JA Smith

Labour Member🌹Centre-left, Devolution enthusiast, We need PR.

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

Given the recent poll for Makerfield, I thought it worth updating my prediction.

🌹 47.5%
➡️ 42.5%
🟣 5%
🔶 2%
🥬 1%
🌳 1%

[Prosper UK @Prosper_UK_]

The time is right to move on from the triple lock.

It is uncertain, unpredictable and expensive.

A smoothed earnings link would protect pensioners from inflation, make the system fairer, and free up more money for priorities like defence.

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

Andy, you have my reluctant support, but you can't pledge to shaft young people to give pensioners yet another bung one day, then talk about a crisis facing them the next day.

[caroline wheeler @cazjwheeler]

Exclusive: Andy Burnham vows to fix the crisis facing Britain’s young people. He wants to see an education system based on “parity between academic and technical”. Without that, he argues, the country has been “left with a situation where some young people get to the middle years of secondary school and they can’t see where school is taking them”.

His remedies are practical and already running in Greater Manchester. This includes the free bus pass for 16 to 18-year-olds he wants matched to “a guarantee of a work related opportunity at 16,” a “45-day work placement” and using “full social value weighting” in public procurement so that every single state contract can be made to “require work placements for 16 to 18-year-olds or apprenticeships”.

He also wants to overhaul support for special educational needs, warning that children with additional needs “find their needs are not met and they drift away from the labour market”

Read my full interview with Andy Burnham below.

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

@shivmalik It's not a fight. I fight implies a chance. Anyone under 35 in this country is hung out to dry by an establishment that favours the rich pensioner generation.

There are literally no parties who dare challenge that idea that being old imbibes one with more rights than the young.

[Nat ✨ FREE 🇵🇸 @loopzoooop]

the dying right wing generations get everything they want and the rest of us are left to suffer and rot

Andy Burnham says he’s “not squeamish” about cutting welfare spending but is promising pensioners a tax cut, despite pensions making up 50% of welfare spending

[William Prescott @wjprescott]

We should also means test the state pension. If you have several million pounds in assets, you don't need an extra £12.5k from the state. The money would be much better spent elsewhere

[George Eaton @georgeeaton]

There are now three million pensioners in millionaire households – this shouldn’t be the priority given our fiscal position.

And no one should propose tax cuts without spelling out who pays.

[David Gauke @DavidGauke]

Why should people of working age have a lower personal allowance than pensioners? Age related allowances were abolished in the 2012 Budget and - even though it provoked a row about ‘the granny tax’ - we stuck to it. They’re unfair, expensive & create additional tax complexity.

[Oliver Kamm @OliverKamm]

Another absurd intervention by Burnham. The triple lock should never have been in Labour’s manifesto and ought to be broken. And if pensioners receive taxable income in excess of the personal allowance, they should of course pay tax on it. Why load the burden on younger people?

[Ben Harris @btharris93]

What is even the point of living in this country any more if you're a young working person?

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

The triple lock is a fucking joke. Just for being old, you get a guaranteed massive pay rise every year, whilst those who work to pay your pension get consistently shafted.

The pensioner generation is the richest in Britain. Scrap the triple lock and means test the state pension

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

And... He's lost me.

Most overindulged demographic. One in four is a millionaire, best pay rises in the country, constantly fawned over by successive govs whilst young people are cast aside.

Fuck the entitled old twats. Fuck the triple lock. Means test the state pension.

[caroline wheeler @cazjwheeler]

New: Andy Burnham will leave the triple lock untouched and consider a tax cut for pensioners paying income tax because of the freeze on tax thresholds, known as “fiscal drag”.

[Liam Nissan™ @theliamnissan]

Yup

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

@R3belDiamond I disagree. A serialised storyline over 6x hour longs would be the best for the modern age. The monster of the week format that Dr who has largely existed in for 60 years is dead except for detective shows. The show needs to take inspiration from heavily plotted prestige drama.

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

@_Rouzer_ @tvzoneextra This. This is the way to save the show. People enjoy more serialised drama these days
2005 was the age of monster of the week, Buffy being a prime example.

Nowadays, the big shows are all serialised shows, often with puzzle box plotlines people can theorise about at work/school

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

@tvzoneextra I'd be inclined to agree. Most likely far more serialised as well to save costs.

Personally I favour the 3x90 format. But 6x45 would be good.

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

Good. It's child mutilation. I'd be in favour of this.

People's chosen magic book shouldn't give them a right to chop bits off their kids.

[Noa Hoffman @hoffman_noa]

EXCL: The Green party is considering a new policy to ban circumcision, The Spectator can reveal.

The party’s Health Policy Working Group (HPWG) has launched a consultation seeking views on whether parents should only be allowed to consent ‘to an irreversible surgical procedure on a child if that procedure is medically necessary’.

Circumcision is an integral part of Judaism, with Jewish boys traditionally undergoing a ‘brit milah’ on the eighth day after birth.

Interestingly, the consultation on outlawing the practice was publicised specifically in a ‘Greens for Palestine’ WhatsApp group.

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

As far as I can see, Healy wanted money diverting from schools to pay for defence.

If so, the government was right to refuse.

Children come before guns.

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

@dxctr_m4ster Based on Casualty, which is admittedly a very different show, about a yr. Then with production, I reckon the show could return 2029/30.

My favoured option would be BBC Studios winning the tender, and making 3x90m serialised miniseries to maximise afforability.

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

@PositivityWho Good. Time for nostalgia to set in and someone to come forward with a strong vision.

[JA Smith @JASmithWrites]

@andy4makerfield What's the vet he's on Nigel's payroll