Oh that word nakedly, itās conjured images that will haunt the psyche.
This was nice work, bursting the Chancellorās bubble.
Demonstrating that unless scripted/ directed for photo ops, Rishi really is just a lightweight and easily pushed around.
I get the impression sheās not a fanā¦
Iām sure itās not easy to practically distribute that money in a way that works for all, but the fact he didnāt have the numbers to hand was piss poor.
Of course, we could argue the merits of giving tax payersā money back just so they can hand it to energy firms booking massive profits - as opposed to just capping the damn energy prices in the first placeā¦ (let alone nationalising them on the basis that vital services, by definition, should not be aiming to make profit and support shareholders)
I like how he talks about the reality of policy as to why he hasnāt done this.
Yes you muppet limit it to first homes only and save millions. Not hard is it.
The people who need this most will be on prepay meters in rented housingā¦ how do they get the money?
Thatās the easy one to do, they are going to credit the prepay meter with the Ā£400 (or a voucher if not smart meters)
The real problem is that they initially didnāt want to do a general benefits uplift, so were stuck with the fuel bill thing. Then they clearly had to do a benefits uplift anyway.
There is no right answer about how to do this, there will always be oddities. People on means tested benefits, to start with, sure, but pensioners donāt automatically get these. Add it into the pension and you benefit rich pensioners.
I donāt think that the āall fuel billsā solution was a terrible one tbh. On the basis that there isnāt a list of first/second homes, itās a pragmatic solution.
Isnāt there one for Council Tax purposes?
Give the money to the local authorities and they pay it to the bank account of the council tax payer, it is what they did with the money thay gave away to everyone in band A-D recently.
Is there ?
For a while we (mostly) owned a flat in the north-east which Mrs VB used when she went (often) to visit her sick mum. Since she was almost always there on her own she claimed for the low-occupancy discount. But I donāt remember us having to declare it as a second home, which it pretty much was.
The woman in the video clip seemed to have some numbers for 2nd and 3rd homes
1922 committee considering removing the 12 month wait for another no confidence vote
Playing him at his own game, I like it 
Actually I donāt think he was floundering much there. He started out by agreeing with her that this help should be targeted. He shouldnāt have done. Agreeing with her was a mistake on his part. This help is not targeted. Itās universal.
But he pretty quickly corrected himself, saying that it is āmore universalā, and he then said that she might or might not agree about whether it should be (she very clearly doesnāt agree). And thatās all there was, I think.
She was so prepped that she was literally reading her piece, word by word, from a script. She let him get started on his answer to the first bit and then she had a golden opportunity to nail him for the āagreeingā mistake - an open goal, if you like. But she missed it. Instead she just started reading again.
The numbers she quoted were big. But to be honest the budget for this is a lot bigger overall. If she really felt that this help needs to be targeted at the needy only then Iād guess she wants the number of recipients to be cut by half, or more. However bad the energy price rises are going to be, I donāt think that half the households in this country are going to be faced with a āheat or eatā decision. Am I wrong about that ?
Nothing wrong with your commentary and I agree she wasnāt at the top of her game either which makes it even more underwhelming that the chancellor of the exchequer appeared to be on the back foot to some barely average questioning.
Well thatās a challenging wank.
I used to have a lot of sympathy with the premise that you had to do things universally because means testing was too difficult and the cost of administering stuff like that meant it was more effective to do a blanket payment.
I reckon thatās now bollocks. There is so much data available any major tech company would piss being able to segment its users. Obviously this is the government so youād expect tech incompetence but when it suits them they can do it.