Best Of

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.

Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises

Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment

Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.

Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending

Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies

Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.

Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.

Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.

Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock

How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?

Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left

You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.

You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling

Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.

It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown

And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.

Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016

Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.

It led to the decline in increase in the national debt

Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.

What additional cuts would you have made to balance the budget and run a surplus?

I'd double council tax. That's the current deficit wiped out (nearly) in one go.

A freeze on hospital spending, abolish stamp duty, NICs/IT merger. Borrow as much for capital investment as the markets allow.

I honestly don't see the point in borrowing for capital investment when the cost of infrastructure is so high. We need to actually work to remove all of those barriers before we even think about that. Again, it just seems absolutely criminal to me that building a third runway at Heathrow will cost £49bn, even the short runway will come in at £21bn. This is just one example, there's suggestions that the next nuclear plant will be £70bn while Korea builds all of this similar infrastructure at a tenth of the cost. It's not as though their living standards are substantially different to ours.

It's not universally bad. We've had some good projects in Scotland. Queensferry Crossing came in under budget and on time. Small stuff, incremental stuff, tends to go ok.

I think you've fallen for the trap of thinking in terms of billions, not millions. The odd town bypass, new tram routes, a few million on cycle lanes, rail electrification, phone masts, a public health investment. That can add up to billions, but you've diversified across projects so that one disaster doesn't cause the whole investment to collapse.

Even with small projects, the process state still rears it’s ugly head.

Not very far from where I live the council decided to use some government money to build a cycle/pedestrian bridge over the river between two sites that are due for extensive redevelopment in the future. Cue outrage from local nimbies over the trauma caused by the need to cut down twelve trees. Twelve self-seeded trees that would grow back afterwards. So far we’ve had one judicial review, another in the works & the entire project has roughly doubled in cost due to all the delays.

The Aarhus Convention is a plague upon the nation.

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.

Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises

Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment

Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.

Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending

Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies

Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.

Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.

Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.

Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock

How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?

Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left

You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.

You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling

Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.

It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown

And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.

Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016

Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.

It led to the decline in increase in the national debt

Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.

What additional cuts would you have made to balance the budget and run a surplus?

I'd double council tax. That's the current deficit wiped out (nearly) in one go.

A freeze on hospital spending, abolish stamp duty, NICs/IT merger. Borrow as much for capital investment as the markets allow.

I honestly don't see the point in borrowing for capital investment when the cost of infrastructure is so high. We need to actually work to remove all of those barriers before we even think about that. Again, it just seems absolutely criminal to me that building a third runway at Heathrow will cost £49bn, even the short runway will come in at £21bn. This is just one example, there's suggestions that the next nuclear plant will be £70bn while Korea builds all of this similar infrastructure at a tenth of the cost. It's not as though their living standards are substantially different to ours.

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.

Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises

Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment

Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.

Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending

Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies

Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.

Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.

Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.

Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock

How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?

Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left

You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.

You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling

Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.

It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown

And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.

Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016

Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.

It led to the decline in increase in the national debt

Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.

What additional cuts would you have made to balance the budget and run a surplus?

I'd double council tax. That's the current deficit wiped out (nearly) in one go.

A freeze on hospital spending, abolish stamp duty, NICs/IT merger. Borrow as much for capital investment as the markets allow.

I honestly don't see the point in borrowing for capital investment when the cost of infrastructure is so high. We need to actually work to remove all of those barriers before we even think about that. Again, it just seems absolutely criminal to me that building a third runway at Heathrow will cost £49bn, even the short runway will come in at £21bn. This is just one example, there's suggestions that the next nuclear plant will be £70bn while Korea builds all of this similar infrastructure at a tenth of the cost. It's not as though their living standards are substantially different to ours.

It's a institutionalised belief that gold plating on top of gold plating with little cost control is somehow virtuous.

You may remember the comedy of the thefts from the British Museum and their lack of a catalogue of what was in the basement? At the time, I pointed out that I'd actually taken part in a catalogue-the-basement exercise at a smaller museum. Volunteers (like me) photo'd the items, sorted out numbering made sure the storage was good etc. A slow, steady process of years. Costing the museum a few pounds - mostly in biscuits*

This was derided, here - not a proper solution.

The British Museum hasn't started on a catalogue. Nor are there plans for one.

*I introduced Stroopwafel to the museum staff room, so cultural exchange?

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

Fiddling whilst London burns.
She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done

She has not 'crashed the economy'.

Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".

There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.

The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.

Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.

Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.

The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.

I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.

The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.

The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.

Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.

I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?

We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.

I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.

I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.

There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.

At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".

But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.

So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

Fiddling whilst London burns.
She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done

She has not 'crashed the economy'.

Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".

There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.

The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.

Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.

Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.

The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.

I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.

The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.

I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .

An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the
public .

Good morning

Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances

Fiddling whilst London burns.
She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done

She has not 'crashed the economy'.

Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".

There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.

The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.

Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.

Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.

The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.

I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.

The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.

The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.

Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.