The day of the mid-term elections is now only a fortnight away and there is a news report that wherever Donald Trump goes to campaign, he can guarantee to be heckled. Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to a record low – indicating that next month’s midterm elections could be punishing for the Republicans. A Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests that just 31% approve of the president’s performance in office, a level not seen in either of his two terms. When asked which party they would vote for if congressional elections were held today, 47% picked Democrats and 35% chose Republicans. The figures could bolster Democratic hopes of seizing control of the House of Representatives and the Senate when Americans head to the polls on 3 November. But some 10 million Americans have already voted either by mail or by an in-person vote out of some 55 million requests for postal voting so about one fifth of the mail ballots have already been completed. There are some small indications that Democrats might be assisted by postal ballots as perhaps some older or disabled voters find it easier to vote by post and this slice of the population may be more Democrat inclined. Trump had tried to ‘fix’ the postal vote by ordering that the postal authorities check that the voters were properly registered before the ballot was cast but this attempt was thrown out by the courts. Turning to domestic matters, I always look forward to the day when our domestic help calls around because there is always a lot for us to talk about. I need to consult with her about a stunning starter that I will prepare for the meal on Sunday but we have already go the main ingredients for a good lamb stew organised. One of Meg’s cousins is a coeliac I have just learnt so I need to be particularly careful about things like gravy but as I prepare my own stock these day, this ought to be unproblematic. This week is the week before the much anticipated budget and in years gone by, the Chancellor of the Exchequer used to have a period of absolute silence (often called ‘purdah’) to keep budget secrets save and secure and not subject to stock market manipulation. But times have now changed and it seems that inspired budget leaks are now common place. Ahead of the UK Autumn Budget on 28 October 2026, Chancellor John Healey and Prime Minister Andy Burnham have ruled out increases to the main rates of income tax, employee National Insurance, and VAT, as well as a large-scale alignment of Capital Gains Tax (CGT) with income tax rates. However, with tight public finances, several specific areas and targeted tax changes are expected or heavily rumoured. It looks as though the banks are bracing themselves for a further increase in taxation levels which they can probably afford, despite their protestations. I am often reminded of a famous historical quote about government finance. The original saying is: ‘The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing’. This cynical but accurate maxim is widely attributed to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who served as the Minister of Finances under King Louis XIV of France from 1665 to 1683 but is just as true today. My other favourite quote on the subject of taxation was actually uttered by an American. The famous quote is that ‘Taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society’, originally stated by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in his 1927 dissenting opinion but it sounds like something that George Bernard Shaw might have declaimed.
I knew that the day was going to be a rainy one and consequently got rained upon just going from the carpark to the Pilates studio. But I had taken a small, light raincoat with me and this shielded me from the worst although it had abated somewhat when my class was over. After lunch, I came home and cooked myself the normal rather delayed lunch of a prawn omelette complemented with some wild rocket which seems to have health benefits, according to the website ‘checkyourfood.com’ which I have just discovered but which I have just bookmarked as it gives you all the information you might need regarding vitamins and minerals.This day has see the latest report into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and this report, late by a long time, has documented the impact on the social care sector. The report is damning but does not come as a real surprise to many of us. The Social care sector was an ‘afterthought’ and there was no ‘protective ring’ for care homes, COVID inquiry finds. The social care sector ‘appeared to be something of an afterthought’ and there was no ‘protective ring’ for care homes, the COVID inquiry has found. Action to protect carers and care users during the pandemic ‘came too late, with devastating consequences’, with chair Baroness Hallett saying widespread failures were ‘the direct result of an absence of proper pandemic planning for the adult social care sector’. ‘The UK government and devolved administrations knew, prior to the pandemic, of the extreme vulnerability of care home residents to respiratory viruses,’ the inquiry concludes. In particular, the report highlights the fact that the then Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, was on the TV almost daily claiming that a ‘protective ring’ had been placed around are homes but this was very far from the truth. Even at the time care workers in residential homes were trying to protect themselves by buying and adapting black plastic bin liners because there was a critical shortage of PPE (‘Personal and Protective Equipment’) Now that this report has seen the light of day, I wonder if there will be any Panorama specials castigating the role of the government and decision makers with in it but I doubt it somehow. The whole point of enquiries of this nature is to make sure that mistakes of this nature and magnitude do not occur in the future but it would not surprise me if we were to learn that planning for next pandemic along (of which there is bound to be one) is woefully inadequate as the government seems short of money for practically everything including imminent threats from a nationalistic Russia threatening our infrastructure. If one wished to be particularly pessimistic, one could point to the role of AI in the hands of malevolent actors that could create another pandemic within about ten years against which most of the world would be defenceless.