"Dutch voters… halt the wave of populist successes that delivered Brexit and President Trump"

Emailed in by MBK, from The Times.

“It is an evening when the Netherlands after Brexit, after the American elections, said ‘Stop’ to the wrong kind of populism,” a beaming Mr Rutte told supporters last night in the Hague.

Richard Ambler, in the comments:

Really? Are we looking at the same figures?

Mr Wilders, was on course to win 19 seats, an increase of over 25%
Mark Rutte, the centre-right prime minister lost over 25% of his seats
Labour, lost 28 of 38 MPs or lost nearly 75% of their seats

This equally could qualify was a massive swing away from the centre left towards the far right… This blatantly biased piece of reporting tries to hide this swing and refer to Mr. Wilders as a populist, extremist who must be stopped at all costs and then tries to present this result as his humiliation.

... but some are more equal than others.

Putting their usual left/right spin on the same press release.

The BBC:

New research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that one in five low-paid men aged 25 to 55 now work part-time.

While 95% of top-earning men normally work full-time, 20% of the lowest paid now work part-time. That means wage inequality for men has risen over two decades, but for women the opposite is the case.

City AM:

Inequality in net household incomes has declined over the last 20 years according to a new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies – the second set of figures this week to reveal a narrowing gap between Brits at the top and bottom of the scale.

Published this morning, the IFS numbers record household incomes calculated after benefits and taxes, and reveal steadily falling inequality.

The key to this is the weasel wording in the seoond paragraph, "after benefits and taxes".

NHS Money

5th July 2013

An official report will call for sweeping changes - which are likely to mean the closure of local hospitals - and say Britain’s health services stand on the brink of financial crisis.

The scale of the problems ahead was disclosed yesterday by Tim Kelsey, director for patients and information at NHS England, the central body in charge of the health service.

He told an audience of technology entrepreneurs: “We are about to run out of cash in a very serious fashion. Next week NHS England will be publishing a call to action... our analysis will disclose that by 2020 there will be a £30bn funding gap in the healthcare system.”

4th July 2013

The NHS watchdog implicated in a cover-up over a hospital where babies died through neglect spent £785,000 last year on 11 lobbyists.

"Cameron awards Ministers one hundred per cent pay rise"

UPDATE: This post was based on a factually incorrect article. Andrew in the comments links to this; an MP's salary is about £64,000 and a Cabinet Minister's salary is an additional £79,000, i.e. a total of £143,000, in other words, if you were an MP last week and a Cabinet Minister this week, your gross salary has in fact, er, slightly more than doubled. I shall leave the rest of the original post as it was (or else some of the comments won't make sense).
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Excellent sleight of hand there by the Chuckle Brothers*.

Most of the papers, including the rabidly pro-Tory City AM, are peddling the line that "MINISTERS agreed to take a five per cent pay cut at their first cabinet meeting yesterday, suggesting the public sector is in for a round of tough pay settlements."

If you read the full article, you'll duly note that:

a) "Cabinet Ministers will see their pay fall by £7,082 to £134,565" and

b) "all ministers will continue to receive their £64,766 MPs salary on top of that, as well as generous expenses allowances and a gold-plated pension."

Let's assume that about half their MP's expenses are spent on things of purely private benefit to the MP concerned - because they are spent on things which have the sole purpose of being re-elected, stick on another third of base salary as pension benefits, and we'll find that last week these Ministers were on about £130,000 a year, and this week they are on £260,000 or so.

That looks suspiciously like a one hundred per cent pay rise to me, which is a tad different to a five per cent pay cut, n'est-ce pas?

*(c) Some blogger or other. I'd love to know who actually said it first.

Nick Drew demolishes The Goblin King

Nick Drew* tears The Goblin King's spin to shreds in a few short paragraphs here.

*Is Nick angling for one of those Tory spin doctor jobs? He certainly deserves one.