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Reply | Monmouth
at 22:07 5 Mar 2025
What’s the river like there these days? There’s been a lot of fuss about the run off from chicken factories further up the line killing the river. |
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Reply | All this Budget Speculation
at 17:41 5 Mar 2025
There’s plenty of people out there struggling, but let’s be honest there’s a lot of people taking the p….
I’m all in favour of supporting those who genuinely can’t work and pensioners who’ve made their contribution, but those who haven’t worked because they can’t be asked are a different kettle of fish. We need to introduce work for the dole, get people off their backsides and away from their telly’s and get them doing things 37.5 hours a week. |
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Reply | Drakeford to Increase Income Tax in Wales?
at 17:36 5 Mar 2025
Totally agree with you, people living near Cardiff will bail out to Bristol, Gloucester and Hereford. It could cause a haemorrhaging of doctors, consultants and other top professionals.
There are issues in need of addressing, but the bottom line here is WG should look at their own house before looking to take money out of peoples pockets. Drakers just needs to ….. off. |
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Reply | US/UK/EU - the way forward
at 16:36 4 Mar 2025
Based on what we’ve seen so far, I’d agree with a lot of your comments.
We’ll have to wait and see how things pan out in the US, but the Republicans and their allies have played a blinder while the Democrats have had a mare.
Musk bought Twitter and calls the tunes on Social Media, that’s a huge weapon in the disinformation arsenal. Biden has been much criticised in the media, by Trump etc and his backers and deemed by many to be unfit for office, the Democrats then turned to Harris who has also been heavily criticsed and but more importantly didn’t command enough support.
The Democrats need to find a new candidate if they want to have a serious run at JDVance next time out, they need someone who is clean cut, has integrity, straight (I’m not being homophonic just pointing out that to command the level of support to win the election in the US they need to attract support from across large parts of the US which as a country can be very bigoted) and be able to appeal to the masses from the white, black and Hispanic communities. That’s a big ask - and with so many of the wealthy pumping cash in to GOP getting the message across is a tough ask. [Post edited 4 Mar 17:40]
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Reply | Nathan Gill accused of taking Russian bribes ...
at 16:24 4 Mar 2025
Ineos didn't decide to pull the plug on Bridgend until 2020, that’s 4 years after the Brexit vote. Fe announced the closure of Bridgend in 2019, - 3 years after the Brexit vote.
In terms of Brexit failing, the responsibility for ensuring its success and sabotaging the will of the people - I agree with you that its been poorly handled but part of the problem is that lots of people have different views about what Brexit should look like and given that there are so many fragmented views on what Brexit should look like it was never going to satisfy everyone. For example I’m happy to go along with Brexit, but I don’t want this ultra hard no deal Brexit that many on the very right have championed.
What is clear, is that we’ve been let down by our “leaders.” Immigration was a huge issue for many, taking control of our borders etc etc, but all we’ve done is replaced Eastern European migrants with Asian and African migrants and the numbers have increased drastically. |
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Reply | Increase in defence spending
at 22:34 27 Feb 2025
I welcome the increase in defence spending which is long overdue. Our armed forces have been dev8mated over the last 20 odd years and that needs to be reversed, the commitment to increase spending to 2.5% is most welcome and we will hopefully see a lot of the cash being spent here in the U.K.
Over and above the increase in spending, what we also need to see is some grip and oversight on our procurement and spending, the number of projects which have over run by tens and hundreds of millions and in some cases (2 x aircraft carriers) billions over spent.
Someone I know working in London told me that some of the government contracts are managed and run by consultants who are in no rush to see contracts completed because finishing the job derails the gravy train - we need some one to sort it. |
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Reply | Mike Amesbury jail sentence
at 22:25 27 Feb 2025
Yes, I’ve reflected and thought about it a bit more since my original post, especially with the other aspects of the sentence being introduced.
He should do the decent thing and tender his resignation, but I’m not convinced that will happen. I sincerely hope his constituents boot him out. |
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Reply | Mike Amesbury jail sentence
at 19:07 27 Feb 2025
The judge who initially sentenced Amesbury was a deputy district judge and junior to the judge who reviewed the sentence today. There’s no doubt Amesbury deserved a stretch, but I was surprised given the fact we’re releasing people early he didn’t get a suspended sentence.
There’s judge hearing the case today was sitting with two magistrates at Crown Court and he also ordered Amesbury to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work. Amesbury must also undertake an alcohol monitoring programme, go on an anger management course, and carry out 20 days of rehabilitation work.
Was Amesbury out of order, absolutely. Is he a danger to the wider society, if he’s never been in trouble before and this is a 1 off I’d argue he isn’t, especially given the rehabilitative measures in the sentence.
Does Amesbury deserve to lose his job - absolutely. Is he fit to be an MP, in my opinion the answer is noand he’s not the only one.
I hope the citizens in his constituency boot him out at the first available opportunity. |
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Reply | Liar Johnson
at 23:32 25 Feb 2025
It’s very easy to be impressive when everything is scripted, no one is allowed to ask the hard questions and anyone that does dare ask some serious questions ends up in a Gulag. It’s a procession of lies. |
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Reply | Liar Johnson
at 23:29 25 Feb 2025
He admitted the offence in Court by pleading guilty, how is that lying? |
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Reply | Mike Amesbury jail sentence
at 23:21 25 Feb 2025
That would be the case in most places, and if it weren’t immediate it would follow as a result of some disciplinary investigation or process.
He’ll get his comeuppance, but we have to go through the existing process first. |
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Reply | Wind power is important
at 23:02 24 Feb 2025
Once you’re outside the main towns, there are a lot of people who don’t have gas.
Heat pumps aren’t rubbish, on a new house they are excellent, but they aren’t suited to older properties.
One of my brother in laws and a couple of his mates have built a few high end houses to sell. The properties are timber frame with a brick outer skin and the amount of insulation in them is unreal. They’ve got quilted insulation on the inside of external walls plus another around 6 inches of Rockwool insulation on top of that, they are very warm and energy efficient. [Post edited 25 Feb 17:46]
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Reply | Mike Amesbury jail sentence
at 18:39 24 Feb 2025
His sentence is an automatic trigger for a recall petition to be opened - he’s toast and he’s only got himself to blame for it. Sticks and stones ……
Sends a good message out, no one is above the law. Tarra Chuck… |
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Reply | Israel attack on Iran imminent
at 16:56 22 Feb 2025
Your comments were called out by posters on here, nothing to do with the State or government. |
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Reply | Wales' 2025 Six Nations squad ...
at 22:19 21 Feb 2025
It’s been like that a while, if you go on Facebook there’s a lot of people selling tickets including many at less than face value. |
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Reply | Ban
at 18:56 21 Feb 2025
I don’t know enough about the welfare issues impacting on greyhounds, but I do see quite a few people walking them these days and from what I’ve been told they are neglected ex racing dogs.
I am in favour of the cap on the cost of kids using buses (if there are services to be had) as it will enable kids to travel and get jobs etc, a 16 year old on minimum wage (£6.40) can now afford to catch a bus to work. |
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Reply | Why bother
at 18:48 21 Feb 2025
But the freezing of the personal allowances wasn’t introduced by Labour, you can blame the previous Conservative government for that.
In 2021 the then Chancellor Rishi Sunak froze the allowance until 2026, the following year Jeremy Hunt extended the freeze on personal allowances, higher rate tax threshold and the NI threshold until 2028, nothing to do with Reeves or Starmer. Whilst the latter pair could have raised the threshold at the last budget, given there’s not a pot to @@@@ in it was never going to happen.
Things need to change, we’ve got a lot of people who haven’t worked in years (I don’t mean pensioners) and have no intention of working, some have contributed and others haven’t.
We need a conversation about limiting access to benefits so those who can work do make a contribution even if it’s 40 hours voluntary work per week. Maybe a sliding scale of reductions in benefits, for example after 3 years someone who’s not managed to find work loses a percentage of their benefits, Work needs to pay, maybe taxing benefits over what would be the minimum wage threshold - so anyone who gets more than £457 per week in benefits pays a tax. I’m not saying these would work, I’ve just thrown a few ideas out there because things have got to change.
Tax evasion is another issue to be addressed, if we can bring in more tax (from those who are evading it as opposed to bleeding the workers) that will make things easier for all. I also think we need to look at cutting business rates in smaller properties thereby encouraging people to open small businesses in our town centres, hopefully that would result in more shops, cafes, etc etc, more employment and more tax.
There must be other ideas that would work. [Post edited 21 Feb 22:14]
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Reply | Reform Wales
at 22:16 20 Feb 2025
As you say the new government honoured the recommendations of the independent pay panels.
In previous years, the government told the pay panels what was affordable and the pay review bodies reviewed the submissions from the staff associations and the management etc and made a decision based on all the facts.
If the outgoing government did not issue directions re affordability the independent pay review bodies wouldn’t have a baseline to work to and could in theory be “independent” and make a decision as they saw fit.
This poses the question why didn’t the government of the day issue guidance on affordability? Was it because they forgot? Was it because they didn’t want to alienate public sector workers and lose their votes in an election and were kicking the can down the road? Was it because they hoped to get over the line by winning the GE,then flatly rejecting the outcomes of the reviews and then imposing what the government saw fit? Be interesting to find out not that we ever will! |
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