Best Of
Re: A 28% return in just over a month? – politicalbetting.com
The next net migration update is expected tomorrow . It’s likely to show another big fall which might please some but is one of the reasons that growth is struggling .High time we made per capita the headline figure.
The OBR note this as one of the contributing factors .
Re: A 28% return in just over a month? – politicalbetting.com
"Rachel Reeves should squeeze the middleI misread that as "Alan B'Stard". Which I realised dates me.
The Chancellor is too scared of the electorate
Aaron Bastani" (£)
https://unherd.com/2025/11/rachel-reeves-should-squeeze-the-middle
ohnotnow
6
Re: A 28% return in just over a month? – politicalbetting.com
So, I've read the budget (so you don't have to) and buried in the small print is this little gem:
"Following re-costings conducted by HMRC, and certified by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the reforms to the taxation of non-domiciled individuals implemented in April are now expected to raise £39.5 billion across the scorecard, and VAT on private school fees is expected to raise an average of £40 million extra per year."
£40 million a year. Let that sink in a minute. Just *£40 million*. It was originally supposeed to be £1.75bn extra.
Bet it's actually negative in reality. Labour has closed independent schools, reduced the size of the education sector, and increased the burden on the public purse - all at the same time.
"Following re-costings conducted by HMRC, and certified by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the reforms to the taxation of non-domiciled individuals implemented in April are now expected to raise £39.5 billion across the scorecard, and VAT on private school fees is expected to raise an average of £40 million extra per year."
£40 million a year. Let that sink in a minute. Just *£40 million*. It was originally supposeed to be £1.75bn extra.
Bet it's actually negative in reality. Labour has closed independent schools, reduced the size of the education sector, and increased the burden on the public purse - all at the same time.
Re: A 28% return in just over a month? – politicalbetting.com
Government says it will spend £1.8 billion on Digital ID, a proposal which was not in Labour's manifesto.
But cannot apparently find the money to reduce the backlog in the criminal justice system.
Of course, it bloody can. The total budget for the Courts and Tribunals service is £3.1 billion. So that £1.8 billion or a significant proportion of it would do a great deal to reduce and probably eliminate the backlog in pretty short order.
But cannot apparently find the money to reduce the backlog in the criminal justice system.
Of course, it bloody can. The total budget for the Courts and Tribunals service is £3.1 billion. So that £1.8 billion or a significant proportion of it would do a great deal to reduce and probably eliminate the backlog in pretty short order.
Re: A 28% return in just over a month? – politicalbetting.com
Labour MPs and bond markets. 2 quite different stakeholders. But which led to the budget we got.
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
56m
Important to remember. This Budget was aimed at Labour MPs, not the voters.
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/1993766557340893547
MelonB
5
Re: A 28% return in just over a month? – politicalbetting.com
I thought it was a good Budget.
See you next year.
See you next year.
Re: A 28% return in just over a month? – politicalbetting.com
That's not really true: it doesn't get much attention these days, but the early Howe budgets were tax raising budgets. Now, I grant you, the tax raising was mostly in the form of VAT (which had the impact of suppressing consumption, which fell on the lower middle classes in particular) but nevertheless, Howe concentrated on reducing the budget deficit, while also simplifying the tax system.This budget reminds me of the Lamont budget in the early 1990s. It was a complicators budget, introducing lots of little ways to try and increase tax take without anyone noticing too much.Much easier to be a simplifier when you have spare cash to play with.
Chancellors are either complicators or simplifiers. The simplifiers - like Howe or Lawson or Clarke - are much better than the complicators.
(I'd be totally up for simplifications. Getting rid of all those damnfool spikes by reducing thresholds or increasing rates would be a good thing. But politically toxic. Which is why Darling and Osborne did what they did in the first place.
And whilst I would have voted for a Doctor's Mandate in 2024, I totally get why it wasn't on offer. Given how late Nigel (F not L) upended the whole game by joining it, Labour's cowardice was understandable, if cowardly.)
rcs1000
5
Re: A 28% return in just over a month? – politicalbetting.com
Nah - they have jobs, children. It's a direct relationship with how much time you can spend whinging on Facebook, which is always going to be pensioners.For the Labour Party?How do all governments manage to overcomplicate the sytem every time e.g. the change to amount you can put in a Cash ISA, but then addomg a carve out for over 65s...why?Who are the biggest most reliable voting group? Who are the most efficient whining group?
Unionised people employed by the state, I would have thought.
(Or indeed on PB...)
Eabhal
5
Re: A 28% return in just over a month? – politicalbetting.com
This budget reminds me of the Lamont budget in the early 1990s. It was a complicators budget, introducing lots of little ways to try and increase tax take without anyone noticing too much.
Chancellors are either complicators or simplifiers. The simplifiers - like Howe or Lawson or Clarke - are much better than the complicators.
Chancellors are either complicators or simplifiers. The simplifiers - like Howe or Lawson or Clarke - are much better than the complicators.
rcs1000
12
Re: What the public expects from the budget – politicalbetting.com
Because children in poverty is a blight on society when effective and not massively expensive measures exist to reduce it. The two child cap was designed to punish families with more than two children, which meant it was punishing the children particularly. Because the cap was so targeted removing it will take the most children out of poverty for the least cost.Why was it the right thing to do?A couple of thoughts.I got what I wanted from the budget: the removal of the iniquitous two child cap. The government eventually did the right thing in the face of considerable opposition. That's what governments should be in power for.
I found Reeves's speech odd, in that good budget speeches traditionally combine dignity and seriousness with clever low politics. This felt like pantomime. She didn't rise to the occasion. Good polemic needs to be better hidden as serious comment.
The old customs of not announcing and leaking in advance, taking up about five weeks of political energy, were good and should have been kept.
The custom of listening to the budget in near silence was excellent. The Deputy speaker should keep much better control.
The opportunity (the last for this government I think) for a deep reforming budget was missed. This was about survival, the soft left, the benefits and pensioner class.
Nothing in it for the middling family types.
No central theme or core coherence. Clarke, Howe and Gladstone's reputations are safe.
it was a stark reminder of the anti-intellectualism of public life.
For the rest, I have no idea, and never do at the time of budgets. Chancellors whose job it is to take revenue from here and there, stand up and tell us how they are taking revenue from here and there, and it's supposed to be some kind of theatre.
The received wisdom on this budget seems to be that Reeves has ducked the difficult decisions that none of predecessors took either, while implementing tax increases which are highly unpopular. We'll see. I don't rule out that paradoxical take transpiring.
FF43
5