Jenks

Interested in politics and current affairs, but currently politically homeless due to the shambolic political landscape

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@AmericaRecharge Why are you called America Recharged when based in Pakistan?

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@UK_Dispatch_ Victor Blank who destroyed Lloyds Bank, by ‘rescuing’ HBoS under orders from/ to help out his buddy Gordon Brown, an equally useless Chancellor

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@nw_nicholas Maybe he’s never seen them, or more likely, thinks you’re not worth the effort. Also, why would he go down the lefty route of lawfare to clamp down on speech?

If you have expressed suspicions, that would probably be an opinion, as found out by Dale Vince when he lost to Tice!

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@aunty_shirley @LBC @RobbieLammas As do Tories and Labour, however they did it about much bigger issues and while in government… Reduce immigration to 10s of thousands, stop the boats, smash the gangs, no tax rises, bring back integrity to politics.

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

Steve Reed's Two-Year Report Card: Three Fails, One Pass

Steve Reed posted four boasts to mark two years of this government: more homes, cheaper cleaner energy, breakfast clubs delivered, higher wages and stronger rights at work. Three of the four are contradicted by his own department's figures, from a minister who has seen those figures and chose to mislead the electorate instead.

Take housing first, since it is the easiest to check. Labour promised 1.5 million homes this parliament. With more than half the parliament gone, the government has managed roughly 342,000, about 23 per cent of the target. Savills now forecasts completions falling to 152,000 a year, which would leave the pledge missed by upwards of 660,000 homes. London delivered 6,325 homes against an assessed need of 88,000. Call it what it actually is: a target sliding further out of reach with every quarter that passes, not a boast to put in a graphic.

Energy fares no better. The price cap rose 13 per cent from 1 July, taking the typical bill to £1,663 a year, still 53 per cent above its level before the last election. Cheaper and cleaner was the promise. Higher and no clearer is the reality.

Breakfast clubs have genuinely rolled out in some form, and that claim can stand on its own. The wages line cannot. Real pay growth has hovered near flat, 0.5 per cent at the end of last year, while the "stronger rights" Reed is so proud of have become measurable damage rather than measurable gain.

That damage falls hardest on the young, and this is the part Labour least wants examined. Employer National Insurance went up. The minimum wage rose sharply, with the youth rate climbing by close to a fifth in a single step. The Employment Rights Act piled day-one sick pay, day-one unfair dismissal claims and new tribunal exposure on top. None of this was aimed at young workers specifically. All of it landed on them hardest, because retail, hospitality and entry-level service work are exactly where the cost of hiring someone untested just got sharply more expensive.

The results are not subtle. Youth unemployment has climbed past 16 per cent, the worst in over a decade. Vacancies sit at an 11-year low outside the pandemic. CIPD surveys of employers find 37 per cent planning to hire fewer permanent staff because of the Employment Rights Act, and 74 per cent expecting their costs to climb further still. Every one of those numbers sits inside government departments that briefed Reed before he wrote his post.

That is what makes the tweet worse than spin. A minister who has not seen the figures is merely wrong. A minister who has seen them and posts the opposite anyway is doing something else. He is gambling that catchy soundbites travel further than a labour market bulletin, and on current form, he may be right. But none of it changes what is happening to a young person applying for their fortieth vacancy this year, or the employer quietly deciding not to hire because the sixth month brings a tribunal risk it did not carry before.

Two years in, the honest account is a shortfall in housing, more expensive energy, flat pay and a generation locked out of its first job. Reed had that account in front of him and posted four emojis instead. A minister who knows the difference and picks the emojis anyway is not spinning. He is banking on nobody checking.

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@LindseySharratt @MatthewStadlen He does and he is!

[Alex Hamilton @Enviro_Technol]

Dale Vince donated £5.7 million to the Labour Party.

Then his energy companies received £123 million in taxpayer subsidies.

Were journalists camping outside his home or hounding his family?

But when it’s Nigel Farage?

The double standards couldn’t be more obvious.

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@PloybCG @Heccles94 And correct level of Stamp Duty

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@GlynisWinestein @Heccles94 Headline should read:
‘Banks report transactions in line with standard Anti-Money Laundering rules, then someone leaked this non-story to us’

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@PippaCrerar @Annaisaac Standard Anti Money Laundering procedure, which you already know, but hoping gullible fools won’t look past the headline. I’m not a bog fan of Farage, but why are you lot so scared of him?

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@AlanShanks4 If you’re saying we need another ‘once in a generation’ referendum after you lost the last one 12 years ago, that’s a pretty damning indictment of teenage pregnancy rates in Scotland!!

Btw it was the Scots who wanted the union initially, as they were broke!!

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@MatthewStadlen @RachelReevesMP Is that an insult or a compliment?

In two years as chancellor, the best thing she’s done is a pathetic tweet?

Compared to how badly she’s managed the economy, you’re probably right, just not in the way you intended! 🤣

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@humanitysalt @insiderlauren @TruthSpewer88 Did you have lessons on how to be a sanctimonious, pompous old hag, or was it a natural talent? I made a sensible observation, yet you had to go for patronising insults.
Obviously part of the ‘BeKind’ brigade when it suits you!! 🙄

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@bade1hp 63, it’s binary progression minus 1
Add 4, 8, 16 then the missing one is 32 to make 63

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@Seraphinaf5 71

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@Deedy2201 @NotFarLeftAtAll Whatever you do, don’t draw a picture of a male appendage, as he got voted in last time!!

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@NotFarLeftAtAll The only way he will shift the opinion of Labour is to make them even more hated, if that’s even possible!!

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@humanitysalt @insiderlauren @TruthSpewer88 But you (very quietly) admitted a toddler doesn’t need frisking, so why did they do it?

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@SodMiserable @johnandi Starmer: ‘I’m undoubtedly the worst PM in history’

Burnham: ‘Hold my beer!’ …

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@jomickane I now realise this is parody, but the problem is there are people like the one she portrays 🤣

[Jenks @jenkinsras]

@jomickane Sorry dear but DEI doesn’t work in knockout competitions.

Also Egypt isn’t Asian, and Morocco are still in, who are, like Egypt, African although most of their team play in Europe, so that probably confused her 🤔🤣