HelloThere

I’m not sure where the treasury slush fund accusation comes from?

Morning star being a rag, it’s borderline embarrassing at this point.

As you say, the idea that pension funds can somehow become treasury slush is nonsense. What they could very much become though is a very quick way to incease assets under management for the sovereign wealth fund.

Is it everything I wanted? No.

Is it a relief to have a budget that is at least economically literate? Fuck yes.

Do I want more next year? Absolutely.

OK, go on, how does reducing the NI cost for small businesses fuck them over?

The comment I originally replied to was asking about removal of appetite. The point I was making was that appetite isn’t the only reason people consume calories.

The jabs do not cause you to exercise, and losing weight without some level of exercise to build fitness is also not healthy.

The point Streeting is making is that you can’t just eat to excess and expect, 20 years later, that the NHS can fix all your problems with an injection.

It’s the same way that alcoholics are not given liver or kidney transplants, or smokers new lungs, because even if you did the transplants all the other problems (cancers, etc) would still exist.

Primary healthcare is really complicated because you’re dealing with people who are generally speaking not at the worse bit, yet, and so patient’s motivation to consider, let alone make, changes can be non-existent.

This in turn is what makes a preventative healthcare model so much harder to achieve. The best way to treat T2 diabetes is to not get there in the first place, but friends of mine routinely have conversations with patients where their likelihood of having T2D, or stroke, heart attack, etc, is very high within the next 5 years, and are met with blunt refusals to even consider something as trivial as a lower calorie butter/spread, and instead just demand a jab.

This is not everyone, but it is a significant proportion, and it’s right the Health Secretary to remind people that while the NHS does exist, and will support you if you get there, that it’s better for yourself to not end up there in the first place.

I’m glad it’s working for you, I truly am.

But my point is that there are a variety of reasons, it will help some people with some of them, and won’t help others. As you’ll see in all the issued guidance, it’s prescribed alongside diet and lifestyle changes. As in, move more and eat healthier foods, in lower quantities.

If that helps, awesome, I’m not going to bash people who need medication to function - as I literally am one of those people - but it’s not a silver bullet.

The benefit of climbing meaning you maintain a level of physical fitness definitely outweighs the risk of you breaking a bone, or dying.

The issue with obesity is that it dramatically increases the risks of loads of other illnesses, many of which kill you very slowly.

You fundamentally should never trust a study commissioned by the company who sells the product.

It’s far too great a conflict of interest.

There’s a false premise here that people only eat when/because they are hungry, as in, they are in need of calories, and stop when they aren’t.

They don’t. People eat for loads of reasons, and many of us have really unhealthy relationships with food, e.g. we eat it we’re sad, or bored, or to punish ourselves, etc.

Then there’s calorie density, you may not even realise how much you’re consuming. For example, a pint of beer has a similar amount of calories to a mars bar. You could quite comfortably drink 4 pints over an afternoon, consume 1000 calories, and then go out for a meal, in a way that you probably wouldn’t eat 4 mars bars, and then have a meal.

But it’s not been peer reviewed, this study has not appeared in a scientific journal yet, and it was funded by the drug manufacturers. So are people getting a bit overexcited?

I mean, come on.

Having many friends who work in primary care, this is a common view among professionals.

On a fundamental basis, it’s almost impossible to outrun a bad diet, even some people with gastric bands manage to put the weight back on after a few years.

There are many social cofactors in people’s weight - shit job and irregular hours make it very difficult to cook, multiple jobs, an inability to cook, cheap food being pumped full of shite, very little money, etc etc etc - which also need to be fixed.

But oxempic, and the rest, are the equivalent to a very effective hangover cure. Just cos you can drink 15 pints and pop a pill in the morning to feel better, doesn’t mean you should, or that’s it’s healthy to do so.

OK, byeeee 👋

Tories being obstructionist cunts? Never!

While I’m glad she’s done this, let’s not forget that Warsi is hardly the bastion of enlightened centrism, let alone anything progressive.

My argument since the election has essentially been, until the budget we don’t know what political decisions Reeves will make.

Reclassifying debt and assets in line with the IMF absolutely makes sense economically, and the Tories didn’t do it for political (ie brutalise the poor) reasons.

If the budget comes, and meaningful investment is not a centrepiece, then we can justifibly start calling Reeves many names under the sun, but until then, we cannot in good faith pretend we know what she’ll do.

Yes, I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt. I really hope I’m right in doing so.

If I’m not, then fair enough, and I won’t pretend otherwise.

Setting the bar at pension credit recipients is too low, I would have much rather they brought forward the expected £400 uplift to the state pension, and removed the winter fuel payment at the same time. That way everyone who needs it would still get it, and those with private pensions / other sources of income would pay more income tax.

The moral argument for why poor pensioners need the payment is valid, but keep in mind that less pensioners live in poverty than working people - which is wild when you consider the demographic bulge the boomers represent. Neither children nor pensioners should freeze over winter in one of the largest economies in the world, with relatively moderate winters.

Lastly, about 25% of pensioners live in households with over £1m in assets. Granted, most of that wealth is tied up in the house, but if you own a £1m house that you can’t afford to heat, bluntly, fucking move.

The lying liar is lying? No, shurely knot!

As I cover in my final paragraph.

Incase you didn’t know, Rwanda was for settled claims, not processing.

As in, they would be sent to Rwanda if they were successful in their asylum claim.

Processing asylum seekers in a country they are already in, like Albania, is significantly safer than forcing them to get in a dingy.

Now if we are taking people out of dingys in the channel, and taking them to Albania, then yes fuck that absolutely.

A full itemised breakdown is a different level of rigor than a “to the closest billion, what’s going on?” request made civil servants as part of an incoming government. Given the statements made by the OBR themselves the idea that 22bn is inaccurate or false is pure cope.

Also, the FT not actually linking to their FOI request means you cannot see exactly what they requested, and a high level of detail could well lead to other disclosure problems (eg if overspend occurs in front line military).

Good to see the FT continuing to absolutely destroy their credibility:

The response from the Treasury’s information rights unit said details would be published respecting agreed timelines “to allow the relevant officials time to complete the preparation of the information to ensure it is accurate and correct prior to publication”.

[…]

A spokesperson added the Treasury intends to provide more details of the overspending, either at the Budget or in separate spending releases.

Not exactly sure how this can be considered a refusal…hmmmmm.