They reversed it after consultation but – as far as I remember - probably more because the new homes bonus winners (districts councils in places with expensive houses) didn’t want to lose it.

What really got people going was when the New Homes Bonus, which had been cut from council budgets, was included in the Local Growth Fund. It was like austerity-bantz.

Has someone already done that one? Maybe I do it ever year and I've forgotten. A fiscal event dad joke.

It doesn't help that to everyone other than nufc fans it must look hilarious.

Something from a comedy football bloopers compilation.

“I’m being burgled”
“Great so I’m hearing you’re being murdered, is that right?”

Makes you wonder if there’s a quiet strategy of cutting off the supply of higher education, in the hope that people will choose to become fabricators and welders instead (magically, without putting more money into FE).

Electricians: the lanyard class of skilled manual worker.

Definitely. But I'd probably be disappearing people for dog fouling and pavement parking too.

The leftist mask slips.

First you advocate broad based income tax rises including median earners, and before long you're marching people into the woods never to be seen again.

I've deliberately talked about business support because there's that DWP money lined up, only I don't know how 'new' it is yet

You want outputs, we’ve got ‘em.

When I think of that episode I'm reminded how Tolkien spends a whole mostly-not-that-exciting chapter coming up with a plausible story for how the thousands strong mounted army of Rohan manages to sneak up on the baddies at Minas Tirith.

They bin that from the Lord of the Rings, film too TBF

Alos, I remember in the earlier series, journeys were arduous and took several episodes, by the end they were nigh on beaming places like in star trek.

I also admit to enjoying game of thrones, but I think it started to go badly wrong when they got ahead of the books. I haven’t read them myself, but the bloke can obviously spin a yarn.

The time I was a talking head on BBC North East and Cumbria's "Sunday Politics" show - my mother thought I'd arrived in life. Haven't been back on, mind.

What would your beloved working-class job have been?

I’m seeing an alternative reality with a surfeit of electricians and still too few fabricators and welders.

The 'all things bright and beautiful' cap doffing suits a telegraph worldview where our problems flow from some version of elite overproduction and cultural Marxists marching through the institutions.