This is a house in Finland. 200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002. Surveyors report says it is in good condition. Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool. Half an acre plot on the edge of town. The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
In the space of two days we had an unelected Head of Government foisted on us followed by an unelected Head of State.
But it's OK, since the hereditaries, bishops and appointees in the House of Lords will provide checks and balances.
Thank goodness we live in a democracy.
It was an elected government, the Tories won a big majority in 2019, just a different PM.
The republican Corbyn was also beaten in 2019 too and even Starmer now backs the monarchy
The issue with the election of a new Tory leader is that Liz Truss wasn’t voted for by the people who voted for that party.
Vote in a general election - not a problem, everyone votes Vote by elected Tory MPs - again not a problem, MPs are the representatives of local constituents so they have been elected to lead as best as possible (which includes appointing a new leader at times)
Vote by party members - a problem because the new leader has been elected by a very random unrepresentative group of people who are not directly connected to the electorate as a whole..
And given that Truss didn’t win the MP vote that’s going to be a problem as things go wrong..
Gordon Brown. That is all.
Same issue. And it didn't end well. GB should have called an election soon after he took over.
Any new mid-term PM should call an election within 6 months imo. Should be written into our constitution (and write the rest of the constitution down while we're at it).
They won't, otherwise they risk May's fate in 2017. Today is a reminder we are a parliamentary not a Presidential system with a constitutional monarch as Head of State not the PM
In the space of two days we had an unelected Head of Government foisted on us followed by an unelected Head of State.
But it's OK, since the hereditaries, bishops and appointees in the House of Lords will provide checks and balances.
Thank goodness we live in a democracy.
It was an elected government, the Tories won a big majority in 2019, just a different PM.
The republican Corbyn was also beaten in 2019 too and even Starmer now backs the monarchy
The issue with the election of a new Tory leader is that Liz Truss wasn’t voted for by the people who voted for that party.
Vote in a general election - not a problem, everyone votes Vote by elected Tory MPs - again not a problem, MPs are the representatives of local constituents so they have been elected to lead as best as possible (which includes appointing a new leader at times)
Vote by party members - a problem because the new leader has been elected by a very random unrepresentative group of people who are not directly connected to the electorate as a whole..
And given that Truss didn’t win the MP vote that’s going to be a problem as things go wrong..
Gordon Brown. That is all.
Same issue. And it didn't end well. GB should have called an election soon after he took over.
Any new mid-term PM should call an election within 6 months imo. Should be written into our constitution (and write the rest of the constitution down while we're at it).
But we don’t vote for PMs. We elect an MP for our constituency. If the leader of the largest party can form a government they get to be PM. If you want directly elected PMs then fine, buts that’s not what we have.
This is another house in Finland. 200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002. Surveyors report says it is in good condition. Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool. Half an acre plot on the edge of town. The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
Looks to be in the middle of nowhere on that map. What's an equivalent place in the UK?
Hmm ... not looking like a good morning back to work for Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng tomorrow.
Personally I was against the national insurance hike, so it would be hypocritical of me to moan about its cancellation.
But I feel in my bones that the Truss/Kwarteng project is already doomed.
This is exactly the time to make the difficult decisions for the good of the country.
Remove the National insurance upper earnings limit. Make it the same rate on all earned income rather than having a reduced rate for the higher earners. Introduce National Insurance for pensioners.
I want lower taxes overall but I also want taxation to be fairer. Making it so the more you earn the lower your rate of NI is not equitable.
But isn’t that because - in theory - it pays for specific benefits which are capped. The wealthiest already over contribute but it was felt unfair to have an even greater contribution
(Personally I would just merge with income tax)
NI preserves the contributory element of the welfare state, it is required for contributory JSA and goes towards the state pension eligibility too along with pension credits
Pension credits don't go towards state pension eligibility. They compensate for lack of it (and other income). NI does not affect eligibility.
It does for contributory JSA and does for the state pension, just you have to have pension credits if not enough NI contributions to claim
There's is no such thing as contributory JSA anymore. Your party abolished it.
Wrong, it is now the only form of JSA there is. Everyone else just gets universal credit
Hmm ... not looking like a good morning back to work for Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng tomorrow.
Personally I was against the national insurance hike, so it would be hypocritical of me to moan about its cancellation.
But I feel in my bones that the Truss/Kwarteng project is already doomed.
This is exactly the time to make the difficult decisions for the good of the country.
Remove the National insurance upper earnings limit. Make it the same rate on all earned income rather than having a reduced rate for the higher earners. Introduce National Insurance for pensioners.
I want lower taxes overall but I also want taxation to be fairer. Making it so the more you earn the lower your rate of NI is not equitable.
But isn’t that because - in theory - it pays for specific benefits which are capped. The wealthiest already over contribute but it was felt unfair to have an even greater contribution
(Personally I would just merge with income tax)
NI preserves the contributory element of the welfare state, it is required for contributory JSA and goes towards the state pension eligibility too along with pension credits
Pension credits don't go towards state pension eligibility. They compensate for lack of it (and other income). NI does not affect eligibility.
It does for contributory JSA and does for the state pension, just you have to have pension credits if not enough NI contributions to claim
There's is no such thing as contributory JSA anymore. Your party abolished it.
Wrong, it is now the only form of JSA there is. Everyone else just gets universal credit
Hmm ... not looking like a good morning back to work for Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng tomorrow.
Personally I was against the national insurance hike, so it would be hypocritical of me to moan about its cancellation.
But I feel in my bones that the Truss/Kwarteng project is already doomed.
This is exactly the time to make the difficult decisions for the good of the country.
Remove the National insurance upper earnings limit. Make it the same rate on all earned income rather than having a reduced rate for the higher earners. Introduce National Insurance for pensioners.
I want lower taxes overall but I also want taxation to be fairer. Making it so the more you earn the lower your rate of NI is not equitable.
removing the limit makes sense but putting it on pensions is unfair in the sense that pension tax relief (ie when you are saving for a pension in working life) only relieves income tax not NI - so if you are now drawing a pension and were taxed NI you would be taxed NI twice on the same income. It would become very tax inefficient to save for a pension then
Reading back my coment I wasn't clear. Apologies.
I didn't actually say put it on pensions. Indeed, I got pulled up the other day when we were discussing this because I explicitly excluded pensions and other unearned income.
What I said was put it on pensioners. I was referring to the fact that, currently, anyone past pension age doesn't pay NI if they continue to work. Hence the 'earned income' comment.
All work should attract the same rates of taxation including NI irrespective of the age of the worker.
All earned and unearned income should be taxed at the same rates.
I find it bemusing how some people say that the self-employed shouldn't pay NI because they don't get holiday pay/sick pay etc but NI doesn't pay for any of those. Holiday pay is paid out of the employers labour budget, same as the rest of the employees pay, not by the taxpayer.
I do think we should amalgamate NI and income tax. For one thing it would make people see how much the Government is really getting from employment. I am in an interesting position as I am operating inside IR35 as a consultant so am paying full tax and NI on the employees side but also paying all the NI and other costs that an employer would normally pay. As a result, I can see that the Government takes about 50p of every pound paid by a company to an employee. Which is kind of ridiculous.
But if that is too much what should be taxed higher instead unless tax take overall is to fall?
Spread the tax rather than increasing it on very specific areas. So remove the upper limit on NI contributions to start with.
Currently the NI level on employment is 13.25% paid by the employee and 15.05% paid by the employer.
But any earnings over £50,000 are taxed at only 3.25% NI. Which seems utterly daft. Remove that cap and have the whole lot taxed at the same rate and you could reduce the overall rates.
Also extend it to unearned income with some exceptions (state pensions etc) and have it paid on all such earnings rather than excluding those over retirement age - which is in itself an increasingly obsolete concept given how many people are still working part that age either by choice or necessity.
At that point you can start to reduce the overall levels of taxation rather than having some important areas of the economy taxed at higher rates than others.
Totally agree. Even as someone who would lose out under such arrangements.
Yep, I am in the same boat. I would lose out on the abolition of the Upper limit and also, assuming I continue to work, in 10 years time when I reach pension age. But it is still the right thing to do even if I would be worse off personally. And I like to think that in a fairer and more transparent system there would be a lot more debate about the actual levels of Government tax take rather than who is paying what.
But we don’t vote for PMs. We elect an MP for our constituency. If the leader of the largest party can form a government they get to be PM. If you want directly elected PMs then fine, buts that’s not what we have.
This is absolutely the system that we have. The problem IMO is that it doesn't match up with how most people in practice think of their democratic relationship with the government, which I think is more likely to be that they view themselves as voting for a party or a PM, not for an individual MP. That disconnect between what people want out of the system and what it actually does isn't great. (Though it's hardly the greatest problem currently facing us.)
Hmm ... not looking like a good morning back to work for Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng tomorrow.
Personally I was against the national insurance hike, so it would be hypocritical of me to moan about its cancellation.
But I feel in my bones that the Truss/Kwarteng project is already doomed.
This is exactly the time to make the difficult decisions for the good of the country.
Remove the National insurance upper earnings limit. Make it the same rate on all earned income rather than having a reduced rate for the higher earners. Introduce National Insurance for pensioners.
I want lower taxes overall but I also want taxation to be fairer. Making it so the more you earn the lower your rate of NI is not equitable.
But isn’t that because - in theory - it pays for specific benefits which are capped. The wealthiest already over contribute but it was felt unfair to have an even greater contribution
(Personally I would just merge with income tax)
NI preserves the contributory element of the welfare state, it is required for contributory JSA and goes towards the state pension eligibility too along with pension credits
Pension credits don't go towards state pension eligibility. They compensate for lack of it (and other income). NI does not affect eligibility.
It does for contributory JSA and does for the state pension, just you have to have pension credits if not enough NI contributions to claim
There's is no such thing as contributory JSA anymore. Your party abolished it.
Wrong, it is now the only form of JSA there is. Everyone else just gets universal credit
Going by rail for a few nights in Vienna in the spring. Overnighting in Zurich on the way out. Need to decide where to break the trip back for one or two nights: Munich, Nuremburg, Frankfurt? Any other suggestions?
Hitler’s lair at Berchtesgaden
Beautiful, absorbing, troubling. Certainly with a night or two
It was quite odd. He was raced in, sat near the back, and raced out. I don't believe for a second that the foreign office made him sit behind the President of New Zealand because he refused to travel on the party bus, amusing though that would have been. The best bet must surely be that he's unwell.
There is no President of New Zealand, their head of state is King Charles, Ardern is their PM
This is another house in Finland. 200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002. Surveyors report says it is in good condition. Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool. Half an acre plot on the edge of town. The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
Looks to be in the middle of nowhere on that map. What's an equivalent place in the UK?
Its in Humppila, a village with a railway station and a glass factory, and a heritage railway, about 2 hours from Helsinki. There is no comparison in the UK. The point is how cheap property can get where there is unlimited land for development.
There was a nice looking house up for sale today in another part of Finland with an orchard. It had, for some technical reason, been written off by the surveyor and sold as land. 16,000 Euros was the asking price.
Hmm ... not looking like a good morning back to work for Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng tomorrow.
Personally I was against the national insurance hike, so it would be hypocritical of me to moan about its cancellation.
But I feel in my bones that the Truss/Kwarteng project is already doomed.
This is exactly the time to make the difficult decisions for the good of the country.
Remove the National insurance upper earnings limit. Make it the same rate on all earned income rather than having a reduced rate for the higher earners. Introduce National Insurance for pensioners.
I want lower taxes overall but I also want taxation to be fairer. Making it so the more you earn the lower your rate of NI is not equitable.
But isn’t that because - in theory - it pays for specific benefits which are capped. The wealthiest already over contribute but it was felt unfair to have an even greater contribution
(Personally I would just merge with income tax)
NI preserves the contributory element of the welfare state, it is required for contributory JSA and goes towards the state pension eligibility too along with pension credits
Pension credits don't go towards state pension eligibility. They compensate for lack of it (and other income). NI does not affect eligibility.
It does for contributory JSA and does for the state pension, just you have to have pension credits if not enough NI contributions to claim
There's is no such thing as contributory JSA anymore. Your party abolished it.
Wrong, it is now the only form of JSA there is. Everyone else just gets universal credit
Thank goodness we are back to normal tomorrow. CoL has not gone away
The CoL is a very boring crisis. That's not to deny its importance. But philosophically "shit, gas has gone up fourteen-fold, rendering it and everything it is used for" us not particularly philosophically interesting, and neither if the short term answers - "suck it up" or "whack it on the credit card ajd let the kids pay for it" are particularly satisfying. (The long term answers, mind, about how we move away from reliance on fossil fuels and the maniacs who sell them, is both interesting and satisfying.) And the news from Ukraine is almost all awful, even if notably less awful than when it appeared Ukraine would be overrun and enslaved. I must admit I have rather enjoyed the philosphical musings on the nature of Britishness, identity and sovereignty of the ladt ten days, along with the human drama of The Queue. I have surprised myself. I wouldn't want to keep it up for ever - ten days or so is about right - but in pure news terms it has been a welcome diversion. I'm surprised at myself here. Royal weddings are shit. But it turns out royal funerals are brilliant.
It has been a welcome diversion in that sense yes, we return to the fetid toilet bowl am morgen. Back to the i reckon, you reckon and the nonsense of polls, PMQs et al Most of all its back to the sham breathless earnestness of them all. The offence taken, the deliberate content ripping of every word said, the misrepresentation of everything for polling advantage. Yay!
No PMQs for a while
Liz is up the road on Wed. Isn't it Therese and Angela?
No - it is the swearing of allegiance by mps to the King
No PMQS until after conferences
Wasn't JRM meant to do a big announcement filling in details on the energy plan?
Though this piece in tomorrow's (?) Times gives the impression that the details.may be trickier than was implied earlier.
People familiar with the talks say some executives have been alarmed by ministers pushing to introduce such contracts before winter and fear this could inflict huge losses on those that have already hedged some of their power output for coming months below market prices.
This is another house in Finland. 200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002. Surveyors report says it is in good condition. Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool. Half an acre plot on the edge of town. The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
Looks to be in the middle of nowhere on that map. What's an equivalent place in the UK?
Its in Humppila, a village with a railway station and a glass factory, and a heritage railway, about 2 hours from Helsinki. There is no comparison in the UK. The point is how cheap property can get where there is unlimited land for development.
There was a nice looking house up for sale today in another part of Finland with an orchard. It had, for some technical reason, been written off by the surveyor and sold as land. 16,000 Euros was the asking price.
There’s unlimited land for development in other countries too (Canada and US come to mind), but that doesn’t necessarily correlate with cheap housing.
Hmm ... not looking like a good morning back to work for Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng tomorrow.
Personally I was against the national insurance hike, so it would be hypocritical of me to moan about its cancellation.
But I feel in my bones that the Truss/Kwarteng project is already doomed.
This is exactly the time to make the difficult decisions for the good of the country.
Remove the National insurance upper earnings limit. Make it the same rate on all earned income rather than having a reduced rate for the higher earners. Introduce National Insurance for pensioners.
I want lower taxes overall but I also want taxation to be fairer. Making it so the more you earn the lower your rate of NI is not equitable.
But isn’t that because - in theory - it pays for specific benefits which are capped. The wealthiest already over contribute but it was felt unfair to have an even greater contribution
(Personally I would just merge with income tax)
NI preserves the contributory element of the welfare state, it is required for contributory JSA and goes towards the state pension eligibility too along with pension credits
Pension credits don't go towards state pension eligibility. They compensate for lack of it (and other income). NI does not affect eligibility.
It does for contributory JSA and does for the state pension, just you have to have pension credits if not enough NI contributions to claim
There's is no such thing as contributory JSA anymore. Your party abolished it.
Wrong, it is now the only form of JSA there is. Everyone else just gets universal credit
It was quite odd. He was raced in, sat near the back, and raced out. I don't believe for a second that the foreign office made him sit behind the President of New Zealand because he refused to travel on the party bus, amusing though that would have been. The best bet must surely be that he's unwell.
There is no President of New Zealand, their head of state is King Charles, Ardern is their PM
But we don’t vote for PMs. We elect an MP for our constituency. If the leader of the largest party can form a government they get to be PM. If you want directly elected PMs then fine, buts that’s not what we have.
This is absolutely the system that we have. The problem IMO is that it doesn't match up with how most people in practice think of their democratic relationship with the government, which I think is more likely to be that they view themselves as voting for a party or a PM, not for an individual MP. That disconnect between what people want out of the system and what it actually does isn't great. (Though it's hardly the greatest problem currently facing us.)
I think the answer there is not to change the system of elections but reduce the power of the parties. Limit the power of the whips and make far more votes free votes - make that the default with whipping the exception. Personally I would like to see every vote in Parliament a free vote by law with an end to the system of threats and bribes we subject our MPs to.
And of course better education so our electorate understand what they are voting for.
This is another house in Finland. 200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002. Surveyors report says it is in good condition. Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool. Half an acre plot on the edge of town. The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
Looks to be in the middle of nowhere on that map. What's an equivalent place in the UK?
Its in Humppila, a village with a railway station and a glass factory, and a heritage railway, about 2 hours from Helsinki. There is no comparison in the UK. The point is how cheap property can get where there is unlimited land for development.
There was a nice looking house up for sale today in another part of Finland with an orchard. It had, for some technical reason, been written off by the surveyor and sold as land. 16,000 Euros was the asking price.
Finland is quite a desperate place to live. The winters are satanic and the people monosyllabic and drunk
Going by rail for a few nights in Vienna in the spring. Overnighting in Zurich on the way out. Need to decide where to break the trip back for one or two nights: Munich, Nuremburg, Frankfurt? Any other suggestions?
Hitler’s lair at Berchtesgaden
Beautiful, absorbing, troubling. Certainly with a night or two
This is another house in Finland. 200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002. Surveyors report says it is in good condition. Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool. Half an acre plot on the edge of town. The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
Looks to be in the middle of nowhere on that map. What's an equivalent place in the UK?
Its in Humppila, a village with a railway station and a glass factory, and a heritage railway, about 2 hours from Helsinki. There is no comparison in the UK. The point is how cheap property can get where there is unlimited land for development.
There was a nice looking house up for sale today in another part of Finland with an orchard. It had, for some technical reason, been written off by the surveyor and sold as land. 16,000 Euros was the asking price.
Finland is quite a desperate place to live. The winters are satanic and the people monosyllabic and drunk
They do nice things with dill, however
You have an artisan friend who loves what people with dill do.
This is another house in Finland. 200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002. Surveyors report says it is in good condition. Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool. Half an acre plot on the edge of town. The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
Looks to be in the middle of nowhere on that map. What's an equivalent place in the UK?
Its in Humppila, a village with a railway station and a glass factory, and a heritage railway, about 2 hours from Helsinki. There is no comparison in the UK. The point is how cheap property can get where there is unlimited land for development.
There was a nice looking house up for sale today in another part of Finland with an orchard. It had, for some technical reason, been written off by the surveyor and sold as land. 16,000 Euros was the asking price.
Finland is quite a desperate place to live. The winters are satanic and the people monosyllabic and drunk
This is another house in Finland. 200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002. Surveyors report says it is in good condition. Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool. Half an acre plot on the edge of town. The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
Looks to be in the middle of nowhere on that map. What's an equivalent place in the UK?
Its in Humppila, a village with a railway station and a glass factory, and a heritage railway, about 2 hours from Helsinki. There is no comparison in the UK. The point is how cheap property can get where there is unlimited land for development.
There was a nice looking house up for sale today in another part of Finland with an orchard. It had, for some technical reason, been written off by the surveyor and sold as land. 16,000 Euros was the asking price.
Finland is quite a desperate place to live. The winters are satanic and the people monosyllabic and drunk
They do nice things with dill, however
Recently found to be the happiest country in the world for the last 5 years:
But we don’t vote for PMs. We elect an MP for our constituency. If the leader of the largest party can form a government they get to be PM. If you want directly elected PMs then fine, buts that’s not what we have.
This is absolutely the system that we have. The problem IMO is that it doesn't match up with how most people in practice think of their democratic relationship with the government, which I think is more likely to be that they view themselves as voting for a party or a PM, not for an individual MP. That disconnect between what people want out of the system and what it actually does isn't great. (Though it's hardly the greatest problem currently facing us.)
I think the answer there is not to change the system of elections but reduce the power of the parties. Limit the power of the whips and make far more votes free votes - make that the default with whipping the exception. Personally I would like to see every vote in Parliament a free vote by law with an end to the system of threats and bribes we subject our MPs to.
Interesting idea. My guess is it would result in it being almost impossible to get anything done. I also think most voters don't really want to think about politics at the level they'd need to to be able to consider N different local candidates and pick the one who best matches their overall views. So you'd probably get a bunch of single-issue and celebrity candidates, especially if you keep it FPTP in the constituency rather than some kind of AV.
Hmm ... not looking like a good morning back to work for Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng tomorrow.
Personally I was against the national insurance hike, so it would be hypocritical of me to moan about its cancellation.
But I feel in my bones that the Truss/Kwarteng project is already doomed.
This is exactly the time to make the difficult decisions for the good of the country.
Remove the National insurance upper earnings limit. Make it the same rate on all earned income rather than having a reduced rate for the higher earners. Introduce National Insurance for pensioners.
I want lower taxes overall but I also want taxation to be fairer. Making it so the more you earn the lower your rate of NI is not equitable.
removing the limit makes sense but putting it on pensions is unfair in the sense that pension tax relief (ie when you are saving for a pension in working life) only relieves income tax not NI - so if you are now drawing a pension and were taxed NI you would be taxed NI twice on the same income. It would become very tax inefficient to save for a pension then
Reading back my coment I wasn't clear. Apologies.
I didn't actually say put it on pensions. Indeed, I got pulled up the other day when we were discussing this because I explicitly excluded pensions and other unearned income.
What I said was put it on pensioners. I was referring to the fact that, currently, anyone past pension age doesn't pay NI if they continue to work. Hence the 'earned income' comment.
All work should attract the same rates of taxation including NI irrespective of the age of the worker.
All earned and unearned income should be taxed at the same rates.
I find it bemusing how some people say that the self-employed shouldn't pay NI because they don't get holiday pay/sick pay etc but NI doesn't pay for any of those. Holiday pay is paid out of the employers labour budget, same as the rest of the employees pay, not by the taxpayer.
I do think we should amalgamate NI and income tax. For one thing it would make people see how much the Government is really getting from employment. I am in an interesting position as I am operating inside IR35 as a consultant so am paying full tax and NI on the employees side but also paying all the NI and other costs that an employer would normally pay. As a result, I can see that the Government takes about 50p of every pound paid by a company to an employee. Which is kind of ridiculous.
But if that is too much what should be taxed higher instead unless tax take overall is to fall?
Spread the tax rather than increasing it on very specific areas. So remove the upper limit on NI contributions to start with.
Currently the NI level on employment is 13.25% paid by the employee and 15.05% paid by the employer.
But any earnings over £50,000 are taxed at only 3.25% NI. Which seems utterly daft. Remove that cap and have the whole lot taxed at the same rate and you could reduce the overall rates.
Also extend it to unearned income with some exceptions (state pensions etc) and have it paid on all such earnings rather than excluding those over retirement age - which is in itself an increasingly obsolete concept given how many people are still working part that age either by choice or necessity.
At that point you can start to reduce the overall levels of taxation rather than having some important areas of the economy taxed at higher rates than others.
Totally agree. Even as someone who would lose out under such arrangements.
Yep, I am in the same boat. I would lose out on the abolition of the Upper limit and also, assuming I continue to work, in 10 years time when I reach pension age. But it is still the right thing to do even if I would be worse off personally. And I like to think that in a fairer and more transparent system there would be a lot more debate about the actual levels of Government tax take rather than who is paying what.
The reduction of NI to 3.25% when you earn over 50k just compensates for the increase in income tax band to 40%. If the NI rate remained the same, you would effectively be paying 68.3p tax (employer and employee NI and income tax) for every extra pound you earn over 50k. My own view would be that there just isn't any point working when you are taxed that much. You may as well not bother.
Slumming it in Manchester this week, spent a couple of hours exploring Media City this afternoon. No pics of expensive restaurant food to show off to you, I just had a large noodle box from Chopstix outside Piccadilly station
I think gettingbetter summed it up pretty well in the very first post of the thread (doing ok, but another term defies common sense).
Problem is Trump really does seem popular enough in the right areas, with the systems in place, to win again (I don't think legal issues will prevent him), and if not Biden then who? Someone really needs to capture attention soon, otherwise Biden might well go for it, and he probably doesn't have it in him.
Hmm ... not looking like a good morning back to work for Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng tomorrow.
Personally I was against the national insurance hike, so it would be hypocritical of me to moan about its cancellation.
But I feel in my bones that the Truss/Kwarteng project is already doomed.
This is exactly the time to make the difficult decisions for the good of the country.
Remove the National insurance upper earnings limit. Make it the same rate on all earned income rather than having a reduced rate for the higher earners. Introduce National Insurance for pensioners.
I want lower taxes overall but I also want taxation to be fairer. Making it so the more you earn the lower your rate of NI is not equitable.
But isn’t that because - in theory - it pays for specific benefits which are capped. The wealthiest already over contribute but it was felt unfair to have an even greater contribution
(Personally I would just merge with income tax)
NI preserves the contributory element of the welfare state, it is required for contributory JSA and goes towards the state pension eligibility too along with pension credits
Pension credits don't go towards state pension eligibility. They compensate for lack of it (and other income). NI does not affect eligibility.
It does for contributory JSA and does for the state pension, just you have to have pension credits if not enough NI contributions to claim
There's is no such thing as contributory JSA anymore. Your party abolished it.
Wrong, it is now the only form of JSA there is. Everyone else just gets universal credit
I think it's just the new name for it. It's described as contribution based on the page.
The only benefit new-style JSA gives over UC is that any savings are ignored... for 182 days, then you have to claim UC if you can.
Yes but that is a big benefit for those who may have lost their job but have too many savings to claim UC while they seek new work
It's not a 'big' benefit in any meaningful sense of the word - it's £77 per week for a single person.
The link between NI contributions and benefits has been steadily diminished by governments of all persuasions over the years and is now hardly discernable.
Young people have to pay for old people. I say fuck them, you do nothing useful.
Young people need to vote in the numbers the old do. The country would be a better place for it
Now that I do agree with. Australian style compulsory voting would be a good idea. Some of us can draw dick pics in more than one box if they so wish.
I'm instinctively opposed to compulsory voting, but I admit to being unable to come up with another way to get younger people in particular to vote in larger numbers. And while to a degree one can just fall back on 'If you don't vote, then tough', the disengagement is not good for the long term.
This is another house in Finland. 200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002. Surveyors report says it is in good condition. Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool. Half an acre plot on the edge of town. The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
Looks to be in the middle of nowhere on that map. What's an equivalent place in the UK?
Its in Humppila, a village with a railway station and a glass factory, and a heritage railway, about 2 hours from Helsinki. There is no comparison in the UK. The point is how cheap property can get where there is unlimited land for development.
There was a nice looking house up for sale today in another part of Finland with an orchard. It had, for some technical reason, been written off by the surveyor and sold as land. 16,000 Euros was the asking price.
It is one of these regions of Finland with big rural-periphery population decline because incomers want to be in cities if they must be in Finland at all. It's hard to think of an equivalent place in England because the latitude is so forbidding, but perhaps some of the more boring parts of the Highlands?
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
Is anyone here going to be at either Lab or Con conferences? I'll be helping run the non-partisan Animals Matter stand at both, and I'm speaking at the Labour Animal Welfare Society event Monday evening. It'd be nice to put some faces to (pseudo)names!
I won't be at either but I support your animal welfare views which are in alignment with mine 👍😺
He's not much older than Charles whom we've just made King.
But the roles are quite different, so I am not sure the comparison is valid.
I'm completely sure it isn't valid, and he is 6 years younger, which when you get into the high ages can make a great deal of difference in terms of impact.
This is another house in Finland. 200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002. Surveyors report says it is in good condition. Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool. Half an acre plot on the edge of town. The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
Looks to be in the middle of nowhere on that map. What's an equivalent place in the UK?
Its in Humppila, a village with a railway station and a glass factory, and a heritage railway, about 2 hours from Helsinki. There is no comparison in the UK. The point is how cheap property can get where there is unlimited land for development.
There was a nice looking house up for sale today in another part of Finland with an orchard. It had, for some technical reason, been written off by the surveyor and sold as land. 16,000 Euros was the asking price.
Finland is quite a desperate place to live. The winters are satanic and the people monosyllabic and drunk
They do nice things with dill, however
Recently found to be the happiest country in the world for the last 5 years:
If it wasn't for Brexit, it would be easy to move there. The language is impossible though!
Finland is a much wilder country than Sweden, as is apparent as soon as you cross the border. But Swedes smile much more. Some say Swedes have only two facial expressions: smiling and blank.
Thank goodness we are back to normal tomorrow. CoL has not gone away
The CoL is a very boring crisis. That's not to deny its importance. But philosophically "shit, gas has gone up fourteen-fold, rendering it and everything it is used for" us not particularly philosophically interesting, and neither if the short term answers - "suck it up" or "whack it on the credit card ajd let the kids pay for it" are particularly satisfying. (The long term answers, mind, about how we move away from reliance on fossil fuels and the maniacs who sell them, is both interesting and satisfying.) And the news from Ukraine is almost all awful, even if notably less awful than when it appeared Ukraine would be overrun and enslaved. I must admit I have rather enjoyed the philosphical musings on the nature of Britishness, identity and sovereignty of the ladt ten days, along with the human drama of The Queue. I have surprised myself. I wouldn't want to keep it up for ever - ten days or so is about right - but in pure news terms it has been a welcome diversion. I'm surprised at myself here. Royal weddings are shit. But it turns out royal funerals are brilliant.
It has been a welcome diversion in that sense yes, we return to the fetid toilet bowl am morgen. Back to the i reckon, you reckon and the nonsense of polls, PMQs et al Most of all its back to the sham breathless earnestness of them all. The offence taken, the deliberate content ripping of every word said, the misrepresentation of everything for polling advantage. Yay!
No PMQs for a while
Liz is up the road on Wed. Isn't it Therese and Angela?
No - it is the swearing of allegiance by mps to the King
No PMQS until after conferences
Wasn't JRM meant to do a big announcement filling in details on the energy plan?
Though this piece in tomorrow's (?) Times gives the impression that the details.may be trickier than was implied earlier.
People familiar with the talks say some executives have been alarmed by ministers pushing to introduce such contracts before winter and fear this could inflict huge losses on those that have already hedged some of their power output for coming months below market prices.
The official Parliament site indicates the house sits on Wednesday for allegiance declarations to the King and Thursday a business statement and debate on Ukraine
Focus will switch to Truss at the UN demanding unity against Russia and her bi lateral meeting with Biden
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
To do so they would have to build literally all over the countryside and we would also then have far more houses than people needing to live in them.
In some parts of the UK you can still buy property for under £60k anyway
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
To do so they would have to build literally all over the countryside and we would also then have far more houses than people needing to live in them.
In some parts of the UK you can still buy property for under £60k anyway
Ok, so we have a new PM that the electorate at large didn't vote for. Not even a majority of her own party's MPs voted for her.
It seems that she will be introducing legislation and measures that were not in the 2019 manifesto and dropping others that were in it.
Will we see moderate Tory MPs rebelling in any significant numbers?
Seems unlikely - whilst a majority of MPs did not vote for her during the MP phase, by declared supporters she was their choice prior to the outcome of the members' vote.
Hmm ... not looking like a good morning back to work for Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng tomorrow.
Personally I was against the national insurance hike, so it would be hypocritical of me to moan about its cancellation.
But I feel in my bones that the Truss/Kwarteng project is already doomed.
This is exactly the time to make the difficult decisions for the good of the country.
Remove the National insurance upper earnings limit. Make it the same rate on all earned income rather than having a reduced rate for the higher earners. Introduce National Insurance for pensioners.
I want lower taxes overall but I also want taxation to be fairer. Making it so the more you earn the lower your rate of NI is not equitable.
But isn’t that because - in theory - it pays for specific benefits which are capped. The wealthiest already over contribute but it was felt unfair to have an even greater contribution
(Personally I would just merge with income tax)
NI preserves the contributory element of the welfare state, it is required for contributory JSA and goes towards the state pension eligibility too along with pension credits
Pension credits don't go towards state pension eligibility. They compensate for lack of it (and other income). NI does not affect eligibility.
It does for contributory JSA and does for the state pension, just you have to have pension credits if not enough NI contributions to claim
There's is no such thing as contributory JSA anymore. Your party abolished it.
Wrong, it is now the only form of JSA there is. Everyone else just gets universal credit
I think it's just the new name for it. It's described as contribution based on the page.
The only benefit new-style JSA gives over UC is that any savings are ignored... for 182 days, then you have to claim UC if you can.
Yes but that is a big benefit for those who may have lost their job but have too many savings to claim UC while they seek new work
It's not a 'big' benefit in any meaningful sense of the word - it's £77 per week for a single person.
The link between NI contributions and benefits has been steadily diminished by governments of all persuasions over the years and is now hardly discernable.
Time to roll NI into income tax.
Which is a huge help if you have just been made redundant but have just over the savings limit for UC.
You cannot claim it however if you have not made enough NI contributions. In some western nations like the US, Canada and Italy you cannot claim unemployment benefits at all without sufficient insurance contributions.
Far from rolling NI into income tax we should be making more healthcare reliant on insurance contributions like many European countries. NI also goes to state pension eligibility
But we don’t vote for PMs. We elect an MP for our constituency. If the leader of the largest party can form a government they get to be PM. If you want directly elected PMs then fine, buts that’s not what we have.
This is absolutely the system that we have. The problem IMO is that it doesn't match up with how most people in practice think of their democratic relationship with the government, which I think is more likely to be that they view themselves as voting for a party or a PM, not for an individual MP. That disconnect between what people want out of the system and what it actually does isn't great. (Though it's hardly the greatest problem currently facing us.)
I think the answer there is not to change the system of elections but reduce the power of the parties. Limit the power of the whips and make far more votes free votes - make that the default with whipping the exception. Personally I would like to see every vote in Parliament a free vote by law with an end to the system of threats and bribes we subject our MPs to.
And of course better education so our electorate understand what they are voting for.
While I agree that it's a pity that a single vote agaonst your party de facto disqualifies you from office for several years, it's exaggerated to think that MPs vote with their party because of threats or bribes. MPs have generally been members of their parties for 10-20 years, and on the whole they agree with the direction and want them to do well, not be torn apart by constant squabbles over every issue. You can't specialise in everything, so most of the time you vote for what your party is saying and hope for the best. You could abolish whipping altogether and it would still mostly work out that way - not always, but 90% of the time.
It's also a mistake to think that most voters vote for the individual MP, not the party. Most people only vaguely know who the candidates are, and have much stronger views on the party and its leader than on the candidate. There are exceptions and a really popular MP can get maybe 20% more votes than an average MP. But most people are still mainly expressing a party preference.
A long day, left when it was dark, glad I didn’t miss this. I made coronation chicken and put it in baquettes to take. The March of the Cortège passed us was absolutely Amazing. The bands all in tune, timing of Big Ben and the gun shots was unbelievable and all the Royals walking or driving past was really unreal. Everything was spectacular. It felt really weird, difficult to describe, except by saying it was unreal. I suppose it helps I love the monarchy and devout CoE Christian that I find it all fascinating today and faultless how it was planned and carried out. I’ve now watched the sky recording of both services, but not watched the BBC recording yet. And I have read all PB comments as well. PB is brilliant commentry on ceromoney like this for all the knowledgeeble people who post - Ydoethur expert comments on the music and the hymns - except tge one he didn’t know at Windsor I also found to be reflective and beautiful - and the PB love of the wreath was brilliant, and someone here sharp to pick up on the attack on Boris in the sermon all the news bulletins now using. That’s what sermons are meant for. No comment on PB that the nude woman on the coffin was really showing her breasts by time it was at Windsor. Leon must have been too drunk by that point.
I am 110% convinced England will never ever give up its monarchy - republicans which is a horrible sounding word and there’s too,many on PB compared to how many in real life, must surely appreciate now it’s not just no will to do it, but there’s no way to do it, you can’t get an elected President to be as neautral and dedicated to duty figurehead of state as our monarchs - the better option if you merely wish to sever politics from crown would be to extend the role of Speaker, but even that won’t work any better in terms of neutral and devoted head of state, you would just mindlessly be cutting through the fabric of who we are as a country as a people making a pointless mess of it - can’t you see how our monarchy woven so perfectly into how our country works well, it’s beautiful pattern through military, church and unites us all through our different classes in the class systems and regions? For a head of state to do all that is really amazing and perfect. Our head of state is for all of us and everything, You think it through and you see you can’t come up with anything better at doing that from either elected President or extended speaker role, you would just break something good for something worse.
I don’t feel as sad today as I imagined, and tge mourning and funeral have helped with the shock of queen being gone.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
To do so they would have to build literally all over the countryside and we would also then have far more houses than people needing to live in them.
In some parts of the UK you can still buy property for under £60k anyway
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
This would never work because houses can't be built for £50,000. The cheapest they can possibly be built and sold for is £200,000 each under current build costs. The only way houses could be £50,000 is if there is a massive collapse in demand - as is already the case in some parts of the north of England where houses can be bought for £50k in the current market.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
Because you can't really build a house for 50k?
Given how tiny and crappy some are you probably can, but unlikely to be what we're looking for.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
Because you can't really build a house for 50k?
Build and sell at a discount, as the government did with council housing stock under Right to Buy in the 1980s.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
As I discovered the other week, Greater (ie commutable) New York is more densely populated than Greater (commutable) London, but - outside Manhattan - prices are considerably cheaper.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
To do so they would have to build literally all over the countryside and we would also then have far more houses than people needing to live in them.
In some parts of the UK you can still buy property for under £60k anyway
Even if that is a monstrous exaggeration, that is quite an astounding display of soft power. All those Union flags on The Mall
Hmm. No reference, documentation or evidence.
Times are reporting four billion on the piece @Scott_xP linked. But agree it's difficult to get firm numbers, and to differentiate live from clips.
I'd eat 2 of my 3 hats if it was even half that, but the exact amount, which in any case is hard to prove (and how long people watched for), I think is secondary to the fact it was indeed made available so widely that such estimates could be true.
Am I being overly hopeful/naive that the events around HMQ dying will reduce support for Scottish independence?
It feels like the first time in a long time that Scotland and England have very very visibly been equals and a partnership by dint of fate that HMQ died in Scotland so naturally there was a very major part of her ceremony there but also with the funeral and surrounding ceremony such a majorly Scottish element.
Might be talking bollocks after a few drinks but as a slight outsider it was noticeably a partnership of two countries with one Queen (sorry wales and NI) which I hope might be a positive.
Independence and republicanism are separate (no pun intended) issues, to a considerable degree. The Scottish monarchy was separate before and would be again.
Some PBs hower confuse the two. It was assumed by some that the chaps with placards etc in Edinburgh were SNP folk yet the SNP accepts the monarchy as party policy. But they were from a republican party (the republican republican kind not the Irish republican kind).
I get that the SNP are not a Republican Party and kudos to Nicola Sturgeon for her words over the period but I was thinking more in a gut feeling sense that Scots who are wavering might find that this has made them feel more confidently part of the whole and actually like that they are part of something bigger.
The procession from Westminster hall to the Abbey was probably, for me, the most deeply moving part and it was possibly because of the fantastic combination of the Scots massed bands/pipers and the troops.
It was remarkably powerful but if it had just been the Scots Pipers etc then it could have been a police funeral in Chicago or a St Patrick’s day March in the US but as part of something bigger with all the Guards etc it was special and I’m sure that others would feel that too.
As I said, a few drinks in but I loved the duality of the Scottish and English/British progression since HMQ’s death and I can’t be the only one I imagine.
Just wait till normal politics resumes. Tomorrow.
I think PBers have been storing up a lot of unreleased bile for the past week, so there's going to be a lot of f bombs tomorrow.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
To do so they would have to build literally all over the countryside and we would also then have far more houses than people needing to live in them.
In some parts of the UK you can still buy property for under £60k anyway
Am I being overly hopeful/naive that the events around HMQ dying will reduce support for Scottish independence?
It feels like the first time in a long time that Scotland and England have very very visibly been equals and a partnership by dint of fate that HMQ died in Scotland so naturally there was a very major part of her ceremony there but also with the funeral and surrounding ceremony such a majorly Scottish element.
Might be talking bollocks after a few drinks but as a slight outsider it was noticeably a partnership of two countries with one Queen (sorry wales and NI) which I hope might be a positive.
Independence and republicanism are separate (no pun intended) issues, to a considerable degree. The Scottish monarchy was separate before and would be again.
Some PBs hower confuse the two. It was assumed by some that the chaps with placards etc in Edinburgh were SNP folk yet the SNP accepts the monarchy as party policy. But they were from a republican party (the republican republican kind not the Irish republican kind).
I get that the SNP are not a Republican Party and kudos to Nicola Sturgeon for her words over the period but I was thinking more in a gut feeling sense that Scots who are wavering might find that this has made them feel more confidently part of the whole and actually like that they are part of something bigger.
The procession from Westminster hall to the Abbey was probably, for me, the most deeply moving part and it was possibly because of the fantastic combination of the Scots massed bands/pipers and the troops.
It was remarkably powerful but if it had just been the Scots Pipers etc then it could have been a police funeral in Chicago or a St Patrick’s day March in the US but as part of something bigger with all the Guards etc it was special and I’m sure that others would feel that too.
As I said, a few drinks in but I loved the duality of the Scottish and English/British progression since HMQ’s death and I can’t be the only one I imagine.
Just wait till normal politics resumes. Tomorrow.
I think PBers have been storing up a lot of unreleased bile for the past week, so there's going to be a lot of f bombs tomorrow.
I’m already planning on mentioning AV at least once tomorrow.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
As I discovered the other week, Greater (ie commutable) New York is more densely populated than Greater (commutable) London, but - outside Manhattan - prices are considerably cheaper.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
It's not just that the system is wrong, it's wrong in about 3-4 different ways at the same time.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
Because you can't really build a house for 50k?
Build and sell at a discount, as the government did with council housing stock under Right to Buy in the 1980s.
Ok, it is technically feasible if you want to tax everyone enough to wipe out their housing equity. If you are happy with doing that, though, it would be much cheaper to just redistribute housing by force from landlords.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
1. Nationalise banks. 2. Repossess all mortgaged properties. 3. Offer occupants secure low-rent tenancies with cancellation of mortgage. 4. Offer owners of (unmortgaged) properties 20% of pre-nationalisation market price AND a secure tenancy. If they don't want a tenancy, offer them another 5% maybe. Enough so that the state has a supply of houses to let to those who didn't get a tenancy under 3. 5. Don't allow sub-letting.
Basically kill the housing market and accommodation insecurity.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
As I discovered the other week, Greater (ie commutable) New York is more densely populated than Greater (commutable) London, but - outside Manhattan - prices are considerably cheaper.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
It's not just that the system is wrong, it's wrong in about 3-4 different ways at the same time.
It’s almost Conquest’s law as applied to planning.
But we don’t vote for PMs. We elect an MP for our constituency. If the leader of the largest party can form a government they get to be PM. If you want directly elected PMs then fine, buts that’s not what we have.
This is absolutely the system that we have. The problem IMO is that it doesn't match up with how most people in practice think of their democratic relationship with the government, which I think is more likely to be that they view themselves as voting for a party or a PM, not for an individual MP. That disconnect between what people want out of the system and what it actually does isn't great. (Though it's hardly the greatest problem currently facing us.)
I think the answer there is not to change the system of elections but reduce the power of the parties. Limit the power of the whips and make far more votes free votes - make that the default with whipping the exception. Personally I would like to see every vote in Parliament a free vote by law with an end to the system of threats and bribes we subject our MPs to.
And of course better education so our electorate understand what they are voting for.
While I agree that it's a pity that a single vote agaonst your party de facto disqualifies you from office for several years, it's exaggerated to think that MPs vote with their party because of threats or bribes. MPs have generally been members of their parties for 10-20 years, and on the whole they agree with the direction and want them to do well, not be torn apart by constant squabbles over every issue. You can't specialise in everything, so most of the time you vote for what your party is saying and hope for the best. You could abolish whipping altogether and it would still mostly work out that way - not always, but 90% of the time.
It's also a mistake to think that most voters vote for the individual MP, not the party. Most people only vaguely know who the candidates are, and have much stronger views on the party and its leader than on the candidate. There are exceptions and a really popular MP can get maybe 20% more votes than an average MP. But most people are still mainly expressing a party preference.
And if MPs are voting for their party line because they believe in it that is fine. After all it is no surprise that MPs of a party should hold similar views to their leadership on many issues. But if that is the case then you don't need whipping for those votes. But that doesn't change the argument that whipping - which is undoubtedly bribery or threats - should not be allowed for any votes. If a government cannot convince its own, supposedly likeminded MPs of the value of its argument then it should not be using threats and bribes to get them to vote against their consciences and what they consider is best for their constituents and the country.
No matters which way you cut it, forcing MPs to vote in a particular way to support a party line is fundamentally a perversion of the democratic process.
And as far as your argument about people not knowing their MP, the obvious answer to that is to better educate them and - perhaps more usefully, remove party IDs from the ballot paper. Force people to educate themselves about who their MPs are and what they stand for.
Am I being overly hopeful/naive that the events around HMQ dying will reduce support for Scottish independence?
It feels like the first time in a long time that Scotland and England have very very visibly been equals and a partnership by dint of fate that HMQ died in Scotland so naturally there was a very major part of her ceremony there but also with the funeral and surrounding ceremony such a majorly Scottish element.
Might be talking bollocks after a few drinks but as a slight outsider it was noticeably a partnership of two countries with one Queen (sorry wales and NI) which I hope might be a positive.
Independence and republicanism are separate (no pun intended) issues, to a considerable degree. The Scottish monarchy was separate before and would be again.
Some PBs hower confuse the two. It was assumed by some that the chaps with placards etc in Edinburgh were SNP folk yet the SNP accepts the monarchy as party policy. But they were from a republican party (the republican republican kind not the Irish republican kind).
I get that the SNP are not a Republican Party and kudos to Nicola Sturgeon for her words over the period but I was thinking more in a gut feeling sense that Scots who are wavering might find that this has made them feel more confidently part of the whole and actually like that they are part of something bigger.
The procession from Westminster hall to the Abbey was probably, for me, the most deeply moving part and it was possibly because of the fantastic combination of the Scots massed bands/pipers and the troops.
It was remarkably powerful but if it had just been the Scots Pipers etc then it could have been a police funeral in Chicago or a St Patrick’s day March in the US but as part of something bigger with all the Guards etc it was special and I’m sure that others would feel that too.
As I said, a few drinks in but I loved the duality of the Scottish and English/British progression since HMQ’s death and I can’t be the only one I imagine.
Just wait till normal politics resumes. Tomorrow.
I think PBers have been storing up a lot of unreleased bile for the past week, so there's going to be a lot of f bombs tomorrow.
Wait until the Special Financial Statement on Friday. There will be lots of opportunities for anti Liz elements on here to release the F-Bomb 👍
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
1. Nationalise banks. 2. Repossess all mortgaged properties. 3. Offer occupants secure low-rent tenancies with cancellation of mortgage. 4. Offer owners of (unmortgaged) properties 20% of pre-nationalisation market price AND a secure tenancy. If they don't want a tenancy, offer them another 5% maybe. Enough so that the state has a supply of houses to let to those who didn't get a tenancy under 3. 5. Don't allow sub-letting.
Basically kill house ownership and accommodation insecurity.
Willl I be allowed any private property under this regime?
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
As I discovered the other week, Greater (ie commutable) New York is more densely populated than Greater (commutable) London, but - outside Manhattan - prices are considerably cheaper.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
Certainly if Truss wants to get things moving then tackling the six or so big house builders and their land banking and so on is a prime target. Give the development land to small and medium sized regional builders. Cut out the big boys who are gaming the whole market.
But we don’t vote for PMs. We elect an MP for our constituency. If the leader of the largest party can form a government they get to be PM. If you want directly elected PMs then fine, buts that’s not what we have.
This is absolutely the system that we have. The problem IMO is that it doesn't match up with how most people in practice think of their democratic relationship with the government, which I think is more likely to be that they view themselves as voting for a party or a PM, not for an individual MP. That disconnect between what people want out of the system and what it actually does isn't great. (Though it's hardly the greatest problem currently facing us.)
I think the answer there is not to change the system of elections but reduce the power of the parties. Limit the power of the whips and make far more votes free votes - make that the default with whipping the exception. Personally I would like to see every vote in Parliament a free vote by law with an end to the system of threats and bribes we subject our MPs to.
And of course better education so our electorate understand what they are voting for.
While I agree that it's a pity that a single vote agaonst your party de facto disqualifies you from office for several years, it's exaggerated to think that MPs vote with their party because of threats or bribes. MPs have generally been members of their parties for 10-20 years, and on the whole they agree with the direction and want them to do well, not be torn apart by constant squabbles over every issue. You can't specialise in everything, so most of the time you vote for what your party is saying and hope for the best. You could abolish whipping altogether and it would still mostly work out that way - not always, but 90% of the time.
It's also a mistake to think that most voters vote for the individual MP, not the party. Most people only vaguely know who the candidates are, and have much stronger views on the party and its leader than on the candidate. There are exceptions and a really popular MP can get maybe 20% more votes than an average MP. But most people are still mainly expressing a party preference.
That is how most people will vote in practice, but if we want to reflect that we need to change the system (I agree reducing the power of whips isn't going to do much), not pretend that the system we do have is something it is not. There's not much point in being flabbergasted when people are outraged it operates as designed rather than how they think it is.
Analysis of East Asian “tiger” economies shows that development needs the destruction of feudal land ownership as a pre-requisite, thereby distributing capital more broadly across the population.
Think about that in the UK context, which seems to be stuck in a productivity dead-end.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
As I discovered the other week, Greater (ie commutable) New York is more densely populated than Greater (commutable) London, but - outside Manhattan - prices are considerably cheaper.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
The US has far more land than the UK and is also far less densely populated overall.
In New York City most rent as most in London now rent, outside London UK average house prices are now even slightly lower than in the US, $407,600 there, £281,261 here
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
As I discovered the other week, Greater (ie commutable) New York is more densely populated than Greater (commutable) London, but - outside Manhattan - prices are considerably cheaper.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
It's probably not - it acts as a giant rationing mechanism to reduce inward migration of low-skilled labour, in line with people's strong political preference, and at some demented margin in the South East, it encourages significant labour supply from highly talented people who in any other country would begin to cruise instead of paying high marginal tax rates.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
Right. This is one of those areas where I think we should just start doing something on a big scale and see how much benefit we can get from that. When we've made a decent dent in the "way too little supply" problem we can look at whether there is still anything that other policy fixes might help with, but we should start with the blindingly obvious part first. (No strong view on the best way in particular to increase supply, though as you note planning overhaul is probably part of it.)
Thank goodness we are back to normal tomorrow. CoL has not gone away
The CoL is a very boring crisis. That's not to deny its importance. But philosophically "shit, gas has gone up fourteen-fold, rendering it and everything it is used for" us not particularly philosophically interesting, and neither if the short term answers - "suck it up" or "whack it on the credit card ajd let the kids pay for it" are particularly satisfying. (The long term answers, mind, about how we move away from reliance on fossil fuels and the maniacs who sell them, is both interesting and satisfying.) And the news from Ukraine is almost all awful, even if notably less awful than when it appeared Ukraine would be overrun and enslaved. I must admit I have rather enjoyed the philosphical musings on the nature of Britishness, identity and sovereignty of the ladt ten days, along with the human drama of The Queue. I have surprised myself. I wouldn't want to keep it up for ever - ten days or so is about right - but in pure news terms it has been a welcome diversion. I'm surprised at myself here. Royal weddings are shit. But it turns out royal funerals are brilliant.
It has been a welcome diversion in that sense yes, we return to the fetid toilet bowl am morgen. Back to the i reckon, you reckon and the nonsense of polls, PMQs et al Most of all its back to the sham breathless earnestness of them all. The offence taken, the deliberate content ripping of every word said, the misrepresentation of everything for polling advantage. Yay!
No PMQs for a while
Liz is up the road on Wed. Isn't it Therese and Angela?
No - it is the swearing of allegiance by mps to the King
No PMQS until after conferences
Wasn't JRM meant to do a big announcement filling in details on the energy plan?
Though this piece in tomorrow's (?) Times gives the impression that the details.may be trickier than was implied earlier.
People familiar with the talks say some executives have been alarmed by ministers pushing to introduce such contracts before winter and fear this could inflict huge losses on those that have already hedged some of their power output for coming months below market prices.
The official Parliament site indicates the house sits on Wednesday for allegiance declarations to the King and Thursday a business statement and debate on Ukraine
Focus will switch to Truss at the UN demanding unity against Russia and her bi lateral meeting with Biden
Well quite. But you also have this from yesterday's Sunday Times;
The government is set to announce a huge package to ease energy costs for business on Wednesday, a programme to tackle the backlog of care in the NHS on Thursday and then a tax-cutting mini-budget on Friday. “We’ve got to cram two weeks’ news into four days,” a Downing Street source said. As a senior Conservative put it: “Public attention will start to switch from Elizabeth to Liz. That’s the key moment for us.”
If identity politics requires choosing a candidate of the right color, the Democrats could do worse than Cory Booker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker (In spite of his time at Oxford.)
He has serious executive experience, as mayor of one of our tougher cities, Newark, New Jersey. The fact that he was willing to take that challenge on impresses me.
(Fun fact: Both of his parents were IBM executives.)
Everyone I know who's met him has been very impressed.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
1. Nationalise banks. 2. Repossess all mortgaged properties. 3. Offer occupants secure low-rent tenancies with cancellation of mortgage. 4. Offer owners of (unmortgaged) properties 20% of pre-nationalisation market price AND a secure tenancy. If they don't want a tenancy, offer them another 5% maybe. Enough so that the state has a supply of houses to let to those who didn't get a tenancy under 3. 5. Don't allow sub-letting.
Basically kill house ownership and accommodation insecurity.
Willl I be allowed any private property under this regime?
Why would you need your own private possessions, rich boy? The state shall set ye free
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
To do so they would have to build literally all over the countryside and we would also then have far more houses than people needing to live in them.
In some parts of the UK you can still buy property for under £60k anyway
£50k is an odd number. That is like ≈ just 2x annual median salary iirc.
30 years ago average house prices were around 3x Average salary, a bit higher in London, and did at times drop below 3x salary.
Interest rates were eye-watering by modern standards though.
But there was MIRAS.
I’ve seen research that suggests that mortgage payments were “cheaper” even tough interest rates were higher.
My first house (2 bed terrace in a trendy bit of Leicester) was £42 000 in 1992, about 3 times my salary. Those houses sell for £220 000 now.
Interest rates were such that it cost me 40% of salary though, and I think broadly people do still spend that sort of percentage on housing. The relationship between interest rates and house prices finds an equilibrium at about that point.
You could reduce house prices by jacking up interest rates, but the affordability would still be around 40% of salary, once the initial shocks had broken a few people. I am not convinced there would be much social gain.
Thank goodness we are back to normal tomorrow. CoL has not gone away
The CoL is a very boring crisis. That's not to deny its importance. But philosophically "shit, gas has gone up fourteen-fold, rendering it and everything it is used for" us not particularly philosophically interesting, and neither if the short term answers - "suck it up" or "whack it on the credit card ajd let the kids pay for it" are particularly satisfying. (The long term answers, mind, about how we move away from reliance on fossil fuels and the maniacs who sell them, is both interesting and satisfying.) And the news from Ukraine is almost all awful, even if notably less awful than when it appeared Ukraine would be overrun and enslaved. I must admit I have rather enjoyed the philosphical musings on the nature of Britishness, identity and sovereignty of the ladt ten days, along with the human drama of The Queue. I have surprised myself. I wouldn't want to keep it up for ever - ten days or so is about right - but in pure news terms it has been a welcome diversion. I'm surprised at myself here. Royal weddings are shit. But it turns out royal funerals are brilliant.
It has been a welcome diversion in that sense yes, we return to the fetid toilet bowl am morgen. Back to the i reckon, you reckon and the nonsense of polls, PMQs et al Most of all its back to the sham breathless earnestness of them all. The offence taken, the deliberate content ripping of every word said, the misrepresentation of everything for polling advantage. Yay!
No PMQs for a while
Liz is up the road on Wed. Isn't it Therese and Angela?
No - it is the swearing of allegiance by mps to the King
No PMQS until after conferences
Wasn't JRM meant to do a big announcement filling in details on the energy plan?
Though this piece in tomorrow's (?) Times gives the impression that the details.may be trickier than was implied earlier.
People familiar with the talks say some executives have been alarmed by ministers pushing to introduce such contracts before winter and fear this could inflict huge losses on those that have already hedged some of their power output for coming months below market prices.
The official Parliament site indicates the house sits on Wednesday for allegiance declarations to the King and Thursday a business statement and debate on Ukraine
Focus will switch to Truss at the UN demanding unity against Russia and her bi lateral meeting with Biden
Well quite. But you also have this from yesterday's Sunday Times;
The government is set to announce a huge package to ease energy costs for business on Wednesday, a programme to tackle the backlog of care in the NHS on Thursday and then a tax-cutting mini-budget on Friday. “We’ve got to cram two weeks’ news into four days,” a Downing Street source said. As a senior Conservative put it: “Public attention will start to switch from Elizabeth to Liz. That’s the key moment for us.”
She could start going by Elizabeth, whilst also talking about Queen Elizabeth a lot, to try and hypnotise us.
Hmm ... not looking like a good morning back to work for Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng tomorrow.
Personally I was against the national insurance hike, so it would be hypocritical of me to moan about its cancellation.
But I feel in my bones that the Truss/Kwarteng project is already doomed.
This is exactly the time to make the difficult decisions for the good of the country.
Remove the National insurance upper earnings limit. Make it the same rate on all earned income rather than having a reduced rate for the higher earners. Introduce National Insurance for pensioners.
I want lower taxes overall but I also want taxation to be fairer. Making it so the more you earn the lower your rate of NI is not equitable.
removing the limit makes sense but putting it on pensions is unfair in the sense that pension tax relief (ie when you are saving for a pension in working life) only relieves income tax not NI - so if you are now drawing a pension and were taxed NI you would be taxed NI twice on the same income. It would become very tax inefficient to save for a pension then
Reading back my coment I wasn't clear. Apologies.
I didn't actually say put it on pensions. Indeed, I got pulled up the other day when we were discussing this because I explicitly excluded pensions and other unearned income.
What I said was put it on pensioners. I was referring to the fact that, currently, anyone past pension age doesn't pay NI if they continue to work. Hence the 'earned income' comment.
All work should attract the same rates of taxation including NI irrespective of the age of the worker.
All earned and unearned income should be taxed at the same rates.
I find it bemusing how some people say that the self-employed shouldn't pay NI because they don't get holiday pay/sick pay etc but NI doesn't pay for any of those. Holiday pay is paid out of the employers labour budget, same as the rest of the employees pay, not by the taxpayer.
I do think we should amalgamate NI and income tax. For one thing it would make people see how much the Government is really getting from employment. I am in an interesting position as I am operating inside IR35 as a consultant so am paying full tax and NI on the employees side but also paying all the NI and other costs that an employer would normally pay. As a result, I can see that the Government takes about 50p of every pound paid by a company to an employee. Which is kind of ridiculous.
But if that is too much what should be taxed higher instead unless tax take overall is to fall?
Spread the tax rather than increasing it on very specific areas. So remove the upper limit on NI contributions to start with.
Currently the NI level on employment is 13.25% paid by the employee and 15.05% paid by the employer.
But any earnings over £50,000 are taxed at only 3.25% NI. Which seems utterly daft. Remove that cap and have the whole lot taxed at the same rate and you could reduce the overall rates.
Also extend it to unearned income with some exceptions (state pensions etc) and have it paid on all such earnings rather than excluding those over retirement age - which is in itself an increasingly obsolete concept given how many people are still working part that age either by choice or necessity.
At that point you can start to reduce the overall levels of taxation rather than having some important areas of the economy taxed at higher rates than others.
Totally agree. Even as someone who would lose out under such arrangements.
Yep, I am in the same boat. I would lose out on the abolition of the Upper limit and also, assuming I continue to work, in 10 years time when I reach pension age. But it is still the right thing to do even if I would be worse off personally. And I like to think that in a fairer and more transparent system there would be a lot more debate about the actual levels of Government tax take rather than who is paying what.
The reduction of NI to 3.25% when you earn over 50k just compensates for the increase in income tax band to 40%. If the NI rate remained the same, you would effectively be paying 68.3p tax (employer and employee NI and income tax) for every extra pound you earn over 50k. My own view would be that there just isn't any point working when you are taxed that much. You may as well not bother.
So that is then a stimulus to reduce the overall levels of taxation. And of course for the vast maj0rity of people (unlike me) they don't pay the 15.05% Employers NI contribution as that is paid by their employer. So the effective tax rate for employees is 53.25% (which should then, in my opinion, be reduced). But fairness in the tax system should not be stymied by the fact that we tax people too much. They are separate arguments.
Make the tax system fairer by removing all the complexity and anomalies and then reduce the overall tax burden.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
The US has far more land than the UK and is also far less densely populated overall.
In New York City most rent as most in London now rent, outside London UK average house prices are now even slightly lower than in the US, $407,600 there, £281,261 here
Congratulations, you have discovered the other well-known place (US blue-state big cities) where housing is in too short supply and the planning system is a disaster.
Young people have to pay for old people. I say fuck them, you do nothing useful.
Young people need to vote in the numbers the old do. The country would be a better place for it
Nah, disenfranchise under 40s, they need life experience to be deloused of their ridiculous doe eyed idealism.
Multiply everybody's vote by x where x = (average life expectancy - the voter's age).
That way those oldies voting for stuff they don't have to live with the consequences of (hi Brexit) don't get so many votes as the youngsters who will have to live with it.
Multiply everybody's vote by how much tax they paid on average over the past 4 or 5 years. That way everybody gets more say over how we pay the tax they raised.
That effectively takes us back 200 years. JRM would be proud of you.
But it shows how absurd the idea of weighting people's votes is. One person, one vote.
So long as I am the person, then I have no problems with that suggestion.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
As I discovered the other week, Greater (ie commutable) New York is more densely populated than Greater (commutable) London, but - outside Manhattan - prices are considerably cheaper.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
The US has far more land than the UK and is also far less densely populated overall.
In New York City most rent as most in London now rent, outside London UK average house prices are now even slightly lower than in the US, $407,600 there, £281,261 here
Thank goodness we are back to normal tomorrow. CoL has not gone away
The CoL is a very boring crisis. That's not to deny its importance. But philosophically "shit, gas has gone up fourteen-fold, rendering it and everything it is used for" us not particularly philosophically interesting, and neither if the short term answers - "suck it up" or "whack it on the credit card ajd let the kids pay for it" are particularly satisfying. (The long term answers, mind, about how we move away from reliance on fossil fuels and the maniacs who sell them, is both interesting and satisfying.) And the news from Ukraine is almost all awful, even if notably less awful than when it appeared Ukraine would be overrun and enslaved. I must admit I have rather enjoyed the philosphical musings on the nature of Britishness, identity and sovereignty of the ladt ten days, along with the human drama of The Queue. I have surprised myself. I wouldn't want to keep it up for ever - ten days or so is about right - but in pure news terms it has been a welcome diversion. I'm surprised at myself here. Royal weddings are shit. But it turns out royal funerals are brilliant.
It has been a welcome diversion in that sense yes, we return to the fetid toilet bowl am morgen. Back to the i reckon, you reckon and the nonsense of polls, PMQs et al Most of all its back to the sham breathless earnestness of them all. The offence taken, the deliberate content ripping of every word said, the misrepresentation of everything for polling advantage. Yay!
No PMQs for a while
Liz is up the road on Wed. Isn't it Therese and Angela?
No - it is the swearing of allegiance by mps to the King
No PMQS until after conferences
Wasn't JRM meant to do a big announcement filling in details on the energy plan?
Though this piece in tomorrow's (?) Times gives the impression that the details.may be trickier than was implied earlier.
People familiar with the talks say some executives have been alarmed by ministers pushing to introduce such contracts before winter and fear this could inflict huge losses on those that have already hedged some of their power output for coming months below market prices.
The official Parliament site indicates the house sits on Wednesday for allegiance declarations to the King and Thursday a business statement and debate on Ukraine
Focus will switch to Truss at the UN demanding unity against Russia and her bi lateral meeting with Biden
Well quite. But you also have this from yesterday's Sunday Times;
The government is set to announce a huge package to ease energy costs for business on Wednesday, a programme to tackle the backlog of care in the NHS on Thursday and then a tax-cutting mini-budget on Friday. “We’ve got to cram two weeks’ news into four days,” a Downing Street source said. As a senior Conservative put it: “Public attention will start to switch from Elizabeth to Liz. That’s the key moment for us.”
A government spokesperson talking bollocks? We’ll blow me down with a feather.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
To do so they would have to build literally all over the countryside and we would also then have far more houses than people needing to live in them.
In some parts of the UK you can still buy property for under £60k anyway
Apparently Slovenia is going to send some modernised T-55 tanks to Ukraine, in exchange for receiving newer armoured vehicles from Germany.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, further support for Ukraine is welcome, and given the jury-rigged stuff the Ukrainians are using, even these old relics will find a use (and to be fair they have been quite extensively modernised, so they're not useless).
But on the other hand, it kinda feels like it's taking the piss a bit. Send Ukraine modern equipment, get the war won more quickly, end the suffering of Ukrainian civilians, and reduce the number of Ukrainian military casualties.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
As I discovered the other week, Greater (ie commutable) New York is more densely populated than Greater (commutable) London, but - outside Manhattan - prices are considerably cheaper.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
The US has far more land than the UK and is also far less densely populated overall.
In New York City most rent as most in London now rent, outside London UK average house prices are now even slightly lower than in the US, $407,600 there, £281,261 here
Paul Trueman @paulwtrueman I love Peter Hennessey's description of today as "the final day of the post-war era". Feels like the belated end of 20th century for sure.
Steven Fielding @PolProfSteve · 10h A silly thing to say - for most ordinary Britons that ended sometime in the 70s.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
Right. This is one of those areas where I think we should just start doing something on a big scale and see how much benefit we can get from that. When we've made a decent dent in the "way too little supply" problem we can look at whether there is still anything that other policy fixes might help with, but we should start with the blindingly obvious part first. (No strong view on the best way in particular to increase supply, though as you note planning overhaul is probably part of it.)
Planning overhaul is the never ending cry of the developer. All the while they are sitting on plots with permission for hundreds of thousands of houses and not developing them. Start charging them council tax on the plots 9 months or a year after planning permission has been granted and watch how quickly they are ready to start building on them.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
The US has far more land than the UK and is also far less densely populated overall.
In New York City most rent as most in London now rent, outside London UK average house prices are now even slightly lower than in the US, $407,600 there, £281,261 here
Congratulations, you have discovered the other well-known place (US blue-state big cities) where housing is in too short supply and the planning system is a disaster.
If you look at housing starts over the past ten years, New York City is a disaster. But that’s not the issue in areas outside but commutable to New York City.
So, in Manhattan prices are eye watering. But in Montclair - 13 miles from Wall Street - you can pick up a generous family home for less than $1m.
The sort of thing that would cost £1.5m+ in a comparable place near London.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
To do so they would have to build literally all over the countryside and we would also then have far more houses than people needing to live in them.
In some parts of the UK you can still buy property for under £60k anyway
£50k is an odd number. That is like ≈ just 2x annual median salary iirc.
30 years ago average house prices were around 3x Average salary, a bit higher in London, and did at times drop below 3x salary.
Interest rates were eye-watering by modern standards though.
But there was MIRAS.
I’ve seen research that suggests that mortgage payments were “cheaper” even tough interest rates were higher.
My first house (2 bed terrace in a trendy bit of Leicester) was £42 000 in 1992, about 3 times my salary. Those houses sell for £220 000 now.
Interest rates were such that it cost me 40% of salary though, and I think broadly people do still spend that sort of percentage on housing. The relationship between interest rates and house prices finds an equilibrium at about that point.
You could reduce house prices by jacking up interest rates, but the affordability would still be around 40% of salary, once the initial shocks had broken a few people. I am not convinced there would be much social gain.
Though the big killer at the moment isn't really the monthly payment, it's amassing a deposit to get started. And that only really hurts for the first purchase. Hence the mutual incomprehension across generations.
Apparently Slovenia is going to send some modernised T-55 tanks to Ukraine, in exchange for receiving newer armoured vehicles from Germany.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, further support for Ukraine is welcome, and given the jury-rigged stuff the Ukrainians are using, even these old relics will find a use (and to be fair they have been quite extensively modernised, so they're not useless).
But on the other hand, it kinda feels like it's taking the piss a bit. Send Ukraine modern equipment, get the war won more quickly, end the suffering of Ukrainian civilians, and reduce the number of Ukrainian military casualties.
There are issues with logistics. Tanks break down a lot and need a great deal of logistic support. Adding complexity to logistics isn't necessarily doing UKR a favour.
Similarly Germany is supplying Greece with Marder IFV so the Greek BMPs can go to UKR.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
Right. This is one of those areas where I think we should just start doing something on a big scale and see how much benefit we can get from that. When we've made a decent dent in the "way too little supply" problem we can look at whether there is still anything that other policy fixes might help with, but we should start with the blindingly obvious part first. (No strong view on the best way in particular to increase supply, though as you note planning overhaul is probably part of it.)
Planning overhaul is the never ending cry of the developer. All the while they are sitting on plots with permission for hundreds of thousands of houses and not developing them. Start charging them council tax on the plots 9 months or a year after planning permission has been granted and watch how quickly they are ready to start building on them.
I have no sympathies for UK developers, but they are a malignant outgrowth of an underlying dysfunctional planning system.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
1. Nationalise banks. 2. Repossess all mortgaged properties. 3. Offer occupants secure low-rent tenancies with cancellation of mortgage. 4. Offer owners of (unmortgaged) properties 20% of pre-nationalisation market price AND a secure tenancy. If they don't want a tenancy, offer them another 5% maybe. Enough so that the state has a supply of houses to let to those who didn't get a tenancy under 3. 5. Don't allow sub-letting.
Basically kill house ownership and accommodation insecurity.
Willl I be allowed any private property under this regime?
Sure. If you owned a house (i.e. actually owned it, without a mortgage), you could keep it, offer it for sale, do what you want with it. (You'd be responsible for repairs, mind.) Also you could buy one from someone in that position if you could agree a price with them.
Another point is that right now if the restrictive state system called planning permission were to be removed, house prices would PLUMMET. I wouldn't be surprised if the materials needed to build what is currently a £300K house could be bought for about £50K.
Apparently Slovenia is going to send some modernised T-55 tanks to Ukraine, in exchange for receiving newer armoured vehicles from Germany.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, further support for Ukraine is welcome, and given the jury-rigged stuff the Ukrainians are using, even these old relics will find a use (and to be fair they have been quite extensively modernised, so they're not useless).
But on the other hand, it kinda feels like it's taking the piss a bit. Send Ukraine modern equipment, get the war won more quickly, end the suffering of Ukrainian civilians, and reduce the number of Ukrainian military casualties.
There are issues with logistics. Tanks break down a lot and need a great deal of logistic support. Adding complexity to logistics isn't necessarily doing UKR a favour.
Similarly Germany is supplying Greece with Marder IFV so the Greek BMPs can go to UKR.
Yes, but the T-55s are different to all the other tanks Ukraine already operates, with a different calibre barrel, different engines, etc. So if another tank type is going to be added to their army, increasing their logistic complexity, why not make it a good modern one?
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
To do so they would have to build literally all over the countryside and we would also then have far more houses than people needing to live in them.
In some parts of the UK you can still buy property for under £60k anyway
£50k is an odd number. That is like ≈ just 2x annual median salary iirc.
30 years ago average house prices were around 3x Average salary, a bit higher in London, and did at times drop below 3x salary.
Interest rates were eye-watering by modern standards though.
But there was MIRAS.
I’ve seen research that suggests that mortgage payments were “cheaper” even tough interest rates were higher.
My first house (2 bed terrace in a trendy bit of Leicester) was £42 000 in 1992, about 3 times my salary. Those houses sell for £220 000 now.
Interest rates were such that it cost me 40% of salary though, and I think broadly people do still spend that sort of percentage on housing. The relationship between interest rates and house prices finds an equilibrium at about that point.
You could reduce house prices by jacking up interest rates, but the affordability would still be around 40% of salary, once the initial shocks had broken a few people. I am not convinced there would be much social gain.
Though the big killer at the moment isn't really the monthly payment, it's amassing a deposit to get started. And that only really hurts for the first purchase. Hence the mutual incomprehension across generations.
That was a problem then too. Indeed to get a loan above 75% required paying a bond on top of the mortgage.
In addition, because of negative equity at the time, this was quite costly and mortgage valuations were often well below actual selling prices, causing a considerable deposit gap. Indeed I lost a very nice house for that very reason before buying the one that I did.
If identity politics requires choosing a candidate of the right color, the Democrats could do worse than Cory Booker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker (In spite of his time at Oxford.)
He has serious executive experience, as mayor of one of our tougher cities, Newark, New Jersey. The fact that he was willing to take that challenge on impresses me.
(Fun fact: Both of his parents were IBM executives.)
Everyone I know who's met him has been very impressed.
With Kamala? Not so much.
If there's a primary after an LBJ style pull-out by Biden in a year or so then all bets are off. Massively wide open primary. Indeed, has there ever been a wider and more uncertain primary for nominee? No one has a clue who will come through.
I repeat myself constantly but there is an issue when I cannot easily extend my 3 storey semi detached house in Hackney, just 2 miles from “Bank”.
It’s in a conversation area, but not listed. I ought to be able to go to six storeys or something without too much stress, indeed local council housing goes much higher.
Note that inflation has hit the industry hard in the last few years. (I don't think that will last, just as I don't think automobile prices will stay as high here -- and used car prices have already started falling.
You can see the possibilities, when you take a look at a guest home owned by Elon Musk: A $49,500 guest home.
There is one very clever thing about the design: It has a hinge in the middle so it can be transported on a truck, and then unfolded at the site.
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
As I discovered the other week, Greater (ie commutable) New York is more densely populated than Greater (commutable) London, but - outside Manhattan - prices are considerably cheaper.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
The US has far more land than the UK and is also far less densely populated overall.
In New York City most rent as most in London now rent, outside London UK average house prices are now even slightly lower than in the US, $407,600 there, £281,261 here
The USA has far more land Commutable New York does not.
Funny how the places people want to live end up with not enough land.
In a society with free movement, it seems to be hard to solve housing costs in desirable areas by building tons of houses in other areas.
Indeed, if you want to buy a home in the UK before 30 on an average income move to Bolton or Stoke or County Durham not London. If you want to buy a house in the US before 30 on an average income move to Arkansas or West Virginia or Ohio not New York city
I don't see any reason why the government shouldn't engage in a massive housebuilding program to drive the average house value below £50,000 - the long term benefits of not having enormous amounts of wealth and effort tied up in an artificially inflated housing markets massively outweigh the short term discomfort.
As I discovered the other week, Greater (ie commutable) New York is more densely populated than Greater (commutable) London, but - outside Manhattan - prices are considerably cheaper.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
The US has far more land than the UK and is also far less densely populated overall.
In New York City most rent as most in London now rent, outside London UK average house prices are now even slightly lower than in the US, $407,600 there, £281,261 here
The USA has far more land Commutable New York does not.
Funny how the places people want to live end up with not enough land.
In a society with free movement, it seems to be hard to solve housing costs in desirable areas by building tons of houses in other areas.
Indeed, if you want to buy a home in the UK before 30 on an average income move to Bolton or Stoke or County Durham not London. If you want to buy a house in the US before 30 on an average income move to Arkansas or West Virginia or Ohio not New York city
You can move to 1000 places that are commutable to NYC though.
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
Right. This is one of those areas where I think we should just start doing something on a big scale and see how much benefit we can get from that. When we've made a decent dent in the "way too little supply" problem we can look at whether there is still anything that other policy fixes might help with, but we should start with the blindingly obvious part first. (No strong view on the best way in particular to increase supply, though as you note planning overhaul is probably part of it.)
Planning overhaul is the never ending cry of the developer. All the while they are sitting on plots with permission for hundreds of thousands of houses and not developing them. Start charging them council tax on the plots 9 months or a year after planning permission has been granted and watch how quickly they are ready to start building on them.
Yes, much as I decry NIMBYism it is definitely true the big developers seriously take the piss.
Comments
https://asunnot.oikotie.fi/myytavat-asunnot/humppila/16251802
This is a house in Finland.
200 sqm, built in the 1980's and extended in 2002.
Surveyors report says it is in good condition.
Includes an external sauna and a swimming pool.
Half an acre plot on the edge of town.
The starting price is 98,000 Euros.
Edit: although I see there's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berchtesgaden_Hauptbahnhof, so maybe.
There was a nice looking house up for sale today in another part of Finland with an orchard. It had, for some technical reason, been written off by the surveyor and sold as land. 16,000 Euros was the asking price.
Though this piece in tomorrow's (?) Times gives the impression that the details.may be trickier than was implied earlier.
People familiar with the talks say some executives have been alarmed by ministers pushing to introduce such contracts before winter and fear this could inflict huge losses on those that have already hedged some of their power output for coming months below market prices.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bd32dca0-3771-11ed-84dd-c16384999350?shareToken=7a53f0508a3b1dc7647d21d3679e09dd
And of course better education so our electorate understand what they are voting for.
They do nice things with dill, however
And their ability to bait Russians.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-18/world-s-happiest-ranking-goes-to-finland-for-fifth-year-in-a-row#:~:text=Finland was crowned the happiest,Solutions Network said on Friday.
If it wasn't for Brexit, it would be easy to move there. The language is impossible though!
It seems that she will be introducing legislation and measures that were not in the 2019 manifesto and dropping others that were in it.
Will we see moderate Tory MPs rebelling in any significant numbers?
If the NI rate remained the same, you would effectively be paying 68.3p tax (employer and employee NI and income tax) for every extra pound you earn over 50k.
My own view would be that there just isn't any point working when you are taxed that much. You may as well not bother.
Problem is Trump really does seem popular enough in the right areas, with the systems in place, to win again (I don't think legal issues will prevent him), and if not Biden then who? Someone really needs to capture attention soon, otherwise Biden might well go for it, and he probably doesn't have it in him.
The link between NI contributions and benefits has been steadily diminished by governments of all persuasions over the years and is now hardly discernable.
Time to roll NI into income tax.
Rural france still has lovely old limestone cottages with barns and a bit of land for under £100k. (In need of renovation).
Focus will switch to Truss at the UN demanding unity against Russia and her bi lateral meeting with Biden
In some parts of the UK you can still buy property for under £60k anyway
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION^931&sortType=1&propertyTypes=&mustHave=&dontShow=&furnishTypes=&keywords=
You cannot claim it however if you have not made enough NI contributions. In some western nations like the US, Canada and Italy you cannot claim unemployment benefits at all without sufficient insurance contributions.
Far from rolling NI into income tax we should be making more healthcare reliant on insurance contributions like many European countries. NI also goes to state pension eligibility
It's also a mistake to think that most voters vote for the individual MP, not the party. Most people only vaguely know who the candidates are, and have much stronger views on the party and its leader than on the candidate. There are exceptions and a really popular MP can get maybe 20% more votes than an average MP. But most people are still mainly expressing a party preference.
I am 110% convinced England will never ever give up its monarchy - republicans which is a horrible sounding word and there’s too,many on PB compared to how many in real life, must surely appreciate now it’s not just no will to do it, but there’s no way to do it, you can’t get an elected President to be as neautral and dedicated to duty figurehead of state as our monarchs - the better option if you merely wish to sever politics from crown would be to extend the role of Speaker, but even that won’t work any better in terms of neutral and devoted head of state, you would just mindlessly be cutting through the fabric of who we are as a country as a people making a pointless mess of it - can’t you see how our monarchy woven so perfectly into how our country works well, it’s beautiful pattern through military, church and unites us all through our different classes in the class systems and regions? For a head of state to do all that is really amazing and perfect. Our head of state is for all of us and everything, You think it through and you see you can’t come up with anything better at doing that from either elected President or extended speaker role, you would just break something good for something worse.
I don’t feel as sad today as I imagined, and tge mourning and funeral have helped with the shock of queen being gone.
If only we had some sort of arrangement to have free movement...
The UK simply doesn’t build enough houses to meet demand.
The entire planning system is a disaster that encourages land hoarding and cookie-cutter developments by a oligopoly of builders.
It is probably the #1 problem holding the UK back.
Interest rates were eye-watering by modern standards though.
I’ve seen research that suggests that mortgage payments were “cheaper” even tough interest rates were higher.
One reason I won’t “sell” is the cost I’ll incur if/when I want to “buy” again.
So I’ve got a huge amount of capital locked up, essentially non-productively.
Multiply that across the economy…
2. Repossess all mortgaged properties.
3. Offer occupants secure low-rent tenancies with cancellation of mortgage.
4. Offer owners of (unmortgaged) properties 20% of pre-nationalisation market price AND a secure tenancy. If they don't want a tenancy, offer them another 5% maybe. Enough so that the state has a supply of houses to let to those who didn't get a tenancy under 3.
5. Don't allow sub-letting.
Basically kill the housing market and accommodation insecurity.
No matters which way you cut it, forcing MPs to vote in a particular way to support a party line is fundamentally a perversion of the democratic process.
And as far as your argument about people not knowing their MP, the obvious answer to that is to better educate them and - perhaps more usefully, remove party IDs from the ballot paper. Force people to educate themselves about who their MPs are and what they stand for.
Think about that in the UK context, which seems to be stuck in a productivity dead-end.
In New York City most rent as most in London now rent, outside London UK average house prices are now even slightly lower than in the US, $407,600
there, £281,261 here
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-house-price-index-for-april-2022#:~:text=on average, house prices have,UK valued at £281,161
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/21/us-home-average-price-record-high-may
The government is set to announce a huge package to ease energy costs for business on Wednesday, a programme to tackle the backlog of care in the NHS on Thursday and then a tax-cutting mini-budget on Friday. “We’ve got to cram two weeks’ news into four days,” a Downing Street source said. As a senior Conservative put it: “Public attention will start to switch from Elizabeth to Liz. That’s the key moment for us.”
With Kamala? Not so much.
Interest rates were such that it cost me 40% of salary though, and I think broadly people do still spend that sort of percentage on housing. The relationship between interest rates and house prices finds an equilibrium at about that point.
You could reduce house prices by jacking up interest rates, but the affordability would still be around 40% of salary, once the initial shocks had broken a few people. I am not convinced there would be much social gain.
Make the tax system fairer by removing all the complexity and anomalies and then reduce the overall tax burden.
So long as I am the person, then I have no problems with that suggestion.
The USA has far more land
Commutable New York does not.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, further support for Ukraine is welcome, and given the jury-rigged stuff the Ukrainians are using, even these old relics will find a use (and to be fair they have been quite extensively modernised, so they're not useless).
But on the other hand, it kinda feels like it's taking the piss a bit. Send Ukraine modern equipment, get the war won more quickly, end the suffering of Ukrainian civilians, and reduce the number of Ukrainian military casualties.
In a society with free movement, it seems to be hard to solve housing costs in desirable areas by building tons of houses in other areas.
Paul Trueman
@paulwtrueman
I love Peter Hennessey's description of today as "the final day of the post-war era". Feels like the belated end of 20th century for sure.
Steven Fielding
@PolProfSteve
·
10h
A silly thing to say - for most ordinary Britons that ended sometime in the 70s.
So, in Manhattan prices are eye watering.
But in Montclair - 13 miles from Wall Street - you can pick up a generous family home for less than $1m.
The sort of thing that would cost £1.5m+ in a comparable place near London.
Similarly Germany is supplying Greece with Marder IFV so the Greek BMPs can go to UKR.
Another point is that right now if the restrictive state system called planning permission were to be removed, house prices would PLUMMET. I wouldn't be surprised if the materials needed to build what is currently a £300K house could be bought for about £50K.
In addition, because of negative equity at the time, this was quite costly and mortgage valuations were often well below actual selling prices, causing a considerable deposit gap. Indeed I lost a very nice house for that very reason before buying the one that I did.
It’s in a conversation area, but not listed.
I ought to be able to go to six storeys or something without too much stress, indeed local council housing goes much higher.
Note that inflation has hit the industry hard in the last few years. (I don't think that will last, just as I don't think automobile prices will stay as high here -- and used car prices have already started falling.
You can see the possibilities, when you take a look at a guest home owned by Elon Musk: A $49,500 guest home.
There is one very clever thing about the design: It has a hinge in the middle so it can be transported on a truck, and then unfolded at the site.
Try commuting to London from County Durham.
Today marks the end of the UK's long 20th century.
@georgeeaton