Good people, all of them, What’s his name?
Ron Ferguson. This was back at the time when Labour were always fighting it out in Govan with the snp - still don’t trust the nationalists to this day
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A friend of one of my cousins used to do security for politicians. I asked him who the rudest prick was he had the pleasure of working for: Gordon Brown apparently.
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In ibiza mid 90s weirdest bromance I ever say was prince nassem Hamed and sweaty comedian Lee Evans 
it was just the two of them and one had a kid in a buggy of some sort…
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Am currently lobbying for more education funding in public schools here in the US and found myself having dinner with Ted Cruz, Cori Bush, and their people explaining my advocacy. My takeaway is this, it’s all a game. Away from cameras they were having quite a civil chat, no histrionics, no drama, listening and empathizing with each other’s viewpoints etc. I’m sure if I had cameras with me the caricatures would’ve come out. Both weren’t too pleased when I said I wished these versions of them would govern but I felt it had to be said.
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Spectacularly grumpy
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Yes, after a young life of being a reactionary and engaged political person, it appears that the public are just an abstract distant speed bump in the political parliamentary landscape, views like this were once regarded as radical/anarchist, now it is a common back of the mind belief.
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He spoke at my company’s 50th birthday celebrations and he was asked if he would meet some people and he shooed everyone away as soon as the photo was done.
I liked it when Brown said no more boom and bust before overseeing the biggest financial crash in history.
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It’s all a game and it’s designed for failure and crisis because that’s what makes money, I’ve been told - off the record, of course - that they could easily provide a basic universal income, fund schools and end poverty but where that money comes from is non-negotiable and not because it’s vital to national security but because some very wealthy people would earn millions and not billions. It’s deeply depressing.
My daughter is on Blue Peter (performing, not audience ) tomorrow
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That’s massive. Do people still get a badge nowadays?
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Apparently these days BP badges are 2 a penny & as common as No Parlez on vinyl
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Id love it to be true but if tax on billionaires was so high they only got millions they’d just avoid it (which they already probably do). With such a global economy its inevitable you cant tax much more than other countries for the super rich & best thing to do is keep the money out of havens
(sad) fact of current life
Gutted!
I’m not even talking about tax, it’s earmarks in the budgets. US national defense is a trillion dollar budget, distribute some funds from there - which they’d probably not even feel the impact of - and you’d solve a lot of problems.
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They are! My kids got about 7 each during lockdown…
Props to your daughter for performing though!
The problem is with the tax system. Income tax is very easy to circumvent if you have the money. You could scrap VAT and put a transaction tax on corporations instead. And put a charge on transferring money from one country to another - an amount that would be fairly minimal for us peasants, but significant for very large transactions.
Unfortunately, until there’s serious intent to stop lobbying/bribery, any change is a pipe dream.
Democracy is in serious trouble right now. Even some of the super rich are starting to get nervous about a “pitchfork movement”.
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It’s very much in trouble. The mask is slipping, people are finally asking questions why the super rich want to govern and it’s not to better the country. The worst is Joe Manchin who has a 65ft trawler/boat thing that he uses for all his press/publicity op but what he doesn’t tell people is that in the Caribbean he has a 100ft yacht. He entered the senate a down and out frustrated West Virginian democrat who is now worth millions. Feinstein who is in severe cognitive decline and has gone missing is still hanging onto power. Why? Well I’m sure you can all work that out. These are supposedly the good guys.
Don’t even get me started on the Republicans.
And to change any code, etc. you need those who benefit greatly from it to change it. More chance of cooking an egg on an iceberg.
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I dont want to get into an economics spat ( as we are all agreeing same thing) but transaction taxes are really really bad. So many global firms would move out of UK & disadvantage the UK ones that stayed
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