Jiggy

[Jiggy @m_sahai]

@GayTory Kemi should support scrapping of the triple lock, and should support benefit cuts. I'd prefer to see benefit cuts before the triple lock is scrapped though. However, with scrapping the triple lock and cosying up to the wretched EU, Burnham might end up consolidating the Left.

[Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1]

And when, in a few months and years, nothing has changed at all, except the cost of living and taxes have gone up even more, the welfare bill has ballooned, the Channel migrants are still coming and still here, and there is no change to social care, while the threats from Russia and Iran escalate and we face energy rationing, I'm sure that Andy Burnham's fine rhetoric will be very useful on the cold winter nights. Don't say you weren't warned.

[Jiggy @m_sahai]

@TorstenBell They should give you a big middle finger. Literally.

[Andrew Griffith MP @griffitha]

Torsten, when you find the fool who:

😱 Voted for 330 pages of employment red tape
😱 Hiked NI costs by £25 billion
😱 Jacked up rates on businesses

do be sure to tell them precisely what you think.

[Luke Robert Black 🌳 @lukerobertblack]

As I said yesterday, Reform are now helping Labour to push this outright lie and cynical campaign.

Labour depleted the Tory-built reserves and - now - Burnham is redistributing £84M from Wandsworth to fund Labour safe seats.

One socialist party propping up another ⬇️

[Andrew Griffith MP @griffitha]

John Healey was a Cabinet Minister throughout the entirety of Rachel Reeve's time as Chancellor.

It was his DUTY to understand the nation's finances and it was all there on the public record.

Who pays the price? Ordinary people in the highest borrowing rates for 28 years.

The level of financial illiteracy is unforgiveable.

[Tom Harwood @tomhfh]

The thing about those who favour high inheritance taxes is they always justify it with regard to 'fairness', rather than economic rationality.

The trouble with that argument what if I think that in fact the 'fairest' thing is to *not* disincentivise people from working harder in their lifetimes than they would were they only providing for themselves.

If you can't leave anything for your children, why not retire at 55? Use up your own wealth in your own lifetime? Don't produce anything more than you have to.

High IHT is anti-productivity policy.

[Simon Clarke @SirSimonClarke]

1) The United Kingdom becoming rule takers whose trade policy is dictated to us by Brussels would be a complete betrayal of Brexit, and the worst of all possible worlds for the future of the country (as I suspect George knows - this is a gateway strategy to Rejoin).

2) Joining the CU would mean abandoning our other trade deals, from CPTPP to India, and locking us into a declining European market share.

3) The reasons for our economic decline are that the UK has not been sufficiently pro innovation, pro development and pro competition for the last 30 years - from AI to agritech, from financial regulation to proportionate environmental regulation.

How on earth would we fix this by embracing the EU’s sclerotic outlook? We need less of their thinking, not more.

[Jiggy @m_sahai]

@DanNeidle I honestly do not care whether it is about growth or not. It is a morally bankrupt tax. It should be the first tax cut that is introduced by any party. Obviously the morally bankrupt Labour will never introduce any tax cut, let alone one that generates growth.

[Iain Gall @GallIain]

£500,000 isn’t tax free, there will already have been a huge tax bill paid to get that £500,000 in the first place. Inheritance tax is theft and wrong.

[Luke Robert Black 🌳 @lukerobertblack]

If only it was £500,000 tax free Jonathan!

If you are leaving money to a niece, nephew, cousin, god child - it’s only tax free up to £325,000.

[Patrick Christys @PatrickChristys]

Kemi Badenoch is absolutely spot on here - nobody has a human right to live in a really nice area at the expense of other taxpayers who cannot afford to live in those nice areas.

[Benedict Spence @BenedictSpence]

The spite from the interviewer at the suggestion that taxpayers shouldn’t pay for people on benefits to live wherever they want is nuts.

No, people can’t live wherever they want. That’s life.

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Labour won't cut welfare to fund defence.

[Chris Rose @ArchRose90]

Andy Burnham won’t even cut welfare to pay for an increase in defence spending.

Someone should tell him that the first priority of any government is to keep its citizens safe, not keep his voters who wake up at midday happy.

Different leader, same wrong priorities.

[David Frost @DavidGHFrost]

Miliband cared nothing about our energy security in his last job. Now he cares nothing about our national security.

But this amateur diplomat has bitten off more than he can chew by taking on the Israelis. His immoral and shameful policy has turned a close ally, with a strong security and intelligence relationship, into an adversary (let us hope not for ever) for nakedly domestic electoral reasons.

Today's announcement allows Labour to preen and posture, which is what they are best at, but will do nothing for peace in the Middle East, and damages our own national security into the bargain. Miliband is simply not up to the job.

[Neil O'Brien @NeilDotObrien]

Only "tough" if you are working and trying to provide for your own family - it will be fine if you are on benefits.

[Jiggy @m_sahai]

@ujz Haha yes, for Hindi ones even if I don't remember all the lyrics I'm definitely better than with the English ones

[Jiggy @m_sahai]

I so envy (and admire) people who remember all the lyrics of hit English songs. 😀

[The Dutch Perspective @Mr_Tomorrow__]

I made a joke about the British naming everything curry and apparently disturbed the Empire. 😂

So let me restore diplomatic relations.

As a Dutchman, I genuinely have enormous admiration for British history and culture. Few countries have left such an unmistakable mark on the world.

Britain gave us Shakespeare and Tolkien, Newton and Darwin, the Magna Carta and a parliamentary tradition that influenced governments far beyond its shores. Its sailors crossed and charted oceans, its engineers covered the country in canals and railways, and the Industrial Revolution that began there transformed much of the world.

Then there is the Britain I simply know and admire.

Old pubs with beams that have survived several changes of dynasty. Village churches surrounded by crooked gravestones. Sunday roasts, football grounds, country houses, seaside towns, eccentric local traditions and people who can turn discussing the weather into a perfectly respectable conversation.

And yes, the British Empire was complicated and sometimes brutal, and it deserves to be studied honestly. The Dutch hardly have the luxury of pretending our own overseas history was conducted by a travelling charity. Even then, I am still proud of that part of my history, and I think you should be proud of yours too.

British history is also filled with moments I deeply admire. Standing against Nazi Germany in 1940, when much of Europe had fallen, is certainly one of them. The courage and endurance of ordinary British people during the Blitz still command respect here across the North Sea.

Our countries have traded, competed, fought several wars and occasionally stolen each other's ships. We have a complicated history, but in our small corner of Europe there are only a handful of nations whose history and achievements give me the same sense of pride and kinship I feel towards my own.

And that gets to the reason I write about history and culture in the first place.

I believe these things matter.

For years I have watched politicians on both the left and right allow parts of our cultures, traditions and identities to be weakened. I am conservative, and I have no intention of quietly watching the culture I inherited disappear in the name of whichever ideology happens to be fashionable.

But spending every day fighting strangers online achieves very little. It mostly pushes us further apart.

So I prefer to share what I know and what I discover. About us Dutch, about the British, Germans, Americans, Indians, Japanese and countless others. I want people to be curious about each other's cultures, proud enough to preserve their own, and generous enough to appreciate somebody else's.

When I travel, I want to encounter the place I travelled to. I want Britain to feel British, Germany German, India Indian and the Netherlands Dutch. I don't want our countries slowly flattened into the same interchangeable global culture, where every city has the same shops, the same food, the same attitudes and eventually very little left that belongs uniquely to the people who built it.

The cultures surrounding the Netherlands have helped shape the place I call home for centuries. Britain is part of that story. So are Germany, Belgium and many others. Our languages, trade, wars, religions, ideas, food and traditions have crossed the North Sea and our borders for generations.

In that sense, I don't merely see you as neighbours.

I see you as family.

Although getting offended by a joke is behaviour I would have expected from the Germans. 😉

I may occasionally make fun of you.

But I would never make light of your civilisation.