The war is now unwinnable for Putin. Even an unlikely military victory, eventually taking all of Ukraine over several months and installing a puppet government would be a strategic loss. Because the Ukraine resistance, political and/or military, is not going to cease. And so the Western sanctions are not going to be relaxed. Russia is going to face years of isolation.
Yet the war is most likely also unwinnable for Ukraine. Its resistance has been fearless, yet it is still overpowered militarily. While they will continue to inflict significant damage, overturning Russian gains through fighting will be difficult. All while their infrastructure is being destroyed and the country is depopulating via families fleeing the war.
Other than hoping for Putin to come to an unfortunate accident, I struggle to see a good outcome of all this for anyone. Just more death and destruction, depressing as it is.
China should be careful in remaining neutral and not supplying support to Russia, or else they will be caught up in the strength of the western public opinion backlash against the invasion.
By his own logic, Putin's started a Russian civil war with his own rule on the line. Some Russian liberals are already saying that we're watching the rebirth of Kievan Rus and that everything democratic and Western-oriented in the "Russian world" will be centred on Kiev.
When the dust has settled Russia will be a province of Kievan Rus.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Cringing nonsense. Utter irresponsibility. About time the geriatric Tories did their fair share.
Who cares if the Tory core vote is reamed out, if that is what it takes?
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
You do the cause of the conservative party great embarrasment, as you do to yourself
You are a terrible advert for the conservative party
You do not even seem to know what being a Tory means? No surprise as you voted for New Labour twice
But he didn't vote for PC, and you did. He has principles.
I voted for all Tory candidates then, he voted for the Labour candidate over the Tory. BigG is thus not a pure Tory
There speaks conservative momentum and consigned to permanent opposition
And by the way, I wear your badge of honour with pride
Don’t worry, by his standards nor were Churchill, Disraeli, or Peel.
They were as all were monarchists and did not as Tories support heavy wealth and inheritance taxes
Erm…. Peel reintroduced the income tax as Tory PM. Disraeli maintained it. Inheritance tax as we know it was of course introduced by Thatcher in 1986.
That just proves it - Thatcher was not a 'True Tory'. Not in HYUFD's book anyway!
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Cringing nonsense. Utter irresponsibility. About time the geriatric Tories did their fair share.
Who cares if the Tory core vote is reamed out, if that is what it takes?
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
You do the cause of the conservative party great embarrasment, as you do to yourself
You are a terrible advert for the conservative party
You do not even seem to know what being a Tory means? No surprise as you voted for New Labour twice
But he didn't vote for PC, and you did. He has principles.
I voted for all Tory candidates then, he voted for the Labour candidate over the Tory. BigG is thus not a pure Tory
There speaks conservative momentum and consigned to permanent opposition
And by the way, I wear your badge of honour with pride
Don’t worry, by his standards nor were Churchill, Disraeli, or Peel.
They were as all were monarchists and did not as Tories support heavy wealth and inheritance taxes
Erm…. Peel reintroduced the income tax as Tory PM. Disraeli maintained it. Inheritance tax as we know it was of course introduced by Thatcher in 1986.
Income tax is not an estate tax. Thatcher cut the estate taxes the previous Labour Government had imposed. The Finance Act 1986 abolished the tax on lifetime gifts altogether
Income tax is a bit of a diversion I accept - but I was going for the broader point that you can’t even say Tories have been that low tax.
I see you at least accept that Inheritance Tax was created by Thatcher, and she therefore supported it.
Regarding previous thread, I think 2024 will be a very good election to lose! (Like 1992). Tories should hope for a decent performance from Boris, not not so good that he actually wins. 2029 would be a cataclysm.
For the amusement of PBers, I provide the latest from Lorna Slater, Green MSP, and Minister in the Scottish Government - on NATO and nuclear weapons...
And she is an actual minister. That's quite scary if you're Scottish. A person this childishly, dangerously clueless has serious power in your government
Her logic is very confused. Russia having nuclear weapons as a successful deterrent is somehow NATO's fault, and we need to get rid of them because none of us are safe until nobody has them?
There is a plausible case for getting rid of nuclear weapons but it certainly isn't that.
The problem is that Ukraine has rendered nearly all arguments for unilateral disarmament useless. You can no longer say nukes aren't a deterrent - they are certainly deterring us from stopping Putin with our greater military might. You can no longer say They would never be used by anyone - it is horribly clear Putin is capable of using them. You can't say We must set the first example and disarm and people will follow - Putin will disarm because Scotland closes Faslane? Really?
So the SNP/Greens are left with the pure and slender moral argument: these weapons are awful and we cannot possess them, even if that puts us at much greater danger of being invaded like Ukraine.
That's a pretty tough sell, so she didn't even bother.
This is going to become a real issue for the Scot Gov. And underneath it all is the huge hypocrisy that iScotland would almost certainly remain in NATO and, er, rely on the iUK and US to protect it. With, erm, nukes
The much bigger problem though is not those countries with nukes deciding to hang on to them, it will be the smaller nations with big aggressive neighbours deciding to get them to be on the safe side.
That greatly increases the risk of something going wrong or a rogue/false flag strike (as in the plot of On The Beach).
In a book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs written 15 years ago that was criticised as flawed by military experts but I nevertheless found interesting, Lewis Page made this exact point. 'Nuclear weapons confer immunity from American interference up to a point, which is why everyone is so keen to get them...(footnote) Everyone really is keen to get them: this isn't scaremongering or lies. Chemical weapons are a bogey to frighten the children with - the Kaiser had them in World War One, for goodness sakes. But long range nukes are the real deal. If I were running a country, I'd want some.'
Exactly. We either find a way to get rid of them or we don't have a long run future.
If you have any ideas on how to persuade North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and China to give up their nuclear weapons, I'm sure the UN would be delighted to hear from you.
But even if you could via, say, a programme of mass hypnosis I honestly cannot see the Americans giving up nukes.
All I can do is argue and vote for my own country to do it.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nukes, and are now in effect giving up their sovereignty as well as a result. So no politician will get rid of their nukes until *everyone* agrees to get rid of them.
But the other way - proliferate until bang - is imo a bigger problem. And I don't think our nukes protect us. The logic doesn't really work for that. Not as I assess it.
So - let me get this right - you are pro-unilateral disarmament? You would vote for an Abandon Our Nukes party? And you'd be happy if we did that, despite Ukraine?
I kind of hope I've got this wrong
Here is some simple maths that everyone on the planet can do.
If Russia didn't have nukes, then NATO would be discussing whether to stop when we reach Moscow. Or not.
Given that, when do you expect the Russians to give up nukes, in the next 10,000 years or so?
If Russia didn't have nukes it wouldn't have invaded.
Why not? Giant willy waving military, filling ol' Red Square with lot of jack boots. All the things that make the stupid people with too much brass macaroni on their hats, think they are awesome. Look at the *rocket* on that launcher..... All long and wide.....
In a world with no nukes, why not take the band on tour in your smaller neighbour?
With this logic the more that nuclear weapons proliferate the safer everyone is. Yet we all instinctively know the opposite is the case.
Melitopol defenders reporting a big capture of Russian vehicles tonight with locals confirming heavy fighting now having eased off, but as ever evidence needs to be seen for claimed victories.
The shear amount of scrap metal is quite incredible.
A lot of stuff that should have been melted down a decade+ ago finally meeting their maker.
Btw here's Vitaly Kim and Ukr military claiming a victory that has to be seen to be believed, *if* true there'll be photos in the morning. It's not impossible and given the launches reported by civilians we can be sure Ukr artillery fired enough to do so, but far more likely they only hit small parts of it (maybe 10-50 vehicles?) and the Russians are regrouping. Correction: Mykolaiv, not Melitopol.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Cringing nonsense. Utter irresponsibility. About time the geriatric Tories did their fair share.
Who cares if the Tory core vote is reamed out, if that is what it takes?
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
You do the cause of the conservative party great embarrasment, as you do to yourself
You are a terrible advert for the conservative party
You do not even seem to know what being a Tory means? No surprise as you voted for New Labour twice
The whole point of the Tory Party is that Peel, Disraeli, Salisbury, Churchill, (Joe) Chamberlain, Super Mac, Heath, Thatcher, and Cameron believed utterly different things. You’re in a Salisbury/Chamberlain cycle at the minute. It won’t last.
None of them backed wealth taxes or higher inheritance tax and all were monarchists, thus they were all Tories whatever else they disagreed on
Nonsense.
The Peelites introduced the Succession Duty in 1853 under Lord Aberdeen.
Salisbury introduced Estate Duty in 1889.
And before all that Lord North's Tory administration introduced Legacy Duty in 1780.
Estate duty replaced multiple existing duties like probate duty. The Peelites by 1853 were not Tories.
The biggest increases in inheritance tax came under Lloyd George's budget hammering the great landed estates and under the Labour governments of the post war pre Thatcher period
Probate Duty - introduced in 1694 by the Earl of Godolphin - a Tory.
Godolphin was really a Whig, associated with the Whig Marlboroughs and an opponent of the effective Tory leader Harley
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
Indeed but Conservative Governments are quite happy to increase taxes - quite apart from the current administration, Howe and Lamont both raised VAT and the party (at least at local level) suffered from the backlash in terms of council seats.
If you aren't prepared to tax wealth and inheritance (which I understand), you must accept there are times when taxes have to be increased to improve the public finances. There will be those who argue the burden of those tax rises should not be disproportionately on those least able to pay them (I think that's a reasonable argument, you may not) which leaves the alternative choice that those with more disposable income contribute a greater share than those with less.
Since when was VAT or other indirect taxes (or indeed NI or the health and social care levy) the same as inheritance tax or a wealth tax? I am not keen on either but on a forced choice Tory governments choose to increase the former not the latter and not hit the property of their core supporters
Shouldn't tax be levied on UNEARNED wealth first before EARNED wealth?
👍
No, Liberals might prefer that but the Tory party is about preservation of wealth first
That would make an excellent billboard poster for Labour.
Why? 60% of the population own their properties and have significant wealth.
Firstly, it just sounds bad - people will associate "preservation of wealth" with the super wealthy, not someone with a £300k house in the Midlands.
Secondly, the 60% includes people with mortgages. An equitable wealth tax would be on the proportion owned as that reflects the persons wealth.
Finally, it's all about a fair balance. The effective employment tax rate is almost 45% for income over £12.5k (including employees and employers' NI). And almost 55% for income over £50k. Wealth taxes are minuscule in comparison, making young people dependent on gifts and inheritance for many things in life.
A key reason for young people struggling to purchase property is the very high levels of employment taxes. That will be a long-term disaster for the Tories.
No they won't, see how badly May's dementia tax went down in the Midlands when it cost her her majority.
See the hugely popular Osborne inheritance tax cut which overnight saw the Tories poll rating surge.
An English man's home is his castle and whatever left liberals like you think we Tories will preserve it and fight for it forever.
You even want to hammer the wealth of those with mortgages. Political suicide!
There is already a dementia tax, I know because the last surviving grandparent on both sides of my family have paid it and ended up with nothing after care costs.
I agree the politics of inheritance tax is an emotional one, which is why any wealth tax should be an annual charge that can be deferred for the cash poor.
It would also promote labour mobility and more efficient housing stock allocation as it could replace the existing stamp duty levy that discourages moving house.
The Tories are being the party of pulling up the drawbridge after them, not promoting growth.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Cringing nonsense. Utter irresponsibility. About time the geriatric Tories did their fair share.
Who cares if the Tory core vote is reamed out, if that is what it takes?
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
You do the cause of the conservative party great embarrasment, as you do to yourself
You are a terrible advert for the conservative party
You do not even seem to know what being a Tory means? No surprise as you voted for New Labour twice
But he didn't vote for PC, and you did. He has principles.
I voted for all Tory candidates then, he voted for the Labour candidate over the Tory. BigG is thus not a pure Tory
There speaks conservative momentum and consigned to permanent opposition
And by the way, I wear your badge of honour with pride
Don’t worry, by his standards nor were Churchill, Disraeli, or Peel.
They were as all were monarchists and did not as Tories support heavy wealth and inheritance taxes
Erm…. Peel reintroduced the income tax as Tory PM. Disraeli maintained it. Inheritance tax as we know it was of course introduced by Thatcher in 1986.
Income tax is not an estate tax. Thatcher cut the estate taxes the previous Labour Government had imposed. The Finance Act 1986 abolished the tax on lifetime gifts altogether
Income tax is a bit of a diversion I accept - but I was going for the broader point that you can’t even say Tories have been that low tax.
I see you at least accept that Inheritance Tax was created by Thatcher, and she therefore supported it.
She also cut estate taxes and property gifts eg via the Finance Act 1986.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Cringing nonsense. Utter irresponsibility. About time the geriatric Tories did their fair share.
Who cares if the Tory core vote is reamed out, if that is what it takes?
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
You do the cause of the conservative party great embarrasment, as you do to yourself
You are a terrible advert for the conservative party
You do not even seem to know what being a Tory means? No surprise as you voted for New Labour twice
But he didn't vote for PC, and you did. He has principles.
I voted for all Tory candidates then, he voted for the Labour candidate over the Tory. BigG is thus not a pure Tory
There speaks conservative momentum and consigned to permanent opposition
And by the way, I wear your badge of honour with pride
Don’t worry, by his standards nor were Churchill, Disraeli, or Peel.
They were as all were monarchists and did not as Tories support heavy wealth and inheritance taxes
Erm…. Peel reintroduced the income tax as Tory PM. Disraeli maintained it. Inheritance tax as we know it was of course introduced by Thatcher in 1986.
Income tax is not an estate tax. Thatcher cut the estate taxes the previous Labour Government had imposed. The Finance Act 1986 abolished the tax on lifetime gifts altogether
I do hope you are teeing yourself up for the biggest pratfall of all time when we get Sunak's wartime budget in 10 days time
Melitopol defenders reporting a big capture of Russian vehicles (200) tonight with locals confirming heavy fighting now having eased off, but as ever evidence needs to be seen for claimed victories, however even 10-50 vehicles would be a big win, and enough to knock out a BTG or two. The footage of TB2s travelling far behind lines to destroy command vehicles are quite incredible, and here's a new one: https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1503127520253779974
That is fantastic, difficult to see how Russian losses are not over 10,000 killed in action by now.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Cringing nonsense. Utter irresponsibility. About time the geriatric Tories did their fair share.
Who cares if the Tory core vote is reamed out, if that is what it takes?
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
You do the cause of the conservative party great embarrasment, as you do to yourself
You are a terrible advert for the conservative party
You do not even seem to know what being a Tory means? No surprise as you voted for New Labour twice
But he didn't vote for PC, and you did. He has principles.
I voted for all Tory candidates then, he voted for the Labour candidate over the Tory. BigG is thus not a pure Tory
There speaks conservative momentum and consigned to permanent opposition
And by the way, I wear your badge of honour with pride
Don’t worry, by his standards nor were Churchill, Disraeli, or Peel.
They were as all were monarchists and did not as Tories support heavy wealth and inheritance taxes
Erm…. Peel reintroduced the income tax as Tory PM. Disraeli maintained it. Inheritance tax as we know it was of course introduced by Thatcher in 1986.
Income tax is not an estate tax. Thatcher cut the estate taxes the previous Labour Government had imposed. The Finance Act 1986 abolished the tax on lifetime gifts altogether
Income tax is a bit of a diversion I accept - but I was going for the broader point that you can’t even say Tories have been that low tax.
I see you at least accept that Inheritance Tax was created by Thatcher, and she therefore supported it.
She also cut estate taxes and property gifts eg via the Finance Act 1986.
She did not increase inheritance tax
She created it. She and Lawson didn’t have to, but they created it by only removing the gift tax. So it was her policy to tax unearned income, presumably in lieu of taxing income.
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
Yes, 53% of Anglicans voted Tory at the 2017 general election for example compared to 42% of the electorate overall
There are a wide variety of Church of England clergy from Conservative Anglo Catholics and evangelicals to liberals but most of the congregation are conservative
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Cringing nonsense. Utter irresponsibility. About time the geriatric Tories did their fair share.
Who cares if the Tory core vote is reamed out, if that is what it takes?
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
You do the cause of the conservative party great embarrasment, as you do to yourself
You are a terrible advert for the conservative party
You do not even seem to know what being a Tory means? No surprise as you voted for New Labour twice
But he didn't vote for PC, and you did. He has principles.
I voted for all Tory candidates then, he voted for the Labour candidate over the Tory. BigG is thus not a pure Tory
There speaks conservative momentum and consigned to permanent opposition
And by the way, I wear your badge of honour with pride
Don’t worry, by his standards nor were Churchill, Disraeli, or Peel.
They were as all were monarchists and did not as Tories support heavy wealth and inheritance taxes
Erm…. Peel reintroduced the income tax as Tory PM. Disraeli maintained it. Inheritance tax as we know it was of course introduced by Thatcher in 1986.
Income tax is not an estate tax. Thatcher cut the estate taxes the previous Labour Government had imposed. The Finance Act 1986 abolished the tax on lifetime gifts altogether
I do hope you are teeing yourself up for the biggest pratfall of all time when we get Sunak's wartime budget in 10 days time
Hah! Hadn’t thought of that. Let’s reconvene in a few weeks when he’s defending it…
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
Yes, 53% of Anglicans voted Tory at the 2017 general election for example compared to 42% of the electorate overall
There are a wide variety of Church of England clergy from Conservative Anglo Catholics and evangelicals to liberals but most of the congregation are conservative
Gosh. I wonder if the clergy know that? It must absolutely infuriate them.
The war is now unwinnable for Putin. Even an unlikely military victory, eventually taking all of Ukraine over several months and installing a puppet government would be a strategic loss. Because the Ukraine resistance, political and/or military, is not going to cease. And so the Western sanctions are not going to be relaxed. Russia is going to face years of isolation.
Yet the war is most likely also unwinnable for Ukraine. Its resistance has been fearless, yet it is still overpowered militarily. While they will continue to inflict significant damage, overturning Russian gains through fighting will be difficult. All while their infrastructure is being destroyed and the country is depopulating via families fleeing the war.
Other than hoping for Putin to come to an unfortunate accident, I struggle to see a good outcome of all this for anyone. Just more death and destruction, depressing as it is.
China should be careful in remaining neutral and not supplying support to Russia, or else they will be caught up in the strength of the western public opinion backlash against the invasion.
By his own logic, Putin's started a Russian civil war with his own rule on the line. Some Russian liberals are already saying that we're watching the rebirth of Kievan Rus and that everything democratic and Western-oriented in the "Russian world" will be centred on Kiev.
That’s a very interesting twist. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. The Taiwanisation of Ukraine.
Regarding previous thread, I think 2024 will be a very good election to lose! (Like 1992). Tories should hope for a decent performance from Boris, not not so good that he actually wins. 2029 would be a cataclysm.
For the amusement of PBers, I provide the latest from Lorna Slater, Green MSP, and Minister in the Scottish Government - on NATO and nuclear weapons...
And she is an actual minister. That's quite scary if you're Scottish. A person this childishly, dangerously clueless has serious power in your government
Her logic is very confused. Russia having nuclear weapons as a successful deterrent is somehow NATO's fault, and we need to get rid of them because none of us are safe until nobody has them?
There is a plausible case for getting rid of nuclear weapons but it certainly isn't that.
The problem is that Ukraine has rendered nearly all arguments for unilateral disarmament useless. You can no longer say nukes aren't a deterrent - they are certainly deterring us from stopping Putin with our greater military might. You can no longer say They would never be used by anyone - it is horribly clear Putin is capable of using them. You can't say We must set the first example and disarm and people will follow - Putin will disarm because Scotland closes Faslane? Really?
So the SNP/Greens are left with the pure and slender moral argument: these weapons are awful and we cannot possess them, even if that puts us at much greater danger of being invaded like Ukraine.
That's a pretty tough sell, so she didn't even bother.
This is going to become a real issue for the Scot Gov. And underneath it all is the huge hypocrisy that iScotland would almost certainly remain in NATO and, er, rely on the iUK and US to protect it. With, erm, nukes
The much bigger problem though is not those countries with nukes deciding to hang on to them, it will be the smaller nations with big aggressive neighbours deciding to get them to be on the safe side.
That greatly increases the risk of something going wrong or a rogue/false flag strike (as in the plot of On The Beach).
In a book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs written 15 years ago that was criticised as flawed by military experts but I nevertheless found interesting, Lewis Page made this exact point. 'Nuclear weapons confer immunity from American interference up to a point, which is why everyone is so keen to get them...(footnote) Everyone really is keen to get them: this isn't scaremongering or lies. Chemical weapons are a bogey to frighten the children with - the Kaiser had them in World War One, for goodness sakes. But long range nukes are the real deal. If I were running a country, I'd want some.'
Exactly. We either find a way to get rid of them or we don't have a long run future.
If you have any ideas on how to persuade North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and China to give up their nuclear weapons, I'm sure the UN would be delighted to hear from you.
But even if you could via, say, a programme of mass hypnosis I honestly cannot see the Americans giving up nukes.
All I can do is argue and vote for my own country to do it.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nukes, and are now in effect giving up their sovereignty as well as a result. So no politician will get rid of their nukes until *everyone* agrees to get rid of them.
But the other way - proliferate until bang - is imo a bigger problem. And I don't think our nukes protect us. The logic doesn't really work for that. Not as I assess it.
So - let me get this right - you are pro-unilateral disarmament? You would vote for an Abandon Our Nukes party? And you'd be happy if we did that, despite Ukraine?
I kind of hope I've got this wrong
Here is some simple maths that everyone on the planet can do.
If Russia didn't have nukes, then NATO would be discussing whether to stop when we reach Moscow. Or not.
Given that, when do you expect the Russians to give up nukes, in the next 10,000 years or so?
If Russia didn't have nukes it wouldn't have invaded.
Why not? Giant willy waving military, filling ol' Red Square with lot of jack boots. All the things that make the stupid people with too much brass macaroni on their hats, think they are awesome. Look at the *rocket* on that launcher..... All long and wide.....
In a world with no nukes, why not take the band on tour in your smaller neighbour?
With this logic the more that nuclear weapons proliferate the safer everyone is. Yet we all instinctively know the opposite is the case.
Prisoners dilemma innit? It's like home defence in the US; best if nobody has a gun but if everyone else has, best to have one too.
Melitopol defenders reporting a big capture of Russian vehicles tonight with locals confirming heavy fighting now having eased off, but as ever evidence needs to be seen for claimed victories.
The shear amount of scrap metal is quite incredible.
A lot of stuff that should have been melted down a decade+ ago finally meeting their maker.
Btw here's Vitaly Kim and Ukr military claiming a victory that has to be seen to be believed, *if* true there'll be photos in the morning. It's not impossible and given the launches reported by civilians we can be sure Ukr artillery fired enough to do so, but far more likely they only hit small parts of it (maybe 10-50 vehicles?) and the Russians are regrouping. Correction: Mykolaiv, not Melitopol.
Mykolaiv is a long way from Melitopol, but if true this would be a major counter attack.
I meant Mykolaiv (the Ukr held city NW of Kherson). Kim, the governor says a lot so it definitely requires visual proof to be believed. However Ukr artillery were definitely very active around the time the strikes were supposed to be happening.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Cringing nonsense. Utter irresponsibility. About time the geriatric Tories did their fair share.
Who cares if the Tory core vote is reamed out, if that is what it takes?
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
You do the cause of the conservative party great embarrasment, as you do to yourself
You are a terrible advert for the conservative party
You do not even seem to know what being a Tory means? No surprise as you voted for New Labour twice
But he didn't vote for PC, and you did. He has principles.
I voted for all Tory candidates then, he voted for the Labour candidate over the Tory. BigG is thus not a pure Tory
There speaks conservative momentum and consigned to permanent opposition
And by the way, I wear your badge of honour with pride
Don’t worry, by his standards nor were Churchill, Disraeli, or Peel.
They were as all were monarchists and did not as Tories support heavy wealth and inheritance taxes
Erm…. Peel reintroduced the income tax as Tory PM. Disraeli maintained it. Inheritance tax as we know it was of course introduced by Thatcher in 1986.
Income tax is not an estate tax. Thatcher cut the estate taxes the previous Labour Government had imposed. The Finance Act 1986 abolished the tax on lifetime gifts altogether
Income tax is a bit of a diversion I accept - but I was going for the broader point that you can’t even say Tories have been that low tax.
I see you at least accept that Inheritance Tax was created by Thatcher, and she therefore supported it.
She also cut estate taxes and property gifts eg via the Finance Act 1986.
She did not increase inheritance tax
She created it. She and Lawson didn’t have to, but they created it by only removing the gift tax. So it was her policy to tax unearned income, presumably in lieu of taxing income.
The tax paid on inheritance, wealth and gifts in 1990 when Thatcher left office was lower than in 1979 when she arrived.
The estate tax and capital transfer tax of the previous Labour Government was far higher
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
Cringing nonsense. Utter irresponsibility. About time the geriatric Tories did their fair share.
Who cares if the Tory core vote is reamed out, if that is what it takes?
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
You do the cause of the conservative party great embarrasment, as you do to yourself
You are a terrible advert for the conservative party
You do not even seem to know what being a Tory means? No surprise as you voted for New Labour twice
But he didn't vote for PC, and you did. He has principles.
I voted for all Tory candidates then, he voted for the Labour candidate over the Tory. BigG is thus not a pure Tory
There speaks conservative momentum and consigned to permanent opposition
And by the way, I wear your badge of honour with pride
Don’t worry, by his standards nor were Churchill, Disraeli, or Peel.
They were as all were monarchists and did not as Tories support heavy wealth and inheritance taxes
Erm…. Peel reintroduced the income tax as Tory PM. Disraeli maintained it. Inheritance tax as we know it was of course introduced by Thatcher in 1986.
Income tax is not an estate tax. Thatcher cut the estate taxes the previous Labour Government had imposed. The Finance Act 1986 abolished the tax on lifetime gifts altogether
Income tax is a bit of a diversion I accept - but I was going for the broader point that you can’t even say Tories have been that low tax.
I see you at least accept that Inheritance Tax was created by Thatcher, and she therefore supported it.
She also cut estate taxes and property gifts eg via the Finance Act 1986.
She did not increase inheritance tax
She created it. She and Lawson didn’t have to, but they created it by only removing the gift tax. So it was her policy to tax unearned income, presumably in lieu of taxing income.
The tax paid on inheritance, wealth and gifts in 1990 when Thatcher left office was lower than in 1979 when she arrived.
Yes, she had a view on rates but she didn’t oppose the principle.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
China's issue is Xi Jinping has over-invested in Putin. A fair number of the country's movers and shakers seem to realise that, but Xi doesn't want to lose face. Xi is developing a reputation for being error-prone in an environment normally intolerant of mistakes.
That's my not-totally-uninformed take.
It also raises the question why someone so mediocre, without obvious talent or charisma should be so dominant. I'm not the only person asking that question.
Maybe Xi has just seen enough movies to recognise that, if you have ambitions to be a shadowy mastermind bent on world domination the inevitable downside is that your minions will all be a bit shit.
I mean, Putin's Russia, in holding off invading Ukraine to avoid embarrassing China, then proceeded to trip through the Olympics like Clouseau on stilts. So, Xi had been warned.
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
Melitopol defenders reporting a big capture of Russian vehicles (200) tonight with locals confirming heavy fighting now having eased off, but as ever evidence needs to be seen for claimed victories, however even 10-50 vehicles would be a big win, and enough to knock out a BTG or two. The footage of TB2s travelling far behind lines to destroy command vehicles are quite incredible, and here's a new one: https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1503127520253779974
That is fantastic, difficult to see how Russian losses are not over 10,000 killed in action by now.
I guess we should stop and pause for a moment to reflect that the vast majority of those 10,000 Russians (if that is the number) are Putin's victims just as much as the Ukraine losses.
Most of those poor sods thought they were on a training exercise as far as we can tell.
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
Regarding previous thread, I think 2024 will be a very good election to lose! (Like 1992). Tories should hope for a decent performance from Boris, not not so good that he actually wins. 2029 would be a cataclysm.
For the amusement of PBers, I provide the latest from Lorna Slater, Green MSP, and Minister in the Scottish Government - on NATO and nuclear weapons...
And she is an actual minister. That's quite scary if you're Scottish. A person this childishly, dangerously clueless has serious power in your government
Her logic is very confused. Russia having nuclear weapons as a successful deterrent is somehow NATO's fault, and we need to get rid of them because none of us are safe until nobody has them?
There is a plausible case for getting rid of nuclear weapons but it certainly isn't that.
The problem is that Ukraine has rendered nearly all arguments for unilateral disarmament useless. You can no longer say nukes aren't a deterrent - they are certainly deterring us from stopping Putin with our greater military might. You can no longer say They would never be used by anyone - it is horribly clear Putin is capable of using them. You can't say We must set the first example and disarm and people will follow - Putin will disarm because Scotland closes Faslane? Really?
So the SNP/Greens are left with the pure and slender moral argument: these weapons are awful and we cannot possess them, even if that puts us at much greater danger of being invaded like Ukraine.
That's a pretty tough sell, so she didn't even bother.
This is going to become a real issue for the Scot Gov. And underneath it all is the huge hypocrisy that iScotland would almost certainly remain in NATO and, er, rely on the iUK and US to protect it. With, erm, nukes
The much bigger problem though is not those countries with nukes deciding to hang on to them, it will be the smaller nations with big aggressive neighbours deciding to get them to be on the safe side.
That greatly increases the risk of something going wrong or a rogue/false flag strike (as in the plot of On The Beach).
In a book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs written 15 years ago that was criticised as flawed by military experts but I nevertheless found interesting, Lewis Page made this exact point. 'Nuclear weapons confer immunity from American interference up to a point, which is why everyone is so keen to get them...(footnote) Everyone really is keen to get them: this isn't scaremongering or lies. Chemical weapons are a bogey to frighten the children with - the Kaiser had them in World War One, for goodness sakes. But long range nukes are the real deal. If I were running a country, I'd want some.'
Exactly. We either find a way to get rid of them or we don't have a long run future.
If you have any ideas on how to persuade North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and China to give up their nuclear weapons, I'm sure the UN would be delighted to hear from you.
But even if you could via, say, a programme of mass hypnosis I honestly cannot see the Americans giving up nukes.
All I can do is argue and vote for my own country to do it.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nukes, and are now in effect giving up their sovereignty as well as a result. So no politician will get rid of their nukes until *everyone* agrees to get rid of them.
But the other way - proliferate until bang - is imo a bigger problem. And I don't think our nukes protect us. The logic doesn't really work for that. Not as I assess it.
So - let me get this right - you are pro-unilateral disarmament? You would vote for an Abandon Our Nukes party? And you'd be happy if we did that, despite Ukraine?
I kind of hope I've got this wrong
Here is some simple maths that everyone on the planet can do.
If Russia didn't have nukes, then NATO would be discussing whether to stop when we reach Moscow. Or not.
Given that, when do you expect the Russians to give up nukes, in the next 10,000 years or so?
If Russia didn't have nukes it wouldn't have invaded.
Why not? Giant willy waving military, filling ol' Red Square with lot of jack boots. All the things that make the stupid people with too much brass macaroni on their hats, think they are awesome. Look at the *rocket* on that launcher..... All long and wide.....
In a world with no nukes, why not take the band on tour in your smaller neighbour?
With this logic the more that nuclear weapons proliferate the safer everyone is. Yet we all instinctively know the opposite is the case.
Prisoners dilemma innit? It's like home defence in the US; best if nobody has a gun but if everyone else has, best to have one too.
The thing is the US could solve the problem because the government has a legal “monopoly on violence” so if it so wished it could ban or heavily regulate the use of firearms.
We don’t have a world government able to do the same with Nukes and other weapons. I wish we did. Until we do, we have to rely on multilateral agreements to lessen the threat.
Melitopol defenders reporting a big capture of Russian vehicles (200) tonight with locals confirming heavy fighting now having eased off, but as ever evidence needs to be seen for claimed victories, however even 10-50 vehicles would be a big win, and enough to knock out a BTG or two. The footage of TB2s travelling far behind lines to destroy command vehicles are quite incredible, and here's a new one: https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1503127520253779974
That is fantastic, difficult to see how Russian losses are not over 10,000 killed in action by now.
I guess we should stop and pause for a moment to reflect that the vast majority of those 10,000 Russians (if that is the number) are Putin's victims just as much as the Ukraine losses.
Most of those poor sods thought they were on a training exercise as far as we can tell.
Whatever else it it, it's not fantastic.
+1 They too are victims, doubly so because they did not have a just cause.
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleonic Wars was effectively us alone v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
Melitopol defenders reporting a big capture of Russian vehicles tonight with locals confirming heavy fighting now having eased off, but as ever evidence needs to be seen for claimed victories.
The shear amount of scrap metal is quite incredible.
A lot of stuff that should have been melted down a decade+ ago finally meeting their maker.
Btw here's Vitaly Kim and Ukr military claiming a victory that has to be seen to be believed, *if* true there'll be photos in the morning. It's not impossible and given the launches reported by civilians we can be sure Ukr artillery fired enough to do so, but far more likely they only hit small parts of it (maybe 10-50 vehicles?) and the Russians are regrouping. Correction: Mykolaiv, not Melitopol.
Mykolaiv is a long way from Melitopol, but if true this would be a major counter attack.
I meant Mykolaiv (the Ukr held city NW of Kherson). Kim, the governor says a lot so it definitely requires visual proof to be believed. However Ukr artillery were definitely very active around the time the strikes were supposed to be happening.
If this has happened as described, then the photos will be a powerful Propaganda, so home and expect to see them soon, otherwise it might just be wish-full thinking.
I'm starting to realise when this is all over and Ukraine recovered, I may be able to go on holiday around the Ukraine without a map, as I have spent so long looking up locations of thinks!
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
Indeed but Conservative Governments are quite happy to increase taxes - quite apart from the current administration, Howe and Lamont both raised VAT and the party (at least at local level) suffered from the backlash in terms of council seats.
If you aren't prepared to tax wealth and inheritance (which I understand), you must accept there are times when taxes have to be increased to improve the public finances. There will be those who argue the burden of those tax rises should not be disproportionately on those least able to pay them (I think that's a reasonable argument, you may not) which leaves the alternative choice that those with more disposable income contribute a greater share than those with less.
Since when was VAT or other indirect taxes (or indeed NI or the health and social care levy) the same as inheritance tax or a wealth tax? I am not keen on either but on a forced choice Tory governments choose to increase the former not the latter and not hit the property of their core supporters
Shouldn't tax be levied on UNEARNED wealth first before EARNED wealth?
👍
No, Liberals might prefer that but the Tory party is about preservation of wealth first
That would make an excellent billboard poster for Labour.
Why? 60% of the population own their properties and have significant wealth.
Firstly, it just sounds bad - people will associate "preservation of wealth" with the super wealthy, not someone with a £300k house in the Midlands.
Secondly, the 60% includes people with mortgages. An equitable wealth tax would be on the proportion owned as that reflects the persons wealth.
Finally, it's all about a fair balance. The effective employment tax rate is almost 45% for income over £12.5k (including employees and employers' NI). And almost 55% for income over £50k. Wealth taxes are minuscule in comparison, making young people dependent on gifts and inheritance for many things in life.
A key reason for young people struggling to purchase property is the very high levels of employment taxes. That will be a long-term disaster for the Tories.
So to avoid the tax you just need to take out a 100% interest only mortgage?
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
Yes, 53% of Anglicans voted Tory at the 2017 general election for example compared to 42% of the electorate overall
There are a wide variety of Church of England clergy from Conservative Anglo Catholics and evangelicals to liberals but most of the congregation are conservative
I suspect that if you correct for age, the CoE congregation effect disappears.
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
It doesn't sound from that as if China is going to be rushing the missiles to Russia.
That's not a denial that the Russians asked or a denial that some aid may have been given.
China is not going to admit to supplying weapons to Russia, which is so deeply unpopular worldwide
If it happens it will be a quiet transfer via Mongolia
What is in China's interests? It's very difficult to know for sure. I reckon the current situation is already a bit sub-optimal for China, Russia having reunited the west. China's interests are probably best served by a long, drawn-out stalemate in Ukraine. But a defeated Russia probably serves it better than a victorious and more powerful Russia. So China might supply the odd weapon. It'll be income, at least. But it probably doesn't want to supply so much that Russian troops are marching victoriously through Kiev next month. A guess. Hard to know.
Regarding previous thread, I think 2024 will be a very good election to lose! (Like 1992). Tories should hope for a decent performance from Boris, not not so good that he actually wins. 2029 would be a cataclysm.
For the amusement of PBers, I provide the latest from Lorna Slater, Green MSP, and Minister in the Scottish Government - on NATO and nuclear weapons...
And she is an actual minister. That's quite scary if you're Scottish. A person this childishly, dangerously clueless has serious power in your government
Her logic is very confused. Russia having nuclear weapons as a successful deterrent is somehow NATO's fault, and we need to get rid of them because none of us are safe until nobody has them?
There is a plausible case for getting rid of nuclear weapons but it certainly isn't that.
The problem is that Ukraine has rendered nearly all arguments for unilateral disarmament useless. You can no longer say nukes aren't a deterrent - they are certainly deterring us from stopping Putin with our greater military might. You can no longer say They would never be used by anyone - it is horribly clear Putin is capable of using them. You can't say We must set the first example and disarm and people will follow - Putin will disarm because Scotland closes Faslane? Really?
So the SNP/Greens are left with the pure and slender moral argument: these weapons are awful and we cannot possess them, even if that puts us at much greater danger of being invaded like Ukraine.
That's a pretty tough sell, so she didn't even bother.
This is going to become a real issue for the Scot Gov. And underneath it all is the huge hypocrisy that iScotland would almost certainly remain in NATO and, er, rely on the iUK and US to protect it. With, erm, nukes
The much bigger problem though is not those countries with nukes deciding to hang on to them, it will be the smaller nations with big aggressive neighbours deciding to get them to be on the safe side.
That greatly increases the risk of something going wrong or a rogue/false flag strike (as in the plot of On The Beach).
In a book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs written 15 years ago that was criticised as flawed by military experts but I nevertheless found interesting, Lewis Page made this exact point. 'Nuclear weapons confer immunity from American interference up to a point, which is why everyone is so keen to get them...(footnote) Everyone really is keen to get them: this isn't scaremongering or lies. Chemical weapons are a bogey to frighten the children with - the Kaiser had them in World War One, for goodness sakes. But long range nukes are the real deal. If I were running a country, I'd want some.'
Exactly. We either find a way to get rid of them or we don't have a long run future.
If you have any ideas on how to persuade North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and China to give up their nuclear weapons, I'm sure the UN would be delighted to hear from you.
But even if you could via, say, a programme of mass hypnosis I honestly cannot see the Americans giving up nukes.
All I can do is argue and vote for my own country to do it.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nukes, and are now in effect giving up their sovereignty as well as a result. So no politician will get rid of their nukes until *everyone* agrees to get rid of them.
But the other way - proliferate until bang - is imo a bigger problem. And I don't think our nukes protect us. The logic doesn't really work for that. Not as I assess it.
So - let me get this right - you are pro-unilateral disarmament? You would vote for an Abandon Our Nukes party? And you'd be happy if we did that, despite Ukraine?
I kind of hope I've got this wrong
Here is some simple maths that everyone on the planet can do.
If Russia didn't have nukes, then NATO would be discussing whether to stop when we reach Moscow. Or not.
Given that, when do you expect the Russians to give up nukes, in the next 10,000 years or so?
If Russia didn't have nukes it wouldn't have invaded.
Why not? Giant willy waving military, filling ol' Red Square with lot of jack boots. All the things that make the stupid people with too much brass macaroni on their hats, think they are awesome. Look at the *rocket* on that launcher..... All long and wide.....
In a world with no nukes, why not take the band on tour in your smaller neighbour?
With this logic the more that nuclear weapons proliferate the safer everyone is. Yet we all instinctively know the opposite is the case.
Prisoners dilemma innit? It's like home defence in the US; best if nobody has a gun but if everyone else has, best to have one too.
It is an interesting optimisation problem - maxima and minima all over the place.
Oh and, in quite a few game structures, unilateral dis-armament *increases* the chances that nuclear weapons will be used.
Instincts in this case are about as useful as they were against COVID.
Sounds like lots of people here need to read Herman Kahn and Bernard Brodie. To start with. Then comes the funky stuff like Kenneth Waltz, Von Neumann (game theory).....
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
Regarding previous thread, I think 2024 will be a very good election to lose! (Like 1992). Tories should hope for a decent performance from Boris, not not so good that he actually wins. 2029 would be a cataclysm.
For the amusement of PBers, I provide the latest from Lorna Slater, Green MSP, and Minister in the Scottish Government - on NATO and nuclear weapons...
And she is an actual minister. That's quite scary if you're Scottish. A person this childishly, dangerously clueless has serious power in your government
Her logic is very confused. Russia having nuclear weapons as a successful deterrent is somehow NATO's fault, and we need to get rid of them because none of us are safe until nobody has them?
There is a plausible case for getting rid of nuclear weapons but it certainly isn't that.
The problem is that Ukraine has rendered nearly all arguments for unilateral disarmament useless. You can no longer say nukes aren't a deterrent - they are certainly deterring us from stopping Putin with our greater military might. You can no longer say They would never be used by anyone - it is horribly clear Putin is capable of using them. You can't say We must set the first example and disarm and people will follow - Putin will disarm because Scotland closes Faslane? Really?
So the SNP/Greens are left with the pure and slender moral argument: these weapons are awful and we cannot possess them, even if that puts us at much greater danger of being invaded like Ukraine.
That's a pretty tough sell, so she didn't even bother.
This is going to become a real issue for the Scot Gov. And underneath it all is the huge hypocrisy that iScotland would almost certainly remain in NATO and, er, rely on the iUK and US to protect it. With, erm, nukes
The much bigger problem though is not those countries with nukes deciding to hang on to them, it will be the smaller nations with big aggressive neighbours deciding to get them to be on the safe side.
That greatly increases the risk of something going wrong or a rogue/false flag strike (as in the plot of On The Beach).
In a book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs written 15 years ago that was criticised as flawed by military experts but I nevertheless found interesting, Lewis Page made this exact point. 'Nuclear weapons confer immunity from American interference up to a point, which is why everyone is so keen to get them...(footnote) Everyone really is keen to get them: this isn't scaremongering or lies. Chemical weapons are a bogey to frighten the children with - the Kaiser had them in World War One, for goodness sakes. But long range nukes are the real deal. If I were running a country, I'd want some.'
Exactly. We either find a way to get rid of them or we don't have a long run future.
If you have any ideas on how to persuade North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and China to give up their nuclear weapons, I'm sure the UN would be delighted to hear from you.
But even if you could via, say, a programme of mass hypnosis I honestly cannot see the Americans giving up nukes.
All I can do is argue and vote for my own country to do it.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nukes, and are now in effect giving up their sovereignty as well as a result. So no politician will get rid of their nukes until *everyone* agrees to get rid of them.
But the other way - proliferate until bang - is imo a bigger problem. And I don't think our nukes protect us. The logic doesn't really work for that. Not as I assess it.
So - let me get this right - you are pro-unilateral disarmament? You would vote for an Abandon Our Nukes party? And you'd be happy if we did that, despite Ukraine?
I kind of hope I've got this wrong
Here is some simple maths that everyone on the planet can do.
If Russia didn't have nukes, then NATO would be discussing whether to stop when we reach Moscow. Or not.
Given that, when do you expect the Russians to give up nukes, in the next 10,000 years or so?
If Russia didn't have nukes it wouldn't have invaded.
Why not? Giant willy waving military, filling ol' Red Square with lot of jack boots. All the things that make the stupid people with too much brass macaroni on their hats, think they are awesome. Look at the *rocket* on that launcher..... All long and wide.....
In a world with no nukes, why not take the band on tour in your smaller neighbour?
With this logic the more that nuclear weapons proliferate the safer everyone is. Yet we all instinctively know the opposite is the case.
This is true. The logic works when all actors are acting rationally, and that's why we should work really fucking hard to keep them out the hands of the real nutters.
Putin was acting rationally when he invaded Ukraine - they don't have nukes. And I'm about 75% sure he is hinting nukes to give off the impression he has gone mad, and thus the game has changed, in order for NATO to back off with the weapons.
Biden has called his bluff. We are back at the status quo. For now.
@HYUFD Hang on - I just twigged. Are you really also saying that to be a Tory you can’t be an atheist?
It is harder yes.
47% of the non religious voted Labour in 2017 for example compared to 40% of the population as a whole
Jesus was a Socialist.
I am not convinced at that. He certainly encouraged compassion and charity for the poor, but that isn't Socialism. I don't think Jesus expressed any real teachings of how the world should be economically or politically run, indeed he often said that his kingdom was not of this world.
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleonic Wars was effectively us alone v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
The wars of 1793-1815 were absolutely not us alone v France. The UK poured money into funding its continental allies as well as funding its own war effort.
#Russia's state TV showcases clips of Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard, helping to perpetuate the myth of dangerous "bio-weapons" in Ukraine. This conspiracy theory is being spread by Russia's state TV with special zeal. https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1502790665947779075
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
It doesn't sound from that as if China is going to be rushing the missiles to Russia.
That's not a denial that the Russians asked or a denial that some aid may have been given.
China is not going to admit to supplying weapons to Russia, which is so deeply unpopular worldwide
If it happens it will be a quiet transfer via Mongolia
What is in China's interests? It's very difficult to know for sure. I reckon the current situation is already a bit sub-optimal for China, Russia having reunited the west. China's interests are probably best served by a long, drawn-out stalemate in Ukraine. But a defeated Russia probably serves it better than a victorious and more powerful Russia. So China might supply the odd weapon. It'll be income, at least. But it probably doesn't want to supply so much that Russian troops are marching victoriously through Kiev next month. A guess. Hard to know.
China values stability above all, and Putin has potentially plunged the world into a chaotic spiral. They are surely not best pleased, as indeed suggested by that Chinese academic's paper.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
Blimey, that book has rules for every eventuality. Seems pretty unambiguous though, and contrary to the CofE line.
It is incredible that they anticipated the atrocity that is Mrs Brown's boys the best part of 3000 years ago but who can deny that they were right in this instance?
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleonic Wars was effectively us alone v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
Mrs Thatcher also spent 4-5% of GDP on defence. I'd be happy spending 3% but we should take it from other public spending - most obviously foreign aid, farming subsidies, subsidies to uncompetitive regions. Also smaller efficiencies, like getting rid of NHS diversity officers who cost as much as three nurses.
We need, of course, to make sure we get value for the extra 1% - it shouldn't be swallowed by government bureaucracy or failing tech ventures like OneWeb or whatever other trash Cummings had us spend money on.
Also we need to have a conversation on whether we really need to spend so much money on healthcare - in a couple of decades, maybe half of public spending, much of it in the last few weeks of people's lives.
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleon's Wars was effectively us v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
Do... do you really think that the Napoleonic Wars were UK v France?
Wait until he finds out who turned the tide at Waterloo…..
Regarding previous thread, I think 2024 will be a very good election to lose! (Like 1992). Tories should hope for a decent performance from Boris, not not so good that he actually wins. 2029 would be a cataclysm.
For the amusement of PBers, I provide the latest from Lorna Slater, Green MSP, and Minister in the Scottish Government - on NATO and nuclear weapons...
And she is an actual minister. That's quite scary if you're Scottish. A person this childishly, dangerously clueless has serious power in your government
Her logic is very confused. Russia having nuclear weapons as a successful deterrent is somehow NATO's fault, and we need to get rid of them because none of us are safe until nobody has them?
There is a plausible case for getting rid of nuclear weapons but it certainly isn't that.
The problem is that Ukraine has rendered nearly all arguments for unilateral disarmament useless. You can no longer say nukes aren't a deterrent - they are certainly deterring us from stopping Putin with our greater military might. You can no longer say They would never be used by anyone - it is horribly clear Putin is capable of using them. You can't say We must set the first example and disarm and people will follow - Putin will disarm because Scotland closes Faslane? Really?
So the SNP/Greens are left with the pure and slender moral argument: these weapons are awful and we cannot possess them, even if that puts us at much greater danger of being invaded like Ukraine.
That's a pretty tough sell, so she didn't even bother.
This is going to become a real issue for the Scot Gov. And underneath it all is the huge hypocrisy that iScotland would almost certainly remain in NATO and, er, rely on the iUK and US to protect it. With, erm, nukes
The much bigger problem though is not those countries with nukes deciding to hang on to them, it will be the smaller nations with big aggressive neighbours deciding to get them to be on the safe side.
That greatly increases the risk of something going wrong or a rogue/false flag strike (as in the plot of On The Beach).
In a book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs written 15 years ago that was criticised as flawed by military experts but I nevertheless found interesting, Lewis Page made this exact point. 'Nuclear weapons confer immunity from American interference up to a point, which is why everyone is so keen to get them...(footnote) Everyone really is keen to get them: this isn't scaremongering or lies. Chemical weapons are a bogey to frighten the children with - the Kaiser had them in World War One, for goodness sakes. But long range nukes are the real deal. If I were running a country, I'd want some.'
Exactly. We either find a way to get rid of them or we don't have a long run future.
If you have any ideas on how to persuade North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and China to give up their nuclear weapons, I'm sure the UN would be delighted to hear from you.
But even if you could via, say, a programme of mass hypnosis I honestly cannot see the Americans giving up nukes.
All I can do is argue and vote for my own country to do it.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nukes, and are now in effect giving up their sovereignty as well as a result. So no politician will get rid of their nukes until *everyone* agrees to get rid of them.
But the other way - proliferate until bang - is imo a bigger problem. And I don't think our nukes protect us. The logic doesn't really work for that. Not as I assess it.
So - let me get this right - you are pro-unilateral disarmament? You would vote for an Abandon Our Nukes party? And you'd be happy if we did that, despite Ukraine?
I kind of hope I've got this wrong
Here is some simple maths that everyone on the planet can do.
If Russia didn't have nukes, then NATO would be discussing whether to stop when we reach Moscow. Or not.
Given that, when do you expect the Russians to give up nukes, in the next 10,000 years or so?
If Russia didn't have nukes it wouldn't have invaded.
Why not? Giant willy waving military, filling ol' Red Square with lot of jack boots. All the things that make the stupid people with too much brass macaroni on their hats, think they are awesome. Look at the *rocket* on that launcher..... All long and wide.....
In a world with no nukes, why not take the band on tour in your smaller neighbour?
With this logic the more that nuclear weapons proliferate the safer everyone is. Yet we all instinctively know the opposite is the case.
Prisoners dilemma innit? It's like home defence in the US; best if nobody has a gun but if everyone else has, best to have one too.
The thing is the US could solve the problem because the government has a legal “monopoly on violence” so if it so wished it could ban or heavily regulate the use of firearms.
We don’t have a world government able to do the same with Nukes and other weapons. I wish we did. Until we do, we have to rely on multilateral agreements to lessen the threat.
Sort of but not really because there are so many guns out there in the US (about 400m) that if you now legislated against them you would just be collecting them off the law abiding. So banning them would arguably make things worse.
I don't see a way round this. Guns don't obsolesce and ammunition is good for decades. In the very long term you could outlaw all existing calibres in favour of ones which are arbitrarily different (so .243s are replaced by .242s etc) which would make existing weapons obsolete for want of ammunition. But then lots of people know how to handload...
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
Blimey, that book has rules for every eventuality. Seems pretty unambiguous though, and contrary to the CofE line.
It is incredible that they anticipated the atrocity that is Mrs Brown's boys the best part of 3000 years ago but who can deny that they were right in this instance?
The tale of Elijah and the she bears provides an excellent lesson in life - namely that you should never make fun of middle aged men who are going bald.
@HYUFD Hang on - I just twigged. Are you really also saying that to be a Tory you can’t be an atheist?
It is harder yes.
47% of the non religious voted Labour in 2017 for example compared to 40% of the population as a whole
Jesus was a Socialist.
I am not convinced at that. He certainly encouraged compassion and charity for the poor, but that isn't Socialism. I don't think Jesus expressed any real teachings of how the world should be economically or politically run, indeed he often said that his kingdom was not of this world.
@HYUFD Hang on - I just twigged. Are you really also saying that to be a Tory you can’t be an atheist?
It is harder yes.
47% of the non religious voted Labour in 2017 for example compared to 40% of the population as a whole
I'm an atheist. But I own my property outright and am comfortably off. How should I vote? It's all so confusing in this black and white world.
Culturally you are clearly non Tory even if as a property owner wealth wise you might have been
Well this is a problem for the Tories then - if we dismiss every atheist or republican or non-homeowner or whatever else as culturally non Tory then pretty soon there's only you and the Queen left, and she doesn't get a vote IIRC.
I'm in Northern Al's boat too.
And I almost never meet anyone who is openly religious. Now weddings don't have to take place in church, most of them don't - the kind of background noise of the Church of England as a cultural touchstone is ebbing: I'd be surprised if more than 10% of my friends have been in a church at all in the past three years. I'd suggest therefore that the Tories might want to cast their nets slightly wider.
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
It doesn't sound from that as if China is going to be rushing the missiles to Russia.
That's not a denial that the Russians asked or a denial that some aid may have been given.
China is not going to admit to supplying weapons to Russia, which is so deeply unpopular worldwide
If it happens it will be a quiet transfer via Mongolia
What is in China's interests? It's very difficult to know for sure. I reckon the current situation is already a bit sub-optimal for China, Russia having reunited the west. China's interests are probably best served by a long, drawn-out stalemate in Ukraine. But a defeated Russia probably serves it better than a victorious and more powerful Russia. So China might supply the odd weapon. It'll be income, at least. But it probably doesn't want to supply so much that Russian troops are marching victoriously through Kiev next month. A guess. Hard to know.
China's best bet is to get Putin to end the war, make sure he or someone like him stays in power in Moscow and wait for the west to go back to sleep.
However Xi is potentially implicated in all this. If he tacitly supported the invasion and don't forget that united statement they made pre-olympics, he won't be keen to back down either. Does this suggest that Xi is now a much more reckless figure than we have been used to in China?
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
Regarding previous thread, I think 2024 will be a very good election to lose! (Like 1992). Tories should hope for a decent performance from Boris, not not so good that he actually wins. 2029 would be a cataclysm.
For the amusement of PBers, I provide the latest from Lorna Slater, Green MSP, and Minister in the Scottish Government - on NATO and nuclear weapons...
And she is an actual minister. That's quite scary if you're Scottish. A person this childishly, dangerously clueless has serious power in your government
Her logic is very confused. Russia having nuclear weapons as a successful deterrent is somehow NATO's fault, and we need to get rid of them because none of us are safe until nobody has them?
There is a plausible case for getting rid of nuclear weapons but it certainly isn't that.
The problem is that Ukraine has rendered nearly all arguments for unilateral disarmament useless. You can no longer say nukes aren't a deterrent - they are certainly deterring us from stopping Putin with our greater military might. You can no longer say They would never be used by anyone - it is horribly clear Putin is capable of using them. You can't say We must set the first example and disarm and people will follow - Putin will disarm because Scotland closes Faslane? Really?
So the SNP/Greens are left with the pure and slender moral argument: these weapons are awful and we cannot possess them, even if that puts us at much greater danger of being invaded like Ukraine.
That's a pretty tough sell, so she didn't even bother.
This is going to become a real issue for the Scot Gov. And underneath it all is the huge hypocrisy that iScotland would almost certainly remain in NATO and, er, rely on the iUK and US to protect it. With, erm, nukes
The much bigger problem though is not those countries with nukes deciding to hang on to them, it will be the smaller nations with big aggressive neighbours deciding to get them to be on the safe side.
That greatly increases the risk of something going wrong or a rogue/false flag strike (as in the plot of On The Beach).
In a book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs written 15 years ago that was criticised as flawed by military experts but I nevertheless found interesting, Lewis Page made this exact point. 'Nuclear weapons confer immunity from American interference up to a point, which is why everyone is so keen to get them...(footnote) Everyone really is keen to get them: this isn't scaremongering or lies. Chemical weapons are a bogey to frighten the children with - the Kaiser had them in World War One, for goodness sakes. But long range nukes are the real deal. If I were running a country, I'd want some.'
Exactly. We either find a way to get rid of them or we don't have a long run future.
If you have any ideas on how to persuade North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and China to give up their nuclear weapons, I'm sure the UN would be delighted to hear from you.
But even if you could via, say, a programme of mass hypnosis I honestly cannot see the Americans giving up nukes.
All I can do is argue and vote for my own country to do it.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nukes, and are now in effect giving up their sovereignty as well as a result. So no politician will get rid of their nukes until *everyone* agrees to get rid of them.
But the other way - proliferate until bang - is imo a bigger problem. And I don't think our nukes protect us. The logic doesn't really work for that. Not as I assess it.
So - let me get this right - you are pro-unilateral disarmament? You would vote for an Abandon Our Nukes party? And you'd be happy if we did that, despite Ukraine?
I kind of hope I've got this wrong
Here is some simple maths that everyone on the planet can do.
If Russia didn't have nukes, then NATO would be discussing whether to stop when we reach Moscow. Or not.
Given that, when do you expect the Russians to give up nukes, in the next 10,000 years or so?
If Russia didn't have nukes it wouldn't have invaded.
Why not? Giant willy waving military, filling ol' Red Square with lot of jack boots. All the things that make the stupid people with too much brass macaroni on their hats, think they are awesome. Look at the *rocket* on that launcher..... All long and wide.....
In a world with no nukes, why not take the band on tour in your smaller neighbour?
With this logic the more that nuclear weapons proliferate the safer everyone is. Yet we all instinctively know the opposite is the case.
This is true. The logic works when all actors are acting rationally, and that's why we should work really fucking hard to keep them out the hands of the real nutters.
Putin was acting rationally when he invaded Ukraine - they don't have nukes. And I'm about 75% sure he is hinting nukes to give off the impression he has gone mad, and thus the game has changed, in order for NATO to back off with the weapons.
Biden has called his bluff. We are back at the status quo. For now.
Playing Mr Irrational is straight of out On Thermonuclear War (published before the Cuban Missile Crisis) - The *superficial advantage* in playing the game of chicken, if you demonstrate you have removed the steering wheel....
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleonic Wars was effectively us alone v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
The wars of 1793-1815 were absolutely not us alone v France. The UK poured money into funding its continental allies as well as funding its own war effort.
Much of Italy, the low countries, Germany and Spain were under Napoleon's control.
The Ottoman Empire and United States were neutral.
It is is not remotely comparable to now where France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the United States are all in NATO with us to contain Putin
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleon's Wars was effectively us v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
Do... do you really think that the Napoleonic Wars were UK v France?
Wait until he finds out who turned the tide at Waterloo…..
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleonic Wars was effectively us alone v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
Mrs Thatcher also spent 4-5% of GDP on defence. I'd be happy spending 3% but we should take it from other public spending - most obviously foreign aid, farming subsidies, subsidies to uncompetitive regions. Also smaller efficiencies, like getting rid of NHS diversity officers who cost as much as three nurses.
Also we need to have a conversation on whether we really need to spend so much money on healthcare - in a couple of decades, maybe half of public spending, much of it in the last few weeks of people's lives.
I think it’s unhealthy to pin a percentage GDP number on any spending. But we can see that our navy is too small, we don’t have enough aircraft and, although we shouldn’t focus on too large an army, the army is too small. We need to ask what standard of kit we want and whether we want a domestic industry, because that will change costs, but defence needs to mostly be guided by desired outcomes.
Regarding previous thread, I think 2024 will be a very good election to lose! (Like 1992). Tories should hope for a decent performance from Boris, not not so good that he actually wins. 2029 would be a cataclysm.
For the amusement of PBers, I provide the latest from Lorna Slater, Green MSP, and Minister in the Scottish Government - on NATO and nuclear weapons...
And she is an actual minister. That's quite scary if you're Scottish. A person this childishly, dangerously clueless has serious power in your government
Her logic is very confused. Russia having nuclear weapons as a successful deterrent is somehow NATO's fault, and we need to get rid of them because none of us are safe until nobody has them?
There is a plausible case for getting rid of nuclear weapons but it certainly isn't that.
The problem is that Ukraine has rendered nearly all arguments for unilateral disarmament useless. You can no longer say nukes aren't a deterrent - they are certainly deterring us from stopping Putin with our greater military might. You can no longer say They would never be used by anyone - it is horribly clear Putin is capable of using them. You can't say We must set the first example and disarm and people will follow - Putin will disarm because Scotland closes Faslane? Really?
So the SNP/Greens are left with the pure and slender moral argument: these weapons are awful and we cannot possess them, even if that puts us at much greater danger of being invaded like Ukraine.
That's a pretty tough sell, so she didn't even bother.
This is going to become a real issue for the Scot Gov. And underneath it all is the huge hypocrisy that iScotland would almost certainly remain in NATO and, er, rely on the iUK and US to protect it. With, erm, nukes
The much bigger problem though is not those countries with nukes deciding to hang on to them, it will be the smaller nations with big aggressive neighbours deciding to get them to be on the safe side.
That greatly increases the risk of something going wrong or a rogue/false flag strike (as in the plot of On The Beach).
In a book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs written 15 years ago that was criticised as flawed by military experts but I nevertheless found interesting, Lewis Page made this exact point. 'Nuclear weapons confer immunity from American interference up to a point, which is why everyone is so keen to get them...(footnote) Everyone really is keen to get them: this isn't scaremongering or lies. Chemical weapons are a bogey to frighten the children with - the Kaiser had them in World War One, for goodness sakes. But long range nukes are the real deal. If I were running a country, I'd want some.'
Exactly. We either find a way to get rid of them or we don't have a long run future.
If you have any ideas on how to persuade North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and China to give up their nuclear weapons, I'm sure the UN would be delighted to hear from you.
But even if you could via, say, a programme of mass hypnosis I honestly cannot see the Americans giving up nukes.
All I can do is argue and vote for my own country to do it.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nukes, and are now in effect giving up their sovereignty as well as a result. So no politician will get rid of their nukes until *everyone* agrees to get rid of them.
But the other way - proliferate until bang - is imo a bigger problem. And I don't think our nukes protect us. The logic doesn't really work for that. Not as I assess it.
So - let me get this right - you are pro-unilateral disarmament? You would vote for an Abandon Our Nukes party? And you'd be happy if we did that, despite Ukraine?
I kind of hope I've got this wrong
Here is some simple maths that everyone on the planet can do.
If Russia didn't have nukes, then NATO would be discussing whether to stop when we reach Moscow. Or not.
Given that, when do you expect the Russians to give up nukes, in the next 10,000 years or so?
If Russia didn't have nukes it wouldn't have invaded.
Why not? Giant willy waving military, filling ol' Red Square with lot of jack boots. All the things that make the stupid people with too much brass macaroni on their hats, think they are awesome. Look at the *rocket* on that launcher..... All long and wide.....
In a world with no nukes, why not take the band on tour in your smaller neighbour?
With this logic the more that nuclear weapons proliferate the safer everyone is. Yet we all instinctively know the opposite is the case.
This is true. The logic works when all actors are acting rationally, and that's why we should work really fucking hard to keep them out the hands of the real nutters.
Putin was acting rationally when he invaded Ukraine - they don't have nukes. And I'm about 75% sure he is hinting nukes to give off the impression he has gone mad, and thus the game has changed, in order for NATO to back off with the weapons.
Biden has called his bluff. We are back at the status quo. For now.
Basically, I just don't understand how you can observe the horrendous conventional war in non- nuke Ukraine from a peaceful UK and conclude that we must immediately unilaterally disarm.
What does that achieve? For Ukraine? For us? Bizarre.
(Also interesting that the Finns are showing off their reservists on social media. Deterrent ultra-light. Bit desperate tbh).
Regarding previous thread, I think 2024 will be a very good election to lose! (Like 1992). Tories should hope for a decent performance from Boris, not not so good that he actually wins. 2029 would be a cataclysm.
For the amusement of PBers, I provide the latest from Lorna Slater, Green MSP, and Minister in the Scottish Government - on NATO and nuclear weapons...
And she is an actual minister. That's quite scary if you're Scottish. A person this childishly, dangerously clueless has serious power in your government
Her logic is very confused. Russia having nuclear weapons as a successful deterrent is somehow NATO's fault, and we need to get rid of them because none of us are safe until nobody has them?
There is a plausible case for getting rid of nuclear weapons but it certainly isn't that.
The problem is that Ukraine has rendered nearly all arguments for unilateral disarmament useless. You can no longer say nukes aren't a deterrent - they are certainly deterring us from stopping Putin with our greater military might. You can no longer say They would never be used by anyone - it is horribly clear Putin is capable of using them. You can't say We must set the first example and disarm and people will follow - Putin will disarm because Scotland closes Faslane? Really?
So the SNP/Greens are left with the pure and slender moral argument: these weapons are awful and we cannot possess them, even if that puts us at much greater danger of being invaded like Ukraine.
That's a pretty tough sell, so she didn't even bother.
This is going to become a real issue for the Scot Gov. And underneath it all is the huge hypocrisy that iScotland would almost certainly remain in NATO and, er, rely on the iUK and US to protect it. With, erm, nukes
The much bigger problem though is not those countries with nukes deciding to hang on to them, it will be the smaller nations with big aggressive neighbours deciding to get them to be on the safe side.
That greatly increases the risk of something going wrong or a rogue/false flag strike (as in the plot of On The Beach).
In a book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs written 15 years ago that was criticised as flawed by military experts but I nevertheless found interesting, Lewis Page made this exact point. 'Nuclear weapons confer immunity from American interference up to a point, which is why everyone is so keen to get them...(footnote) Everyone really is keen to get them: this isn't scaremongering or lies. Chemical weapons are a bogey to frighten the children with - the Kaiser had them in World War One, for goodness sakes. But long range nukes are the real deal. If I were running a country, I'd want some.'
Exactly. We either find a way to get rid of them or we don't have a long run future.
If you have any ideas on how to persuade North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and China to give up their nuclear weapons, I'm sure the UN would be delighted to hear from you.
But even if you could via, say, a programme of mass hypnosis I honestly cannot see the Americans giving up nukes.
All I can do is argue and vote for my own country to do it.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nukes, and are now in effect giving up their sovereignty as well as a result. So no politician will get rid of their nukes until *everyone* agrees to get rid of them.
But the other way - proliferate until bang - is imo a bigger problem. And I don't think our nukes protect us. The logic doesn't really work for that. Not as I assess it.
So - let me get this right - you are pro-unilateral disarmament? You would vote for an Abandon Our Nukes party? And you'd be happy if we did that, despite Ukraine?
I kind of hope I've got this wrong
Here is some simple maths that everyone on the planet can do.
If Russia didn't have nukes, then NATO would be discussing whether to stop when we reach Moscow. Or not.
Given that, when do you expect the Russians to give up nukes, in the next 10,000 years or so?
If Russia didn't have nukes it wouldn't have invaded.
Why not? Giant willy waving military, filling ol' Red Square with lot of jack boots. All the things that make the stupid people with too much brass macaroni on their hats, think they are awesome. Look at the *rocket* on that launcher..... All long and wide.....
In a world with no nukes, why not take the band on tour in your smaller neighbour?
With this logic the more that nuclear weapons proliferate the safer everyone is. Yet we all instinctively know the opposite is the case.
Prisoners dilemma innit? It's like home defence in the US; best if nobody has a gun but if everyone else has, best to have one too.
It is an interesting optimisation problem - maxima and minima all over the place.
Oh and, in quite a few game structures, unilateral dis-armament *increases* the chances that nuclear weapons will be used.
Instincts in this case are about as useful as they were against COVID.
Sounds like lots of people here need to read Herman Kahn and Bernard Brodie. To start with. Then comes the funky stuff like Kenneth Waltz, Von Neumann (game theory).....
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
@HYUFD Hang on - I just twigged. Are you really also saying that to be a Tory you can’t be an atheist?
It is harder yes.
47% of the non religious voted Labour in 2017 for example compared to 40% of the population as a whole
I'm an atheist. But I own my property outright and am comfortably off. How should I vote? It's all so confusing in this black and white world.
Culturally you are clearly non Tory even if as a property owner wealth wise you might have been
Well this is a problem for the Tories then - if we dismiss every atheist or republican or non-homeowner or whatever else as culturally non Tory then pretty soon there's only you and the Queen left, and she doesn't get a vote IIRC.
I'm in Northern Al's boat too.
And I almost never meet anyone who is openly religious. Now weddings don't have to take place in church, most of them don't - the kind of background noise of the Church of England as a cultural touchstone is ebbing: I'd be surprised if more than 10% of my friends have been in a church at all in the past three years. I'd suggest therefore that the Tories might want to cast their nets slightly wider.
Yes, i think that property owning Anglican monarchists, while not an insignificant section of the population, are well short of the number of voters that are needed to win.
Most people I know who are regular churhgoers are not Anglicans.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleonic Wars was effectively us alone v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
The wars of 1793-1815 were absolutely not us alone v France. The UK poured money into funding its continental allies as well as funding its own war effort.
Much of Italy, the low countries, Germany and Spain were under Napoleon's control.
The Ottoman Empire and United States were neutral.
It is is not remotely comparable to now where France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the United States are all in NATO with us to contain Putin
Your grasp of the balance of power at the time, and where the military strength lay is…. limited.
Melitopol defenders reporting a big capture of Russian vehicles tonight with locals confirming heavy fighting now having eased off, but as ever evidence needs to be seen for claimed victories.
The shear amount of scrap metal is quite incredible.
A lot of stuff that should have been melted down a decade+ ago finally meeting their maker.
Btw here's Vitaly Kim and Ukr military claiming a victory that has to be seen to be believed, *if* true there'll be photos in the morning. It's not impossible and given the launches reported by civilians we can be sure Ukr artillery fired enough to do so, but far more likely they only hit small parts of it (maybe 10-50 vehicles?) and the Russians are regrouping. Correction: Mykolaiv, not Melitopol.
Mykolaiv is a long way from Melitopol, but if true this would be a major counter attack.
I meant Mykolaiv (the Ukr held city NW of Kherson). Kim, the governor says a lot so it definitely requires visual proof to be believed. However Ukr artillery were definitely very active around the time the strikes were supposed to be happening.
If this has happened as described, then the photos will be a powerful Propaganda, so home and expect to see them soon, otherwise it might just be wish-full thinking.
I'm starting to realise when this is all over and Ukraine recovered, I may be able to go on holiday around the Ukraine without a map, as I have spent so long looking up locations of thinks!
I have long planned a trip along the Trans Siberian railway, but that looks off the cards for some years (though may be a lot cheaper at current ruble rates). I may do a rail tour of Ukraine instead. Transcarpathia, Lviv and Odesa are all currently intact and sound lovely.
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleon's Wars was effectively us v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
Do... do you really think that the Napoleonic Wars were UK v France?
Wait until he finds out who turned the tide at Waterloo…..
Canute?
Actually, thinking about it, let’s not think too strongly about what happened to Napoleon in the east other than to hope that’s what happening to Vlad.
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleonic Wars was effectively us alone v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
The wars of 1793-1815 were absolutely not us alone v France. The UK poured money into funding its continental allies as well as funding its own war effort.
Much of Italy, the low countries, Germany and Spain were under Napoleon's control.
The Ottoman Empire and United States were neutral.
It is is not remotely comparable to now where France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the United States are all in NATO with us to contain Putin
The Napoleonic Wars lasted a generation, which many phases, including no fewer than seven coalitions against the French. The curent situation is most comparable to the situation in 1813-15 when all of Europe united against France. But with nuclear weapons, which are such a wild card that they make any historical analogies of very little value.
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleonic Wars was effectively us alone v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
The wars of 1793-1815 were absolutely not us alone v France. The UK poured money into funding its continental allies as well as funding its own war effort.
Much of Italy, the low countries, Germany and Spain were under Napoleon's control.
The Ottoman Empire and United States were neutral.
It is is not remotely comparable to now where France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the United States are all in NATO with us to contain Putin
The Napoleonic Wars lasted a generation, which many phases, including no fewer than seven coalitions against the French. The curent situation is most comparable to the situation in 1813-15 when all of Europe united against France. But with nuclear weapons, which are such a wild card that they make any historical analogies of very little value.
The other coalition members didn’t count because they weren’t proper Tories.
@HYUFD Hang on - I just twigged. Are you really also saying that to be a Tory you can’t be an atheist?
It is harder yes.
47% of the non religious voted Labour in 2017 for example compared to 40% of the population as a whole
I'm an atheist. But I own my property outright and am comfortably off. How should I vote? It's all so confusing in this black and white world.
Culturally you are clearly non Tory even if as a property owner wealth wise you might have been
Well this is a problem for the Tories then - if we dismiss every atheist or republican or non-homeowner or whatever else as culturally non Tory then pretty soon there's only you and the Queen left, and she doesn't get a vote IIRC.
I'm in Northern Al's boat too.
And I almost never meet anyone who is openly religious. Now weddings don't have to take place in church, most of them don't - the kind of background noise of the Church of England as a cultural touchstone is ebbing: I'd be surprised if more than 10% of my friends have been in a church at all in the past three years. I'd suggest therefore that the Tories might want to cast their nets slightly wider.
No, Anglicans, monarchists and homeowners are the core Tory coalition just not necessarily all 3.
Just as the public sector, those in social housing and young people are the core Labour coalition, just not necessarily all 3
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
@HYUFD Hang on - I just twigged. Are you really also saying that to be a Tory you can’t be an atheist?
It is harder yes.
47% of the non religious voted Labour in 2017 for example compared to 40% of the population as a whole
I'm an atheist. But I own my property outright and am comfortably off. How should I vote? It's all so confusing in this black and white world.
Culturally you are clearly non Tory even if as a property owner wealth wise you might have been
Well this is a problem for the Tories then - if we dismiss every atheist or republican or non-homeowner or whatever else as culturally non Tory then pretty soon there's only you and the Queen left, and she doesn't get a vote IIRC.
I'm in Northern Al's boat too.
And I almost never meet anyone who is openly religious. Now weddings don't have to take place in church, most of them don't - the kind of background noise of the Church of England as a cultural touchstone is ebbing: I'd be surprised if more than 10% of my friends have been in a church at all in the past three years. I'd suggest therefore that the Tories might want to cast their nets slightly wider.
Yes, i think that property owning Anglican monarchists, while not an insignificant section of the population, are well short of the number of voters that are needed to win.
Most people I know who are regular churhgoers are not Anglicans.
So what, most evangelical Christians are also Conservatives too.
Black Britons are also strong evangelicals on the whole, thus offering a chance for Conservatives to break into the black vote longer term
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
It doesn't sound from that as if China is going to be rushing the missiles to Russia.
That's not a denial that the Russians asked or a denial that some aid may have been given.
China is not going to admit to supplying weapons to Russia, which is so deeply unpopular worldwide
If it happens it will be a quiet transfer via Mongolia
Fair point.
How easy would it be for the Russians to deploy Chinese arms though?
Ammunition, I get, but that would only work if the Chinese and Russian weapons are compatible.
New arms need new training, surely?
It depends what Russia has asked for/needs, examples:
As somebody posted on here have a very good missile Kr101 I think it was, that they used a lot in the first few days, but have stopped, possibly because they have run out, if so the Russians are a bit stuck as the engine for the missile is made in the Ukraine, perhaps China could give some of the engines of there missiles, or even the whole thing just repainted.
Or it could be for mundane things like tiers for trucks, remember that controversy, well the chines do make that sort of tier, they will where out quicker, but at the moment any new tiers would be greatly apricated.
Ammunition as you mention, china exports a lot of ammunition made for Russian made weapon systems so that might be easy. or other things like radios, i bet china makes cheep copy's of a lot of Russian bits.
new equipment would be harder to hide, but the Russians probably are keeping some things just in case WW3 starts, near the Finish and Estonian boarders, Russia could put borrowed Chines stuff there and then pull the last of their own equipment down to Ukraine.
it would be fascinating to know what they asked for, and what they get.
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
It doesn't sound from that as if China is going to be rushing the missiles to Russia.
That's not a denial that the Russians asked or a denial that some aid may have been given.
China is not going to admit to supplying weapons to Russia, which is so deeply unpopular worldwide
If it happens it will be a quiet transfer via Mongolia
What is in China's interests? It's very difficult to know for sure. I reckon the current situation is already a bit sub-optimal for China, Russia having reunited the west. China's interests are probably best served by a long, drawn-out stalemate in Ukraine. But a defeated Russia probably serves it better than a victorious and more powerful Russia. So China might supply the odd weapon. It'll be income, at least. But it probably doesn't want to supply so much that Russian troops are marching victoriously through Kiev next month. A guess. Hard to know.
Russia would provide a distraction for the West while China pursued its inexorable rise. Russia was only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. However...
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
Indeed but Conservative Governments are quite happy to increase taxes - quite apart from the current administration, Howe and Lamont both raised VAT and the party (at least at local level) suffered from the backlash in terms of council seats.
If you aren't prepared to tax wealth and inheritance (which I understand), you must accept there are times when taxes have to be increased to improve the public finances. There will be those who argue the burden of those tax rises should not be disproportionately on those least able to pay them (I think that's a reasonable argument, you may not) which leaves the alternative choice that those with more disposable income contribute a greater share than those with less.
Since when was VAT or other indirect taxes (or indeed NI or the health and social care levy) the same as inheritance tax or a wealth tax? I am not keen on either but on a forced choice Tory governments choose to increase the former not the latter and not hit the property of their core supporters
Shouldn't tax be levied on UNEARNED wealth first before EARNED wealth?
👍
No, Liberals might prefer that but the Tory party is about preservation of wealth first
That would make an excellent billboard poster for Labour.
Why? 60% of the population own their properties and have significant wealth.
Firstly, it just sounds bad - people will associate "preservation of wealth" with the super wealthy, not someone with a £300k house in the Midlands.
Secondly, the 60% includes people with mortgages. An equitable wealth tax would be on the proportion owned as that reflects the persons wealth.
Finally, it's all about a fair balance. The effective employment tax rate is almost 45% for income over £12.5k (including employees and employers' NI). And almost 55% for income over £50k. Wealth taxes are minuscule in comparison, making young people dependent on gifts and inheritance for many things in life.
A key reason for young people struggling to purchase property is the very high levels of employment taxes. That will be a long-term disaster for the Tories.
So to avoid the tax you just need to take out a 100% interest only mortgage?
No, because if you are doing that by choice, you have the money you could have spent on the house invested in something else
@HYUFD Hang on - I just twigged. Are you really also saying that to be a Tory you can’t be an atheist?
It is harder yes.
47% of the non religious voted Labour in 2017 for example compared to 40% of the population as a whole
I'm an atheist. But I own my property outright and am comfortably off. How should I vote? It's all so confusing in this black and white world.
Culturally you are clearly non Tory even if as a property owner wealth wise you might have been
Well this is a problem for the Tories then - if we dismiss every atheist or republican or non-homeowner or whatever else as culturally non Tory then pretty soon there's only you and the Queen left, and she doesn't get a vote IIRC.
I'm in Northern Al's boat too.
And I almost never meet anyone who is openly religious. Now weddings don't have to take place in church, most of them don't - the kind of background noise of the Church of England as a cultural touchstone is ebbing: I'd be surprised if more than 10% of my friends have been in a church at all in the past three years. I'd suggest therefore that the Tories might want to cast their nets slightly wider.
No, Anglicans, monarchists and homeowners are the core Tory coalition just not necessarily all 3.
Just as the public sector, those in social housing and young people are the core Labour coalition, just not necessarily all 3
“ Anglicans, monarchists and homeowners are the core Tory coalition just not necessarily all 3. “
I’m 2 of those 🙂
But Ed Davey is using an attack line on Priti Patel today almost word for word what I posted on PB 2 days ago hoping he was reading.
Keep reading MoonRabbit Ed, I’ll keep them coming 😁
@HYUFD Hang on - I just twigged. Are you really also saying that to be a Tory you can’t be an atheist?
It is harder yes.
47% of the non religious voted Labour in 2017 for example compared to 40% of the population as a whole
I'm an atheist. But I own my property outright and am comfortably off. How should I vote? It's all so confusing in this black and white world.
Culturally you are clearly non Tory even if as a property owner wealth wise you might have been
Well this is a problem for the Tories then - if we dismiss every atheist or republican or non-homeowner or whatever else as culturally non Tory then pretty soon there's only you and the Queen left, and she doesn't get a vote IIRC.
I'm in Northern Al's boat too.
And I almost never meet anyone who is openly religious. Now weddings don't have to take place in church, most of them don't - the kind of background noise of the Church of England as a cultural touchstone is ebbing: I'd be surprised if more than 10% of my friends have been in a church at all in the past three years. I'd suggest therefore that the Tories might want to cast their nets slightly wider.
No, Anglicans, monarchists and homeowners are the core Tory coalition just not necessarily all 3.
Just as the public sector, those in social housing and young people are the core Labour coalition, just not necessarily all 3
Fair enough. This all seems very alien to me though. I can see why homeowners would vote in the interests of homeowners. Obviously a LOT of nuances here, but I can see why it would hold true. But Anglicans and Monarchists - there just don't seem enough, and their interests don't seem obviously served by the Conservative Party nor threatened by the other lot. And it just doesn't seem the sort of thing one would care about enough. But that is because I am a middle-aged middle-class suburbanite and simply don't ever meet such people. And it's always dangerous to generalise from the people you know.
Regarding previous thread, I think 2024 will be a very good election to lose! (Like 1992). Tories should hope for a decent performance from Boris, not not so good that he actually wins. 2029 would be a cataclysm.
For the amusement of PBers, I provide the latest from Lorna Slater, Green MSP, and Minister in the Scottish Government - on NATO and nuclear weapons...
And she is an actual minister. That's quite scary if you're Scottish. A person this childishly, dangerously clueless has serious power in your government
Her logic is very confused. Russia having nuclear weapons as a successful deterrent is somehow NATO's fault, and we need to get rid of them because none of us are safe until nobody has them?
There is a plausible case for getting rid of nuclear weapons but it certainly isn't that.
The problem is that Ukraine has rendered nearly all arguments for unilateral disarmament useless. You can no longer say nukes aren't a deterrent - they are certainly deterring us from stopping Putin with our greater military might. You can no longer say They would never be used by anyone - it is horribly clear Putin is capable of using them. You can't say We must set the first example and disarm and people will follow - Putin will disarm because Scotland closes Faslane? Really?
So the SNP/Greens are left with the pure and slender moral argument: these weapons are awful and we cannot possess them, even if that puts us at much greater danger of being invaded like Ukraine.
That's a pretty tough sell, so she didn't even bother.
This is going to become a real issue for the Scot Gov. And underneath it all is the huge hypocrisy that iScotland would almost certainly remain in NATO and, er, rely on the iUK and US to protect it. With, erm, nukes
The much bigger problem though is not those countries with nukes deciding to hang on to them, it will be the smaller nations with big aggressive neighbours deciding to get them to be on the safe side.
That greatly increases the risk of something going wrong or a rogue/false flag strike (as in the plot of On The Beach).
In a book Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs written 15 years ago that was criticised as flawed by military experts but I nevertheless found interesting, Lewis Page made this exact point. 'Nuclear weapons confer immunity from American interference up to a point, which is why everyone is so keen to get them...(footnote) Everyone really is keen to get them: this isn't scaremongering or lies. Chemical weapons are a bogey to frighten the children with - the Kaiser had them in World War One, for goodness sakes. But long range nukes are the real deal. If I were running a country, I'd want some.'
Exactly. We either find a way to get rid of them or we don't have a long run future.
If you have any ideas on how to persuade North Korea, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran and China to give up their nuclear weapons, I'm sure the UN would be delighted to hear from you.
But even if you could via, say, a programme of mass hypnosis I honestly cannot see the Americans giving up nukes.
All I can do is argue and vote for my own country to do it.
And that's the problem, isn't it? Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nukes, and are now in effect giving up their sovereignty as well as a result. So no politician will get rid of their nukes until *everyone* agrees to get rid of them.
But the other way - proliferate until bang - is imo a bigger problem. And I don't think our nukes protect us. The logic doesn't really work for that. Not as I assess it.
So - let me get this right - you are pro-unilateral disarmament? You would vote for an Abandon Our Nukes party? And you'd be happy if we did that, despite Ukraine?
I kind of hope I've got this wrong
Here is some simple maths that everyone on the planet can do.
If Russia didn't have nukes, then NATO would be discussing whether to stop when we reach Moscow. Or not.
Given that, when do you expect the Russians to give up nukes, in the next 10,000 years or so?
If Russia didn't have nukes it wouldn't have invaded.
Why not? Giant willy waving military, filling ol' Red Square with lot of jack boots. All the things that make the stupid people with too much brass macaroni on their hats, think they are awesome. Look at the *rocket* on that launcher..... All long and wide.....
In a world with no nukes, why not take the band on tour in your smaller neighbour?
With this logic the more that nuclear weapons proliferate the safer everyone is. Yet we all instinctively know the opposite is the case.
Prisoners dilemma innit? It's like home defence in the US; best if nobody has a gun but if everyone else has, best to have one too.
It is an interesting optimisation problem - maxima and minima all over the place.
Oh and, in quite a few game structures, unilateral dis-armament *increases* the chances that nuclear weapons will be used.
Instincts in this case are about as useful as they were against COVID.
Sounds like lots of people here need to read Herman Kahn and Bernard Brodie. To start with. Then comes the funky stuff like Kenneth Waltz, Von Neumann (game theory).....
What a towering genius was John von Neumann.
There is story that von Neumann was sitting in a long and very boring meeting about the design for a computer to solve one of the early design issues with thermonuclear weapons.
After about half an hour, one of the generals asked his opinion. Von Neumann looked up from his scribbling, to say that he had the answer. To the problem the computer as supposed to solve.....
Well, 155.9p per litre for unleaded and 162.9p per litre for diesel didn't seem to be losing Tesco's any customers yesterday, Unfortunately, the petroleum dependent are prisoners and will pay almost any price for their addiction.
I noted Shell's big profit announcement a few days ago and wondered if a windfall tax on those directly benefitting from high energy prices might not be a popular solution.
Of course, that would include the Government for whom (presumably) increasing fuel levy will help offset the cost of dealing with the administration of the Ukrainian diaspora though unlikely to do much against the overwhelming calls for increased defence expenditure.
As the post-Cold War Peace Dividend unravels, the problem is or are the expenditure structures which have evolved since the early 90s - given education and health are sacrosanct (it would seem), where is the balance in public finances? It seems there are still some clamouring for tax cuts but tax rises seem the only option.
Yet, the immediate problem is inflation and wage rises chasing price rises (the 1970s called and would like their economics back, by the way) and the return of Union militancy. The Government may not mind a "summer of discontent" as strikers rival Russian oligarchs in the popularity stakes.
Thinking aloud, I wonder if we are seeing a new "war on wealth" with those seemingly possessing Croesus-like levels of personal affluence the next group to be demonised as most people struggle.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I'd accept the abolition of exemption of CGT on main homes and inheritance tax at the basic rate with, say, a £100k allowance per owner/joint owner.
I think 20% tax on asset windfalls is fair enough if we need to raise money quickly.
I'd prefer that than any more NI rises or income tax threshold freezes.
Problem is it means no one sells.
Let’s say you buy a house for £200k and sell it for £300k because you want to move.
Ignoring allowances and costs you have £100k in gross profit and £80k in net profit.
So your £300k house can only be replaced with a £280k house - why would you move to a less nice property by choice?
You need rollover relief which massively reduces the tax take
Sounds good but it would end any political party gaining power
Remember the poll tax, this would be 10 times worse
If we can't afford to defend ourselves and become serfs to authoritarian states to Russia, how many times worse than the poll tax do you think that would be?
The fact our homes are worth anything decent at all is because we live in a safe, secure and wealthy part of the world - keeping that means investing in its protection or we risk losing it all.
We do not want a tax on asset windfalls, a wealth tax or a rise in inheritance tax. No, no, no. Better to go into opposition than for this government to do anything so un Tory and betray the Tory core vote
In any case we already spend the 2% of gdp on defence NATO wants, it is other nations like Germany who have not but are finally now going to do so following Putin's invasion of Ukraine
1) This may shock you but some people care more about the country than their political party.
2) The 2% is a floor, and a pretty modest one that’s ok only in peacetime.
It is possible to care both about your country and one of the core defining principles of your party, in the Tory case protection of inherited wealth.
2% spend by every NATO nation on defence is more than enough for NATO to contain Putin if needed and protect NATO nations
Even as someone who has voted Tory more often than the other lot, I'd struggle to say what Tory core values are. Keeping socialists out of power, I suppose. But I wouldn't have thought 'protection of inherited wealth'woukd have come in the top ten of core Tory principles since the mid nineteenth century. Protecting inherited wealth might be something that Conservatives do, but I'd be surprised if too many in the party deemed it a core principle.
Protection of inherited wealth is as key a Tory value as it was in the 19th century. Protection of the family home, estate and wealth from excess tax and protection of the institution of monarchy and the established church and their assets too.
In fact it is perhaps the only core value the sometimes pro free trade, sometimes pro protectionist, sometimes pro more spending, sometimes pro less spending, sometimes pro EU, now Pro Brexit, sometimes socially liberal, sometimes socially conservative Tory party has been consistent on
Just because something was a core value 170 years ago it shouldn't be so today. I don't think there is a sufficient constituency of pro-inherited wealth, pro monarchy, pro-cofE voters to give the Conservatives power. As I think most pragmatic Tories recognise. The CofE, in particular, seem largely a bunch of SJWs whom the Tories should steer well clear of.
There is, property owners and their heirs, especially in the South are far more numerous than even the top 10% of income earners. Indeed 60% of the UK population own the property they live in.
The C of E is apolitical but most of the Church of England congregation vote Tory
Let's put aside inheritance for a moment, where we're clearly never going to agree on what a sensible political position to take is. Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
On transsexuals, the only bible passage I can think of is this one;
stavridisj @stavridisj · 10m This is time for quiet diplomacy btwn DC and Beijing. China will place some big bets ahead. We must try 2 convince them to bet on the right side of history,not on Putin.We have our differences, but hopefully they'll see the madness of a brutal war Putin has foisted on the world
We Tories do and we Tories are in power with a majority and we Tories will therefore decide policy until the next general election, not you
Yet the Conservatives have always claimed to be a pragmatic party governing in the national interest.
By definition, that means occasionally having to take some difficult and potentially unpopular decisions because it's the right thing to do not because it's the easy or popular thing to do.
Margaret Thatcher always did what she thought was best for the country even if it wasn't in the short term best for the party or for the popularity of the party. Yes, she went out to explain, justify and defend that policy and faced huge resistance sometimes from within the Conservative Party itself but would you not argue she was more often right than wrong and her electoral record confirms that?
Thatcher never increased inheritance tax or imposed a wealth tax as she knew that to do so would betray the defining core Tory value of creation of wealth and preservation of it
The defence of the Realm should be of infinitely greater importance to Conservatives than the size of one's inheritance.
It is positiviely immoral to increase taxes on the incomes and purchases of average earners in order to protect the wealth of the better off.
We can defend the realm spending the 2% of our gdp on defence as we do now.
It is the likes of Germany, Italy, Spain and Canada who until now have spent less than 2% of their gdp on defence and not paid their NATO dues.
Protecting the wealth of the Tory core vote is not immoral, it is one of the defining principles of Toryism
I don't think there is any prospect of doing everything that our government says that it is committed to doing on 2% of GDP.
And, I'd suggest that it is a sound Tory principle to govern in the interests of the nation as a whole, and not just the core vote.
Yes there is. We defend ourselves and the UK through NATO and NATO alone and our nuclear deterrent. We already pay our NATO dues on defence, most NATO nations until now have not.
A party which does not defend the interests of its core vote is no party at all. Just as Labour would not be if it abandoned its public sector and union core vote
The administrations of Pitt the Younger and Liverpool raised probate and legacy duties during the Napoleonic wars. A government that would be considered ultra right wing in modern terms was prepared to accept that on occasion, their wealthy core supporters had to make sacrfiices for the good of the nation.
If they could that understand that, so should we.
Pitt also introduced income tax.
But the Napoleonic Wars was effectively us alone v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
The wars of 1793-1815 were absolutely not us alone v France. The UK poured money into funding its continental allies as well as funding its own war effort.
Much of Italy, the low countries, Germany and Spain were under Napoleon's control.
The Ottoman Empire and United States were neutral.
It is is not remotely comparable to now where France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the United States are all in NATO with us to contain Putin
The Napoleonic Wars lasted a generation, which many phases, including no fewer than seven coalitions against the French. The curent situation is most comparable to the situation in 1813-15 when all of Europe united against France. But with nuclear weapons, which are such a wild card that they make any historical analogies of very little value.
The USA was neutral in 1813 to 1815 as was Turkey unlike now and France of course is on our side this time
"In response to reports that Russia is seeking military equipment and other support from China, the Chinese embassy in the US said the priority right now is to ensure the tense situation does not escalate or get out of control, according to Reuters. "
It doesn't sound from that as if China is going to be rushing the missiles to Russia.
That's not a denial that the Russians asked or a denial that some aid may have been given.
China is not going to admit to supplying weapons to Russia, which is so deeply unpopular worldwide
If it happens it will be a quiet transfer via Mongolia
Fair point.
How easy would it be for the Russians to deploy Chinese arms though?
Ammunition, I get, but that would only work if the Chinese and Russian weapons are compatible.
New arms need new training, surely?
It depends what Russia has asked for/needs, examples:
As somebody posted on here have a very good missile Kr101 I think it was, that they used a lot in the first few days, but have stopped, possibly because they have run out, if so the Russians are a bit stuck as the engine for the missile is made in the Ukraine, perhaps China could give some of the engines of there missiles, or even the whole thing just repainted.
Or it could be for mundane things like tiers for trucks, remember that controversy, well the chines do make that sort of tier, they will where out quicker, but at the moment any new tiers would be greatly apricated.
Ammunition as you mention, china exports a lot of ammunition made for Russian made weapon systems so that might be easy. or other things like radios, i bet china makes cheep copy's of a lot of Russian bits.
new equipment would be harder to hide, but the Russians probably are keeping some things just in case WW3 starts, near the Finish and Estonian boarders, Russia could put borrowed Chines stuff there and then pull the last of their own equipment down to Ukraine.
it would be fascinating to know what they asked for, and what they get.
From what has been reported, a very large pile of decent, encrypted radios would be good start.
The comment on the trucks in the FT was interesting - they confirmed the stories that a problem the Russians had was cheap knock-off tires, poorly maintained on some of their equipment. Tires made in China.....
stavridisj @stavridisj · 10m This is time for quiet diplomacy btwn DC and Beijing. China will place some big bets ahead. We must try 2 convince them to bet on the right side of history,not on Putin.We have our differences, but hopefully they'll see the madness of a brutal war Putin has foisted on the world
Doubt it, as they are planning a similarly mad and brutal war on Taiwan.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/13/ukraine-news-russia-war-ceasefire-broken-humanitarian-corridors-kyiv-russian-invasion-live-vladimir-putin-volodymyr-zelenskiy-latest-updates-live @20:45
It doesn't sound from that as if China is going to be rushing the missiles to Russia.
I see you at least accept that Inheritance Tax was created by Thatcher, and she therefore supported it.
I agree the politics of inheritance tax is an emotional one, which is why any wealth tax should be an annual charge that can be deferred for the cash poor.
It would also promote labour mobility and more efficient housing stock allocation as it could replace the existing stamp duty levy that discourages moving house.
The Tories are being the party of pulling up the drawbridge after them, not promoting growth.
Most of the CofE congregation vote Tory? Do you have any polling evidence for that (I bet you do.) It seems unlikely, given they choose to spend their time listening to CofE vicars, who in my experience seem even further left than the arts bloc (including on any number of subjects that the Bible surely took no view whatsoever on, like climate change and transsexuals). The CofE may be apolitical in principle, but every public utterance it makes comes from the place where the Labour Party and Green Party meet. Many of them seem to actively make it clear that being a Christian is incompatible with being a Tory. Do these people's acolytes really vote Tory? Remarkable if so. Almost as if they needn't bother.
She did not increase inheritance tax
If they could that understand that, so should we.
http://www.brin.ac.uk/religious-affiliation-and-party-choice-at-the-2017-general-election/.
There are a wide variety of Church of England clergy from Conservative Anglo Catholics and evangelicals to liberals but most of the congregation are conservative
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+22:5&version=ESV
The estate tax and capital transfer tax of the previous Labour Government was far higher
I mean, Putin's Russia, in holding off invading Ukraine to avoid embarrassing China, then proceeded to trip through the Olympics like Clouseau on stilts. So, Xi had been warned.
47% of the non religious voted Labour in 2017 for example compared to 40% of the population as a whole
Most of those poor sods thought they were on a training exercise as far as we can tell.
Whatever else it it, it's not fantastic.
If it happens it will be a quiet transfer via Mongolia
We don’t have a world government able to do the same with Nukes and other weapons. I wish we did. Until we do, we have to rely on multilateral agreements to lessen the threat.
They too are victims, doubly so because they did not have a just cause.
But the Napoleonic Wars was effectively us alone v Napoleon's France who dominated most of continental Europe.
Not us and most of continental Europe, the USA, Turkey and Canada v Putin's Russia as now.
2% of gdp on defence is quite enough for us now
I'm starting to realise when this is all over and Ukraine recovered, I may be able to go on holiday around the Ukraine without a map, as I have spent so long looking up locations of thinks!
It's very difficult to know for sure. I reckon the current situation is already a bit sub-optimal for China, Russia having reunited the west. China's interests are probably best served by a long, drawn-out stalemate in Ukraine. But a defeated Russia probably serves it better than a victorious and more powerful Russia.
So China might supply the odd weapon. It'll be income, at least. But it probably doesn't want to supply so much that Russian troops are marching victoriously through Kiev next month.
A guess. Hard to know.
Oh and, in quite a few game structures, unilateral dis-armament *increases* the chances that nuclear weapons will be used.
Instincts in this case are about as useful as they were against COVID.
Sounds like lots of people here need to read Herman Kahn and Bernard Brodie. To start with. Then comes the funky stuff like Kenneth Waltz, Von Neumann (game theory).....
How easy would it be for the Russians to deploy Chinese arms though?
Ammunition, I get, but that would only work if the Chinese and Russian weapons are compatible.
New arms need new training, surely?
Putin was acting rationally when he invaded Ukraine - they don't have nukes. And I'm about 75% sure he is hinting nukes to give off the impression he has gone mad, and thus the game has changed, in order for NATO to back off with the weapons.
Biden has called his bluff. We are back at the status quo. For now.
https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1502790665947779075
The New Testament though is a bit more liberal
We need, of course, to make sure we get value for the extra 1% - it shouldn't be swallowed by government bureaucracy or failing tech ventures like OneWeb or whatever other trash Cummings had us spend money on.
Also we need to have a conversation on whether we really need to spend so much money on healthcare - in a couple of decades, maybe half of public spending, much of it in the last few weeks of people's lives.
I don't see a way round this. Guns don't obsolesce and ammunition is good for decades. In the very long term you could outlaw all existing calibres in favour of ones which are arbitrarily different (so .243s are replaced by .242s etc) which would make existing weapons obsolete for want of ammunition. But then lots of people know how to handload...
I'm in Northern Al's boat too.
And I almost never meet anyone who is openly religious. Now weddings don't have to take place in church, most of them don't - the kind of background noise of the Church of England as a cultural touchstone is ebbing: I'd be surprised if more than 10% of my friends have been in a church at all in the past three years.
I'd suggest therefore that the Tories might want to cast their nets slightly wider.
However Xi is potentially implicated in all this. If he tacitly supported the invasion and don't forget that united statement they made pre-olympics, he won't be keen to back down either. Does this suggest that Xi is now a much more reckless figure than we have been used to in China?
I am More Fast And Furious Than Thou.....
The Ottoman Empire and United States were neutral.
It is is not remotely comparable to now where France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the United States are all in NATO with us to contain Putin
What does that achieve? For Ukraine? For us? Bizarre.
(Also interesting that the Finns are showing off their reservists on social media. Deterrent ultra-light. Bit desperate tbh).
Most people I know who are regular churhgoers are not Anglicans.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians 3:28&version=NIV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHP6f6MQ_sA
Just as the public sector, those in social housing and young people are the core Labour coalition, just not necessarily all 3
Black Britons are also strong evangelicals on the whole, thus offering a chance for Conservatives to break into the black vote longer term
As somebody posted on here have a very good missile Kr101 I think it was, that they used a lot in the first few days, but have stopped, possibly because they have run out, if so the Russians are a bit stuck as the engine for the missile is made in the Ukraine, perhaps China could give some of the engines of there missiles, or even the whole thing just repainted.
Or it could be for mundane things like tiers for trucks, remember that controversy, well the chines do make that sort of tier, they will where out quicker, but at the moment any new tiers would be greatly apricated.
Ammunition as you mention, china exports a lot of ammunition made for Russian made weapon systems so that might be easy. or other things like radios, i bet china makes cheep copy's of a lot of Russian bits.
new equipment would be harder to hide, but the Russians probably are keeping some things just in case WW3 starts, near the Finish and Estonian boarders, Russia could put borrowed Chines stuff there and then pull the last of their own equipment down to Ukraine.
it would be fascinating to know what they asked for, and what they get.
https://youtu.be/um0__lI24ns
(Well, if Crufts content is acceptable on PB…)
I’m 2 of those 🙂
But Ed Davey is using an attack line on Priti Patel today almost word for word what I posted on PB 2 days ago hoping he was reading.
Keep reading MoonRabbit Ed, I’ll keep them coming 😁
This all seems very alien to me though.
I can see why homeowners would vote in the interests of homeowners. Obviously a LOT of nuances here, but I can see why it would hold true.
But Anglicans and Monarchists - there just don't seem enough, and their interests don't seem obviously served by the Conservative Party nor threatened by the other lot. And it just doesn't seem the sort of thing one would care about enough. But that is because I am a middle-aged middle-class suburbanite and simply don't ever meet such people. And it's always dangerous to generalise from the people you know.
After about half an hour, one of the generals asked his opinion. Von Neumann looked up from his scribbling, to say that he had the answer. To the problem the computer as supposed to solve.....
The Jesus I know would not agree
stavridisj
@stavridisj
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10m
This is time for quiet diplomacy btwn DC and Beijing. China will place some big bets ahead. We must try 2 convince them to bet on the right side of history,not on Putin.We have our differences, but hopefully they'll see the madness of a brutal war Putin has foisted on the world
@HYUFD telling folk that shouldn't vote Tory.
Keep it up!
The comment on the trucks in the FT was interesting - they confirmed the stories that a problem the Russians had was cheap knock-off tires, poorly maintained on some of their equipment. Tires made in China.....
The Old Testament also clear stealing wealth was wrong