8 December 2025
First of all, a disclaimer:
Nothing I say in the following piece is to be interpreted, or imply, that I in any way support acts of violence, race hatred, discrimination or exhortation to use anything other than a peaceful expression of one’s views.
So much has been happening since the budget that it is difficult to know where to start. The budget was a disaster in more ways than one. The contents were economically damaging and ill thought out, putting politics ahead of the country’s needs. Rachel Reeves stated that, because of the deficit (black hole) of £26 billion, she needed to increase the tax take to cover things. It transpired that two weeks before the budget the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had informed her that there was actually a surplus of £4.1 billion. This was not disclosed at the presentation of the budget, instead a deficit of £26 billion was used.
The bulk of these funds raised were used to fund the abolition of the two-child benefit cap, whereby no extra benefits were paid to a family who had more than two children. Now, the parents will receive benefits for every child in a family.
The impact of the budget
· Families on full handouts to get £18,000 a year more than living wage neighbours post tax, following budget welfare splurge
· With family of five children, £90,000 a year is now needed to match [a] jobless household’s combined benefit income
· Health benefits on course to hit 1.9 per cent of GDP by 2030 with five million now written off as unable to work
· Damning new report, The Benefits Budget, lays bare scale of “welfare crisis” wracking Britain following last week’s £26 billion tax hike
Jobless families on combined benefits will now take home £18,000 more per year than the post-tax wages of a working family, following the abolition of the two-child limit, a new analysis reveals.
A family with three children, with at least one parent claiming the average rates of Universal Credit, housing and health benefits including Personal Independence Payment, will now receive £46,000 by 2026/27. For a family of five children, this rises to £55,000.
This compares to the £28,000 taken home after tax by a family where one adult works full-time and another works part-time on the national living wage.
To take home the same amount as a three-child family with combined benefits would now require a salary of roughly £71,000 before tax – rising to £90,000 to match the benefits of a family of five children.
A single out of work parent on the same combined benefits with three children would be paid £43,000 – over £22,000 more than someone would net after tax from working full-time on £20,600.
Source, The Centre for Social Justice https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/post-budget-research
Retrieved 9th December 2025.
The average annual wage is £35,000. This figure varies according to which source is used, but this is a fair estimate.
The breakdown of recipients of child benefits is interesting. In 2019 39 per cent of births were to non-UK-born mothers. (Migration Watch UK). This has since levelled out at about 34 per cent (Office for National Statistics, ONS).
The share of families with three or more children varies from 14 per cent in white British families to 41 per cent in Pakistani families and 38 per cent in Bangladeshi ones. (Children’s Commissioner for England report 2022).
A strange coincidence is that these ethnic groups are traditionally more disposed to vote Labour.
The government is more determined than ever to go ahead with the introduction of electronic ID cards. This has encountered fierce resistance from most of the political spectrum, including Labour supporters.
A few weeks after this, it was announced that the police will be extending the use of facial recognition cameras nationally. The police will be given access to government data sources such as passport photos and driving licence photos held by the government. This raises issues of confidentiality, but the police say that the use of these sources won’t be abused. The police of course are of the highest integrity and wouldn’t be tempted to misuse the data. Perhaps they will use facial recognition to locate people at free speech demonstrations.
A police chief has apologised after appearing to mislead MPs by telling them that Jewish people in Birmingham had backed a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending an Aston Villa match last month.
West Midlands Police assistant chief constable Mike O’Hara told a select committee last week that concerns were raised by the religious community over supporters of the Israeli football team travelling to the city.
He said this contributed to the decision to bar the fans from their Europa League fixture at Villa Park on November 6, which sparked a huge backlash – with claims officials were caving into Islamist thugs.
However, the force has now been accused of using the community as a shield to avoid scrutiny after sources within the local community claimed there was no ‘meaningful consultation’ before the ban was decided.
One source told The Sunday Times that O’Hara’s comments were a ‘twisted’ distortion of the facts and consultation with Birmingham Jews had been minimal.
The senior officer has since written to representatives of the city’s Jewish community to apologise, emphasising he had ‘no intention’ of implying its members ‘had explicitly expressed support for the exclusion of Maccabi fans’.
He also accepted it was ‘not the case’ that members of the Jewish community had expressed support for the ban and will ‘ensure this is clearly articulated’ to MPs in further written questions.
During the select committee hearing on Monday, O’Hara was grilled about a community impact assessment (CIA) carried out by West Midlands Police to assess the risk of allowing the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans to attend the game.
Committee Chair Karen Bradley asked: ‘On the community impact assessment, were members of the communities saying that they did not want the Maccabi fans there, and did that include any Jewish representatives?
O’Hara simply responded ‘yes’ and was then asked to clarify: ‘Were Jewish community representatives who said that they did not want the Maccabi fans there?’
‘Feedback was documented within the community impact assessment that was clear that there were a range of faiths, backgrounds and ethnicities that were very concerned about this fixture,’ O’Hara responded.
The police chief was once again asked if any Jewish people specifically had raised concerns, to which he replied: ‘Yes. It was documented within the CIA from the beginning of September.’
Source Daily Mail 6th December 2025
OOPS!! There goes West Midlands police’s credibility. Of course, they can be trusted with facial recognition and access to government held photos and data.
Just to top things off, Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, known as Calamity Lammy, decided to severely limit the use of trials by jury.
The Deputy Prime Minister’s plan to all but abolish jury trials represents a direct assault on our ancient liberties – and a profound threat to free speech.
Jury trials are a cornerstone of the British justice system, with the earliest known reference in England dating back to 997. Yet, like many long-standing rights we hold dear, this fundamental protection is now under attack.
Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy is proposing to scrap jury trials for all offences except those carrying a potential prison sentence of more than three years. Under his plan, only the most serious charges – such as rape, murder and terrorism – would still be heard before a jury.
We must not forget that this government has shown little regard for free speech since taking office. This policy is just the latest illustration of the contempt they hold for this ancient liberty.
Trial by one’s peers is often the final safeguard against an increasingly authoritarian cancel-culture mob. When numerous members of the Free Speech Union have faced criminal charges simply for speaking out, juries have consistently rejected the overreach of zealous prosecutors. This has frustrated the Crown Prosecution Service, the activist networks driving many of these complaints, and now the lawyer-class at the top of this government.
The case of Jamie Michael, a decorated Royal Marines veteran, is a textbook example of the importance of juries. He was charged inciting racial hatred after a Labour Party staffer reported him for a Facebook video in which he called for protests against high levels of illegal immigration following the heinous Southport murders. He was arrested at work and spent 17 days behind bars on remand.
The Free Speech Union supported Jamie throughout his case and successfully secured the immediate removal of his tag and the lifting of his curfew. In the end, a jury took just 17 minutes to unanimously find him not guilty.
The government’s hypocrisy is striking. In 2020, David Lammy himself declared that “criminal trials without juries are a bad idea” and that jury trials are “foundational to the justice system in England and Wales”. Now in office, he is leading the effort to dismantle them, citing the record 80,000 case backlog in the courts. But juries are clearly not the cause of this crisis, with the chair of the Bar Council, Baroness Mills KC, stating that “The criminal justice system is not in this crisis because of jury trials…there is little evidence (the reform) would significantly reduce the Crown Court backlog.”
Lammy claims that without radical action thousands of victims will be denied justice but stripping away one of our oldest liberties would ensure thousands more have their speech curtailed and justice denied.
Let’s be clear: this move is not about saving costs or tackling inefficiencies in the courts. It is about power. If Lammy succeeds, judges alone will be able to convict and imprison people for up to five years for social media posts.
Source, Free Speech Union Max Thompson 2nd December 2025.
Taken individually these stories could be shrugged off, but the accumulative effect gives me cause for concern. I am not a great believer in conspiracy theories, but all this suggests a grab for power and the imposition of even more control on the average person. Labour have even deferred some council elections due next May.
New mayoral elections are set to be delayed in four areas of England, sparking accusations from opposition parties of an attack on democracy.
The government is “minded” to push back elections in Essex, Hampshire and the Solent, Sussex and Brighton, and Norfolk and Suffolk until 2028, Local Government Secretary Steve Reed confirmed.
The government insists “technical changes” around the major local government reorganisation mean more time is needed and have caused the decision to delay.
Source ITV news 4th December 2025
In all these electorates the Reform party is forecast to win by huge margins.
I am very worried for the future of the UK as a democratic country and the country is getting very twitchy. Trust in the government and the police has collapsed.
All it needs is for civil disturbances to increase and this government would be tempted to invoke emergency powers.
