spud

It’s very possible that it’s late and i’m talking a lot of shit. But I think the point was that if you are appointed housing secretary and you get sacked for fucking up your own housing affairs, then you get paid off to the tune of sixteen grand (still on backbench salary mind you), then less than a year later you’re made housing secretary again, it looks pretty grim to keep the cash and the flat and go i’m alright cunts, how about you?

we mostly agree then

Yeah probably. If I found a score on the pavement I wouldn’t stick up any posters about it. 16k in notes? I might have that as well, no need to trouble the constabulary

should/is difference

This is where we diverge. Enforcers of ‘should’ even if they just recently inherited the responsibility should do as their own rules oblige them to do

strange thing to devote this much energy to

It’s the subject of the post. I’ll comment about other matters on other posts, energy allowing. I can’t always be bothered

I don’t know or care what a ‘vibe shift’ might entail but willing to bet it’s the continuity-starmer, just-a-little-bit, lets not upset the status quo soft soap stance that goes: this situation requires soft liberal tinkering round the edges of the giant money hoover positioned above the working class. Do not disrupt the hoover. Please god lets not anger the hoover

edited for clarity: Of course the sticking point exists in both the tax avoidance & reward for failure and of course I wouldn’t turn down the cash if it were me. But she and hypothetical us aren’t in the same position. Rules must apply more strictly to custodians & enforcers of those same rules

Well quite but nobody would be very likely to notice. But if you you lived in Manchester and worked in London and got the sack from your job as housing secretary for avoiding tax on your nice new flat in Brighton, copped the sixteen grand payoff and was reappointed to housing secretary within a year that’s a bit different isn’t it?

Netflix tax

I quite like this idea

You’re right. They hide their shame from curious limeys by geoblocking britbox.com, but a vpn trip to Texas reveals it looks like a load of old shit on offer (Twenty Twenty Six is probably good though)

So as for they should sell the full service to the rest of the world, I agree. i suppose it’s licensing issues or they’d be doing it already? Much of their programming is not made not in-house but by external production cos

They already sell it to the yanks as Britbox and are reasonably successful at it but the license fee currently covers about four billion quid of their six billion annual operating costs. They don’t have to do Netflix numbers but it’s a lot of subs to sell (assuming that it must remain free to UK viewers and of ads)

I meant to give a few of the alternative funding arrangements if the license fee were scrapped but I managed not to say that part out loud, oops

I still think the BBC is worth preserving but I’ve no idea how it should be done

Direct gov funding seems out of the question as independence is required for reputational reasons at least

Extending license regs so you need one to watch youtube/netflix/etc an obvious non-starter (hopefully)

Expanding commercial operations so they can sell access to archives through iplayer, overseas subscriptions, Huw Edwards merch etc might be ok but unlikely to raise the billions required to operate

At this point is it saveable?

Sweet. Wes, it’s funding time, bell up Pete Thiel and get it implemented asap

OK that’s a non-starter. How then do we make our proposal for self-funding provision of IVF on the NHS? What if they reserve a modest quantity of spare stem cells for the production of veal?

In the vein of encouraging smoking as it costs the NHS for associated diseases earlier on, but kills the patients before the really expensive care for Alzheimers etc is required, could you argue that IVF saves money in the long run by providing a child to care for those who would otherwise require extensive state support in their old age?

ThinkLabour is Labour Together rebadged. Expect similar blue labour bullshit with McSweeney lurking in the background

https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2026/05/15/labour-together-rebrand/

Will Rupert complete his grim ritual?

The ears and teeth are probably fair game but his nose is normal and unremarkable. The nose in the first three is 100% hook nosed merchant jewish stereotype. The slimer one doesn’t seem nearly as bad as the others.

He fucked up by apologising in the first place