There's a lot more to that story than what the times is talking about.
The company has been looking to get rid of him for a while having failed to do so when he did something (far worse) a while back - I can't remember the gory details as eek twin b knows a lot but being a student she isn't up yet.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
If we're looking for things that we should have done more of, we should have done more to improve insulation and switch to heat pumps. Improving household insulation is a big win during winter, and it's an area where the UK is behind the rest of northern Europe. Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers, such that burning the same gas in a power station would create more heat via a heat pump than burning it in a gas boiler would.
If we wanted a bridge from hydrocarbons to renewables then we should have built more nuclear. The clip doing the rounds a few weeks ago of Clegg circa 2010 saying that the problem with building nuclear is that it would be expensive and would only be coming online by 2022 does show a failure of long-term thinking.
Heat pumps are not more effcient than a modern gas boiler on a cold day
Are they more efficient over the course of the year, though? (which I guess is the relevant question unless the idea is to have both). As I understand it the problem with heat pumps is that our homes are often not well insulated enough for them to work. I've got one in our very well insulated garden room and it works a treat. In our draughty Victoria house I imagine it would struggle.
They work ok in a very well insulated modern house, however they will not heat any house to the same way a gas boiler does on a cold day. On a very cold day they will hardly work at all as the outside fan will spend most of its energy ensuring that it does not freeze up rather than heating the house. We have installed a few heat pumps and the end users are disappointed with them because their houses are not warm in the winter.
The technology is not there yet for heat pumps as a mass alternative to a modern gas boiler.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
So by my calculation low income households will have a unit price cap that translates to ~£1300 per year, everyone else £1950 per year?
Or is that low income additional support cancelled?
If these are the numbers then I think it will just about work and it incentives every saving. I've been looking up individual room control for the heating, we need the baby room to be warm overnight but the rest of the house doesn't matter as much, being able to set our room to 18 degrees and Jen's room to 22 degrees and downstairs to 15 degrees overnight will save a lot of energy.
I always find the average UK gas consumption fascinatingly high given how pokey the average UK property is.
Appalling insulation.
Plus people who like to be at 25 deg C in winter.
Visiting my grandparents home has always been like stepping into a sauna. Though since my grandad is in his 90s everyone's too polite to say anything.
We visited my grandparents recently and they were talking about the impact of the energy cost. My nan's preferred solution is can't the SAS just "take out" Putin so this could all go back to normal?
Due to the rising cost of energy they've turned the thermostat down. Its now "only" 26.5 C
When I started dating my wife I visited her mum's house. Kept around 25 deg C. Unbearable. I've managed to retrain the wife (just about) and the mother in law now has the thermostat at 16 deg C, with a wood burner for the colder months. Much more pleasant.
1) Not heard of her 2) Liked her speech & PMQs (after we showed them) 3) But furious at idea of energy firms not having windfall tax, with taxpayers picking up the tab instead
Does anyone “furious at not taxing energy companies” have any idea how the UK government is supposed to tax Saudi Aramco or Qatargas?
The public generally aren’t interested in the practicalities and want a punchbag for how they’re currently feeling . Labour were serving up the energy companies , Truss has decided to protect their inflated profits and put the whole tab onto tax payers . I expect she’ll still get some poll bounce more out of relief from much of the public but she has left room for the opposition to attack her. I think it’s a case of she could have caused Labour much more discomfort and they’ll be relieved she left that opening for them .
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Not sure if it explains anything but aren’t sash windows a very clever bit of design where by opening the top and bottom halves equally creates an airflow effect which doesn’t happen with hinged windows.
However the sash style would probably have been more helpful in warmer climes and the hinged in our delightful damp and windy country.
Indeed that is exactly the point with them.
They are also the most beautiful domestic window design ever invented. Especially in Georgian houses
And if it’s listed you’ll never get permission to double glaze “thick curtains” is the council’s suggestion.
What often seems to be forgotten about the Thatcher tax cuts is that they were delivered on the back of growing revenues from North Sea oil and huge privatisation programmes. I’d argue that both windfalls were wasted in that way, but they were windfalls nevertheless. Today’s Tories have nothing like that to fall back on. The risk they are taking is huge. Markets will inevitably notice that. That will make borrowing more expensive and so increase the risk. It’s right wing Corbynism, pure and simple. Maybe even worse as a lot of Corbynista borrowing would have been focused on improving the public realm and general infrastructure.
The price cap side is not Corbynista or right wing, it is inevitable. There was no other way of doing it which would leave the economy still functioning. Of course it could have been set at a slightly different level, or delivered slightly differently, but if we had let average bills get to £5k per year the economy would collapse on a scale not seen in our lifetimes.
My concern is that Truss knew this for the last 3 months, yet told the electorate she was campaigning to win over the direct opposite of what she ended up doing - massive state handouts funded by debt. How am I supposed to trust the Truss in 24?
The taxation side, both no additional taxes on energy extractors and the general corporation tax cut are weird and poor choices.
Except that she's not doing the direct opposite of what she said when campaigning. She literally said while campaigning, repeatedly, that support would be offered but that it should not be "just" support.
People misrepresenting her kept dropping out the bit about how support would be offered and concentrated solely on the just bit.
How many Tory hustings were there? She said the same thing at each one. If after a dozen of them she was getting regularly misrepresented on the most important issue of the day, why did she not correct anyone for the next dozen hustings? Because the interpretation of no state handouts funded by debt was the key message she wanted to deliver. And we are getting massive state handouts funded by debt.
Because most honest reporting said what she actually said, which was that there would be support offered, but it must not just be support.
It was on here and on dishonest sites like the Grauniad/New Statesman etc that people went hysterical by ignoring the bit where she point-blank outright said support would be offered.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
If we're looking for things that we should have done more of, we should have done more to improve insulation and switch to heat pumps. Improving household insulation is a big win during winter, and it's an area where the UK is behind the rest of northern Europe. Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers, such that burning the same gas in a power station would create more heat via a heat pump than burning it in a gas boiler would.
If we wanted a bridge from hydrocarbons to renewables then we should have built more nuclear. The clip doing the rounds a few weeks ago of Clegg circa 2010 saying that the problem with building nuclear is that it would be expensive and would only be coming online by 2022 does show a failure of long-term thinking.
Heat pumps are not more effcient than a modern gas boiler on a cold day
Are they more efficient over the course of the year, though? (which I guess is the relevant question unless the idea is to have both). As I understand it the problem with heat pumps is that our homes are often not well insulated enough for them to work. I've got one in our very well insulated garden room and it works a treat. In our draughty Victoria house I imagine it would struggle.
They work ok in a very well insulated modern house, however they will not heat any house to the same way a gas boiler does on a cold day. On a very cold day they will hardly work at all as the outside fan will spend most of its energy ensuring that it does not freeze up rather than heating the house. We have installed a few heat pumps and the end users are disappointed with them because their houses are not warm in the winter.
The technology is not there yet for heat pumps as a mass alternative to a modern gas boiler.
I've had a discussion about a hybrid air source/oil boiler. The oil steps in when needed, but for a lot of the time the air source does the heating of hot water etc. Might be a way to go for rural places like mine that are not heavily insulated or blessed with large bore radiators.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
But who would vote for the Tory party if the Tory party doesn't allow them to keep their gotten / ill-gotten gains.
Finally some good news from The Week's daily email
North Korea’s parliament said it will turn the country into a “beautiful and civilised socialist fairyland,” state media reported. The North Korean Supreme People’s Assembly adopted laws on landscaping and rural development that it said will promote “a radical turn in the rural community and its policy on landscaping to achieve a rapid development of the Korean-style socialist rural community and spruce up the country into a beautiful and civilised socialist fairyland”. External monitors have warned of hardships in the country, including severe food shortages.
Kim has been away with the fairies for quite some time.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
1) Not heard of her 2) Liked her speech & PMQs (after we showed them) 3) But furious at idea of energy firms not having windfall tax, with taxpayers picking up the tab instead
Does anyone “furious at not taxing energy companies” have any idea how the UK government is supposed to tax Saudi Aramco or Qatargas?
The public generally aren’t interested in the practicalities and want a punchbag for how they’re currently feeling . Labour were serving up the energy companies , Truss has decided to protect their inflated profits and put the whole tab onto tax payers . I expect she’ll still get some poll bounce more out of relief from much of the public but she has left room for the opposition to attack her. I think it’s a case of she could have caused Labour much more discomfort and they’ll be relieved she left that opening for them .
So what you're saying is that rather than going for counterproductive populist gesturism, she has done the right even if its less popular thing?
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Not sure if it explains anything but aren’t sash windows a very clever bit of design where by opening the top and bottom halves equally creates an airflow effect which doesn’t happen with hinged windows.
However the sash style would probably have been more helpful in warmer climes and the hinged in our delightful damp and windy country.
Indeed that is exactly the point with them.
They are also the most beautiful domestic window design ever invented. Especially in Georgian houses
Oh I agree. They are however, also a pain in the backside when it comes to maintenance. My house has Georgian bow sash windows which is an added complication.
What often seems to be forgotten about the Thatcher tax cuts is that they were delivered on the back of growing revenues from North Sea oil and huge privatisation programmes. I’d argue that both windfalls were wasted in that way, but they were windfalls nevertheless. Today’s Tories have nothing like that to fall back on. The risk they are taking is huge. Markets will inevitably notice that. That will make borrowing more expensive and so increase the risk. It’s right wing Corbynism, pure and simple. Maybe even worse as a lot of Corbynista borrowing would have been focused on improving the public realm and general infrastructure.
They seem intent on manufacturing the appearance of another Thatcherite miracle with cutting illusory red tape, fracking and squeezing another mini boom out of the North Sea, Johnsonian boosterism and sod the actualité continued. Potemkin windfalls all round!
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
That doesn't sound like a great strategy. Despite everything Russia isn't fully committed to this war; If they did a general mobilization they could field a much bigger army. When Putin wanted to beat Chechnya he *faked* apartment bombings to get the public on his side. It's of course possible that Ukrainians in Russia will do something like this but if they're feeling heroic there's probably more useful stuff they could do that would directly sabotage the war effort.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
Agree - terrorism in Russia would play into Putin’s hands - but in the occupied territories targeting collaborators go for it!
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
They’re not “winning the war” they are counter attacking. With some success. Hopefully it will continue
And what is this high minded “terrorist” nonsense? If someone did to Britain what Russia has done to Ukraine - if France invaded and killed 1m Brits, destroyed a fifth of the country, conducted a campaign of rape and torture across Kent, and also stole away another million Brits to evil camps in the Loire, are you saying you’d object if we set off a few bombs in Paris?
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
Agree - terrorism in Russia would play into Putin’s hands - but in the occupied territories targeting collaborators go for it!
Terrorism in the occupied territories (bombing metros, theatres, bus stops, cinemas) serves no purpose either.
Assassinating generals OTOH? That's war not terrorism, and they've been pretty good at that so far.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Not sure if it explains anything but aren’t sash windows a very clever bit of design where by opening the top and bottom halves equally creates an airflow effect which doesn’t happen with hinged windows.
However the sash style would probably have been more helpful in warmer climes and the hinged in our delightful damp and windy country.
Indeed that is exactly the point with them.
They are also the most beautiful domestic window design ever invented. Especially in Georgian houses
And if it’s listed you’ll never get permission to double glaze “thick curtains” is the council’s suggestion.
Is that right? We are in a conservation area and we can replace with wooden double glazed sash windows with a slimline profile. Getting them put in in a few weeks hopefully, although they are being held up by supply chain issues. Not cheap though. Maybe for a listed property the rules are even stricter?
This £170bn figure is incredibly misleading as 1) ~55% of it relates to the profits of foreign companies selling gas to the UK (I.e. Norway), which the UK obviously cannot tax and 2) the profits of UK oil and gas operators are already taxed at 65%.
So that leaves about £27bn if you want to tax at 100%. What are Labour proposing?
They’re proposing “a windfall tax on the energy companies”, and will keep repeating that line to rapturous applause, no matter what the practical impossibility of achieving it.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
If we're looking for things that we should have done more of, we should have done more to improve insulation and switch to heat pumps. Improving household insulation is a big win during winter, and it's an area where the UK is behind the rest of northern Europe. Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers, such that burning the same gas in a power station would create more heat via a heat pump than burning it in a gas boiler would.
If we wanted a bridge from hydrocarbons to renewables then we should have built more nuclear. The clip doing the rounds a few weeks ago of Clegg circa 2010 saying that the problem with building nuclear is that it would be expensive and would only be coming online by 2022 does show a failure of long-term thinking.
Heat pumps are not more effcient than a modern gas boiler on a cold day
Are they more efficient over the course of the year, though? (which I guess is the relevant question unless the idea is to have both). As I understand it the problem with heat pumps is that our homes are often not well insulated enough for them to work. I've got one in our very well insulated garden room and it works a treat. In our draughty Victoria house I imagine it would struggle.
They work ok in a very well insulated modern house, however they will not heat any house to the same way a gas boiler does on a cold day. On a very cold day they will hardly work at all as the outside fan will spend most of its energy ensuring that it does not freeze up rather than heating the house. We have installed a few heat pumps and the end users are disappointed with them because their houses are not warm in the winter.
The technology is not there yet for heat pumps as a mass alternative to a modern gas boiler.
I've had a discussion about a hybrid air source/oil boiler. The oil steps in when needed, but for a lot of the time the air source does the heating of hot water etc. Might be a way to go for rural places like mine that are not heavily insulated or blessed with large bore radiators.
Some Councils have looked at this, we priced a large day centre where they wanted to replace their heating system system with a combination of a small gas boiler (for very cold days) and 5 ASHPs.
We advised them that due to the nature of the building, the fact the entrance door will be opening and shutting all the time, the proposed system would not work. It was also 8 times the cost of a standard gas system.
1) Not heard of her 2) Liked her speech & PMQs (after we showed them) 3) But furious at idea of energy firms not having windfall tax, with taxpayers picking up the tab instead
Does anyone “furious at not taxing energy companies” have any idea how the UK government is supposed to tax Saudi Aramco or Qatargas?
The public generally aren’t interested in the practicalities and want a punchbag for how they’re currently feeling . Labour were serving up the energy companies , Truss has decided to protect their inflated profits and put the whole tab onto tax payers . I expect she’ll still get some poll bounce more out of relief from much of the public but she has left room for the opposition to attack her. I think it’s a case of she could have caused Labour much more discomfort and they’ll be relieved she left that opening for them .
So what you're saying is that rather than going for counterproductive populist gesturism, she has done the right even if its less popular thing?
Personally I think the energy companies could have paid a bit more . The vast majority of the funding though was always going to come from borrowing .
In the great scheme of things the windfall tax would be loose change compared to what the current national debt is but in terms of politics Truss will suffer because the opposition will hammer her with being on the side of the energy companies .
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Wikipedia suggests that sash windows replaced casement windows (their name for what you call levered French windows), possibly for aesthetic reasons.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
They’re not “winning the war” they are counter attacking. With some success. Hopefully it will continue
And what is this high minded “terrorist” nonsense? If someone did to Britain what Russia has done to Ukraine - if France invaded and killed 1m Brits, destroyed a fifth of the country, conducted a campaign of rape and torture across Kent, and also stole away another million Brits to evil camps in the Loire, are you saying you’d object if we set off a few bombs in Paris?
They've repelled the invasion away from the capital that most wrote off as going to fall, halted the invasion of the rest of the country, far worse than decimated the invading army, destroyed the enemies logistics and ammunition dumps, driven the invaders ships away from Black Sea ports like Snake Island and even Crimea, and now they are counterattacking and even regaining lost land. You may not think that's winning, but I do.
I'm saying I'd want our bombs to go off on French military targets, to win the war, not on French cinemas etc to give succour to our enemy instead.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
They’re not “winning the war” they are counter attacking. With some success. Hopefully it will continue
And what is this high minded “terrorist” nonsense? If someone did to Britain what Russia has done to Ukraine - if France invaded and killed 1m Brits, destroyed a fifth of the country, conducted a campaign of rape and torture across Kent, and also stole away another million Brits to evil camps in the Loire, are you saying you’d object if we set off a few bombs in Paris?
My fear would be that it would result in reprisals within Ukraine. Look at this story:
1) Not heard of her 2) Liked her speech & PMQs (after we showed them) 3) But furious at idea of energy firms not having windfall tax, with taxpayers picking up the tab instead
Does anyone “furious at not taxing energy companies” have any idea how the UK government is supposed to tax Saudi Aramco or Qatargas?
The public generally aren’t interested in the practicalities and want a punchbag for how they’re currently feeling . Labour were serving up the energy companies , Truss has decided to protect their inflated profits and put the whole tab onto tax payers . I expect she’ll still get some poll bounce more out of relief from much of the public but she has left room for the opposition to attack her. I think it’s a case of she could have caused Labour much more discomfort and they’ll be relieved she left that opening for them .
So what you're saying is that rather than going for counterproductive populist gesturism, she has done the right even if its less popular thing?
Personally I think the energy companies could have paid a bit more . The vast majority of the funding though was always going to come from borrowing .
In the great scheme of things the windfall tax would be loose change compared to what the current national debt is but in terms of politics Truss will suffer because the opposition will hammer her with being on the side of the energy companies .
Energy firms will pay more, for years to come, if they invest.
Considering we already get 65% of revenue from the North Sea in taxation, getting more investment to get more security and more 65% revenue for longer will bring in more revenues than windfall taxing the 35% that the energy firms are taking at a time when most of our energy is imported and so untaxed.
Wait to see what happens today to see what happens to the polling. If Truss bribes the electorate with sufficient borrowed money it may change dramatically. The opposition parties as usual have nothing to say about anything. It's said that governments lose elections rather than oppositions win them. With ideas and principle free leaders like Starmer and Davey that's never been more true.
This £170bn figure is incredibly misleading as 1) ~55% of it relates to the profits of foreign companies selling gas to the UK (I.e. Norway), which the UK obviously cannot tax and 2) the profits of UK oil and gas operators are already taxed at 65%.
So that leaves about £27bn if you want to tax at 100%. What are Labour proposing?
They’re proposing “a windfall tax on the energy companies”, and will keep repeating that line to rapturous applause, no matter what the practical impossibility of achieving it.
Labour also don't need to deliver it so it's a great policy for them to promote. Heck it's a no lose policy because were the Tories to steal it - the scheme would raise nothing and Labour would then just blame the implementation of it.
This £170bn figure is incredibly misleading as 1) ~55% of it relates to the profits of foreign companies selling gas to the UK (I.e. Norway), which the UK obviously cannot tax and 2) the profits of UK oil and gas operators are already taxed at 65%.
So that leaves about £27bn if you want to tax at 100%. What are Labour proposing?
They’re proposing “a windfall tax on the energy companies”, and will keep repeating that line to rapturous applause, no matter what the practical impossibility of achieving it.
Labour also don't need to deliver it so it's a great policy for them to promote. Heck it's a no lose policy because were the Tories to steal it - the scheme would raise nothing and Labour would then just blame the implementation of it.
Isn't it great that we live in a world where the team proposing the stupidest ideas wins politically?
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
Agree - terrorism in Russia would play into Putin’s hands - but in the occupied territories targeting collaborators go for it!
On the other hand it might win the war much quicker than anything else. If the Ukrainians made life unliveable in Moscow
I can see the moral and propaganda counter-argument, that you and @BartholomewRoberts are making. Equally, I’m deeply surprised Ukrainians in Russia aren’t bombing cinemas ALREADY
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
No Tory government is going to increase IHT, neither would Labour given it is 45 to 65 year olds who benefit most from an inheritance and who are the key swing voters.
Labour would however likely impose a wealth tax and a windfall tax on the energy companies to pay for the energy bills freeze Truss wants. Whereas Truss it seems will just borrow
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Not sure if it explains anything but aren’t sash windows a very clever bit of design where by opening the top and bottom halves equally creates an airflow effect which doesn’t happen with hinged windows.
However the sash style would probably have been more helpful in warmer climes and the hinged in our delightful damp and windy country.
Indeed that is exactly the point with them.
They are also the most beautiful domestic window design ever invented. Especially in Georgian houses
And if it’s listed you’ll never get permission to double glaze “thick curtains” is the council’s suggestion.
What my parents did was to leave the original windows as they are and fit some additional humongous panes of glass on the inside of the frame. They stick to the frame with magnets so you can pull the entire thing off if you want to clean or open the window in summer. It's really unobtrusive and I don't think you need planning permission to do it.
This £170bn figure is incredibly misleading as 1) ~55% of it relates to the profits of foreign companies selling gas to the UK (I.e. Norway), which the UK obviously cannot tax and 2) the profits of UK oil and gas operators are already taxed at 65%.
So that leaves about £27bn if you want to tax at 100%. What are Labour proposing?
They’re proposing “a windfall tax on the energy companies”, and will keep repeating that line to rapturous applause, no matter what the practical impossibility of achieving it.
Labour also don't need to deliver it so it's a great policy for them to promote. Heck it's a no lose policy because were the Tories to steal it - the scheme would raise nothing and Labour would then just blame the implementation of it.
It should be the job of journalists to actually ask questions about such policies, such as how much it would raise, and to which companies should it be targeted. Yes, I know, that relies on decent political journalists, it’s much easier for them to just let people parrot slogans uncritically.
This £170bn figure is incredibly misleading as 1) ~55% of it relates to the profits of foreign companies selling gas to the UK (I.e. Norway), which the UK obviously cannot tax and 2) the profits of UK oil and gas operators are already taxed at 65%.
So that leaves about £27bn if you want to tax at 100%. What are Labour proposing?
They’re proposing “a windfall tax on the energy companies”, and will keep repeating that line to rapturous applause, no matter what the practical impossibility of achieving it.
Labour also don't need to deliver it so it's a great policy for them to promote. Heck it's a no lose policy because were the Tories to steal it - the scheme would raise nothing and Labour would then just blame the implementation of it.
In general I liked Boris as PM, but one area where Liz already seems to be better is that Boris had a penchant for too often doing the populist and easy thing, even when he knew he shouldn't. Boris probably would have implemented a windfall tax, even though its a bad idea and won't actually raise any serious money and will probably cost us money in the long-run.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
They’re not “winning the war” they are counter attacking. With some success. Hopefully it will continue
And what is this high minded “terrorist” nonsense? If someone did to Britain what Russia has done to Ukraine - if France invaded and killed 1m Brits, destroyed a fifth of the country, conducted a campaign of rape and torture across Kent, and also stole away another million Brits to evil camps in the Loire, are you saying you’d object if we set off a few bombs in Paris?
VVP would love it because...
a) Political cover for an otherwise unpopular general mobilisation. b) Ukraine would get it back x 10.
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Not sure if it explains anything but aren’t sash windows a very clever bit of design where by opening the top and bottom halves equally creates an airflow effect which doesn’t happen with hinged windows.
However the sash style would probably have been more helpful in warmer climes and the hinged in our delightful damp and windy country.
Indeed that is exactly the point with them.
They are also the most beautiful domestic window design ever invented. Especially in Georgian houses
And if it’s listed you’ll never get permission to double glaze “thick curtains” is the council’s suggestion.
Is that right? We are in a conservation area and we can replace with wooden double glazed sash windows with a slimline profile. Getting them put in in a few weeks hopefully, although they are being held up by supply chain issues. Not cheap though. Maybe for a listed property the rules are even stricter?
Yes - depends on the Local Authority to an extent, and Conservation Area is less onerous than listing.
The British sash window must cost the country many megawatt hours of heating every year. On the continent the equivalent windows are levered "French windows" which are far easier to make airtight, far easier to double glaze and besides much more user friendly to open and close.
No doubt there is some old story dating back to the 16th century that would explain why we have our leaky slidy sashes and they have hinged ones.
Not sure if it explains anything but aren’t sash windows a very clever bit of design where by opening the top and bottom halves equally creates an airflow effect which doesn’t happen with hinged windows.
However the sash style would probably have been more helpful in warmer climes and the hinged in our delightful damp and windy country.
Indeed that is exactly the point with them.
They are also the most beautiful domestic window design ever invented. Especially in Georgian houses
And if it’s listed you’ll never get permission to double glaze “thick curtains” is the council’s suggestion.
Not true. I have a friend in a listed C17 house in England who has fitted double glazing, though he is very good at DIY and has a workshop! The planning officer came round on occasion, basically to chew the fat, as it was all being done very well.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
The war isn't that asymmetric. Ukraine was just able to take down the electricity supply to half of the Russian city of Belgorod (somewhere between Stoke and Cardiff in size) with a conventional military strike. They don't need to use terrorist tactics to win.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
Agree - terrorism in Russia would play into Putin’s hands - but in the occupied territories targeting collaborators go for it!
On the other hand it might win the war much quicker than anything else. If the Ukrainians made life unliveable in Moscow
I can see the moral and propaganda counter-argument, that you and @BartholomewRoberts are making. Equally, I’m deeply surprised Ukrainians in Russia aren’t bombing cinemas ALREADY
They are showing remarkable restraint
There have been a few ‘accidents’ at military bases in Russia, and a few arms depots ‘went on fire’ a month or so ago.
Yes, commendably restrained from the Ukranians - they understand the need to keep their allies onside by not engaging in terrorism in Moscow, no matter how tempting it might be to emulate the IRA of the 1980s.
Good. It will result in relocations to the City of high-earners from Europe, the existing high-earners will pay more income tax and NI. Win-win.
But the cap is like seizing rich Russians' yachts.
It doesn't do any good, and is pretty easy to evade, but people are furious that other people have more money than they do.
The Labour Party is basically built on such envy after all.
You think we should have left the Russian yachts alone?
You think it is wrong to be furious at the thought of other people having more money when the money is the result of sustained kleptocracy against the Russian people?
Do you have a superyacht yourself, or just very comfortable with the fact your insect overlords do?
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
Agree - terrorism in Russia would play into Putin’s hands - but in the occupied territories targeting collaborators go for it!
On the other hand it might win the war much quicker than anything else. If the Ukrainians made life unliveable in Moscow
I can see the moral and propaganda counter-argument, that you and @BartholomewRoberts are making. Equally, I’m deeply surprised Ukrainians in Russia aren’t bombing cinemas ALREADY
They are showing remarkable restraint
Bombing civilians in Moscow would make the war harder to win, not easier. It would make it easier for Putin to implement conscription as people would buy his propaganda that this was an existential threat to defeat.
Instead by cutting off businesses and having economic sanctions etc the whole point is to make the war expensive and economically harder but also seem futile. What's the point in continuing? If cinemas and metros are getting blown up, people will fight to their last.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
That doesn't sound like a great strategy. Despite everything Russia isn't fully committed to this war; If they did a general mobilization they could field a much bigger army. When Putin wanted to beat Chechnya he *faked* apartment bombings to get the public on his side. It's of course possible that Ukrainians in Russia will do something like this but if they're feeling heroic there's probably more useful stuff they could do that would directly sabotage the war effort.
Faked is the wrong word. He really did blow people up.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
That may be true but since Qatari hydrocarbons are always likely to out compete the North Sea, shouldn't we focus our investment into renewables as per my 09:11 post (or is that 08:11 BST?)
The major issue at this point, is storage and peak demand, rather than adding more renewables to the mix (although this will happen over time). Europe needs to get away from dependence on a single source (gas) of peak demand fulfillment, so the efforts from government need to be in this area.
A start would be to get away from using gas to supply base load, which we should have done ages ago by building a lot more wind generation capacity.
People keep repeating this claim about 'should have done more' but it ignores the fact that - in this country at least - we have been massively investing in wind power for the last decade and a half and, as far as offshore wind goes, we are world leaders by miles. We are building the lovely things as fast as we can and Government - of all stripes - has done very well on this in facilitating and then staying out of the way.
The problem was always going to be in creating false targets for the end of hydrocarbons which were unattainable and which have demolished the required bridge between hydrocarbons and renewables.
If we're looking for things that we should have done more of, we should have done more to improve insulation and switch to heat pumps. Improving household insulation is a big win during winter, and it's an area where the UK is behind the rest of northern Europe. Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers, such that burning the same gas in a power station would create more heat via a heat pump than burning it in a gas boiler would.
If we wanted a bridge from hydrocarbons to renewables then we should have built more nuclear. The clip doing the rounds a few weeks ago of Clegg circa 2010 saying that the problem with building nuclear is that it would be expensive and would only be coming online by 2022 does show a failure of long-term thinking.
Heat pumps are not more effcient than a modern gas boiler on a cold day
Are they more efficient over the course of the year, though? (which I guess is the relevant question unless the idea is to have both). As I understand it the problem with heat pumps is that our homes are often not well insulated enough for them to work. I've got one in our very well insulated garden room and it works a treat. In our draughty Victoria house I imagine it would struggle.
They work ok in a very well insulated modern house, however they will not heat any house to the same way a gas boiler does on a cold day. On a very cold day they will hardly work at all as the outside fan will spend most of its energy ensuring that it does not freeze up rather than heating the house. We have installed a few heat pumps and the end users are disappointed with them because their houses are not warm in the winter.
The technology is not there yet for heat pumps as a mass alternative to a modern gas boiler.
I've had a discussion about a hybrid air source/oil boiler. The oil steps in when needed, but for a lot of the time the air source does the heating of hot water etc. Might be a way to go for rural places like mine that are not heavily insulated or blessed with large bore radiators.
Some Councils have looked at this, we priced a large day centre where they wanted to replace their heating system system with a combination of a small gas boiler (for very cold days) and 5 ASHPs.
We advised them that due to the nature of the building, the fact the entrance door will be opening and shutting all the time, the proposed system would not work. It was also 8 times the cost of a standard gas system.
Apologies for being abrupt earlier, PB is often full of knee-jerk responses to green tech but this is genuinely interesting criticism from the installer perspective. I’ve heard good things about them from friends in the states who use the air-air version. Do you think that has more mileage than retrofitting to the water system?
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
Agree - terrorism in Russia would play into Putin’s hands - but in the occupied territories targeting collaborators go for it!
On the other hand it might win the war much quicker than anything else. If the Ukrainians made life unliveable in Moscow
I can see the moral and propaganda counter-argument, that you and @BartholomewRoberts are making. Equally, I’m deeply surprised Ukrainians in Russia aren’t bombing cinemas ALREADY
They are showing remarkable restraint
There have been a few ‘accidents’ at military bases in Russia, and a few arms depots ‘went on fire’ a month or so ago.
Yes, commendably restrained from the Ukranians - they understand the need to keep their allies onside by not engaging in terrorism in Moscow, no matter how tempting it might be to emulate the IRA of the 1980s.
It's not that, it's the asymmetry of the situation. very difficult for Uk terrorist to blow up a dozen civilians in moscow, very easy for Russian forces in Ukraine to murder 100 Ukrainians as payback.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
Agree - terrorism in Russia would play into Putin’s hands - but in the occupied territories targeting collaborators go for it!
On the other hand it might win the war much quicker than anything else. If the Ukrainians made life unliveable in Moscow
I can see the moral and propaganda counter-argument, that you and @BartholomewRoberts are making. Equally, I’m deeply surprised Ukrainians in Russia aren’t bombing cinemas ALREADY
They are showing remarkable restraint
Wouldn't be surprised if via back channels, Russia has indicted it will not use go for first use of nuclear weapons - but only so long as the Ukraine conflict stays in Ukraine.
Extend it to Russia, however, and all bets are off.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
If we reduce consumption as much as we need to, then there will be a huge excess of production. New extraction developments will be economically unviable, in the North Sea, in Russia or in Qatar.
We'll just have to introduce aluminium smelting to use up all that lovely power. Just rejoice at that news.
We should install wind and tidal with a peak generation capacity many times our needs.
In light winds our needs are still covered; when the wind blows hard use it to create (net zero) hydrocarbons:
The UK is enormously rich in wind and tidal capacity.
I 100% completely agree with you.
But it can't be done overnight. We can and should invest in North Sea hydrocarbons alongside developing wind and tidal as fast as is economically possible.
If revenues from hydrocarbon investments go to the UK instead of Qatar and make it easier to develop wind faster not slower then all the better too.
Too many people see this as an either/or solution. North Sea hydrocarbons are the appetiser while renewables are the main course, but there's no reason not to make both courses ourselves.
Very little of the North Sea revenue goes to the UK. That's why we don't have a sovereign wealth fund and Norway does. And since the offshore wind sector relies on some of the same support industry as oil and gas, ramping up fossil fuel extraction in the North Sea (which will take many years to come on line anyway) might create capacity constraints for offshore wind, slowing the rollout. We just need to ramp up our transition to renewables, including tidal for baseload and nuclear if tidal plus storage isn't sufficient.
Whilst this is true today, historically it is not. So prior to 2014 and George Osborne's interminable tinkering, Oil companies paid a PRT of 50% on every barrel of oil produced. In addition they then paid a supplementary charge of 32% over and above the normal rate of corporation tax. In total in the first coalition government oil companies were paying between 65 and 70% of the value of every barrel of oil in tax.
This was comparable with Norway where the rate has been around 70% for many many years. The difference is that they leave it alone and don't keep changing it. We tinker with it at almost every opportunity - it changed 3 times in one year under Osborne.
One crucial difference between Norway and the UK was the state ownership of oil and gas extraction. This may well have been to their benefit in the long run (although they have now reduced it massively in the last decade) but it did have a severe impact at the speed at which the Norwegian oil field developed. Peak oil production in the UK was 1985. In Norway it was 2004.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Good morning everyone. I decided to spend 2 months away from this forum partly because I was travelling, and didn't feel bragging about the details during a cost of living crisis was appropriate, and partly because I then moved house. I have moved a long way from Surrey and I am now off-grid, something I had wanted to do for ages.
In those long two months I've seen breathless excitement from one or two about Truss but for the most part, depressed resignation and downright hostility. I was astonished in a town yesterday to hear middle class people sounding off about her in random conversations with strangers. I have never encountered that before in my life. The anger is palpable. Visceral.
She will be a disaster and I fear for Mike's wager.
The tories will be out of office for either 10 years or 20 years, the latter if they seriously think Badenoch is their salvation.
I won't spend much time on here I doubt and will post only occasionally - certainly not the 3000 posts one well known contributor has made in my absence Apart from not wanting arguments I don't see much point debating about this. Nothing the tories and Truss can do over the next 2 years will save them from electoral calamity at the next General Election. The dye is cast. It's merely a question of how big Labour will go.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Just as the housing market is slowing down that would be a disastrous policy.
In any case you can forget any new taxes on bankers, energy companies or home owners and their heirs while Truss is PM. Ideologically she is a free market Thatcherite Tory leader and wants to slash taxes and cut the state where she can not increase tax as she made clear at PMQs yesterday.
If you want higher taxes you will have to get Starmer elected
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
Agree - terrorism in Russia would play into Putin’s hands - but in the occupied territories targeting collaborators go for it!
On the other hand it might win the war much quicker than anything else. If the Ukrainians made life unliveable in Moscow
I can see the moral and propaganda counter-argument, that you and @BartholomewRoberts are making. Equally, I’m deeply surprised Ukrainians in Russia aren’t bombing cinemas ALREADY
They are showing remarkable restraint
Wouldn't be surprised if via back channels, Russia has indicted it will not use go for first use of nuclear weapons - but only so long as the Ukraine conflict stays in Ukraine.
Extend it to Russia, however, and all bets are off.
The Americans have definitely said, that their weapons are to be aimed within Ukraine, and not at Russia. NATO countries are wary about anything that Putin might take to be a direct NATO attack on Russia, which might generate a military response and extension of the conflict to other countries.
Hence training and arming the Ukrainian military, rather than officially putting NATO boots on the ground.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
Does it? It's assessed on the actual price and is predictable once one has that. No point in doing it if you have rollovers.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
Agree - terrorism in Russia would play into Putin’s hands - but in the occupied territories targeting collaborators go for it!
On the other hand it might win the war much quicker than anything else. If the Ukrainians made life unliveable in Moscow
I can see the moral and propaganda counter-argument, that you and @BartholomewRoberts are making. Equally, I’m deeply surprised Ukrainians in Russia aren’t bombing cinemas ALREADY
They are showing remarkable restraint
Wouldn't be surprised if via back channels, Russia has indicted it will not use go for first use of nuclear weapons - but only so long as the Ukraine conflict stays in Ukraine.
Extend it to Russia, however, and all bets are off.
The conflict seems to spillover into Russian border locations like Belgorod and Crimea is definitely getting targeted which Russia claims to be Russian.
Russia has always been a Muscovite Empire though. So long as the conflict stays out of Moscow, they're not going to care as much if some locations in Belgorod get blown up, that's war. Bringing the conflict to Moscow would be where it could go nuclear.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
downside is the reduction in equity available buying your next place if you are moving to somewhere bigger / more expensive rather than cheaper...
Equally it may discourage movement as any tax will provide a disincentive to move...
I will say that replacing council tax with a land value / property tax is the way to go - easy to calculate and a continual source of income.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because alongside fighting Putin's invasion, they are trying to demonstrate that they, unlike Russia, are a civilised nation rather than a terrorist state.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
downside is the reduction in equity available buying your next place if you are moving to somewhere bigger / more expensive rather than cheaper...
Equally it may discourage movement as any tax will provide a disincentive to move...
I will say that replacing council tax with a land value / property tax is the way to go - easy to calculate and a continual source of income.
The property tax designed to replace council tax is for local government funding. CGT is a central exchequer tax. Not the same function. (Though I do klnow a lot of local government funding comes from the Treasury centrally.)
Good. It will result in relocations to the City of high-earners from Europe, the existing high-earners will pay more income tax and NI. Win-win.
Not sure removing the cap on bankers bonuses is a vote winner . The Tories would be crazy to even go down this road but I hope they do !
It raises piles of money from the very rich, and lets the other 99.9% of the country enjoy tax cuts. Every redistributinist should be in favour!
I’m not disputing that it earns more money for the Treasury . In terms of politics though it would be a huge own goal for the Tories.
I thought the Opposition parties were in favour, of taking more tax from the highest earners in the country?
If they were interested in maximising revenues, rather than the politics of envy, they’d be in favour of letting banks pay massive bonuses. As with footballers, it’s mostly PAYE earnings too, so really easy to ensure that the ‘fair’ amount is being paid with little opportunity for avoidance.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
Yes, for the benefit of the Conservative Party's electoral prospects let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 45 million Ukranian citizens under Putin’s fire, let's hope and pray Zelinskey prevails.
Yes, for the benefit of the 155 million former Soviet Republic citizens under revanchist Putin's ire, lets hope and ensure Zelensky prevails.
I did a deep dawn dive on the Ukrainian news this morning. It’s mildly encouraging for Kyiv. Pray it continues
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
Because they don't need to.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
They’re not “winning the war” they are counter attacking. With some success. Hopefully it will continue
And what is this high minded “terrorist” nonsense? If someone did to Britain what Russia has done to Ukraine - if France invaded and killed 1m Brits, destroyed a fifth of the country, conducted a campaign of rape and torture across Kent, and also stole away another million Brits to evil camps in the Loire, are you saying you’d object if we set off a few bombs in Paris?
It's not because they don't need to; it's because they don't want to.
For comparison: the population of Ukraine in 2020 was about 37 million, including people living in parts of the Donbas held by Kiev and Kiev-friendly forces. The population of Chechenia is about 1.4 million.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
Does it? It's assessed on the actual price and is predictable once one has that. No point in doing it if you have rollovers.
So, nobody can afford to move house.
A halfway house is, CGT if you own the property for under 10 years, otherwise not (as in Germany and NZ). France has main dwelling exemption like we do, as does Canada. CBA to research anywhere else, but there is a reason for it.
To continue the yoot chat, sick burn him which afaics is what most cancellation is about.
‘I shot my mouth of on Twitter and folk had the temerity to shoot their mouths off back at me!’
In this case hasn’t this chap ‘stepped down’ due to a commercial decision of a private company, ie the gammony vibe isn’t really doing our public profile much good? Usually PBers tend to be quite keen on that sort of thing. I’m surprised that a business called Spitfire Audio feels that way tbh, but there we are.
Despite Johnson's supernatural talent for self-promotion it's the Baltics, Norway and Poland who are doing the heavy lifting on a GDP basis.
There's a guy on twitter who has been posting about the mystery of how Pakistani and Iranian 152mm artillery ammunition has ended up being supplied to the Ukrainians. I suspect that some of the British support for Ukraine has been of a nature it's best to keep quiet about.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
Does it? It's assessed on the actual price and is predictable once one has that. No point in doing it if you have rollovers.
Its not the predictability that is the issue, it is the fact that it hampers people buying larger properties as they move up the property ladder. More people stay for longer in smaller houses which limits the supply for first time buyers even more. That is the theory at least.
That said I am quite fond of the idea in some ways. Again, houses should ideally be for living in, not investments.
Despite Johnson's supernatural talent for self-promotion it's the Baltics, Norway and Poland who are doing the heavy lifting on a GDP basis...
Well it is immediately existential for all of those except Norway in a way it's not for the rest of Europe. And Norway will be making several f*cktonnes of war profits.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
It’s already been proposed and rejected. Pulled together by a Blairite group. Based on 1% of all wealth above 500K for five years it would raise 260 billion. Now 500k May seem a lot but it does include pension pots as well and I suspect the popularity of a wealth tax, as per the report, is largely down to people thinking others would pay it.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
Welcome comrade. We meet on Wednesday nights at Theo's. I'll DM you the agenda - pls memorise rather than print it out.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
Does it? It's assessed on the actual price and is predictable once one has that. No point in doing it if you have rollovers.
So, nobody can afford to move house.
A halfway house is, CGT if you own the property for under 10 years, otherwise not (as in Germany and NZ). France has main dwelling exemption like we do, as does Canada. CBA to research anywhere else, but there is a reason for it.
Again that discourages people from moving and most people will move a lot in the first few years and then settle into the family home for the next 30 or so years before finally downscaling. So your proposal actually impacts the people most likely to need equity for their next move...
Edit it's also worth emphasising that CGT on residential properties is based on the original purchase price of the property not the index linked price of the property. I think that was an Osbourne change but as we sold our only rental property 20 years ago I may be wrong there.
I find it mildly amusing that it seems polls have not shown a bounce for Truss when she has only been PM for less than 48 hours
She did do well yesterday and today is extremely important, but it will take time and not just weeks for the government to show progress and of course her refusal to join the chorus of demands for a windfall tax may well be a negative, while being the right thing to do to get the producers investing in the North Sea and at last a change in the narrative to a pro business government
I would be concerned if she is polling like this this time next year, but everything pivots around Russia and the outcome of the war
If Putin and Russia suddenly fold for any reason then things could change overnight, or as an analyst said last night this could go on for a decade or more at which time we will all be penniless
We should encourage investment in North Sea wind farms, but not in fossil fuel extraction. We all now know how real climate change is. We’ve made good progress in switching to other forms of energy production. We’ve got to accelerate that move.
We should do both.
Climate change is real but tackling climate change means reducing our domestic fossil fuel consumption over time, not extraction.
Consuming Qatari or Russian hydrocarbons instead of North Sea ones doesn't achieve a single thing for climate change.
If we reduce consumption as much as we need to, then there will be a huge excess of production. New extraction developments will be economically unviable, in the North Sea, in Russia or in Qatar.
We'll just have to introduce aluminium smelting to use up all that lovely power. Just rejoice at that news.
We should install wind and tidal with a peak generation capacity many times our needs.
In light winds our needs are still covered; when the wind blows hard use it to create (net zero) hydrocarbons:
The UK is enormously rich in wind and tidal capacity.
I 100% completely agree with you.
But it can't be done overnight. We can and should invest in North Sea hydrocarbons alongside developing wind and tidal as fast as is economically possible.
If revenues from hydrocarbon investments go to the UK instead of Qatar and make it easier to develop wind faster not slower then all the better too.
Too many people see this as an either/or solution. North Sea hydrocarbons are the appetiser while renewables are the main course, but there's no reason not to make both courses ourselves.
Very little of the North Sea revenue goes to the UK. That's why we don't have a sovereign wealth fund and Norway does. And since the offshore wind sector relies on some of the same support industry as oil and gas, ramping up fossil fuel extraction in the North Sea (which will take many years to come on line anyway) might create capacity constraints for offshore wind, slowing the rollout. We just need to ramp up our transition to renewables, including tidal for baseload and nuclear if tidal plus storage isn't sufficient.
Whilst this is true today, historically it is not. So prior to 2014 and George Osborne's interminable tinkering, Oil companies paid a PRT of 50% on every barrel of oil produced. In addition they then paid a supplementary charge of 32% over and above the normal rate of corporation tax. In total in the first coalition government oil companies were paying between 65 and 70% of the value of every barrel of oil in tax.
This was comparable with Norway where the rate has been around 70% for many many years. The difference is that they leave it alone and don't keep changing it. We tinker with it at almost every opportunity - it changed 3 times in one year under Osborne.
One crucial difference between Norway and the UK was the state ownership of oil and gas extraction. This may well have been to their benefit in the long run (although they have now reduced it massively in the last decade) but it did have a severe impact at the speed at which the Norwegian oil field developed. Peak oil production in the UK was 1985. In Norway it was 2004.
Given that Brent crude prices since 2005 have been way higher than in the 1980s it sounds like developing their field more slowly hasn't worked out too badly for them!
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
Does it? It's assessed on the actual price and is predictable once one has that. No point in doing it if you have rollovers.
So, nobody can afford to move house.
A halfway house is, CGT if you own the property for under 10 years, otherwise not (as in Germany and NZ). France has main dwelling exemption like we do, as does Canada. CBA to research anywhere else, but there is a reason for it.
So, market forces, the price of the new one is lowered. Which has its merits in the long run, as well as demerits (depends on your position).
But unless HMG leaves it for a long period (a decade or more) you're very much on a lottery as to how much you pay, which is not good. (Mind, the Conservatives violated that principle - they were happy to mess around with CGT on houses in the form of IHT, and now how much you pay depends how many children you officially have. Which is insane.)
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Just as the housing market is slowing down that would be a disastrous policy.
In any case you can forget any new taxes on bankers, energy companies or home owners and their heirs while Truss is PM. Ideologically she is a free market Thatcherite Tory leader and wants to slash taxes and cut the state where she can not increase tax as she made clear at PMQs yesterday.
If you want higher taxes you will have to get Starmer elected
Coming, I think. I pretty much share Heathener's take. A Labour government is close to baked-in now.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
Except that IHT gets charged on far fewer estates. So this would widen those paying.
It seems to me that one of the problems with our tax system is not just the rate at which taxes are charged but their incidence. Too many exemptions etc so the rates are too high on too small a group. So NI on all income (no exclusion for pensioners) and CGT on all capital gains (not just on one class of assets) etc.
And @HYUFD I don't want higher taxes. But if you borrow the sorts of sums the government is borrowing - for worthwhile reasons - you are going to have to pay for this with taxes. So the question is how is that tax burden shared. I don't think it should be loaded solely on the young and future generations. It should be shared more fairly. Since all benefit from help with energy all should contribute.
And that applies even if you get growth. That growth will generate tax revenues but the question of who those revenues come from still arises.
Growth does not obviate the need for fairness ie a fair sharing between groups and generations which maintains and enhances social cohesion. This is the point which the Tories (and to an extent also Labour) don't seem to get.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
Does it? It's assessed on the actual price and is predictable once one has that. No point in doing it if you have rollovers.
Its not the predictability that is the issue, it is the fact that it hampers people buying larger properties as they move up the property ladder. More people stay for longer in smaller houses which limits the supply for first time buyers even more. That is the theory at least.
That said I am quite fond of the idea in some ways. Again, houses should ideally be for living in, not investments.
The problem with taxes like stamp duty is it is a tax on mobility rather than a tax on ownership or speculation.
If it were up to me I would abolish stamp duty on all homes (primary or secondary) and abolish Council Tax and replace with an annual tax at a percentage of the property value. Say 0.5% of value. With the tax doubled for non-primary homes.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Suppose you inherit grannies house. If there's going to be CGT payable on the proceeds from a sale then it discourages selling the house, and makes holding onto it and earning rental income more attractive. We want the incentives to be the other way round in that situation so that it is easier for people to own their own home.
It also introduces more cost into the moving process - which is already a problem with stamp duty - which decreases labour mobility.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Just as the housing market is slowing down that would be a disastrous policy.
In any case you can forget any new taxes on bankers, energy companies or home owners and their heirs while Truss is PM. Ideologically she is a free market Thatcherite Tory leader and wants to slash taxes and cut the state where she can not increase tax as she made clear at PMQs yesterday.
If you want higher taxes you will have to get Starmer elected
Coming, I think. I pretty much share Heathener's take. A Labour government is close to baked-in now.
You don't think CON will go 10% clear following Liz saving the nation?
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
downside is the reduction in equity available buying your next place if you are moving to somewhere bigger / more expensive rather than cheaper...
Equally it may discourage movement as any tax will provide a disincentive to move...
I will say that replacing council tax with a land value / property tax is the way to go - easy to calculate and a continual source of income.
The property tax designed to replace council tax is for local government funding. CGT is a central exchequer tax. Not the same function. (Though I do klnow a lot of local government funding comes from the Treasury centrally.)
The proposal for a property tax is designed to replace council tax and stamp duty, so I don't think there's a meaningful distinction there.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
Does it? It's assessed on the actual price and is predictable once one has that. No point in doing it if you have rollovers.
Its not the predictability that is the issue, it is the fact that it hampers people buying larger properties as they move up the property ladder. More people stay for longer in smaller houses which limits the supply for first time buyers even more. That is the theory at least.
That said I am quite fond of the idea in some ways. Again, houses should ideally be for living in, not investments.
The problem with taxes like stamp duty is it is a tax on mobility rather than a tax on ownership or speculation.
If it were up to me I would abolish stamp duty on all homes (primary or secondary) and abolish Council Tax and replace with an annual tax at a percentage of the property value. Say 0.5% of value. With the tax doubled for non-primary homes.
I’d do it the other way round, reduce central governments grants to councils and allow CT to rise while reducing income tax.
But yes, the need is to avoid transaction taxes, which act as a brake on mobility.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
downside is the reduction in equity available buying your next place if you are moving to somewhere bigger / more expensive rather than cheaper...
Equally it may discourage movement as any tax will provide a disincentive to move...
I will say that replacing council tax with a land value / property tax is the way to go - easy to calculate and a continual source of income.
The property tax designed to replace council tax is for local government funding. CGT is a central exchequer tax. Not the same function. (Though I do klnow a lot of local government funding comes from the Treasury centrally.)
The proposal for a property tax is designed to replace council tax and stamp duty, so I don't think there's a meaningful distinction there.
There is, I'd beg to differ, in terms of the relative allocation - notably in how far the local authority sets the total rate and is accountable to the voters for that.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Suppose you inherit grannies house. If there's going to be CGT payable on the proceeds from a sale then it discourages selling the house, and makes holding onto it and earning rental income more attractive. We want the incentives to be the other way round in that situation so that it is easier for people to own their own home.
It also introduces more cost into the moving process - which is already a problem with stamp duty - which decreases labour mobility.
There won't be CGT on Grannies House. The base cost is valued at probate (and IHT paid on it etc) so the CGT would only be on the growth between probate value and selling value, which, in theory should be the same, or a small gain due to timing.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
Except that IHT gets charged on far fewer estates. So this would widen those paying.
It seems to me that one of the problems with our tax system is not just the rate at which taxes are charged but their incidence. Too many exemptions etc so the rates are too high on too small a group. So NI on all income (no exclusion for pensioners) and CGT on all capital gains (not just on one class of assets) etc.
And @HYUFD I don't want higher taxes. But if you borrow the sorts of sums the government is borrowing - for worthwhile reasons - you are going to have to pay for this with taxes. So the question is how is that tax burden shared. I don't think it should be loaded solely on the young and future generations. It should be shared more fairly. Since all benefit from help with energy all should contribute.
And that applies even if you get growth. That growth will generate tax revenues but the question of who those revenues come from still arises.
Growth does not obviate the need for fairness ie a fair sharing between groups and generations which maintains and enhances social cohesion. This is the point which the Tories (and to an extent also Labour) don't seem to get.
As actual (not cosplay) Thatcher put it,
"'Those who have been boasting that they have the burden of tax lower have got to say that they had not the guts to cover their expenditure by taxation and in fact they covered it by borrowing and therefore handed on the burden to future generations."
It could well be that government borrowing is the least bad way of funding something that needs to be done. It could well be that a windfall tax is more trouble than it's worth.
But the current slogan "silly old Labour, putting up taxes" doesn't wash when the government's alternative is putting up taxes on future generations.
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Hampers mobility, so needs unlimited rollovers, so will really just be IHT under another name.
Does it? It's assessed on the actual price and is predictable once one has that. No point in doing it if you have rollovers.
Its not the predictability that is the issue, it is the fact that it hampers people buying larger properties as they move up the property ladder. More people stay for longer in smaller houses which limits the supply for first time buyers even more. That is the theory at least.
That said I am quite fond of the idea in some ways. Again, houses should ideally be for living in, not investments.
The problem with taxes like stamp duty is it is a tax on mobility rather than a tax on ownership or speculation.
If it were up to me I would abolish stamp duty on all homes (primary or secondary) and abolish Council Tax and replace with an annual tax at a percentage of the property value. Say 0.5% of value. With the tax doubled for non-primary homes.
I’d do it the other way round, reduce central governments grants to councils and allow CT to rise while reducing income tax.
But yes, the need is to avoid transaction taxes, which act as a brake on mobility.
That policy (cutting central Government Grants while allowing more council tax to be kept) is why social care is in such a mess up north.
Simply put - your average house in the Home Counties is band D, your average house up north may well be band B....
I am possibly going to be called some sort of communist for suggesting this. But if the money to help with energy costs has to be borrowed and paid out of taxation then some of it could be paid by taxes on the wealthy, rather than expecting the poor and the young to pay for it - on top of everything else. We could start by not giving tax cuts to the well off, for instance.
And maybe we can increase IHT and other taxes on unearned wealth 👍
CGT on the sale of houses. No issue with assessing what the value is. No liquidity issues either. It doesn't need to be put at a very high level either and it taps into some of the housing wealth at precisely the moment when that wealth is turned into cash.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
Suppose you inherit grannies house. If there's going to be CGT payable on the proceeds from a sale then it discourages selling the house, and makes holding onto it and earning rental income more attractive. We want the incentives to be the other way round in that situation so that it is easier for people to own their own home.
It also introduces more cost into the moving process - which is already a problem with stamp duty - which decreases labour mobility.
There won't be CGT on Grannies House. The base cost is valued at probate (and IHT paid on it etc) so the CGT would only be on the growth between probate value and selling value, which, in theory should be the same, or a small gain due to timing.
And even then, executors can treat the house as immediately being handed over to the beneficiaries at the instant of death, so the estate does not pay any CGT on the gain since death, but the beneficiaries do. (Which is best depends on how many beneficiaries there are and if they, or the estate have any losses to offset.)
Comments
The company has been looking to get rid of him for a while having failed to do so when he did something (far worse) a while back - I can't remember the gory details as eek twin b knows a lot but being a student she isn't up yet.
The technology is not there yet for heat pumps as a mass alternative to a modern gas boiler.
Top of his list:
"We should take away the cap on bankers' bonuses."
https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1567783706525310979
One thing struck me: Ukraine is in an asymmetric war. Fighting a much bigger richer enemy
Why then doesn’t it adopt the tactics of underdogs through the ages - take the war, guerilla style, to the enemy at home?
I don’t just mean hitting arms dumps in Belarus. I mean rampant terrorism in Moscow and St Petersburg so the citizens can’t go about their lives without fear. Bombs on the metro. Assassinations. Coordinated attacks on theatres, bus stops, cinemas. Bring home to middle class Russians the fear that Ukrainians experience every day
That might do more to hasten the war than anything
The more I think about it the more mystifying it is this isn’t happening already. There are millions of Ukes inside Russia. A significant number must be thirsty for revenge. Arm them
It was on here and on dishonest sites like the Grauniad/New Statesman etc that people went hysterical by ignoring the bit where she point-blank outright said support would be offered.
They're winning the war on conventional terms now, they don't need to become a terrorist state to win.
What Ukraine needs is arms flowing from the West to win the war, conventionally. If they resorted to terrorism instead that would provide the excuse needed for those in the West who don't want to defend democracy to say "we shouldn't support this terrorist state".
And what is this high minded “terrorist” nonsense? If someone did to Britain what Russia has done to Ukraine - if France invaded and killed 1m Brits, destroyed a fifth of the country, conducted a campaign of rape and torture across Kent, and also stole away another million Brits to evil camps in the Loire, are you saying you’d object if we set off a few bombs in Paris?
Assassinating generals OTOH? That's war not terrorism, and they've been pretty good at that so far.
We advised them that due to the nature of the building, the fact the entrance door will be opening and shutting all the time, the proposed system would not work. It was also 8 times the cost of a standard gas system.
In the great scheme of things the windfall tax would be loose change compared to what the current national debt is but in terms of politics Truss will suffer because the opposition will hammer her with being on the side of the energy companies .
I'm saying I'd want our bombs to go off on French military targets, to win the war, not on French cinemas etc to give succour to our enemy instead.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/07/body-of-british-aid-worker-captured-by-russian-proxies-shows-signs-of-torture
Why would you voluntarily return a body with signs of extreme torture, except to say Look what we can do?
Considering we already get 65% of revenue from the North Sea in taxation, getting more investment to get more security and more 65% revenue for longer will bring in more revenues than windfall taxing the 35% that the energy firms are taking at a time when most of our energy is imported and so untaxed.
I can see the moral and propaganda counter-argument, that you and @BartholomewRoberts are making. Equally, I’m deeply surprised Ukrainians in Russia aren’t bombing cinemas ALREADY
They are showing remarkable restraint
Labour would however likely impose a wealth tax and a windfall tax on the energy companies to pay for the energy bills freeze Truss wants. Whereas Truss it seems will just borrow
It doesn't do any good, and is pretty easy to evade, but people are furious that other people have more money than they do.
The Labour Party is basically built on such envy after all.
a) Political cover for an otherwise unpopular general mobilisation.
b) Ukraine would get it back x 10.
So Truss' 'bounce' so far is to lead the Tories to an even worse defeat than Major did in 1997 or Hague did in 2001.
There has been a swing to Labour since Boris resigned. Tories need to hope her energy bills freeze hits home
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1567788000469188610?s=20&t=vpMuejI1Y9Jcapog_NogaA
Yes, commendably restrained from the Ukranians - they understand the need to keep their allies onside by not engaging in terrorism in Moscow, no matter how tempting it might be to emulate the IRA of the 1980s.
You think it is wrong to be furious at the thought of other people having more money when the money is the result of sustained kleptocracy against the Russian people?
Do you have a superyacht yourself, or just very comfortable with the fact your insect overlords do?
Instead by cutting off businesses and having economic sanctions etc the whole point is to make the war expensive and economically harder but also seem futile. What's the point in continuing? If cinemas and metros are getting blown up, people will fight to their last.
Extend it to Russia, however, and all bets are off.
This was comparable with Norway where the rate has been around 70% for many many years. The difference is that they leave it alone and don't keep changing it. We tinker with it at almost every opportunity - it changed 3 times in one year under Osborne.
One crucial difference between Norway and the UK was the state ownership of oil and gas extraction. This may well have been to their benefit in the long run (although they have now reduced it massively in the last decade) but it did have a severe impact at the speed at which the Norwegian oil field developed. Peak oil production in the UK was 1985. In Norway it was 2004.
I expect there are downsides which others will now point out.
In any case you can forget any new taxes on bankers, energy companies or home owners and their heirs while Truss is PM. Ideologically she is a free market Thatcherite Tory leader and wants to slash taxes and cut the state where she can not increase tax as she made clear at PMQs yesterday.
If you want higher taxes you will have to get Starmer elected
Hence training and arming the Ukrainian military, rather than officially putting NATO boots on the ground.
Russia has always been a Muscovite Empire though. So long as the conflict stays out of Moscow, they're not going to care as much if some locations in Belgorod get blown up, that's war. Bringing the conflict to Moscow would be where it could go nuclear.
Equally it may discourage movement as any tax will provide a disincentive to move...
I will say that replacing council tax with a land value / property tax is the way to go - easy to calculate and a continual source of income.
If they were interested in maximising revenues, rather than the politics of envy, they’d be in favour of letting banks pay massive bonuses. As with footballers, it’s mostly PAYE earnings too, so really easy to ensure that the ‘fair’ amount is being paid with little opportunity for avoidance.
For comparison: the population of Ukraine in 2020 was about 37 million, including people living in parts of the Donbas held by Kiev and Kiev-friendly forces. The population of Chechenia is about 1.4 million.
A halfway house is, CGT if you own the property for under 10 years, otherwise not (as in Germany and NZ). France has main dwelling exemption like we do, as does Canada. CBA to research anywhere else, but there is a reason for it.
‘I shot my mouth of on Twitter and folk had the temerity to shoot their mouths off back at me!’
In this case hasn’t this chap ‘stepped down’ due to a commercial decision of a private company, ie the gammony vibe isn’t really doing our public profile much good? Usually PBers tend to be quite keen on that sort of thing. I’m surprised that a business called Spitfire Audio feels that way tbh, but there we are.
That said I am quite fond of the idea in some ways. Again, houses should ideally be for living in, not investments.
And Norway will be making several f*cktonnes of war profits.
Labour should look at this, and refine it.
https://www.wealthandpolicy.com/wp/WealthTaxFinalReport_ExecSummary.pdf
Edit it's also worth emphasising that CGT on residential properties is based on the original purchase price of the property not the index linked price of the property. I think that was an Osbourne change but as we sold our only rental property 20 years ago I may be wrong there.
But unless HMG leaves it for a long period (a decade or more) you're very much on a lottery as to how much you pay, which is not good. (Mind, the Conservatives violated that principle - they were happy to mess around with CGT on houses in the form of IHT, and now how much you pay depends how many children you officially have. Which is insane.)
It seems to me that one of the problems with our tax system is not just the rate at which taxes are charged but their incidence. Too many exemptions etc so the rates are too high on too small a group. So NI on all income (no exclusion for pensioners) and CGT on all capital gains (not just on one class of assets) etc.
And @HYUFD I don't want higher taxes. But if you borrow the sorts of sums the government is borrowing - for worthwhile reasons - you are going to have to pay for this with taxes. So the question is how is that tax burden shared. I don't think it should be loaded solely on the young and future generations. It should be shared more fairly. Since all benefit from help with energy all should contribute.
And that applies even if you get growth. That growth will generate tax revenues but the question of who those revenues come from still arises.
Growth does not obviate the need for fairness ie a fair sharing between groups and generations which maintains and enhances social cohesion. This is the point which the Tories (and to an extent also Labour) don't seem to get.
If it were up to me I would abolish stamp duty on all homes (primary or secondary) and abolish Council Tax and replace with an annual tax at a percentage of the property value. Say 0.5% of value. With the tax doubled for non-primary homes.
In which the levelling up secretary accurately summarises 12 years of Tory achievements
https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1567773845397856256
It also introduces more cost into the moving process - which is already a problem with stamp duty - which decreases labour mobility.
But yes, the need is to avoid transaction taxes, which act as a brake on mobility.
"'Those who have been boasting that they have the burden of tax lower have got to say that they had not the guts to cover their expenditure by taxation and in fact they covered it by borrowing and therefore handed on the burden to future generations."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/1992/mar/25/conservatives.uk
It could well be that government borrowing is the least bad way of funding something that needs to be done. It could well be that a windfall tax is more trouble than it's worth.
But the current slogan "silly old Labour, putting up taxes" doesn't wash when the government's alternative is putting up taxes on future generations.
Simply put - your average house in the Home Counties is band D, your average house up north may well be band B....