I'd be surprised if the final count reported wasn't over 90%.
Kherson has proven to be something of a disappointment for Ukraine. The Russians there, which includes many of Russia's best units, are fighting hard and casualties on both sides seem heavy. The expectation was that the Russians on the west bank of the Dneiper would rapidly run out of supplies and amunition and then surrender but this hasn't happened in 2 or more weeks of heavy fighting. It is still possible that there will be a collapse as supplies run out but its not looking imminent.
in telegraph today also said Russians massing and looking to attack Kharkiv again
With troops some of whom were drafted less than 24 hrs ago.
Unlikely to be true, except maybe of some reservists who served as professional soldiers in the first place. The idea that they're sending draftees who have had only one day's military training in their entire lives - I do not believe this, unless they really want to find out what "workers' and soldiers' revolution" means. (And it doesn't mean Andrei f***ing Navalny.) Bear in mind that Russia has about a quarter of a million conscripts in the normal course of things. Some of these men have been in uniform since late last year; the rest, since spring and early summer of this year. Mostly they have not been sent to the war. They're not going to pull lads off the street who've had no prior army experience and send them to the war before these guys. The brass wouldn't allow it. That quarter of a million have been trained. An army is a war-fighting machine. The national security and civvy leaderships wouldn't allow it either. It would be f***ing mental.
TLDR, the argument boils down to this. Peoples have a right to self determination. We are a people. Hence we have that right. The Scotland Act 1998 should be construed in a way that does not interfere with that right. A referendum allows the views of the Scottish people to be determined. The reserved matters therefore cannot constrain this.
Skimming it, there seems to be two strands of thought to their argument, if I've understood it correctly. To summarise.
1: The proposed referendum is "non-self-executing"* referendum 2: As a non-self-executing referendum, the referendum and accompanying proposed legislation doesn't affect the constitution or Parliament or Union. 3: The Scotland Act "relates to" reservation could be read narrowly (only acts that affect the union are reserved), or broadly (anything broadly related even if it doesn't affect the union itself). 4: The people of Scotland should have the right to self-determination under international law. 5: Domestic UK law is typically interpreted in line with international law, unless it can't be. 6: A narrow reading of "relates to" would allow self-determination, while not affecting the constitution, so should be the interpretation the Court uses.
IANAL but it seems like a good argument to me. A narrow reading of what relates to means, would mean that both UK and International Law are in alignment, and would mean that the proposed legislation is legal. Any legislation that actually affects the union would be reserved, but a mere referendum doesn't actually do that, so shouldn't be reserved on that reading.
Do you see a legal objection to this logic?
* Legal speak for "advisory" I assume
An advisory referendum would be widely boycotted. "Whats the point when the English would just say no" / "Its a waste of money, a Sturgeon ego trip. Don't waste your time"
But all referenda are advisory pretty much, this certainly has to be just as the EU Referendum was, and their entire legal argument seems to be that it is advisory. Or using their language "non-self-executing".
It seems to me to be a sound legal argument that the power to hold an advisory-only referendum is not reserved, since its only advisory, and if the Supreme Court rules that a proposed referendum is legal then it will be legal and anyone proposing at that point that its only advisory would be as ridiculous as those Remoaners saying it post-Brexit Referendum.
I have to say, Sturgeon may have played this very, very well. If she gets a Supreme Court stamp of approval on any proposed referendum, even on the basis that its only advisory, sorry non-self-executing, then it seems to me to be hard for it to then be boycotted afterwards having been approved by the Supreme Court.
Why not? The UK government would say it would refuse to implement the result as the Union is reserved to it and tell Unionists to boycott it
In that case, Yes wins a legal referendum massively. Despite what you like to pretend, DNV does not count.
It could win over 90% of the vote like the Catalan referendum, Westminster like Madrid would still tell Unionists to boycott it and completely ignore the result.
TLDR, the argument boils down to this. Peoples have a right to self determination. We are a people. Hence we have that right. The Scotland Act 1998 should be construed in a way that does not interfere with that right. A referendum allows the views of the Scottish people to be determined. The reserved matters therefore cannot constrain this.
Skimming it, there seems to be two strands of thought to their argument, if I've understood it correctly. To summarise.
1: The proposed referendum is "non-self-executing"* referendum 2: As a non-self-executing referendum, the referendum and accompanying proposed legislation doesn't affect the constitution or Parliament or Union. 3: The Scotland Act "relates to" reservation could be read narrowly (only acts that affect the union are reserved), or broadly (anything broadly related even if it doesn't affect the union itself). 4: The people of Scotland should have the right to self-determination under international law. 5: Domestic UK law is typically interpreted in line with international law, unless it can't be. 6: A narrow reading of "relates to" would allow self-determination, while not affecting the constitution, so should be the interpretation the Court uses.
IANAL but it seems like a good argument to me. A narrow reading of what relates to means, would mean that both UK and International Law are in alignment, and would mean that the proposed legislation is legal. Any legislation that actually affects the union would be reserved, but a mere referendum doesn't actually do that, so shouldn't be reserved on that reading.
Do you see a legal objection to this logic?
* Legal speak for "advisory" I assume
An advisory referendum would be widely boycotted. "Whats the point when the English would just say no" / "Its a waste of money, a Sturgeon ego trip. Don't waste your time"
But all referenda are advisory pretty much, this certainly has to be just as the EU Referendum was, and their entire legal argument seems to be that it is advisory. Or using their language "non-self-executing".
It seems to me to be a sound legal argument that the power to hold an advisory-only referendum is not reserved, since its only advisory, and if the Supreme Court rules that a proposed referendum is legal then it will be legal and anyone proposing at that point that its only advisory would be as ridiculous as those Remoaners saying it post-Brexit Referendum.
I have to say, Sturgeon may have played this very, very well. If she gets a Supreme Court stamp of approval on any proposed referendum, even on the basis that its only advisory, sorry non-self-executing, then it seems to me to be hard for it to then be boycotted afterwards having been approved by the Supreme Court.
Why not? The UK government would say it would refuse to implement the result as the Union is reserved to it and tell Unionists to boycott it
Saying now is not the time is one thing.
Refusing to consider the result of a legal referendum, even if not a legally binding one, is quite ugly on the other hand.
If the Supreme Court OK's this legislation, then it becomes a legal referendum.
No it isn't the Union and its future is legally and constitutionally up to Westminster.
The Supreme Court might say an irrelevant glorified opinion poll referendum is legal, it would also say it would not have any affect on the Union without Westminster agreement.
Truss would correctly ignore the result and as Sturgeon has ruled out UDI sod all the SNP can do about it
I see Starmer has repeated the neo-fascistic language about Labour being the "political wing of the British people".
Has he? Starmer may be useless, and his speech a disaster, but your assertion is a stretch.
Sir Keir Starmer finishes his speech by echoing Tony Blair, saying "we are the party of the centre ground - once again the political wing of the British people"
I'd be surprised if the final count reported wasn't over 90%.
Kherson has proven to be something of a disappointment for Ukraine. The Russians there, which includes many of Russia's best units, are fighting hard and casualties on both sides seem heavy. The expectation was that the Russians on the west bank of the Dneiper would rapidly run out of supplies and amunition and then surrender but this hasn't happened in 2 or more weeks of heavy fighting. It is still possible that there will be a collapse as supplies run out but its not looking imminent.
in telegraph today also said Russians massing and looking to attack Kharkiv again
With troops some of whom were drafted less than 24 hrs ago.
Unlikely to be true, except maybe of some reservists who served as professional soldiers in the first place. The idea that they're sending draftees who have had only one day's military training in their entire lives - I do not believe this, unless they really want to find out what "workers' and soldiers' revolution" means. (And it doesn't mean Andrei f***ing Navalny.) Bear in mind that Russia has about a quarter of a million conscripts in the normal course of things. Some of these men have been in uniform since late last year; the rest, since spring and early summer of this year. Mostly they have not been sent to the war. They're not going to pull lads off the street who've had no prior army experience and send them to the war before these guys. The brass wouldn't allow it. That quarter of a million have been trained. An army is a war-fighting machine. The national security and civvy leaderships wouldn't allow it either. It would be f***ing mental.
It would be f***ing mental. Yet it appears that is what is happening, at least in part.
In addition, I doubt someone who did his conscription peeling spuds ten or twenty years ago is going to be much of a fighting machine immediately. Skills wane.
Government after government has failed to do nearly enough about the supply side of the British economy. Reams have been written, far more eloquently than I can manage, about how this inaction has trapped us, time and time again, into choices we don’t want to have to make, on public services and elsewhere. It has trapped us into falling ever further behind America in our living standards. And it has nudged us into accepting relative decline as the norm and the future of Britain.
Until now, nobody has truly dared tackle this head-on. But we have finally found a PM and chancellor willing to do so. And yet for whatever reason — perhaps simply because we cannot get our heads around the reorganisation they have in mind — we are risking making it politically impossible before they have even begun to try.
That, at least, is a load of waffle just because there were no supply side reforms, just a bunch of tax cuts which will push up demand.
I'm all in favour of supply side reforms and pushing up business investment, there's was very little in the Friday statement that actually achieves any supply side fix.
He does address that if you read the whole piece:
This is a long list, and even then it is only really a start on the work that the economy needs. It is also vague: it equivocates about the most important supply-side reform of all — housing reform — promising merely that more detail will be announced soon.
But it is a start. And if it is implemented properly (and followed up with more), it would allow Kwarteng’s plan to succeed, and with it, bring to end the awful bind that British policymaking has been stuck in since 2008.
The plan is therefore a do-or-die moment.
To commit to the Growth Plan’s tax-and-spend decisions without the structural reforms to go along with them would be a disaster. It would represent the worst of the status quo, but with a new layer of ‘bad’ added on top.
And there are lots of reasons for pessimism. Getting a supply-side reform through Parliament is much more difficult than doing new spending, especially with special interest groups doing their absolute utmost to block progress. Truss is already light on political capital, given how few MPs originally voted for her, and the response to our currency trouble will only have made that worse. Worst of all, there is very little time: it is less than two years until a general election.
Which is why it's waffle. The writer is just projecting onto Kwasi what he wants to happen. There's been no detail or moves to boost supply just vague ideas and ambitions. What we actually have is a series of tax cuts which are intended to boost demand. Rather than defending them based on something he hopes they will do in the future, they need to be chastised for not doing what is necessary to reform the economy by boosting supply (and investment).
The Friday event, when you take it for the actual measures and exclude all of the guff, is aimed at producing a short term gain in demand by borrowing loads of money. In a high inflation environment it's going to cause interest rates to shoot up and the currency to tank, unsurprisingly that's what has happened.
When you take in the actual measures and exclude all of the guff, almost all of what happened was pre-announced and the 45p changes "cost" £2 billion supposedly, but the real cost to the Exchequer will of course be far less than that and may even by negative.
So the hysteria that has followed is just ridiculous. Yes you are completely right that the vague ideas and ambitions need meat on the bones to follow through with, I totally agree with you on that, but at least they're targeting the right issues and saying the right things even if its not yet in action. They need to follow through with credible actions on reforms, but those are things that aren't simply announced in a statement.
No, they aren't targeting the right issues because they haven't done anything. What they have done is borrow £45bn to increase demand which is targeting the wrong issues.
They might be saying the right things but then they're doing the exact opposite and you're falling for it.
But that £45bn is predominantly to reverse the NI Tax Rise and the Corporation Tax rise, both of which you and I both vehemently disagreed with at the time they were announced. Only £2bn, if that, relates to the 45p tax change but you're acting as if the entire £45bn has gone on that.
I had a look at the evidence of the corporation tax rise and I changed my position. We've had chronically low business investment for over a decade and our model if low CT has resulted in low investment by businesses who prefer to pay dividends rather than chase capital growth which is taxed at a higher rate. Worse still major UK companies are no longer majority domestically owned so the payouts are draining overseas and tax isn't payable.
CT of 30% and a series of big investment allowances on capital and R&D to bring that number down makes much more sense to me.
On NI they went further by keeping the higher threshold, it was the right thing to do but it isn't cost free.
The reason I'm so annoyed by cutting the additional rate is it shows the government has got the wrong priorities. That is a purely demand generation play, it puts tens of thousands in the hands of already pretty well of people hoping they will spend it and the lower tax rate will attract a few thousand extra workers who will also come and spend their money here.
Nowhere in the statement did they show that they were interested in boosting supply or putting in place real reform of education, training, skills and investment in capital to boost supply.
So typical of Starmer to come close to a good idea while absolutely missing the target.
We do not need to nationalise renewable energy production. We just need to set out the right fiscal and regulatory regime and the very kind private sector will build it for us.
Where there is an argument for state intervention is in the hydrocarbon market, which is still sorely needed during the energy transition but is being starved of investment and financing, as the private sector increasingly shies away from the sector. Nationalise the uk based oil refineries and get competent firms to run them. Setup a British Infrastructure bank to lend to junior oil and gas firms in the North Sea so they don’t have to pay double digit bond coupons. And use the same bank to guarantee the liabilities of sunrise industries like tidal lagoon power.
100% correct.
Too difficult for CHB to understand though.
I am going to laugh when Keir goes 20 points clear.
Prime Minister Ed Miliband went 20 points clear too.....
Good point Marq.
It needs to be more than 1 20 point poll, the average has to hit 20 over a sustained period to mean anything.
Did Ed hit 20 points clear? A quick look points at him peaking at a single 16 point ahead mark.
I'd be surprised if the final count reported wasn't over 90%.
Kherson has proven to be something of a disappointment for Ukraine. The Russians there, which includes many of Russia's best units, are fighting hard and casualties on both sides seem heavy. The expectation was that the Russians on the west bank of the Dneiper would rapidly run out of supplies and amunition and then surrender but this hasn't happened in 2 or more weeks of heavy fighting. It is still possible that there will be a collapse as supplies run out but its not looking imminent.
in telegraph today also said Russians massing and looking to attack Kharkiv again
With troops some of whom were drafted less than 24 hrs ago.
Unlikely to be true, except maybe of some reservists who served as professional soldiers in the first place. The idea that they're sending draftees who have had only one day's military training in their entire lives - I do not believe this, unless they really want to find out what "workers' and soldiers' revolution" means. (And it doesn't mean Andrei f***ing Navalny.) Bear in mind that Russia has about a quarter of a million conscripts in the normal course of things. Some of these men have been in uniform since late last year; the rest, since spring and early summer of this year. Mostly they have not been sent to the war. They're not going to pull lads off the street who've had no prior army experience and send them to the war before these guys. The brass wouldn't allow it. That quarter of a million have been trained. An army is a war-fighting machine. The national security and civvy leaderships wouldn't allow it either. It would be f***ing mental.
It would be f***ing mental. Yet it appears that is what is happening, at least in part.
In addition, I doubt someone who did his conscription peeling spuds ten or twenty years ago is going to be much of a fighting machine immediately. Skills wane.
One suggestion was that there could be some backfill to the domestic Rovsguardia (sp?) security service, some of whom are operating in Ukraine, to shore up Putin's home position.
The suggestion that there are widespread 'administration errors' resulting in drafting of those who aren't reserves or battle hardened could be part of the plan?
I wonder whether anyone has intervened to artificially bring down Italian and Greek yields? And whether there might be a big seller of uk gilts at the back end of the curve that was the market’s biggest buyer for the last 12 years. Hmmm… perhaps the chair of the treasury select committee is the sort of person who might know.
The ECB continues to roll over its existing debt positions, so it's not a net seller of Greek/Italian/etc. bonds.
They were willing to buy bonds during the Eurozone crisis and during the pandemic, so my guess is that they would chalk this up as yet-another-emergency, and would buy Greek/Italian bonds if necessary this time around.
TLDR, the argument boils down to this. Peoples have a right to self determination. We are a people. Hence we have that right. The Scotland Act 1998 should be construed in a way that does not interfere with that right. A referendum allows the views of the Scottish people to be determined. The reserved matters therefore cannot constrain this.
Skimming it, there seems to be two strands of thought to their argument, if I've understood it correctly. To summarise.
1: The proposed referendum is "non-self-executing"* referendum 2: As a non-self-executing referendum, the referendum and accompanying proposed legislation doesn't affect the constitution or Parliament or Union. 3: The Scotland Act "relates to" reservation could be read narrowly (only acts that affect the union are reserved), or broadly (anything broadly related even if it doesn't affect the union itself). 4: The people of Scotland should have the right to self-determination under international law. 5: Domestic UK law is typically interpreted in line with international law, unless it can't be. 6: A narrow reading of "relates to" would allow self-determination, while not affecting the constitution, so should be the interpretation the Court uses.
IANAL but it seems like a good argument to me. A narrow reading of what relates to means, would mean that both UK and International Law are in alignment, and would mean that the proposed legislation is legal. Any legislation that actually affects the union would be reserved, but a mere referendum doesn't actually do that, so shouldn't be reserved on that reading.
Do you see a legal objection to this logic?
* Legal speak for "advisory" I assume
An advisory referendum would be widely boycotted. "Whats the point when the English would just say no" / "Its a waste of money, a Sturgeon ego trip. Don't waste your time"
But all referenda are advisory pretty much, this certainly has to be just as the EU Referendum was, and their entire legal argument seems to be that it is advisory. Or using their language "non-self-executing".
It seems to me to be a sound legal argument that the power to hold an advisory-only referendum is not reserved, since its only advisory, and if the Supreme Court rules that a proposed referendum is legal then it will be legal and anyone proposing at that point that its only advisory would be as ridiculous as those Remoaners saying it post-Brexit Referendum.
I have to say, Sturgeon may have played this very, very well. If she gets a Supreme Court stamp of approval on any proposed referendum, even on the basis that its only advisory, sorry non-self-executing, then it seems to me to be hard for it to then be boycotted afterwards having been approved by the Supreme Court.
Why not? The UK government would say it would refuse to implement the result as the Union is reserved to it and tell Unionists to boycott it
In that case, Yes wins a legal referendum massively. Despite what you like to pretend, DNV does not count.
CNVs (can not vote) telling people in Scotland DNV will be fun. Not the first time for that sort of behaviour from a bunch of PB CNVs mind.
I don't think an investigation should take very long. "Did you say this?" Boot her out.
Nah, racial awareness course.
I'm sure she is not generally a racist, but what she said was. She should at least pretend to accept that (since her reaction shows she could not sincerely do so).
TLDR, the argument boils down to this. Peoples have a right to self determination. We are a people. Hence we have that right. The Scotland Act 1998 should be construed in a way that does not interfere with that right. A referendum allows the views of the Scottish people to be determined. The reserved matters therefore cannot constrain this.
Skimming it, there seems to be two strands of thought to their argument, if I've understood it correctly. To summarise.
1: The proposed referendum is "non-self-executing"* referendum 2: As a non-self-executing referendum, the referendum and accompanying proposed legislation doesn't affect the constitution or Parliament or Union. 3: The Scotland Act "relates to" reservation could be read narrowly (only acts that affect the union are reserved), or broadly (anything broadly related even if it doesn't affect the union itself). 4: The people of Scotland should have the right to self-determination under international law. 5: Domestic UK law is typically interpreted in line with international law, unless it can't be. 6: A narrow reading of "relates to" would allow self-determination, while not affecting the constitution, so should be the interpretation the Court uses.
IANAL but it seems like a good argument to me. A narrow reading of what relates to means, would mean that both UK and International Law are in alignment, and would mean that the proposed legislation is legal. Any legislation that actually affects the union would be reserved, but a mere referendum doesn't actually do that, so shouldn't be reserved on that reading.
Do you see a legal objection to this logic?
* Legal speak for "advisory" I assume
An advisory referendum would be widely boycotted. "Whats the point when the English would just say no" / "Its a waste of money, a Sturgeon ego trip. Don't waste your time"
But all referenda are advisory pretty much, this certainly has to be just as the EU Referendum was, and their entire legal argument seems to be that it is advisory. Or using their language "non-self-executing".
It seems to me to be a sound legal argument that the power to hold an advisory-only referendum is not reserved, since its only advisory, and if the Supreme Court rules that a proposed referendum is legal then it will be legal and anyone proposing at that point that its only advisory would be as ridiculous as those Remoaners saying it post-Brexit Referendum.
I have to say, Sturgeon may have played this very, very well. If she gets a Supreme Court stamp of approval on any proposed referendum, even on the basis that its only advisory, sorry non-self-executing, then it seems to me to be hard for it to then be boycotted afterwards having been approved by the Supreme Court.
I don’t think that is the intention of international law. It would mean - for example - that US states could secede.
Westminster has been clear about what their intentions; the SNP is just saying “they didn’t mean that, they meant this”
I see Starmer has repeated the neo-fascistic language about Labour being the "political wing of the British people".
Has he? Starmer may be useless, and his speech a disaster, but your assertion is a stretch.
Quoted by the beeb as saying that. Pleased to see its not just me that hates it.
Oh he did say it, and it is unfortunate flag of St George waving nonsense. But neo-fascist?
Nonetheless the speech has gone down like a pair of lead underpants on PB for all sorts of other reasons too, and by both Conservatives and Labourites, although Andy Burnham seemed to like it.
Fascists use that language - it implies that if you don’t agree with them then you are not part of the “national consciousness” but are “other”
It doesn’t mean that Starmer is a neo-facist but you can see why some people might dislike the language
Government after government has failed to do nearly enough about the supply side of the British economy. Reams have been written, far more eloquently than I can manage, about how this inaction has trapped us, time and time again, into choices we don’t want to have to make, on public services and elsewhere. It has trapped us into falling ever further behind America in our living standards. And it has nudged us into accepting relative decline as the norm and the future of Britain.
Until now, nobody has truly dared tackle this head-on. But we have finally found a PM and chancellor willing to do so. And yet for whatever reason — perhaps simply because we cannot get our heads around the reorganisation they have in mind — we are risking making it politically impossible before they have even begun to try.
That, at least, is a load of waffle just because there were no supply side reforms, just a bunch of tax cuts which will push up demand.
I'm all in favour of supply side reforms and pushing up business investment, there's was very little in the Friday statement that actually achieves any supply side fix.
He does address that if you read the whole piece:
This is a long list, and even then it is only really a start on the work that the economy needs. It is also vague: it equivocates about the most important supply-side reform of all — housing reform — promising merely that more detail will be announced soon.
But it is a start. And if it is implemented properly (and followed up with more), it would allow Kwarteng’s plan to succeed, and with it, bring to end the awful bind that British policymaking has been stuck in since 2008.
The plan is therefore a do-or-die moment.
To commit to the Growth Plan’s tax-and-spend decisions without the structural reforms to go along with them would be a disaster. It would represent the worst of the status quo, but with a new layer of ‘bad’ added on top.
And there are lots of reasons for pessimism. Getting a supply-side reform through Parliament is much more difficult than doing new spending, especially with special interest groups doing their absolute utmost to block progress. Truss is already light on political capital, given how few MPs originally voted for her, and the response to our currency trouble will only have made that worse. Worst of all, there is very little time: it is less than two years until a general election.
Which is why it's waffle. The writer is just projecting onto Kwasi what he wants to happen. There's been no detail or moves to boost supply just vague ideas and ambitions. What we actually have is a series of tax cuts which are intended to boost demand. Rather than defending them based on something he hopes they will do in the future, they need to be chastised for not doing what is necessary to reform the economy by boosting supply (and investment).
The Friday event, when you take it for the actual measures and exclude all of the guff, is aimed at producing a short term gain in demand by borrowing loads of money. In a high inflation environment it's going to cause interest rates to shoot up and the currency to tank, unsurprisingly that's what has happened.
When you take in the actual measures and exclude all of the guff, almost all of what happened was pre-announced and the 45p changes "cost" £2 billion supposedly, but the real cost to the Exchequer will of course be far less than that and may even by negative.
So the hysteria that has followed is just ridiculous. Yes you are completely right that the vague ideas and ambitions need meat on the bones to follow through with, I totally agree with you on that, but at least they're targeting the right issues and saying the right things even if its not yet in action. They need to follow through with credible actions on reforms, but those are things that aren't simply announced in a statement.
No, they aren't targeting the right issues because they haven't done anything. What they have done is borrow £45bn to increase demand which is targeting the wrong issues.
They might be saying the right things but then they're doing the exact opposite and you're falling for it.
But that £45bn is predominantly to reverse the NI Tax Rise and the Corporation Tax rise, both of which you and I both vehemently disagreed with at the time they were announced. Only £2bn, if that, relates to the 45p tax change but you're acting as if the entire £45bn has gone on that.
I had a look at the evidence of the corporation tax rise and I changed my position. We've had chronically low business investment for over a decade and our model if low CT has resulted in low investment by businesses who prefer to pay dividends rather than chase capital growth which is taxed at a higher rate. Worse still major UK companies are no longer majority domestically owned so the payouts are draining overseas and tax isn't payable.
CT of 30% and a series of big investment allowances on capital and R&D to bring that number down makes much more sense to me.
On NI they went further by keeping the higher threshold, it was the right thing to do but it isn't cost free.
The reason I'm so annoyed by cutting the additional rate is it shows the government has got the wrong priorities. That is a purely demand generation play, it puts tens of thousands in the hands of already pretty well of people hoping they will spend it and the lower tax rate will attract a few thousand extra workers who will also come and spend their money here.
Nowhere in the statement did they show that they were interested in boosting supply or putting in place real reform of education, training, skills and investment in capital to boost supply.
Not a particularly impressive position to take monstering the Government for doing something that until 5 minutes ago you (quite sensibly imo) agreed with. Corporation tax is one of the simplest measures that will be looked at by companies deciding where to locate themselves - it's far from certain that a patchwork of other benefits will have anything like the impact needed to offset a large hike.
This is an illustration of Sweden’s self-sufficiency in various common foodstuffs.
This has crept up the political agenda in many countries. Free markets are not as smart as many long thought. Especially when it comes to life’s essentials like food, energy and housing.
impressed on the sugar. but they should let their chickens grow up.
Can't the cows try just a little harder to get milk over the line? Its SO close...
Comments
The Supreme Court might say an irrelevant glorified opinion poll referendum is legal, it would also say it would not have any affect on the Union without Westminster agreement.
Truss would correctly ignore the result and as Sturgeon has ruled out UDI sod all the SNP can do about it
In addition, I doubt someone who did his conscription peeling spuds ten or twenty years ago is going to be much of a fighting machine immediately. Skills wane.
CT of 30% and a series of big investment allowances on capital and R&D to bring that number down makes much more sense to me.
On NI they went further by keeping the higher threshold, it was the right thing to do but it isn't cost free.
The reason I'm so annoyed by cutting the additional rate is it shows the government has got the wrong priorities. That is a purely demand generation play, it puts tens of thousands in the hands of already pretty well of people hoping they will spend it and the lower tax rate will attract a few thousand extra workers who will also come and spend their money here.
Nowhere in the statement did they show that they were interested in boosting supply or putting in place real reform of education, training, skills and investment in capital to boost supply.
The suggestion that there are widespread 'administration errors' resulting in drafting of those who aren't reserves or battle hardened could be part of the plan?
They were willing to buy bonds during the Eurozone crisis and during the pandemic, so my guess is that they would chalk this up as yet-another-emergency, and would buy Greek/Italian bonds if necessary this time around.
Not the first time for that sort of behaviour from a bunch of PB CNVs mind.
I'm sure she is not generally a racist, but what she said was. She should at least pretend to accept that (since her reaction shows she could not sincerely do so).
Westminster has been clear about what their intentions; the SNP is just saying “they didn’t mean that, they meant this”
It doesn’t mean that Starmer is a neo-facist but you can see why some people might dislike the language