Sunak's package may be politically astute in his campaign to replace Johnson if/when that comes to pass.
However, there's virtually nothing for the bottom 10%: those on benefits, and the lowest earners. Many of these don't have cars. They spend the highest proportion of their income on food, clothes, essential goods and energy bills, the cost of all of which is increasing faster than any growth in wages, let alone benefits. The increase in the support fund is chicken feed. Life is going to be extraordinarily difficult for them. But, they're only 10% and not many of them vote Tory anyway.
A cynical package from a cynical government. But it will help Sunak.
The next year or two are going to be extraordinarily tough for some people. I think we are going to see a degree of poverty and hunger in Britain that will be gut-wrenching to witness.
Speak for yourself!
In that you won't find it gut-wrenching? Surely you aren't the "you" in the Pet Shop Boys song The Theatre "we're the bums you step over as you leave the theatre". You're more nuanced than that.
Watching people work their arse off and still drown in debt is not something any of us should be able to just ignore. Its an economy with massive structural problems that hits every one of us.
How is it manifesting itself here in sunny Cyaak? Theft from heating oil tanks.
Sunak's package may be politically astute in his campaign to replace Johnson if/when that comes to pass.
However, there's virtually nothing for the bottom 10%: those on benefits, and the lowest earners. Many of these don't have cars. They spend the highest proportion of their income on food, clothes, essential goods and energy bills, the cost of all of which is increasing faster than any growth in wages, let alone benefits. The increase in the support fund is chicken feed. Life is going to be extraordinarily difficult for them. But, they're only 10% and not many of them vote Tory anyway.
A cynical package from a cynical government. But it will help Sunak.
The next year or two are going to be extraordinarily tough for some people. I think we are going to see a degree of poverty and hunger in Britain that will be gut-wrenching to witness.
Speak for yourself!
In that you won't find it gut-wrenching? Surely you aren't the "you" in the Pet Shop Boys song The Theatre "we're the bums you step over as you leave the theatre". You're more nuanced than that.
Watching people work their arse off and still drown in debt is not something any of us should be able to just ignore. Its an economy with massive structural problems that hits every one of us.
How is it manifesting itself here in sunny Cyaak? Theft from heating oil tanks.
No, I just felt like posting an opaque, meaningless reply to a somewhat over-wrought comment
To be more serious, I do wonder what inflation of near 10% will do to the nation. If it is sustained over a few years: fuckety fuck
I'm not sure it's over-wrought to be upset at the thought of many of our neighbours and fellow citizens not being able to afford to feed themselves or heat their homes. I thought that us members of the Liberal Metropolitan Elite didn't care enough about the less well off in this country, with our nasty cosmopolitan ways and disdain for the English working man, but now it seems we care too much. It's so confusing! Let me know when you have figured it out.
Your comment was hyperbolic and emotional, and I like to keep things level-headed. You need solid, moderate types like me to cut through the hysteria
You provide a great service in counteracting the faux outrage on here over home heating v food buying. not least as even in the UK the need for home heating is likely to recede substantially over the next few weeks as spring arrives. Of course then they'll be squealing that the poor cannot cope without aircon no doubt.
Good job she won't ever asked to consider cases where this might form an integral part of the case....
Given a precise legal context, rather than a gotcha trap question, I am sure she'll have no problem providing a meaningful definition.
Adult Human Female does the job.
Excellent. Loads of room for lawyers to argue about the definition of "adult" and "female" in any given context. We are probably broadly settled on "human" until we get a bit more advanced in tech. But then, the US has decided that corporations are people so that is probably also up for grabs.
Homo Neanderthalensis is as human as you or I!
Some of us are neanderthal-sapiens hybrids to a greater degree than the rest of us.
Cases - UP. But R is coming down, quite strongly. I suspect that we will back to R=1 in the next week or so. In Hospital - UP MV Beds - slightly UP Admissions - UP. R is steady. Deaths - Flat(ish)
I've lost track of how many colleagues, friends and relatives either have it or have just had it, None of them have died, most say it was moderately nasty but over in 1-2 weeks.
OK, we can cope. But what's striking is how it's changing behaviour. For example, when my organisation plans an event, we now have two organisers living in different places, to allow for the possibility that one of them will go down with it. I'm visiting elderly relatives next week, so a friend who I was planning to dine with on Friday suggested that it's best if we postpone till after my holiday. We're "living with Covid", as they say, but it's changing the way we arrange our lives, less day to day and more mapped out in advance.
Personally I made a decision months ago (over a year) that I would not consider covid in any way. Wish more would do the same tbh. Hopefully the exam season will not needlessly be disrupted but not hopeful
Good budget overall by Sunak especially for average and low income earners and drivers.
A cut in the basic rate of income tax, a rise in the NI threshold and a cut in fuel tax
Earth to HYUFD:
A cut in the basic rate of income tax is one thing, wibble about a possible cut in the basic rate of income tax in 2024 is another.
One take from the Budget: you can rule out a 2023 General Election.....
Looking at the reality - I don't think Boris and co will want one in 2024 either.
Meanwhile I'm watching payroll companies looking at the NI timing and going (on mass) how on f*** f*** f*** are we going to do this although with a lot more f***s
Tough.
So May 2024 if things are going tolerably for the blue team, October if it's a lemming march over the cliff?
That in itself is a bit of a win for the opposition. Both that things are going badly enough for the government to rule out autumn '23, and also that the government has been forced to give up some flexibility. Like moving pawns forward in chess, you can't undo that.
"I thought that if you have European ancestry then you probably have Neanderthal genes mixed in."
I remember arguing thirty years ago that if Neanderthals could produce viable offspring after mating with H.Sapiens, we'd find Neanderthal DNA in our genes. If it's shaggable, men would do it. It was hardly surprising when we did.
Cases - UP. But R is coming down, quite strongly. I suspect that we will back to R=1 in the next week or so. In Hospital - UP MV Beds - slightly UP Admissions - UP. R is steady. Deaths - Flat(ish)
I've lost track of how many colleagues, friends and relatives either have it or have just had it, None of them have died, most say it was moderately nasty but over in 1-2 weeks.
OK, we can cope. But what's striking is how it's changing behaviour. For example, when my organisation plans an event, we now have two organisers living in different places, to allow for the possibility that one of them will go down with it. I'm visiting elderly relatives next week, so a friend who I was planning to dine with on Friday suggested that it's best if we postpone till after my holiday. We're "living with Covid", as they say, but it's changing the way we arrange our lives, less day to day and more mapped out in advance.
I don't think even this behaviour will continue ad-infinitum. Everybody is going to get this, probably once a year, but natural immunity + vaccines + antivirals (for the most vulnerable) + better hospital treatment / procedures, I don't think even these kind of behavioural changes will be common come this time next year.
It's going to fade away, hopefully, to a background thing.
Do you really believe that PM Corbyn would have betrayed his lifelong principles and sent weapons to Ukraine before the invasion?
I think that it's actually much more likely that he would have cancelled the UK's army training scheme in Ukraine the day he got power.
You'd be better off asking Corbyn himself, if you're that bothered. Your obsession with Corbyn, a nobody these days, is strange. I seem to recall mentioning this a few days ago, and you denied it - but you do keep posting your "what if Corbyn....?" comments.
Sunak's package may be politically astute in his campaign to replace Johnson if/when that comes to pass.
However, there's virtually nothing for the bottom 10%: those on benefits, and the lowest earners. Many of these don't have cars. They spend the highest proportion of their income on food, clothes, essential goods and energy bills, the cost of all of which is increasing faster than any growth in wages, let alone benefits. The increase in the support fund is chicken feed. Life is going to be extraordinarily difficult for them. But, they're only 10% and not many of them vote Tory anyway.
A cynical package from a cynical government. But it will help Sunak.
The next year or two are going to be extraordinarily tough for some people. I think we are going to see a degree of poverty and hunger in Britain that will be gut-wrenching to witness.
Speak for yourself!
In that you won't find it gut-wrenching? Surely you aren't the "you" in the Pet Shop Boys song The Theatre "we're the bums you step over as you leave the theatre". You're more nuanced than that.
Watching people work their arse off and still drown in debt is not something any of us should be able to just ignore. Its an economy with massive structural problems that hits every one of us.
How is it manifesting itself here in sunny Cyaak? Theft from heating oil tanks.
Sunak's package may be politically astute in his campaign to replace Johnson if/when that comes to pass.
However, there's virtually nothing for the bottom 10%: those on benefits, and the lowest earners. Many of these don't have cars. They spend the highest proportion of their income on food, clothes, essential goods and energy bills, the cost of all of which is increasing faster than any growth in wages, let alone benefits. The increase in the support fund is chicken feed. Life is going to be extraordinarily difficult for them. But, they're only 10% and not many of them vote Tory anyway.
A cynical package from a cynical government. But it will help Sunak.
The next year or two are going to be extraordinarily tough for some people. I think we are going to see a degree of poverty and hunger in Britain that will be gut-wrenching to witness.
Speak for yourself!
In that you won't find it gut-wrenching? Surely you aren't the "you" in the Pet Shop Boys song The Theatre "we're the bums you step over as you leave the theatre". You're more nuanced than that.
Watching people work their arse off and still drown in debt is not something any of us should be able to just ignore. Its an economy with massive structural problems that hits every one of us.
How is it manifesting itself here in sunny Cyaak? Theft from heating oil tanks.
No, I just felt like posting an opaque, meaningless reply to a somewhat over-wrought comment
To be more serious, I do wonder what inflation of near 10% will do to the nation. If it is sustained over a few years: fuckety fuck
I'm not sure it's over-wrought to be upset at the thought of many of our neighbours and fellow citizens not being able to afford to feed themselves or heat their homes. I thought that us members of the Liberal Metropolitan Elite didn't care enough about the less well off in this country, with our nasty cosmopolitan ways and disdain for the English working man, but now it seems we care too much. It's so confusing! Let me know when you have figured it out.
Your comment was hyperbolic and emotional, and I like to keep things level-headed. You need solid, moderate types like me to cut through the hysteria
You provide a great service in counteracting the faux outrage on here over home heating v food buying. not least as even in the UK the need for home heating is likely to recede substantially over the next few weeks as spring arrives. Of course then they'll be squealing that the poor cannot cope without aircon no doubt.
Imagine using Leon as a counter to outrage, he practically invented it
Good job she won't ever asked to consider cases where this might form an integral part of the case....
Given a precise legal context, rather than a gotcha trap question, I am sure she'll have no problem providing a meaningful definition.
Adult Human Female does the job.
Excellent. Loads of room for lawyers to argue about the definition of "adult" and "female" in any given context. We are probably broadly settled on "human" until we get a bit more advanced in tech. But then, the US has decided that corporations are people so that is probably also up for grabs.
Homo Neanderthalensis is as human as you or I!
Some of us are neanderthal-sapiens hybrids to a greater degree than the rest of us.
Wow. A quick Google search, and it appears in some estimates that up to 75% of the neanderthal genome survives across humanity's genetic material. I wonder if George Church will move on to deextinction of neanderthals once he is done with woolly mammoths.
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
Depends which dots you join up. The other way of looking at this is that frozen IT thresholds (A four year freeze is going to be... 15%? 20%? erosion by inflation) are compensated by a cut in the headline rate. And heaven knows how the swings and roundabouts work. Probably badly.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
Sunak's package may be politically astute in his campaign to replace Johnson if/when that comes to pass.
However, there's virtually nothing for the bottom 10%: those on benefits, and the lowest earners. Many of these don't have cars. They spend the highest proportion of their income on food, clothes, essential goods and energy bills, the cost of all of which is increasing faster than any growth in wages, let alone benefits. The increase in the support fund is chicken feed. Life is going to be extraordinarily difficult for them. But, they're only 10% and not many of them vote Tory anyway.
A cynical package from a cynical government. But it will help Sunak.
The next year or two are going to be extraordinarily tough for some people. I think we are going to see a degree of poverty and hunger in Britain that will be gut-wrenching to witness.
Speak for yourself!
In that you won't find it gut-wrenching? Surely you aren't the "you" in the Pet Shop Boys song The Theatre "we're the bums you step over as you leave the theatre". You're more nuanced than that.
Watching people work their arse off and still drown in debt is not something any of us should be able to just ignore. Its an economy with massive structural problems that hits every one of us.
How is it manifesting itself here in sunny Cyaak? Theft from heating oil tanks.
Sunak's package may be politically astute in his campaign to replace Johnson if/when that comes to pass.
However, there's virtually nothing for the bottom 10%: those on benefits, and the lowest earners. Many of these don't have cars. They spend the highest proportion of their income on food, clothes, essential goods and energy bills, the cost of all of which is increasing faster than any growth in wages, let alone benefits. The increase in the support fund is chicken feed. Life is going to be extraordinarily difficult for them. But, they're only 10% and not many of them vote Tory anyway.
A cynical package from a cynical government. But it will help Sunak.
The next year or two are going to be extraordinarily tough for some people. I think we are going to see a degree of poverty and hunger in Britain that will be gut-wrenching to witness.
Speak for yourself!
In that you won't find it gut-wrenching? Surely you aren't the "you" in the Pet Shop Boys song The Theatre "we're the bums you step over as you leave the theatre". You're more nuanced than that.
Watching people work their arse off and still drown in debt is not something any of us should be able to just ignore. Its an economy with massive structural problems that hits every one of us.
How is it manifesting itself here in sunny Cyaak? Theft from heating oil tanks.
No, I just felt like posting an opaque, meaningless reply to a somewhat over-wrought comment
To be more serious, I do wonder what inflation of near 10% will do to the nation. If it is sustained over a few years: fuckety fuck
I'm not sure it's over-wrought to be upset at the thought of many of our neighbours and fellow citizens not being able to afford to feed themselves or heat their homes. I thought that us members of the Liberal Metropolitan Elite didn't care enough about the less well off in this country, with our nasty cosmopolitan ways and disdain for the English working man, but now it seems we care too much. It's so confusing! Let me know when you have figured it out.
Your comment was hyperbolic and emotional, and I like to keep things level-headed. You need solid, moderate types like me to cut through the hysteria
You provide a great service in counteracting the faux outrage on here over home heating v food buying. not least as even in the UK the need for home heating is likely to recede substantially over the next few weeks as spring arrives. Of course then they'll be squealing that the poor cannot cope without aircon no doubt.
Imagine using Leon as a counter to outrage, he practically invented it
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
The question is can Labour explain it in a way that gets workers voting for them...
It's easy. "The Tories raised taxes on workers and cut taxes for retirees" or "stealing from the young to give their voters yet a bung".
Do you really believe that PM Corbyn would have betrayed his lifelong principles and sent weapons to Ukraine before the invasion?
I think that it's actually much more likely that he would have cancelled the UK's army training scheme in Ukraine the day he got power.
You'd be better off asking Corbyn himself, if you're that bothered. Your obsession with Corbyn, a nobody these days, is strange. I seem to recall mentioning this a few days ago, and you denied it - but you do keep posting your "what if Corbyn....?" comments.
You noted my obsessively posting about him 3 times in a month.
I've mentioned him since because of Ange's bullshit about how he would have given NLAWs to Ukraine before the invasion.
Nick agreed with her. Either he missed some nuance in the question, or he's bullshitting as well.
There is NO WAY ON EARTH Jeremy Corbyn would have done this.
Read the Stop The War shit he's signed in the last month.
Until Nick answers - showing that he understands the question - I refuse to believe that he believes what he said.
EDIT and asking Corbyn myself? When do I get that chance? Nick is here.
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
Depends which dots you join up. The other way of looking at this is that frozen IT thresholds (A four year freeze is going to be... 15%? 20%? erosion by inflation) are compensated by a cut in the headline rate. And heaven knows how the swings and roundabouts work. Probably badly.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
No, ultimately we have a £12bn tax rise on working people and a £6bn tax cut for working and non-working people. The working people will get some of their money back and the non-working people will get some of the £6bn as well. There is a net transfer of wealth from the young to the old.
The easiest way to do it is merge NI and IT. No more exemption from NI for retirees.
Those growth rates aren't stellar, even after (hopefully) potential for WWIII has passed.
I assume such "forecasts" have quite big margins of error around them. Why is 2024 expected to have a bit more growth than 2023 and 2025?
I don't think the OBR have a good record on these predictions, but as a general feeling of which way the wing is blowing there is no expectation of bumper years ahead.
Which ought to terrify thinking Tories, it that’s not a oxymoron.
Stick to nurse, for fear of something worse....
Nurse Ratchett?
Brits need to start asking themselves, does it need to be like this? Is low productivity, low growth, and low wages just baked in now? Is the UK condemned to be a below average member of the West?
Your tribulations with tidal power are all part and parcel of the same thinking which seems to have taken grip of the country over the past decade (although there’s always been a strong bias towards it).
Tories used to worship Maggie for tearing up declinism. Now Tories are the declinists-in-chief.
I agree with you. Trouble is no one seems to be offering a viable alternative. For all that I would rather Starmer than Johnson for purely ethical reasons, he hardly inspires as a great revolutionary thinker. Corbyn would have been worse as his revolutionary thinking was 50 years out of date. Even those of a social democratic bent are merely set on copying the luke warm ideas of various European neighbours which would do nothing to prevent decline and would only, perhaps, cushion the blow a little.
My view - which I hope is reasonably well informed based on a lot of time outside the UK - is that pretty much the whole West is a below average member (if you will excuse the obvious mathematical and grammatical impossibility of that statement)
In fairness, the restraint by the Russian soldiers is pretty commedable too.
Fact that everyone has a camera on their person is a great restrainer, as with cops in USA.
Bet that guy is thinking "Fuck, they pay me shit. I haven't had a warm meal in a month. My feet are wet and freezing. If I shoot this guy, I will get shat on by the bosses. Fuck that."
In fairness, the restraint by the Russian soldiers is pretty commedable too.
Fact that everyone has a camera on their person is a great restrainer, as with cops in USA.
Hopefully so. The first massacre and reprisal and the easier it'll become. So far they've not proven too willing to do that at least, despite all the bombardment and more individual shooting etc.
Just listening to Rachel Reeves's response to Sunak. She tried some rhetoric with her "he could have done this; he didn't. He could have done that; he didn't. He could have done the other; he didn't".
It sounded so weak to me. I think that might have had something to do with the sound of her "didn't"; she almost put a "u" in the middle - like "didun't" - but I'm not sure any way of repeating "didn't" would have worked.
She should have gone with "He did not". Slowly. Much more emphatic.
Content quite reasonable although she missed a trick on benefits, its a fairly tough gig. Presentation poor tending to awful. She really struggles to impose herself.
You get the impression Rishi was a pretty good whip speaker when he did debating. A real hatchet job in reply.
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
Depends which dots you join up. The other way of looking at this is that frozen IT thresholds (A four year freeze is going to be... 15%? 20%? erosion by inflation) are compensated by a cut in the headline rate. And heaven knows how the swings and roundabouts work. Probably badly.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
For example, 4% inflation over 4 years is 17% cumulative.
Assume inflation hits everyone equally (a big assumption).
That means, in four years time:
20% kicks in at 10,750 in today’s money - not 12,570 40% kicks in at 43,700 - not 50,270 45% kicks in at 128,200 - not 150,000
Now factor in student loan interest rate rises. Increasing mortgage costs.
And add energy bills (less money for discretionary spend).
In fairness, the restraint by the Russian soldiers is pretty commedable too.
Fact that everyone has a camera on their person is a great restrainer, as with cops in USA.
Bet that guy is thinking "Fuck, they pay me shit. I haven't had a warm meal in a month. My feet are wet and freezing. If I shoot this guy, I will get shat on by the bosses. Fuck that."
Also possibility of free room AND board for extended period following future war crimes trials in The Hague.
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
The question is can Labour explain it in a way that gets workers voting for them...
It's easy. "The Tories raised taxes on workers and cut taxes for retirees" or "stealing from the young to give their voters yet a bung".
Stealing from the workers rather than young I think. Many workers are older but not yet in the Tory reward bracket so that may resonate more.
@Northern_Al appears obsessed with disassociating Labour from their leader of just two years ago, whose Cabinet their current leader happily served in for Corbyn's entire tenure.
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
The question is can Labour explain it in a way that gets workers voting for them...
More importantly how can labour, a party antagonistic to working class communities, re engage with them. It would be a tragedy for the red wall just to return to labour and be seen as a sinner repenting rather than extracting policies to improve their lives.
As Ukraine attempts the fairly risky manoeuvre of cutting off Russian forces invested around Kyiv, Russia looks to be taking another big gamble of its own.
Ukraine has repeatedly repulsed 🇷🇺 forces advancing on Mykolaiv & is now "able and willing" to take back territory seized by Russia, U.S. officials said.
As far as I can make out there are two bridges across the river between Kherson and Odessa. One is at Mykolaiv, and the other is at Voznesensk (actually that involves two bridges, one over a tributary, but they're close together, so for simplicities sake we can consider them one bridge with a bit of land in the middle).
The other option for the Russians is to build a temporary bridge.
I just don't see that they have the capability to do this, given their recent reverses in the area, and certainly not to secure a supply line to support an attack on Odessa (which is presumably the whole point).
If the Russians are trying this it would seem to be complete denial of the situation they find themselves in.
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
Depends which dots you join up. The other way of looking at this is that frozen IT thresholds (A four year freeze is going to be... 15%? 20%? erosion by inflation) are compensated by a cut in the headline rate. And heaven knows how the swings and roundabouts work. Probably badly.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
No, ultimately we have a £12bn tax rise on working people and a £6bn tax cut for working and non-working people. The working people will get some of their money back and the non-working people will get some of the £6bn as well. There is a net transfer of wealth from the young to the old.
The easiest way to do it is merge NI and IT. No more exemption from NI for retirees.
I genuninely find it bewildering that there is such a negative differential between earned and unearned income. Why on earth should that be the case? Basically money made from capital is under taxed, even if you cannot get away with calling it a capital gain.
If anything any system that is seeking not to be regressive would have the reverse as we did when Investment Income surcharge was 15% and NI was around 10%. Its immoral and when you add the moutain of student debt being incurred by the present generation economically illiterate.
@Northern_Al appears obsessed with disassociating Labour from their leader of just two years ago, whose Cabinet their current leader happily served in for Corbyn's entire tenure.
Any mention of Corbyn must be crushed.
You are beating a dead horse mnethinks, as one (out of not many) successes Starmer has achieved as Labour leader, is disassociating himself with the Yard Gnome.
Spanish property. Investment. Hedge against inflation?
Is Spain the best place to be buying in investment property if the world economy might take a dump? Serious question, I don't know, just instinctively doesn't feel so given some of the recent history (and excess property building in some areas).
Those growth rates aren't stellar, even after (hopefully) potential for WWIII has passed.
I assume such "forecasts" have quite big margins of error around them. Why is 2024 expected to have a bit more growth than 2023 and 2025?
I don't think the OBR have a good record on these predictions, but as a general feeling of which way the wing is blowing there is no expectation of bumper years ahead.
Which ought to terrify thinking Tories, it that’s not a oxymoron.
Stick to nurse, for fear of something worse....
Nurse Ratchett?
Brits need to start asking themselves, does it need to be like this? Is low productivity, low growth, and low wages just baked in now? Is the UK condemned to be a below average member of the West?
Your tribulations with tidal power are all part and parcel of the same thinking which seems to have taken grip of the country over the past decade (although there’s always been a strong bias towards it).
Tories used to worship Maggie for tearing up declinism. Now Tories are the declinists-in-chief.
I agree with you. Trouble is no one seems to be offering a viable alternative. For all that I would rather Starmer than Johnson for purely ethical reasons, he hardly inspires as a great revolutionary thinker. Corbyn would have been worse as his revolutionary thinking was 50 years out of date. Even those of a social democratic bent are merely set on copying the luke warm ideas of various European neighbours which would do nothing to prevent decline and would only, perhaps, cushion the blow a little.
My view - which I hope is reasonably well informed based on a lot of time outside the UK - is that pretty much the whole West is a below average member (if you will excuse the obvious mathematical and grammatical impossibility of that statement)
Yes, the West as a whole is facing a long term decline in growth.
The frustrating thing for people who live in or care about the UK is that it has fallen behind living standards elsewhere, and shows no signs of “catch-up”.
It’s one thing sitting in Copenhagen and thinking sadly of low growth. You’re already minted.
It’s another in Cracow, because living standards have been rising steadily upwards since 1989, and Eastern European economies continue to converge on the West.
In fairness, the restraint by the Russian soldiers is pretty commedable too.
Fact that everyone has a camera on their person is a great restrainer, as with cops in USA.
Hopefully so. The first massacre and reprisal and the easier it'll become. So far they've not proven too willing to do that at least, despite all the bombardment and more individual shooting etc.
X factor is degree to which individual officers & soldiers can be IDed, thanks to real-time documentation?
Spanish property. Investment. Hedge against inflation?
Is Spain the best place to be buying in investment property if the world economy might take a dump? Serious question, I don't know, just instinctively doesn't feel so.
@Northern_Al appears obsessed with disassociating Labour from their leader of just two years ago, whose Cabinet their current leader happily served in for Corbyn's entire tenure.
Not only that, but Starmer ran on a Corbynite platform to become Labour leader.
He gets an astonishingly easy ride for this.
He is just as opportunist and dishonest as Johnson, if not even more so.
One thing is for sure. There is a dearth of new ideas on both sides. Maybe there are no good answers to the post GFC economy? Just shades of poor
This has been true for quite a long time now. There seems to be very few ideas that parties have proposed that are actually realistic / workable / don't contain massive flaws or downsides.
@Northern_Al appears obsessed with disassociating Labour from their leader of just two years ago, whose Cabinet their current leader happily served in for Corbyn's entire tenure.
Any mention of Corbyn must be crushed.
Oh dear, desperate. Anybody who cared to peruse my many posts on here would be aware that I have no time for Corbyn. And Starmer served in his SC? So what. Johnson was May's FS before seeking to depose her.
I just find that your harassment of Nick with a question, to which you've already decided the answer regardless of what he says, mildly irritating.
Spanish property. Investment. Hedge against inflation?
Is Spain the best place to be buying in investment property if the world economy might take a dump? Serious question, I don't know, just instinctively doesn't feel so given some of the recent history (and excess property building in some areas).
But for precisely those reasons Spain is now VERY cheap (Portugal is 2 or 3 times the price)
You can properly charming little townhouses in nice villages in Andalusia for about £80k
One thing is for sure. There is a dearth of new ideas on both sides. Maybe there are no good answers to the post GFC economy? Just shades of poor
It’s not true, though.
Mainstream economists agree that the UK is held back by a crappy planning regime, poor investment levels, low skills, and the results of adding barriers to its main trading relationship.
It’s just that politicians refuse to go near them because they largely involve telling old people what they don’t want to hear.
Spanish property. Investment. Hedge against inflation?
Is Spain the best place to be buying in investment property if the world economy might take a dump? Serious question, I don't know, just instinctively doesn't feel so.
Go Portugal, then you can get the citizenship.
Haven't they recently changed those laws, so that the path to citizenship via the property buying route is restricted to buying properties in only certain shall we say less fashionable areas i.e. not the Algarve, which has a very solid property market.
The problem with Teams interviews is that if the interviewer and interviewee get along the conversation can overrun. A lot. With this many people to interview must stop doing that...
Spanish property. Investment. Hedge against inflation?
Is Spain the best place to be buying in investment property if the world economy might take a dump? Serious question, I don't know, just instinctively doesn't feel so.
Go Portugal, then you can get the citizenship.
Haven't they recently changed those laws, so that is restricted to buying properties in only certain shall we say less fashionable areas i.e. not the Algarve, which has a very solid property market.
Something should be done about landbanking. Use it or lose it. Builders buying land and sitting on it for years when they could put it into use.
A tax on land in general balanced by a reduction in council tax would be sensible - it would concentrate minds of land bankers to do something with the land. You'd need the council tax reduction to avoid a backlash about a tax on homes.
A good solid Liberal / Lib Dem policy, Mr Palmer. I am glad to see that the Labour Party is finally coming round to it. Only taken you 100 years..... (or more).
Those growth rates aren't stellar, even after (hopefully) potential for WWIII has passed.
I assume such "forecasts" have quite big margins of error around them. Why is 2024 expected to have a bit more growth than 2023 and 2025?
I don't think the OBR have a good record on these predictions, but as a general feeling of which way the wing is blowing there is no expectation of bumper years ahead.
Which ought to terrify thinking Tories, it that’s not a oxymoron.
Stick to nurse, for fear of something worse....
Nurse Ratchett?
Brits need to start asking themselves, does it need to be like this? Is low productivity, low growth, and low wages just baked in now? Is the UK condemned to be a below average member of the West?
Your tribulations with tidal power are all part and parcel of the same thinking which seems to have taken grip of the country over the past decade (although there’s always been a strong bias towards it).
Tories used to worship Maggie for tearing up declinism. Now Tories are the declinists-in-chief.
I agree with you. Trouble is no one seems to be offering a viable alternative. For all that I would rather Starmer than Johnson for purely ethical reasons, he hardly inspires as a great revolutionary thinker. Corbyn would have been worse as his revolutionary thinking was 50 years out of date. Even those of a social democratic bent are merely set on copying the luke warm ideas of various European neighbours which would do nothing to prevent decline and would only, perhaps, cushion the blow a little.
My view - which I hope is reasonably well informed based on a lot of time outside the UK - is that pretty much the whole West is a below average member (if you will excuse the obvious mathematical and grammatical impossibility of that statement)
I imagine that something will turn up; it usually does.
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
Depends which dots you join up. The other way of looking at this is that frozen IT thresholds (A four year freeze is going to be... 15%? 20%? erosion by inflation) are compensated by a cut in the headline rate. And heaven knows how the swings and roundabouts work. Probably badly.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
No, ultimately we have a £12bn tax rise on working people and a £6bn tax cut for working and non-working people. The working people will get some of their money back and the non-working people will get some of the £6bn as well. There is a net transfer of wealth from the young to the old.
The easiest way to do it is merge NI and IT. No more exemption from NI for retirees.
I genuninely find it bewildering that there is such a negative differential between earned and unearned income. Why on earth should that be the case? Basically money made from capital is under taxed, even if you cannot get away with calling it a capital gain.
If anything any system that is seeking not to be regressive would have the reverse as we did when Investment Income surcharge was 15% and NI was around 10%. Its immoral and when you add the moutain of student debt being incurred by the present generation economically illiterate.
It’s immoral. It’s illiterate. It literally incentivises rent-seeking over wealth creation.
And yet, like a dog returneth to its vomit, you keep voting Tory.
Spanish property. Investment. Hedge against inflation?
Is Spain the best place to be buying in investment property if the world economy might take a dump? Serious question, I don't know, just instinctively doesn't feel so given some of the recent history (and excess property building in some areas).
But for precisely those reasons Spain is now VERY cheap (Portugal is 2 or 3 times the price)
You can properly charming little townhouses in nice villages in Andalusia for about £80k
Again, I haven't checked, but instinctively, I would have though properties outside of the "it" area of the likes of the Algarve have got to be equally cheap in Portugal, no?
With respect to UK budget & economy, there was NYT story yesterday, about how European businesses were eagerly recruiting Ukrainian war refugees, to help relieve their current labor shortages.
Could the relative lag in UK intake of URK refugees be a drag on your economy? And if so, how much?
@Northern_Al appears obsessed with disassociating Labour from their leader of just two years ago, whose Cabinet their current leader happily served in for Corbyn's entire tenure.
Any mention of Corbyn must be crushed.
Oh dear, desperate. Anybody who cared to peruse my many posts on here would be aware that I have no time for Corbyn. And Starmer served in his SC? So what. Johnson was May's FS before seeking to depose her.
I just find that your harassment of Nick with a question, to which you've already decided the answer regardless of what he says, mildly irritating.
Why would you be obsessed with expunging Corbyn if you had time for him?
You're rightly embarrassed, I hope, that you supported him for years.
"Greek foreign minister to personally deliver humanitarian supplies to Mariupol"
"The U.S. hasn’t sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich because Ukraine’s President Zelensky said he's acting as a go-between in peace talks with Russia, people familiar with the plans said."
@Northern_Al appears obsessed with disassociating Labour from their leader of just two years ago, whose Cabinet their current leader happily served in for Corbyn's entire tenure.
Any mention of Corbyn must be crushed.
Oh dear, desperate. Anybody who cared to peruse my many posts on here would be aware that I have no time for Corbyn. And Starmer served in his SC? So what. Johnson was May's FS before seeking to depose her.
I just find that your harassment of Nick with a question, to which you've already decided the answer regardless of what he says, mildly irritating.
Why would you be obsessed with expunging Corbyn if you had time for him?
You're rightly embarrassed, I hope, that you supported him for years.
Nick can look after himself poppet.
Read much more carefully - I said I had no time for Corbyn. And don't you go "poppet"ing me, thanks!
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
Depends which dots you join up. The other way of looking at this is that frozen IT thresholds (A four year freeze is going to be... 15%? 20%? erosion by inflation) are compensated by a cut in the headline rate. And heaven knows how the swings and roundabouts work. Probably badly.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
For example, 4% inflation over 4 years is 17% cumulative.
Assume inflation hits everyone equally (a big assumption).
That means, in four years time:
20% kicks in at 10,750 in today’s money - not 12,570 40% kicks in at 43,700 - not 50,270 45% kicks in at 128,200 - not 150,000
Now factor in student loan interest rate rises. Increasing mortgage costs.
And add energy bills (less money for discretionary spend).
So, pretty much every IT payer is 19% of £1800 down because of the threshold freeze, that's £342.
So to be better off because of the rate cut, you need to be on £34200 + £12570, that's £46k and a bit. Quite a lot really.
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
Depends which dots you join up. The other way of looking at this is that frozen IT thresholds (A four year freeze is going to be... 15%? 20%? erosion by inflation) are compensated by a cut in the headline rate. And heaven knows how the swings and roundabouts work. Probably badly.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
No, ultimately we have a £12bn tax rise on working people and a £6bn tax cut for working and non-working people. The working people will get some of their money back and the non-working people will get some of the £6bn as well. There is a net transfer of wealth from the young to the old.
The easiest way to do it is merge NI and IT. No more exemption from NI for retirees.
I genuninely find it bewildering that there is such a negative differential between earned and unearned income. Why on earth should that be the case? Basically money made from capital is under taxed, even if you cannot get away with calling it a capital gain.
If anything any system that is seeking not to be regressive would have the reverse as we did when Investment Income surcharge was 15% and NI was around 10%. Its immoral and when you add the moutain of student debt being incurred by the present generation economically illiterate.
It’s immoral. It’s illiterate. It literally incentivises rent-seeking over wealth creation.
And yet, like a dog returneth to its vomit, you keep voting Tory.
Is someone else offering an alternative prospectus?
Politico.com - Trump privately works to keep a key cog of his political machinery intact Openly discussing a 2024 run, the former president has welcomed key religious leaders at his private club.
As Zoe daily cases hit 330,000 - we see cases rising in all areas in all ages to record levels and super infectious omicron BA.2 now over 93 percent of U.K. cases. Hitting schools and hospitals again and still no public health messaging!
Who gives a f**k that its hitting schools, or hospitals? We have vaccines. It doesn't matter a jot how many cases there are, let the vaccines do their jobs and move on already.
When the people in Schools and Hospitals are off sick in sufficient numbers it matters. And that is happening no matter how much you want to "move on already".
Yes that makes it no different to an outbreak of norovirus. But just as you can't "move on already" and still have people in school with arse-spraying mayhem you also can't have people in school who feel like absolute crap can't teach and are mobile virus sprayers.
Spanish property. Investment. Hedge against inflation?
Is Spain the best place to be buying in investment property if the world economy might take a dump? Serious question, I don't know, just instinctively doesn't feel so given some of the recent history (and excess property building in some areas).
But for precisely those reasons Spain is now VERY cheap (Portugal is 2 or 3 times the price)
You can properly charming little townhouses in nice villages in Andalusia for about £80k
Again, I haven't checked, but instinctively, I would have though properties outside of the "it" area of the likes of the Algarve have got to be equally cheap in Portugal, no?
No, the whole of Portugal went mad, property wise, about 10-15 years ago. Maybe it was the visa/passport offer?
Almost everywhere, outside the high rainy mountains, is much more expensive than Spain
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
The question is can Labour explain it in a way that gets workers voting for them...
It's easy. "The Tories raised taxes on workers and cut taxes for retirees" or "stealing from the young to give their voters yet a bung".
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
Depends which dots you join up. The other way of looking at this is that frozen IT thresholds (A four year freeze is going to be... 15%? 20%? erosion by inflation) are compensated by a cut in the headline rate. And heaven knows how the swings and roundabouts work. Probably badly.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
Flew Glasgow to Dublin and back yesterday with Fekkerair. OK so it was cheap, but even so. App is constantly trying to upsell, even when all you want is your boarding pass QR code. Planes are plastered with adverts inside. Gate and cabin crew practically shouting at people to get on and off quickly - we were stood out on the apron in Dublin by the steps as the inbound pax were still getting off.
I do quite like them though. Its nasty but cheap and honest nasty. And the "just fekking get there" approach made for two fun flights. Outbound especially which seems to climb pretty steeply out of Glasgow, then did a pair of high speed banked turns onto the glidepath into Dublin, slammed it down and finished with a brake-test stop onto the stand. Followed almost immediately by "GET OFF NOW" instructions from the crew.
@Northern_Al appears obsessed with disassociating Labour from their leader of just two years ago, whose Cabinet their current leader happily served in for Corbyn's entire tenure.
Any mention of Corbyn must be crushed.
Oh dear, desperate. Anybody who cared to peruse my many posts on here would be aware that I have no time for Corbyn. And Starmer served in his SC? So what. Johnson was May's FS before seeking to depose her.
I just find that your harassment of Nick with a question, to which you've already decided the answer regardless of what he says, mildly irritating.
Why would you be obsessed with expunging Corbyn if you had time for him?
You're rightly embarrassed, I hope, that you supported him for years.
Nick can look after himself poppet.
Read much more carefully - I said I had no time for him. And don't you go "poppet"ing me, thanks!
I understood perfectly well. You don't appear to have understood me.
Spanish property. Investment. Hedge against inflation?
Is Spain the best place to be buying in investment property if the world economy might take a dump? Serious question, I don't know, just instinctively doesn't feel so given some of the recent history (and excess property building in some areas).
But for precisely those reasons Spain is now VERY cheap (Portugal is 2 or 3 times the price)
You can properly charming little townhouses in nice villages in Andalusia for about £80k
Again, I haven't checked, but instinctively, I would have though properties outside of the "it" area of the likes of the Algarve have got to be equally cheap in Portugal, no?
No, the whole of Portugal went mad, property wise, about 10-15 years ago. Maybe it was the visa/passport offer?
Almost everywhere, outside the high rainy mountains, is much more expensive than Spain
I didn't realise that. I have been a number of times to the less fashionable parts of Portugal (and many are far more spectacular than the Algarve), but can't say I have ever looked closely at the house prices.
You need to ask Flint Knapper Monthly for a pay rise....
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
Depends which dots you join up. The other way of looking at this is that frozen IT thresholds (A four year freeze is going to be... 15%? 20%? erosion by inflation) are compensated by a cut in the headline rate. And heaven knows how the swings and roundabouts work. Probably badly.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
No, ultimately we have a £12bn tax rise on working people and a £6bn tax cut for working and non-working people. The working people will get some of their money back and the non-working people will get some of the £6bn as well. There is a net transfer of wealth from the young to the old.
The easiest way to do it is merge NI and IT. No more exemption from NI for retirees.
I agree, but no Government will ever merge them. It’s too useful to let people believe the myth that the basic rate is 20% and not address the regressive nature of NI for those of us lucky enough to be over the upper earnings limit (we’d get a big bill if that went, and that demographic squeals loudly). I do think that, with the triple lock intact, there is surely enough top over to levy NI on the retired in the Budget.
As predicted, the Tories have opted to cut income tax rather than reverse the NI rise. They are stealing from working age people to shovel tax cuts to non-working people. It may please a few simpletons and get HYFUD going on about this being a tax cutting government but it is anything but. This government is nothing more than a vote buying operation for old people.
Depends which dots you join up. The other way of looking at this is that frozen IT thresholds (A four year freeze is going to be... 15%? 20%? erosion by inflation) are compensated by a cut in the headline rate. And heaven knows how the swings and roundabouts work. Probably badly.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
Flew Glasgow to Dublin and back yesterday with Fekkerair. OK so it was cheap, but even so. App is constantly trying to upsell, even when all you want is your boarding pass QR code. Planes are plastered with adverts inside. Gate and cabin crew practically shouting at people to get on and off quickly - we were stood out on the apron in Dublin by the steps as the inbound pax were still getting off.
I do quite like them though. Its nasty but cheap and honest nasty. And the "just fekking get there" approach made for two fun flights. Outbound especially which seems to climb pretty steeply out of Glasgow, then did a pair of high speed banked turns onto the glidepath into Dublin, slammed it down and finished with a brake-test stop onto the stand. Followed almost immediately by "GET OFF NOW" instructions from the crew.
No wonder Ryanair don't like to take deaf passengers. At least in the past. No idea if they are more reliable now.
1 - Compared Ukraine destruction to the Battlefield of Verdun. Appropriate, but I did not expect it - that drives home a comparison with the same done to France, of course. 2 - Lots about Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. 3 - "Support those values". 4 - Named and shamed a series of companies still in Russia.
Tracking the numbers on Oryx, the proportion of tanks to total vehicles destroyed seems to have dropped a bit in the last few days. I am sure part of that is the Russians are no longer attacking so much and are digging in more, presenting fewer good tank targets. But I wonder if another part of it is that the Ukrainians are prioritizing hitting Russian artillery, anti-aircraft and logistics assets more now.
1 - Compared Ukraine destruction to the Battlefield of Verdun. Appropriate, but I did not expect it - that drives home a comparison with the same done to France, of course. 2 - Lots about Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. 3 - "Support those values". 4 - Named and shamed a series of companies still in Russia.
I guess it's no coincidence that CA and BNP decided to get out of Russia
As Zoe daily cases hit 330,000 - we see cases rising in all areas in all ages to record levels and super infectious omicron BA.2 now over 93 percent of U.K. cases. Hitting schools and hospitals again and still no public health messaging!
Who gives a f**k that its hitting schools, or hospitals? We have vaccines. It doesn't matter a jot how many cases there are, let the vaccines do their jobs and move on already.
When the people in Schools and Hospitals are off sick in sufficient numbers it matters. And that is happening no matter how much you want to "move on already".
Yes that makes it no different to an outbreak of norovirus. But just as you can't "move on already" and still have people in school with arse-spraying mayhem you also can't have people in school who feel like absolute crap can't teach and are mobile virus sprayers.
If people feel like absolute crap they should stay home whether it be norovirus, flu, common cold or Covid.
If people are fit and healthy but have a positive line on a test they should not be taking the test and should be going in to work.
Not difficult. Too many people are isolating because they're "infected" or "positive" not because they're "sick".
“The threshold for paying National Insurance will increase by £3,000 from July. "People will be able to earn £12,570 a year without paying a single penny of income tax or national insurance". Chancellor says it is worth £6bn to 30 million people.” Does this apply to everyone, not just tax cut for those lower earners? Will those on higher earnings benefit from this too not just targeted to those who need it most?
We are being reassured it’s good picture on borrowing going forward, that is how income tax can be cut before end of the electoral period and Rishi doesn’t need to be so cautious. But we are heading towards recession in US and UK aren’t we, that can’t be avoided now, that will certainly send borrowing up? You have to spend what you don’t have in recessions don’t you. Anyone on PB feel we can avoid recession in next couple of years?
I think we can avoid recession. Wars are usually nowhere near as harmful to the world economy as either credit crises (which inflation helps to ease) or demand shocks like pandemics.
That said high oil prices do tend to presage global recessions, almost like clockwork. In this case I think their chilling effect will be offset by the pent up demand post-Covid.
A Chinese Omicron wave and lockdowns could be the joker here. Might take the edge off commodity prices though.
But surely one of the big take outs from the Chancellors Statement is growth is looking fragile?
Governments can also cause recession through their own overheating policies creating a boom and bust scenario? Both internal and external factors at play before this announcement are surely acting in the same way, pushing up inflation even without government help, even without employees gifting generous pay rises across the board. The right thing to do in inflationary period is spend not save.
I know the consensus on here is that Rishi has given with one hand taken with other to create something neutral overall, but if we are full steam ahead towards a recession, a belt tightening not give away tax slashing budget would have been much more appropriate in a macro economic sense? If anything, fiscal loosening not tightening Rishi announced today makes recession more not less likely? If we trust what the Tories have written on the side of this budgets can, it’s contents are in fact stoking recession.
Government budgets should be countercyclical - fiscal loosening when recession looks likely
Sounds cataclysmic. Martin Lewis on radio 4 is predicting disaster for most. Plus a wonderful headline for tomorrows papers. "WE Are at the Edge of a Personal Finance Precipice"
As Zoe daily cases hit 330,000 - we see cases rising in all areas in all ages to record levels and super infectious omicron BA.2 now over 93 percent of U.K. cases. Hitting schools and hospitals again and still no public health messaging!
Who gives a f**k that its hitting schools, or hospitals? We have vaccines. It doesn't matter a jot how many cases there are, let the vaccines do their jobs and move on already.
When the people in Schools and Hospitals are off sick in sufficient numbers it matters. And that is happening no matter how much you want to "move on already".
Yes that makes it no different to an outbreak of norovirus. But just as you can't "move on already" and still have people in school with arse-spraying mayhem you also can't have people in school who feel like absolute crap can't teach and are mobile virus sprayers.
If people feel like absolute crap they should stay home whether it be norovirus, flu, common cold or Covid.
If people are fit and healthy but have a positive line on a test they should not be taking the test and should be going in to work.
Not difficult. Too many people are isolating because they're "infected" or "positive" not because they're "sick".
Yeah, but on the other side of the equation, the sun is out. Who wants to work?
SNAP POLL: % of Britons who think the policies announced in the spring statement will benefit people like them...
A great deal: 2% A fair amount: 11% Not very much: 42% Not at all: 24% Don't know: 20%
It unravelled quickly
That depends on what the usual rating is from such polls. It may well be that every time people say not very much. If they don't trust the top team then they'll probably say that even if it was good, or vice versa.
Interesting on page 63 of the OBR book - "since 2019 the UK appears to have become a less trade intensive economy with trade as % of GDP falling 12% since 2019 - two and a half times more than any other G7 country".
A pretty good analysis of the changing Russia/Ukraine relationship from exactly a year ago. Putin wanted to rebuild a 'Russian world' yet all his actions alienated Ukraine. Whilst most people were paying little attention a chasm was opening up on Europe's longest border.
Tracking the numbers on Oryx, the proportion of tanks to total vehicles destroyed seems to have dropped a bit in the last few days. I am sure part of that is the Russians are no longer attacking so much and are digging in more, presenting fewer good tank targets. But I wonder if another part of it is that the Ukrainians are prioritizing hitting Russian artillery, anti-aircraft and logistics assets more now.
Oryx did a big catch up on Ukrainian equipment that was lost around Kherson in the early days so I think it was a factor of bookkeeping. Post-that, the ratio looks to be back to the 4:1 level
Spanish property. Investment. Hedge against inflation?
Is Spain the best place to be buying in investment property if the world economy might take a dump? Serious question, I don't know, just instinctively doesn't feel so.
Go Portugal, then you can get the citizenship.
Haven't they recently changed those laws, so that the path to citizenship via the property buying route is restricted to buying properties in only certain shall we say less fashionable areas i.e. not the Algarve, which has a very solid property market.
When I last looked, it seemed they had just suspended it for Russia and Belarus.
(Checks)
Most countries seem to be described have temporarily halted it for Russians. Which sounds like leaving a backtrack open depending on circs.
As Zoe daily cases hit 330,000 - we see cases rising in all areas in all ages to record levels and super infectious omicron BA.2 now over 93 percent of U.K. cases. Hitting schools and hospitals again and still no public health messaging!
Who gives a f**k that its hitting schools, or hospitals? We have vaccines. It doesn't matter a jot how many cases there are, let the vaccines do their jobs and move on already.
When the people in Schools and Hospitals are off sick in sufficient numbers it matters. And that is happening no matter how much you want to "move on already".
Yes that makes it no different to an outbreak of norovirus. But just as you can't "move on already" and still have people in school with arse-spraying mayhem you also can't have people in school who feel like absolute crap can't teach and are mobile virus sprayers.
If people feel like absolute crap they should stay home whether it be norovirus, flu, common cold or Covid.
If people are fit and healthy but have a positive line on a test they should not be taking the test and should be going in to work.
Not difficult. Too many people are isolating because they're "infected" or "positive" not because they're "sick".
Good heavens, Bart, I had no idea you were a medical man.
SNAP POLL: % of Britons who think the policies announced in the spring statement will benefit people like them...
A great deal: 2% A fair amount: 11% Not very much: 42% Not at all: 24% Don't know: 20%
It unravelled quickly
That depends on what the usual rating is from such polls. It may well be that every time people say not very much. If they don't trust the top team then they'll probably say that even if it was good, or vice versa.
SNAP POLL: did the spring statement do enough to help people with the increased cost of living?
Has done enough: 6% Has not done enough: 69% Don't know: 25%
That’s the wrong question. It’s like when your employer asks if you are satisfied with your salary - always say “no” because what good can it do you to say yes? The interesting questions would be the more nuanced “doing what it can”/“getting the balance right” ones.
As Zoe daily cases hit 330,000 - we see cases rising in all areas in all ages to record levels and super infectious omicron BA.2 now over 93 percent of U.K. cases. Hitting schools and hospitals again and still no public health messaging!
Who gives a f**k that its hitting schools, or hospitals? We have vaccines. It doesn't matter a jot how many cases there are, let the vaccines do their jobs and move on already.
When the people in Schools and Hospitals are off sick in sufficient numbers it matters. And that is happening no matter how much you want to "move on already".
Yes that makes it no different to an outbreak of norovirus. But just as you can't "move on already" and still have people in school with arse-spraying mayhem you also can't have people in school who feel like absolute crap can't teach and are mobile virus sprayers.
If people feel like absolute crap they should stay home whether it be norovirus, flu, common cold or Covid.
If people are fit and healthy but have a positive line on a test they should not be taking the test and should be going in to work.
Not difficult. Too many people are isolating because they're "infected" or "positive" not because they're "sick".
Good heavens, Bart, I had no idea you were a medical man.
As Ukraine attempts the fairly risky manoeuvre of cutting off Russian forces invested around Kyiv, Russia looks to be taking another big gamble of its own.
Ukraine has repeatedly repulsed 🇷🇺 forces advancing on Mykolaiv & is now "able and willing" to take back territory seized by Russia, U.S. officials said.
As far as I can make out there are two bridges across the river between Kherson and Odessa. One is at Mykolaiv, and the other is at Voznesensk (actually that involves two bridges, one over a tributary, but they're close together, so for simplicities sake we can consider them one bridge with a bit of land in the middle).
The other option for the Russians is to build a temporary bridge.
I just don't see that they have the capability to do this, given their recent reverses in the area, and certainly not to secure a supply line to support an attack on Odessa (which is presumably the whole point).
If the Russians are trying this it would seem to be complete denial of the situation they find themselves in.
Bridge-building vehicles were one of the first things the Ukrainians took out in the supply convoys.
Comments
So May 2024 if things are going tolerably for the blue team, October if it's a lemming march over the cliff?
That in itself is a bit of a win for the opposition. Both that things are going badly enough for the government to rule out autumn '23, and also that the government has been forced to give up some flexibility. Like moving pawns forward in chess, you can't undo that.
"I thought that if you have European ancestry then you probably have Neanderthal genes mixed in."
I remember arguing thirty years ago that if Neanderthals could produce viable offspring after mating with H.Sapiens, we'd find Neanderthal DNA in our genes. If it's shaggable, men would do it. It was hardly surprising when we did.
Carl Fridh Kleberg
@FridhKleberg
Breaking: Sweden will send another 5,000 anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, Minister of Defense tells national news agency TT.
https://twitter.com/FridhKleberg/status/1506661639323541504
Someone replied with this!
GOP senators launch salvos on "critical race theory," criminal sentencing and representing Guantanamo inmates.
1. Cruz ties Jackson to ‘critical race theory’ but other Republicans pass
2. On child porn sentences, Jackson turns the tables on Congress
3. Breyer who?
4. Is Jackson in an information bubble?
5. Lindsey cuts loose
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/22/ketanji-brown-jackson-senate-hearing-day-2-takeaways-analysis-00019538
We’re gonna party like it’s 1945.
Just, without the whole VE Day and wholesale establishment of a welfare state thing.
Sunak makes Ryanair's pricing policy look simple and transparent.
I've mentioned him since because of Ange's bullshit about how he would have given NLAWs to Ukraine before the invasion.
Nick agreed with her. Either he missed some nuance in the question, or he's bullshitting as well.
There is NO WAY ON EARTH Jeremy Corbyn would have done this.
Read the Stop The War shit he's signed in the last month.
Until Nick answers - showing that he understands the question - I refuse to believe that he believes what he said.
EDIT and asking Corbyn myself? When do I get that chance? Nick is here.
The easiest way to do it is merge NI and IT. No more exemption from NI for retirees.
My view - which I hope is reasonably well informed based on a lot of time outside the UK - is that pretty much the whole West is a below average member (if you will excuse the obvious mathematical and grammatical impossibility of that statement)
He's FAR beyond "tired and emotional" these days. Though still the same old pile of poodle crap.
You get the impression Rishi was a pretty good whip speaker when he did debating. A real hatchet job in reply.
4% inflation over 4 years is 17% cumulative.
Assume inflation hits everyone equally (a big assumption).
That means, in four years time:
20% kicks in at 10,750 in today’s money - not 12,570
40% kicks in at 43,700 - not 50,270
45% kicks in at 128,200 - not 150,000
Now factor in student loan interest rate rises.
Increasing mortgage costs.
And add energy bills (less money for discretionary spend).
Any mention of Corbyn must be crushed.
The other option for the Russians is to build a temporary bridge.
I just don't see that they have the capability to do this, given their recent reverses in the area, and certainly not to secure a supply line to support an attack on Odessa (which is presumably the whole point).
If the Russians are trying this it would seem to be complete denial of the situation they find themselves in.
If anything any system that is seeking not to be regressive would have the reverse as we did when Investment Income surcharge was 15% and NI was around 10%. Its immoral and when you add the moutain of student debt being incurred by the present generation economically illiterate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh7xlEUMdFs
Maybe there are no good answers to the post GFC economy? Just shades of poor
The frustrating thing for people who live in or care about the UK is that it has fallen behind living standards elsewhere, and shows no signs of “catch-up”.
It’s one thing sitting in Copenhagen and thinking sadly of low growth. You’re already minted.
It’s another in Cracow, because living standards have been rising steadily upwards since 1989, and Eastern European economies continue to converge on the West.
It’s another thing in, say, Cardiff.
So buy a little bolthole in Spain, which will be agreeable to visit, and also provide a bulwark against inflation? Why not?
He gets an astonishingly easy ride for this.
He is just as opportunist and dishonest as Johnson, if not even more so.
I just find that your harassment of Nick with a question, to which you've already decided the answer regardless of what he says, mildly irritating.
You can properly charming little townhouses in nice villages in Andalusia for about £80k
Mainstream economists agree that the UK is held back by a crappy planning regime, poor investment levels, low skills, and the results of adding barriers to its main trading relationship.
It’s just that politicians refuse to go near them because they largely involve telling old people what they don’t want to hear.
It’s illiterate.
It literally incentivises rent-seeking over wealth creation.
And yet, like a dog returneth to its vomit, you keep voting Tory.
Could the relative lag in UK intake of URK refugees be a drag on your economy? And if so, how much?
You're rightly embarrassed, I hope, that you supported him for years.
Nick can look after himself poppet.
"Greek foreign minister to personally deliver humanitarian supplies to Mariupol"
"The U.S. hasn’t sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich because Ukraine’s President Zelensky said he's acting as a go-between in peace talks with Russia, people familiar with the plans said."
So to be better off because of the rate cut, you need to be on £34200 + £12570, that's £46k and a bit. Quite a lot really.
So not only stingy Sunak but sneaky Sunak.
Plus all the other stuff.
Openly discussing a 2024 run, the former president has welcomed key religious leaders at his private club.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/23/trump-evangelical-leaders-coalition-00019617
Yes that makes it no different to an outbreak of norovirus. But just as you can't "move on already" and still have people in school with arse-spraying mayhem you also can't have people in school who feel like absolute crap can't teach and are mobile virus sprayers.
Almost everywhere, outside the high rainy mountains, is much more expensive than Spain
I do quite like them though. Its nasty but cheap and honest nasty. And the "just fekking get there" approach made for two fun flights. Outbound especially which seems to climb pretty steeply out of Glasgow, then did a pair of high speed banked turns onto the glidepath into Dublin, slammed it down and finished with a brake-test stop onto the stand. Followed almost immediately by "GET OFF NOW" instructions from the crew.
And I'll "poppet" whoever I like.
You need to ask Flint Knapper Monthly for a pay rise....
£27,296 to £49,130 RPI (currently 1.5%), plus up to 3%
Over £49,130 Usually RPI (currently 1.5%), plus 3%
Student loan repayments - does Rishi have any ideas?
Listening to a summary of the speech.
1 - Compared Ukraine destruction to the Battlefield of Verdun. Appropriate, but I did not expect it - that drives home a comparison with the same done to France, of course.
2 - Lots about Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.
3 - "Support those values".
4 - Named and shamed a series of companies still in Russia.
To the extent anyone’s been protected, it’s high income earners and of course pensioners.
The very bottom deciles are being sent to the wall.
https://twitter.com/ianmulheirn/status/1506679884608909321?s=21
https://twitter.com/BenDoBrown/status/1506630835381936142?s=20&t=ftJzCv88AqxtoUmRjgiIwA
If people are fit and healthy but have a positive line on a test they should not be taking the test and should be going in to work.
Not difficult. Too many people are isolating because they're "infected" or "positive" not because they're "sick".
What a line!
A great deal: 2%
A fair amount: 11%
Not very much: 42%
Not at all: 24%
Don't know: 20%
It unravelled quickly
Has done enough: 6%
Has not done enough: 69%
Don't know: 25%
https://twitter.com/bbcsimonjack/status/1506671189544034305?s=21
🤷🏻♂️
A pretty good analysis of the changing Russia/Ukraine relationship from exactly a year ago. Putin wanted to rebuild a 'Russian world' yet all his actions alienated Ukraine. Whilst most people were paying little attention a chasm was opening up on Europe's longest border.
(Checks)
Most countries seem to be described have temporarily halted it for Russians. Which sounds like leaving a backtrack open depending on circs.
https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/russia-ukraine-war-these-eu-countries-have-so-far-suspended-golden-visas-for-russians/
And iirc in Portugal they tend to get Chinese not Russians.