We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Will Putin make it to 2023, is the more pertinent question tonight. Demonstrations ongoing in St. Petersberg and Moscow, among other Russian cities.
There's an argument that the best return on investment for our economy at present is to invest in weapons for Ukraine, as an early end to this war will do more than anything done at home.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
I'd admire her guts if she did that, as more unitaries is a great idea, but this government ran scared of the shires before, would it really cut all those districts?
Though one of the new PUSS's did push unitary through in their area against party policy at the time.
Looks to me like they will have no financial choice, given every local authority in the land is already in the deepest of deep shit financially. Things are only getting worse not better, There is no obvious alternative to cutting the number of councils and therefore cutting the overall cost of councillors and their staff.
And I also expected to cost the Tories 40 seats on its lonesome at the next election. She will be a latter-day Edward Heath.
Thing is, people don't give a shit about who their local council is or what it does, until you propose to remove it, when suddenly they care. Push through it in a relatively sensible way and it will be more efficient, and no less effective in representation, and most normal people will be fine.
But it can really screw you up with disaffected party members, which can take an election or two to resolve.
It also doesn't help that they often choose really stupid names for the new authorities. Whoever thought 'Cheshire West and Chester' was a good name for a unitary authority should be kept away from sharp implements.
Always liked him the best of all the Doctors. Baker and Tennant were good too, mind.
Possibly it's because I admired his earlier work. He was famous for his comedy, e.g. The Army Game and Carry on Sergeant, and he did it well, especially in The Private's Progress. But the best performance he gave was surely in Brighton Rock, where he was playing straight as a criminal.
It was Jon Pertwee by the time we had a telly.
It was Peter Davison by the time I was born! I only came to Doctor Who through DVDs and repeats, and of all the ones I have seen I still like William Hartnell the best albeit I have a huge collection of Tom Baker and David Tennant.
Troughton ftw. For 'The War Games' if no other. Tom a close 2nd though.
Pertwee for his first season. Brilliant.
War Games is great, Invasion is also fantastic. Eight episodes but never sags.
The run of stories from War Games to Mind of Evil has never been surpassed.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
NEW: In the absence of official scrutiny from @OBR_UK alongside Friday's announcement, we've provided our own #IFSGreenBudget fiscal forecasts with @citibank .
We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path.
How does this show the tories are “competent” with the economy. It looks like Truss is about to blow the whole thing up. No idea why - presumably to stick two fingers up to the embedded dogma of the treasury?!
I think I know why - she's promised her master mates that she will reduce taxes and no matter what the treasury says that is what she is going to do...
To be honest I think she is highly likely to actually believe she is right about economics and wants to prove it. And she also figures she has nothing to lose. Labour are quite likely to remove the Tory majority at GE 24/5 and if she is wrong and the economy implodes then they get to clear up the mess and only limp on for a couple of years.
She is convinced and is not prevaricating when asked to justify it
The fact is tax cuts are very popular and no matter the IFS, OBR, labour and others object she is, as one would say, 'a Lady that is not for turning'
The truth is we are in uncertain and unpredictable times and it may pay off, as much as it may not, and as I have said previously the result of all this will determine the 2024 election
“The fact is tax cuts are very popular”
This is precisely why we are on different sides of this debate, I think it is absolutely bonkers to say that.
I would answer your question no, because it depends.
It depends If you explain there are no magic money trees, you can have tax cuts but from money cut from out the education, social care and NHS budgets - the answer there will be NO! We don’t want the tax cut.
It depends if big banks will be celebrating a bumper payday under the tax cut as families have to choose between going cold or hungry, as the poorest only gain a little bit from the type of tax cuts.
Of course people will hear tax cut for all up front, the huge political hit comes later, when spending budgets are cut by stealth and the real winners and losers become known.
These specific tax cuts we are hearing about, if they happen, the answer is No, they won’t be popular or liked over time.
it’s odd you don’t get it, it seems so obvious to me.
Besides, didn't Rishi tweak the NI changes so that low-to-average earners didn't lose out (much) from the increase set to become the HSC levy?
In which case, don't further reductions risk only benefiting high earners?
Even if Friday's package is right (awfully big if), it risks being repulsive.
Zooming out, Truss has cleverly exploited BoJo's poor behaviour to get a shot at running the country the way she wants, and has since she was a teenage libertarian. Not the way most 2019 voters expected or most Conservative MPs want. Them's the rules.
Problem is that she is a bit of an immovable object. She controls all the buttons, she has the backing of the membership and a party that ditches two PMs in a Parliamentary term will look silly. The only reason to terminate Truss is if things are utterly desperate and it's about saving some of the furniture.
But her approach to government, especially when financial markets give instant feedback, might generate an irresistible force...
I've sure I was instructed all summer that she was a teenage LibDem.
And that her backing from the membership was strictly limited - less than IDS?
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
That’s not really a right wing position though is it? Normally it lefties claiming they can get away with high borrowing and the right claiming it will lead to higher taxes?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Well, comrade, I have friends in Momentum who said all that in 2017 and again in 2019 in support of John McDonnell's financial plans.
"Life repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." - Marx
Except Momentum's claims were nonsense, because they were not cutting taxes. Cutting taxes grows the economy, borrowing in order to buy shares to nationalise firms doesn't do anything to grow the economy. It is a pure net negative, a reverse boon, to go out to buy the family silver with nothing to show for it.
Debt to GDP was rising every years from 2002 to 2007 even before the GFC and during the GFC debt to GDP surged up dramatically as a result. As it stands debt to GDP is forecast to fall over the course of this year, not rise! The notion that debt to GDP falling, while you're in recession during a supply shock is "unsustainable borrowing" is frankly absurd and beneath contempt.
At the end of June 2022 PSND ex BoE was 2.1% of GDP lower than end of June 2021.
I wonder how many of these protestors in Russia actually oppose the war, and how many of them are all for Putin's imperialism and the wholesale massacre of the neighbours - but are shocked at the suggestion that they (or their kids) are now being expected to offer themselves up as sunflower fertilizer for the Motherland?
The notion of middle-class Muscovites, rather than pauperised Buryats and whatever excrement the Wagner Group has managed to dredge out of the Russian penal system, being used to grease Ukrainian tank tracks seems to have concentrated minds wonderfully.
Always liked him the best of all the Doctors. Baker and Tennant were good too, mind.
Possibly it's because I admired his earlier work. He was famous for his comedy, e.g. The Army Game and Carry on Sergeant, and he did it well, especially in The Private's Progress. But the best performance he gave was surely in Brighton Rock, where he was playing straight as a criminal.
It was Jon Pertwee by the time we had a telly.
It was Peter Davison by the time I was born! I only came to Doctor Who through DVDs and repeats, and of all the ones I have seen I still like William Hartnell the best albeit I have a huge collection of Tom Baker and David Tennant.
Troughton ftw. For 'The War Games' if no other. Tom a close 2nd though.
Pertwee for his first season. Brilliant.
War Games is great, Invasion is also fantastic. Eight episodes but never sags.
The run of stories from War Games to Mind of Evil has never been surpassed.
The brilliance of Dr Who is there are gems in all of it.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
If you believe in absolute state power it is good - no good if you believe the governent should not have carte blanche to spend willy nilly unchecked and with all the power centred in a few politicians hands it entails . One reason Thatcher hated inflation as it made the private sector or private person powerless against the state
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
Though a lot of back office stuff is already shared. Havering and Newham pool everything at Town Hall level and also run various management services for other councils. And in the grand scheme of things, even expensive full-time councillors don't cost that much.
The elephant in the room is social care, and reorganisations won't help with that.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
Russian media apparantly going with 'protestors will be drafted'
That is a pretty effective deterrent in fairness.
You seize them, tell them to stop being so bloody disaffected, send them away from home, give them weapons and then put them to guard sensitive sites, probably mostly in Moscow due to the way the country is set up.
It's genius. What could possibly go wrong with that?
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
That’s not really a right wing position though is it? Normally it lefties claiming they can get away with high borrowing and the right claiming it will lead to higher taxes?
But and this is a controversial opinion we don't have high borrowing.
High debt interest caused by inflation is nominally high, but in real terms it is net negative interest as a share of GDP.
And the borrowing we do have is cyclical due to supply shocks and the fact we're in a recession, the pre-recession borrowing was actually miniscule and debt to GDP was falling not rising pre-recession.
Oh and debt-to-GDP as measured by PSND ex BoE is falling still even now.
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Indeed but I'm sure inflation of nearly 10% isn't what was in mind aided and abetted by the continuing debasing of our currency.
I do agree 3% inflation is infinitely preferable to stagflation or deflation.
NEW: In the absence of official scrutiny from @OBR_UK alongside Friday's announcement, we've provided our own #IFSGreenBudget fiscal forecasts with @citibank .
We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path.
How does this show the tories are “competent” with the economy. It looks like Truss is about to blow the whole thing up. No idea why - presumably to stick two fingers up to the embedded dogma of the treasury?!
I think I know why - she's promised her master mates that she will reduce taxes and no matter what the treasury says that is what she is going to do...
To be honest I think she is highly likely to actually believe she is right about economics and wants to prove it. And she also figures she has nothing to lose. Labour are quite likely to remove the Tory majority at GE 24/5 and if she is wrong and the economy implodes then they get to clear up the mess and only limp on for a couple of years.
She is convinced and is not prevaricating when asked to justify it
The fact is tax cuts are very popular and no matter the IFS, OBR, labour and others object she is, as one would say, 'a Lady that is not for turning'
The truth is we are in uncertain and unpredictable times and it may pay off, as much as it may not, and as I have said previously the result of all this will determine the 2024 election
“The fact is tax cuts are very popular”
This is precisely why we are on different sides of this debate, I think it is absolutely bonkers to say that.
I would answer your question no, because it depends.
It depends If you explain there are no magic money trees, you can have tax cuts but from money cut from out the education, social care and NHS budgets - the answer there will be NO! We don’t want the tax cut.
It depends if big banks will be celebrating a bumper payday under the tax cut as families have to choose between going cold or hungry, as the poorest only gain a little bit from the type of tax cuts.
Of course people will hear tax cut for all up front, the huge political hit comes later, when spending budgets are cut by stealth and the real winners and losers become known.
These specific tax cuts we are hearing about, if they happen, the answer is No, they won’t be popular or liked over time.
it’s odd you don’t get it, it seems so obvious to me.
Besides, didn't Rishi tweak the NI changes so that low-to-average earners didn't lose out (much) from the increase set to become the HSC levy?
In which case, don't further reductions risk only benefiting high earners?
Even if Friday's package is right (awfully big if), it risks being repulsive.
Zooming out, Truss has cleverly exploited BoJo's poor behaviour to get a shot at running the country the way she wants, and has since she was a teenage libertarian. Not the way most 2019 voters expected or most Conservative MPs want. Them's the rules.
Problem is that she is a bit of an immovable object. She controls all the buttons, she has the backing of the membership and a party that ditches two PMs in a Parliamentary term will look silly. The only reason to terminate Truss is if things are utterly desperate and it's about saving some of the furniture.
But her approach to government, especially when financial markets give instant feedback, might generate an irresistible force...
I've sure I was instructed all summer that she was a teenage LibDem.
And that her backing from the membership was strictly limited - less than IDS?
Both true.
One of the functions of teenage liberals is to have mad ideas that don't survive contact with reality- privatise lampposts, that sort of thing. Trouble is that like Jez, she kept those ideas.
As for her backing in the party, it is in the sour spot. A big enough mandate to sit tight, but not big enough to achieve much.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
That’s not really a right wing position though is it? Normally it lefties claiming they can get away with high borrowing and the right claiming it will lead to higher taxes?
"Reagan proved deficits don't matter." - Dick Cheney
Russian media apparantly going with 'protestors will be drafted'
That must make the Ukrainians quake with fear.
Increasingly sounds like these conscription plans will actually weaken the RU army at the front as the few professionals left standing try and control a load of people who really, really don't want to be there and will flee or surrender as soon as it kicks off. Plus a ton of extra logistics issues.
Russian media apparantly going with 'protestors will be drafted'
That is a pretty effective deterrent in fairness.
You seize them, tell them to stop being so bloody disaffected, send them away from home, give them weapons and then put them to guard sensitive sites, probably mostly in Moscow due to the way the country is set up.
It's genius. What could possibly go wrong with that?
I am reminded of a South African friend who arranged to get drafted into communications . Rather than shoot some poor bastards in Namibia.
He reckoned that he put South Africa’s military comms back half a decade. In only two years.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
The largest current unitary is Cornwall with 570k so I would agree that Staffordshire is too big for one. However, if you merged Newcastle-U-L district with Stoke then you might be able to have one unitary for the Potteries and another for the rest of the county.
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Well, comrade, I have friends in Momentum who said all that in 2017 and again in 2019 in support of John McDonnell's financial plans.
"Life repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." - Marx
It does feel like, at some point soon, the Tory Party is going to test whether US Republican policies can be asserted to work when you can’t fall back on the dollar and the world’s largest economy.
Wasps to appoint administrators. Worcester given till Monday to come up with funds or be suspended from competition. Rumours of a couple more in trouble. Rugby Union in a bit of a shambles.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
The largest current unitary is Cornwall with 570k so I would agree that Staffordshire is too big for one. However, if you merged Newcastle-U-L district with Stoke then you might be able to have one unitary for the Potteries and another for the rest of the county.
That would surely still be far bigger than any current unitary, at 750,000 population?
It would also create something of a monster in Stoke.
The current Council leader basically wants to absorb all the districts and boroughs and, just like Cornwall, have a single unitary council for about 1.2 million people.
The alternative solution, favoured by the Districts and Boroughs, is to create three local authorities on the ground - each with about 400,000 people.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
The largest current unitary is Cornwall with 570k so I would agree that Staffordshire is too big for one. However, if you merged Newcastle-U-L district with Stoke then you might be able to have one unitary for the Potteries and another for the rest of the county.
That would surely still be far bigger than any current unitary, at 750,000 population?
It would also create something of a monster in Stoke.
Stoke with N-u-L wouldn't be any bigger than several Metropolitan Boroughs.
Seems the statement on Friday is going to annoy a lot of opposition parties but the question that follows does it antagonise the voters or are they supportive
Who does Putin help by threatening nuclear weapons and the instability we are seeing in Russia tonight -Truss / Starmer ?
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
The largest current unitary is Cornwall with 570k so I would agree that Staffordshire is too big for one. However, if you merged Newcastle-U-L district with Stoke then you might be able to have one unitary for the Potteries and another for the rest of the county.
That would surely still be far bigger than any current unitary, at 750,000 population?
It would also create something of a monster in Stoke.
Stoke with N-u-L wouldn't be any bigger than several Metropolitan Boroughs.
It would be just under 400,000. Not sure how that compares.
Edit - also, I wasn't just referring to size. You try telling NuL they're in the Potteries and be prepared to pay for some expensive dental work.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
And wacko gibberish is still wacko gibberish. Why are you saying that non-indexed debt is not a problem? If you owe £100,000 to the bookies how much better, really, is your position because it is non-indexed at a time of slightly high inflation?
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
The largest current unitary is Cornwall with 570k so I would agree that Staffordshire is too big for one. However, if you merged Newcastle-U-L district with Stoke then you might be able to have one unitary for the Potteries and another for the rest of the county.
That would surely still be far bigger than any current unitary, at 750,000 population?
It would also create something of a monster in Stoke.
Stoke with N-u-L wouldn't be any bigger than several Metropolitan Boroughs.
It would be just under 400,000. Not sure how that compares.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
The largest current unitary is Cornwall with 570k so I would agree that Staffordshire is too big for one. However, if you merged Newcastle-U-L district with Stoke then you might be able to have one unitary for the Potteries and another for the rest of the county.
That would surely still be far bigger than any current unitary, at 750,000 population?
It would also create something of a monster in Stoke.
Stoke with N-u-L wouldn't be any bigger than several Metropolitan Boroughs.
It would be just under 400,000. Not sure how that compares.
Smaller than Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bradford, Kirklees, Sheffield. Similar to Croydon. On the largish side, but is actually an identifiable conurbation more or less.
Edit. As to your edit. This is the whole problem with any reorganisation. It's a Pandora's Box Ted Heath ought to have left closed.
Wasps to appoint administrators. Worcester given till Monday to come up with funds or be suspended from competition. Rumours of a couple more in trouble. Rugby Union in a bit of a shambles.
Just been offered my dads ticket for Bath vs Wasps on Friday. Will be interesting.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
The largest current unitary is Cornwall with 570k so I would agree that Staffordshire is too big for one. However, if you merged Newcastle-U-L district with Stoke then you might be able to have one unitary for the Potteries and another for the rest of the county.
That would surely still be far bigger than any current unitary, at 750,000 population?
It would also create something of a monster in Stoke.
Glasgow is 635K, Edinburgh 527K. But the Scottish setup of plain unitary councils is much simpler than the more, erm, idiosyncratic situation down south.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
The largest current unitary is Cornwall with 570k so I would agree that Staffordshire is too big for one. However, if you merged Newcastle-U-L district with Stoke then you might be able to have one unitary for the Potteries and another for the rest of the county.
That would surely still be far bigger than any current unitary, at 750,000 population?
It would also create something of a monster in Stoke.
Birmingham says hi!
(Pre-emptive strike against pedants: yes, I know Birmingham is technically a metropolitan borough not a unitary authority, but functionally these two units are identical.)
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
The largest current unitary is Cornwall with 570k so I would agree that Staffordshire is too big for one. However, if you merged Newcastle-U-L district with Stoke then you might be able to have one unitary for the Potteries and another for the rest of the county.
That would surely still be far bigger than any current unitary, at 750,000 population?
It would also create something of a monster in Stoke.
Glasgow is 635K, Edinburgh 527K. But the Scottish setup of plain unitary councils is much simpler than the more, erm, idiosyncratic situation down south.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
That's how it could be hidden- though local government reorganisations aren't known for being quick or cheap.
Besides, a lot of the country is unitary already, isn't it? It's another orange that has already had the juice squeezed out.
I'm too lazy to work it out (too many days doing cover in schools, and it's only blooming September), but how many people live in:
Trad two-tier (district plus country) Pure unitary councils Unitiary councils with something above them (London or metro mayoral areas)?
Almost by definition, the first will cover more land area than population.
Some of the existing unitaries are quite small e.g. Berkshire has 6 unitaries each with around 100-150k people so there is the scope for mergers.
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
In Staffordshire there's talk of making one unitary. I just can't see it. I think it would be too big and unwieldy.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
The largest current unitary is Cornwall with 570k so I would agree that Staffordshire is too big for one. However, if you merged Newcastle-U-L district with Stoke then you might be able to have one unitary for the Potteries and another for the rest of the county.
That would surely still be far bigger than any current unitary, at 750,000 population?
It would also create something of a monster in Stoke.
Birmingham says hi!
(Pre-emptive strike against pedants: yes, I know Birmingham is technically a metropolitan borough not a unitary authority, but functionally these two units are identical.)
Birmingham is just a little bit more compact than Staffordshire though.
Which also brings problems of its own as they have found out in both Cornwall and Northumberland and are about to find out in Cumbria.
Seems the statement on Friday is going to annoy a lot of opposition parties but the question that follows does it antagonise the voters or are they supportive
Who does Putin help by threatening nuclear weapons and the instability we are seeing in Russia tonight -Truss / Starmer ?
Does anyone seriously care whether the threat of thermonuclear holocaust is supposed to be marginally more helpful to one pol or the other? It happens and they're both dead, along with everyone else.
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Well, comrade, I have friends in Momentum who said all that in 2017 and again in 2019 in support of John McDonnell's financial plans.
"Life repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." - Marx
It does feel like, at some point soon, the Tory Party is going to test whether US Republican policies can be asserted to work when you can’t fall back on the dollar and the world’s largest economy.
Yes. The assertion that deficits don't matter may be true if, like the US, you issue the global reserve currency or if, like Japan, your debt is mostly held domestically. Since neither of those conditions hold in the case of the UK I think Truss's plans are bonkers. Probably the goal is to engineer an economic crisis and then implement savage cuts to spending as the solution.
We paid out £8.2 billion in debt interest repayments in August - that puts us well on course for £100 billion in the next year.
That's £100 billion we won't be able to spend on defence, Police or the NHS as examples.
And yet, with interest rates set to rise, we are going to borrow even more which will be left to those who come after us to resolve. Truss's economics are, like so many other politicians, more about the preservation of Liz Truss in office than what is actually good for the country.
The other side of this is what is the message going to be on public spending - are tax cuts going to be accompanied by spending "reviews" (there really aren't as many Diversity and Equality officers as JRM thinks). I suspect the weight of cuts will fall on local councils rather than the NHS and defence for example.
The fact of course Council Tax will need to rise while other taxes fall may mean many of us don't see Kwarteng's "golden bonanza".
The trouble is that there's virtually nothing left to cut for many councils. 2010 austerity saw to that. And council tax rises are capped, so that's not much of an option either.
Councils themselves will be cut. Expect Truss' great legacy to be that the whole of England is unitary, and that every Tory voter hates her guts for it.
I'd admire her guts if she did that, as more unitaries is a great idea, but this government ran scared of the shires before, would it really cut all those districts?
Though one of the new PUSS's did push unitary through in their area against party policy at the time.
Looks to me like they will have no financial choice, given every local authority in the land is already in the deepest of deep shit financially. Things are only getting worse not better, There is no obvious alternative to cutting the number of councils and therefore cutting the overall cost of councillors and their staff.
And I also expected to cost the Tories 40 seats on its lonesome at the next election. She will be a latter-day Edward Heath.
Thing is, people don't give a shit about who their local council is or what it does, until you propose to remove it, when suddenly they care. Push through it in a relatively sensible way and it will be more efficient, and no less effective in representation, and most normal people will be fine.
But it can really screw you up with disaffected party members, which can take an election or two to resolve.
"Push through it in a relatively sensible way" is NOT a hallmark of Conservative government, certainly NOT in current millennium.
Or arguably the last, although that's more debatable than re: today's century.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
That’s not really a right wing position though is it? Normally it lefties claiming they can get away with high borrowing and the right claiming it will lead to higher taxes?
But and this is a controversial opinion we don't have high borrowing.
High debt interest caused by inflation is nominally high, but in real terms it is net negative interest as a share of GDP.
And the borrowing we do have is cyclical due to supply shocks and the fact we're in a recession, the pre-recession borrowing was actually miniscule and debt to GDP was falling not rising pre-recession.
Oh and debt-to-GDP as measured by PSND ex BoE is falling still even now.
Don't listen to him 'Rabbit. This is an "if you can't blind them with science, baffle them with bullshit" narrative.
Seems the statement on Friday is going to annoy a lot of opposition parties but the question that follows does it antagonise the voters or are they supportive
Who does Putin help by threatening nuclear weapons and the instability we are seeing in Russia tonight -Truss / Starmer ?
I'll leave the second point to others - as far as the first is concerned, the "evidence" suggests the winners from the proposed tax cuts are going to be the very wealthy and for the vast majority of those on lower incomes, it's not going to make much difference.
Measures to mitigate energy bills will help but for how long can we continue to borrow such absurd amounts? As sterling falls, do we raise interest rates in response? After more than a decade where mot people haven't given interest rates a second thought, it may be an unpleasant surprise as mortgages rise.
Incidentally, I think I've already proved my point. Although the financial crisis makes it inevitable that the unitaries will be created because there is no other way of dealing with the financial shit storm that the Tories have plunged our county system into, precisely because there are so many competing ideas and possibilities which release untold passions, it's going to be very controversial and unpleasant.
Particularly, it's going to cause a lot of heartache in the Tory electorate.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
And wacko gibberish is still wacko gibberish. Why are you saying that non-indexed debt is not a problem? If you owe £100,000 to the bookies how much better, really, is your position because it is non-indexed at a time of slightly high inflation?
Because debt to GDP is the figure that matters for countries debt.
I'm not saying its not a problem, I'm saying its devalued as a problem. If debt falls from 99% of GDP to 95% of GDP then our debt position has improved, it hasn't worsened, even if nominal debt has gone up.
Fun fact, before the first wicket fell yesterday, the last wicket by an England bowler in an international in Pakistan was way back in 2005 by a long forgotten guy called James Anderson...... oh wait
Another 75bps from the Fed. That won’t go down well in UK and Europe.
massive pressure now on BoE to raise by 75 points tomorrow- dollar already strongest for a generation
Yep. The Fed are likely over-reacting to what’s still just about an imported supply shock, but it’s killing everyone on the currency markets. Cable $1.13 today, could go to $1.10 tomorrow if the BoE doesn’t follow up with at least 75bps of their own.
Not to alarm anybody, but my holiday starts on Friday, and I return to work on the 10th of October.
Have fun! I’m on holiday next week too, will be sitting on a beach in the middle of nowhere without wifi for six days, so no PB photos of all the cocktails!
What do you mean sat on a beach. You LIVE on a beach.
Fun fact, before the first wicket fell yesterday, the last wicket by an England bowler in an international in Pakistan was way back in 2005 by a long forgotten guy called James Anderson...... oh wait
Further fun fact: when England last toured Pakistan, there were no T-20s. England had played the first one against Australia that same year as a one off but it had yet to establish itself.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
That’s not really a right wing position though is it? Normally it lefties claiming they can get away with high borrowing and the right claiming it will lead to higher taxes?
But and this is a controversial opinion we don't have high borrowing.
High debt interest caused by inflation is nominally high, but in real terms it is net negative interest as a share of GDP.
And the borrowing we do have is cyclical due to supply shocks and the fact we're in a recession, the pre-recession borrowing was actually miniscule and debt to GDP was falling not rising pre-recession.
Oh and debt-to-GDP as measured by PSND ex BoE is falling still even now.
Don't listen to him 'Rabbit. This is an "if you can't blind them with science, baffle them with bullshit" narrative.
Its not bullshit. PSND ex BoE has fallen, not risen, over the past 12 months as a share of GDP.
What I am saying is a matter of fact and economics. Running a deficit worse than growth+inflation combined sees your debt to GDP spiral out of control, as happened from 2002 onwards, but when growth+inflation combined are higher than your deficit, then debt to GDP falls it doesn't go up.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
Seems the statement on Friday is going to annoy a lot of opposition parties but the question that follows does it antagonise the voters or are they supportive
Who does Putin help by threatening nuclear weapons and the instability we are seeing in Russia tonight -Truss / Starmer ?
Tax cuts for the rich and help for bankers - let’s see how that one lands?
Tories will be on average 20 points behind within 6 months.
Your beloved Tories are in for a thrashing and quite frankly they deserve it for turning this country into a latrine.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
And wacko gibberish is still wacko gibberish. Why are you saying that non-indexed debt is not a problem? If you owe £100,000 to the bookies how much better, really, is your position because it is non-indexed at a time of slightly high inflation?
Because debt to GDP is the figure that matters for countries debt.
I'm not saying its not a problem, I'm saying its devalued as a problem. If debt falls from 99% of GDP to 95% of GDP then our debt position has improved, it hasn't worsened, even if nominal debt has gone up.
Sounds like the Labour government before the GFC. Except in that case of course our debt to GDP ratio was much lower.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
And wacko gibberish is still wacko gibberish. Why are you saying that non-indexed debt is not a problem? If you owe £100,000 to the bookies how much better, really, is your position because it is non-indexed at a time of slightly high inflation?
Because debt to GDP is the figure that matters for countries debt.
I'm not saying its not a problem, I'm saying its devalued as a problem. If debt falls from 99% of GDP to 95% of GDP then our debt position has improved, it hasn't worsened, even if nominal debt has gone up.
Sounds like the Labour government before the GFC. Except in that case of course our debt to GDP ratio was much lower.
Debt to GDP was rising every year from 2002 onwards.
That is almost unprecedented in any year post-WWII apart from during or after recessions. To happen for half a decade before the recession hit, I don't think such a disastrous mismanagement of public finances had ever happened before.
Debt to GDP has been falling in recent years pre-recession and even in the past 12 months PSND ex BoE has fallen as a share of GDP. Which means even in recession, the public finances are in a better state today than they were pre-GFC under Brown. Flabbergasting that when you think about it.
Seems the statement on Friday is going to annoy a lot of opposition parties but the question that follows does it antagonise the voters or are they supportive
Who does Putin help by threatening nuclear weapons and the instability we are seeing in Russia tonight -Truss / Starmer ?
no - the question that follows does it also antagonise the Fiscal Conservatives in UK, on the Conservative back benches, in the newspapers, populating think tanks like the institute of directors, for a right old fashioned pile on 😇
the chancellor is set to put the UK public finances on an “unsustainable path” in his mini-Budget on Friday, which, according to independent analysis, will create a £60bn-a-year hole in the budget
Baltic nations say they will refuse refuge to Russians fleeing mobilisationhttp://reut.rs/3f2DOFD
Frankly, I'm not surprised. Leave the side the fact that they're already rammed with refugees, I can't think of a better way to get an army in by stealth than to pretend they're refugees.
If he done that with Ukraine he'd have won the war by now.
Was thinking a little more about Putin 'going nuclear'. Obviously if he drops an 800kt therminuclear warhead and wipes out Kyiv then he can and we can expect a nuclear response and a very frightening time. So, going nuclear initially would likely involve something like a 1kt tipped artillery airburst over an advancing force. The question is how to respond to that, bearing in mind we can't allow normalisation of nuclear ordinance on the battlefield. And how to respond without escalating to a general nuclear exchange. Really quite grim.
Fun fact, before the first wicket fell yesterday, the last wicket by an England bowler in an international in Pakistan was way back in 2005 by a long forgotten guy called James Anderson...... oh wait
Further fun fact: when England last toured Pakistan, there were no T-20s. England had played the first one against Australia that same year as a one off but it had yet to establish itself.
T20 was made out to be some big new thing but it was exactly the format we played as juniors weekday evenings in the 70s.
The current Council leader basically wants to absorb all the districts and boroughs and, just like Cornwall, have a single unitary council for about 1.2 million people.
The alternative solution, favoured by the Districts and Boroughs, is to create three local authorities on the ground - each with about 400,000 people.
Neither option is cost free or problem free.
Blimey, you're somewhat out of date. Tim has made it abundantly clear that unitisation is now off SCC's agenda and we will have to make the best of the current two tier arrangements.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
All inflation has a direct effect on nominal GDP.
Yes I completely agree that we have moderate levels of index linked debt, so our debt servicing costs are affected. I have literally made that point myself all thread long. The impact of inflation on debt servicing costs was to increase our debt serving to £8.2bn and every media publication in the country talking about the economy has ran that figure today.
But not one media publication that I've seen has acknowledged or even mentioned the fact that August's inflation deflated our debt by £15bn. I can only assume the journalists are too economically illiterate to understand that point, but those of us who understand economics and don't recoil in horror at inflation as if it is the original sin and purely negative can understand it.
Labour's deficit was so large from 2002 onward that unprecedentedly debt to GDP was going up then, even with nominal GDP growth even pre-recession. That is the catastrophe that needs to be avoided over the economic cycle.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
If inflation solved economic problems, Britain would have been in great form by 1980.
Politico.com - Donald Trump's allies in the House GOP leapt to slam Tish James after the New York attorney general announced a civil suit against him, his family and his company.
What's happening? Minutes after New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump, members of his family and the Trump Organization, House Republicans long allied with the former president began blasting her inquiry as politically motivated.
Here's New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the conference chair:
"Tish James has been on a deranged anti-Trump mission since she became Attorney General. This is just another chapter of an illegitimate witch hunt."
The home-state factor: Stefanik told reporters that she saw James reaching for advantage over a GOP opponent in New York ahead of a midterm election where "we are going to sweep" in the state.
"And just Tish James overreaching on the Trump-specific issue is one of the reasons why," Stefanik said.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who's running for New York governor, said, "It's more about her trying to fulfill a campaign promise than anything else."
The 2023 factor: Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, the Republican Study Committee chair who's vying for majority whip next year, suggested that the GOP would revisit James' efforts via their newly acquired oversight power should they take back the House majority this fall, as expected.
"House Republicans will hold partisan actors posing as law-enforcement agents accountable for abusing their power when we retake the majority," Banks said in a statement, calling James' investigation an "illegitimate fishing expedition."
SSI - We shall see. What these GOPers are really predicting (or rather hoping) is that NY civil suit, FBI raid, etc., etc. will help turn out true MAGA-maniacs this Fall and thus reduce the current intensity gap viz-a-viz voters mobilized in opposition to banning abortion in wake of overturning of Roe v Wade.
Maybe. But note that, whereas pro-choice message appeals to Democrats, including lower-turnout Dem, it ALSO has significant support among Independents AND also many moderate-to-conservative Republicans.
In contrast, the Trump-as-Martyr message does NOT possess much salience beyond the MAGA base. On the other hand, being their Fearless Leader raided by the FBI for risking national security AND being indicted for massive fraud are NOT necessarily gonna help the GOP and its standard bearers with swing voters, including large numbers of suburban Republicans. Who as a demographic are rather allergic to suchlike, historically & electorally speaking.
Right - you said you wanted it, you said you needed it so here it is.
Latvia votes on October 1st - the latest poll quotes 19 parties (isn't PR wonderful?). As we know, the election is for 100 members to the Saeima with a national threshold of 5%.
The current Government is a five party coalition led by Krisjanis Karins of the New Unity Party.
So, make what you will of the latest Factum poll (changes from 2019):
New Unity: 22.6% (+15.9) National Alliance: 9.3% (-1.7) United List: 9.0% (+4.9) Progressives: 8.8% (+6.2) Harmony: 8.0% (-11.8) Union of Greens and Farmers: 7.0% (-2.9) Development For ! 6.3% (-5.7) For Stability: 6.2% (new) Latvia First: 5.0% (new)
There's been a huge churn of voters - the Conservatives are on 4.6% (-9.0) and will probably drop out of the Saeima along with nine other oarties who are all polling below 5%.
IF the Conservatives fail to get back into the Parliament, it's going to be hard for the current Karins coalition to form a majority. The only thing is, I can't see an obvious alternative so this is going to be fun (a meaning of the word many Latvians won't have come across).
Fun fact, before the first wicket fell yesterday, the last wicket by an England bowler in an international in Pakistan was way back in 2005 by a long forgotten guy called James Anderson...... oh wait
Further fun fact: when England last toured Pakistan, there were no T-20s. England had played the first one against Australia that same year as a one off but it had yet to establish itself.
T20 was made out to be some big new thing but it was exactly the format we played as juniors weekday evenings in the 70s.
Yep! Played in senior 20 over cups in Norfolk from 88 onwards, although we used to think 100 was really going mental
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
If inflation solved economic problems, Britain would have been in great form by 1980.
Debt to GDP had collapsed from 250% of GDP to 40% of it in a little over a generation.
You tell me, was that great form or not?
Inflation brings its own problems, but that doesn't mean it can't address other problems. One fire can fight another fire.
Baltic nations say they will refuse refuge to Russians fleeing mobilisationhttp://reut.rs/3f2DOFD
Frankly, I'm not surprised. Leave the side the fact that they're already rammed with refugees, I can't think of a better way to get an army in by stealth than to pretend they're refugees.
If he done that with Ukraine he'd have won the war by now.
It's also in nobody's interest, apart from those trying to run away of course, for them to be allowed to escape their fate. The best chance of seeing an end to the war and Putin at the same time is if such an immense number of Russians are slaughtered that the sorry dumb fucks finally make a concerted effort to get rid of their rotten czar.
The current Council leader basically wants to absorb all the districts and boroughs and, just like Cornwall, have a single unitary council for about 1.2 million people.
The alternative solution, favoured by the Districts and Boroughs, is to create three local authorities on the ground - each with about 400,000 people.
Neither option is cost free or problem free.
Blimey, you're somewhat out of date. Tim has made it abundantly clear that unitisation is now off SCC's agenda and we will have to make the best of the current two tier arrangements.
Given the almost glacial relations between the County and some of the Districts/Boroughs that's no surprise. I see for example Guildford and Waverley are looking at sharing a CEO and potentially office space.
Russian media apparantly going with 'protestors will be drafted'
Drafting people who really, really don't want to fight must be part of Putin's "genius" that I am never going to understand. Of course we ought to consider the alternative possibility that Putin has gone completely round the twist.
Was thinking a little more about Putin 'going nuclear'. Obviously if he drops an 800kt therminuclear warhead and wipes out Kyiv then he can and we can expect a nuclear response and a very frightening time. So, going nuclear initially would likely involve something like a 1kt tipped artillery airburst over an advancing force. The question is how to respond to that, bearing in mind we can't allow normalisation of nuclear ordinance on the battlefield. And how to respond without escalating to a general nuclear exchange. Really quite grim.
Freedman and others have been pointing out that is no obvious military way to use a battlefield nuke in the current war that actually has any benefit (other than fear factor). There aren't advancing forces in large close quartered numbers in the way I think you may mean.
And there is considerable risk to his own troops e.g. wind direction suddenly changes after the strike. Not that he cares I guess.
Personally, I have thought through out this war that Putin would eventually use tactical nukes and I had a hazy prediction of late summer in my head.
Regarding the new 'right wing tax cuts' (ie borrowing money to cover public spending whilst cutting tax in the hope that there will be a increase in economic activity to cover the cost of doing so), I have suspected for about 20 years that the UK is not living within its means and at some point it will go spectacularly bust, but every time it seems that a reckoning is about to happen, it doesn't and the show just keeps going on. This latest event is just another example of this process. I've just learned to live with it and not get too bothered about it.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
All inflation has a direct effect on nominal GDP.
Yes I completely agree that we have moderate levels of index linked debt, so our debt servicing costs are affected. I have literally made that point myself all thread long. The impact of inflation on debt servicing costs was to increase our debt serving to £8.2bn and every media publication in the country talking about the economy has ran that figure today.
But not one media publication that I've seen has acknowledged or even mentioned the fact that August's inflation deflated our debt by £15bn. I can only assume the journalists are too economically illiterate to understand that point, but those of us who understand economics and don't recoil in horror at inflation as if it is the original sin and purely negative can understand it.
Labour's deficit was so large from 2002 onward that unprecedentedly debt to GDP was going up then, even with nominal GDP growth even pre-recession. That is the catastrophe that needs to be avoided over the economic cycle.
How was that unprecedented? As we have discussed multiple times in the past Labour's pre-GFC structural deficit was of a similar magnitude to what was seen during the prior Tory government, and our debt to GDP ratio was edging up only slowly and was still well below the level Labour inherited in 1997.
You are incorrect to state that all inflation increases nominal GDP. The latter is the value of all goods and services produced in the domestic economy and so excludes imports by definition. To the extent that higher import prices make domestic economic agents poorer (a negative terms of trade shock) you might expect GDP to be lower in fact. Recall that imports enter negatively in the expenditure measure of GDP.
Was thinking a little more about Putin 'going nuclear'. Obviously if he drops an 800kt therminuclear warhead and wipes out Kyiv then he can and we can expect a nuclear response and a very frightening time. So, going nuclear initially would likely involve something like a 1kt tipped artillery airburst over an advancing force. The question is how to respond to that, bearing in mind we can't allow normalisation of nuclear ordinance on the battlefield. And how to respond without escalating to a general nuclear exchange. Really quite grim.
Russia has demonstrated willingness to use "nuclear" weapons in an unconventional way - radiation poisoning via polonium. They have also demonstrated a willingness to use chemical weapons - via novichok.
Both have been used on British soil already. So why would Putin hesitate to use them on Ukrainian soil?
Based on Russia's track record, I would say we are significantly overestimating the possibility of a conventional/"battlefield" nuclear weapon being used in the field, and significantly underestimating the possibility of some kind of dirty / chemical weapon being deployed.
But how ridiculous claiming that reversing tax rises so t hat tax is back at levels they were at the last election is going against the manifesto. Erm, what was it the manifesto said about tax last time?
Wanting people on low and middle incomes to keep more of their money does not remotely go against the manifesto.
How ridiculous is saying “ We find that planned tax cuts with stalling economic growth would leave debt on an unsustainable path”?
What is unsustainable debt?
As one of PBs most astute right wing thinkers Bart, is borrowing on this scale today certain going to mean higher taxes in future?
Its utterly ridiculous, the IFS is a joke with that statement.
No it won't mean higher taxes in the future. More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, because the economy has grown and there's more revenues from that.
Plus as I alluded to before, inflation is actually our friend not our foe when it comes to debt to GDP when debt is running at 100% of GDP. Yes we have a deficit, but our debt is being deflated by 9.8% per annum as it stands. Nobody wants to say that out loud at the moment, because everyone is too shit scared of the past to admit the simple truth that there are upsides to having inflation and deflating debt is one of them. Nobody wants to admit that actually a bit of inflation is good for the Treasury, because its the dirty little secret.
Barty, it is economics 101 and with the amound of index linking of debt and other non-debt obligations (triple lock) it is much less true than it was.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
But that's the point I'm making, the index linking is being quoted to say "woah £8.2bn of debt payments, how horrendous" but nobody stops to say "oh but we had £15bn of debt deflation" because it's uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
When is the future though? I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
To be honest any growth whatsoever, even miniscule growth, while we have high inflation is good enough.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
A lot of our inflation is imported though, and imported inflation has no direct effect on nominal GDP. Also, we now have high levels of index linked debt, so inflation directly affects our debt servicing costs. And we have an independent central bank which will raise rates in response to higher inflation, also raising debt servicing costs and slowing the economy. While nominal GDP growth may well be positive (which is why it is okay to run a fiscal deficit, even under a Labour government) the idea that high inflation is going to fix everything - especially the kind of inflation we have now - is naive.
All inflation has a direct effect on nominal GDP.
Yes I completely agree that we have moderate levels of index linked debt, so our debt servicing costs are affected. I have literally made that point myself all thread long. The impact of inflation on debt servicing costs was to increase our debt serving to £8.2bn and every media publication in the country talking about the economy has ran that figure today.
But not one media publication that I've seen has acknowledged or even mentioned the fact that August's inflation deflated our debt by £15bn. I can only assume the journalists are too economically illiterate to understand that point, but those of us who understand economics and don't recoil in horror at inflation as if it is the original sin and purely negative can understand it.
Labour's deficit was so large from 2002 onward that unprecedentedly debt to GDP was going up then, even with nominal GDP growth even pre-recession. That is the catastrophe that needs to be avoided over the economic cycle.
How was that unprecedented? As we have discussed multiple times in the past Labour's pre-GFC structural deficit was of a similar magnitude to what was seen during the prior Tory government, and our debt to GDP ratio was edging up only slowly and was still well below the level Labour inherited in 1997.
You are incorrect to state that all inflation increases nominal GDP. The latter is the value of all goods and services produced in the domestic economy and so excludes imports by definition. To the extent that higher import prices make domestic economic agents poorer (a negative terms of trade shock) you might expect GDP to be lower in fact. Recall that imports enter negatively in the expenditure measure of GDP.
You are categorically wrong to say that Labour's pre-recession deficit was comparable to the Tories pre-recession deficit at the same stage of the economic cycle, in fact quite the opposite the Tories were running a pre-recession budget surplus before the recession that preceded the GFC.
Anyway, I was referring to debt-to-GDP. When post-war without a recession causing a deficit had debt to GDP ever risen for years in a row, prior to a recession? It was unprecedented.
Debt to GDP peaked in 1981 and fell consistently from 1981 to 1990/91. Debt to GDP then rose, because of the recession as standard following the economic cycle, but that rise slowed down and stopped in 1996/97. Debt to GDP started falling then as it had done consistently since WWII until 2002 when unprecedentedly Gordon Brown started growing debt outside of a recession. Every year from 2002 to 2008 debt to GDP rose, without any recession to cause that rise.
That was unprecedented, unforgiveable and disastrous.
The current Council leader basically wants to absorb all the districts and boroughs and, just like Cornwall, have a single unitary council for about 1.2 million people.
The alternative solution, favoured by the Districts and Boroughs, is to create three local authorities on the ground - each with about 400,000 people.
Neither option is cost free or problem free.
Blimey, you're somewhat out of date. Tim has made it abundantly clear that unitisation is now off SCC's agenda and we will have to make the best of the current two tier arrangements.
Given the almost glacial relations between the County and some of the Districts/Boroughs that's no surprise. I see for example Guildford and Waverley are looking at sharing a CEO and potentially office space.
We're already sharing a CEO and senior officers, though shari ng office space doesn't seem likely any time soon. In general I think we'll see gradual resource-sharing where appropriate, and that probably does make more sense than any big bang solution.
Russian media apparantly going with 'protestors will be drafted'
Drafting people who really, really don't want to fight must be part of Putin's "genius" that I am never going to understand. Of course we ought to consider the alternative possibility that Putin has gone completely round the twist.
More likely to be drafted into labor brigades or neo-GULAG than sent into combat.
Though old-school Red Army punishment battalions MIGHT be an option, for clearing minefields & suchlike?
This is really more about feeding some red meat to pro-war (or at least pro-Putin) Russkis (and somewhat about stifling dissent) than it is a serious military proposal.
Right - you said you wanted it, you said you needed it so here it is.
Latvia votes on October 1st - the latest poll quotes 19 parties (isn't PR wonderful?). As we know, the election is for 100 members to the Saeima with a national threshold of 5%.
The current Government is a five party coalition led by Krisjanis Karins of the New Unity Party.
So, make what you will of the latest Factum poll (changes from 2019):
New Unity: 22.6% (+15.9) National Alliance: 9.3% (-1.7) United List: 9.0% (+4.9) Progressives: 8.8% (+6.2) Harmony: 8.0% (-11.8) Union of Greens and Farmers: 7.0% (-2.9) Development For ! 6.3% (-5.7) For Stability: 6.2% (new) Latvia First: 5.0% (new)
There's been a huge churn of voters - the Conservatives are on 4.6% (-9.0) and will probably drop out of the Saeima along with nine other oarties who are all polling below 5%.
IF the Conservatives fail to get back into the Parliament, it's going to be hard for the current Karins coalition to form a majority. The only thing is, I can't see an obvious alternative so this is going to be fun (a meaning of the word many Latvians won't have come across).
Comments
Dorset is probably a good template, where the existing unitaries of Bournemouth and Poole, were merged with the Christchurch district to form BCP and then the remaining 5 districts became a unitary Dorset.
I would expect 1-2 unitaries per traditional county going forward.
Some of the Met boroughs could be reviewed as well e,g. in London you could merge K&C with H&F
War Games is great, Invasion is also fantastic. Eight episodes but never sags.
The run of stories from War Games to Mind of Evil has never been surpassed.
The more sensible solution would be to create two unitaries. One out of Stafford, South Staffordshire, Newcastle under Lyme and Cannock, based in Stafford. This would be called West Staffordshire. The other one would include Staffordshire Moorlands, East Staffordshire, Lichfield and Tamworth, based in Burton. This would be called East Staffordshire.
That would be perfectly logical and actually I think quite a lot of people would support it. However if you want to see a lot of very pissed off people, tell the people of Lichfield their new county town is in Burton and they will be part of East Staffordshire and I guarantee it will happen.
And that her backing from the membership was strictly limited - less than IDS?
Debt to GDP was rising every years from 2002 to 2007 even before the GFC and during the GFC debt to GDP surged up dramatically as a result. As it stands debt to GDP is forecast to fall over the course of this year, not rise! The notion that debt to GDP falling, while you're in recession during a supply shock is "unsustainable borrowing" is frankly absurd and beneath contempt.
At the end of June 2022 PSND ex BoE was 2.1% of GDP lower than end of June 2021.
The notion of middle-class Muscovites, rather than pauperised Buryats and whatever excrement the Wagner Group has managed to dredge out of the Russian penal system, being used to grease Ukrainian tank tracks seems to have concentrated minds wonderfully.
“You would make a good Dalek.”
The elephant in the room is social care, and reorganisations won't help with that.
If you read the statement a bit more carefully it agrees with you that More growth from lower taxes means more revenues in the future, it just thinks that more growth is not a probable consequence of lower taxes. Do you think it's inevitable?
It's genius. What could possibly go wrong with that?
High debt interest caused by inflation is nominally high, but in real terms it is net negative interest as a share of GDP.
And the borrowing we do have is cyclical due to supply shocks and the fact we're in a recession, the pre-recession borrowing was actually miniscule and debt to GDP was falling not rising pre-recession.
Oh and debt-to-GDP as measured by PSND ex BoE is falling still even now.
I do agree 3% inflation is infinitely preferable to stagflation or deflation.
One of the functions of teenage liberals is to have mad ideas that don't survive contact with reality- privatise lampposts, that sort of thing. Trouble is that like Jez, she kept those ideas.
As for her backing in the party, it is in the sour spot. A big enough mandate to sit tight, but not big enough to achieve much.
As with IDS.
Desperate stuff from Putin.
In an extraordinary twist, his partner is likely to be - of all people - Rafael Nadal.
What a thought that is!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/62982357
He reckoned that he put South Africa’s military comms back half a decade. In only two years.
Uncomfortable truths are still truths.
Edit: And yes I disagree with the IFS. I absolutely think lower taxes will mean more growth in the future. Not inevitable but very probable.
Rumours of a couple more in trouble.
Rugby Union in a bit of a shambles.
It would also create something of a monster in Stoke.
The current Council leader basically wants to absorb all the districts and boroughs and, just like Cornwall, have a single unitary council for about 1.2 million people.
The alternative solution, favoured by the Districts and Boroughs, is to create three local authorities on the ground - each with about 400,000 people.
Neither option is cost free or problem free.
Who does Putin help by threatening nuclear weapons and the instability we are seeing in Russia tonight -Truss / Starmer ?
I can't see any imminent prospect of above trend growth with the world situation.
Edit - also, I wasn't just referring to size. You try telling NuL they're in the Potteries and be prepared to pay for some expensive dental work.
On the largish side, but is actually an identifiable conurbation more or less.
Edit. As to your edit. This is the whole problem with any reorganisation. It's a Pandora's Box Ted Heath ought to have left closed.
https://www.google.com/search?q=mileage+seattle+to+skykomish&source=hp&ei=TVwrY_KKJKax0PEPqPOi4A4&iflsig=AJiK0e8AAAAAYytqXcZperPqtbQS2wkp3VV_UkgAkqAJ&ved=0ahUKEwiy5buJxqb6AhWmGDQIHai5COwQ4dUDCAk&uact=5&oq=mileage+seattle+to+skykomish&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQghEKABMgUIIRCgATIFCCEQoAEyBQghEKABOgUILhCABDoLCAAQgAQQsQMQgwE6BQgAEIAEOg4ILhCABBCxAxCDARDUAjoICC4QsQMQgwE6EQguEIAEELEDEIMBEMcBENEDOgsILhCABBCxAxCDAToICC4QgAQQsQM6FAguEIAEELEDEIMBEMcBENEDENQCOgsILhCABBDHARCvAToICAAQgAQQsQM6BwgAEIAEEAo6BggAEB4QFjoICAAQHhAWEAo6BQgAEIYDOggIIRAeEBYQHVAAWJwuYI4xaABwAHgAgAFsiAGsD5IBBDI3LjGYAQCgAQE&sclient=gws-wiz
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files/statistics/council-area-data-sheets/glasgow-city-council-profile.html
(Pre-emptive strike against pedants: yes, I know Birmingham is technically a metropolitan borough not a unitary authority, but functionally these two units are identical.)
This isn't being sold to me as a good idea.
Debt to GDP goes up with relation to the deficit, but goes down with relation to inflation and growth. If the deficit is high and inflation + growth is low, then debt to GDP spirals. If the deficit is low and inflation + growth is high, then debt to GDP falls.
In 1947 after WWII our debt to GDP was 251.8% of GDP. In the following years we almost always ran a deficit, but by 1974 our debt to GDP had fallen to a far healthier 45.2% of GDP.
How did it fall from 251.8% to 45.2%, while we normally had deficits? Because we had some growth and some inflation and that outstripped our deficits.
Now we're high debt to GDP, quite frankly having inflation is a good thing to fix our problems, but nobody will admit that.
Which also brings problems of its own as they have found out in both Cornwall and Northumberland and are about to find out in Cumbria.
Or arguably the last, although that's more debatable than re: today's century.
Measures to mitigate energy bills will help but for how long can we continue to borrow such absurd amounts? As sterling falls, do we raise interest rates in response? After more than a decade where mot people haven't given interest rates a second thought, it may be an unpleasant surprise as mortgages rise.
Particularly, it's going to cause a lot of heartache in the Tory electorate.
I'm not saying its not a problem, I'm saying its devalued as a problem. If debt falls from 99% of GDP to 95% of GDP then our debt position has improved, it hasn't worsened, even if nominal debt has gone up.
Which will have PLENTY of eager cops & etc volunteering for guard duty. In preference to The Front.
What I am saying is a matter of fact and economics. Running a deficit worse than growth+inflation combined sees your debt to GDP spiral out of control, as happened from 2002 onwards, but when growth+inflation combined are higher than your deficit, then debt to GDP falls it doesn't go up.
AND what is the reason? Oil & gas activity?
Tories will be on average 20 points behind within 6 months.
Your beloved Tories are in for a thrashing and quite frankly they deserve it for turning this country into a latrine.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-62970927
That is almost unprecedented in any year post-WWII apart from during or after recessions. To happen for half a decade before the recession hit, I don't think such a disastrous mismanagement of public finances had ever happened before.
Debt to GDP has been falling in recent years pre-recession and even in the past 12 months PSND ex BoE has fallen as a share of GDP. Which means even in recession, the public finances are in a better state today than they were pre-GFC under Brown. Flabbergasting that when you think about it.
Baltic nations say they will refuse refuge to Russians fleeing mobilisation http://reut.rs/3f2DOFD
https://www.ft.com/content/ef1495fa-9fc9-4c46-89f9-27902293343c
If he done that with Ukraine he'd have won the war by now.
Obviously if he drops an 800kt therminuclear warhead and wipes out Kyiv then he can and we can expect a nuclear response and a very frightening time.
So, going nuclear initially would likely involve something like a 1kt tipped artillery airburst over an advancing force. The question is how to respond to that, bearing in mind we can't allow normalisation of nuclear ordinance on the battlefield. And how to respond without escalating to a general nuclear exchange.
Really quite grim.
Yes I completely agree that we have moderate levels of index linked debt, so our debt servicing costs are affected. I have literally made that point myself all thread long. The impact of inflation on debt servicing costs was to increase our debt serving to £8.2bn and every media publication in the country talking about the economy has ran that figure today.
But not one media publication that I've seen has acknowledged or even mentioned the fact that August's inflation deflated our debt by £15bn. I can only assume the journalists are too economically illiterate to understand that point, but those of us who understand economics and don't recoil in horror at inflation as if it is the original sin and purely negative can understand it.
Labour's deficit was so large from 2002 onward that unprecedentedly debt to GDP was going up then, even with nominal GDP growth even pre-recession. That is the catastrophe that needs to be avoided over the economic cycle.
https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/09-21-2022/house-gop-tish-james-trump/
What's happening? Minutes after New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump, members of his family and the Trump Organization, House Republicans long allied with the former president began blasting her inquiry as politically motivated.
Here's New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the conference chair:
"Tish James has been on a deranged anti-Trump mission since she became Attorney General. This is just another chapter of an illegitimate witch hunt."
The home-state factor: Stefanik told reporters that she saw James reaching for advantage over a GOP opponent in New York ahead of a midterm election where "we are going to sweep" in the state.
"And just Tish James overreaching on the Trump-specific issue is one of the reasons why," Stefanik said.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who's running for New York governor, said, "It's more about her trying to fulfill a campaign promise than anything else."
The 2023 factor: Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, the Republican Study Committee chair who's vying for majority whip next year, suggested that the GOP would revisit James' efforts via their newly acquired oversight power should they take back the House majority this fall, as expected.
"House Republicans will hold partisan actors posing as law-enforcement agents accountable for abusing their power when we retake the majority," Banks said in a statement, calling James' investigation an "illegitimate fishing expedition."
SSI - We shall see. What these GOPers are really predicting (or rather hoping) is that NY civil suit, FBI raid, etc., etc. will help turn out true MAGA-maniacs this Fall and thus reduce the current intensity gap viz-a-viz voters mobilized in opposition to banning abortion in wake of overturning of Roe v Wade.
Maybe. But note that, whereas pro-choice message appeals to Democrats, including lower-turnout Dem, it ALSO has significant support among Independents AND also many moderate-to-conservative Republicans.
In contrast, the Trump-as-Martyr message does NOT possess much salience beyond the MAGA base. On the other hand, being their Fearless Leader raided by the FBI for risking national security AND being indicted for massive fraud are NOT necessarily gonna help the GOP and its standard bearers with swing voters, including large numbers of suburban Republicans. Who as a demographic are rather allergic to suchlike, historically & electorally speaking.
Latvia votes on October 1st - the latest poll quotes 19 parties (isn't PR wonderful?). As we know, the election is for 100 members to the Saeima with a national threshold of 5%.
The current Government is a five party coalition led by Krisjanis Karins of the New Unity Party.
So, make what you will of the latest Factum poll (changes from 2019):
New Unity: 22.6% (+15.9)
National Alliance: 9.3% (-1.7)
United List: 9.0% (+4.9)
Progressives: 8.8% (+6.2)
Harmony: 8.0% (-11.8)
Union of Greens and Farmers: 7.0% (-2.9)
Development For ! 6.3% (-5.7)
For Stability: 6.2% (new)
Latvia First: 5.0% (new)
There's been a huge churn of voters - the Conservatives are on 4.6% (-9.0) and will probably drop out of the Saeima along with nine other oarties who are all polling below 5%.
IF the Conservatives fail to get back into the Parliament, it's going to be hard for the current Karins coalition to form a majority. The only thing is, I can't see an obvious alternative so this is going to be fun (a meaning of the word many Latvians won't have come across).
You tell me, was that great form or not?
Inflation brings its own problems, but that doesn't mean it can't address other problems. One fire can fight another fire.
And there is considerable risk to his own troops e.g. wind direction suddenly changes after the strike. Not that he cares I guess.
Personally, I have thought through out this war that Putin would eventually use tactical nukes and I had a hazy prediction of late summer in my head.
Very much hope I am wrong.
You are incorrect to state that all inflation increases nominal GDP. The latter is the value of all goods and services produced in the domestic economy and so excludes imports by definition. To the extent that higher import prices make domestic economic agents poorer (a negative terms of trade shock) you might expect GDP to be lower in fact. Recall that imports enter negatively in the expenditure measure of GDP.
They have also demonstrated a willingness to use chemical weapons - via novichok.
Both have been used on British soil already. So why would Putin hesitate to use them on Ukrainian soil?
Based on Russia's track record, I would say we are significantly overestimating the possibility of a conventional/"battlefield" nuclear weapon being used in the field, and significantly underestimating the possibility of some kind of dirty / chemical weapon being deployed.
Anyway, I was referring to debt-to-GDP. When post-war without a recession causing a deficit had debt to GDP ever risen for years in a row, prior to a recession? It was unprecedented.
Debt to GDP peaked in 1981 and fell consistently from 1981 to 1990/91. Debt to GDP then rose, because of the recession as standard following the economic cycle, but that rise slowed down and stopped in 1996/97. Debt to GDP started falling then as it had done consistently since WWII until 2002 when unprecedentedly Gordon Brown started growing debt outside of a recession. Every year from 2002 to 2008 debt to GDP rose, without any recession to cause that rise.
That was unprecedented, unforgiveable and disastrous.
Though old-school Red Army punishment battalions MIGHT be an option, for clearing minefields & suchlike?
This is really more about feeding some red meat to pro-war (or at least pro-Putin) Russkis (and somewhat about stifling dissent) than it is a serious military proposal.
But seriously, thanks.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/21/fracking-wont-work-uk-founder-chris-cornelius-cuadrilla
I think @rcs1000 has been telling us this for several weeks.
It was ok.