I'm just glad that the idea of beaing Reform and the Tories by impersonating heir public positions seems to havw gone by the wayside. So far it seems to have gone well. Is this the turnaround? Watch those polls in January, I guess...

I mean, that's a pretty cynical way to look at it. Fair to say affordability is a question with a lot of variables, but I think the desire to end the cap was expressed from the start. It's always possible to say "just tax something more to pay for it" but it's rarely that simple.

Clearly! That hasn't been anywhere near a deep fat fryer.

As am I, up to a point (and especially on the social axis); but the scrapping of the two-child cap isn't evidence of it.

In a similar vein this New Statesman story about the Labour rebels who were suspended for voting for an SNP King's Speech amendment which would have scrapped the cap completely ignores that the government's argument was affordability not principle; the suspensions were for breaking a 3-line whip.

Is somebody saying that? Good lord.

It will be interesting to see whether the more considered response that emerges from the anti-Labour left in the coming weeks and months is able to acknowledge the distance between "things we want to do" and "things we are able to do" in the real world of government. I won't hold my breath.

Accompanying this is the inevitable conceit that this is evidence that "Labour has been forced left" - presumably by their pithy memes and podcasts leavened with a bit of misogynist abuse of Rachel Reeves. The reality, uncomfortable as it will be for them, is that Labour was always on the left.

Thanks for letting me know this, Duncan. I did this for years until my church stopped. I will stick to "Operation Christmas" and my church's current recipient which is prisoners children in Edinburgh🌹

He's clearly miming the making of tools. Because, you know, ...

Depressing.

Not suggesting it's a perfect policy by any means, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with ensuring that most people contribute, however small their contribution. Government, and the taxes which fund it, should be a common cause.

It absolutely is not the most regressive way to collect tax! That's a very silly assertion. And they explicitly continued the threshold freeze for longer, they didn't "increase" anything further. Are you talking about something different?

Not sure it's a right/wrong question.

It does reinforce how he is now though. It's not like he's now a campaigner for refugee rights. So it perhaps hits harder? But you're probably right.

... and yet still getting it horribly wrong. Wow. Grim.

Glad I’m not the only one who hates this. Tbh if it was up to me I’d call it Social Solidarity instead. Possibly my wokest opinion

It actually does so more often than one might think. Even a trans rights debate earlier this year brought out many deeply serious and impressive speeches. Dignity in dying was another example. It does tend to fail at the big ticket events though.