JTSayers

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[JTSayers @JTSayers]

When Orwell wrote 1984 the only thing he got wrong was the date.

[Alastair Hilton @London_W4]

I am having a drink this evening with a friend in a Chiswick pub. Two policemen have just come into the pub and asked me to step outside. I have stepped outside and they have threatened me because I tweeted about a councillor banning seating outside pubs in Chiswick. They admit on video (watch it!) that I did not break the law at all. They came to threaten me. To warn me off tweeting about councillors and the council. This is modern Britain. This is the police state. Please, please, please watch this video. It does involve me using very bad language, but this has got to be seen. Police coming out to threaten someone who hasn’t committed a crime. I’m fuming.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@scrumming_ten Yes indeed. The content of your entire account is very 'humble, down to earth, reserved and gracious'. It's typically South African and not at all weirdly obsessed with the English.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@TelegraphRugby @danscho1 'Outspoken, brash, a bit arrogant' is exactly how I'd describe SA Rugby fans

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@TightFive_Rugby Apart from being unnecessary and ungracious, Parling should know who butters his bread. TNT have done a great job in revitalising the Premiership in terms of broadcast figures. Roughly 10% year-on-year increase in average audiences. He should be thanking them for being there.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@Bgrew11 @VFinnishProbs @grok 🥴

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

Absolutely spot on.

[Stuart @StuartMaggs]

I have moved from being shocked and disappointed at the Treasury to being angry.

I spent some time with an elderly client today who is confused and distressed over what to do, and a huge portion of responsibility for her upset rests with unprofessionalism from the Treasury.

Starting from a manifesto that promised not to raise national insurance they then tried to argue that didn’t include employers’ national insurance. Then non-doms, private school fees and the craziness of the IHT changes and pension charges, none of which will actually raise any money if you adjust for the economic impact and uncertainty. All alongside the winter fuel debacle and failure to actually cut welfare costs.

And then, within six months of the Budget, came the Treasury Insiders and Well-Placed Sources leaking crazy plans and half-baked ideas to test the political water. Wealth tax, extending PETs, gifts of own income, reductions in pension allowances, caps on pensions, NICs on rental income and dividends, shifting income tax up but extending NICs, capitals gains alignment with income rates, tax hikes for lawyers, accountants and GPs, oil and gas and banking levies, additional costs on landlords and employers, VAT increases, mansion taxes, every awful idea that has ever had economists sitting bolt upright in bed at 3am in a cold sweat, this Treasury has embraced them all, leaked them to the papers and sat back to watch the slow motion catastrophe as their strategy paralyses the markets and dries up investment.

In my 30-odd years in practice I have never experienced such a devastatingly incompetent budget process that over the course of 12 months has, in my view, inflicted such horrific damage to business and consumer confidence.

Tax should be boring, not front page news every week. It currently feels like an angry school council has been given the economic reigns to the country and it has no idea what it wants to do beyond “Rich people bad”.

This morning, I tried to calm down an upset elderly woman and reassure her that as best we could we will help her through this. I place the blame for this awful situation wholly at the door of the Ministers currently in charge of the Treasury. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@bensmithrugby I’ve come to the comments to enjoy the one eyed, fragile Springbok fan replies. It hasn’t disappointed. Well done, sir. 🫡

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@MrHenryHobson1 Absolutely agree. But not in the headline slot at Glastonbury.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@Nishadow Utter bullshit. Great music. Wrong slot entirely.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@TheMeldrew He’s great but not as the headliner of Glastonbury. Whoever is responsible for booking him in this slot should hang their head. Utterly abysmal.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@ambers196524 Great music but the worst Glasto headliner imaginable. Truly awful. 😢

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@owenjonesjourno ‘Journalist Matthew Stadlen’ 😂

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

Rachel Reeves. Just spewing random cliches straight from her adenoids.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@Cobratate @votebruv You are the prat that not everyone may want, but you are still THE prat.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@FLManChael @BowTiedRanger Could you find it?

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@graf_ec Do you even know where it is?

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

Could it be winter?

[BBC News (UK) @BBCNews]

Dreary weather in the UK blamed on anticyclonic gloom https://t.co/Avg1AJOI0j

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@travelingsoftly Love this, thanks for sharing.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

@DominicFrisby Yawn.

[JTSayers @JTSayers]

The way the media and the government are closing ranks has a very Covid feel to it. It’s thoroughly depressing.