@GridlockKev

Choking

[@GridlockKev @gridlockkev]

@BathEcho Idealistic nonsense- more 'kill the High Street' , 'don't drive' - business unfriendly and isolation for residents.

[Bath Echo @BathEcho]

"Ideas must be backed by data and shaped with the community, not imposed against the wishes of the majority” https://t.co/dUi7m6o2Wx

[StarmerOut @ForeverScept]

Starmers' new economics advisor is terrifying.

[nameorusername @landatthebottom]

I am paying an extra allowance of £21,324 per year on top of her regular allowance for Cllr Amanda Rigby to be the Cabinet Member for Communications.

I wonder why she isn't communicating this achievement?

#2 in the country - get in!

TBH, I wonder what she is doing.

[nameorusername @landatthebottom]

@bob_combedown @johndarvall @bbcradiobristol Last time @johndarvall on @bbcradiobristol questioned him about HMOs, and Cllr Kevin Guy was very clear in stating the rules had already changed and there would be no more.

Total BS.

[Basil the Great @BasilTheGreat]

🚨SUSAN HALL just made Sadiq Khan's team look like fools

CAUGHT OUT‼️

They thought she was talking about Tommy Robinson's rally, when in fact she was talking about Palestine Action

The look on her face 🤣

[Tara Carter @taracartergmc]

Of course Starmer needs to be removed from his job.
But the issue isn't just Starmer.
It's all of them.
Cooper, Reeves,Phillips, Lammy... the list of incompetent, arrogant, privileged and totally out of their depth pathetic ninnies is endless

[@GridlockKev @gridlockkev]

This again? Well done Somerset Confidential!

[Somerset Confidential @somersetconf.bsky.social @SomConfidential]

James Garrett investigates allegations concerning the right of the Leader of B&NES council to have stood for election in 2019. It is a matter of election law, something that the Police investigate.
Does it matter? Yes, if you believe that the law matters.

https://t.co/L1A1ecBGBg

[nameorusername @landatthebottom]

With the Libdem run @bathnes it is so often do as I say not as I do.

The leader of the council has known for years of dodgy goings on (this and others) but refuses to act.

[Chris Rose @ArchRose90]

Rachel Reeves’ ‘logic’.

Rishi spending £1 million on chess was a fiscally irresponsible 'pet project' we can’t afford.

Rachel Reeves spending £1.5 million on chess is something to be ‘proud’ of and can afford.

She has no idea what she’s doing.

[Shrodingers Borderline Normal @JeremyCordite]

Rachel Reeves is currently borrowing £20bn a month and Starmer's going to tell you that Reform's figures don't add up.

[Megyn Kelly @megynkelly]

Maybe he should use his $150m from Spotify/Netflix to … pay for his own security? Like every other famous person in America?

[Robert Peston @Peston]

We just learned that the world’s most powerful person, Donald Trump, has a boss: the bond market.

He may not have acknowledged this to himself, yet, but the global financial tumult he caused - and has temporarily eased - has locked him in a fiscal prison.

Because, as I have been saying for 24 hours, he came perilously close yesterday to having caused such an extreme fall in the price of US government debt that it would have become prohibitively expensive for his administration to fund a large deficit - more than 6% of GDP - and also to refinance the almost $8 trillion of government debt that matures in the coming year (almost a third of America’s sovereign debt).

The point is he is totally in hock to the good will of bonds investors.

And when he announced his reckless roster of massive tariffs eight days ago he alienated them, because they feared he would tank the economy such that tax revenues would plummet and the deficit would balloon.

So they sold US government bonds, Treasuries, and the yield on the bonds - the de facto interest rate - soared.

Which is why Trump blinked, and put on hold the more extreme tariffs, except for the 140% on China, for 90 days.

You might think the worst part of this is the uncertainty he has created for businesses and investors for the next 90 days. Since no one in their right minds would make a major US investment till the final tariff determinations are made.

But the cancerous uncertainty is not the worst of it.

The worst of it is he has shredded any respect that overseas governments and investors might have had for America’s economic and fiscal competence.

Shades - you might say - of how Truss and Kwarteng’s unwise unfunded tax cuts undermined the perceived fiscal competence of the UK.

But unlike Truss and Kwarteng, there is pretty much no mechanism for removing Trump.

All of which means that bond and stock markets will remain fragile and volatile - fearful that Trump will regain his mojo and engage in some other fiscal extravagance.

He has also handed a loaded gun to his perceived enemy, China, and his supposed ally Japan.

This matters in both cases, because he is engaged in the mother of all trade wars with China - and Japan wants a trade deal with him that would see it escape mega tariffs.

The loaded guns they have are their massive loans to the US government. Japan owns more than a trillion dollars of US Treasuries and China not much less.

If they were to sell those bonds, or even if they chose not to refinance maturing bonds, that could be a disaster for Trump. Because it could cause another potentially crippling spike in bond yields.

Here is the measure of Trump’s debacle.

He may well have trashed America’s single most important financial competitive advantage, namely that investors have traditionally bought the dollar and US Treasuries at a time of economic and political uncertainty.

No more - because he personally has become the world’s source of economic uncertainty snd anxiety.

So, as I say he, is now in a fiscal prison. And if bond investors, including Japan and China, see him imposing tariffs or cutting taxes in ways they don’t like, they learned yesterday they have the means and power to stop him.

[nameorusername @landatthebottom]

It's lways worth reading @SomConfidential

[Somerset Confidential @somersetconf.bsky.social @SomConfidential]

On the face of it, the acquisition by the National Trust of Bathampton Meadows saved a large and valuable swathe of riverside land on the edge of a world heritage site from development forever.
Nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems.

https://t.co/Bpjobeg32R

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

British households should prepare themselves for Terrible Tuesday (April 1st — but it’s no April Fool) when energy, water, council tax, broadband and BBC licence fee will all become more expensive.
Then business will be clobbered on April 6 with the £24bn rise in employer national insurance — which will quickly translate into higher prices, lower wage growth and fewer jobs.

[WeraDisaster @DisasterWera]

@GPristo @landatthebottom @bob_combedown @bathnes Priorities were selling off Bathampton Meadows (single member decision), LTNs (single member decisions), underused & unneeded cycle lanes, putting up Bollards (that police did not agree with), turning over rare protected green environments Tufa field/Weston AONB etc, etc, etc

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: Keir Starmer has appointed Rishi Sunak's wife, Akshata Murty, as a trustee at one of Britain’s leading museums

[@Telegraph]

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

By far the most interesting revelation from this omnishambles is the visceral anti-Europeanism of the most senior people in Trump’s government.
JD Vance argues against attacking the Houthis because it only helps Europe, whose trade depends much more on the Suez Canal than America’s (40% v 3%).
“I fully share your loathing of European free-loading,” replies Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. “It’s PATHETIC.”
They end up agreeing to send the bill for the Houthi attacks to Europe, wondering how to respond if Europe refuses to pay.
None of these great brains mentions that the Houthis are Iranian proxies, which is why the US is attacking them — not to help Europe — as part of its putting-pressure-on-Iran strategy.
If Europe has yet to realise the North Atlantic Alliance is over it should now after reading these exchanges.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Chancellor Reeves still peddling the fiction on TV this morning that tax rises in last October’s Budget were forced on her by the £22bn Tory ‘black hole’ in nation’s accounts. Let’s deal with that once and for all before Wednesday’s Spring Statement.
Let’s accept, just this once, the ‘black hole’ even if, contrary to her claims on Sky News today, the OBR has never acknowledged its existence.
She taxed and borrowed by far more than necessary to fill in the alleged black hole — because she wanted to increase public spending, which she did by £70bn.
She financed this by £40bn more in taxes and £30bn more in borrowing.
She did not have to do anything like that to fill in her black hole.
But by doing what she did she lost the confidence of consumers, business and investors.
This has slowed the economy to a crawl and created a new black hole of her own making. Which she will attempt to fill in with spending cuts on Wednesday and, no doubt, more tax rises come next April’s Budget.