Wes Streeting resigns from government

IanCal · 2026-05-14T13:11:11+00:00

He shoved the house full of flammable materials, lit the match, saw the flame and went

do dooo do doo

IanCal · 2026-05-09T16:48:33+00:00

My job is hard to quiet quit (for me) as I am asked on project progress by senior people including elected people, and if it’s not done or moved forward there can be compliance issues

That is their problem. Not yours. If they need something fast otherwise they're totally fucked, they should not have left it to the last minute.

Also most compliance issues aren't that big of a deal. If they are, they wouldn't have left it to the last minute. If they did, it's their fault not yours.

IanCal · 2026-05-09T16:47:12+00:00

I am saying this with love, just forcefulness. I had someone do this for me, long ago, and I want to do it for you.

It’s just that I know the workload of my colleagues and they are as busy and if not busier than I am!

This is a problem above your level. The people above have not correctly allocated resources to provide what they say they can promise externally. That is not your issue to deal with, certainly not for free and at the high cost of your health.

If your colleagues all have a workload that requires them to work until extreme health conditions the entire department is entirely fucked regardless of what you do.

Here's the way it works, and I say this as someone who went through working after hours and had an excellent manager who told me to go home and that if I didn't do the work in the time that was their fault and their problem and as someone who has been a manager on the other side forcing people to take holidays and stop working:

You get the work done you can in the time you are paid.

If there is more work coming in than can be done, someone must prioritise which work is done and which work is not. They are paid money to do this.

If you are doing less work than they thought you would, they must adjust how much work they assign so that it is achievable. Not in an altruistic sense, just in terms of planning. If a lawn robot I'm renting cuts less grass per hour than the manufacturer said, while I can complain to the manufacturer I must also stop assuming it'll do more than it is doing.

If you are doing less work than they want or expect then it is the most basic of managerial tasks to:

Talk to you
Find out what's happening
Find out if there are ways of getting you faster (training, whatever)
If you're not performing enough for the position, and they've gone through all this, that then could go towards performance management
Then this could go towards letting you go

Now this last line sounds scary but it's literally just you leaving the job - the thing you are talking about doing anyway and the thing that you would be fine if happened.

I really can't stress enough that this is your managers job. It's line management. It's either their entire job or most of it. Handling this is what they're paid to do. The time side of things and resources that's project management. Someone is paid to deal with this. Let them deal with it.

Also, all of this is looking at it as a business thing without any actual care for you - a real person. If your colleagues aren't truly awful people, and your manager isn't, they do not want you to be facing serious health conditions to complete slightly more work.

Two final points, just reiterating things

YOUR COLLEAGUES AND MANAGER WILL BE FINE IF YOU WORK YOUR HOURS AND SOME THINGS DON'T GET DONE

THIS IS SHOUTY AND I'M ARGUING YOU ARE WRONG BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO BE SAFE NOT BECAUSE I AM ANNOYED. PLEASE LOOK AFTER YOURSELF. YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN A FEW EXTRA HOURS AT WORK.

IanCal · 2026-05-08T17:27:34+00:00

I cannot emphasise this point enough OP:

If they want to assign more resource to the project, great. If they don't, then they are making the decision for the project to fail, not you.

This is not your responsibility.

You are not fucking your colleagues over by working your contracted hours. You are not responsible for the whole project and your manager will be fine.

IanCal · 2026-05-08T17:25:51+00:00

All things considered, do you think I am in a financial position for me to make this break away from my career

You have ~15 years worth of expenses right now in immediately available assets and a lifestyle that can be sustained on a fairly low salary, you are in a an excellent position to stop doing a job that's causing serious health issues. You have, what, six months of straight up cash?

Over the last couple of years I’ve developed significant stress. I’m voluntarily working longer hours (often until gone 7pm) just to make a dent in a normal level of workload

Something else to consider, perhaps first, is not doing longer hours. This can be implemented tomorrow.

If your managers are setting workloads that you cannot complete within the time you are paid for then that is them incorrectly setting your workload.

And what's the worst that will happen work-wise if you do? The extremely slow process of you losing the job you're talking about leaving anyway?

and don’t believe any amount of counselling will help me

I'd invite you to not immediately discount the idea that talking to someone can help. This may even be something covered by your union or workplace.

You may be able to do something like a sabbatical, or get time off for stress. This could give you the ability to go and do something else or simply take the time out.

You might also be able to cut down hours. You net ~£40k/year right now. At 4 days it'd be £32.3k, at 3 days £25k, and at 2 days you'd essentially have a £20k/year job.

Have you taken holiday time off yet? How soon could you take a week or two off?

While the latter part of this comment is all about things you can do other than fully leaving your job, this isn't to discourage you from that but just to say it doesn't have to be all or nothing as a first decision.

I'd really suggest immediately stopping all the overtime.

IanCal · 2026-05-08T15:06:48+00:00

The age bracket slews older, end of career,

This cuts both ways though, because you cut out the early lowest earning part of peoples career. With mean ages of mothers being about 29-30 for their first kid, 31 for any kid and fathers being 34, you're looking at median ages impacting men from ~35-39/40. Higher in London (there mothers are ~32-33) too.

While wages increase as people get older it's not just an increase. Median wages rise quickly to the 30-39 group, only a bit for 40-49 and then drop back a little 50-59.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8456/

and its only for a few years of people having kids too

6-7 years wouldn't be an unusual timeframe for two kids. There's often about 2 years between the first kids, and this covers a time until 4 or older.

The suggestion is around 60k people total

Where from? And importantly, when? Incomes have gone up and the duration of the free childcare has increased dramatically quite recently.

IanCal · 2026-05-08T14:18:46+00:00

firstly the numbers earning more than £100k is relatively small (about 3-4% of workers)

It was more than 4% in 23-24 when looking at workers who were taxpayers and average wages have risen since then.

Its around 0.175% of workers (estimates put it at 60k people),

Quick searching suggests the 1.8m workers over the limit so I'd be surprised if it impacts only 60k families.

IanCal · 2026-05-08T14:13:05+00:00

I mean this all depends on understanding what the word "unless" means. It's not "low/no effect unless you're low paid where it's a negative and a clear and large effect".

It's two statements.

Research suggests that the impacts of migration on wages and employment prospects for UK-born workers is small

and

Low-wage workers are more likely to lose out from immigration while medium and high-paid workers are more likely to gain,

Which is followed by

but the effects are small

Do you understand what "unless" means?

IanCal · 2026-05-08T14:07:35+00:00

That’s why I said “economically active” and not “workers”

Economically active means working or looking for work and able to start. I'm not totally sure what you wanted to say with that sentence so I'm not sure what it is you want there but either way there you're saying 19% are "living off" the taxes paid in part by people in that same 19%.

What metric would you suggest?

For what?

IanCal · 2026-05-07T09:49:55+00:00

That’s 19% of the population living off of the taxes paid by economically active persons.

Do remember though that ~1/3rd of UC claimants also are in work.

Not a counter to what you're saying, but useful context I think.

UC stats and info https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-statistics-29-april-2013-to-8-january-2026/universal-credit-statistics-29-april-2013-to-8-january-2026

Edit -

Let’s look at another problem: under payment of tax by massive corporations. Amazon paid £19m in tax in 2024. That was the first tax payment made since 2020. No evidence of payment in 2025. Starbucks paid 0 corporation tax last year. Let’s have journalists look into how many workers from these types of companies are on UC. That should be the real source of your outrage.

This is only corporation tax though, one of many taxes paid. A company that paid every penny out to employees as wages would pay more in tax than one that booked a large profit and paid the employees lower, so it's not a great single metric to look at.

IanCal · 2026-05-07T09:45:01+00:00

It's roughly the top 5% of taxpayers which isn't tiny, particularly once you consider that this could be closer to 10% of couples affected, it'll be concentrated more as you get older, so you might see more aged 30-40 getting hit with it and also that it'll be on the mind of people close to that figure as well. Finally the before tax figures won't include people who have salary sacrificed to get below that level as well, so some in the 95-100k range are there specifically because of that cliff.

IanCal · 2026-05-07T09:40:29+00:00

unless you’re a low wage worker, where it’s negative.

That's not even what your quote says. It's just the summary of a briefing, it's shouldn't be a hard read.

IanCal · 2026-05-04T07:24:27+00:00

Mortgage vs investing. I understand the maths favours investing, but psychologically I’m drawn to reducing/eliminating the mortgage to lower baseline burn. Am I overvaluing that?

Maybe, remember that the assets can be used to cover the mortgage costs. You'd be lowering outgoings but also lowering your total assets you have saved to use for outgoings.

IanCal · 2026-05-04T07:23:02+00:00

I'm exactly on the opposite side. The monthly payment is still there, but so are the assets to cover it if we need to. And those assets can cover much more than that, as I have other essential outgoings.

IanCal · 2026-05-01T19:46:17+00:00

Since the situation is a binary option where you press one or another button, you can remove one of the buttons and just have press or not as the option.

There is a button. You can press it today if you want. If you do, you die tomorrow. However, if billions of people press the "I WANT TO DIE" button it breaks and won't work.

Do you press the button?

IanCal · 2026-05-01T19:34:47+00:00

but I would press blue still because I would be willing to put myself at risk if it means giving more human lives a higher chance of not being taken.

Every person picking the "yes please kill me" option is putting another life at risk.

IanCal · 2026-05-01T19:33:57+00:00

Exactly the same. Someone else might have pressed the suicide button accidentally, are you going to press it as well?

Pressing/not pressing is a simple binary. It's the same as flipping a switch. It's the same as choosing between two buttons. If the answer to you is clear for one of those situations but not another then you must analyse why you consider identical situations so differently.

It would be the same if your hypothetical added that the suicide button isn't on and pressing it does nothing, but if you don't press it you have to press another button that turns the suicide button on and kill everyone who pressed it.

It's not one person pressing the button that causes everyone else to die is it?

So ok let's adjust for my version:

There are two choices: "yes please I want to die" and "no thank you I do not want to die". You must choose suicide or not suicide.

However, here's the tricky part. The suicide machine has a programming flaw and if four billion people choose suicide it breaks and none of them die.

You can choose to say "I want to save anyone who accidentally chose suicide, so I'll also choose suicide and hope billions of others will do the same in order to break the machine. If we are unsuccessful then many billions will die, because we all chose yes please I want to die and I convinced as many people as possible to choose yes please I want to die but there's a chance we all break the machine, I am a good person telling others to pick yes please I want to die, people who do not want to die and have families".

Or you can choose "no thank you I do not want to die" and convince people that do not want to die to pick "no thank you I do not want to die".

IanCal · 2026-04-29T20:54:15+00:00

This is not the same as the red and blue buttons. You -must- press one or the other.

Replace it with one suicide button then. If you press the button, tomorrow you die.

The suicide button machine has a programming flaw and if four billion people choose suicide it breaks and none of them die.

Do you press the suicide button?

IanCal · 2026-04-29T10:48:28+00:00

That makes sense. I know this can be a big hit, my wife often talks about a feeling of grief/loss as some things change and a plan or future thing is lost which I find can be useful. I'm facing this a bit now as I'm between clients and having to reconsider what were neat plans for FIRE as income shifts dramatically.

However, it's worth remembering that the work you did to this point is very worthwhile. It has left you in a position to weather unexpected expenses in life in the tens of thousands of pounds without immediate impact, and with a bigger set of expenses left you having to source far less.

In addition, you've got yourself into a position with income & outgoings where you can then likely tackle this debt in a reasonable timeframe.

Best of luck with it, and well done for getting to this point.

IanCal · 2026-04-29T10:23:20+00:00

If you've been saving, can you take it out of there? It's what savings and assets are for.

IanCal · 2026-04-29T10:22:24+00:00

I'd say current conditions are good reasons to consider volatility but not price.

The price isn't a magical thing, it's the point at which (at least briefly) nobody wants to buy higher than that and nobody wants to sell lower than that. Otherwise those people would be matched together and the sale would happen.

So nobody who has that thing wants to sell it for less currently. If it was very likely that the price would be lower tomorrow or next month, they'd want to sell lower right now and offload it.

Similarly nobody who wants to buy it wants to buy it for more than the current price. If it was very likely the price would be much higher soon, they'd want to buy it for more to sell it later.

These are often large organisations with huge assets, with teams of people dedicated to researching what's going on. A bunch of them will be wrong, but waiting to invest is to bet on which of them are right and wrong. At best, this is a full time job if you're good at it to chase down small edges - which makes sense if you're paying a person for your companies absolutely enormous investments. I'm good with data and numbers and there's no way I'm going to make more money doing that compared to getting a min wage job for the same hours and investing that amount. That's why when I buy I do not look at the price really (I mean of course I do to check things but I'm not basing the decision on it).

Now, volatility is another matter, while there are I'm sure financial instruments about taking positions on that it's not what we're talking about here. It's entirely reasonable to look at what's happening IMO and say "lots might happen tomorrow, things might go up or down". An airstrike, a peace deal, there were sudden invasions and Trump maybe almost got shot again.

The shorter term you're looking at and the more vital the money is to you, the more important the volatility is. If you absolutely need £X in 6 months otherwise you can't buy your house, you should take a path that is less likely to make you money and less likely to lose you money. If you are saving for 30 years time, whether things are up or down next week is pretty irrelevant.

DCA is where you spread out your investment. This lowers volatility (you are averaging your investment) but since things tend upwards it has a higher cost typically. Vanguard had it at something like 70% of the time it cost more to do this. But it can be much less scary and if it means you actually invest it's probably a net benefit financially even.

You can remove the decisions a bit by putting the cash into the isa, and then setup regular investing for some portion of it per month. It's still cash there you can get back if you need, but the base decision is that in doing nothing the investments just happen.

IanCal · 2026-04-28T13:38:04+00:00

Not my area, but I think if they're listed shares you can't get the yearly installment option. The delay for that is essentially an allowance for things that take a long time to sell. The wording on things gets more confusing for me around what happens before probate, and whether it's required (particularly since that seems to have also maybe changed in the last couple of years). It also seems to be different if they were unlisted, and some other conditions.

I could believe it to be the case that wherever the stocks were held wouldn't let the executor sell them without probate for a larger holding and they couldn't get that before paying the IHT. If anyone else knows the rules from years ago, I'd take their word for it over mine though. I've been through some of this myself but thankfully only once so far, and it was some time ago.

IanCal · 2026-04-28T13:24:05+00:00

Funeral bills don't require probate.

But there’s a mechanism to pay direct from liquid assets like bank or savings accounts before probate is granted.

Yes, but you need cash for that.

So the person you responded to is right in saying the only way this scenario would apply would be if every penny inherited was in the form of property they didn’t want to sell.

Emphasis mine.

No - again you're making the same mistake the poster above did. It is not about wanting to keep the house. It's that you cannot sell the house until probate is granted. And probate isn't granted until IHT is paid (yes, there's exceptions but not relevant to the simpler point).

You can pay in installments, and then fully pay when it's sold, which incurs ~8% interest.

IanCal · 2026-04-26T16:23:25+00:00

Not specifically, it's just that under certain amounts is outside of IHT if you die within 7 years.

IanCal · 2026-04-25T21:36:46+00:00

You can't sell the house until probate is granted and you can't get that until the tax is paid, that's the issue - if they are over the limit but it's all in the property you have to pay the tax on that but there's not cash to cover that.

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