I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support. 'This package is to provide support and boost growth' 'Well lets see how that goes'
Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
IF Truss is going to give people their money back, then go big. Don't trim taxes, slash them, so that ordinary folk see it in their wages.
People dont mind others doing well if they are feeling OK about their own finances.
That’s the problem with CT cuts (which nobody really feels) and reversing tax rises that hasn’t yet happened. That plus crumbling public services just isn’t going to cut it.
As others have commented Thatcher had North Sea revenues and privatisation windfalls to play with. Truss has a bare cupboard.
She can borrow us to growth?
Lets imagine Sunak won.
There's already evidence that his super high taxes are falling well short of what he envisioned (see last months budget numbers).
Add to those taxes the interest rate increases which will have to come to choke off inflation and shore up the pound and you've got a dead economy walking. You've got depression and bankruptcy and choice of huge cuts in public spending or a corbynite kleptocracy.
Isn’t the taxes high because governments have incrementally been bandaging up the public sector with it, to stop it completely falling apart. Peel away those bandages with tax cuts, and NHS and social care and education for example could just fall apart in the governments hands?
Surely the first step in tacking high taxes is tackle the reasons for high taxes - unless your argument is there is no reason for this high tax take at all?
So no reasons for the high tax take we need to be aware of before slashing taxes?
no reasoning behind getting to highest tax take since the bankrupt time after Second World War? just the fault of Rishi, Rishi and a socialist minded Treasury raised government money for things the wrong way?
Taxes are certainly high, but in large part that is due to an ageing population with consequent demands for health, social care and pensions, as well as electoral sweeties under various governments.
We cannot have a tax structure like late Eighties Britain with our current aged population, and certainly not one with anything more than a cachectic welfare state. This is something true the world over, with all countries, even developing countries outside Africa facing the same issue.
We loved and doted on our ageing monarch, and it seems the new one, but for the elderly down the social scale it will be a grim future in low tax Britain.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
As far as I can see the rate of immigration is about the same as it was when we were in the EU, its just the immigrants come from elsewhere.
Yes, but are they dependants or workers? The danger was always that the usually single East Europeans would be replaced with a family from elsewhere with one worker and several dependants.
Both really. But the children of those immigrants will grow up to be the Sadiq Khan and Saj Javid of future generations.
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
The Russian government is administering an across-the-board cut of 10% in budgetary expenses. This is in reaction to a larger-than-expected decline of fiscal revenues over the summer (a deficit of close to 1.5 trillion rubles). This is likely only the first step. https://twitter.com/NoYardstick/status/1570426432471592960
What's happened to all the billions of extra revenue Gazprom, Rosneft etc have been raking in?
Immigration has continued pretty much at the same rate, and we have labour shortages too.
The ageing of the population pyramid is pretty much certain, and even with the immigration rate of last decades the working population is merely predicted to be stable between 2015 and 2030, with the increase of population being a growth in the over 65s of 2.5 million people.
The only way to square the circle is pay more (in taxes or quasi-taxes like compulsory insurance), get less, or work longer. Or a combination of all 3, in various proportions. This is the reality that faces all politicians, though they turn away fantasising of economic growth at rates that mature post industrial economies with our population pyramid never achieve. The future looks more like Japan than the post war golden period.
Well, many of us are getting less (ZHC's are a lot more common) and also most of us now have to work longer (retirement age is up). So all that leaves is to put taxes up.... I am sure the govt will do the right thing.....
The real problem is a small but not insignificant number of people have simply left the labour force primarily due to the pandemic but other factors no doubt at work.
The growing number of economically inactive people living in the post-work world is an issue but the only answer seems to be to cajole or coerce them back to the workplace.
We need some better thinking on this and certainly anything better than we'll get from Truss and Kwarteng who seem to think it's the 1980s - still puts them two centuries ahead of JRM so it's a start.
I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support. 'This package is to provide support and boost growth' 'Well lets see how that goes'
Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
IF Truss is going to give people their money back, then go big. Don't trim taxes, slash them, so that ordinary folk see it in their wages.
People dont mind others doing well if they are feeling OK about their own finances.
That’s the problem with CT cuts (which nobody really feels) and reversing tax rises that hasn’t yet happened. That plus crumbling public services just isn’t going to cut it.
As others have commented Thatcher had North Sea revenues and privatisation windfalls to play with. Truss has a bare cupboard.
She can borrow us to growth?
Lets imagine Sunak won.
There's already evidence that his super high taxes are falling well short of what he envisioned (see last months budget numbers).
Add to those taxes the interest rate increases which will have to come to choke off inflation and shore up the pound and you've got a dead economy walking. You've got depression and bankruptcy and choice of huge cuts in public spending or a corbynite kleptocracy.
Isn’t the taxes high because governments have incrementally been bandaging up the public sector with it, to stop it completely falling apart. Peel away those bandages with tax cuts, and NHS and social care and education for example could just fall apart in the governments hands?
Surely the first step in tacking high taxes is tackle the reasons for high taxes - unless your argument is there is no reason for this high tax take at all?
So no reasons for the high tax take we need to be aware of before slashing taxes?
no reasoning behind getting to highest tax take since the bankrupt time after Second World War? just the fault of Rishi, Rishi and a socialist minded Treasury raised government money for things the wrong way?
Taxes are certainly high, but in large part that is due to an ageing population with consequent demands for health, social care and pensions, as well as electoral sweeties under various governments.
We cannot have a tax structure like late Eighties Britain with our current aged population, and certainly not one with anything more than a cachectic welfare state. This is something true the world over, with all countries, even developing countries outside Africa facing the same issue.
We loved and doted on our ageing monarch, and it seems the new one, but for the elderly down the social scale it will be a grim future in low tax Britain.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
As far as I can see the rate of immigration is about the same as it was when we were in the EU, its just the immigrants come from elsewhere.
Yes, but are they dependants or workers? The danger was always that the usually single East Europeans would be replaced with a family from elsewhere with one worker and several dependants.
The Russian government is administering an across-the-board cut of 10% in budgetary expenses. This is in reaction to a larger-than-expected decline of fiscal revenues over the summer (a deficit of close to 1.5 trillion rubles). This is likely only the first step. https://twitter.com/NoYardstick/status/1570426432471592960
I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support. 'This package is to provide support and boost growth' 'Well lets see how that goes'
Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
IF Truss is going to give people their money back, then go big. Don't trim taxes, slash them, so that ordinary folk see it in their wages.
People dont mind others doing well if they are feeling OK about their own finances.
That’s the problem with CT cuts (which nobody really feels) and reversing tax rises that hasn’t yet happened. That plus crumbling public services just isn’t going to cut it.
As others have commented Thatcher had North Sea revenues and privatisation windfalls to play with. Truss has a bare cupboard.
She can borrow us to growth?
Lets imagine Sunak won.
There's already evidence that his super high taxes are falling well short of what he envisioned (see last months budget numbers).
Add to those taxes the interest rate increases which will have to come to choke off inflation and shore up the pound and you've got a dead economy walking. You've got depression and bankruptcy and choice of huge cuts in public spending or a corbynite kleptocracy.
Isn’t the taxes high because governments have incrementally been bandaging up the public sector with it, to stop it completely falling apart. Peel away those bandages with tax cuts, and NHS and social care and education for example could just fall apart in the governments hands?
Surely the first step in tacking high taxes is tackle the reasons for high taxes - unless your argument is there is no reason for this high tax take at all?
So no reasons for the high tax take we need to be aware of before slashing taxes?
no reasoning behind getting to highest tax take since the bankrupt time after Second World War? just the fault of Rishi, Rishi and a socialist minded Treasury raised government money for things the wrong way?
Taxes are certainly high, but in large part that is due to an ageing population with consequent demands for health, social care and pensions, as well as electoral sweeties under various governments.
We cannot have a tax structure like late Eighties Britain with our current aged population, and certainly not one with anything more than a cachectic welfare state. This is something true the world over, with all countries, even developing countries outside Africa facing the same issue.
We loved and doted on our ageing monarch, and it seems the new one, but for the elderly down the social scale it will be a grim future in low tax Britain.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
Immigration has continued pretty much at the same rate, and we have labour shortages too.
The ageing of the population pyramid is pretty much certain, and even with the immigration rate of last decades the working population is merely predicted to be stable between 2015 and 2030, with the increase of population being a growth in the over 65s of 2.5 million people.
The only way to square the circle is pay more (in taxes or quasi-taxes like compulsory insurance), get less, or work longer. Or a combination of all 3, in various proportions. This is the reality that faces all politicians, though they turn away fantasising of economic growth at rates that mature post industrial economies with our population pyramid never achieve. The future looks more like Japan than the post war golden period.
Well, many of us are getting less (ZHC's are a lot more common) and also most of us now have to work longer (retirement age is up). So all that leaves is to put taxes up.... I am sure the govt will do the right thing.....
One of the best and least controversial moves in this direction was under the Coalition, when Ed Davey abolished compulsory retirement age. A surprising number of people are quite happy to work on.
Clever Sir Ed, but not easy to find another quick win. Perhaps the next step is to encourage a "retire and return" system like we have in the NHS, so people can take their pension, state or otherwise, and return to the workforce part time in amended duties. Obviously more difficult in some jobs than others.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
We do. Net migration to the UK in the year to June 2021 was well over 239,000 people. Vast numbers of people are still moving here every year. 2022 will probably be higher still, as migration in 2021 was supressed be the pandemic restrictions.
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
The Russian government is administering an across-the-board cut of 10% in budgetary expenses. This is in reaction to a larger-than-expected decline of fiscal revenues over the summer (a deficit of close to 1.5 trillion rubles). This is likely only the first step. https://twitter.com/NoYardstick/status/1570426432471592960
Good one Cyclefree. Having enough wealth to challenge one's potential is a good thing. I guess that is denied to many even most people But it needn't necessarily require lotsa money. For instance the Indian self-taught mathematician Ramanujan developed intuitively many hypotheses in his short life some of which have been proved and others not yet. This old lefty cannot understand how garnering wealth for its own sake has any value whatsoever unless one gives it away to help others grow. That does happen. American philanthropism does sometimes go that way. In Lysistrata women went on strike against war. Why not against unbridled materialism? Oh.
Since April, Australia has delivered 40 of the 60 Bushmasters requested by Ukraine. They were effectively used during the recent Kharkiv offensive amid the lack of IFVs & tanks
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
We do. Net migration to the UK in the year to June 2021 was well over 239,000 people. Vast numbers of people are still moving here every year. 2022 will probably be higher still, as migration in 2021 was supressed be the pandemic restrictions.
More people have to apply now so numbers increasing is not really a surprise.
How many brought dependants with them and how many?
I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support. 'This package is to provide support and boost growth' 'Well lets see how that goes'
Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
IF Truss is going to give people their money back, then go big. Don't trim taxes, slash them, so that ordinary folk see it in their wages.
People dont mind others doing well if they are feeling OK about their own finances.
That’s the problem with CT cuts (which nobody really feels) and reversing tax rises that hasn’t yet happened. That plus crumbling public services just isn’t going to cut it.
As others have commented Thatcher had North Sea revenues and privatisation windfalls to play with. Truss has a bare cupboard.
She can borrow us to growth?
Lets imagine Sunak won.
There's already evidence that his super high taxes are falling well short of what he envisioned (see last months budget numbers).
Add to those taxes the interest rate increases which will have to come to choke off inflation and shore up the pound and you've got a dead economy walking. You've got depression and bankruptcy and choice of huge cuts in public spending or a corbynite kleptocracy.
Isn’t the taxes high because governments have incrementally been bandaging up the public sector with it, to stop it completely falling apart. Peel away those bandages with tax cuts, and NHS and social care and education for example could just fall apart in the governments hands?
Surely the first step in tacking high taxes is tackle the reasons for high taxes - unless your argument is there is no reason for this high tax take at all?
So no reasons for the high tax take we need to be aware of before slashing taxes?
no reasoning behind getting to highest tax take since the bankrupt time after Second World War? just the fault of Rishi, Rishi and a socialist minded Treasury raised government money for things the wrong way?
Taxes are certainly high, but in large part that is due to an ageing population with consequent demands for health, social care and pensions, as well as electoral sweeties under various governments.
We cannot have a tax structure like late Eighties Britain with our current aged population, and certainly not one with anything more than a cachectic welfare state. This is something true the world over, with all countries, even developing countries outside Africa facing the same issue.
We loved and doted on our ageing monarch, and it seems the new one, but for the elderly down the social scale it will be a grim future in low tax Britain.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
Immigration has continued pretty much at the same rate, and we have labour shortages too.
The ageing of the population pyramid is pretty much certain, and even with the immigration rate of last decades the working population is merely predicted to be stable between 2015 and 2030, with the increase of population being a growth in the over 65s of 2.5 million people.
The only way to square the circle is pay more (in taxes or quasi-taxes like compulsory insurance), get less, or work longer. Or a combination of all 3, in various proportions. This is the reality that faces all politicians, though they turn away fantasising of economic growth at rates that mature post industrial economies with our population pyramid never achieve. The future looks more like Japan than the post war golden period.
Well, many of us are getting less (ZHC's are a lot more common) and also most of us now have to work longer (retirement age is up). So all that leaves is to put taxes up.... I am sure the govt will do the right thing.....
One of the best and least controversial moves in this direction was under the Coalition, when Ed Davey abolished compulsory retirement age. A surprising number of people are quite happy to work on.
Clever Sir Ed, but not easy to find another quick win. Perhaps the next step is to encourage a "retire and return" system like we have in the NHS, so people can take their pension, state or otherwise, and return to the workforce part time in amended duties. Obviously more difficult in some jobs than others.
The obvious quick win is to have NI paid on all earned income even if over retirement age.
OT I am finding the feed of the people filing through Westminster Hall and paying their respects incredibly moving. And the whole UK demographic seems to be very well represented* with a lot of people under 30 in the mourners. The BBC have really done a good thig with this continuous feed.
*The exception is children. For fairly obvious reasons not many parents seem convinced that bringing their children to stand in a queue for 8 or 9 hours is a recipe for harmony.
Sure but less, honestly, is more. 4 bullet points is better than 13, randomly ordered, and they aren't very bullety when some of them have mini essays appended to them. Stick to 6 max, one line of text each, and cut the overall length of the piece by 60-70%. Seriously you will at least double your readership.
I fear Cyclefree's threads are getting a tad predictable .
No one's stopping you putting up a thread praising the Government or an alternate view.
Perhaps squareroot2's point could be, that fact that Cyclefree's threads re: crony capitalism UK-style are indeed predictable is not HER fault, but rather that of the Prime Ministers current and recent, their fellow ministers and MPs?
I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support. 'This package is to provide support and boost growth' 'Well lets see how that goes'
Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
IF Truss is going to give people their money back, then go big. Don't trim taxes, slash them, so that ordinary folk see it in their wages.
People dont mind others doing well if they are feeling OK about their own finances.
That’s the problem with CT cuts (which nobody really feels) and reversing tax rises that hasn’t yet happened. That plus crumbling public services just isn’t going to cut it.
As others have commented Thatcher had North Sea revenues and privatisation windfalls to play with. Truss has a bare cupboard.
She can borrow us to growth?
Lets imagine Sunak won.
There's already evidence that his super high taxes are falling well short of what he envisioned (see last months budget numbers).
Add to those taxes the interest rate increases which will have to come to choke off inflation and shore up the pound and you've got a dead economy walking. You've got depression and bankruptcy and choice of huge cuts in public spending or a corbynite kleptocracy.
Isn’t the taxes high because governments have incrementally been bandaging up the public sector with it, to stop it completely falling apart. Peel away those bandages with tax cuts, and NHS and social care and education for example could just fall apart in the governments hands?
Surely the first step in tacking high taxes is tackle the reasons for high taxes - unless your argument is there is no reason for this high tax take at all?
So no reasons for the high tax take we need to be aware of before slashing taxes?
no reasoning behind getting to highest tax take since the bankrupt time after Second World War? just the fault of Rishi, Rishi and a socialist minded Treasury raised government money for things the wrong way?
Taxes are certainly high, but in large part that is due to an ageing population with consequent demands for health, social care and pensions, as well as electoral sweeties under various governments.
We cannot have a tax structure like late Eighties Britain with our current aged population, and certainly not one with anything more than a cachectic welfare state. This is something true the world over, with all countries, even developing countries outside Africa facing the same issue.
We loved and doted on our ageing monarch, and it seems the new one, but for the elderly down the social scale it will be a grim future in low tax Britain.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
Immigration has continued pretty much at the same rate, and we have labour shortages too.
The ageing of the population pyramid is pretty much certain, and even with the immigration rate of last decades the working population is merely predicted to be stable between 2015 and 2030, with the increase of population being a growth in the over 65s of 2.5 million people.
The only way to square the circle is pay more (in taxes or quasi-taxes like compulsory insurance), get less, or work longer. Or a combination of all 3, in various proportions. This is the reality that faces all politicians, though they turn away fantasising of economic growth at rates that mature post industrial economies with our population pyramid never achieve. The future looks more like Japan than the post war golden period.
Well, many of us are getting less (ZHC's are a lot more common) and also most of us now have to work longer (retirement age is up). So all that leaves is to put taxes up.... I am sure the govt will do the right thing.....
One of the best and least controversial moves in this direction was under the Coalition, when Ed Davey abolished compulsory retirement age. A surprising number of people are quite happy to work on.
Clever Sir Ed, but not easy to find another quick win. Perhaps the next step is to encourage a "retire and return" system like we have in the NHS, so people can take their pension, state or otherwise, and return to the workforce part time in amended duties. Obviously more difficult in some jobs than others.
The obvious quick win is to have NI paid on all earned income even if over retirement age.
I fear Cyclefree's threads are getting a tad predictable .
Rather than keep posting negative comments how about writing your own thread.
“You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.”
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
Sure but less, honestly, is more. 4 bullet points is better than 13, randomly ordered, and they aren't very bullety when some of them have mini essays appended to them. Stick to 6 max, one line of text each, and cut the overall length of the piece by 60-70%. Seriously you will at least double your readership.
I fear Cyclefree's threads are getting a tad predictable .
Rather than keep posting negative comments how about writing your own thread.
“You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.”
Who said that?
You did, just now in the comment I am replying to.
The obvious quick win is to have NI paid on all earned income even if over retirement age.
Yes, it's absolutely baffling that that anomaly continues. And of course, the longer it's left like that, the harder it will be politically to correct. It should have been fixed under the coalition, when fewer people would have been immediately affected.
Quite why the government wants to tax me at a much lower rate than most workers is a mystery.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
We do. Net migration to the UK in the year to June 2021 was well over 239,000 people. Vast numbers of people are still moving here every year. 2022 will probably be higher still, as migration in 2021 was supressed be the pandemic restrictions.
More people have to apply now so numbers increasing is not really a surprise.
How many brought dependants with them and how many?
If it's not a suprise why did you say "If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes...."
Leaving the EU has made little difference to immigration to the UK in scale, the only difference is where people are coming from. The other 90% of the world's population can come here now on an equal basis, rather than the UK blowing through it's target without any control over who comes from the EU. In theory at least we can be more selective, and there is certainly no lack of demand to come here.
I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support. 'This package is to provide support and boost growth' 'Well lets see how that goes'
Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
IF Truss is going to give people their money back, then go big. Don't trim taxes, slash them, so that ordinary folk see it in their wages.
People dont mind others doing well if they are feeling OK about their own finances.
That’s the problem with CT cuts (which nobody really feels) and reversing tax rises that hasn’t yet happened. That plus crumbling public services just isn’t going to cut it.
As others have commented Thatcher had North Sea revenues and privatisation windfalls to play with. Truss has a bare cupboard.
She can borrow us to growth?
Lets imagine Sunak won.
There's already evidence that his super high taxes are falling well short of what he envisioned (see last months budget numbers).
Add to those taxes the interest rate increases which will have to come to choke off inflation and shore up the pound and you've got a dead economy walking. You've got depression and bankruptcy and choice of huge cuts in public spending or a corbynite kleptocracy.
Isn’t the taxes high because governments have incrementally been bandaging up the public sector with it, to stop it completely falling apart. Peel away those bandages with tax cuts, and NHS and social care and education for example could just fall apart in the governments hands?
Surely the first step in tacking high taxes is tackle the reasons for high taxes - unless your argument is there is no reason for this high tax take at all?
So no reasons for the high tax take we need to be aware of before slashing taxes?
no reasoning behind getting to highest tax take since the bankrupt time after Second World War? just the fault of Rishi, Rishi and a socialist minded Treasury raised government money for things the wrong way?
Taxes are certainly high, but in large part that is due to an ageing population with consequent demands for health, social care and pensions, as well as electoral sweeties under various governments.
We cannot have a tax structure like late Eighties Britain with our current aged population, and certainly not one with anything more than a cachectic welfare state. This is something true the world over, with all countries, even developing countries outside Africa facing the same issue.
We loved and doted on our ageing monarch, and it seems the new one, but for the elderly down the social scale it will be a grim future in low tax Britain.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
Immigration has continued pretty much at the same rate, and we have labour shortages too.
The ageing of the population pyramid is pretty much certain, and even with the immigration rate of last decades the working population is merely predicted to be stable between 2015 and 2030, with the increase of population being a growth in the over 65s of 2.5 million people.
The only way to square the circle is pay more (in taxes or quasi-taxes like compulsory insurance), get less, or work longer. Or a combination of all 3, in various proportions. This is the reality that faces all politicians, though they turn away fantasising of economic growth at rates that mature post industrial economies with our population pyramid never achieve. The future looks more like Japan than the post war golden period.
Well, many of us are getting less (ZHC's are a lot more common) and also most of us now have to work longer (retirement age is up). So all that leaves is to put taxes up.... I am sure the govt will do the right thing.....
One of the best and least controversial moves in this direction was under the Coalition, when Ed Davey abolished compulsory retirement age. A surprising number of people are quite happy to work on.
Clever Sir Ed, but not easy to find another quick win. Perhaps the next step is to encourage a "retire and return" system like we have in the NHS, so people can take their pension, state or otherwise, and return to the workforce part time in amended duties. Obviously more difficult in some jobs than others.
The obvious quick win is to have NI paid on all earned income even if over retirement age.
Further suggestion above.
Yep no problem with that. I suppose my phrasing was because it seems kind of dumb to pay NI on pensions which have been paid for by NI. But otherwise I agree.
I fear Cyclefree's threads are getting a tad predictable .
If Government policy was less controversial @Cyclefree would have no reason to write critical headers. I suspect she would be more than content to sing the praises of a calm, consistent joined up Government.
Not much hope of that with Truss, Braverman and JRM running the circus.
I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support. 'This package is to provide support and boost growth' 'Well lets see how that goes'
Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
IF Truss is going to give people their money back, then go big. Don't trim taxes, slash them, so that ordinary folk see it in their wages.
People dont mind others doing well if they are feeling OK about their own finances.
That’s the problem with CT cuts (which nobody really feels) and reversing tax rises that hasn’t yet happened. That plus crumbling public services just isn’t going to cut it.
As others have commented Thatcher had North Sea revenues and privatisation windfalls to play with. Truss has a bare cupboard.
She can borrow us to growth?
Lets imagine Sunak won.
There's already evidence that his super high taxes are falling well short of what he envisioned (see last months budget numbers).
Add to those taxes the interest rate increases which will have to come to choke off inflation and shore up the pound and you've got a dead economy walking. You've got depression and bankruptcy and choice of huge cuts in public spending or a corbynite kleptocracy.
Isn’t the taxes high because governments have incrementally been bandaging up the public sector with it, to stop it completely falling apart. Peel away those bandages with tax cuts, and NHS and social care and education for example could just fall apart in the governments hands?
Surely the first step in tacking high taxes is tackle the reasons for high taxes - unless your argument is there is no reason for this high tax take at all?
So no reasons for the high tax take we need to be aware of before slashing taxes?
no reasoning behind getting to highest tax take since the bankrupt time after Second World War? just the fault of Rishi, Rishi and a socialist minded Treasury raised government money for things the wrong way?
Taxes are certainly high, but in large part that is due to an ageing population with consequent demands for health, social care and pensions, as well as electoral sweeties under various governments.
We cannot have a tax structure like late Eighties Britain with our current aged population, and certainly not one with anything more than a cachectic welfare state. This is something true the world over, with all countries, even developing countries outside Africa facing the same issue.
We loved and doted on our ageing monarch, and it seems the new one, but for the elderly down the social scale it will be a grim future in low tax Britain.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
Immigration has continued pretty much at the same rate, and we have labour shortages too.
The ageing of the population pyramid is pretty much certain, and even with the immigration rate of last decades the working population is merely predicted to be stable between 2015 and 2030, with the increase of population being a growth in the over 65s of 2.5 million people.
The only way to square the circle is pay more (in taxes or quasi-taxes like compulsory insurance), get less, or work longer. Or a combination of all 3, in various proportions. This is the reality that faces all politicians, though they turn away fantasising of economic growth at rates that mature post industrial economies with our population pyramid never achieve. The future looks more like Japan than the post war golden period.
Well, many of us are getting less (ZHC's are a lot more common) and also most of us now have to work longer (retirement age is up). So all that leaves is to put taxes up.... I am sure the govt will do the right thing.....
One of the best and least controversial moves in this direction was under the Coalition, when Ed Davey abolished compulsory retirement age. A surprising number of people are quite happy to work on.
Clever Sir Ed, but not easy to find another quick win. Perhaps the next step is to encourage a "retire and return" system like we have in the NHS, so people can take their pension, state or otherwise, and return to the workforce part time in amended duties. Obviously more difficult in some jobs than others.
It needs a flexible system that reflects that some people are well able and willing to work beyond retirement age, whereas others are physically and mentally struggling to even reach retirement age. As well as us all being different, someone who has worked outside in all weathers, in a physically demanding occupation, is unlikely to be as able to carry on working as long as someone in a more sedentary job, especially if they are in a position to enjoy their work. Should there be a flexible retirement age to reflect this? DSS and HR are no doubt shocked at the thought.
China has lost almost as much strategically as Russia in this war. NATO enlarged and more united. Russia shown to be a paper tiger, so the US can send more to the Pacific. More concern about defending democracy in general. Darn right they have concerns
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
Is a banner tendering condolences to Michael Fagan for his loss, truly "anti-queen"?
Not really methinks, unless one thinks all levity inappropriate during QEII's mourning.
Lot'ss been said re: her wry sense of humor, so not inconceivable she might find it at least a wee bit amusing?
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
It's a bit like comparing syphilis and gonnherea.
There’s a reason why supporters of non Rangers and Celtic Scottish football teams refer to them as the arse cheeks.
The Russian government is administering an across-the-board cut of 10% in budgetary expenses. This is in reaction to a larger-than-expected decline of fiscal revenues over the summer (a deficit of close to 1.5 trillion rubles). This is likely only the first step. https://twitter.com/NoYardstick/status/1570426432471592960
I wonder if it will affect the propaganda budget.
We might need to adapt to 10% fewer Russian trolls.
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
Is a banner tendering condolences to Michael Fagan for his loss, truly "anti-queen"?
Not really methinks, unless one thinks all levity inappropriate during QEII's mourning.
Lot'ss been said re: her wry sense of humor, so not inconceivable she might find it at least a wee bit amusing?
Her wry sense of humour hasn’t been passed on to the police or the BBC.
I fear Cyclefree's threads are getting a tad predictable .
Rather than keep posting negative comments how about writing your own thread.
“You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.”
Who said that?
Don't know, but I do agree with it, so it is fair comment to make re my post, however Square root does have a tendency to be sour in his posts, without ever being constructive or positive. Always sounds angry and grumpy.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
We do. Net migration to the UK in the year to June 2021 was well over 239,000 people. Vast numbers of people are still moving here every year. 2022 will probably be higher still, as migration in 2021 was supressed be the pandemic restrictions.
More people have to apply now so numbers increasing is not really a surprise.
How many brought dependants with them and how many?
If it's not a suprise why did you say "If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes...."
Leaving the EU has made little difference to immigration to the UK in scale, the only difference is where people are coming from. The other 90% of the world's population can come here now on an equal basis, rather than the UK blowing through it's target without any control over who comes from the EU. In theory at least we can be more selective, and there is certainly no lack of demand to come here.
Why would anybody want to come to Brexit Britain?
We have 5 million unemployed, our supermarket shelves are empty, our government is Putin's puppet, we're a global Pariah that nobody will talk to and everybody who can has left.
The Guardian, the New York Times and the BBC told me so and why would they lie?
The Russian government is administering an across-the-board cut of 10% in budgetary expenses. This is in reaction to a larger-than-expected decline of fiscal revenues over the summer (a deficit of close to 1.5 trillion rubles). This is likely only the first step. https://twitter.com/NoYardstick/status/1570426432471592960
I wonder if it will affect the propaganda budget.
We might need to adapt to 10% fewer Russian trolls.
I hope the ones who graced us with their presence won't find their invoices left unpaid.
OT I am finding the feed of the people filing through Westminster Hall and paying their respects incredibly moving. And the whole UK demographic seems to be very well represented* with a lot of people under 30 in the mourners. The BBC have really done a good thig with this continuous feed.
*The exception is children. For fairly obvious reasons not many parents seem convinced that bringing their children to stand in a queue for 8 or 9 hours is a recipe for harmony.
Quite a few of the stories I've read about the people who have come have involved adult children bringing their parents with them.
China has lost almost as much strategically as Russia in this war. NATO enlarged and more united. Russia shown to be a paper tiger, so the US can send more to the Pacific. More concern about defending democracy in general. Darn right they have concerns
Yes China is concerned that Putin has made authoritarianism look stupid and weak, which goes against the whole ethos of such systems that a powerful centralised government protects the people who lose their rights in return for security.
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
Is a banner tendering condolences to Michael Fagan for his loss, truly "anti-queen"?
Not really methinks, unless one thinks all levity inappropriate during QEII's mourning.
Lot'ss been said re: her wry sense of humor, so not inconceivable she might find it at least a wee bit amusing?
Those banners were a cry for attention. For a minute there, the wide world was interested in Scottish football.
The Russian government is administering an across-the-board cut of 10% in budgetary expenses. This is in reaction to a larger-than-expected decline of fiscal revenues over the summer (a deficit of close to 1.5 trillion rubles). This is likely only the first step. https://twitter.com/NoYardstick/status/1570426432471592960
I wonder if it will affect the propaganda budget.
We might need to adapt to 10% fewer Russian trolls.
I hope the ones who graced us with their presence won't find their invoices left unpaid.
If the Russians are paying for the rubbish we read they are being robbed.
I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support. 'This package is to provide support and boost growth' 'Well lets see how that goes'
Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
IF Truss is going to give people their money back, then go big. Don't trim taxes, slash them, so that ordinary folk see it in their wages.
People dont mind others doing well if they are feeling OK about their own finances.
That’s the problem with CT cuts (which nobody really feels) and reversing tax rises that hasn’t yet happened. That plus crumbling public services just isn’t going to cut it.
As others have commented Thatcher had North Sea revenues and privatisation windfalls to play with. Truss has a bare cupboard.
She can borrow us to growth?
Lets imagine Sunak won.
There's already evidence that his super high taxes are falling well short of what he envisioned (see last months budget numbers).
Add to those taxes the interest rate increases which will have to come to choke off inflation and shore up the pound and you've got a dead economy walking. You've got depression and bankruptcy and choice of huge cuts in public spending or a corbynite kleptocracy.
Isn’t the taxes high because governments have incrementally been bandaging up the public sector with it, to stop it completely falling apart. Peel away those bandages with tax cuts, and NHS and social care and education for example could just fall apart in the governments hands?
Surely the first step in tacking high taxes is tackle the reasons for high taxes - unless your argument is there is no reason for this high tax take at all?
So no reasons for the high tax take we need to be aware of before slashing taxes?
no reasoning behind getting to highest tax take since the bankrupt time after Second World War? just the fault of Rishi, Rishi and a socialist minded Treasury raised government money for things the wrong way?
Taxes are certainly high, but in large part that is due to an ageing population with consequent demands for health, social care and pensions, as well as electoral sweeties under various governments.
We cannot have a tax structure like late Eighties Britain with our current aged population, and certainly not one with anything more than a cachectic welfare state. This is something true the world over, with all countries, even developing countries outside Africa facing the same issue.
We loved and doted on our ageing monarch, and it seems the new one, but for the elderly down the social scale it will be a grim future in low tax Britain.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
Immigration has continued pretty much at the same rate, and we have labour shortages too.
The ageing of the population pyramid is pretty much certain, and even with the immigration rate of last decades the working population is merely predicted to be stable between 2015 and 2030, with the increase of population being a growth in the over 65s of 2.5 million people.
The only way to square the circle is pay more (in taxes or quasi-taxes like compulsory insurance), get less, or work longer. Or a combination of all 3, in various proportions. This is the reality that faces all politicians, though they turn away fantasising of economic growth at rates that mature post industrial economies with our population pyramid never achieve. The future looks more like Japan than the post war golden period.
Well, many of us are getting less (ZHC's are a lot more common) and also most of us now have to work longer (retirement age is up). So all that leaves is to put taxes up.... I am sure the govt will do the right thing.....
The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.
All Britons Should scrap: 15% Should not scrap: 67%
Con voters Should scrap: 20% Should not scrap: 65%.
The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour
I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.
If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
Mrs T was a giant compared to Truss and also more politically savvy about what the average voter needed and also had not changed positions on key issues multiple times.
She was also lucky enough to be facing a failing Labour government, not be PM 12 years into a Tory government
Yes Mrs T was much more savvy about what voters needed. At times of hardship Mrs T imposed windfall taxes on those not suffering in order to redistribute to those who were. Straight away Truss failed the Mrs T test.
Also, Maggie could read a calendar.
If this is the right thing to do, the time to do it is in the sweet afterglow of a new electoral mandate.
Even if this works*, it's not going to work by autumn 2024. So proposing it now gets the political pain without the tax receipts. Nuts, and the sort of thing that you do if you read about Maggie without direct experience or understanding.
* By works, I'd go a bit wider than annual tax take. Does a bonus obsession encourage too much risk to be taken by bankers? I don't know, but it needs consideration.
Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.
Any major changes she wants to get done, that might not be politically appealing, now is the time. The politically appealing ones, those you can save up for the General Election year.
“ Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.‘
😆
This hasn’t been one of your better days Barty.
Less than 50% of the members of her own party voted for her. She just about pipped second in vote of her parties MPs.
She won, Sunak lost, that's the end of it. She won, she's new PM, and now is when she needs to get going on her agenda.
If you're not going to implement your agenda when you win and become Prime Minister, when will you?
This announcement you are defending, was it a promise during her campaign?
Challenging Treasury orthodoxy, being reformist and going for growth absolutely was a promise made during her campaign, yes.
She needs to pull out the stops and do that. That's what she was elected to do. If she does it and its unpopular she may not win a second term, if she doesn't do it having had the chance and its the right thing to do, she doesn't deserve a second term.
We were supposed to believe at the time she was serious about all that then?
I thought she only got the win because Dorries posted that cartoon of Brutus Rishi, stabbing glorious Caesar in the back - I didn’t realise all those thousands of mrmbers were mad keen on this policy platform till you just pointed that out. 🫣
Well I supported her because of her agenda, yes. Which is the same agenda she has advocated for many, many years now. 👍
As for Dorries - I couldn't care less about her, and nobody serious does.
But that Dorries argument of disloyal Truss may have swung more votes to Liz than actual buy in to her platform is my point. We can’t be sure can we?
So what we do know, No mandate from the country, nor from her MPs - less than 50% of her membership backs her, and we can’t even be sure how much the 49% who did actually buy in to her radical plan for destroying treasury othordoxy, or just disliked Rishi for bringing down Boris. Yet you see her basking in the glow of triumph with power to remodel UK orthodoxy to her whim?
What do we know?
She won. She's Prime Minister.
To the victor goes the spoils, the PM gets an historic and unique opportunity to set the agenda, and she is the PM. It doesn't matter if its by 1 vote or a million, she's the new PM and she has to show why she was put there, not spend the next 2 years begging for another term.
I fear Cyclefree's threads are getting a tad predictable .
Rather than keep posting negative comments how about writing your own thread.
“You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.”
Who said that?
Don't know, but I do agree with it, so it is fair comment to make re my post, however Square root does have a tendency to be sour in his posts, without ever being constructive or positive. Always sounds angry and grumpy.
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
Is a banner tendering condolences to Michael Fagan for his loss, truly "anti-queen"?
Not really methinks, unless one thinks all levity inappropriate during QEII's mourning.
Lot'ss been said re: her wry sense of humor, so not inconceivable she might find it at least a wee bit amusing?
Her wry sense of humour hasn’t been passed on to the police or the BBC.
True enough.
What it reminds me (sort of) is my favorite Ronald Reagan story:
The President was in a motorcade somewhere, when a guy walking down the sidewalk next to the road spotted Reagan seated in the back seat of his limo - and gave him the finger.
Reagan's response was instantaneous. He turned to his aide, and remarked, "I think we can put him down as 'undecided'".
China has lost almost as much strategically as Russia in this war. NATO enlarged and more united. Russia shown to be a paper tiger, so the US can send more to the Pacific. More concern about defending democracy in general. Darn right they have concerns
Yes China is concerned that Putin has made authoritarianism look stupid and weak, which goes against the whole ethos of such systems that a powerful centralised government protects the people who lose their rights in return for security.
Reading between the lines, Xi is absolutely furious with Putin. LOL.
I don’t have a problem with unlimited bankers’ bonuses as long as they sign up for unlimited personal liability.
And what if the bankers are like the doctors? If we pay them too much, they will retire early and we will lose the benefit of their services. May even be a banker shortage.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
We do. Net migration to the UK in the year to June 2021 was well over 239,000 people. Vast numbers of people are still moving here every year. 2022 will probably be higher still, as migration in 2021 was supressed be the pandemic restrictions.
More people have to apply now so numbers increasing is not really a surprise.
How many brought dependants with them and how many?
If it's not a suprise why did you say "If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes...."
Leaving the EU has made little difference to immigration to the UK in scale, the only difference is where people are coming from. The other 90% of the world's population can come here now on an equal basis, rather than the UK blowing through it's target without any control over who comes from the EU. In theory at least we can be more selective, and there is certainly no lack of demand to come here.
Why would anybody want to come to Brexit Britain?
We have 5 million unemployed, our supermarket shelves are empty, our government is Putin's puppet, we're a global Pariah that nobody will talk to and everybody who can has left.
The Guardian, the New York Times and the BBC told me so and why would they lie?
Why don't you just watch GBNews they'd be right up your strasse.
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
It's a bit like comparing syphilis and gonnherea.
It's generally accepted that syph is much worse than the gon, certainly historically.
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
It's a bit like comparing syphilis and gonnherea.
Both unpleasant, but syphilis is definitely worse.
The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.
All Britons Should scrap: 15% Should not scrap: 67%
Con voters Should scrap: 20% Should not scrap: 65%.
The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour
I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.
If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
Mrs T was a giant compared to Truss and also more politically savvy about what the average voter needed and also had not changed positions on key issues multiple times.
She was also lucky enough to be facing a failing Labour government, not be PM 12 years into a Tory government
Yes Mrs T was much more savvy about what voters needed. At times of hardship Mrs T imposed windfall taxes on those not suffering in order to redistribute to those who were. Straight away Truss failed the Mrs T test.
Also, Maggie could read a calendar.
If this is the right thing to do, the time to do it is in the sweet afterglow of a new electoral mandate.
Even if this works*, it's not going to work by autumn 2024. So proposing it now gets the political pain without the tax receipts. Nuts, and the sort of thing that you do if you read about Maggie without direct experience or understanding.
* By works, I'd go a bit wider than annual tax take. Does a bonus obsession encourage too much risk to be taken by bankers? I don't know, but it needs consideration.
Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.
Any major changes she wants to get done, that might not be politically appealing, now is the time. The politically appealing ones, those you can save up for the General Election year.
“ Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.‘
😆
This hasn’t been one of your better days Barty.
Less than 50% of the members of her own party voted for her. She just about pipped second in vote of her parties MPs.
She won, Sunak lost, that's the end of it. She won, she's new PM, and now is when she needs to get going on her agenda.
If you're not going to implement your agenda when you win and become Prime Minister, when will you?
This announcement you are defending, was it a promise during her campaign?
Challenging Treasury orthodoxy, being reformist and going for growth absolutely was a promise made during her campaign, yes.
She needs to pull out the stops and do that. That's what she was elected to do. If she does it and its unpopular she may not win a second term, if she doesn't do it having had the chance and its the right thing to do, she doesn't deserve a second term.
We were supposed to believe at the time she was serious about all that then?
I thought she only got the win because Dorries posted that cartoon of Brutus Rishi, stabbing glorious Caesar in the back - I didn’t realise all those thousands of mrmbers were mad keen on this policy platform till you just pointed that out. 🫣
Well I supported her because of her agenda, yes. Which is the same agenda she has advocated for many, many years now. 👍
As for Dorries - I couldn't care less about her, and nobody serious does.
But that Dorries argument of disloyal Truss may have swung more votes to Liz than actual buy in to her platform is my point. We can’t be sure can we?
So what we do know, No mandate from the country, nor from her MPs - less than 50% of her membership backs her, and we can’t even be sure how much the 49% who did actually buy in to her radical plan for destroying treasury othordoxy, or just disliked Rishi for bringing down Boris. Yet you see her basking in the glow of triumph with power to remodel UK orthodoxy to her whim?
What do we know?
She won. She's Prime Minister.
To the victor goes the spoils, the PM gets an historic and unique opportunity to set the agenda, and she is the PM. It doesn't matter if its by 1 vote or a million, she's the new PM and she has to show why she was put there, not spend the next 2 years begging for another term.
So far, the Prime Minister is deferring setting the agenda, in favor of being a bit player (non-speaking front-row extra) in the sequel to "The Crown" - "The Queue".
On topic, if it's going to make bankers relocate to the UK, fair enough, we could do with the jobs and tax revenue.
As an item that must be a cherry pick from a whole raft of proposed measures, this feels very like a hostile leak from The Treasury. That's fine - Chancellor Kwarteng needs know where he stands - in a nest of vipers.
The obvious quick win is to have NI paid on all earned income even if over retirement age.
Yes, it's absolutely baffling that that anomaly continues. And of course, the longer it's left like that, the harder it will be politically to correct. It should have been fixed under the coalition, when fewer people would have been immediately affected.
Quite why the government wants to tax me at a much lower rate than most workers is a mystery.
Possibly has something to do with your propensity to vote?
On topic, I don't think that abolishing the cap on bankers' bonuses will have much effect. Many of the investment bankers I know have found creative ways around the cap, as everybody knew they would (and doubtless most of the rest have, they just don't want to talk about it), so abolishing it probably won't have much effect either way. What it may have done is drive a few bankers to New York or Asia, though I haven't looked into that to see if that has happened, and the effect is doubtless pretty small. On balance, when rules aren't having much effect except to stimulate dodgy behaviour on the margins, I'd say it's best to get rid of them.
But, as usual with things Brexit, I don't think that either the most optimistic or the most pessimistic predictions will come to pass.
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
Hmm, Celtic didn't try to avoid paying Her Maj's taxes. The former Glasgow Rangers did. With predictable results.
China has lost almost as much strategically as Russia in this war. NATO enlarged and more united. Russia shown to be a paper tiger, so the US can send more to the Pacific. More concern about defending democracy in general. Darn right they have concerns
Yes China is concerned that Putin has made authoritarianism look stupid and weak, which goes against the whole ethos of such systems that a powerful centralised government protects the people who lose their rights in return for security.
Reading between the lines, Xi is absolutely furious with Putin. LOL.
Its one thing being an authoritarian dictator who suppresses or kills everyone who disagrees with him.
Its another thing being an authoritarian dictator who attempts to kill others only to have them slap the shit out of your army.
Putin has committed the cardinal sin that dictators are never supposed to do - he's made himself look weak.
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
Distance lends low information disenchantment.
Those lucky enough to enjoy your PB oeuvre need never feel distant from Glasgow's sectarian amusements.
I don’t have a problem with unlimited bankers’ bonuses as long as they sign up for unlimited personal liability.
And what if the bankers are like the doctors? If we pay them too much, they will retire early and we will lose the benefit of their services. May even be a banker shortage.
What a tragedy that would be.
Imagine if the people I've been dealing with at Virgin Money retired early.
How would we manage without a bunch of idiots who can't write a grammatical email, answer a telephone inquiry, keep sensitive documents correctly or indeed even open and manage a simple account?
On topic, I don't think that abolishing the cap on bankers' bonuses will have much effect. Many of the investment bankers I know have found creative ways around the cap, as everybody knew they would (and doubtless most of the rest have, they just don't want to talk about it), so abolishing it probably won't have much effect either way. What it may have done is drive a few bankers to New York or Asia, though I haven't looked into that to see if that has happened, and the effect is doubtless pretty small. On balance, when rules aren't having much effect except to stimulate dodgy behaviour on the margins, I'd say it's best to get rid of them.
But, as usual with things Brexit, I don't think that either the most optimistic or the most pessimistic predictions will come to pass.
I know nothing about this issue, but the FT piece on it had some quotes from banks (US ones) that said overturning the cap would make the decision to relocate workers to the UK an easier one.
I suspect no-one in the "red-wall" will give a stuff tbh, unless Labour can turn into a meaningful narrative, it is unlikely to change the way many people vote, and it is likely to increase tax take. Is it definitely likely to increase financial wrongdoing? Not necessarily if the correct regulatory frameworks are in place
"if the correct regulatory frameworks are in place" is doing a lot of work there.
Mind you, the most amusing thing about bankers' bonuses and their mega-pay is that the Left get so het up about the issue. I thought the whole point of socialism was to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, which is exactly what happens at Goldman Sachs.
Richard, Richard: if you think that pay in investment banking is related to performance in any sort of fair or meaningful way, I have a bridge garlanded with the Crown Jewels to sell you.
There are sensible measures to be taken in relation to regulation of the City. Repeating past mistakes - including misaligning incentives for a fortunate few (which does not include those who do most of the work behind the scenes) - is not one of them.
This government has not a clue how to regulate the City properly. Nor a clue about what sort of financial services sector we should have nor what its place in the British economy should be.
As for increasing tax take, well let's see how it deals with all those bankers claiming to be non-doms. And what other tax measures it takes to increase the tax paid by the rich. At the moment it seems to want cut this, as Ms Truss stated during the leadership election.
NYT - Entering a general election, Don Bolduc said he now believed Biden won in 2020: ‘I’ve done a lot of research.’
Like a driver making a screeching U-turn, Don Bolduc, the Republican Senate nominee in New Hampshire, pivoted on Thursday from his primary race to the general election, saying he had “come to the conclusion” that the 2020 presidential election “was not stolen,” after he had spent more than a year claiming it was.
“I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I’ve spent the past couple weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state from every party, and I have come to the conclusion — and I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen,” Mr. Bolduc said in an interview on Fox News.
He continued to falsely claim there had been fraud in the election but acknowledged that the outcome was not in question.
“Elections have consequences, and, unfortunately, President Biden is the legitimate president of this country,” he said.
Mr. Bolduc won his primary on Tuesday over a more moderate candidate, Chuck Morse, the president of the New Hampshire Senate. Mr. Bolduc ran on an uncompromising right-wing platform, complete with declarations that former President Donald J. Trump had won the 2020 election.
But now he faces a tough general election campaign against Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat. She is vulnerable in November — but, Republicans worry, less vulnerable against Mr. Bolduc than she would have been against Mr. Morse.
Ms. Hassan’s campaign responded quickly to Mr. Bolduc’s reversal, sharing a series of videos and quotes of the many times Mr. Bolduc promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
“Don Bolduc is desperately trying to run from years of spreading the Big Lie, but he can’t hide from the video receipts,” her campaign said in a statement.
I'm unsure which is worse - that he does think it was stolen and is now shamelessly pretending otherwise, or that he never thought it was and was just shamelessly pretending to believe it. Being a lying fool, or a foolish liar.
On topic, I don't think that abolishing the cap on bankers' bonuses will have much effect. Many of the investment bankers I know have found creative ways around the cap, as everybody knew they would (and doubtless most of the rest have, they just don't want to talk about it), so abolishing it probably won't have much effect either way. What it may have done is drive a few bankers to New York or Asia, though I haven't looked into that to see if that has happened, and the effect is doubtless pretty small. On balance, when rules aren't having much effect except to stimulate dodgy behaviour on the margins, I'd say it's best to get rid of them.
But, as usual with things Brexit, I don't think that either the most optimistic or the most pessimistic predictions will come to pass.
I know nothing about this issue, but the FT piece on it had some quotes from banks (US ones) that said overturning the cap would make the decision to relocate workers to the UK an easier one.
We want to make banking an even bigger sector of the UK economy, so it controls political decision-making even more, and the next crash is worse?
The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.
All Britons Should scrap: 15% Should not scrap: 67%
Con voters Should scrap: 20% Should not scrap: 65%.
The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour
I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.
If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
Mrs T was a giant compared to Truss and also more politically savvy about what the average voter needed and also had not changed positions on key issues multiple times.
She was also lucky enough to be facing a failing Labour government, not be PM 12 years into a Tory government
Yes Mrs T was much more savvy about what voters needed. At times of hardship Mrs T imposed windfall taxes on those not suffering in order to redistribute to those who were. Straight away Truss failed the Mrs T test.
Also, Maggie could read a calendar.
If this is the right thing to do, the time to do it is in the sweet afterglow of a new electoral mandate.
Even if this works*, it's not going to work by autumn 2024. So proposing it now gets the political pain without the tax receipts. Nuts, and the sort of thing that you do if you read about Maggie without direct experience or understanding.
* By works, I'd go a bit wider than annual tax take. Does a bonus obsession encourage too much risk to be taken by bankers? I don't know, but it needs consideration.
Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.
Any major changes she wants to get done, that might not be politically appealing, now is the time. The politically appealing ones, those you can save up for the General Election year.
“ Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.‘
😆
This hasn’t been one of your better days Barty.
Less than 50% of the members of her own party voted for her. She just about pipped second in vote of her parties MPs.
She won, Sunak lost, that's the end of it. She won, she's new PM, and now is when she needs to get going on her agenda.
If you're not going to implement your agenda when you win and become Prime Minister, when will you?
This announcement you are defending, was it a promise during her campaign?
Challenging Treasury orthodoxy, being reformist and going for growth absolutely was a promise made during her campaign, yes.
She needs to pull out the stops and do that. That's what she was elected to do. If she does it and its unpopular she may not win a second term, if she doesn't do it having had the chance and its the right thing to do, she doesn't deserve a second term.
We were supposed to believe at the time she was serious about all that then?
I thought she only got the win because Dorries posted that cartoon of Brutus Rishi, stabbing glorious Caesar in the back - I didn’t realise all those thousands of mrmbers were mad keen on this policy platform till you just pointed that out. 🫣
Well I supported her because of her agenda, yes. Which is the same agenda she has advocated for many, many years now. 👍
As for Dorries - I couldn't care less about her, and nobody serious does.
But that Dorries argument of disloyal Truss may have swung more votes to Liz than actual buy in to her platform is my point. We can’t be sure can we?
So what we do know, No mandate from the country, nor from her MPs - less than 50% of her membership backs her, and we can’t even be sure how much the 49% who did actually buy in to her radical plan for destroying treasury othordoxy, or just disliked Rishi for bringing down Boris. Yet you see her basking in the glow of triumph with power to remodel UK orthodoxy to her whim?
What do we know?
She won. She's Prime Minister.
To the victor goes the spoils, the PM gets an historic and unique opportunity to set the agenda, and she is the PM. It doesn't matter if its by 1 vote or a million, she's the new PM and she has to show why she was put there, not spend the next 2 years begging for another term.
So far, the Prime Minister is deferring setting the agenda, in favor of being a bit player (non-speaking front-row extra) in the sequel to "The Crown" - "The Queue".
Politico.com - Fraudulent Document Cited in Supreme Court Bid to Torch Election Law Supporters of the “independent state legislature theory” are quoting fake history.
Supporters of a legal challenge to completely upend our electoral system are citing a fraudulent document in their brief to the Supreme Court. It’s an embarrassing error — and it underscores how flimsy their case really is.
This fall, the court will hear Moore v. Harper, an audacious bid by Republican legislators in North Carolina to free themselves from their own state constitution’s restrictions on partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression. The suit also serves as a vehicle for would-be election subverters promoting the so-called “independent state legislature theory” — the notion that state legislators have virtually absolute authority over federal elections — which was used as part of an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The North Carolina legislators’ case relies in part on a piece of paper from 1818. But there’s a problem: The document they quote in their brief is a well-known fake. So as the Supreme Court considers whether to blow up our electoral system, it should know the real American history.
The story starts at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, when an ambitious young South Carolinian named Charles Pinckney submitted a plan for a new government. We don’t know exactly what was in Pinckney’s plan, because his original document has been lost to history. . . .
Those documents were sealed for decades following ratification. This created a vacuum in the historical record, into which Pinckney strode. In 1818, when the government was gathering records from the Convention for publication, Pinckney submitted a document that, he claimed, represented his original plan. It was uncannily similar to the U.S. Constitution.
James Madison, one of the main authors of the Constitution, was “perplexed” when he saw Pinckney’s document. He was “perfectly confident” that it was “not the draft originally presented to the convention by Mr. Pinckney.” Some of Pinckney’s text, Madison observed, was impossibly similar to the final text of the U.S. Constitution, which was painstakingly debated over the course of months. There was no way Pinckney could have anticipated those passages verbatim. In addition, Madison was quick to point out, many provisions were diametrically opposed to Pinckney’s well-known views. Most telling, the draft proposed direct election of federal representatives, whereas Pinckney had loudly insisted that state legislatures choose them. Madison included a detailed refutation of Pinckney’s document along with the rest of his copious notes from the Convention. It was the genteel, 19th-century equivalent of calling BS. . . .
This government has not a clue how to regulate the City properly. Nor a clue about what sort of financial services sector we should have nor what its place in the British economy should be.
A curious pair of sentences, because it implies there are areas where this government has a clue.
What are they? They're hiding it very well right now.
I don’t have a problem with unlimited bankers’ bonuses as long as they sign up for unlimited personal liability.
And what if the bankers are like the doctors? If we pay them too much, they will retire early and we will lose the benefit of their services. May even be a banker shortage.
Many financiers do retire early, often in their thirties, having made a fortune and able to pursue other leisure interests. Look at the current cabinet for examples.
The trend to early retirement by doctors, particularly GPs, is a recent phenomenon. When I qualified in the late Eighties there were many local GPs working well into their late seventies, now rare to find one over 60. Pensions were if anything more generous back then, so it isn't a purely monetary phenomenon.
In part it was the sense of vocation and commitment, many were single-handed and did their own on call like Dr Legg in Eastenders. Times have changed, but the overly regulation and crushing supervision has destroyed that sense of vocation. I have never met a GP that regretted retiring early. Well paid it may be, but job satisfaction is very low now.
The Russian government is administering an across-the-board cut of 10% in budgetary expenses. This is in reaction to a larger-than-expected decline of fiscal revenues over the summer (a deficit of close to 1.5 trillion rubles). This is likely only the first step. https://twitter.com/NoYardstick/status/1570426432471592960
What a shame.
After reading those twitter threads earlier about military corruption in Russia - and that just the officially caught corruptipn - I feel like everyone is missing the path to riches, being middlemen to government and the gangs in Russia, since clearly a lot more than 10% of thebudget is up for grabs.
I don’t have a problem with unlimited bankers’ bonuses as long as they sign up for unlimited personal liability.
And what if the bankers are like the doctors? If we pay them too much, they will retire early and we will lose the benefit of their services. May even be a banker shortage.
What a tragedy that would be.
Imagine if the people I've been dealing with at Virgin Money retired early.
How would we manage without a bunch of idiots who can't write a grammatical email, answer a telephone inquiry, keep sensitive documents correctly or indeed even open and manage a simple account?
They are called Virgin Money because they have never been fucked. Unlike their customers.
Finland alone would crush Russian forces. Lithuania/Poland would smother Kaliningrad in a week. Russian Navy hiding behind Crimea even though Ukraine has no Navy.
Of course Ukraine has a f***ing navy.
Give it a few months and they’ll have a much bigger one. Based out of Sevastopol.
They were at Sevastopol until 2014, alongside the much bigger Russian navy. Can you see the Russian navy leaving Sevastopol without the war turning nuclear?
What target would Russia nuke and how would it improve their strategic position?
You don't believe in nukes as a deterrent then? Kiev? NATO capital cities? Cue escalation with mega-destruction and large losses on both sides.
Losing Sevastopol completely so that a Ukraine in NATO could welcome in the US navy (and screw the Montreux convention) would mark a major change in the balance of power.
What's the scenario for Russia being forced to cede Sevastopol without reaching for the nukes and hello WW3? That's what I'd like to know.
This could be an interesting discussion. Sevastopol is a much bigger prize than the Donbas.
If Putin tried to suggest to his high command that it was appropriate to use nuclear weapons (he cannot do it on his own) he knows he will be removed from power faster than a retreating "elite" Russian soldier on the Ukrainian front line.
Stop scaremongering, you just make yourself look like a Putin paid troll.
"look like" ...
What a pair of idiots you both are, in effect screaming "Enemy agent!" (or is it "Non-believer"? - can you even distinguish?) when somebody suggests that aiming to conquer the main base of nuclear-armed Russia's Black Sea fleet might trigger a nuclear response. Kenny Everett and all true patriots realised all along that the other side's nuclear arsenal was a paper tiger, right?
I wouldn't want either of you bug-eyed loons on my side in a conflict - you can't consider possible consequences.
Interestingly (and scarily) the understanding that right-wingers here are showing of the different roads along which this war might develop has plummeted since February.
But that's enough counter-insults from me. This is a site where people discuss probabilities of eventualities, yes?
Here's a question then.
What's the probability of nuclear war breaking out between Russia and the West before say the end of next year?
From the top of my head (because who really knows?): 30% and rising.
What are the chances of Russian nuclear weapons working as planned?
Very low.
Nuclear weapons require a lot of maintenance. Plutonium and highly enriched Uranium is, by its very nature, throwing off a ton of radiation as it decays. (If it wasn't unstable like this, it'd be a bloody awful weapon.)
Just as in nuclear power plants, this absolutely hammers the kit used to hold it. And do you really want a brittle enclosure for your nuclear warhead?
And then there's the fuel. It also tends to be very unstable and to degrade over time.
Basically, nuclear weapons are incredibly maintenance heavy.
If there's one thing we've learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it's the extent to which corruption has permeated the Russian army. Those stalled columns of lorries were the direct result of not doing simple maintenance.
And if you can't do simple, low cost maintenance, what chance that expensive maintenance has been done?
I would be staggered if more than 10% of Russian nuclear weapons work as planned. I think it is highly likely they would do more damage to Russia than to the West.
Putin's Generals probably know this. Their yachts came from skimping on maintenance.
So, my money is on no nuclear war. And if it did occur: well, so be it. One cannot simple accede to a bully's demands to avoid Armageddon, because that way leads to demands-upon-demands-upon-demands.
Not quite.
Enriched Uranium is a very low emitter if radiation. Plutonium is a bit higher - depends on the grade (amount of 240 mixed in with the 239). Some super grade stuff was made for nuclear torpedos, since in some subs crew slept next to the torpedoes.
The early bombs had trouble with rapidly expiring components - mostly imitators and batteries. Aging explosives were an issue.
In post 60s designs, the big issue is the Tritium. Universally the designs are boosted - a little bit of fusion from the Tritium turbo charges the fission reaction which in turn kicks of the main event (the secondary), itself containing tritium to get tings going.
The problem is that Tritium decays to Helium 3. Which is a reaction poison - it is worse than useless. And Tritium is fairly radioactive and decays quickly.
The capsule of Tritium gas in the warheads will need changing every 18 months or so - exact number depends on the design. 5 grams or so of Tritium per bomb. And Tritium is $30,000 odd per gram.
So you need frequent changes of something that is highly valuable on open market.
What could go wrong in modern Russia?
Thank you!
O/T, but I think you've been completely vindicated in your views about Roe v Wade.
The fact that Red State legislatures and Republicans politicians now have to own the laws they pass on abortion, is actually a powerful incentive not to go batshit. Previously, they could pass any laws, adopt any positions they liked, in the certain knowledge that they could not get past the Supreme Court.
Now, they have to justify themselves to the voters, and that is often uncomfortable.
NYT - Entering a general election, Don Bolduc said he now believed Biden won in 2020: ‘I’ve done a lot of research.’
Like a driver making a screeching U-turn, Don Bolduc, the Republican Senate nominee in New Hampshire, pivoted on Thursday from his primary race to the general election, saying he had “come to the conclusion” that the 2020 presidential election “was not stolen,” after he had spent more than a year claiming it was.
“I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I’ve spent the past couple weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state from every party, and I have come to the conclusion — and I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen,” Mr. Bolduc said in an interview on Fox News.
He continued to falsely claim there had been fraud in the election but acknowledged that the outcome was not in question.
“Elections have consequences, and, unfortunately, President Biden is the legitimate president of this country,” he said.
Mr. Bolduc won his primary on Tuesday over a more moderate candidate, Chuck Morse, the president of the New Hampshire Senate. Mr. Bolduc ran on an uncompromising right-wing platform, complete with declarations that former President Donald J. Trump had won the 2020 election.
But now he faces a tough general election campaign against Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat. She is vulnerable in November — but, Republicans worry, less vulnerable against Mr. Bolduc than she would have been against Mr. Morse.
Ms. Hassan’s campaign responded quickly to Mr. Bolduc’s reversal, sharing a series of videos and quotes of the many times Mr. Bolduc promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
“Don Bolduc is desperately trying to run from years of spreading the Big Lie, but he can’t hide from the video receipts,” her campaign said in a statement.
I'm unsure which is worse - that he does think it was stolen and is now shamelessly pretending otherwise, or that he never thought it was and was just shamelessly pretending to believe it. Being a lying fool, or a foolish liar.
My vote is for Option A. Look for him to do plenty of dog-whistling to keep fellow MAGA-maniacs onboard, while he proclaims his newfound "moderation" for old-school Republicans AND Independents.
I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support. 'This package is to provide support and boost growth' 'Well lets see how that goes'
Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
IF Truss is going to give people their money back, then go big. Don't trim taxes, slash them, so that ordinary folk see it in their wages.
People dont mind others doing well if they are feeling OK about their own finances.
That’s the problem with CT cuts (which nobody really feels) and reversing tax rises that hasn’t yet happened. That plus crumbling public services just isn’t going to cut it.
As others have commented Thatcher had North Sea revenues and privatisation windfalls to play with. Truss has a bare cupboard.
She can borrow us to growth?
Lets imagine Sunak won.
There's already evidence that his super high taxes are falling well short of what he envisioned (see last months budget numbers).
Add to those taxes the interest rate increases which will have to come to choke off inflation and shore up the pound and you've got a dead economy walking. You've got depression and bankruptcy and choice of huge cuts in public spending or a corbynite kleptocracy.
Isn’t the taxes high because governments have incrementally been bandaging up the public sector with it, to stop it completely falling apart. Peel away those bandages with tax cuts, and NHS and social care and education for example could just fall apart in the governments hands?
Surely the first step in tacking high taxes is tackle the reasons for high taxes - unless your argument is there is no reason for this high tax take at all?
So no reasons for the high tax take we need to be aware of before slashing taxes?
no reasoning behind getting to highest tax take since the bankrupt time after Second World War? just the fault of Rishi, Rishi and a socialist minded Treasury raised government money for things the wrong way?
Taxes are certainly high, but in large part that is due to an ageing population with consequent demands for health, social care and pensions, as well as electoral sweeties under various governments.
We cannot have a tax structure like late Eighties Britain with our current aged population, and certainly not one with anything more than a cachectic welfare state. This is something true the world over, with all countries, even developing countries outside Africa facing the same issue.
We loved and doted on our ageing monarch, and it seems the new one, but for the elderly down the social scale it will be a grim future in low tax Britain.
If only we could have an influx of healthy, younger folk willing to work hard and pay taxes....
Immigration has continued pretty much at the same rate, and we have labour shortages too.
The ageing of the population pyramid is pretty much certain, and even with the immigration rate of last decades the working population is merely predicted to be stable between 2015 and 2030, with the increase of population being a growth in the over 65s of 2.5 million people.
The only way to square the circle is pay more (in taxes or quasi-taxes like compulsory insurance), get less, or work longer. Or a combination of all 3, in various proportions. This is the reality that faces all politicians, though they turn away fantasising of economic growth at rates that mature post industrial economies with our population pyramid never achieve. The future looks more like Japan than the post war golden period.
Well, many of us are getting less (ZHC's are a lot more common) and also most of us now have to work longer (retirement age is up). So all that leaves is to put taxes up.... I am sure the govt will do the right thing.....
One of the best and least controversial moves in this direction was under the Coalition, when Ed Davey abolished compulsory retirement age. A surprising number of people are quite happy to work on.
Clever Sir Ed, but not easy to find another quick win. Perhaps the next step is to encourage a "retire and return" system like we have in the NHS, so people can take their pension, state or otherwise, and return to the workforce part time in amended duties. Obviously more difficult in some jobs than others.
On topic, I don't think that abolishing the cap on bankers' bonuses will have much effect. Many of the investment bankers I know have found creative ways around the cap, as everybody knew they would (and doubtless most of the rest have, they just don't want to talk about it), so abolishing it probably won't have much effect either way. What it may have done is drive a few bankers to New York or Asia, though I haven't looked into that to see if that has happened, and the effect is doubtless pretty small. On balance, when rules aren't having much effect except to stimulate dodgy behaviour on the margins, I'd say it's best to get rid of them.
But, as usual with things Brexit, I don't think that either the most optimistic or the most pessimistic predictions will come to pass.
I know nothing about this issue, but the FT piece on it had some quotes from banks (US ones) that said overturning the cap would make the decision to relocate workers to the UK an easier one.
We want to make banking an even bigger sector of the UK economy, so it controls political decision-making even more, and the next crash is worse?
Good thing there's no saying about eggs and singular baskets.
I don’t have a problem with unlimited bankers’ bonuses as long as they sign up for unlimited personal liability.
And what if the bankers are like the doctors? If we pay them too much, they will retire early and we will lose the benefit of their services. May even be a banker shortage.
What a tragedy that would be.
Imagine if the people I've been dealing with at Virgin Money retired early.
How would we manage without a bunch of idiots who can't write a grammatical email, answer a telephone inquiry, keep sensitive documents correctly or indeed even open and manage a simple account?
I think that the workers in the call centre rarely get million pound bonuses.
I don’t have a problem with unlimited bankers’ bonuses as long as they sign up for unlimited personal liability.
And what if the bankers are like the doctors? If we pay them too much, they will retire early and we will lose the benefit of their services. May even be a banker shortage.
Many financiers do retire early, often in their thirties, having made a fortune and able to pursue other leisure interests. Look at the current cabinet for examples.
The trend to early retirement by doctors, particularly GPs, is a recent phenomenon. When I qualified in the late Eighties there were many local GPs working well into their late seventies, now rare to find one over 60. Pensions were if anything more generous back then, so it isn't a purely monetary phenomenon.
In part it was the sense of vocation and commitment, many were single-handed and did their own on call like Dr Legg in Eastenders. Times have changed, but the overly regulation and crushing supervision has destroyed that sense of vocation. I have never met a GP that regretted retiring early. Well paid it may be, but job satisfaction is very low now.
I don’t have a problem with unlimited bankers’ bonuses as long as they sign up for unlimited personal liability.
And what if the bankers are like the doctors? If we pay them too much, they will retire early and we will lose the benefit of their services. May even be a banker shortage.
Many financiers do retire early, often in their thirties, having made a fortune and able to pursue other leisure interests. Look at the current cabinet for examples.
The trend to early retirement by doctors, particularly GPs, is a recent phenomenon. When I qualified in the late Eighties there were many local GPs working well into their late seventies, now rare to find one over 60. Pensions were if anything more generous back then, so it isn't a purely monetary phenomenon.
In part it was the sense of vocation and commitment, many were single-handed and did their own on call like Dr Legg in Eastenders. Times have changed, but the overly regulation and crushing supervision has destroyed that sense of vocation. I have never met a GP that regretted retiring early. Well paid it may be, but job satisfaction is very low now.
To what extent does the lifetime allowance determine when doctors retire?
NYT - Entering a general election, Don Bolduc said he now believed Biden won in 2020: ‘I’ve done a lot of research.’
Like a driver making a screeching U-turn, Don Bolduc, the Republican Senate nominee in New Hampshire, pivoted on Thursday from his primary race to the general election, saying he had “come to the conclusion” that the 2020 presidential election “was not stolen,” after he had spent more than a year claiming it was.
“I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I’ve spent the past couple weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state from every party, and I have come to the conclusion — and I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen,” Mr. Bolduc said in an interview on Fox News.
He continued to falsely claim there had been fraud in the election but acknowledged that the outcome was not in question.
“Elections have consequences, and, unfortunately, President Biden is the legitimate president of this country,” he said.
Mr. Bolduc won his primary on Tuesday over a more moderate candidate, Chuck Morse, the president of the New Hampshire Senate. Mr. Bolduc ran on an uncompromising right-wing platform, complete with declarations that former President Donald J. Trump had won the 2020 election.
But now he faces a tough general election campaign against Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat. She is vulnerable in November — but, Republicans worry, less vulnerable against Mr. Bolduc than she would have been against Mr. Morse.
Ms. Hassan’s campaign responded quickly to Mr. Bolduc’s reversal, sharing a series of videos and quotes of the many times Mr. Bolduc promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
“Don Bolduc is desperately trying to run from years of spreading the Big Lie, but he can’t hide from the video receipts,” her campaign said in a statement.
I'm unsure which is worse - that he does think it was stolen and is now shamelessly pretending otherwise, or that he never thought it was and was just shamelessly pretending to believe it. Being a lying fool, or a foolish liar.
My vote is for Option A. Look for him to do plenty of dog-whistling to keep fellow MAGA-maniacs onboard, while he proclaims his newfound "moderation" for old-school Republicans AND Independents.
Enough of a figleaf for them to comeback on board? It seems depressingly easy given the regularity of Trump being mildly rebuked from time to time, before officials slather back up for him.
Celtic in trouble for anti queen banners including SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS MICHAEL FAGAN
LOL
'Meanwhile, Uefa said it would not take action Rangers for defying its rules by playing God Save the King before their 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Ibrox later on Wednesday evening.'
Yes, for all @theuniondivvie seems to loathe Rangers for their sectarianism, Celtic seem rather more unpleasant.
Is a banner tendering condolences to Michael Fagan for his loss, truly "anti-queen"?
Not really methinks, unless one thinks all levity inappropriate during QEII's mourning.
Lot'ss been said re: her wry sense of humor, so not inconceivable she might find it at least a wee bit amusing?
There was apparently another banner with a rude word on it. The Fagan one is mildly funny.
China has lost almost as much strategically as Russia in this war. NATO enlarged and more united. Russia shown to be a paper tiger, so the US can send more to the Pacific. More concern about defending democracy in general. Darn right they have concerns
Yes China is concerned that Putin has made authoritarianism look stupid and weak, which goes against the whole ethos of such systems that a powerful centralised government protects the people who lose their rights in return for security.
Reading between the lines, Xi is absolutely furious with Putin. LOL.
I wonder if he's tempted to terminate his command?
The Russian government is administering an across-the-board cut of 10% in budgetary expenses. This is in reaction to a larger-than-expected decline of fiscal revenues over the summer (a deficit of close to 1.5 trillion rubles). This is likely only the first step. https://twitter.com/NoYardstick/status/1570426432471592960
What a shame.
After reading those twitter threads earlier about military corruption in Russia - and that just the officially caught corruptipn - I feel like everyone is missing the path to riches, being middlemen to government and the gangs in Russia, since clearly a lot more than 10% of thebudget is up for grabs.
Not only can you steal as much as you can carry, but you can also sleep well at night time knowing that you have contributed to world peace.
Comments
Or shouldn't I ask?
The growing number of economically inactive people living in the post-work world is an issue but the only answer seems to be to cajole or coerce them back to the workplace.
We need some better thinking on this and certainly anything better than we'll get from Truss and Kwarteng who seem to think it's the 1980s - still puts them two centuries ahead of JRM so it's a start.
Clever Sir Ed, but not easy to find another quick win. Perhaps the next step is to encourage a "retire and return" system like we have in the NHS, so people can take their pension, state or otherwise, and return to the workforce part time in amended duties. Obviously more difficult in some jobs than others.
Having enough wealth to challenge one's potential is a good thing. I guess that is denied to many even most people But it needn't necessarily require lotsa money. For instance the Indian self-taught mathematician Ramanujan developed intuitively many hypotheses in his short life some of which have been proved and others not yet. This old lefty cannot understand how garnering wealth for its own sake has any value whatsoever unless one gives it away to help others grow. That does happen. American philanthropism does sometimes go that way.
In Lysistrata women went on strike against war. Why not against unbridled materialism?
Oh.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1570393997939466241
The Ukrainian ambassador to Australia requested another 30 Bushmaster vehicles
Since April, Australia has delivered 40 of the 60 Bushmasters requested by Ukraine. They were effectively used during the recent Kharkiv offensive amid the lack of IFVs & tanks
How many brought dependants with them and how many?
Thanks once again @Cyclefree
https://apnews.com/article/biden-approval-rating-poll-bf41fe8b0016bf8aaf144e7310c6539f
Deservedly so, IMO.
*The exception is children. For fairly obvious reasons not many parents seem convinced that bringing their children to stand in a queue for 8 or 9 hours is a recipe for harmony.
TL;DR: TL;DR.
Who said that?
Quite why the government wants to tax me at a much lower rate than most workers is a mystery.
Leaving the EU has made little difference to immigration to the UK in scale, the only difference is where people are coming from. The other 90% of the world's population can come here now on an equal basis, rather than the UK blowing through it's target without any control over who comes from the EU. In theory at least we can be more selective, and there is certainly no lack of demand to come here.
Not much hope of that with Truss, Braverman and JRM running the circus.
https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1570361247765250048
Ppl familiar tell me & @LaurenKGurley that the deal DOES give rail workers ability to take days off for medical care without being subject to punishment, a key demand of the unions
President Biden was personally animated by need to get this done, I’m told
max seddon @maxseddon
Putin tells Xi Jinping that Russia “understands your questions and concerns” about Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1570489549738115072
Not really methinks, unless one thinks all levity inappropriate during QEII's mourning.
Lot'ss been said re: her wry sense of humor, so not inconceivable she might find it at least a wee bit amusing?
We have 5 million unemployed, our supermarket shelves are empty, our government is Putin's puppet, we're a global Pariah that nobody will talk to and everybody who can has left.
The Guardian, the New York Times and the BBC told me so and why would they lie?
Those banners were a cry for attention. For a minute there, the wide world was interested in Scottish football.
It won't last.
She won. She's Prime Minister.
To the victor goes the spoils, the PM gets an historic and unique opportunity to set the agenda, and she is the PM. It doesn't matter if its by 1 vote or a million, she's the new PM and she has to show why she was put there, not spend the next 2 years begging for another term.
What it reminds me (sort of) is my favorite Ronald Reagan story:
The President was in a motorcade somewhere, when a guy walking down the sidewalk next to the road spotted Reagan seated in the back seat of his limo - and gave him the finger.
Reagan's response was instantaneous. He turned to his aide, and remarked, "I think we can put him down as 'undecided'".
If we pay them too much, they will retire early and we will lose the benefit of their services.
May even be a banker shortage.
As an item that must be a cherry pick from a whole raft of proposed measures, this feels very like a hostile leak from The Treasury. That's fine - Chancellor Kwarteng needs know where he stands - in a nest of vipers.
But, as usual with things Brexit, I don't think that either the most optimistic or the most pessimistic predictions will come to pass.
https://www.companydebt.com/news/winning-result-hmrc-big-tax-case/
More than a little ironic that a senior ScoTory likes to go on about Sevco Rangers as Her Majesty's XI in public.
Its another thing being an authoritarian dictator who attempts to kill others only to have them slap the shit out of your army.
Putin has committed the cardinal sin that dictators are never supposed to do - he's made himself look weak.
Imagine if the people I've been dealing with at Virgin Money retired early.
How would we manage without a bunch of idiots who can't write a grammatical email, answer a telephone inquiry, keep sensitive documents correctly or indeed even open and manage a simple account?
There are sensible measures to be taken in relation to regulation of the City. Repeating past mistakes - including misaligning incentives for a fortunate few (which does not include those who do most of the work behind the scenes) - is not one of them.
This government has not a clue how to regulate the City properly. Nor a clue about what sort of financial services sector we should have nor what its place in the British economy should be.
As for increasing tax take, well let's see how it deals with all those bankers claiming to be non-doms. And what other tax measures it takes to increase the tax paid by the rich. At the moment it seems to want cut this, as Ms Truss stated during the leadership election.
Supporters of the “independent state legislature theory” are quoting fake history.
Supporters of a legal challenge to completely upend our electoral system are citing a fraudulent document in their brief to the Supreme Court. It’s an embarrassing error — and it underscores how flimsy their case really is.
This fall, the court will hear Moore v. Harper, an audacious bid by Republican legislators in North Carolina to free themselves from their own state constitution’s restrictions on partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression. The suit also serves as a vehicle for would-be election subverters promoting the so-called “independent state legislature theory” — the notion that state legislators have virtually absolute authority over federal elections — which was used as part of an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The North Carolina legislators’ case relies in part on a piece of paper from 1818. But there’s a problem: The document they quote in their brief is a well-known fake. So as the Supreme Court considers whether to blow up our electoral system, it should know the real American history.
The story starts at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, when an ambitious young South Carolinian named Charles Pinckney submitted a plan for a new government. We don’t know exactly what was in Pinckney’s plan, because his original document has been lost to history. . . .
Those documents were sealed for decades following ratification. This created a vacuum in the historical record, into which Pinckney strode. In 1818, when the government was gathering records from the Convention for publication, Pinckney submitted a document that, he claimed, represented his original plan. It was uncannily similar to the U.S. Constitution.
James Madison, one of the main authors of the Constitution, was “perplexed” when he saw Pinckney’s document. He was “perfectly confident” that it was “not the draft originally presented to the convention by Mr. Pinckney.” Some of Pinckney’s text, Madison observed, was impossibly similar to the final text of the U.S. Constitution, which was painstakingly debated over the course of months. There was no way Pinckney could have anticipated those passages verbatim. In addition, Madison was quick to point out, many provisions were diametrically opposed to Pinckney’s well-known views. Most telling, the draft proposed direct election of federal representatives, whereas Pinckney had loudly insisted that state legislatures choose them. Madison included a detailed refutation of Pinckney’s document along with the rest of his copious notes from the Convention. It was the genteel, 19th-century equivalent of calling BS. . . .
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/15/fraudulent-document-supreme-court-bid-election-law-00056810
SSI - Of course, everyone knows that James Madison was a (proto) wokeist.
Or, as he's better known, Prince Andrew.
What are they? They're hiding it very well right now.
The trend to early retirement by doctors, particularly GPs, is a recent phenomenon. When I qualified in the late Eighties there were many local GPs working well into their late seventies, now rare to find one over 60. Pensions were if anything more generous back then, so it isn't a
purely monetary phenomenon.
In part it was the sense of vocation and commitment, many were single-handed and did their own on call like Dr Legg in Eastenders. Times have changed, but the overly regulation and crushing supervision has destroyed that sense of vocation. I have never met a GP that regretted retiring early. Well paid it may be, but job satisfaction is very low now.
The fact that Red State legislatures and Republicans politicians now have to own the laws they pass on abortion, is actually a powerful incentive not to go batshit. Previously, they could pass any laws, adopt any positions they liked, in the certain knowledge that they could not get past the Supreme Court.
Now, they have to justify themselves to the voters, and that is often uncomfortable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7hgPwyQUTc