Do they think we are stupid?

 Wind the clock back barely 9 months ago and Rachel Reeves on the 4th November 2025 was making a speech about the cost of borrowing and how she was going to adjust the fiscal rules to bring it back under control. She correctly the stated the problem:  "We are spending £1 in every £10 of tax payers money on servicing our debt". Back then the gilt borrowing rates were hovering around 4.2%.  In barely 9 months Labour has been splashing the cash and the bond markets are growing more concerned about the UK's ability to service, let alone repay, the colossal £3 Trillion debt pile. Because of this gilt yields have crept up to 5.05%. Now increasing from 4.2% to 5.05% doesn't sound so bad does it? Well to update her statement "We are spending £1 in every £8 of tax payers money on servicing our debt" "We are spending £1.20 in every £10 of tax payers money on servicing our debt" It's 20% worse than 9 months ago. Come back Liz Truss - all is forgiven in yo...

Showman Barnum's latest PR stunt is to announce £65M help for drought struck farmers. Dig a little deeper into the headline and it's not really £65M.  £50M is for sustainable farming incentive (SFI) - ie helping nature - not drought contingency.  If you have watched the latest Clarkson's farm series  - Clarkson thought he could get SFI  grants for doing nature things eg damming rivers etc - the reality is there's lots of paperwork involved and is it really worth the effort?  The farmer can earn more working in McDonalds. The remaining £15M of Barnum's £65M  is for help to build farm reservoirs - probably useful if drought is to become the new norm - although last year lots of crops were lost to too much rain.... There are 209,000 farms in the UK.  If each farm gets an equal share of this £15M that's £71 for each farm...I suspect that's hardly going to make a difference to drought struck farms.  Wheat yields are down 14%. Oat yields are down 9%. In...

 As we are finally starting to hear from our not so new Prime Minister, we can start compiling a lookup table to translate between them Starmer               => Burnham Laser Like focus   => Relentless focus I get it   =>  I hear what you say As Burnham opens his mouth more I will populate this table....