Yup. Need to reschedule an appointment?
You know, the ones that come after a long wait, at a random date not far in the future.
‘Sure, just go back to the bottom of the waiting list’
If you employ a man in a strappy dress who calls himself ‘Ms Starshine’ as a childcare and after school club worker, don’t be surprised if he starts offering to kiss the children.
Also, you should be locked up for ignoring instincts that have kept children safe for millennia.
Think positive soldiers!
If you have no money for ammunition you can't be prosecuted for shooting the enemy when you return home alive* from the front line.
*please note that if you are killed in action Labour will tax your children.
Thank you for your service.
🚨 NEW: A Treasury source attacks John Healey for resigning as Defence Secretary
"Let's be clear on what John is asking for: cuts to schools and hospitals"
h/t @e_casalicchio
You can prepare for war or you can attempt to reach net zero.
The enemy does not have electric tanks and I believe that the rockets they use are not powered by unicorn farts.
Only three years of this clown show to go lol
There’s a seismic shift happening in the gilt market that seems to be mostly going unnoticed. Everyone argues about how much Britain borrows, but the question of who lends rarely gets asked.
For most of the post-war period the gilt market had a captive domestic buyer. In recent decades that was overwhelmingly British defined benefit pension funds. They typically bought 30-year gilts and held them to maturity, because the rules said they had to. Which means the gilt market had a captive lender, quietly underwriting the entire post-war state.
The seismic shift we’re seeing… the captive lender is leaving.
DB pension schemes are closed and maturing. They are running off their gilts to pay pensioners, not buying more. They still own around 45% of the index-linked market, and that holding winds down over the next decade. On top of that, the BoE is selling too. Quantitative tightening, year after year, to unwind its balance sheet.
The replacement to British pension funds has arrived quietly. And most people have no idea about this shift.
Hedge funds now account for 63% of electronic gilt trading, which is up by a third since 2021. Pension funds and insurers have fallen from 45% to 26%. Overseas investors hold around 35% of the market, up from under 25% a decade ago. This isn’t central banks, it’s global bond funds. These are mobile, yield-hungry, gone-in-an-afternoon type entities. Not the long term holders we had in the pension funds.
The fast money doesn't own the majority of the stock yet. But it’s now dominating the trading, and the trading sets the price. This is a relatively new dynamic that will only continue to grow as pension funds see their holdings mature.
This is why long yields hit 1998 highs while inflation fell. The borrowing hasn’t changed. But the lender has.
And this is why it’s stiff drink time. The state needs to sell £246 billion of gilts this year, and every year for years, into exactly this market.
Every deficit argument in British politics assumed the lenders would be there, just like the dependency ratio assumed the workers would be there.
The whole system runs on lenders who no longer have to show up. And they expect a higher premium. Potentially a much higher premium.
Fed up. Just spent 14 weeks at @nottsinquiry didn’t miss a minute as this was all I could do in my daughter Grace’s name against all those who failed.
Get to my desk and this is what I’m greeted with……
@MrTCHarris@DavidDPaxton I did this yesterday. Sadiq Khan’s statement yesterday had 181 words. 22 about the beheading, and 159 dedicated to the civil unrest and blaming social media
@MrTCHarris I think the previous post that you quoted had a key word in “*ambitious* Armed Forces Minister.”
John Healey has put the country first. Al has history in putting Alistair first.
As an MP I was told by the Home Office that since there were so many legal routes into the UK for Pakistanis, the ones who chose the asylum route instead almost always had something to hide.