Liz could do worse than get Boris to issue some kind of statement, to the effect that it's not all her fault and the doomsters are merely out in force. Many Tory supporters would see him as a reassuring father figure and it might buy her some time.
First time in his puff that he’d have managed reassuring as a father figure.
I would be worrying about the parties in No 10, actually. And how he could follow up the genius act of shaking hands with a whole hospital in the time of covid.
At a minimum, Liz has to fire Kwasi, and she should probably hire Tom Scholar while she is at it
Yes, Kwasi has to go. He was rather obscure anyway so I doubt anyone will shed a tear, and Liz can just blame her appointing him on a mad moment.
Problem is he knows that everything in the budget was signed off by Liz.
The reality is both of them need to go - even just removing Kwasi raises serious questions about her suitable to select and manage people...
Yes if Kwarteng goes then Truss goes too and she knows that.
The only alternative is Kwarteng to announce deep spending cuts to calm the markets about the deficit but at the cost of ensuring the redwall Tory MPs lose their seats.
Or dump Truss and Kwarteng and replace them with Wallace and Sunak and reverse the Kwarteng tax cuts for the rich
What spending cuts?
Massive spending cuts are already quietly baked into things because there is zero chance departments are going to get 10% increases. So any announcement of spending cuts would be way worse than what was announced as a 10% cut in headline monetary budgets is probably 20% in real terms...
Plus there is very little that can actually be cut - where is there any excess spending - we've already had 12 years of cuts on anything that isn't pensions / the NHS...
So Kwarteng would have to announce 20% across the board cuts, including for the NHS to fund his tax cuts for the rich and calm the markets.
Political suicide. Or reverse his tax cuts for the rich and be humiliated
No.
I keep saying this, no one is listening. But you ARE wrong. And so is all the media and many of the experts they are talking to. Actually when the Old Bean geezer hit the media yesterday “with Kwarzi has just killed the NHS” Old Bean is not stupid at economics, but he is angry and mischief making.
Look at the economies of scale in Fridays announcements, to find what needs to be adjusted ASAP not the hoo haa each created.
The loudest hoo haa was cancelling Browns top rate of tax - but the money involved isn’t going to get the IMF attention let alone concern, it costs what £3B? the markets are not reacting to that. What was forgotten about domestically on Friday was the near quarter of a trillion spending pledge to be funded (in the absence of further detail) by borrowing.
At the start of last week i thought, without the sweetener of windfall tax, the huge borrowing pledge might come under pressure from the markets. That was before CoE wrapped further tax cuts round the borrowing.
This is not an ideological attack on the push for growth, I’m just questioning the timing of each announcement. The growth push could have held off 3 weeks easy. Firstly he needed to get our whopping borrowing for bill freeze past the markets without problems. He should have just focussed on this last week, this side of his party’s conference. He tried too much at once. Even despite that, if Kwarteng was in charge of US there wouldn’t be a problem with any of his budget, no run on dollar or criticism from IMF, but we are thought of differently, we can’t get away with what US get away with, we can’t copy them.
Even without the additional tax changes, I am not at all convinced the loan for energy freeze would be allowed by the markets and not get criticised by IMF economists. At the centre of the crisis is not the tax changes for growth budget the Labour Party wants murdered at birth, but the quarter of a trillion borrowing plan to fund the bill freeze thru life which was the Labour Partys brain child in the first place. It’s the bill freeze policy that has to change. It’s scope - borrowing £200B and giving at least half to people who don’t need the money (disgustingly regressive, how come Labour support that?). Even if you keep this scheme, which you shouldn’t do, you should switch to variable price cap, you can half the cost instantly. I question it’s length - why not get it past markets as salami tactics, do you need the 2 and half year promise. It’s funding mechanism, even if you keep this scheme, variable price cap not just cheaper but better targeted where needed, you can at least slash the cost in half, and part fund the rest with a bit of windfall tax.
I don't see any mechanism for an orderly retreat from the Trussterfuck. A new leadership campaign is unthinkable, just a few working days (allowing for the mourning period) after the previous one, and at a time of multiple crises, not all of which are Liz Truss's fault. Even if it were thinkable, what guarantee is there that the outcome would be any better, even in the unlikely event that Tory MPs could agree even in broad terms on what 'better' would be? It's not as though there's a wonderful candidate who somehow got missed out last time.
And even if they somehow managed to get round all that, there's still the problem of what any replacement Tory government would actually do. There are going to have to be huge spending increases, and therefore tax increases, just to stand still. Is the party actually ready to face this reality - let alone the other realities of the Northern Ireland Protocol and the economic disaster which is Brexit?
Demoralised, exhausted, divided, out of ideas, chained to an insane ideology, the party is not going to unite behind a new leader setting a new direction anytime. It will be many years, if ever, before they are in a state where some future David Cameron can come along and drag them into the real, modern, world again.
I'm washing my hands of the party for good now.
Again? If Truss is so bad why aren't you hanging around to help choose the next leader. Or will it be a coronation.
I don't see it myself. Truss & team is going nowhere.
Marquee Mark made a compelling case on why it will be a coronation.
The members will be incandescent. I just don't see it.
So the country faces a possible financial crisis because of 82,000 party members and 113 Tory MPs. Madness.
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Ukrainian Ministry of Justice announced a new program that will allow every russian soldier captured by Ukrainian forces to contact their family and relatives for up to 15 minutes every couple of days using Voice over IP, improving their mental health and overall state.
NHS: +33 Cost of living: +32 Getting people on housing ladder: +27 Energy provision: +26 Climate change: +26 Ensuring hard workers get on in life: +22 Economic growth: +17 Ukraine: ±0 Brexit: -4 (40% say "neither")
NHS: +33 Cost of living: +32 Getting people on housing ladder: +27 Energy provision: +26 Climate change: +26 Ensuring hard workers get on in life: +22 Economic growth: +17 Ukraine: ±0 Brexit: -4 (40% say "neither")
How did we get from an incontinent PM who partied during lockdown and lied about it to a full financial crisis which looks like it'll cripple most of us?
The lunchtime News made the sweaty days of Norman Lamont sound like the halcyon days.
Is there any chance at all that the EU would take us back and let us join the Euro?
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Anyone who has had any contact at all with public services knows there is nothing to cut there. The only people calling for cuts are people who don't use them.
NHS: +33 Cost of living: +32 Getting people on housing ladder: +27 Energy provision: +26 Climate change: +26 Ensuring hard workers get on in life: +22 Economic growth: +17 Ukraine: ±0 Brexit: -4 (40% say "neither")
A big declaration by Putin is scheduled for Friday 30 September.
Russia is signalling that all they want is the five territories (by far the largest part of what they still need to take is in the DPR) and nukes kept out of rump Ukraine. Of course if NATO countries supply weapons that are used to attack Russian territory that changes the game.
If Moscow was minded to blow up some gas pipelines, why not attack Norwegian pipes to western Europe? Thus increasing European energy hunger but keeping open the tantalising hope of energy from Russia?
I fear we are close to a terrible, terrible war
I'm going to assume that sabotaging Nord Stream 2 has plausible deniability - Russia can always be like "why would we wreck our own infrastructure / money making pipeline when we could always just turn it off it we want to"
Actually attacking someone else's pipeline to Europe would be an open act of war.
Someone posted a map showing the points of explosion just inside international waters, showing someone was being careful: either Russia about Article 5, or someone else trying to give that implication.
Those locations say nothing about who did it.
"always just turn it off it we want to"
The pipelines were already switched off. Or to be more exact, Nordstream 1 was off and Nordstream 2 hadn't come onstream yet.
The Portovaya compressor plant near Vyborg was also sabotaged last month.
"All they want" is 20% of the territory of their neighbour, whom they attacked in an act of wanton aggression. How about I steal 20% of your property and then say "hey, I only want this 20%, you get to keep 80%, seems like a fair deal?"
Of course this is also after Crimea was stolen, then Luhansk and Donetsk was stolen, now Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are being stolen. The idea that we could agree this and Russia would stop there is ridiculous. The Russians are untrustworthy war criminals. And Ukraine is winning. A much better option is to turf the orcs out and break Russia's military capacity for 50 years.
You don't give a f***ing shit about what country people who actually live in those territories want to live in, do you?
All you know is you hate the Russians, Soviets, war criminals, disrespecters of private property rights, whatever those filthy foreigners who don't know how to hold a knife and fork properly call themselves, and kill kill kill.
Nobody would want you anywhere near decision making in a conflict.
If the Ukrainians in those areas were so keen on becoming Russian, then they might have willingly joined their army.
Instead of Russia needing general mobilisation, the invasion would have found willing troops. And the Ukrainians, attempting to invade a country that did not want them, would have been crushed.
Remind me again, what's actually happening?
are you prepared to risk a nuclear attack for the sake of ukraine...
Of course.
Because otherwise the next question will be "are you prepared to risk a nuclear attack for the sake of Estonia"?
Happy to report I sorted out my Mortgage with my advisor, they managed to secure it before they really started to pull all these deals especially to new buyers and 1st time buyers.
Long way to go still but happy to say I am still in it at this time.
NHS: +33 Cost of living: +32 Getting people on housing ladder: +27 Energy provision: +26 Climate change: +26 Ensuring hard workers get on in life: +22 Economic growth: +17 Ukraine: ±0 Brexit: -4 (40% say "neither")
I don't see any mechanism for an orderly retreat from the Trussterfuck. A new leadership campaign is unthinkable, just a few working days (allowing for the mourning period) after the previous one, and at a time of multiple crises, not all of which are Liz Truss's fault. Even if it were thinkable, what guarantee is there that the outcome would be any better, even in the unlikely event that Tory MPs could agree even in broad terms on what 'better' would be? It's not as though there's a wonderful candidate who somehow got missed out last time.
And even if they somehow managed to get round all that, there's still the problem of what any replacement Tory government would actually do. There are going to have to be huge spending increases, and therefore tax increases, just to stand still. Is the party actually ready to face this reality - let alone the other realities of the Northern Ireland Protocol and the economic disaster which is Brexit?
Demoralised, exhausted, divided, out of ideas, chained to an insane ideology, the party is not going to unite behind a new leader setting a new direction anytime. It will be many years, if ever, before they are in a state where some future David Cameron can come along and drag them into the real, modern, world again.
I'm washing my hands of the party for good now.
Again? If Truss is so bad why aren't you hanging around to help choose the next leader. Or will it be a coronation.
I don't see it myself. Truss & team is going nowhere.
Marquee Mark made a compelling case on why it will be a coronation.
The members will be incandescent. I just don't see it.
So the country faces a possible financial crisis because of 82,000 party members and 113 Tory MPs. Madness.
Well that is how our democratic society works. Happily or sadly.
NHS: +33 Cost of living: +32 Getting people on housing ladder: +27 Energy provision: +26 Climate change: +26 Ensuring hard workers get on in life: +22 Economic growth: +17 Ukraine: ±0 Brexit: -4 (40% say "neither")
NHS: +33 Cost of living: +32 Getting people on housing ladder: +27 Energy provision: +26 Climate change: +26 Ensuring hard workers get on in life: +22 Economic growth: +17 Ukraine: ±0 Brexit: -4 (40% say "neither")
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Anyone who has had any contact at all with public services knows there is nothing to cut there. The only people calling for cuts are people who don't use them.
There is no choice
We need to face up to the ageing thing. No more care for people over 80. Give them a bottle of morphine sulphate
I'm quite serious. This is getting critical for the nation
NHS: +33 Cost of living: +32 Getting people on housing ladder: +27 Energy provision: +26 Climate change: +26 Ensuring hard workers get on in life: +22 Economic growth: +17 Ukraine: ±0 Brexit: -4 (40% say "neither")
Those are apocalyptic figures that suggest to me the Tory VI in polling is about to completely collapse towards 20 or high teens
Yes, it's Canadian Tory Party territory
Interesting that THAT collapse, in 1993 Canadian federal election, from 169 seats and solid majority at previous election, to 2 seats, also featured once popular PM - Lyin' Brian Mulroney - who was replaced by a youngish, female "Great Blue Hope - Kim Campbell - who proceeded to go splat in remarkably short order.
NHS: +33 Cost of living: +32 Getting people on housing ladder: +27 Energy provision: +26 Climate change: +26 Ensuring hard workers get on in life: +22 Economic growth: +17 Ukraine: ±0 Brexit: -4 (40% say "neither")
What odds would people give on a (obviously hypothetical) rerun of the Sunak/Truss members' vote if it were held tomorrow?
Are there any Truss backers Tory members on here who have turned against her yet? Think the criticisms are mostly from those who would have preferred Sunak or no longer Tories.
NHS: +33 Cost of living: +32 Getting people on housing ladder: +27 Energy provision: +26 Climate change: +26 Ensuring hard workers get on in life: +22 Economic growth: +17 Ukraine: ±0 Brexit: -4 (40% say "neither")
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Anyone who has had any contact at all with public services knows there is nothing to cut there. The only people calling for cuts are people who don't use them.
There is no choice
We need to face up to the ageing thing. No more care for people over 80. Give them a bottle of morphine sulphate
I'm quite serious. This is getting critical for the nation
i also think it would be kinder to let many people with dementia die...they have a totally miserable quality of life anyway
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
90% of school budgets go on staff. So this means a complete freeze on teacher salaries (already uncompetitive) which will mean many of them leaving as they are generally capable graduates with transferrable skills. The ones leaving won't be replaced as total staff numbers would need to be reduced and agency rates are unaffordable. So schools will probably drop to a 3-day week.
Also don't forget this year additional heating costs need to be found too. I think if I was a Governor I would just close the school down for the winter and revert to remote learning.
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Anyone who has had any contact at all with public services knows there is nothing to cut there. The only people calling for cuts are people who don't use them.
There is no choice
We need to face up to the ageing thing. No more care for people over 80. Give them a bottle of morphine sulphate
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Anyone who has had any contact at all with public services knows there is nothing to cut there. The only people calling for cuts are people who don't use them.
There is no choice
We need to face up to the ageing thing. No more care for people over 80. Give them a bottle of morphine sulphate
I'm quite serious. This is getting critical for the nation
Absolutely not. Everyone is entitled to NHS care, just encourage more higher earners to take out private insurance.
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Anyone who has had any contact at all with public services knows there is nothing to cut there. The only people calling for cuts are people who don't use them.
There is no choice
We need to face up to the ageing thing. No more care for people over 80. Give them a bottle of morphine sulphate
I'm quite serious.
No, you're a joke. In appalling taste.
It may be "appalling taste" but it is what I sincerely believe
We are going to have to cut spending quite brutally. I do not see any alternative. The world has run up too much debt during/after Covid and the reckoning is now arriving, for us all. We can see it here and now
We should not be cutting services for the young, they are the future. If you've reached 80-85 you've had a good innings and the state has served you well. It cannot keep you alive forever
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Anyone who has had any contact at all with public services knows there is nothing to cut there. The only people calling for cuts are people who don't use them.
There is no choice
We need to face up to the ageing thing. No more care for people over 80. Give them a bottle of morphine sulphate
I'm quite serious. This is getting critical for the nation
Absolutely not. Everyone is entitled to NHS care, just encourage more higher earners to take out private insurance.
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
90% of school budgets go on staff. So this means a complete freeze on teacher salaries (already uncompetitive) which will mean many of them leaving as they are generally capable graduates with transferrable skills. The ones leaving won't be replaced as total staff numbers would need to be reduced and agency rates are unaffordable. So schools will probably drop to a 3-day week.
Also don't forget this year additional heating costs need to be found too. I think if I was a Governor I would just close the school down for the winter and revert to remote learning.
Neither a 3 day week or remote learning would be allowed by the DfE and you will note that most of my cuts are staff because that's the only option. In reality though were I being sane this would be the best approach for senior management...
Year 0 - head takes early retirement and leaves the mess for someone else to deal with.
👀 Liz Truss in July: “I’m very clear I’m not planning public spending reductions... I’m certainly not talking about public spending cuts, what I’m talking about is raising growth.
Bad Al. Could be entirely fictional, of course, but it's not inconsistent with the facts.
https://twitter.com/campbellclaret/status/1575062726266671106 Tory Party spin doctor just told me that they don’t know where Truss is, and they can’t find any MPs apart from Redwood and Bridgen to defend the government so they are trying to get the line running that the run on the £ is all Labour’s fault. “Bollocks but we’re desperate”
Ah, it was in reply to this rubbish from Ashcroft, so fair play. A currency trader has just told me that a driver to sell sterling was not just the mini-budget but a concern that Labour could form the next Government…
It’s fear of the UKs daft “borrow and spend” socialist opposition getting in, that’s spooked the world markets and destroyed the economy.
If you're not joking here, this is the single most absurd thing you've ever posted, MoonRabbit, and you're an intelligent and valued poster.
MoonRabbit never jokes.
It was not a joke i don’t think, despite my attempt to satire it. it’s what Lord Ashcroft suggested the government to say to divert blame, look at tge previous post,
I think he was serious, if they tried that line of spin it would feel quite insulting wouldn’t it? 👿
👀 Liz Truss in July: “I’m very clear I’m not planning public spending reductions... I’m certainly not talking about public spending cuts, what I’m talking about is raising growth.
The mini-budget was on Friday. 5 days later the Treasury has been required to issue a denial the Chancellor is going to resign. And there are people still seriously arguing that budget is economically and politically sustainable. https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1575150968169283584
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Anyone who has had any contact at all with public services knows there is nothing to cut there. The only people calling for cuts are people who don't use them.
There is no choice
We need to face up to the ageing thing. No more care for people over 80. Give them a bottle of morphine sulphate
I'm quite serious.
No, you're a joke. In appalling taste.
It may be "appalling taste" but it is what I sincerely believe
We are going to have to cut spending quite brutally. I do not see any alternative. The world has run up too much debt during/after Covid and the reckoning is now arriving, for us all. We can see it here and now
We should not be cutting services for the young, they are the future. If you've reached 80-85 you've had a good innings and the state has served you well. It cannot keep you alive forever
Raising the pension age would be a good place to start. Plus fundamental tax reform to pluck the goose more while leaving the goose feeling happier.
Efficiency savings is such a red herring. Yes, even after years of doing it you'll find some, but like 'tax the bankers', whilst it might be a decent idea it won't solve all problems or address all the issues.
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
90% of school budgets go on staff. So this means a complete freeze on teacher salaries (already uncompetitive) which will mean many of them leaving as they are generally capable graduates with transferrable skills. The ones leaving won't be replaced as total staff numbers would need to be reduced and agency rates are unaffordable. So schools will probably drop to a 3-day week.
Also don't forget this year additional heating costs need to be found too. I think if I was a Governor I would just close the school down for the winter and revert to remote learning.
Like I said, this really is insane. What kind of nation would consider doing this to its children, so that it can keep demented 85 year olds warm?
Maybe someone here can explain: why are the actuaries saying that life expectancy has fallen because of Covid? I thought life expectancy was defined as the average length of life expected for someone born today. The fact that some (mainly old) people have died from Covid in the last couple of years strikes me as completely irrelevant to that, unless they are factoring in some model of repeated bouts of Covid deaths (and I can't see how they could model that).
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
90% of school budgets go on staff. So this means a complete freeze on teacher salaries (already uncompetitive) which will mean many of them leaving as they are generally capable graduates with transferrable skills. The ones leaving won't be replaced as total staff numbers would need to be reduced and agency rates are unaffordable. So schools will probably drop to a 3-day week.
Also don't forget this year additional heating costs need to be found too. I think if I was a Governor I would just close the school down for the winter and revert to remote learning.
I know of one FE college that has collapsed its timetable into four days a week to save on heating and facility costs.
Trickier for schools. After all, schools do have an important (unstated) role as childcare. If kids are home 1 day a week, kiss bye bye to a wodge of production by parents.
You could save seven percent or so by abolishing Year Nine. Nobody likes Year Nine.
Former Tory Chancellor Ken Clarke on Sky now: "I've never known a Budget cause a financial crisis like this... When I listened I was astounded by its contents."
Our political culture has trained everyone to dig in their heels, that even if you are going to change course you have to pretend you are not, or delay doing so so you can claim the change is not the result of those criticising you.
It's also trained them to regard any criticism as being from people who instinctively oppose them, even when that is patently not the case with internal critics, or even to regard the more objections you get the better, as it shows you are 'rattling' people.
Which adds up to locking ourselves in to bad choices, for a lot longer than is healthy.
Efficiency savings is such a red herring. Yes, even after years of doing it you'll find some, but like 'tax the bankers', whilst it might be a decent idea it won't solve all problems or address all the issues.
We should search for them each and every year and perhaps find an average 0.5-1% savings across the budgets most years. That is not enough to make a case for tax cuts as our demographics will push up the cost of public services faster.
Former Tory Chancellor Ken Clarke on Sky now: "I've never known a Budget cause a financial crisis like this... When I listened I was astounded by its contents."
Efficiency savings is such a red herring. Yes, even after years of doing it you'll find some, but like 'tax the bankers', whilst it might be a decent idea it won't solve all problems or address all the issues.
We should search for them each and every year and perhaps find an average 0.5-1% savings across the budgets most years. .
If Whitehall does not do that I would be astonished, most others do.
Another Tory MP, a member of the government, said: "Liz has a pretty quick choice to make: either she bullets her chancellor and changes course or she could lose her premiership within a month." https://www.ft.com/content/a46e53bb-e23d-4450-a70e-05f71d2e57ef
Any names mentioned...? no...?
Faking quotes is career ending for journalists.
Do you think it credible that there are no tory MPs saying these things?
Its only career ending if there's a name attached and you misquote. No name? could be anybody, cannot be checked (won't name my source....).
I think there are plenty of tory MPs who are worried, but to talk about their own government to a left wing journalist in the snarky Femi Sorry way we see on the internet?
Nope.
I tend to agree with you.
There are almost certainly journalists who make up those kind of anonymous quotes.
And a lot more MPs who are happy to be bought drinks in return for off-the-record gossip. It is basically how the whole system works, from the lobby down.
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
90% of school budgets go on staff. So this means a complete freeze on teacher salaries (already uncompetitive) which will mean many of them leaving as they are generally capable graduates with transferrable skills. The ones leaving won't be replaced as total staff numbers would need to be reduced and agency rates are unaffordable. So schools will probably drop to a 3-day week.
Also don't forget this year additional heating costs need to be found too. I think if I was a Governor I would just close the school down for the winter and revert to remote learning.
I know of one FE college that has collapsed its timetable into four days a week to save on heating and facility costs.
Trickier for schools. After all, schools do have an important (unstated) role as childcare. If kids are home 1 day a week, kiss bye bye to a wodge of production by parents.
You could save seven percent or so by abolishing Year Nine. Nobody likes Year Nine.
Maybe someone here can explain: why are the actuaries saying that life expectancy has fallen because of Covid? I thought life expectancy was defined as the average length of life expected for someone born today. The fact that some (mainly old) people have died from Covid in the last couple of years strikes me as completely irrelevant to that, unless they are factoring in some model of repeated bouts of Covid deaths (and I can't see how they could model that).
What have I missed?
Possibly that COVID hasn’t gone away. Possibly that the numbers have to be calculated on recent data.
Year 0 - head takes early retirement and leaves the mess for someone else to deal with.
Don't think that's not happening already.
The turnover in heads locally is immense - I'd say the majority of local primaries here had a new head this year or last. There were apparently eight unfilled headships still being advertised at the start of the year in our county, which is unheard of.
Many have retired or left the profession. A few have gone back into the classroom three days a week, or gone on supply. Others have gone into the private sector where, as a result, competition for jobs is intense.
Maybe someone here can explain: why are the actuaries saying that life expectancy has fallen because of Covid? I thought life expectancy was defined as the average length of life expected for someone born today. The fact that some (mainly old) people have died from Covid in the last couple of years strikes me as completely irrelevant to that, unless they are factoring in some model of repeated bouts of Covid deaths (and I can't see how they could model that).
What have I missed?
Ambulances not being able to unload into hospitals can't help much for example.....
Maybe someone here can explain: why are the actuaries saying that life expectancy has fallen because of Covid? I thought life expectancy was defined as the average length of life expected for someone born today. The fact that some (mainly old) people have died from Covid in the last couple of years strikes me as completely irrelevant to that, unless they are factoring in some model of repeated bouts of Covid deaths (and I can't see how they could model that).
What have I missed?
Obviously life expectancy has to be calculated on historical data. What else could it be calculated on?
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
90% of school budgets go on staff. So this means a complete freeze on teacher salaries (already uncompetitive) which will mean many of them leaving as they are generally capable graduates with transferrable skills. The ones leaving won't be replaced as total staff numbers would need to be reduced and agency rates are unaffordable. So schools will probably drop to a 3-day week.
Also don't forget this year additional heating costs need to be found too. I think if I was a Governor I would just close the school down for the winter and revert to remote learning.
Neither a 3 day week or remote learning would be allowed by the DfE and you will note that most of my cuts are staff because that's the only option. In reality though were I being sane this would be the best approach for senior management...
Year 0 - head takes early retirement and leaves the mess for someone else to deal with.
Also Year 0 - Governors resign
If you can't staff the school, you have to close. If the classrooms are too cold, you have to close. DfE can huff and puff all they want.
Maybe someone here can explain: why are the actuaries saying that life expectancy has fallen because of Covid? I thought life expectancy was defined as the average length of life expected for someone born today. The fact that some (mainly old) people have died from Covid in the last couple of years strikes me as completely irrelevant to that, unless they are factoring in some model of repeated bouts of Covid deaths (and I can't see how they could model that).
What have I missed?
Obviously life expectancy has to be calculated on historical data. What else could it be calculated on?
Well, as a suggestion, relevant historical data.
But I suspect you're right: maybe this is a completely mechanical calculation, in which case it's totally meaningless at a time when Covid has distorted the picture, and will soon reverse.
As far as I can see Barty Thompson appears to have disappeared as well. Perhaps they are closeted in a secret meeting with his heroine devising a solution to the crisis. God help us all!
@Leon I met a 96 year old chap on my round today who said he’d met Princess Elizabeth when she was training for the ATS. He’s half deaf, half blind (and waiting for a cataract operation), but was cooking himself a beef casserole and had a couple of beers in the fridge to enjoy it with
"The 10-year Treasury yield, a key benchmark for global borrowing costs, has surged to more than 4 per cent from 3.2 per cent at the end of August, leaving it set for the biggest monthly rise since 2003. It is on track for its sharpest ever annual rise. The two-year yield, more sensitive to fluctuations in US monetary policy, has leapt 3.55 percentage points this year, which would also mark a historic increase.
"The big price movements have left investors wary of trading in a market that acts as the bedrock of the global financial system and is typically considered a haven during times of stress."
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
90% of school budgets go on staff. So this means a complete freeze on teacher salaries (already uncompetitive) which will mean many of them leaving as they are generally capable graduates with transferrable skills. The ones leaving won't be replaced as total staff numbers would need to be reduced and agency rates are unaffordable. So schools will probably drop to a 3-day week.
Also don't forget this year additional heating costs need to be found too. I think if I was a Governor I would just close the school down for the winter and revert to remote learning.
I know of one FE college that has collapsed its timetable into four days a week to save on heating and facility costs.
Trickier for schools. After all, schools do have an important (unstated) role as childcare. If kids are home 1 day a week, kiss bye bye to a wodge of production by parents.
You could save seven percent or so by abolishing Year Nine. Nobody likes Year Nine.
I was thinking of abolishing all 6th forms. Who wants to waste 2 years when you could be out earning money? (Forgetting for a moment that you now have to stay on until 18)
The public don't like taxes that seem unfair. It was after all the poll tax that did for Maggie. This one seems worse. There were good reasons for the poll tax this just looks gross and the fact it's been conceived by an Old Etonian with a tin ear is making people angry.
He'll never recover from this so Truss might as well fire him. As for Truss herself if she's lucky she'll just be thought an airhead but even that's not great for a PM.
As for Starmer Labor have recently employed a hot new agency and I think we're already seeing the results
They need to put a costed plan out asap. That is what people need. The 45% is a red herring and was probably put in there to troll the Guardian.
People need to see how it's going to be paid for.
Betting bit: if they come out with something half decent (and why wouldn't they) then Cable goes to 1.15. If nothing else just with relief that they aren't going to fire up the helicopters.
For what it's worth - probably best post of this thread. At the moment many seem to be running around shouting "panic" at what are, and the end of the day, tax cuts. As if they're inherently bad and will lead to the total collapse of the UK economy.
If they are on the back of a fag packet un-costed calculations then the Govt deserve all that will be coming to them electorally. However, If Truss is genuinely trying to re-shape the economy with a "bold plan" then a few weeks turbulence from markets is to be expected. And ridden-out. Otherwise nothing would ever get done.
I do wonder whether some posters on here are not actually concerned with the economy "crashing" due to the budget; they're more concerned that it might actually work. It's amusing to read comments from those who trumpeted Corbyn's economic plan - and are now worried about the GBP rate, mortgage rates, pension funds and the Gilt market.
But yes - a costed plan and one soon is what is needed.
Nothing to be published until the 23rd of next month. Absurd.
Chancellor going nowhere, his team says. No10 say flat no to recalling Parliament and both Kwarteng and Truss are focused on delivering their economic plan with supply side reforms "coming fast" in next couple of weeks. Doubling down in wake of BoE today. https://twitter.com/KateEMcCann/status/1575147986505666564
Kate Ferguson @kateferguson4 · 1m Tory MP and treasury select committee chairman Mel Stride says he does have confidence in Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor.
But he says it was "ill advised" of Kwasi to hint there would be MORE tax cuts after the market baulked at his first Budget
Truss is trapped in to silence .. if she comes out with an emergency statement and declares she plans to continue with her plan she risks more market turmoil .. If she u turns she’s finished. Humiliating prime ministerial silence amidst economic chaos is her only option for now. https://twitter.com/steverichards14/status/1575162526832156673
Have spent all my hours since Fri talking to market participants & UKG politicos & policymakers. The gap between what capital markets need to see (policy reversal, tax rises or spending cuts) & what UKG is planning to do (more detail on supply side reforms) is MASSIVE 1/
Prob is not only that @trussliz & @KwasiKwarteng think they can ride this out. They also have no political space to deliver the kinds of things - a major fiscal & policy course correction - markets now want to see 2/
A reversal on her flagship policy - tax cuts - puts Truss in play with Tory MPs. She'd effectively be a lame duck PM. But no reversal/credible course correction - & the negative market reaction - puts her CX in play 3/
How to square circle? Spending cuts? One option being discussed in Whitehall would be 5y freeze on already tight budgets of Govt departments. But markets would rightly doubt whether there was enough political will to withstand spending pressures in the run-up to an election 4/4
5yr freeze on spending is 25% cuts cross the border...
How does the NHS cut 24% when it needs to find money for social care just to resolve it's own internal issues where lack of social care > bed blocking > inability to admit patients > A&E full > Ambulances caring for patients > call times of 8 hours for anything none life threatening and often 1 hr + for things that are...
How does education?
From years of being a School Governor running Finance
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
Comments
I keep saying this, no one is listening. But you ARE wrong. And so is all the media and many of the experts they are talking to. Actually when the Old Bean geezer hit the media yesterday “with Kwarzi has just killed the NHS” Old Bean is not stupid at economics, but he is angry and mischief making.
Look at the economies of scale in Fridays announcements, to find what needs to be adjusted ASAP not the hoo haa each created.
The loudest hoo haa was cancelling Browns top rate of tax - but the money involved isn’t going to get the IMF attention let alone concern, it costs what £3B? the markets are not reacting to that. What was forgotten about domestically on Friday was the near quarter of a trillion spending pledge to be funded (in the absence of further detail) by borrowing.
At the start of last week i thought, without the sweetener of windfall tax, the huge borrowing pledge might come under pressure from the markets. That was before CoE wrapped further tax cuts round the borrowing.
This is not an ideological attack on the push for growth, I’m just questioning the timing of each announcement. The growth push could have held off 3 weeks easy. Firstly he needed to get our whopping borrowing for bill freeze past the markets without problems. He should have just focussed on this last week, this side of his party’s conference. He tried too much at once. Even despite that, if Kwarteng was in charge of US there wouldn’t be a problem with any of his budget, no run on dollar or criticism from IMF, but we are thought of differently, we can’t get away with what US get away with, we can’t copy them.
Even without the additional tax changes, I am not at all convinced the loan for energy freeze would be allowed by the markets and not get criticised by IMF economists. At the centre of the crisis is not the tax changes for growth budget the Labour Party wants murdered at birth, but the quarter of a trillion borrowing plan to fund the bill freeze thru life which was the Labour Partys brain child in the first place. It’s the bill freeze policy that has to change. It’s scope - borrowing £200B and giving at least half to people who don’t need the money (disgustingly regressive, how come Labour support that?). Even if you keep this scheme, which you shouldn’t do, you should switch to variable price cap, you can half the cost instantly. I question it’s length - why not get it past markets as salami tactics, do you need the 2 and half year promise. It’s funding mechanism, even if you keep this scheme, variable price cap not just cheaper but better targeted where needed, you can at least slash the cost in half, and part fund the rest with a bit of windfall tax.
Year 1 cut all extra curriculum projects and some TAs
Year 2 - the rest of the TAs and support staff
Year 3 - restructure staff structure and remove some teaching staff
Year 4 - panic
Years 2 and 3 are interchangeable but there isn't 5% to play with on schools budgets let alone 25%....
People fainting and hitting their heads from their mortgage renewal quotes ?
The lunchtime News made the sweaty days of Norman Lamont sound like the halcyon days.
Is there any chance at all that the EU would take us back and let us join the Euro?
Rob Lee
@RALee85
·
35m
“'You’re all just cannon fodder. You’re the third group of people to form this battalion. Do you know where the first two groups died? And you’ll die here.' Then he told my commander, 'Send in the meat.' [Us.]" From @yapparova_lilya
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/09/28/honestly-they-re-all-going-to-die-there
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1575147397071634439?s=20&t=EIRY5PtcKhIbi_gqmrnWxw
Long way to go still but happy to say I am still in it at this time.
These have not been seen since Blair
Then CompletelyHypocriticalBully might explode
We need to face up to the ageing thing. No more care for people over 80. Give them a bottle of morphine sulphate
I'm quite serious. This is getting critical for the nation
https://twitter.com/c0mmand0_2022/status/1575153466317901825/photo/1
NOT Starmer - Keir Hardie!
Also don't forget this year additional heating costs need to be found too. I think if I was a Governor I would just close the school down for the winter and revert to remote learning.
Surely there is someone in Russia ready to slot the Vlad?
Plus life expectancy has fallen
https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2291
Chris Philp to write to Secretaries of State within hours
"What efficiency savings are there given levels of inflation??! Amazing bulls***" said a Whitehall source
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1575157707421601799
We are going to have to cut spending quite brutally. I do not see any alternative. The world has run up too much debt during/after Covid and the reckoning is now arriving, for us all. We can see it here and now
We should not be cutting services for the young, they are the future. If you've reached 80-85 you've had a good innings and the state has served you well. It cannot keep you alive forever
Year 0 - head takes early retirement and leaves the mess for someone else to deal with.
"We'll also more money to spend on our public services over the long term.”
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1575157707421601799
I think he was serious, if they tried that line of spin it would feel quite insulting wouldn’t it? 👿
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1575150968169283584
https://www.sfwmd.gov/weather-radar/current-weather-conditions
Looks like storm is getting ready to make landfall somewhere between Ft Myers and Sarasota.
Enough
What have I missed?
Trickier for schools. After all, schools do have an important (unstated) role as childcare. If kids are home 1 day a week, kiss bye bye to a wodge of production by parents.
You could save seven percent or so by abolishing Year Nine. Nobody likes Year Nine.
https://twitter.com/rhiannoneshaw/status/1575080156372221952
"I was prepared to give them a chance but they've made a catastrophic start and the Budget was a serious mistake."
https://twitter.com/TomLarkinSky/status/1575160232690548736
It's also trained them to regard any criticism as being from people who instinctively oppose them, even when that is patently not the case with internal critics, or even to regard the more objections you get the better, as it shows you are 'rattling' people.
Which adds up to locking ourselves in to bad choices, for a lot longer than is healthy.
And efficiency savings are possible - but not today you need to invest a few £bn first to automate things prior to the savings appearing.
So all that's left is picking which services can be cut back to nothing - that you haven't already done so over the past 12 years...
The turnover in heads locally is immense - I'd say the majority of local primaries here had a new head this year or last. There were apparently eight unfilled headships still being advertised at the start of the year in our county, which is unheard of.
Many have retired or left the profession. A few have gone back into the classroom three days a week, or gone on supply. Others have gone into the private sector where, as a result, competition for jobs is intense.
It's arguably worse than Covid
We have all run out of money, and a madman stalks the globe, waving nukes
If you can't staff the school, you have to close. If the classrooms are too cold, you have to close. DfE can huff and puff all they want.
But I suspect you're right: maybe this is a completely mechanical calculation, in which case it's totally meaningless at a time when Covid has distorted the picture, and will soon reverse.
covid was never a threat to young healthy people despite govt propaganda
nuclear war is
I’d prefer it if you delivered the coup de grace
https://www.ft.com/content/ea41ce6d-e8b2-465e-8dff-8b7fa71dc7b4
"The 10-year Treasury yield, a key benchmark for global borrowing costs, has surged to more than 4 per cent from 3.2 per cent at the end of August, leaving it set for the biggest monthly rise since 2003. It is on track for its sharpest ever annual rise. The two-year yield, more sensitive to fluctuations in US monetary policy, has leapt 3.55 percentage points this year, which would also mark a historic increase.
"The big price movements have left investors wary of trading in a market that acts as the bedrock of the global financial system and is typically considered a haven during times of stress."
He'll never recover from this so Truss might as well fire him. As for Truss herself if she's lucky she'll just be thought an airhead but even that's not great for a PM.
As for Starmer Labor have recently employed a hot new agency and I think we're already seeing the results
Absurd.
Kate Ferguson
@kateferguson4
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1m
Tory MP and treasury select committee chairman Mel Stride says he does have confidence in Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor.
But he says it was "ill advised" of Kwasi to hint there would be MORE tax cuts after the market baulked at his first Budget
https://twitter.com/steverichards14/status/1575162526832156673