Obviously humiliating for the UK and recent governments but look at how organised the Swiss are! Perfect straight line. So neat and tidy!

This week on "Stephen's mum relearning geography things via jigsaw!"

My mother has fixed America. It is whole again.

Peace, democracy and prosperity will once again fill these lands.

With America's political climate in turmoil the nation has fractured.

Only my mother can put it back together.

Will she succeed?

Find out next time on --- "Stephen's Mum relearns geography things via jigsaw."

Good lord this is brutal.

Continuing the same mistakes that we made after the GFC is not a rational policy position to take.

It's more difficult now because of the more inflationary/higher interest rate environment but I think we do need to invest, not double down on cuts.

The claim that immigration has "exploded" in the last 30 years comes up a lot followed by talking points about crime.

Well, if that's true, I can't help but note crime is WAY down over that period!

Off the wall bananas choices from Labour atm.

This graph tells you f-all about whether free trade is good or bad BUT it does tell you is that political actions affect voters policy preferences & thinking you can triangulate based on opinion polling/never change voters minds is nonsense.

You HAVE to account & plan for changing minds as well.

It seems Reeves is mostly lying about disability benefits costing us more post covid, she's just being selective on timescale, but even if they were then *the disabilities* would be the cost. The benefits bill would be *measuring* the cost.

It's like being angry at a thermometer.

To hijack this person's post a bit:

This is an ideal example for where Labour and Tories seem not to register how economics works.

Value in economics is trying to measure the value to each consumer. So stuff disabled people want, like care ***IS VALUE*** because they value it.

My response to Kier Starmer is that I think he's just not being honest here.

It's not a difficult decision he's making in tough times.

It's a cowardly decision he's making because of weakness.

Cutting foreign aid hurts the UK and there is absolutely zero need to cut it for our own budget.

Do you see how you've had to lie there and do you see how that makes it seem like you must be arguing in bad faith?

Then, in addition, you're angry at me for listening to women and then claiming to be for women.

Do you see how that also makes it seem like you aren't arguing in good faith?

It would not take much for Lib Dems, if they got their act together, to recreate their 1980s polling position or better if they consolidated with some of the Green and Labour vote share.

Juuuust sayin'

Honestly seems like UK benefits spending is not, in fact, out of control and, in reality, we should probably get the gross amount *up* even if the net amount stays around the same.

That way we could simplify a lot of the hoops and paperwork by just taxing it back.

The map of Taylor Swift concert locations vs countries that have joined/expressed interest in joining BRICS proves my "diagonal divide" theory of the world.

South America, as you can see, is contested.

I found the OECD reports from 2022 & 2020 & the most positive meta-analysis I could find that was at least someone willing to say conditionality works.

The OECD report said there was evidence for it... but also that that may not be true for conditionality alone

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...