Best Of

I still can't see Basildon voters being that bothered about how much Mcmurdock borrowed for his businesses in lockdown.

If there was a recall petition and by election in his Basildon and South Thurrock seat I suspect Reform would hold it even if McMurdock was the candidate

You seem to have (although in fairness it is your view of Basildon voters rather than yourself) an unbalanced moral compass. I appear to to be a tax avoider by having ISAs (I forgot to mention I also have premium bonds as well, what a tax avoiding bastard I am) but alleged criminal activity (presumably alleged fraud) is, well, ok.

Bear in mind there is no by election if he is innocent so the scenario of Basildon voters not minding only applies if he isn't.

PS Having said that you may well be correct as it is difficult to see who else the voters vote for. The obvious other protest vote is LD or Green, neither of which I believe are big in Basildon.

2024 was 30/30/25 Ref/Lab/Con. If Lab or Con can cannibalise the other they win i think, if they split the vote, Reform hold in the low to mid 30s

Yep I agree. It is a 3 way marginal and a real pickle for the voters. Normally if they decide the incumbent doesn't deserve their vote they have an alternative, but the alternatives here (Lab/Con) they have also decided don't deserve their vote.

Each could be losing/winning votes to/from the other 2. Staying home and watching the telly might be the winner.

Rachel Reeves: I did well at school but I’m here for the girls who didn’t

Her critics say the chancellor has no clear vision, but she tells our political editor that education is her true mission
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/rachel-reeves-i-did-well-at-school-but-im-here-for-the-girls-who-didnt

Reshuffle incoming?

That would be quite in interesting way of stage-managing that move.

I think it's just to advertise her pitiful increase in education spending incoming this week

On balance so do I, but this is another way of looking at it. Reeves goes voluntarily, feathering her own nest in the education department before she does. Poor Bridget Phillipson if so (oh dear how sad never mind).

Even SKS isnt enough of a turd to allow her to present the first spending review for 4 years then quit and reward her with another job

Indeed he can't possibly reshuffle her now for some time so I think its Miliband for the chop

Don't tease.

Fried green Milibands

I think he's actually loony enough to defect to the greens if he gets sacked. I also don't see where he could be moved. Perhaps promotion to Foreign Sec?

I don't actually know how you get rid of Miliband, except give him some vastly important sounding but meaningless job 'UK environmental emissary to the UN' or something and have him private jetting around the world (something loved by all environmentally inclined politicians) haranguing people about CO2.

My MP Clive Lewis is another potential Green. I could see a small group jumping if Polanski wins. Not if Ramsey and Chowns win though, they are ecology party 1983 leaders

These folk should just join the SWP, rather than trying to turn the Green Party into the SWP.

The Greens are certainly becoming something not really Green. The Ecology party was Green

Well, the Cons aren’t really Conservative, Lab aren’t really Labour etc etc.

Also true

Rachel Reeves: I did well at school but I’m here for the girls who didn’t

Her critics say the chancellor has no clear vision, but she tells our political editor that education is her true mission
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/rachel-reeves-i-did-well-at-school-but-im-here-for-the-girls-who-didnt

Reshuffle incoming?

That would be quite in interesting way of stage-managing that move.

I think it's just to advertise her pitiful increase in education spending incoming this week

On balance so do I, but this is another way of looking at it. Reeves goes voluntarily, feathering her own nest in the education department before she does. Poor Bridget Phillipson if so (oh dear how sad never mind).

Even SKS isnt enough of a turd to allow her to present the first spending review for 4 years then quit and reward her with another job

Indeed he can't possibly reshuffle her now for some time so I think its Miliband for the chop

Don't tease.

Fried green Milibands

I think he's actually loony enough to defect to the greens if he gets sacked. I also don't see where he could be moved. Perhaps promotion to Foreign Sec?

I don't actually know how you get rid of Miliband, except give him some vastly important sounding but meaningless job 'UK environmental emissary to the UN' or something and have him private jetting around the world (something loved by all environmentally inclined politicians) haranguing people about CO2.

My MP Clive Lewis is another potential Green. I could see a small group jumping if Polanski wins. Not if Ramsey and Chowns win though, they are ecology party 1983 leaders

These folk should just join the SWP, rather than trying to turn the Green Party into the SWP.

The Greens are certainly becoming something not really Green. The Ecology party was Green

Well, the Cons aren’t really Conservative, Lab aren’t really Labour etc etc.

Just caught up with the IFS proposal for VAT on food.

Where on earth do we dig these lunatics up, and why do we give them any airtime at all? Why are they not doing something on their own intellectual level like cleaning out a stables?

If they are serious, I would remind them that Balfour had a majority comparable to Starmer's, but proposed taxes on food - much more modest ones - destroyed his government and very nearly his entire political movement.

All easily said, but the facts are a problem. We borrow £150 billion, every activity under state direction wants and needs more money - much more money, Labour MPs appear to believe in MMT as do many of the public, Truss history and the bond markets are a reality, there is no such thing as a popular and workable tax rise. PBers tell us that every tax on the well off means they all go to Monaco or Dubai; PBers tell us that every general tax on everyone (like VAT) will destroy the government.

If my maths is right (it may not be) VAT on food and non alcoholic drink at a low rate - eg 5%- would raise only about £8 billion annually, a sum which is dwarfed by the demands on the state. At 20% it would raise about £32 billion, which begins to look like serious money.

So the critics need to suggest solutions instead of being like Labour MPs who are being the problem rather than the solution.

There are multiple much more workable solutions.

Merge National Insurance and Income Tax should be top of the list so that everyone pays the same rate of tax regardless of how they earn their money, rather than people who work for a living being on a higher rate of tax.

I am now convinced that only an inflation spike and a fairly major government borrowing crunch will teach the MMT types the error of their ways.

a

Morning all

On housing and development, it's worth pointing out the biggest obstacle to development isn't "NIMBY-ism" (whatever that means), it's the actual cost of construction.

In London, there's the Section 106 payment, the Community Infrastructure Levy and the Carbon Off-Set Tax to name but three. Developers look at sites and you and I might ask why they aren't being developed - the answer isn't to blame the LDs (far too easy and wrong) but to blame successive Governments for hiking construction costs.

That's before we get into supply chain capacity issues, shortages of specialist trades etc, etc. If you are serious about building houses, then get your children to be bricklayers, sparks or chippies and create a meaningful National Apprentice Scheme and encourage (or cajole) private sector companies to employ these apprentices.

Developers want to develop and they want to work WITH local communities to provide developments which work for everyone but they have to at least be able to break even on a site and what's stopping them are the costs.

The real, sensible arguments are about services, and about conforming to local building plans.

Rather than baroque attempts to charge developers for schools and GP surgeries etc... Why not do the following -

- lay out the planned street grid for a new area.
- build the services - sewers, leecy, schools, hospitals etc. first. This has the advantage of reducing load on existing local services, even before the new houses go up.
- sell the plots to the developers at a price that covers the above. Make sure that the parcels of plots are not all sold to the same developer.

The Dutch approach - many on her have advocated it for years

Tax? Well if we're not imposing a tax on all foreigners living abroad or a tax on thingy (you know, THNGY!!!) then we need to go after the daddy - Council Tax.

This one is fairly straight forward - what we have now is utterly absurd. Valuations decades into the past with no band that covers the actual values of so many houses? Madness.

Arguing that we must keep the status quo is cowardice. People don't like or understand council tax anyway, so replacing it shouldn't be that controversial.

Two principles: we need to fund local government effectively, and property is far harder to move out of tax than cash or other assets. So a Land Value Tax to replace Council Tax. Based on actual land value today, not eons ago. Some places are quite expensive, others less so. Won't be as popular in Godalming as is will be in Grimsby.

I also believe that almost all of a local council's budget should be levied via council tax - there should be no role for central government. If that means council taxes rise/fall then so be it.

Or flip it the other way - all tax should be raised centrally and handed out to local authorities by central government to meet local needs.

Both would work if the country was a homogenous entity in which all areas had the same needs, the same kind of people and the same kind of housing.

Unfortunately, it doesn't.

Newham is not Surrey, Liverpool is not Cornwall. The amount each area needs and the ability of that area to meet that need from its own resources (council tax, parking fines, housing licences etc) would be so varied as to be ridiculous so the central Government "grant" helps equalise it.

If that grant were to be apportioned by an independent non-political body it would help but if it's dished out by the Government then some areas will always be "favoured" and you can guess which depending on which party is in power centrally and locally.

You could probably fund most of local Government locally IF you took the funding for social care and perhaps housing away and funded it directly through some national scheme such as a National Care Agency or a National Housing Agency.

Tax? Well if we're not imposing a tax on all foreigners living abroad or a tax on thingy (you know, THNGY!!!) then we need to go after the daddy - Council Tax.

This one is fairly straight forward - what we have now is utterly absurd. Valuations decades into the past with no band that covers the actual values of so many houses? Madness.

Arguing that we must keep the status quo is cowardice. People don't like or understand council tax anyway, so replacing it shouldn't be that controversial.

Two principles: we need to fund local government effectively, and property is far harder to move out of tax than cash or other assets. So a Land Value Tax to replace Council Tax. Based on actual land value today, not eons ago. Some places are quite expensive, others less so. Won't be as popular in Godalming as is will be in Grimsby.

I also believe that almost all of a local council's budget should be levied via council tax - there should be no role for central government. If that means council taxes rise/fall then so be it.

Or flip it the other way - all tax should be raised centrally and handed out to local authorities by central government to meet local needs.

Not for me - I hate the idea of someone in London deciding what the local needs are in Wiltshire. See the arguments for devolution.
The issues arise when the national government can choose to reward or punish local government (often because of the colour of the rosette).