, Employment rights bill, Hillsborough law, Planning & Infrastructure Bill, Regulating Water companies, Public ownership into railways and loads more.
I wasn't expecting the Tories to be called sane this morning I must say:-)Stellar performance from Mahmood yesterday. Be interesting whether the Labour MPs vote for it with many of them representing high immigration areas and therefore, understandably, fearful for their jobs. Mahmood has taken the legs from beneath Reform with that speech and the liklihood is that both Labour and the Tories will benefit with a drift back to the 'main' parties. Having watched Power Ranger Zach (Green Leader) and The Wicked Witch of the South (Reform councillor) shouting at each other (again) on Newsnight I think the rise of the populists has peaked and the next election will, once again, be fought by the relatively sane and centre parties of Labour and the Conservatives.
Whilst some desperately harp on about trans, flags, people being locked up for 'hurty words' etc Labour are getting on with governing and passing legislations like this.
Stellar performance from Mahmood yesterday. Be interesting whether the Labour MPs vote for it with many of them representing high immigration areas and therefore, understandably, fearful for their jobs. Mahmood has taken the legs from beneath Reform with that speech and the liklihood is that both Labour and the Tories will benefit with a drift back to the 'main' parties. Having watched Power Ranger Zach (Green Leader) and The Wicked Witch of the South (Reform councillor) shouting at each other (again) on Newsnight I think the rise of the populists has peaked and the next election will, once again, be fought by the relatively sane and centre parties of Labour and the Conservatives.
They are gonna have to get the big things right and start to look more unified and competent, its not your vote that will do for them as it seems that is set in stone anyhow. Being a constant cheer leader on here wont save em mate.
By their own words they admitted they have had a terrible few weeks with all that Streeting malarkey.
Let's see how the great British public react to their latest attempt at trying to be popular.
Stellar performance from Mahmood yesterday. Be interesting whether the Labour MPs vote for it with many of them representing high immigration areas and therefore, understandably, fearful for their jobs. Mahmood has taken the legs from beneath Reform with that speech and the liklihood is that both Labour and the Tories will benefit with a drift back to the 'main' parties. Having watched Power Ranger Zach (Green Leader) and The Wicked Witch of the South (Reform councillor) shouting at each other (again) on Newsnight I think the rise of the populists has peaked and the next election will, once again, be fought by the relatively sane and centre parties of Labour and the Conservatives.
OK remove the Cayman Islands. How much better does it look now? We're still lagging behind most of our major competitors, and some.The problem with that list is it's basically a who's who of tax havens so you're not really comparing apples with apples. It's not reflective of day to day spending capacity.
GDP itself is flawed, but to seriously compare our economy to the Cayman Islands is silly
I mean technically you're not wrong, but the majority of that list is some combination of micro states/city states, tax havens, and countries with massive oil wealth in a small population. If you remove those countries, the UK is more like 11th or 12th. Even if you don't, it doesn't necessarily mean the population are seeing the benefits of that GDP per capita anyway. A perfect example is Ireland, who apparently have $107k GDP per capita to the UK's $54k, yet if you look at median wages of the population, are actually about $3k a year lower (PPP) or $230 a month higher (nominal) depending on which set of stats you believe. Either way, that massive GDP per capita earned by running a tax dodging scheme for huge corporations doesn't seem to have trickled down to the wages of ordinary workers, certainly not without an equally huge increase in living costs.Absolutely. It's total fallacy to think that we are near the top of the pile, sadly. And it's worse than I remembered. According to the IMF (2025) the following countries are better off than us in raw GDP per capita terms:
Rank Country GDP per Capita (USD)
1 Tax haven $256,581
2 Tax haven $201,150
3 Tax haven $141,080
4 Tax haven $125,842
5 Tax haven $111,716
6 Tax haven $107,243
7 Tax haven $97,583
8 Tax haven $93,956
9 Oil rich small country $90,320
10 Tax haven $90,111
11 United States $89,678
12 Tax haven $84,276
13 Oil rich small country $72,760
14 Denmark $71,967
15 Netherlands $70,606
16 Australia $67,979
17 Micro state $61,518
18 Austria $61,080
19 Sweden $59,508
20 Belgium $58,248
21 Germany $57,914
22 Finland $57,183
23 Canada $55,890
24 Micro state $55,608
25 Israel $54,370
We are 26th with $54,280. Allowing for how much your money actually buys you (Purchasing Power Parity, PPP) we are 31st! Just look at the list of countries where people are better off than we are in the UK. It's really quite depressing.
Ireland (FFS) has a population of about half of London. Yes, they have a very beneficial tax regime for business that leads to the following statement:OK remove the Cayman Islands. How much better does it look now? We're still lagging behind most of our major competitors, and some.
The other thing is, why don't we try having a competitively low business taxes and incentives, like say Ireland? Their GDP per capita is 2x ours. Ireland FFS.
Why do you think Google (Alphabet Inc.), Apple, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Intel, Pfizer, Airbnb, PayPal, LinkedIn, eBay, Twitter / X Corp., IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, Dell Technologies, Oracle, Cisco, Salesforce, TikTok (ByteDance), HubSpot, Stryker, Boston Scientific, Abbott Laboratories, Accenture, Qualcomm, Adobe, VMware (Broadcom), Workday, Electronic Arts - are all HQ'd in Ireland?
Don't you think that would be good for our economy? This is just one example of how LOWER TAXES makes everyone better off. And higher taxes makes everyone worse off.
It's not. It's a demonstration of how lower taxes can make your country appear rich on paper, per capita, if you have a very small population, and basically run a bunch of massive corporations' profits through the books in your country. Large countries can't do that, because large countries are the ones actually generating those profits in the first place, and tax havens like Ireland are 'getting rich' (not that it's translated to the wages of ordinary people) by effectively allowing companies to avoid taxes on wealth created in those bigger markets. It's just absolute bollocks that a country of 60 or 70 million can get rich by following the model of some microstate or tax haven.Don't you think that would be good for our economy? This is just one example of how LOWER TAXES makes everyone better off. And higher taxes makes everyone worse off.
Ireland (FFS) has a population of about half of London. Yes, they have a very beneficial tax regime for business that leads to the following statement:
"The high GDP per capita figure is influenced by the tax and restructuring activities of these multinationals and doesn't reflect the living standards of the average citizen as well as other metrics might"- so maybe "EVERYONE" is not necessarily better off.
Of course it would be good if they had their European HQ in the UK, but guess what, 52% of the population decided to make it more difficult for a corporation to operate from the UK across the rest of the biggest trading block on the planet.
It's not. It's a demonstration of how lower taxes can make your country appear rich on paper, per capita, if you have a very small population, and basically run a bunch of massive corporations' profits through the books in your country. Large countries can't do that, because large countries are the ones actually generating those profits in the first place, and tax havens like Ireland are 'getting rich' (not that it's translated to the wages of ordinary people) by effectively allowing companies to avoid taxes on wealth created in those bigger markets. It's just absolute bollocks that a country of 60 or 70 million can get rich by following the model of some microstate or tax haven.
And I thought it was only me!I mean technically you're not wrong, but the majority of that list is some combination of micro states/city states, tax havens, and countries with massive oil wealth in a small population. If you remove those countries, the UK is more like 11th or 12th. Even if you don't, it doesn't necessarily mean the population are seeing the benefits of that GDP per capita anyway. A perfect example is Ireland, who apparently have $107k GDP per capita to the UK's $54k, yet if you look at median wages of the population, are actually about $3k a year lower (PPP) or $230 a month higher (nominal) depending on which set of stats you believe. Either way, that massive GDP per capita earned by running a tax dodging scheme for huge corporations doesn't seem to have trickled down to the wages of ordinary workers, certainly not without an equally huge increase in living costs.
One thing I would say is that, if I remember rightly, in about 2014/15, the UK, Netherlands and Germany all had roughly the same GDP per capita. Then something happened in 2016 that allowed those two to quickly pull away from the UK over the next 9 years.
we live in times of constant scorn and negative rhetoric, nothing will please. the media will make sure of that.
It’s been like that for the last 15 years.
It’s nothing new.
Stellar performance from Mahmood yesterday. Be interesting whether the Labour MPs vote for it with many of them representing high immigration areas and therefore, understandably, fearful for their jobs. Mahmood has taken the legs from beneath Reform with that speech and the liklihood is that both Labour and the Tories will benefit with a drift back to the 'main' parties. Having watched Power Ranger Zach (Green Leader) and The Wicked Witch of the South (Reform councillor) shouting at each other (again) on Newsnight I think the rise of the populists has peaked and the next election will, once again, be fought by the relatively sane and centre parties of Labour and the Conservatives.
Sitting govts have always and will continue to receive criticism. The job they have is too important not to comment on. I would agree however that there are cynics and cap doffers in this world.we live in times of constant scorn and negative rhetoric, nothing will please. the media will make sure of that.