In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
I would just say 'put covid aside' would be great, but it is far too simplistic to ignore the biggest crisis since WW2 and the economic fracture that has occurred, not just in the UK, but worldwide
I put it aside because I am interested in the government’s longer term economic strategy.
Covid - albeit massive - is a one-off.
The U.K. has systemic productivity problems which have caused very long term wage suppression now. This is forecast to continue.
The budget does little to address that, or other long term issues.
The overall story is significant tax hikes. Meanwhile, on Brexit, the government shows no signs of wanting to ameliorate a significant impediment to growth and productivity.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels Surestart restarting under another name
Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.
The underfunding of education has been a pretty consistent Tory policy since the Thatcher years. The budget increase might just about stop the system from collapsing, funding per pupil having dropped nearly 10% in real terms since 2010. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-58993708
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels Surestart restarting under another name
Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.
Well I guess it depends what austerity means. Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.
Not sure about defence anymore.
Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.
On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.
As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.
That’s interesting, about Freakonomics. Totally counter-intuitive.
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-
Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.
Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:
"What is the name of your youngest child?"
How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?
Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
Some of the security questions are oddly demanding. I was asked for the month when I set up a phone contract, 5-6 years ago. I had genuinely no clue. Another asked for a spending limit on a credit card that I rarely use (and therefore don't get statements for). In general, systems assume that we are all really well-organised and have all our bank statements, credit card statements an dphone contracts neatly assembled, going back years into the past. I'm reasonably good at that, but not perfect, and I know people who shred their old bank statements after a few months.
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-
Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.
Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:
"What is the name of your youngest child?"
How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?
Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
Some of the security questions are oddly demanding. I was asked for the month when I set up a phone contract, 5-6 years ago. I had genuinely no clue. Another asked for a spending limit on a credit card that I rarely use (and therefore don't get statements for). In general, systems assume that we are all really well-organised and have all our bank statements, credit card statements an dphone contracts neatly assembled, going back years into the past. I'm reasonably good at that, but not perfect, and I know people who shred their old bank statements after a few months.
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-
Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.
Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:
"What is the name of your youngest child?"
How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?
Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
Some of the security questions are oddly demanding. I was asked for the month when I set up a phone contract, 5-6 years ago. I had genuinely no clue. Another asked for a spending limit on a credit card that I rarely use (and therefore don't get statements for). In general, systems assume that we are all really well-organised and have all our bank statements, credit card statements an dphone contracts neatly assembled, going back years into the past. I'm reasonably good at that, but not perfect, and I know people who shred their old bank statements after a few months.
All.my statements going back.yrs are available online. I have no hard copy at all. I can print off anything I need eg when HMRC insisted on knowing about the £1.02 interest I earned in 2020/ 21...
That's incredibly organised. Unlike your use of blockquotes.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Reeves is dreadful, no improvement from her dismal performance in the Miliband days. Really though we now have almost a Social Democratic uniparty. The arguments are pure semantics. Most of the politicians come from the same background, they think the same.
You here plenty of plans and money spent here and there but will Public Services get better for the practical and productive sector taxpayer. I don't expect so. Cameron's so called austerity totally failed to cut most of the waste.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
The RN having manpower shortages goes back to before CVA-01
IIRC the Americans offered us some Essex class carriers as a stop gap during the CVA-01 comedy. The issue was finding x * 1000 sailors to man them.
The root of the current challenge lies in the blatant lying that went on about the crew requirements of the QE class to stop it all getting cancelled in the late noughties. They were deliberately understated by a factor of 50% as the incumbents knew none of them would be in position when the full scale of the problem eventually manifested. Hence the butchering of the escort fleet to sustain the carriers.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels Surestart restarting under another name
Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.
Well I guess it depends what austerity means. Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.
Not sure about defence anymore.
Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.
On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.
As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.
The suggestion was that reading without the rest of the learning culture wasn't effective, IIRC
i.e. reading to children is evidence of the learning culture in the home, not the cause of learning.
Reading with your children would be much more effective than reading to.
I don’t remember being read to as a child: I do remember reading vast numbers of books, often one a day.
But that is just another anecdote, so not much use for deciding policy. Indeed, some of the worst policy decisions in education are made by bright people who assume their experience is typical.
HMRC needs to recruit more old people. To play with your tax online, you need to answer two questions chosen from:-
Choose 2 items we can ask you about
UK passport
P60
Credit reference questions eg year you took out a credit card or phone contract
Northern Ireland driving licence
And no, I do not live in Northern Ireland. But look at number 3, which has presumably been written by a very recent graduate. Most of us have had credit cards and even phones for as long as we can remember, not three years ago when we left mum and dad to go off to university. Doesn't anyone check this rubbish?
You want bonkers.
Citibank took me through setting up security questions. One of the ones it wanted me to use was:
"What is the name of your youngest child?"
How retarded do you have to be not to realise that this might change?
You're telling me citibank won't keep an updated file on you and automatically update the stored security responses as required? Google would
We are told not to use biographical data that could be in the public domain for passwords. Why do banks then ask for such data as part of security?
Are they really that dumb? Or are we so dumb, that this is the only hope of us remembering the correct answer.
Some of the security questions are oddly demanding. I was asked for the month when I set up a phone contract, 5-6 years ago. I had genuinely no clue. Another asked for a spending limit on a credit card that I rarely use (and therefore don't get statements for). In general, systems assume that we are all really well-organised and have all our bank statements, credit card statements an dphone contracts neatly assembled, going back years into the past. I'm reasonably good at that, but not perfect, and I know people who shred their old bank statements after a few months.
I shred everything after 7 years… just have an electronic record of anything old…
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:
Single person, 2 children:
Gross salary £40,000 Rent £150/week Child care £100/week Pension contributions £1,200/year Council Tax £1,200/year
Gets £155.57 UC per week
(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)
It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.
NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36
The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79
Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.
That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.
If you want children you should pay for them yourself!
Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...
Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.
Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.
All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.
So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.
The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.
Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.
If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.
What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.
Like all revenue/expenditure matters there is a tendency to look at individual items. All developed countries have to take a massive revenue from everyone to pay for the same things for everyone. What counts is the totality.
The system described gives a massive advantage (in this tax area) to better off people with children. You can only have high relevant tax reliefs if your income is enough to benefit from it. The questions are: How does the government make up for the lost revenue, and who pays it? How does it treat poorer people with children?
I like the idea of encouraging female graduates to have more children, but not at the expense of less well off groups. The problem is that all tax breaks are at the expense of someone.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
Look, I am pretty non partisan despite my dislike of the current lot. I have voted for both Labour and Tories over that time period and am likely to do so again. Blaming the other party rather than acknowledging both make mistakes and events are often beyond their control anyway is pretty childish imo.
In 1974, Harold Wilson inherited the mess of the Heath-Barber years. Pretty hard to defend that.
But in 1979, Thatcher inherited the mess of Jim "Crisis? What crisis? Callaghan after the IMF had been called in to salvage the economy.
In 1997, Gordon Brown walked into the golden inheritance of Ken Clarke's stewardship, admittedly after the debacle of the exit from the ERM. Brown was VERY touchy on his good fortune on this. He reportedly said "What do you want me to do, write him a fucking thank you?"
In 2010, the Coalition inherited the mess of the international sub-prime fiasco - but exacerbated by the failings of one Gordon Brown - failings which he had been warned about by the Conservatives.
And every Labour Government has left office with employment lower than they inherited.
What about this assessment is "childish"?
It is not childish but remember the IMF may have been called in but we never took any money from them. The damage was caused by calling them in,
Quite so. The IMF was supposed to be there to help incompetent and very badly run third world countries who had allowed their economies to crash out of control. And it brought home to us that that is where we were. Thatcher was a part of the solution but North Sea oil was what kept the lights on.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels Surestart restarting under another name
Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.
Well I guess it depends what austerity means. Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.
Not sure about defence anymore.
Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.
On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.
As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.
The suggestion was that reading without the rest of the learning culture wasn't effective, IIRC
i.e. reading to children is evidence of the learning culture in the home, not the cause of learning.
Reading with your children would be much more effective than reading to.
I don’t remember being read to as a child: I do remember reading vast numbers of books, often one a day.
But that is just another anecdote, so not much use for deciding policy. Indeed, some of the worst policy decisions in education are made by bright people who assume their experience is typical.
My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon ... luge lessons ... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets ... When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
The need was always there. It just wasn’t serviced.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
Make something widely available and people avail themselves of the service?
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Reeves is dreadful, no improvement from her dismal performance in the Miliband days. Really though we now have almost a Social Democratic uniparty. The arguments are pure semantics. Most of the politicians come from the same background, they think the same.
You here plenty of plans and money spent here and there but will Public Services get better for the practical and productive sector taxpayer. I don't expect so. Cameron's so called austerity totally failed to cut most of the waste.
Welcome.
I thought Reeves sounded fairly credible yesterday, even if a lot of it boiled down to "you could have spent even more here, there and everywhere".
The ridiculous years under Corbyn are now behind us and thank the Lord for that. It gives people a choice. Of course its not much of a choice as you point out since the policies are now very similar but its still a vaguely credible one. Governments work better when they have an opposition. We had a 4 year time out without one whilst the Labour party indulged itself. It is good that they are back.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
Look, I am pretty non partisan despite my dislike of the current lot. I have voted for both Labour and Tories over that time period and am likely to do so again. Blaming the other party rather than acknowledging both make mistakes and events are often beyond their control anyway is pretty childish imo.
In 1974, Harold Wilson inherited the mess of the Heath-Barber years. Pretty hard to defend that.
But in 1979, Thatcher inherited the mess of Jim "Crisis? What crisis? Callaghan after the IMF had been called in to salvage the economy.
In 1997, Gordon Brown walked into the golden inheritance of Ken Clarke's stewardship, admittedly after the debacle of the exit from the ERM. Brown was VERY touchy on his good fortune on this. He reportedly said "What do you want me to do, write him a fucking thank you?"
In 2010, the Coalition inherited the mess of the international sub-prime fiasco - but exacerbated by the failings of one Gordon Brown - failings which he had been warned about by the Conservatives.
And every Labour Government has left office with employment lower than they inherited.
What about this assessment is "childish"?
It is not childish but remember the IMF may have been called in but we never took any money from them. The damage was caused by calling them in,
Quite so. The IMF was supposed to be there to help incompetent and very badly run third world countries who had allowed their economies to crash out of control. And it brought home to us that that is where we were. Thatcher was a part of the solution but North Sea oil was what kept the lights on.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
Look, I am pretty non partisan despite my dislike of the current lot. I have voted for both Labour and Tories over that time period and am likely to do so again. Blaming the other party rather than acknowledging both make mistakes and events are often beyond their control anyway is pretty childish imo.
In 1974, Harold Wilson inherited the mess of the Heath-Barber years. Pretty hard to defend that.
But in 1979, Thatcher inherited the mess of Jim "Crisis? What crisis? Callaghan after the IMF had been called in to salvage the economy.
In 1997, Gordon Brown walked into the golden inheritance of Ken Clarke's stewardship, admittedly after the debacle of the exit from the ERM. Brown was VERY touchy on his good fortune on this. He reportedly said "What do you want me to do, write him a fucking thank you?"
In 2010, the Coalition inherited the mess of the international sub-prime fiasco - but exacerbated by the failings of one Gordon Brown - failings which he had been warned about by the Conservatives.
And every Labour Government has left office with employment lower than they inherited.
What about this assessment is "childish"?
I wouldn't give Ken Clarke too much credit to be honest, he was chancellor at a good time. Just after the end of the Cold War and the birth of the internet. Blair and Brown between them largely squandered the proceeds of that golden period, building their political power base in the Public Sector. Cameron should have blown that up but bottled the opportunity.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
Sure. The world changes and I’d rather governments react to the “now” rather than remained fixed on some old document
For example the 2019 manifestos didn’t account for COVID.
I judge governments on their record, their performance and my expectations about their future intentions. Manifestos form a part of the third element (but so do speeches, articles and my own prejudices)
Edit: “I don’t really care” is not the same meaning as “I don’t care”
The ridiculous years under Corbyn are now behind us and thank the Lord for that. It gives people a choice. Of course its not much of a choice as you point out since the policies are now very similar but its still a vaguely credible one. Governments work better when they have an opposition. We had a 4 year time out without one whilst the Labour party indulged itself. It is good that they are back.
They will go Corbynite+ after SKS departs the stage. By that point leader and policies probably won't matter because they'll get elected anyway as the tories will be fucked out and everyone will hate them.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
That's a fantastic improvement in David Cameron's Big Society that those going through short term issues can get food from a food bank now.
In 2010 food banks weren't available and people went for Wonga payday loans instead. Now Wonga have been driven out of business.
Food banks or Wonga? I know which I prefer is available to people, do you?
Quite off topic, apologies. There is a surprisingly large variation in the charges made by investment platforms to host ISAs or SIPPs, from Hargreaves Lansdown and Fidelity at the high end to iWeb at the low end. We have been using Fidelity and Interactive Investor for years but now think we should change. Can anyone out there share their experience of iWeb or of migrating between platforms?
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
There is such an obvious answer to this one though: "we had to spend over £400bn on Covid and that changed our plans". 2019 manifestos are for a different country on a different planet.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
I would just say 'put covid aside' would be great, but it is far too simplistic to ignore the biggest crisis since WW2 and the economic fracture that has occurred, not just in the UK, but worldwide
I put it aside because I am interested in the government’s longer term economic strategy.
Covid - albeit massive - is a one-off.
The U.K. has systemic productivity problems which have caused very long term wage suppression now. This is forecast to continue.
The budget does little to address that, or other long term issues.
The overall story is significant tax hikes. Meanwhile, on Brexit, the government shows no signs of wanting to ameliorate a significant impediment to growth and productivity.
I would say that the budget did what was needed and put forward an optimistic case for the future, but we are only at the start of recovering from covid and many issues including inflation and world supply chain problems are likely to persist through 2022
I am surprised he did not take the opportunity to equalise pension tax relief at 25% and even increase IHT but we need to see how this plays out over the coming months, which will be difficult
As far as amelioration of Brexit is concerned , it is too soon to judge because time is needed to see how far we diverge from the EU and whether we join the CPTPP later next year as has been muted
People talk about the Universal Credit taper - but the point is that even with the current taper we are paying UC to people on very high incomes:
Single person, 2 children:
Gross salary £40,000 Rent £150/week Child care £100/week Pension contributions £1,200/year Council Tax £1,200/year
Gets £155.57 UC per week
(Plus £35.15 Child Benefit per week)
It's obscene really - single people on minimum wage are paying tax so that someone on a gross salary of £40,000 can get over £8,000 of UC.
NB. The "Gross UC" is £472.36
The taper (at 63% of net pay above £67.62 per week) is £316.79
Leaving an actual UC cash payment of £155.57.
That, of course, will now rise when the taper falls to 55%.
Agreed. Absolutely immoral that the state pays for people having children.
If you want children you should pay for them yourself!
Worst change in tax and benefits approach in last 40 years. In 1980 if you had children you took responsibility for them.
How do you feel about the French system where every member of your family comes with their own tax allowances and they stack? So, a single man might start paying higher rate tax at €60,000/year, but if he's married and has two kids, then it's €240,000/year.
Remind me again how this works? Isn’t there an element of couples sharing their tax free allowance or something?
OK...
Imagine you live in a country with 0% income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings, 20% on the next £10,000, and 50% on everything above that.
Now, a single man earning £30,000/year will pay 0% on the first £10,000 (£0), then 20% on the next £10,000 (£2,000), and 50% on the final £10,000 (£5,000), for an individual tax liability of £7,000.
All very simple. Now imagine that he marries a woman, and she's earning exactly the same.
So, family income £60,000, family tax liability £14,000.
The woman then becomes pregnant (excuse my traditional family schtick), and gives up work.
Because there are two members of the family, they get to combine their returns. Husband plus wife get two lots of £10,000 tax free, and two lots of £10,000 at 20%. This means that their tax liability on his £30,000 income is now 0% on £20,000, and then 20% on the remainder - i.e. £2,000.
If they have a kid, it gets even better, because that kid comes with their own tax allowance. Now, they have three lots of £10,000 tax free allowances.
What this means is that having a kid can actually be financially a positive for middle class French families. The stats are extraordianary - across the developed world, TFRs for female graduates are (a) usually only just over 1, and (b) always worse than for women without degrees. Except in France, where female graduates are more likely to have children.
Sounds like a great system (but then I have 3 kids so I would say that).
What happens when the children grow up and leave home? Does one's tax go up again?
Don't worry, in Tory Britain they'll never be able to afford to move out.
Thereby also solving the housing shortage. Genius!
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yeah they lost but it does not answer the question about the economic hit from Brexit. You could point instead to the hundreds of billions of pounds better off we will be due to Brexit.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels Surestart restarting under another name
Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.
Well I guess it depends what austerity means. Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.
Not sure about defence anymore.
Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.
On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.
As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.
Mrs J and myself are very middle-class. We are well-read, (hopefully) intelligent, and have access to resources. However, we are also the youngest of our respective siblings, have our families long distances away, and were older parents.
Our local SureStart was really useful in the first year of the little 'uns life, helping us learn little things about how to raise a child, and also to meet other parents - we're currently on holiday with one family we met at the centre. Much of raising a child is instinctive and instinctual; but there are lots of little hints and tips we had no idea about.
Incidentally, the NCT group was also incredibly useful to us pre-birth, for similar reasons.
My only criticism of the SureStart and NCT schemes - in out area - is that they *seemed* to be predominantly middle-class in composition. I was unsure that some parents who needed it most were using them (especially NCT, as it costs).
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
Sure. The world changes and I’d rather governments react to the “now” rather than remained fixed on some old document
For example the 2019 manifestos didn’t account for COVID.
I judge governments on their record, their performance and my expectations about their future intentions. Manifestos form a part of the third element (but so do speeches, articles and my own prejudices)
Edit: “I don’t really care” is not the same meaning as “I don’t care”
Come now, we know you vote only after consulting the Almanac de Gotha and carefully assessing the candidates’ respective pedigrees.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
I think it’s a terrible sign of idiocy when people reject commentators saying something perfectly lucid just because they were/are “pro Remain”*
*”pro-Remain”, rather than “pro-EU”, because to describe Remainers as EU partisans is another sign of idiocy.
It’s not a lucid comment though - it’s a conflation of two different things (AIUI) to make a political point
COVID has caused a 2% decline in GDP as a one time shock. It *has* occurred and is expected to be caught up over time
The Brexit calculation is a *prediction* about future output gap. GDP isn’t smaller as a result of Brexit, but the OBR thinks the economy will grow less fast. They may be right but they may not
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
That's a fantastic improvement in David Cameron's Big Society that those going through short term issues can get food from a food bank now.
In 2010 food banks weren't available and people went for Wonga payday loans instead. Now Wonga have been driven out of business.
Food banks or Wonga? I know which I prefer is available to people, do you?
The fact that you think those should be the only choices available speaks volumes.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
There is such an obvious answer to this one though: "we had to spend over £400bn on Covid and that changed our plans". 2019 manifestos are for a different country on a different planet.
Yeah I totally get that. I just think Charles’s response was very cynical.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels Surestart restarting under another name
Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.
Well I guess it depends what austerity means. Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.
Not sure about defence anymore.
Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.
On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.
As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.
The suggestion was that reading without the rest of the learning culture wasn't effective, IIRC
i.e. reading to children is evidence of the learning culture in the home, not the cause of learning.
Reading with your children would be much more effective than reading to.
I don’t remember being read to as a child: I do remember reading vast numbers of books, often one a day.
But that is just another anecdote, so not much use for deciding policy. Indeed, some of the worst policy decisions in education are made by bright people who assume their experience is typical.
My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon ... luge lessons ... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets ... When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really.
I have to ask: is that your own experience, or are you quoting?
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
I think it’s a terrible sign of idiocy when people reject commentators saying something perfectly lucid just because they were/are “pro Remain”*
*”pro-Remain”, rather than “pro-EU”, because to describe Remainers as EU partisans is another sign of idiocy.
It’s not a lucid comment though - it’s a conflation of two different things (AIUI) to make a political point
COVID has caused a 2% decline in GDP as a one time shock. It *has* occurred and is expected to be caught up over time
The Brexit calculation is a *prediction* about future output gap. GDP isn’t smaller as a result of Brexit, but the OBR thinks the economy will grow less fast. They may be right but they may not
I think you are disingenuously trying to undermine the tweet because the logical argument is rather inconvenient to you.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels Surestart restarting under another name
Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.
Well I guess it depends what austerity means. Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.
Not sure about defence anymore.
Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.
On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.
As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.
The suggestion was that reading without the rest of the learning culture wasn't effective, IIRC
i.e. reading to children is evidence of the learning culture in the home, not the cause of learning.
Reading with your children would be much more effective than reading to.
I don’t remember being read to as a child: I do remember reading vast numbers of books, often one a day.
But that is just another anecdote, so not much use for deciding policy. Indeed, some of the worst policy decisions in education are made by bright people who assume their experience is typical.
My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon ... luge lessons ... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets ... When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really.
I have to ask: is that your own experience, or are you quoting?
It's from the film Austin Powers. The character speaking is Dr Evil, so it can't be me. I'm not a doctor.
It seems to be one thing after another in China at the moment. Those supply shocks are going to just keep on coming.
Small example but I was bullied by the potential loss of a £400 credit on my phone contract into ordering a new phone from Vodaphone. I have been waiting 3 weeks now for them to deliver it.
One thing we should perhaps remember is that Xi and his government are slightly less competent, much more violent versions of Donald Trump. They will probably not have the imagination or the will to sort out the problems China faces.
That could be very bad news all around if they decide to do some Galtieri style distraction therapy, of course.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
Sure. The world changes and I’d rather governments react to the “now” rather than remained fixed on some old document
For example the 2019 manifestos didn’t account for COVID.
I judge governments on their record, their performance and my expectations about their future intentions. Manifestos form a part of the third element (but so do speeches, articles and my own prejudices)
Edit: “I don’t really care” is not the same meaning as “I don’t care”
Come now, we know you vote only after consulting the Almanac de Gotha and carefully assessing the candidates’ respective pedigrees.
It seems to be one thing after another in China at the moment. Those supply shocks are going to just keep on coming.
Small example but I was bullied by the potential loss of a £400 credit on my phone contract into ordering a new phone from Vodaphone. I have been waiting 3 weeks now for them to deliver it.
One thing we should perhaps remember is that Xi and his government are slightly less competent, much more violent versions of Donald Trump. They will probably not have the imagination or the will to sort out the problems China faces.
That could be very bad news all around if they decide to do some Galtieri style distraction therapy, of course.
I’ve seen some suggestions that they actually want the current chaos as an excuse to renationalise as much of the economy as possible, putting it under the control of the CCP. Xi is an actual Communist, with all that that implies.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
Sure. The world changes and I’d rather governments react to the “now” rather than remained fixed on some old document
For example the 2019 manifestos didn’t account for COVID.
I judge governments on their record, their performance and my expectations about their future intentions. Manifestos form a part of the third element (but so do speeches, articles and my own prejudices)
Edit: “I don’t really care” is not the same meaning as “I don’t care”
Come now, we know you vote only after consulting the Almanac de Gotha and carefully assessing the candidates’ respective pedigrees.
Why would I do that? Not relevant to the decision
I thought it was Justin did things like that. Mind you, he always seemed to give Wilson and Corbyn a free pass...
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels Surestart restarting under another name
Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.
Well I guess it depends what austerity means. Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.
Not sure about defence anymore.
Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.
On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.
As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.
Reading to your kids is just talking to them though. Encouraging them to read presumably does make a difference. How many control households are there where reading to them is a thing but encouragement to them to read is zero?
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
That's a fantastic improvement in David Cameron's Big Society that those going through short term issues can get food from a food bank now.
In 2010 food banks weren't available and people went for Wonga payday loans instead. Now Wonga have been driven out of business.
Food banks or Wonga? I know which I prefer is available to people, do you?
The fact that you think those should be the only choices available speaks volumes.
No, you think that and are imposing your bias on his statement. Nowhere does @Philip_Thompson suggest they should be the only choices.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
I think it’s a terrible sign of idiocy when people reject commentators saying something perfectly lucid just because they were/are “pro Remain”*
*”pro-Remain”, rather than “pro-EU”, because to describe Remainers as EU partisans is another sign of idiocy.
It’s not a lucid comment though - it’s a conflation of two different things (AIUI) to make a political point
COVID has caused a 2% decline in GDP as a one time shock. It *has* occurred and is expected to be caught up over time
The Brexit calculation is a *prediction* about future output gap. GDP isn’t smaller as a result of Brexit, but the OBR thinks the economy will grow less fast. They may be right but they may not
I think you are disingenuously trying to undermine the tweet because the logical argument is rather inconvenient to you.
No. The Tweet is misleading.
There is a reasonable argument about whether Brexit will reduce GDP in future. Quite possibly it will (although GDP per capita is more complicated). People determined that cost was acceptable as a trade off for other perceived advantages
But a predicted output gap is not the same as a one time impact. It just isn’t.
Gauke’s tweet (and others like it) are disingenuous and manipulative.
It seems to be one thing after another in China at the moment. Those supply shocks are going to just keep on coming.
Small example but I was bullied by the potential loss of a £400 credit on my phone contract into ordering a new phone from Vodaphone. I have been waiting 3 weeks now for them to deliver it.
One thing we should perhaps remember is that Xi and his government are slightly less competent, much more violent versions of Donald Trump. They will probably not have the imagination or the will to sort out the problems China faces.
That could be very bad news all around if they decide to do some Galtieri style distraction therapy, of course.
I’ve seen some suggestions that they actually want the current chaos as an excuse to renationalise as much of the economy as possible, putting it under the control of the CCP. Xi is an actual Communist, with all that that implies.
Xi isn't really a communist. He's a crook. He resembles the party apparatchiks under Brezhnev making millions of roubles a year in bribes while paying lip service to the ideology.
That however only reinforces your basic point, as it would be logical for him to seize as much of the financially productive economy for himself as he could.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
That's a fantastic improvement in David Cameron's Big Society that those going through short term issues can get food from a food bank now.
In 2010 food banks weren't available and people went for Wonga payday loans instead. Now Wonga have been driven out of business.
Food banks or Wonga? I know which I prefer is available to people, do you?
The fact that you think those should be the only choices available speaks volumes.
They are the only choices, since you limited the question to two dates.
You put up 2010 and Now as the alternatives. 2010 people were incapable of going to food banks so they went to Wonga instead, now they have food banks available and Wonga have gone out of business.
Which do you prefer? Labour's 2010 Wonga Society or today's free food for those who need it Big Society?
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
Sure. The world changes and I’d rather governments react to the “now” rather than remained fixed on some old document
For example the 2019 manifestos didn’t account for COVID.
I judge governments on their record, their performance and my expectations about their future intentions. Manifestos form a part of the third element (but so do speeches, articles and my own prejudices)
Edit: “I don’t really care” is not the same meaning as “I don’t care”
Come now, we know you vote only after consulting the Almanac de Gotha and carefully assessing the candidates’ respective pedigrees.
Why would I do that? Not relevant to the decision
There has been a pandemic since the election. If any government didn't tear up its manifesto and start from scratch, it would be negligent.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
Fear not! Food bank users don't vote. I suspect the Conservative Party have dodged that bullet.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
I think it’s a terrible sign of idiocy when people reject commentators saying something perfectly lucid just because they were/are “pro Remain”*
*”pro-Remain”, rather than “pro-EU”, because to describe Remainers as EU partisans is another sign of idiocy.
It’s not a lucid comment though - it’s a conflation of two different things (AIUI) to make a political point
COVID has caused a 2% decline in GDP as a one time shock. It *has* occurred and is expected to be caught up over time
The Brexit calculation is a *prediction* about future output gap. GDP isn’t smaller as a result of Brexit, but the OBR thinks the economy will grow less fast. They may be right but they may not
I think you are disingenuously trying to undermine the tweet because the logical argument is rather inconvenient to you.
No. The Tweet is misleading.
There is a reasonable argument about whether Brexit will reduce GDP in future. Quite possibly it will (although GDP per capita is more complicated). People determined that cost was acceptable as a trade off for other perceived advantages
But a predicted output gap is not the same as a one time impact. It just isn’t.
Gauke’s tweet (and others like it) are disingenuous and manipulative.
Is being deliberately disingenuous and manipulative a bad thing if the other side are doing it? Ironic.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
Sure. The world changes and I’d rather governments react to the “now” rather than remained fixed on some old document
For example the 2019 manifestos didn’t account for COVID.
I judge governments on their record, their performance and my expectations about their future intentions. Manifestos form a part of the third element (but so do speeches, articles and my own prejudices)
Edit: “I don’t really care” is not the same meaning as “I don’t care”
Come now, we know you vote only after consulting the Almanac de Gotha and carefully assessing the candidates’ respective pedigrees.
Why would I do that? Not relevant to the decision
I thought it was Justin did things like that. Mind you, he always seemed to give Wilson and Corbyn a free pass...
Corbyn grew up in a mansion in Wiltshire, and Wilson - as we know - was the 14th Mr Wilson.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Just because they lost doesn’t mean they have to shut up Big G.
No but it does mean we can discount their sour grapes.
The thing that struck me as most interesting yesterday is how much better the UK's outturn already is versus the OBR's predictions the Budget was made on. And they've "forecast" a 4% Brexit dip too . . . laughable, absolutely laughable.
Sunak really is clever. Next year he's going to be able to go to the despatch box and say the economy has gone even stronger than the last set of predictions and so he has more money available for either new spending or new tax cuts.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
It’s very interesting that you don’t care.
Sure. The world changes and I’d rather governments react to the “now” rather than remained fixed on some old document
For example the 2019 manifestos didn’t account for COVID.
I judge governments on their record, their performance and my expectations about their future intentions. Manifestos form a part of the third element (but so do speeches, articles and my own prejudices)
Edit: “I don’t really care” is not the same meaning as “I don’t care”
Come now, we know you vote only after consulting the Almanac de Gotha and carefully assessing the candidates’ respective pedigrees.
Why would I do that? Not relevant to the decision
There has been a pandemic since the election. If any government didn't tear up its manifesto and start from scratch, it would be negligent.
Which is true, but nor does that prove they HAVEN'T been negligent.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Reeves is dreadful, no improvement from her dismal performance in the Miliband days. Really though we now have almost a Social Democratic uniparty. The arguments are pure semantics. Most of the politicians come from the same background, they think the same.
You here plenty of plans and money spent here and there but will Public Services get better for the practical and productive sector taxpayer. I don't expect so. Cameron's so called austerity totally failed to cut most of the waste.
Welcome.
I thought Reeves sounded fairly credible yesterday, even if a lot of it boiled down to "you could have spent even more here, there and everywhere".
The ridiculous years under Corbyn are now behind us and thank the Lord for that. It gives people a choice. Of course its not much of a choice as you point out since the policies are now very similar but its still a vaguely credible one. Governments work better when they have an opposition. We had a 4 year time out without one whilst the Labour party indulged itself. It is good that they are back.
Corbyn was rather a front man for the agenda of others. It very nearly worked in 2017. Probably nearer to power than Starmer will manage. I see him very much as a puppet of Public Unions.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Reeves is dreadful, no improvement from her dismal performance in the Miliband days. Really though we now have almost a Social Democratic uniparty. The arguments are pure semantics. Most of the politicians come from the same background, they think the same.
You here plenty of plans and money spent here and there but will Public Services get better for the practical and productive sector taxpayer. I don't expect so. Cameron's so called austerity totally failed to cut most of the waste.
Welcome.
I thought Reeves sounded fairly credible yesterday, even if a lot of it boiled down to "you could have spent even more here, there and everywhere".
The ridiculous years under Corbyn are now behind us and thank the Lord for that. It gives people a choice. Of course its not much of a choice as you point out since the policies are now very similar but its still a vaguely credible one. Governments work better when they have an opposition. We had a 4 year time out without one whilst the Labour party indulged itself. It is good that they are back.
Corbyn was rather a front man for the agenda of others. It very nearly worked in 2017. Probably nearer to power than Starmer will manage. I see him very much as a puppet of Public Unions.
Nah. Corbyn was simply a meme in 2017. The unions have no real power anymore and the threat of “the unions” is completely lost on anyone under the age of 35.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
I would just say 'put covid aside' would be great, but it is far too simplistic to ignore the biggest crisis since WW2 and the economic fracture that has occurred, not just in the UK, but worldwide
I put it aside because I am interested in the government’s longer term economic strategy.
Covid - albeit massive - is a one-off.
The U.K. has systemic productivity problems which have caused very long term wage suppression now. This is forecast to continue.
The budget does little to address that, or other long term issues.
The overall story is significant tax hikes. Meanwhile, on Brexit, the government shows no signs of wanting to ameliorate a significant impediment to growth and productivity.
I would say that the budget did what was needed and put forward an optimistic case for the future, but we are only at the start of recovering from covid and many issues including inflation and world supply chain problems are likely to persist through 2022
I am surprised he did not take the opportunity to equalise pension tax relief at 25% and even increase IHT but we need to see how this plays out over the coming months, which will be difficult
As far as amelioration of Brexit is concerned , it is too soon to judge because time is needed to see how far we diverge from the EU and whether we join the CPTPP later next year as has been muted
Pensions and Capital Gains will be next year then after the next election an increase in state pension age to at least 70, possibly 72. Further sweeping tax rises are inevitable. The young face a future of debt slavery.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Just because they lost doesn’t mean they have to shut up Big G.
No but it does mean we can discount their sour grapes.
The thing that struck me as most interesting yesterday is how much better the UK's outturn already is versus the OBR's predictions the Budget was made on. And they've "forecast" a 4% Brexit dip too . . . laughable, absolutely laughable.
Sunak really is clever. Next year he's going to be able to go to the despatch box and say the economy has gone even stronger than the last set of predictions and so he has more money available for either new spending or new tax cuts.
These arbitrary percentages are going to be irrelevant if the middle classes are decimated by stagnating wages and high inflation.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels Surestart restarting under another name
Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.
Well I guess it depends what austerity means. Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.
Not sure about defence anymore.
Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.
On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.
As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.
Mrs J and myself are very middle-class. We are well-read, (hopefully) intelligent, and have access to resources. However, we are also the youngest of our respective siblings, have our families long distances away, and were older parents.
Our local SureStart was really useful in the first year of the little 'uns life, helping us learn little things about how to raise a child, and also to meet other parents - we're currently on holiday with one family we met at the centre. Much of raising a child is instinctive and instinctual; but there are lots of little hints and tips we had no idea about.
Incidentally, the NCT group was also incredibly useful to us pre-birth, for similar reasons.
My only criticism of the SureStart and NCT schemes - in out area - is that they *seemed* to be predominantly middle-class in composition. I was unsure that some parents who needed it most were using them (especially NCT, as it costs).
It comes down to *trying* new things.
Which is a very middle class characteristic.
The ghastly phrase "self starting" is something to think about.
I heard an interesting suggestion just the other day - that COVID, by shutting down millions of low end jobs, forced people to try new things.
The reason they are not moving back, is that naturally, they aren't adventurous and had found a new, more comfortable, niche.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
They won you over
I was very conflicted in the referendum and on balance voted to remain but really had no love of the EU, but as a democratic vote was held and leave won I back that vote and am very much settled in the view I do not want to re-join the EU
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
Depends on the manifesto and the promise broken. Some are massive - think LibDems and tuition fees. Others less so.
The simple reality is that the entire 2019 Tory manifesto was largely filler aside from its promise to get Brexit done and keep Corbyn away from Downing Street. You can ignore the entire manifesto and people would still cheer you delivering the key two pledges.
Well, cheer getting brexit done until they realise it hasn't. Brexit to so many voters wasn't leaving the EU, it was the impacts they were promised like fixing the NHS and buckets of well-paid jobs and cash for their area.
Any suggestions for a couple going to London for a long weekend? Doing the Abbey tomorrow morning, but feel we have exhausted all the other main attractions (done Wallace Collection in the past, etc)
Also restaurants that won't empty two twenty-somethings bank accounts.
On one of those fancy new blue trains. It is nice.
Any suggestions for a couple going to London for a long weekend? Doing the Abbey tomorrow morning, but feel we have exhausted all the other main attractions (done Wallace Collection in the past, etc)
Also restaurants that won't empty two twenty-somethings bank accounts.
On one of those fancy new blue trains. It is nice.
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Schools getting funding back to 2010 levels Surestart restarting under another name
Neither of those are austerity measures - both were killed off by Osbourne's austerity.
Well I guess it depends what austerity means. Health, education and defence are supposed to have been protected but everything else screwed.
Not sure about defence anymore.
Putting schools back to 2010 is very welcome, although notable in a way that we need to “go back” to 2010.
On Surestart 2.0, I am interested in the efficacy of this. Some posted a piece by Polly Toynbee but I’m not sure that counts.
As I recall I think it is hard to find hard evidence that Surestart was a cost effective policy intervention. On the other hand, there is plenty of anecdotal data that the programme really helped people. I'm reminded of the story in Freakonomics that the evidence suggests that reading to your kids has no effect on them - I simply don't believe it.
Mrs J and myself are very middle-class. We are well-read, (hopefully) intelligent, and have access to resources. However, we are also the youngest of our respective siblings, have our families long distances away, and were older parents.
Our local SureStart was really useful in the first year of the little 'uns life, helping us learn little things about how to raise a child, and also to meet other parents - we're currently on holiday with one family we met at the centre. Much of raising a child is instinctive and instinctual; but there are lots of little hints and tips we had no idea about.
Incidentally, the NCT group was also incredibly useful to us pre-birth, for similar reasons.
My only criticism of the SureStart and NCT schemes - in out area - is that they *seemed* to be predominantly middle-class in composition. I was unsure that some parents who needed it most were using them (especially NCT, as it costs).
It comes down to *trying* new things.
Which is a very middle class characteristic.
The ghastly phrase "self starting" is something to think about.
I heard an interesting suggestion just the other day - that COVID, by shutting down millions of low end jobs, forced people to try new things.
The reason they are not moving back, is that naturally, they aren't adventurous and had found a new, more comfortable, niche.
It is strongly suspected that is the case for hospitality. People have found those roles available in the pandemic (essential retail, warehousing, small van driving) to offer better hours and conditions and no worse pay.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yeah they lost but it does not answer the question about the economic hit from Brexit. You could point instead to the hundreds of billions of pounds better off we will be due to Brexit.
That is a question to visit in 10 years or more time
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
They won you over
I was very conflicted in the referendum and on balance voted to remain but really had no love of the EU, but as a democratic vote was held and leave won I back that vote and am very much settled in the view I do not want to re-join the EU
So? You voted remain. Thou citizen of nowhere, thou enemy of the people. You can't regain your purity now by shutting down anything that your fellow-traveller Gauke says, even if you do it from here to eternity. Thy political soul is damned!
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Reeves is dreadful, no improvement from her dismal performance in the Miliband days. Really though we now have almost a Social Democratic uniparty. The arguments are pure semantics. Most of the politicians come from the same background, they think the same.
You here plenty of plans and money spent here and there but will Public Services get better for the practical and productive sector taxpayer. I don't expect so. Cameron's so called austerity totally failed to cut most of the waste.
Welcome.
I thought Reeves sounded fairly credible yesterday, even if a lot of it boiled down to "you could have spent even more here, there and everywhere".
The ridiculous years under Corbyn are now behind us and thank the Lord for that. It gives people a choice. Of course its not much of a choice as you point out since the policies are now very similar but its still a vaguely credible one. Governments work better when they have an opposition. We had a 4 year time out without one whilst the Labour party indulged itself. It is good that they are back.
Corbyn was rather a front man for the agenda of others. It very nearly worked in 2017. Probably nearer to power than Starmer will manage. I see him very much as a puppet of Public Unions.
Nah. Corbyn was simply a meme in 2017. The unions have no real power anymore and the threat of “the unions” is completely lost on anyone under the age of 35.
Disagree Public Unions have shut schools and driven the debate through this new virus period, to the detriment of Public Service. Trade Unions who drove Corbyn to the Labour leadership are again in the background but the two are very different.
When you have the UK Prime Minister on a Sunday saying schools will stay open, then on the Monday changing the policy after a media assault from Public Unions I would say they do have power and they certainly control the opposition leadership.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
People receiving free food is not the same as people being reliant upon it.
Talk to a school dinner lady and you'll hear some tales about food thrown away and given away.
The ONS has food inflation of 13% between 2010 and 2020.
Compared with food inflation of 40% between 2000 and 2010:
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Reeves is dreadful, no improvement from her dismal performance in the Miliband days. Really though we now have almost a Social Democratic uniparty. The arguments are pure semantics. Most of the politicians come from the same background, they think the same.
You here plenty of plans and money spent here and there but will Public Services get better for the practical and productive sector taxpayer. I don't expect so. Cameron's so called austerity totally failed to cut most of the waste.
Welcome.
I thought Reeves sounded fairly credible yesterday, even if a lot of it boiled down to "you could have spent even more here, there and everywhere".
The ridiculous years under Corbyn are now behind us and thank the Lord for that. It gives people a choice. Of course its not much of a choice as you point out since the policies are now very similar but its still a vaguely credible one. Governments work better when they have an opposition. We had a 4 year time out without one whilst the Labour party indulged itself. It is good that they are back.
Corbyn was rather a front man for the agenda of others. It very nearly worked in 2017. Probably nearer to power than Starmer will manage. I see him very much as a puppet of Public Unions.
Nah. Corbyn was simply a meme in 2017. The unions have no real power anymore and the threat of “the unions” is completely lost on anyone under the age of 35.
Disagree Public Unions have shut schools and driven the debate through this new virus period, to the detriment of Public Service. Trade Unions who drove Corbyn to the Labour leadership are again in the background but the two are very different.
When you have the UK Prime Minister on a Sunday saying schools will stay open, then on the Monday changing the policy after a media assault from Public Unions I would say they do have power and they certainly control the opposition leadership.
Is your point that they have power over the Conservative Prime Minister? If so, what has that got to do with Labour or Corbyn?
Any suggestions for a couple going to London for a long weekend? Doing the Abbey tomorrow morning, but feel we have exhausted all the other main attractions (done Wallace Collection in the past, etc)
Also restaurants that won't empty two twenty-somethings bank accounts.
On one of those fancy new blue trains. It is nice.
Are you Azuming to London?
Indeed. Going backwards next to a pillar.
But I'm on the east side so some good views to come. I'll give you a wave out the window.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
1980s? I think you give the Macmillan government and its abandonment of conscription too much credit there.
Its shameful how we armed forces have been run down. We can even man both of Browns white elephant aircraft carriers at the same time.
Why shameful?
It should be an assessment of our need as opposed to a number in itself
We cant man our aircraft carriers.. that's shsmeful enough on its own.
That’s bad planning and should be criticised
I just don’t see any shame attaching to the Uk. The MoD has always varied from useless to downright awful
I’m on a beach in the Aegean, and can’t be arsed to do the research myself, but @Dura_Ace suggested that the defence budget was a manifesto breach.
How many breaches is that now?
I’ve no idea and don’t really care
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
Depends on the manifesto and the promise broken. Some are massive - think LibDems and tuition fees. Others less so.
The simple reality is that the entire 2019 Tory manifesto was largely filler aside from its promise to get Brexit done and keep Corbyn away from Downing Street. You can ignore the entire manifesto and people would still cheer you delivering the key two pledges.
Well, cheer getting brexit done until they realise it hasn't. Brexit to so many voters wasn't leaving the EU, it was the impacts they were promised like fixing the NHS and buckets of well-paid jobs and cash for their area.
On "LibDems and tuition fees" - the sense I got is that after Iraq, the Lib Dems had attracted alot of Labour voters. They were increasing looking for a reason to "go home" with Brown as the leader - new broom etc.
They were furious about the coalition - a several people stated to me that they had voted Lib Dem as Spare Labour etc....
Tuition fees were... no quite an excuse, but a trigger, perhaps.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Just because they lost doesn’t mean they have to shut up Big G.
I have ever said shut up to anyone, I was making a fair point that they should look at themselves and their failure to secure EU membership which quite frankly should have been a given
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Reeves is dreadful, no improvement from her dismal performance in the Miliband days. Really though we now have almost a Social Democratic uniparty. The arguments are pure semantics. Most of the politicians come from the same background, they think the same.
You here plenty of plans and money spent here and there but will Public Services get better for the practical and productive sector taxpayer. I don't expect so. Cameron's so called austerity totally failed to cut most of the waste.
Welcome.
I thought Reeves sounded fairly credible yesterday, even if a lot of it boiled down to "you could have spent even more here, there and everywhere".
The ridiculous years under Corbyn are now behind us and thank the Lord for that. It gives people a choice. Of course its not much of a choice as you point out since the policies are now very similar but its still a vaguely credible one. Governments work better when they have an opposition. We had a 4 year time out without one whilst the Labour party indulged itself. It is good that they are back.
Corbyn was rather a front man for the agenda of others. It very nearly worked in 2017. Probably nearer to power than Starmer will manage. I see him very much as a puppet of Public Unions.
Nah. Corbyn was simply a meme in 2017. The unions have no real power anymore and the threat of “the unions” is completely lost on anyone under the age of 35.
Disagree Public Unions have shut schools and driven the debate through this new virus period, to the detriment of Public Service. Trade Unions who drove Corbyn to the Labour leadership are again in the background but the two are very different.
When you have the UK Prime Minister on a Sunday saying schools will stay open, then on the Monday changing the policy after a media assault from Public Unions I would say they do have power and they certainly control the opposition leadership.
Is your point that they have power over the Conservative Prime Minister? If so, what has that got to do with Labour or Corbyn?
When the Conservative leader has transformed into a Social Democrat yes.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
They'll blame Covid. They already are, and it's already working.
For all that it might be true, desperately trying to convince Leave voters that it's Brexit to blame is not a message they will be receptive to. As a strategy it's a way of ensuring Tory governments until at least 2040.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
People receiving free food is not the same as people being reliant upon it.
Talk to a school dinner lady and you'll hear some tales about food thrown away and given away.
The ONS has food inflation of 13% between 2010 and 2020.
Compared with food inflation of 40% between 2000 and 2010:
I rather suspect that food banks are giving away so much stuff that they're adding to obesity among the poor:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
Yes, but back to the point he raises. The official numbers show the cost of Brexit being double the cost of Covid. We need tax rises and they're blaming Covid. Logically we will need bigger tax rises and they won't blame Brexit...
It's a fallacious argument. The reason covid implies tax rises is because of the amount of government borrowing. Any direct costs of Brexit are nothing compared to furlough, etc.
David Gauke, part of the group of pro EU politicians who failed to win the case to remain and just cannot concede they lost
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
I think it’s a terrible sign of idiocy when people reject commentators saying something perfectly lucid just because they were/are “pro Remain”*
*”pro-Remain”, rather than “pro-EU”, because to describe Remainers as EU partisans is another sign of idiocy.
It’s not a lucid comment though - it’s a conflation of two different things (AIUI) to make a political point
COVID has caused a 2% decline in GDP as a one time shock. It *has* occurred and is expected to be caught up over time
The Brexit calculation is a *prediction* about future output gap. GDP isn’t smaller as a result of Brexit, but the OBR thinks the economy will grow less fast. They may be right but they may not
I think you are disingenuously trying to undermine the tweet because the logical argument is rather inconvenient to you.
No. The Tweet is misleading.
There is a reasonable argument about whether Brexit will reduce GDP in future. Quite possibly it will (although GDP per capita is more complicated). People determined that cost was acceptable as a trade off for other perceived advantages
But a predicted output gap is not the same as a one time impact. It just isn’t.
Gauke’s tweet (and others like it) are disingenuous and manipulative.
Is being deliberately disingenuous and manipulative a bad thing if the other side are doing it? Ironic.
No its a bad thing if either side are doing it. I called out the stupid £350 million NHS bus thing (which seems to me the most obvious example) continuously during the referendum campaign on here and elsewhere even though it was my side doing it.
Sadly you seem to be suggesting exactly the reverse; that you believe being deliberately disingenuous and manipulative a good thing if your side are doing it. Perhaps less a case of ironic and more a case of hypocritical.
Any suggestions for a couple going to London for a long weekend? Doing the Abbey tomorrow morning, but feel we have exhausted all the other main attractions (done Wallace Collection in the past, etc)
Also restaurants that won't empty two twenty-somethings bank accounts.
On one of those fancy new blue trains. It is nice.
Are you Azuming to London?
PB pedantry - if it's the blue train it's Lumo, which are not technically Azuma? (those being only the LNER variants)
I'm straying way outside my expertise here - I'm not one of PB's many train buffs, this is based on knowledge gained from my father in law - so I expect to be corrected shortly!
Some budget headlines still refer to Rishi as a big spending chancellor, but the spend is all covid related.
Covid aside, In reality this is another austerity budget with a few gimmicks here and there.
I very much welcome the reform of UC taper, but it doesn’t compensate for the NI hike.
Nothing of substance for levelling up or carbon zero, so we just presume that those are effectively rhetorical devices.
Rachel Reeves’s reply was excellent.
Reeves is dreadful, no improvement from her dismal performance in the Miliband days. Really though we now have almost a Social Democratic uniparty. The arguments are pure semantics. Most of the politicians come from the same background, they think the same.
You here plenty of plans and money spent here and there but will Public Services get better for the practical and productive sector taxpayer. I don't expect so. Cameron's so called austerity totally failed to cut most of the waste.
Welcome.
I thought Reeves sounded fairly credible yesterday, even if a lot of it boiled down to "you could have spent even more here, there and everywhere".
The ridiculous years under Corbyn are now behind us and thank the Lord for that. It gives people a choice. Of course its not much of a choice as you point out since the policies are now very similar but its still a vaguely credible one. Governments work better when they have an opposition. We had a 4 year time out without one whilst the Labour party indulged itself. It is good that they are back.
Corbyn was rather a front man for the agenda of others. It very nearly worked in 2017. Probably nearer to power than Starmer will manage. I see him very much as a puppet of Public Unions.
Nah. Corbyn was simply a meme in 2017. The unions have no real power anymore and the threat of “the unions” is completely lost on anyone under the age of 35.
Disagree Public Unions have shut schools and driven the debate through this new virus period, to the detriment of Public Service. Trade Unions who drove Corbyn to the Labour leadership are again in the background but the two are very different.
When you have the UK Prime Minister on a Sunday saying schools will stay open, then on the Monday changing the policy after a media assault from Public Unions I would say they do have power and they certainly control the opposition leadership.
Is your point that they have power over the Conservative Prime Minister? If so, what has that got to do with Labour or Corbyn?
Well they do, but they also clearly hold sway over Labour. The only reason I can think of to make his repeated calls for greater restrictions in the face of declining infections is that he has been bounced into that position by the unions.
A quick thought on the UC taper. Reducing it to 50p or so (as happened to an extent yesterday) helps benefit claimants on the lowest three income deciles in particular.
Further reductions in the taper rate have very little additional impact on people in those deciles. They do, however, start to help people on or just below median income, almost as much as the initial cut helped people on lower incomes.
If you were to cut the taper rate to around 45p, the cost per annum would be roughly the same as the £20 uplift (compared with 63p). Would Sunak consider making that change before the next election? (The downside to this is the huge number of people who would then be UC claimants, which might not be good for the Conservatives in the long run).
This doesn't take into account behavioural responses.
In fact this is a pretty crappy budget, short termist and utterly failing to address the structural crisis that the Tory Hard Brexit is creating for UK PLC.
The MoD got fucked. They are looking at real term cuts for the next three years plus unfunded commitments like the 1.25% employer NI rise and the National Flegship.
The manifesto promise of 0.5% above inflation annual adjustment to defence spending has been casually discarded.
What's new? Tories have been cutting the armed forces since the 1980s, secure in the knowledge that voters will blame Labour for being weak on defence.
It is amazing how many of the UK's problems are blamed on Labour when the Tories have been in power for the last 11 years and 29 of the last 42. I am sure there is no bias in such analysis at all.
But each time, the Tories inherit an economy broken by Labour. Of course we blame Labour for our ills. They are bloody useless managers.
"There is no money" will be on Labour's tombstone.
People reliant on food banks in 2010: 40,000. People reliant on food banks now: 2.5 million. Fixing the economy, Tory style.
People receiving free food is not the same as people being reliant upon it.
Talk to a school dinner lady and you'll hear some tales about food thrown away and given away.
The ONS has food inflation of 13% between 2010 and 2020.
Compared with food inflation of 40% between 2000 and 2010:
I rather suspect that food banks are giving away so much stuff that they're adding to obesity among the poor:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Comments
https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1453623675077361668
Covid - albeit massive - is a one-off.
The U.K. has systemic productivity problems which have caused very long term wage suppression now. This is forecast to continue.
The budget does little to address that, or other long term issues.
The overall story is significant tax hikes.
Meanwhile, on Brexit, the government shows no signs of wanting to ameliorate a significant impediment to growth and productivity.
The budget increase might just about stop the system from collapsing, funding per pupil having dropped nearly 10% in real terms since 2010.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-58993708
The manifesto is a statement of intent not a binding commitment
There is a political cost to every decision (whether in a manifesto or not).
Manifesto breaches are a stick that opponents use but I’m not sure it really cuts through to voters
Totally counter-intuitive.
You here plenty of plans and money spent here and there but will Public Services get better for the practical and productive sector taxpayer. I don't expect so. Cameron's so called austerity totally failed to cut most of the waste.
I don’t remember being read to as a child: I do remember reading vast numbers of books, often one a day.
But that is just another anecdote, so not much use for deciding policy. Indeed, some of the worst policy decisions in education are made by bright people who assume their experience is typical.
The system described gives a massive advantage (in this tax area) to better off people with children. You can only have high relevant tax reliefs if your income is enough to benefit from it. The questions are: How does the government make up for the lost revenue, and who pays it? How does it treat poorer people with children?
I like the idea of encouraging female graduates to have more children, but not at the expense of less well off groups. The problem is that all tax breaks are at the expense of someone.
The other option - per Rishi - is to tax the fuck out of the working population and pray that it’ll be alright on the night.
Maybe if they had made a better case they could have won it
I thought Reeves sounded fairly credible yesterday, even if a lot of it boiled down to "you could have spent even more here, there and everywhere".
The ridiculous years under Corbyn are now behind us and thank the Lord for that. It gives people a choice. Of course its not much of a choice as you point out since the policies are now very similar but its still a vaguely credible one. Governments work better when they have an opposition. We had a 4 year time out without one whilst the Labour party indulged itself. It is good that they are back.
*”pro-Remain”, rather than “pro-EU”, because to describe Remainers as EU partisans is another sign of idiocy.
https://mobile.twitter.com/OfficialCSA/status/1453617840838389771
For example the 2019 manifestos didn’t account for COVID.
I judge governments on their record, their performance and my expectations about their future intentions. Manifestos form a part of the third element (but so do speeches, articles and my own prejudices)
Edit: “I don’t really care” is not the same meaning as “I don’t care”
In 2010 food banks weren't available and people went for Wonga payday loans instead. Now Wonga have been driven out of business.
Food banks or Wonga? I know which I prefer is available to people, do you?
There is a surprisingly large variation in the charges made by investment platforms to host ISAs or SIPPs, from Hargreaves Lansdown and Fidelity at the high end to iWeb at the low end. We have been using Fidelity and Interactive Investor for years but now think we should change. Can anyone out there share their experience of iWeb or of migrating between platforms?
I am surprised he did not take the opportunity to equalise pension tax relief at 25% and even increase IHT but we need to see how this plays out over the coming months, which will be difficult
As far as amelioration of Brexit is concerned , it is too soon to judge because time is needed to see how far we diverge from the EU and whether we join the CPTPP later next year as has been muted
Our local SureStart was really useful in the first year of the little 'uns life, helping us learn little things about how to raise a child, and also to meet other parents - we're currently on holiday with one family we met at the centre. Much of raising a child is instinctive and instinctual; but there are lots of little hints and tips we had no idea about.
Incidentally, the NCT group was also incredibly useful to us pre-birth, for similar reasons.
My only criticism of the SureStart and NCT schemes - in out area - is that they *seemed* to be predominantly middle-class in composition. I was unsure that some parents who needed it most were using them (especially NCT, as it costs).
COVID has caused a 2% decline in GDP as a one time shock. It *has* occurred and is expected to be caught up over time
The Brexit calculation is a *prediction* about future output gap. GDP isn’t smaller as a result of Brexit, but the OBR thinks the economy will grow less fast. They may be right but they may not
I just think Charles’s response was very cynical.
That could be very bad news all around if they decide to do some Galtieri style distraction therapy, of course.
Nowhere does @Philip_Thompson suggest they should be the only choices.
There is a reasonable argument about whether Brexit will reduce GDP in future. Quite possibly it will (although GDP per capita is more complicated). People determined that cost was acceptable as a trade off for other perceived advantages
But a predicted output gap is not the same as a one time impact. It just isn’t.
Gauke’s tweet (and others like it) are disingenuous and manipulative.
That however only reinforces your basic point, as it would be logical for him to seize as much of the financially productive economy for himself as he could.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/south-africa-quinton-de-kock-apologises-to-team-mates-and-fans-will-take-the-knee-1285649
You put up 2010 and Now as the alternatives. 2010 people were incapable of going to food banks so they went to Wonga instead, now they have food banks available and Wonga have gone out of business.
Which do you prefer? Labour's 2010 Wonga Society or today's free food for those who need it Big Society?
The thing that struck me as most interesting yesterday is how much better the UK's outturn already is versus the OBR's predictions the Budget was made on. And they've "forecast" a 4% Brexit dip too . . . laughable, absolutely laughable.
Sunak really is clever. Next year he's going to be able to go to the despatch box and say the economy has gone even stronger than the last set of predictions and so he has more money available for either new spending or new tax cuts.
https://twitter.com/CBeaune/status/1453628093629927424
Middle England wins elections remember.
Which is a very middle class characteristic.
The ghastly phrase "self starting" is something to think about.
I heard an interesting suggestion just the other day - that COVID, by shutting down millions of low end jobs, forced people to try new things.
The reason they are not moving back, is that naturally, they aren't adventurous and had found a new, more comfortable, niche.
The simple reality is that the entire 2019 Tory manifesto was largely filler aside from its promise to get Brexit done and keep Corbyn away from Downing Street. You can ignore the entire manifesto and people would still cheer you delivering the key two pledges.
Well, cheer getting brexit done until they realise it hasn't. Brexit to so many voters wasn't leaving the EU, it was the impacts they were promised like fixing the NHS and buckets of well-paid jobs and cash for their area.
Also restaurants that won't empty two twenty-somethings bank accounts.
On one of those fancy new blue trains. It is nice.
When you have the UK Prime Minister on a Sunday saying schools will stay open, then on the Monday changing the policy after a media assault from Public Unions I would say they do have power and they certainly control the opposition leadership.
They are still entitled to their view and are still entitled to voice it.
Why does it trouble you so much that others still want Britain to rejoin the EU?
Talk to a school dinner lady and you'll hear some tales about food thrown away and given away.
The ONS has food inflation of 13% between 2010 and 2020.
Compared with food inflation of 40% between 2000 and 2010:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7c8/mm23
But I'm on the east side so some good views to come. I'll give you a wave out the window.
They were furious about the coalition - a several people stated to me that they had voted Lib Dem as Spare Labour etc....
Tuition fees were... no quite an excuse, but a trigger, perhaps.
For all that it might be true, desperately trying to convince Leave voters that it's Brexit to blame is not a message they will be receptive to. As a strategy it's a way of ensuring Tory governments until at least 2040.
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/04/women-living-in-poverty-hit-worst-by-obesity-crisis-report-finds
Time for some research on this issue IMO.
Put a sackcloth and ashes emoji on his Twitter profile?
Or just cease all political opinion?
Your argument, whether you realise it or not, is totalitarian.
Come to think of it, immersing a Covenanter in water is probably the only way to fix the cooling problems... Hmmmmm....
Sadly you seem to be suggesting exactly the reverse; that you believe being deliberately disingenuous and manipulative a good thing if your side are doing it. Perhaps less a case of ironic and more a case of hypocritical.
I'm straying way outside my expertise here - I'm not one of PB's many train buffs, this is based on knowledge gained from my father in law - so I expect to be corrected shortly!
Further reductions in the taper rate have very little additional impact on people in those deciles. They do, however, start to help people on or just below median income, almost as much as the initial cut helped people on lower incomes.
If you were to cut the taper rate to around 45p, the cost per annum would be roughly the same as the £20 uplift (compared with 63p). Would Sunak consider making that change before the next election? (The downside to this is the huge number of people who would then be UC claimants, which might not be good for the Conservatives in the long run).
This doesn't take into account behavioural responses.
Going to the gym x times a week is practically mandatory to be allowed into the middle class, of course.
*In a rather interesting sense - it seems to cut across racial origin lines, and be more about layers of social culture.