Monday 22nd November 2021

[refitman]

Morning all.

[gilsey]

Good morning.

On the Today programme Sir Andrew Dilnot, the economist who produced a report 10 years ago on which the plans for a cap on the costs of social care are broadly based, told the Today programme this morning that the change announced by the government last week would save the government £900m a year by the end of this decade, compared with the system originally planned which would have allowed less wealthy people to keep a larger share of their assets. He said that was equivalent to £750m in current prices.

To put that in perspective, he said that the health and social care levy would raise more than £10bn a year, and that overall government spending is £800bn a year. He went on:

Of course we need to be careful with how we spend money, but these are small amounts of money compared to the overall level of public spending, and very small amounts of money compared to that which is being raised to pay for health and social care.

I see how the Dilnot proposals were supposed to work now, which I didn't at the time. Regressive, but less so than this system will be, if it happens.

Love to know if it was just the Treasury pushing the change or if the ghastly Coffey was involved.

[RogerOThornhill]

Good morning.

Oh dear...inept isn't the word. But hey, it is only to the CBI...

[notnowsonny]

@RogerOThornhill

That takes me back a few years to a corporate gathering of executives of the company where I worked to be addressed by our august chairman, a fairly well known "entrepreneur" at the time. His delivery of the speech seemed to imply that he hadn't seen the words before letting us share them. Surely our prime minister, well known as he is for being a great, nay world-beating, orator, can't be guilty of that sin?

[AnatolyKasparov]

I'm sure they were all in stitches about how FUNNY he is, though!

[gilsey]

Our electricity supplier's finally gone bust and they're effectively nationalising it.

The energy regulator drew up plans over the weekend to put the company into a special administration process designed to protect Bulb’s 1.7 million household customers, according to industry sources.

A statement from the company on Monday said.

“We’ve decided to support Bulb being placed into special administration, which means it will continue to operate with no interruption of service or supply to members,”

[gilsey]

[gilsey]

At present, Starmer and Labour's sole advantage over Johnson and the tories seems to be that they'd be less embarrassing.

[PorFavor]

Even that's not likely to last long if David Blunkett is to be de-mothballed.

[AnatolyKasparov]

I see Johnson did the "we will MAKE you go back to your offices every day" schtick again.

They still haven't said *how* they will do this.

[RogerOThornhill]

LK going a bit off message here...

[refitman]

At present, Starmer and Labour's sole advantage over Johnson and the tories seems to be that they'd be less embarrassing.

Someone might want to tell Rachel Reeves to take down the portrait of Nancy Astor then

[AnatolyKasparov]

Well the whole "girl power" thing was embarrassing if we are being perfectly honest.

[refitman]

Well the whole "girl power" thing was embarrassing if we are being perfectly honest.

Idolising fascists is a little worse, in my opinion.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Yeah, but even I only learned that fairly recently - it was pretty well covered up for a long time.

(like an awful lot of similar stuff in our "approved" history)

[tinyclanger2]

At present, Starmer and Labour's sole advantage over Johnson and the tories seems to be that they'd be less embarrassing.

Pretty much.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Though that should maybe not be underestimated as a factor if things carry on the way they are.