🚨 NEW: Chancellor Rachel Reeves has charged taxpayers £371 for subscriptions to The Economist and The Financial Times since March

Jeremy Clarkson on the inheritance tax changes: "People like me will simply put it in a trust, and so long as I live for seven years, that’s fine ... but it’s incredibly time consuming to have to do that, and why should all these people have to do that?” huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/v…

I oppose the proposal for a McDonald's in Stirchley. The people of Stirchley have spoken up against this proposal, and as their representative in Government, I will amplify their voice. We do not need a McDonald's in Stirchley. #sellyoak #stirchley #childhoodobesity #healthylifestyle #oversaturation #healthyoptions #independentbusinesses #communityenterprise #localeconomy #community #localreinvestment #localenvironment

*sighs*…. In the Lakes you can have a farm worth millions on paper, and earn less than the minimum wage. If you have to sell it to pay IHT, the farm will go into the hands of massive corporate types. This reduces food production, harms the environment and is simply unjust.

Property taxes should be outlawed. And before someone says “aLL tAxEs sHouLd be ouTlaWed” yes, but property taxes in particular are the most unjust. Every other tax is based on a share of a transaction. You always know upfront what this share will be. Property taxes, on the other hand, are based on a “value” assessed by the same entity levying the tax. Your town or county literally “decides” what your property is worth (assessed value) and then demands a share of it, regardless of your ability to pay. Fail to pay and they take the property for themselves. The model is actually worse than an unrealized gains tax; you aren’t just paying the tax on the gain, you are basically paying a percentage of whatever they decide the value is, every year in perpetuity. That’s why it’s is the most unjust tax. That’s why it should be abolished.

I’m trying to follow the great farming debate but, as an economics illiterate, I’m baffled. If a farm has a nominal value of, say, £3m but generates an income of only c. £40k, how can it really be worth that much? This is not, bt dubs, a loaded question. I’m interested.

Absolutely, a poster in Manchester today. Worth a read.

🚨 NEW: Donald Trump's team is considering deporting illegal migrants to Rwanda [@kateferguson4]

O'Gorman defends 'legitimate' objection made by Green Party housing TD to 330 homes in Dublin. Read more: thejournal.ie/roderic-ogorma…

In 31 years of age I think I’ve finally discovered the cure to depression and it’s just leaving the house at every single possible opportunity no matter how badly you don’t want to.

Vivek Ramaswamy's thought experiment for reducing the size of government on @lexfridman: "Day 1, anybody in the federal bureaucracy who's not elected, whose Social Security number ends in an odd number, you're out. [Day 2], of those who remain, if your Social Security starts in an even number, you're in, and if it starts with an odd number, you're out. That's a 75% reduction." "Now imagine that you could run that thought experiment at scale, but you had a metric for screening people who had the greatest competence, as well as the greatest commitment and knowledge of the Constitution. That would immediately raise not only the civic character of the United States... it would also stimulate the economy. The regulatory state is like a wet blanket on the economy." "One of the virtues of that thought experiment is you don't have a bunch of lawsuits you're dealing with about gender discrimination or racial discrimination... [And] the reality is... on Day 3, not a thing will have changed for the ordinary American, other than their government being a lot smaller and more restrained, and spending a lot less money."

Why do we need a Department of Government Efficiency? In 2020, the U.S. government spent $4.5 million to spray alcoholic rats with bobcat urine.