CAFCA47

Definitely centre of the road, retired Chartered Accountant, Belfast born, Lancashire raised - in East Sussex for 39 years, via Antrim, Down, Lancashire, Fife & West Lancashire.
Mile from the English Channel. Parents buried at Skeabost.
Not pro-Tory nor pro-Labour but pro -EU.
No profile, no follow.
Boosts scorned!
Moved on from CAFCA

Him, he:

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Last Notes

2026-03-05 07:11:35 UTC

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Starmer’s Labour 20 months on has largely proved an utter disappointment.
Its main planks of 2024 on cost of living a failure & other measures largely tinkering at the edges or implementing what was already in train.
Reeves seems not to have grasped how to move the economic levers in the right direction.
Starmer seems more like a 20C headmaster than a 21C PM.

2026-02-01 13:38:46 UTC

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Years ago when we lived in Fife our neighbours were from Sarf London & were amazed to see cows & their daily outpourings in the local fields.
Probably wondered what dairy herds were for too, as milk comes in containers, dunnit?

2026-01-27 14:54:09 UTC

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That works when real wage values are increasing - given that the current state of U.K. citizens’ real income is behind 2008 & they are facing inflation on staples the policy is flawed.

2026-01-27 10:33:06 UTC

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…and the foolishness of the BofE MPC continues as high bank rate compounds inflation in the current trend, not combats it.

2026-01-27 10:31:32 UTC

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A moderate investment I made around 12-15 years ago in Fine Gold Royal Mint coinage sets has repaid handsomely in the past week when gold reach $5000 an ounce. Bought when around $1200-$1500 so, even with the FG premium, resulted in a not insignificant tax-free profit.
Coin of the realm gains are not subject to any form of taxation.
The idiocies of Trump can occasion a benefit to some.
That said it’s unwise to invest currently when the gold market is in that ‘bubble’.

2026-01-10 17:39:50 UTC

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TBH I don’t think these are necessarily mutually-exclusive.
Starmer seems z technophobe, has little grasp of business or economics & ‘performs’ on the world stage with a select audience, few of whom are expert, proficient, analytical or judgemental.
His embracing AI with both feet is but an example of needing to jump on a seeming band-wagon.

2026-01-10 15:39:19 UTC

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Miliband seems to be on a trajectory of his own, with promises of cheaper energy no doubt fully-supported by the staff in his burgeoning Department.
I get the feeling Starmer is treating him a little like a strange eccentric cousin who is let out of his man cave occasionally to fulminate further on wild, unattainable pledges.

2025-11-19 10:33:05 UTC

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The MPC dreams on in a mistaken belief that its movement of interest rate has the slightest impact on inflation: it doesn’t.
And Sentance still keeps banging on about maintaining a high rate, hoping his former MPC colleagues listen.
I always recall now Lord King former BoE Governor pontificating about economics yet presided over investment regimes in 2007/8 that permitted ‘gambling on hedge-fund futures’ and borrowing against sub-prime mortgages = throwing £$€ away.
Global crash

2025-11-18 16:56:07 UTC

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Applaud the thrust.
Just wonder why the ‘author’ engineered his ‘web’ of data that way.
I soon found with the uninitiated the old maxim K.I.S.S. worked
‘Keep it simple, stupid’.
When their eyes glaze over with excessive detail or too-intricate a concept you’ve lost the audience.
I’m sure you know far better than I, from the realms of academia.

2025-11-17 09:56:55 UTC

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TBH I struggle with charts so ‘busy’.
Who can really assimilate anything it contains?

2025-11-04 05:05:18 UTC

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Some have derived 0,000s, 00,000s or 000.000s from fraudulent benefit claims published in recent times but the indications as you say of massive overclaim is in the minds of (generally) unconnected Westminster politicians of ALL persuasions.
The greater ripe ground for fraud/connivance is tax avoidance/evasion where too many salt away untaxed or under-declared income whilst HMRC ‘talks a good game’ yet hacking its specialist staff down for costs-reduction compliance.

2025-11-02 16:16:57 UTC

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At least with Thatcher, love her or hate her like Marmite/Vegemite, everyone knew what her stance on issues was.
As Prime Ministers go, from Brown in 2007 through Cameron 🤓 May 🐊 Johnson 🤡 Truss 🥬 Sunak 🚁 & now Starmer 🤠 there has existed negligible vision & considerable dithering or downright stupidity.
None of of the 7 has actually had sufficient breadth of approach to govern meaningfully, fostering drift & economic degradation.

2025-11-02 13:04:36 UTC

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A real joke now that the police are releasing details of a black born Brit & one of Caribbean descent as perps.
So no vestige of terrorists whatsoever.
Drug-crazed hoodlums more likely.
. . .

2025-10-27 07:18:28 UTC

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Maybe ‘reports’ instead of sports in the first line?

2025-10-22 06:44:45 UTC

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And it would be good for me to remove anonymity.
Colin Andrews Chartered Accountant (ret’d) hence the FCA= CAFCA
In this piece RB nails it.
It seems impossible or to fathom whether there is any joined-up strategy that Starmer & Reeves are following, given, as you say, the miss-steps so numerous.
And in fact outright lies.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/22/keir-starmer-rachel-reeves-brexit-eu-labour

2025-10-22 06:34:49 UTC

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We are SO on the same page!
🙏

2025-10-22 01:43:05 UTC

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Hard to disagree.
But did Reeves massage her CV excessively, as her grasp of finance & economics seems tenuous?
Maybe marketing & PR are her standouts!

2025-10-20 06:40:39 UTC

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Squeezed a moment 👇
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/115/405/123/317/470/399/original/9053e0027b850e63.png
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/115/405/123/319/544/457/original/90284aec5865e39c.png
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/115/405/123/316/613/435/original/7d82156a54d80289.png

2025-10-20 05:27:06 UTC

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If you haven’t read through this piece please do find a link.
Totally revealing how flawed AI actually is.
My take is also that it hallucinates, makes fiction fact & is grossly unreliable.
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/115/404/832/971/104/254/original/261a424efe1249cb.png

2025-10-05 07:30:20 UTC

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I trust you mean ‘reform’ and not Reform.

2025-09-28 16:20:20 UTC

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New Towns were NOT private housing.
There was limited space afforded to private developers but the housing was managed by the New Town authorities.
Any idea that private funding is attracted is fanciful.

2025-09-28 11:26:39 UTC

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The concept was good for their early years. Public housing is costly & there is not the appetite for masses of rented housing.
Neither do local authorities choose to run social housing - most are farmed out to associations whose track record is appalling.

2025-09-28 09:46:59 UTC

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They were a good solution for around 40 years from inception.
I worked for 2: Glenrothes in Fife 1976-80 & Skelmersdale 1981-84.
Glenrothes revived the central Fife region from a mining slump & was fairly successful, although rushed house-building & latent issues problematic throughout New Towns.
Skelmersdale was a disaster - merely exported Liverpool issues to an isolated neck of the woods & amplified housing issues.
Not sure the concept is right for the current decade/century.

2025-09-24 19:49:25 UTC

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It’s a cynical ‘toy’ kicked round by vacuous politicians for the past 15 years.

2025-09-23 08:45:53 UTC

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‘Costs’ probably, although the coats do go too.

2025-09-22 09:11:36 UTC

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Strange how at the time ABBA’s music was panned & the girls were pilloried as plastic yet their music has a timeliness rivalling many.
Differently Fleetwood Mac, not necessarily ‘danceworthy’ - I have 2 left feet anyway! - had a timeless quality.
So amused by waking my then teenage daughters late 80s/early 90s with loud renditions of FM & ABBA on Saturday mornings. At the time they hated it now, now absolute devotees aged 50 & 47, plus granddaughters fans too. 😂

2025-09-12 07:09:40 UTC

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Yes, stark the multiplier of CEOs & fellow ‘Directors’ salaries/profit fiddles compared to the average workers’ rewards.
https://media.mastodon.scot/media_attachments/files/115/190/069/287/806/335/original/c076e5ca7c2f11de.png

2025-09-12 06:22:02 UTC

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But, but interest rates offered by the banks are derisory & only of ‘interest’ 😂 if you lock in for lengthy periods.

2025-09-12 05:25:32 UTC

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Quite.
And sadly too many key economists & the dullards at the MPC/Bank of England buy into this misinformation, holding to their pet biases.
Well remember the smug King pontificating on financial matters having failed to warn about the stupidity of dealings around sub-prime mortgages that led to the 2008 global financial crisis.

2025-09-09 15:56:57 UTC

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With Starmer I have come to the conclusion he’s a technophobe - on AI he bought the wonderment of the dyslexic Peter Kyle, who uses AI to write his speeches then went full tilt embracing the hallucinating & fabricating AI.
It clearly had its uses but……
So with economics - not unusual for a lawyer to blank at finance & economics - I’ve met too many lawyers who blanched at basic numbers, just as we accountants think we know the law in & out.
Reeves has no grasp of the economy.

2025-09-09 12:52:42 UTC

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Well so far as I’m concerned an urgent reference from my Seaford GP for examination was fulfilled in 6 days, with a sound result yesterday afternoon.
So far as I’m concerned in that matter my GP & East Sussex Health Trust get gold stars. ✨✨✨✨

2025-09-09 12:49:46 UTC

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As the days pass I wonder just how deep Reeves’ grasp of managing the economy is.
And Starmer seems utterly clueless on this & many other key Government levers.

2025-08-28 06:17:48 UTC

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Starmer appears to have no appetite for anything that resembles reality. Basking in the default majority of GE2024 he seems to be floundering 14 months on with anything that resembles a collection of meaningful policies to redress 14 years of Conservative ineptitude.
£22bn black hole has been overtaken by Reeves’ self-created £50bn funding gap.
Keir Starmer is a thundering disappointment in a series now of 7, starting with Gordon Brown in 2007.
Facing down Farage is beyond him.

2025-06-08 07:04:30 UTC

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Continuing the Conservative commitment of £22bn & adding £0.5bn p.a. is some form of continuity away from London & the South East.
Starmer/Reeves’ ability to address the core issues faced by the U.K., as waving the ‘Plan for Change’ constantly has become tiresome.
Enormous problems accrued over 14 years’ Tory cronyism & connivance but a cluster of wrong decisions & tinkering at the edges, hampered by thin Manifesto commitments on taxation, are to blame.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/08/ministers-commit-to-86bn-for-uk-science-technology-research-development

2025-06-08 06:26:34 UTC

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Austerity II seems essentially to be ‘at the wheel’ in most respects, yet a red, magic money tree seems to be springing forth for Defence rearming, submarines & munitions factories.
Oh and we must not forget the 1.5m homes to be built, despite current starts falling well behind the target.
Do I sound cynical?

2025-05-06 08:20:09 UTC

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If reports are to be believed the message from voters & intending voters that eliminating WFP for 10m pensioners & benefit threats for 3m+ was not good have reached Downing Street & Starmer is at last panicking.