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Not done with celebrating defeat in an imaginary UDI yesterday, The National has gone with another big polling-based front cover today, and the party’s woke young stormtrooper drones are beside themselves with malignant glee.

Let’s just see what they’re cheering about.

Oh.

That 29% figure is actually one point DOWN on the SNP’s support in the last UK election, at which they lost 39 MPs and recorded their worst result in 14 years.

It’s also a whopping NINE points down on their constituency vote in the Holyrood election just three months ago, and barely above their list vote of 27.2%.

It is by any measure a miserable set of figures for John Swinney’s party, disguised only by the fact that it would still result in a majority of Scottish seats under the UK’s hopelessly crooked First Past The Post electoral system, because Reform are almost tied with Labour for second place – although the seat projection gives Labour 16 seats and Reform none, because Labour’s support is more concentrated in particular areas.

But that, dear readers, is the modern SNP supporter for you – they don’t care about winning independence and they don’t care how many votes they lose, so long as they get to stay in power and continue to enjoy bragging rights over the tiny broken rump of nothingness that is Scottish Labour.

(Frankly we suspect even the claimed 10,000 members is a huge exaggeration.)

Much like Celtic fans with “Rangers”, the crowing is so addictive as an end in itself that it doesn’t matter that the supposed rivals are a feeble irrelevance now. The Ibrox club have won just three major honours out of the last 42 contested in Scotland, yet Celtic fans – despite having had 29 pieces of silverware to celebrate in that period – still get themselves sufficiently worked up about their one-time competitors to regularly smash up the stadium and daub graffiti gloating about 66 people being killed in a horrific tragedy 55 years ago.

Even more remarkably, they imagine that that makes people see them as they see themselves – heroic, oppressed, anti-establishment good guys, rather than a bunch of spoilt Neanderthal thugs.

The images above might as well be the Scottish Parliament. (Although in that place, 66 is enough, for a narrow majority in the chamber.)

The large bulk of the country, meanwhile, just as with Celtic and Rangers (old and new versions of the latter alike), sighs wearily and quietly loathes both of them equally, and dreams of a better, less tainted alternative appearing from somewhere one day.

?

Sadly all that’s currently on offer is Nigel Farage, who’s no sane person’s idea of the next Alex Ferguson (although it must be conceded that he did enjoy his own night of dramatic success in Europe).

The sobering truth is that we’ve already had our Fergie in Scottish politics, in the form of another Alex, and it looks like the next one is a long way off. And in the meantime, the scum are revelling in their grubby, ugly glory days.

David Lidington arrives at 10 Downing Street, 2018 (Alamy)

3 min read42 min

David Lidington, who served as Theresa May’s de facto deputy prime minister during his almost three decades as a Tory MP, argued that a future Conservative victory will require the party to step out of its electoral comfort zone.

Speaking on this week’s episode of PoliticsHome podcast The Rundown, which will be published on Friday (14 August), Lidington said the current generation of Conservative MPs should look at how electorally successful leaders like Margaret Thatcher “departed massively from a lot of political assumptions that had dominated politics”.

Lidington, now a member of centre-right campaign group Prosper UK, said his party’s “big challenge” as it looks to rebuild under leader Kemi Badenoch is “to look beyond our own core support, which is the over-65s at the moment, and really make inroads into the support of younger age groups”.

“We need policies certainly on the economy and economic growth but also on things like housing policy, that are going to offer hope to young people with aspiration,” he said.

“And you say to older people, ‘This is about building the right country for your kids and your grandkids.’ I think, you present the argument in that way, and people will buy into that, even if those policies are not directed purely to people my age.”

Asked specifically whether he would reform the triple lock, he said: “I’m a beneficiary of the triple lock. I’m over pensionable age. I would scrap it. I would go to a straightforward earnings link.”

Under the existing policy, introduced by the Coalition government, the state pension is guaranteed to be uprated every year by whichever is highest – inflation, average earnings growth or 2.5 per cent.

Critics warn that rising life expectancy and falling birth rates, combined with periods of high inflation, mean the commitment is not sustainable in the long term, and will only worsen intergenerational inequality at a time when young people face significant economic challenges.

Earlier this year, the Tony Blair Institute think tank called for the triple lock to be replaced, describing it as “increasingly unaffordable” and belonging to a “different era”.

Speaking on The Rundown, Lidington said: “At a time when young people can work every hour God gives them and still struggle to get on the first rung of the housing ladder… People 18 to 25 living with their parents. When you’ve got real issues about how technology is shaping up the job market for school and college leavers. People are delaying having children later and later in life.

“We need to give those people hope.”

The former Conservative MP said he would link reduced pension spending to funding a reformed social care system as part of a “new intergenerational bargain”.

“We can’t just load ever more tax and borrowing onto the shoulders of young people, onto the shoulders of your children, your grandchildren, who are going to have to pick up the tab if we don’t make changes,” he added.

“There are ways in which to sell such a policy, but I do think those hard choices need to be faced up to.”

In the forthcoming episode, Lidington also said Badenoch is “absolutely right” to reject a pact with Reform UK, warning that a deal with Nigel Farage’s party would be “deeply, deeply damaging” for the Conservatives, and said it was “contemptible” for Reform’s Zia Yusuf to call former Tory defence secretary Ben Wallace a “traitor”.

This week’s The Rundown is presented by Adam Payne, and is produced and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

• Click here to listen to the latest episode of The Rundown, or search for ‘PoliticsHome’ wherever you get your podcasts.

Homeless families march in Parliament Street, October 2022 (Credit: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Alamy)

5 min read7 min

Ministers would rightly regard that as absurd and financially unsustainable. Yet this is how councils across England are expected to fund a significant part of the temporary accommodation system.

Every week, local authorities help families who have nowhere else to turn. They may have lost a private tenancy, escaped an unsafe home or simply found that rapidly rising rents have pushed an already stretched household budget beyond breaking point. Councils have a legal and moral duty to help them, and temporary accommodation provides an essential safety net at one of the most difficult moments in their lives.

The problem lies in the way Whitehall funds that responsibility.

For many temporary accommodation placements, the amount a council can recover from government is capped at 90 per cent of the Local Housing Allowance rate that applied in January 2011. That does not reduce the support to which a family is entitled. It means the council, and ultimately the local taxpayer, has to find the difference.

The housing market has changed beyond recognition during the past 15 years. Councils are paying rents, maintenance costs and management fees in 2026, following a pandemic, a surge in inflation and steep increases in private rents. Whitehall’s contribution remains rooted in a housing market that no longer exists.

In Croydon, that gap is costing local taxpayers approximately £40m every year. This is money that cannot be spent cleaning streets, fixing roads, tackling antisocial behaviour or supporting vulnerable residents before they reach crisis point.

We have made difficult decisions to restore financial stability in Croydon and will continue working to manage every pound carefully. We are working to prevent homelessness, secure better accommodation and reduce our reliance on expensive nightly placements. Yet no amount of sound local financial management can close a gap deliberately built into the national funding system.

Nor is this special pleading on Croydon’s behalf. It is a structural problem confronting Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Reform, Green and independent councils across the country.

Local Government Association analysis shows that councils spent £6bn on temporary accommodation between 2011-12 and 2024-25. More than a third of that total, some £2.2bn, was spent in the final two years alone. Across London, boroughs are now spending the equivalent of one council tax pound in every nine on temporary accommodation.

Unfortunately, we cannot put a line on council tax bills marked “the cost of an outdated Whitehall formula”, but that is increasingly what residents are being asked to fund.

Some will argue that councils should reduce their dependence on temporary accommodation. They are right, and every responsible local authority is trying to do so. The trouble is that the current rules can make that harder.

The better long-term approach is to prevent homelessness wherever possible, build more genuinely affordable homes and help councils acquire or lease good-quality properties. That would provide families with greater security whilst reducing the use of expensive short-term placements.

Yet when councils try to invest in their own accommodation, they run into a tangle of rent and subsidy rules that can make otherwise sensible schemes financially unviable. The result is perverse. Councils remain dependent on more expensive temporary placements, families face greater uncertainty and taxpayers receive worse value for money.

The Local Authority Housing Fund has shown what can be achieved when councils are given the right backing to acquire homes. It has been welcome, but it only begins to address the scale of the challenge.

Building more homes will take time. Correcting an outdated funding formula does not need to.

This government should replace the January 2011 benchmark with the current Local Housing Allowance rate and ensure it is reviewed regularly. Ministers should reconsider the arbitrary 90 per cent cap and simplify the rules so that councils are not penalised when they acquire or lease homes as an alternative to costly nightly accommodation.

This would not be a blank cheque, nor would it remove the responsibility on councils to control costs and prevent homelessness. It would simply stop Whitehall disguising part of the national cost of the housing crisis by leaving it buried in local authority budgets.

I have written to housing minister Matthew Pennycook asking the government to act. I hope council leaders and parliamentarians from every party will add their voices, because the outdated subsidy regime does not distinguish between Conservative and Labour authorities. It drains resources from all of us.

The government has spoken about rebuilding its relationship with local government and devolving greater responsibility to local communities. This is a straightforward test of that aspiration. Devolution cannot mean passing legal duties down whilst withholding the resources needed to discharge them properly.

This campaign is about more than council balance sheets. It is about families who need somewhere safe and stable to live, taxpayers who deserve to see their money used wisely and neighbourhood services that should not suffer because Whitehall has failed to update a 15-year-old formula.

A funding benchmark fixed in January 2011 should not survive the next Budget.

Jason Perry is the Conservative Mayor of Croydon

Anna Firth is the former MP for Southend West and Leigh

The fundamental principle on which British policing is built is that of public consent.

Yet the Home Secretary is proposing the most radical shake-up of policing in a generation without first securing the consent of the people whose police forces she proposes to reorganise.

Central to the Government’s reforms is the merging of 43 county police forces into roughly 10 regional, “mega” forces alongside a new National Police Force.

There is no manifesto mandate for abolishing local police forces. Labour’s 2024 manifesto promised more neighbourhood policing, a named officer for every community – the very definition of localism – alongside stronger standards and greater collaboration in areas such as procurement, IT and shared services.

Nobody voting Labour in Essex in 2024 was told that they were voting for the disappearance of Essex Police and its replacement by a vast Eastern police force stretching from Shoeburyness to Norwich and from Lowestoft to Tring. Yet that is the scale of the change now being planned.

Bigger does not mean better when it comes to policing. The Metropolitan Police Force is the biggest police force in the Country, yet fails to solve 95 per cent of reported crimes and has serious problems with culture, leadership and accountability.

Astonishingly, however, there has been no nationwide public consultation regarding these reforms, nor is any planned.

That matters – not least because previous governments contemplating fundamental policing reform recognised the importance of consulting the public.

When Tony Blair’s Labour Government attempted to similarly merge police forces in 2005/06, Ministers explicitly declared that “consultation is a vital part of the process” and, once the new vast police forces were proposed, affected police authorities, forces and local authorities were given statutory periods in which to object. Not surprisingly, the proposals swiftly collapsed amid huge public opposition and concerns about cost and practicality.

Five years later, when David Cameron’s coalition government replaced police authorities with directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners, the Government also recognised the importance of public consultation. Its 2010 Policing in the 21st Century  consultation was open to the public and a formal Government response was published before legislation proceeded.

Contrast that with this Labour government. No manifesto mandate, no public consultation on the Government’s white paper and, instead, a so-called “independent” review by Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe, a man whose views on police mergers are well known.

Yet where the public has been asked, there is precious little evidence of public consent.

Last week I held a packed public meeting in Leigh-on-Sea with Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, Roger Hirst.

The verdict was overwhelming. Resident after resident spoke about the importance of local knowledge, local leadership and local accountability.

One resident summed up the fundamental flaw in the proposals perfectly: “You don’t make poor-performing forces better by making good-performing ones worse. It will level them down rather than level them up.”

Another ex-senior Southend police officer asked the obvious question:

“If we’ve got a new Prime Minister who wants to decentralise government, why are we looking to centralise the police service?”

Why indeed? The evidence from across Essex tells the same story. A survey conducted by the Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner received around 1,700 responses. Nearly 70 per cent opposed the creation of regional police forces, while 85 per cent said local, visible policing was important.

Police and Crime Commissioners up and down the Country have conducted similar surveys and all have shown overwhelming opposition to the Government’s plans.

There is, of course, a case for reforming parts of British policing. Some forces face serious difficulties. Modern crime crosses county and national borders. Counter-terrorism, serious organised crime and international criminal networks require national capabilities.

There is also a perfectly sensible Conservative case for forces sharing procurement, technology, specialist services and back-office functions where that saves taxpayers’ money.

But collaboration is not the same thing as centralisation and the existence of struggling forces does not justify abolishing successful ones.

Essex serves a population of around two million and is delivering strong results. Indeed, Hirst told our meeting that Essex’s crime solve rate is around twice the national average and more than three times that of London. He also highlighted significant reductions in knife crime and domestic abuse achieved through locally designed partnerships and interventions. Why jeopardise that?

But what problem would abolishing Essex Police actually solve?

Another resident spoke passionately about the importance of officers understanding the communities they police: “Keeping it local means we have people who understand the residents, who understand the area and the needs of that area.”

That local knowledge is not some sentimental attachment to county boundaries. It has practical consequences.

Southend is not Cambridge. Leigh-on-Sea is not Norwich. The challenges of policing our seafront on a hot summer bank holiday weekend are different from those facing rural Norfolk or central Peterborough.

Our residents rightly expect the people making policing decisions to understand those differences.  As another resident observed: “It’s that small local knowledge that gets things done, and gets it done quickly.”

There is also the question of cost.

Hirst told the meeting that £500 million has been allocated over the current spending review period to policing reform, with estimates of the eventual cost of restructuring potentially reaching around £1.2–£1.3 billion, all coming out of existing budgets.

At a time when every police force is under financial pressure, taxpayers are entitled to ask a very simple question: how many police officers could that money put on our streets?

We have seen it before across the public sector: expensive consultants, new logos, new management structures, new headquarters and years of disruption – while the public wonders why the service they actually receive has not improved.

Where an individual police force is demonstrably too small or failing, there should be mechanisms allowing it to collaborate or voluntarily merge with a larger, more successful force.

But that is very different from imposing a one-size-fits-all restructuring on successful forces.

There was one other key question raised which ministers must answer.

“When are we going to have a full national consultation on it?”

Before ministers embark on one of the biggest restructurings of policing in generations, the public deserve to know precisely what problem is being solved, what evidence supports the proposed solution, how much it will cost and what safeguards will preserve genuinely local policing.

In Essex, residents have already given their answer.

They want visible police officers who know their communities. They want decisions taken locally. They want money spent fighting crime rather than rearranging bureaucracy.

And they do not want a successful Essex Police force levelled down in the pursuit of Whitehall centralisation.

Isabella Link is a Politics, Philosophy and Law undergraduate at the University of Warwick

Young women don’t vote Right anymore.

That’s a fact, and one that’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny. Among women aged 18 to 24, vote share for the Conservatives has collapsed into single figures, Reform UK remains marginal, and the Green Party have managed to capture by far the largest share. In comparison, Reform, and to a lesser extent, the Conservatives still capture notably more support from young male voters. So why exactly is it that right-wing parties cannot replicate this success with younger women, and how can this electorally damning issue be rectified?

Oddly enough, the answer to this question seems not to be found in policy, but instead in how party allegiance is socially perceived. To openly support the Greens as a young woman is seen as socially acceptable. As if one is choosing the moral and ethical stance.

But being an openly right-wing woman? That’s not so fashionable. Conforming to acceptable feminine politics means constantly reaffirming your support for Palestine, for transgender rights, for illegal immigrants to have their crimes overlooked, no matter what you truly believe. Express an opinion outside of the boundaries of acceptable, and you’ll get cancelled, alienated and attacked.

According to the supposedly progressive crowd, to be a woman with conservative beliefs is a form of betrayal to feminism, and to vote for a right-wing party is an act of misogynistic oppression. It’s all rather ironic, considering the Left can’t even define what a woman is.

Thus, women aren’t flocking to the Greens because they have brilliant policies, but instead because constant social pressure forces them to adopt such a position to remain politically virtuous. The Conservatives and Reform are portrayed as aggressors, poised to remove the rights and liberty of women, a narrative spread by influencers hoping to gain popularity with their righteous messaging.

This narrative, of course, is false. Over the last decade, it has been the Conservative Party that has championed campaigns to protect women and girls, creating legal protections against domestic abuse, sexual harassment and voyeuristic offences, whilst fighting for the right to single-sex spaces.

In comparison, the Greens want to legalise purchase and possession of GHB, commonly known as the date rape drug, for “recreational purposes.” Considering that the only “recreational” users of this drug are those who want to exploit vulnerable women, suddenly it seems that the Greens aren’t so feminist after all. In fact, the coercive undertones of their online propaganda subtly removes autonomy from young women to support whatever party they desire to, for fear of feminine excommunication.

Suppose the question then is why aren’t more young women aware that the Conservatives have a wealth of policies designed to better the lives of young women? Simply, it’s because the Conservatives haven’t managed to utilise the full potential of social media. Unfortunately, Reform have figured out how to exploit TikTok, Instagram and X to gain support, not just through the accounts of MPs and party HQ, but through an army of young Reform-aligned influencers, portraying Reform as the “cool” version of conservatism. These influencers range from young councillors equipped with just a phone and controversial views, to charismatic young men and glamorous, media-savvy women, prepped to convince the youth that Reform is simply the place to be.

In comparison, the Conservatives don’t have such a presence, which is where the cracks begin to appear. Younger voters aren’t willing to trawl through manifesto after manifesto, looking for a party which aligns the closest with their values, and so the few young women who are willing to break free of the “progressive” bloc are presented constantly online with information about Reform, and not the Conservatives.

In a society in which aesthetics continuously matter more, the visual appeal of a party is imperative to attracting younger voters, and that’s simply something that the Conservatives haven’t managed to perfect yet. Take for instance, the young women that Reform places at the forefront of their advertisement, such as Councillors Sienna Churcher, Charlotte Hill and Annie O’Neill. They’re well-spoken, photogenic and alter the narrative that Reform UK is purely a party full of older men. Although similar talent certainly exists in the Conservative party, they are far less visible online, thus fail to reach the same audience.

However, all hope isn’t lost, for a solution to this issue is clear and easily implemented. The Conservatives cannot rely purely on well-written policy to increase their share of young female votes, instead they must work to improve both culture and communication to adapt. Party-aligned influencers must be encouraged and supported, to challenge openly the social stigma associated with being a conservative woman, and demonstrate that Conservative policy holds the answers to fixing issues that truly matter to young women, such as safety, employment prospects, and protecting single-sex spaces.

If the Conservative Party wants to win back young female voters, it must demonstrate visibly that the party is willing to speak out for young women and make conservatism fashionable again. Kemi Badenoch’s leadership and transformation of the party has already done half of the work, and now all that is left to do is to exploit these vital avenues that prevent the Conservatives from reaching the audience they desperately need.

Social media is where political activity happens amongst the youth, and to ignore its power would be a fatal mistake.

Sir John, Lord Redwood is a former MP for Wokingham and a former Secretary of State for Wales.

Polling says that rail and water nationalisation are popular. Labour is rediscovering its inner drive for state control, throwing away the Blair years when free enterprise was largely accepted.

However, Ministers and their advisers should pause and think through the meaning of the recent mass cancellations and delays of train services rippling out from Manchester. They were caused by the failings of long nationalised Network Rail who were unable to provide a working back up system for a very short 90 second interruption to mains electricity.

Signals went to red and the railway came to an embarrassing, nationalised halt. It was particularly symbolic that the epicentre of the crisis was Manchester, the origin of  Labour’s revived old thinking about the joys of public control. 

There are three main problems with nationalisation. The first is that it usually creates or sustains a monopoly, meaning none of us have choice or can escape when they behave badly or fail to deliver. The second is that we, the taxpayers, stand behind them financially, so they can load onto us any amount of losses, waste and poorly guided capital spending and we are left to pay the bill.

The third is that the government are to blame for everything that goes wrong. However much they may seek to distance themselves from the bad decisions of senior managers, the public will hold Ministers accountable. Ministers, after all, could change anything to make it work better. 

Free enterprise usually avoids all three of these difficulties. 

It is true that there exist bad companies. There can be bad service, for instance a company can let you down or charge you too much. It is also true you do not have to put up with it. As long as there is competition, you can go elsewhere to get it fixed. Bad performance leads quickly to bad reputation. Failure to correct it leads to bankruptcy as the customers walk away. The losses incurred by bad businesses are paid by their shareholders and bankers – not by taxpayers. Government is not to blame and can come in from the outside to demand improvement, or to close them down, and to prosecute any law breakers.

The UK has avoided nationalising the supply of food and clothes. There is no bread shortage. Hot cross buns are not put on ration when many more people want them at Easter. There is no UK clothes shortage, no waiting list for popular trainers. There is a huge range of choices in food and clothing stores, with a wide range of prices, discounts, price promotions, loyalty cards and credit terms.

Contrast that with what happens where the state runs things. I am not proposing ending free healthcare under the NHS, but the current  nationalised model of delivery means very long waiting lists and waiting times for care, a shortage of GP appointments and hospital beds. It has also meant a lot of worrying deaths, particularly of babies. There needs to be an improved model to deliver great free care. 

Nationalised roads means regular congestion through inadequate provision. Some Councils are proud of their incompetence, and put up permanent signs warning you to expect delays. Imagine a supermarket which had, at the entrance, a permanent warning that you should expect them to be out of bread most of the time. The Highways Agency and Councils regularly shut main roads for work to be done when people wish to use them. They do not shut down the main runway at Heathrow for maintenance when fee paying planes wish to land. The road authorities allow utility companies to dig up the highways to put in pipes and wires and to mend them instead of requiring such works to be in submerged channels with access points for repairs and replacement, preferably not under main highways. 

Nationalised Network Rail has been the main cause of train  delays and cancellations for most of its years of existence. Nationalised HS2, under state control and with access to unbelievable amounts of taxpayer money, has failed to deliver a new railway line to budget and on time, with a likely overrun of more than a decade before the first trains can use it. 

The nationalised Post Office got away with taking money off of its Postmasters for years based on a failed computer system which was stealing from these key staff. It put many of them in jail on false charges. It still lacks a business model which could deliver a profitable business, using the network of counters it still owns or rents. 

The state prisons service fails to stop drug use in prisons, puts up with a high repeat offending rate from prisoners and closes down enough older prisons to ensure the many new prisons built on the instruction of  the last government did not add to capacity. 

It is true the water industry has failed to put in enough new reservoirs to handle the extra demand from a fast increasing population, and has failed to renew and expand enough pipes and treatment works to avoid dumping sewage in the rivers. The whole country is united in condemning this. The problems arise because these are heavily regulated monopolies, meaning you cannot change suppliers to enforce better conduct or get lower prices.One of the main influences preventing the additional provision needed was a Regulator controlling prices and saying No to some needed investment. 

It does not mean a state owned monopoly would be better. Indeed, we know it was worse when we had one in the 1970s and 1980s. It did not even tell us how much sewage it was dumping in rivers and around our coast at sea. When the government started measuring the outfall we were called the dirty man of Europe for sewage defiled beaches. The Camelford water poisoning also occurred in the dying days of the nationalised industry. 

Nationalising water would be an expensive way to make things even worse. The one thing privatisation as monopolies did achieve was to take all the large spending on better facilities away from the taxpayer and the national accounts. Given the tightness of current public finances, there is no room for the payments to shareholders to take over these businesses, nor for the large and increased expenses of putting in new reservoirs and pipes. 

I wanted water privatisation to include competition to keep them honest and drive lower prices and better technology. That could still be done. I was told as we only have one pipe into the house there could not be competition. Most of us only have one gas pipe and one broadband cable into the house, but there is plenty of competition in those markets. Who is to say if one pipe only is best, when maybe there could be a pipe for drinking water to high standards, and another pipe for toilet flushing and garden water  to a lower standard, or collected off the roof? 

The government will run out of money before it can buy up all the water and energy companies it lusts after. Where it does succeed in gaining control, as it is doing with the railways, it will find it is not easy to get any improvement. On past form, it is more likely that it will end up making the inherited problems worse. Meanwhile, taxpayers will be asked to pay yet more money as they spray cash at badly run state concerns in the hope something will get better. HS2 shows that does not work. 

If Labour is to get its nationalisation to achieve anything worthwhile it needs to train its Ministers to offer business leadership. The sad lack of progress at British Steel shows that the Ministerial blunder in not agreeing the take over with Jingye first might prove costly as the Chinese demand £1bn of compensation. It also shows that changing owners does not suddenly make an old works young, or create steel demand that did not exist before. 

It does not suddenly bring costs down or allow charging much higher prices. The losses simply get worse and the poor old taxpayer has to pay all the bills. For how long will they manage to preserve the jobs? Government should not overclaim for what it can achieve when there is no-one else left to blame.