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ISA limit to be cut to make them more affordable

A spokesperson for Rachel Reeves has confirmed that the Chancellor wants to cut the amount of money that can be invested tax free in a cash ISA will be reduced from the current £20k per annum to about £5k.  The £20k limit will be maintained for those who want to invest (that is, lose) their money in a stocks and shares ISA.


Billy, 34, who rents a two bedroomed flat with his wife while they save for a deposit on a house is fuming.  'Every penny I can, I save.  I saved nearly three thousand pounds last year after paying for rent, council tax, food and travel.  I wanted to save twenty thousand this year and might have been on track as my wife has been buying bread from Aldi lately.


Alex also wants the right to save twenty thousand tax free every year, has had that aspiration for ten years now, has 'about fifty quid' in her ISA.  'It's about aiming for the top,' she said, ordering a latte. 'Oops, that's this month's savings shot,' she said.


Bill, 69, is relaxed about the change.  'I retired years ago, inherited my dad's place, pushed £20k a year into ISAs.  I've got a bloody fortune sheltered so why not speculate in stocks and shares?  It's not like my liver will outlive my savings,' he pointed out. 




Welfare Bill to be assessed for personal independence

The government has announced that the Welfare Bill has been passed but has suffered some serious attrition while on it's journey through Parliament.  'We've had it assessed by an experienced PIP assessor who has declared it to be limping terribly due to cuts imposed by the government, will need round the clock care and is incapable of performing its basic task, which is to save Rachel Reeves about £5 Billion and her job,' said a government spokesperson.


It's expected that the care package put together for the Bill will be arbitrarily ripped away without notice soon.  'It's what we do,' added the spokesman.




We were warned about Clippy!

As Artificial Intelligence is embedded in every aspect of your life, from your allegedly smart watch, your Sky Glass TV, the algorithm that's supposed to ensure you can make a GP appointment (but still fails more miserably than Wes Streeting on Question Time) it is becoming increasingly obvious that while AI is going to dominate every aspect, it will inevitably screw it all up.


Try asking Alexa for tomorrow's weather - highly precise, hugely detailed, completely wrong. Just take a brolly, even if it looks like a heatwave, regardless of what she says. Plan for hypothermia, sunburn and wear diving boots in case the wind speed reported is two hundred miles an hour slower than reality.


Sit down too quickly and your Apple Watch will decide you've had a fall and will automatically call an ambulance using the new AI powered NHS system. Don't worry about wasting resources - the self-driven AI powered ambulance won't set off for another three days, will need to be over-ridden by the paramedics and will arrive at the wrong house. With luck someone else living in that house will need medical aid, but don't worry because the app will have informed your employer you are dead and your job will have been off-shored to a cloud-based server experienced, apparently, in machining wood and fabricating garden sheds.


Of course do write a letter of complaint, a request to be reinstated and a demand that you are not cremated until an actual doctor examines you but the AI processer in your PC will screw all of these up and you will find yourself taking out a loan for twice the value of your house at an interest rate three times your age.


We were warned. Microsoft bundled their vision of AI years ago in Word and Excel, called it Clippy, tried to make it look fun and useful but found everybody turned it off as an annoying addition - of course I'm writing a bloody letter, that's why I've written 'Dear Sir' at the top and 'Fuck you, arsehole' at the bottom. We didn't learn then, we're not learning now.


Got to go, an ambulance has just pulled up outside my house. I didn't ask for one, but I think I'm about to have a heart attack. Thank God for AI.




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