Best Of

Always tax rises never cut current spending

The politicians do indeed cut current spending, and call it "austerity". The problem is the big ticket cuts are often things that promote growth or reduce costs. After they get cut, often, like HS2, at a higher cost than actually building the thing, everyone wonders why public administration is so crap and nothing works. The biggest thing that could be done now is to cut the triple lock on pensions. That alone would bring public finances into primary surplus. However "they/we contributed all their/our lives", even though, actually they/we mostly didn't. So in the end unless the voters are prepared to bite the bullet, you can hardly blame the politicians if they choose not to do so either.

The claim that: cut the triple lock on pensions. That alone would bring public finances into primary surplus seems far-fetched. Cutting the state pension in half might do it but that would be, in Sir Humphrey's parlance, courageous.

In the immediate term, ending the triple lock will save no money at all because pension payments would continue at the current rate. In the medium term, ending it will save money only in those years when the triple lock would mandate a higher pension rise than whatever replaces it, presumably a single or double lock, or tying the pension to inflation as it used to be, or to wages as it used to be.

In the immediate term, ending the triple lock will quite possibly save money within the next 12 months and should save vast sums of money within the next five years, since a single lock as it should be would not see yo-yo ratchetting as we have seen in the past decade.

It would save far, far, far more than any other policy could, because no other policy touches the sides of the expenditure this one does.

It sounds like you have mistaken the whole pension bill for the annual increase, and are then aggregating future years pensions but not the rest of government spending.

No mistake.

Increasing the pension bill by (for example) 0.2% less next year would save a very significant sum of money. More than almost any other feasible change.

Doing so, compound, over the next few years would save many billions of pounds, in the short term of our upcoming years let alone medium or long term.

So as I said, no immediate saving, and future savings only from the time the triple lock increase would be higher than whatever replaces the triple lock (assuming the state pension will not be frozen in perpetuity).

No, you're wrong.

Within the next 12 months is an immediate saving on a Budgetary level.

You're setting an insane bar if you mean "from tonight" as immediate, very few items in the Budget work that way.

No you're wrong. There is no guarantee of a saving because we don't know which of the three locks is going to be higher over the next 12 months. If we link to wages and they grow faster than 2.5% or inflation for the next 5 years then there is no saving in this parliament at all.

The triple lock has to go because of the long term fiscal implications but it makes next to no difference to the cash Reeves has available at the budget. You need to make an actual cut in something to free up some money.

I’m convinced that announcing an end to triple lock would lower long-cost borrowing costs (ie reduce long term gilt rates)

Always tax rises never cut current spending

The politicians do indeed cut current spending, and call it "austerity". The problem is the big ticket cuts are often things that promote growth or reduce costs. After they get cut, often, like HS2, at a higher cost than actually building the thing, everyone wonders why public administration is so crap and nothing works. The biggest thing that could be done now is to cut the triple lock on pensions. That alone would bring public finances into primary surplus. However "they/we contributed all their/our lives", even though, actually they/we mostly didn't. So in the end unless the voters are prepared to bite the bullet, you can hardly blame the politicians if they choose not to do so either.

I would introduce CGT on all property, including personal residences. I would base it on a valuation at 6 April 2026. Taxpayers would have a choice of paying gains annually or when they sell their property. I would ring fence the revenue and pass it to local authorities for a massive home building scheme. I would allow local authorities to bypass planning regulations for their own builds. This would reduce house prices to a more affordable level. It would increase availability of secure rented accommodation and reduce the emphasis on private rental, which is less secure, more expensive and poorer quality. It would rebalance income from national governments to more accountable local authorities.
It’s probably a good job I’m not looking to be elected!

Anything which discourages the housing market from clearing is bad. If you are a 65 year old whose kids have left home, and you have a house that's 3x as large as you need, then you aren't going to sell if it generates a large capital gains tax bill. What we want to do is to encourage the market to clear.

Personally, I would get rid of stamp duty and replace it with an annual charge based on the value of a property. That means that moving house is (almost) free, but staying in a house that is too big for you is expensive.

I would make the charge for homes that are occupied less than 180 days a year twice the regular rate, and for those occupied fewer than 90, I would make it four times the regular rate. This would discourage people from having homes they don't live in.

I do realise that these changes would be unpopular with a lot of people; but the very definition of economics is 'a study of the efficient allocation of scarce resources'. And I believe the tax and benefits system should be encouraging just that: efficient use of scarce resources.

Apologies if we've already had this one.

"Election Maps UK
@ElectionMapsUK

Scottish Westminster Voting Intention:

SNP: 31% (=)
RFM: 23% (+2)
LAB: 18% (-2)
CON: 11% (-1)
LDM: 9% (+1)
GRN: 7% (=)

Via
@NorstatUKPolls
, 22-25 Sep.
Changes w/ 27-30 May."

https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1973497130104029526

Reform and the Tories combined AHEAD of the SNP and Labour. Must be the first time since the 1950s parties of the right have had the highest voteshare in Scotland?

Um, you sure?

Rfm + con = 23 + 11 = 34
Snp + lab = 31 + 18 = 49

He means more than SNP OR LABOUR.

That's a rather odd way of doing Maths.

Please don't be racist.

One of my grandparents wasn't English originally (or British). I wonder if that makes me less English than someone with 4 English grandparents. Interesting philosophical debating point.

Same.

Yes, it does.
My mother is Scottish. Does that make me a bit Scottish? Arguably. In which case, if I'm 'a bit Scottish', I'm less English than someone whise parents are both English.
There's nothing pejorative about this. But you can't be 100% x if you're also a bit y.

By that measure I am not English at all because none of my grandparents are English. Yet both my parents are, and I am.

We’ve had this discussion before and its a blood and land nonsense.

Well done to BBC Panorama for exposing disgusting attitudes amongst some in the police.

Oh yes, some years after Baroness Casey and others before her exposed disgusting attitudes among some in the police, Panorama finally says the same.

What took them so long?

I'll tell you what has made me angry today. The Maria Kelly v Leonardo U.K. employment tribunal case. Once again a woman has been forced to give evidence about her periods and sexual assaults and other highly intimate personal matters to try and JUSTIFY why she wants to deal with such matters in private away from men. There is deliberate cruelty & humiliation (& I suspect that this is the point for at least some of those forcing women to do this). And there is also the increasingly widespread assumption that women's rights to even the most basic considerations of decency are not something that she ought to have as of right because she is a human being, but should only be conditional on whether this suits men (or a subset of them), an attitude which regrettably finds quite some support on here, as evidenced by the depressingly ignorant debate on this topic the other day by @Luckyguy1983 and @JosiasJessop. It is not just @Leon who talks shite about subjects he does not understand. It was perfectly obvious from that debate that neither of those posters had read or understood the relevant laws or judgment. Though ignorance has never stopped men talking bullshit on pretty much every topic under the sun.

As for the apparently pressing questions of racist maths and men pissing outside, I have no views on the former and as for the latter women in my experience do not find it erotic but are wearily grateful that if men piss on the lawn at least the women don't have to clean up the lavatory before using it, men being apparently incapable of aiming or too selfish to clean up after themselves.

Oh and I don't care about ethnicity either but then as the first person in my family to be born in this country I expect Farage thinks I ought to be on the deportation list. So he and his kind can fuck right off, frankly. I and my parents have done more for this country than him and his bunch of fraudulent shysters.

I haven't followed the indefinite leave to remain story closely, but am I right in thinking the allegation of racism stems from Reform saying that they wouldn't touch the post-Brexit deal for EU nationals? Kind of ironic if so.

There's also Tice's girlfriend effectively going back to the 1980s and saying John Barnes isn't British/English.

IN the world according to @Keir_Starmer if I grew up in, say, Somalia, I could credibly claim to be Somalian. Could I? Really? I think that would be laughable.

https://x.com/sundersays/status/1973352925880787217

https://x.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1973051041428963374

I remember meeting some friends of my grandparents who congratulated my then girlfriend, now wife, on how beautifully she spoke English. My wife is of Sri Lankan heritage (or "black as the ace of spades" as my granddad is alleged to have referred to her) but was born in Margate, and her English is a hell of a lot more beautiful than her Sinhala, judging by how tuk tuk drivers laugh at her efforts in Colombo. I suppose the people congratulating her on her English probably didn't consider themselves to have racist attitudes. My wife of course was gracious to them, as she was to my grandparents, who I think were rather fond of her.

But your wife was born in England, and I presume grew up here. John Barnes was born and lived in Jamaica until he was 12. I don't see why it would be racist to say your wife is more English than John Barnes.

If John Barnes had a brother twelve years younger than him, born in North London and never stepping foot in Jamaica, surely he would be slightly less Jamaican than his older brother?

I don't consider myself to be English so I'm not going to police the boundaries of Englishness!

This is where I would challenge Konstantin Kisin. Since by his own definition he doesn't consider himself English, why is it for him to define who is?

There is a broader point as to why people are looking for definition in ethnic identity. Alternatively you could posit some kind of cultural identity. My prediction is that Labour will fail to do this for Britain - and indeed England if they were to try it - because any attempt to define Britishness will be exclusive in some way. And they cannot bring themselves to exclude anyone.

Does anyone want to construct a British identity that is inclusive for those whose primary loyalty is to the global ummah?

Perhaps very controversially, and this will probably upset a few PBers, I think that being English is a question of attitude, and not just a question of birth.

I would argue it's almost entirely a question of attitude.