Brad

The cancer has progressed, the chemo didn't work. One last throw of the dice to go then it's control the pain. The 7 year fight is nearly over.

[Brad @dappertogs]

What a year it's been. Diagnosed with cancer Aug 19. Aggressive chemo then osophagus and stomach removed January. Follow up chemo cancelled due to covid. Self-employed and shielding so no money and no benefit. Business shut down by government. Cancer now back. Lettuce shortage???

[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

I’ve known the Manchester Mayor and putative Prime Minister for thirty years. We’ve played in the same football teams, been on sports tours together and have many friends in common.

We’re from similar backgrounds, growing up in proud blue-collar homes, the first generation of our families to go to university – albeit from different parts of the country.

Burnham is kind and big-hearted – he wants to secure better outcomes for decent, hard-working people. He doesn’t want ordinary people pushed around by the powerful and, when he puts his mind to it – as when seeking justice for families so tragically bereaved in the Hillsborough disaster – he can be an effective political leader.

We want the same outcomes, but we differ in how we think Britain can get there. That’s because, to fulfil his ambition to be Prime Minister, Burnham must appeal to trade union leaders and Labour backbenchers – many of whom don’t recognise the economic facts of life, because to do so would offend their tribal interests and statist ideologies.

I’m free, in contrast, to arrive at my own conclusions regarding what’s wrong with modern Britain – and to propose policy solutions based on history, logic and arithmetic reality.

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[Brad @dappertogs]

Regardless of which party you support please read this thread and research the parts you don't understand.

[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

“Everyone knows politics isn’t working,” said Andy Burnham in his Makerfield acceptance speech during the early hours of Friday morning. “Everyone can feel the country isn’t where it should be”.

I agree Britain isn’t where it should be. But my analysis of what is wrong – and what needs doing – is somewhat different from Burnham’s.

My latest @Telegraph column – on the dangers this Labour leadership change pose for the UK.

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https://t.co/3CzBCwC27x

[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

Britain public finances were fragile when Labour took office but misguided, ideologically-driven statist policies have since made a bad situation much worse.

Now, a leftward-shift by Burham could spark a disastrous spike in gilt yields and a state funding shortfall – with Downing Street being forced to follow the orders of unelected technocrats flown in from Washington and elsewhere.

It would be a very major national humiliation combined with a deep economic slump and an even more intense cost-of-living crisis – in which low-income households, as ever, would suffer the most. That would be a disaster for Burnham’s Premiership – and the country I know he loves.

“Tonight just could be a turning point,” said Burnham, after his Makerfield victory. I hope it’s a phrase that doesn’t come back to bite.

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For more sharp analysis please subscribe to "When The Facts Change – Economics and Politics in a fast-moving world" with Liam Halligan

[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

Labour ministers blame “Trump’s war” for Britain’s fiscal woes – and, as a net energy importer, rising oil prices have put added pressure on the UK’s public finances.

But our tax-and-spend policies are now so irresponsible, and our public finances so weak, that Britain has become an outlier among comparable economies.

Since July 2024, when Labour took office, 10-year gilt yields, the cost of government borrowing, have increased 0.63 percentage points – or 63 basis points (bps) – compared to 39bps in Germany and 11bps in the US.

Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Ken Rogoff says there is “more than 50:50 chance” of a major UK debt crisis. Sir Charlie Bean, a former senior OBR and Bank of England official, now points to a “material risk” Britain will need an IMF bail-out, as happened in 1976.

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[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

“Politics isn’t working”, above all, when our leaders are so inept at managing our public finances they keep making spending promises to their favourite interest groups to such an extent they upend the public finances, sparking a systemic fiscal crisis.

That’s the reality we now face. I’m seriously concerned that in his bid to secure and retain the keys to Number Ten, Burnham will make spending promises that send the British economy over the edge.

On Friday morning, as financial markets were digesting the result of the Makerfield by-election, the Office for National Statistics released ghastly borrowing figures for May.

The government borrowed £23.3bn last month – over 30pc more than £17.9bn in May 2025. Only in March, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast May borrowing of £17.7bn, an estimate blown out of the water.

During the first two months of this fiscal year, April and May combined, Labour borrowed £46.3bn, roughly what all UK local authorities raise in council tax over an entire year.

In May, of the £23.3bn the government borrowed, £11.7bn was spent on debt interest – the highest May debt interest payment on record, some 54pc more than the same month last year.

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[Liam Halligan @LiamHalligan]

What shows me “politics isn’t working”, to use Burnham’s phrase, is a welfare budget set to spiral from £313bn a year when Labour took office in July 2024 to an estimated £408bn by 2030 – 31pc more in a single Parliament.

Britain already spends more on welfare than we collect in income tax – with the fastest-rising part of this gargantuan bill now health and disability benefits for working-age adults.

“Politics isn’t working” when the number of payrolled employees has fallen in 14 of the last 21 months, with job vacancies now at a five-year low. Labour’s sharp rise in employer national insurance contributions and two inflation-busting minimum wage increases are a punishing tax on jobs.

And with the government’s trade-union friendly Employments Rights Act now kicking in, countless firms have imposed a hiring freeze, with youth unemployment now at an 11-year high. What’s the point in over-zealous employment protection if you don’t have a job?

“Politics isn’t working” when UK firms are paying four times’ more for their energy than their US competitors and twice that in Germany and France, with British households also paying over the odds. Sky-high energy bills are seriously curtailing growth and enterprise.

Yet still, the powerful green lobby is bunged endless taxpayer-backed subsidies. And Ed Miliband’s insane ban on new North Sea drilling remains – the Energy Secretary’s dinner party boast costing Britain tens of billions of pounds in lost growth and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

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[Brad @dappertogs]

@mrtinkle @TheGriftReport All that may be correct but the vast majority of people have a lot less in their pockets to spend. All the major supermarkets have said there's a downtown in customer spending. People are struggling financially and Labour has made it worse. "It's the economy stupid"

[Brad @dappertogs]

@TheGriftReport So far he is. It can get worse.

[Brad @dappertogs]

Here's another thick c*nt from restore who believes faked images are a good thing. @RupertLowe10 this is the level your followers have sunk to. This is now the public face of @RestoreBritain

[Brad @dappertogs]

@domdyer70 Has he ever had a proper job?

[Brad @dappertogs]

I've been blocked by another thick restore supporter. They can't answer questions. Completely misunderstand what's being said to them. They are so fucking thick.

[Brad @dappertogs]

@MrsSamClarke @Agentmackem @ReformUK I can see very clearly you are being taken for a ride. Lowe is already starting to distance himself from a vast majority of his supporters. It's all going horribly wrong and it's gotten out of his control and that's something Lowe can't abide. Toys will be thrown, dummies spat.

[Brad @dappertogs]

@DarrenLemm72410 No. Why the fuck should I. You have failed miserably to answer a single point that I've put to you. I know why, you don't have the intelligence or the wherewithal to do it. You're blocked.

[Brad @dappertogs]

@ThomasEvansAdur You mean she's repeating the policies of Reform 18 months after Reform announce them. I like her but, and it's a big but, are there a lot in the party that are agreeing with her just to keep their seats or because they will actually implement these policies once in office?

[Brad @dappertogs]

@MrsSamClarke @JDEadonWriter @ReformUK Maths not your strong subject? Restore are promising you a Ferrari when they've only got 2nd hand fiesta money available.

[Brad @dappertogs]

@Trentside98 Restore will never give you what you want. That's not its purpose. They've tolerated you because it massages their numbers but when it matters they'll distance themselves and dump you. Take it as a life lesson.

[Brad @dappertogs]

@SlyForTheRight Have you learned nothing? When a politician says "never" that isn't what you take it to mean. "Never", from the mouth of a politician means, "not today" or maybe "not at this stage in the electoral cycle" it most certainly doesn't mean "never".

[Brad @dappertogs]

@cazjwheeler The problem with Britain being in the EU is the British are way too honest. While businesses in Europe pay lip service to EU regulations and ignore a lot of them, the UK gold plates them, sees them as a revenue stream and heavily imposes them. It's always been like that.

[Brad @dappertogs]

@JDEadonWriter @MrsSamClarke @ReformUK It's shit at the moment but i have loads of time on my hands to fully check what these politicians are saying. Restore supporters are being lied to at the moment in a far greater capacity than Reform are and yes reform tell lies. Same for Kemi, she can't do what she claims.

[Brad @dappertogs]

@JDEadonWriter @MrsSamClarke @ReformUK I'm not exaggerating at all. Research it. I thought it would be around £10-20k per person but when you look at what it's involved and all the costs in deporting 4.4 million people that's the number that comes up. Yes there are benefits but you've got to pay up front to reap them.