Rob Corney

@MrRBourne @andrew_lilico This government seems always keen that businesses reduce profit margins through price caps, but not so keen to consider moving tax from a percentage based system to a capped price per unit as costs rise.

In this opinion piece, the UK government's cost-of-living tsar seems to think companies that obtain windfall profits from temporarily higher margins from energy shocks raising gas and oil prices have a sort of moral duty to hold prices down. But the trade-off isn't: higher profits vs. lower prices. What's at stake is the functioning of a market price system. a) if prices don't reflect reality there's less incentive to bring forth new supply, b) if prices don't reflect reality there's more incentive for consumers to purchase "excess" rather than economise c) and so, if prices don't reflect reality there's more likely to be shortages & less investment in future supply too. thetimes.com/comment/cartoo…

@kateferguson4 Maybe Louise Haig could help find it?

EXCL: Morgan McSweeney's mobile phone with texts to Peter Mandelson was stolen. These messages may be lost forever - meaning there there will be gaps in The Mandelson files published by No10. Phone was nicked and reported to police last year. thesun.co.uk/news/38591267/…

@jamespriceglos @GuyEmma68700 He voted in favour of taxing the provision of services to disabled kids. He has no moral position from which to judge another man’s tax affairs.

This is disgraceful. A treasury minister is commenting on another MP’s perfectly legal tax affairs. If you don’t like it, change the law. Or is this minister now entitled to opine on the personal affairs of every member of parliament? Does everyone’s personal affairs have to meet your personal approval too? Or just the law?

@thesundaysport @labourpress They only want it explaining so Starmer’s mates can do the same with the profits they make from the Chagos sell out.

@labourpress Avoiding tax is not just legal, it's a national duty given how you lot waste it.

Richard Tice needs to urgently explain himself - to the British public and to HMRC.

@QcWynter Maybe they’re just biding their time?

I have been watching sports on television since 2pm - Ireland v Scotland, Wales v Italy, Arsenal v Everton and now France v England. These two have shown zero interest.

As a man with eye problems, why the hell are France playing in a slightly blue shade of white versus white opposition? It’s almost impossible to see what’s happening in the wide shots. #GuinnesM6N

@DCBMEP There was a bloke in Cheadle when I was a kid who torched a listed building in order to build some monstrosity on the same site. He *was* forced to rebuild the original building.

This should be made illegal. Rebuilding should be made compulsory and specified in insurance - arson is a crime not an opportunity.

@JAHeale @clarescastle She doesn’t seem to realise that ~3.5p of that 6.9p rise goes to the @RachelReevesMP that she’s lauding.

Depressing (and worrying) how little understanding there now seems to be of price mechanisms, post-Covid

@sandieshoes @WilyTrout Laurie Magnus willing to sacrifice his entire reputation to act as a human shield for Starmer’s malfeasance raises questions as to why.

💥💥💥💥💥 Sky reports that Sir Laurie Magnus ( governments ethics advisor) has denied the Tories an investigation into Starmer. According to him so far there is nothing to see here. His full reply and presumably his reasoning will be released shortly. Starmer will be laughing tonight 🙄 Remember 👇 The Conservative Party has formally requested that the government's independent ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus, investigate Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal.

Labour logic, make it more expensive to employ people so businesses do not employ them. Then subsidise businesses to employ the people they would have employed anyway if it hadn't been made expensive to do so.

@Dominic2306 @WTMAtkinson It feels, maybe, if someone is invariably wrong because of their optimism, they’re not optimistic, they’re deluded.

Rory 'I was wrong because I'm an optimist' Stewart now says 'our optimistic predictions [are] invariably wrong'...

@ClaireWard4EM @Tesco @RachelReevesMP More than half of that increased cost is going straight to @RachelReevesMP in taxes. She could prevent those rises straight away… in fact, if she wasn’t so closely tied to failing ideology, she could be reducing taxes more broadly and kickstarting the economy.

This is @Tesco Ollerton. At the beginning of the week diesel was 150p, hiked up from the previous week. At lunchtime today it was 154p. This afternoon 156.9p. Its just one of many. So all power to @RachelReevesMP to stop this blatant profiteering.

@BBCBreakfast So this means the gov’t is capping the total value of tax taken from fuel at pre-war levels & ensure savings are passed onto motorists, right? Because if not, the gov’t itself is engaging in price gouging & this meeting is to be seen to do something rather than doing something

'We will not tolerate unfair practices including price gouging' Energy Secretary Ed Miliband spoke to #BBCBreakfast about whether energy firms are profiteering from the rising price of oil and the competition watchdog is primed to step in to prevent petrol price "rip-offs" bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

@faisalislam Ed Milliband saying what he cares about is the cost of living whilst the gov’t refuses to reduce taxes on fuel and signs us up to EU carbon taxing to increase the price of imports is, at best, two faced.

@Telegraph But he hasn't taken personal responsibility, he's just using those words because he thinks it will save his skin and help him avoid taking responsibility which would require his resignation. A man so lacking in basic decency should be nowhere near power.

🚨 BREAKING: Sir Keir Starmer has taken personal responsibility for the scandal over Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US. “It was me that made the mistake… and it’s me that makes the apology to the victims of Epstein” Find out more ⬇️ telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/…

@EdwardJDavey Your predecessor was the man shortsighted enough to prevent us building nuclear in 2010 because it would take 10 years to come on stream. Your party's decision is far more likely to be the thing responsible for switching the lights out.

Ed Miliband must step in and bar Tesla from holding an energy licence. Elon Musk is a threat to our national security and clearly not a fit person to operate in our energy industry. We can’t have the lights go out because he’s having a strop on X.

@BarristersHorse If he was eating cake whilst lying, someone entirely impartial like Harriet Harman would definitely be calling for his resignation by now.

To be clear: the tenure of a Prime Minister shouldn't be at the convenience of his Party's MPs. If allegations that a Prime Minister has repeatedly lied or misled the House, then it is a matter of national importance those allegations are investigated promptly, irrespective of whether it's untimely for his Party.

@LauraTrottMP It's hard to use the debasement of all moral standards as a knockout blow against a man who has no integrity... if he had a shred of that, he would have resigned.

If confirmation that the PM appointed Peter Mandelson as Ambassador despite knowing about his continuing friendship with a convicted padeophile isn’t a knockout blow I don’t know what is

That’s *a thousand people* in this country who are *annually* held by the Crown Court to have been not guilty when the Magistrates’ Court found them guilty. Think about the impact a criminal conviction can have on a life. A family. Then times that by a thousand. Every year.

@Madz_Grant Labour politicians are so unfamiliar with competence and knowledge that when they hear them, they mistake them for pomposity.

If you want to see the best and worst of the Commons, watch Catherine West's snippy response to Geoffrey Cox. Disoriented by a rare display of brilliance in the Commons, she can only call him patronising (inevitably, before reading off a sheet) and her colleagues can only jeer