I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
The government presented £45bn worth of additional borrowing per year heading into a recession and produced no spending cuts and no credible forecast that their plan would result in higher economic growth over the medium term to generate revenue over and above the additional borrowing.
This is it exactly. I'm not instinctively opposed to lowering taxes to some degree to engender growth. But what they presented, or rather didn't, seemed barmy. It was wishes and make believe, and they're now stomping their feet like children angry people are asking for details rather than just accept their word.
i think the pound may be rallying because the markets may be anticipating a fed pivot coming....that will change everything
Haha, the pound is rallying? Thoughts and prayers for Scott P.
Radio 4 PM said the USD was on the descent rather than UKP on the ascent but I haven't checked myself.
Well USD was on the ascent rather than GBP being on the descent all year long, didn't stop people saying the other way around until now though.
Cable is now basically back to where it was before Kwarteng started speaking on Friday.
To be honest Bart, cable is the least of our worries. Yesterday's buy back of Gilts when buying back of Gilts was the last thing the BoE wanted to do, is a big worry, and it was a direct response to the budget-not-a-budget. Whether you agree or not, Friday's event was tantamount to an overtaking manoeuvre around a blind bend.
Actually on this I agree with you.
Its the last thing the Bank wanted to do, but the Bank has spent years doing what it wants to do and has got us into this mess. It printed money and printed money to finance lockdown and now what it wants to do is to sell some of that back, as QT, but the market can't and won't bear it.
Basically the Bank in wanting to do QT now is basically expecting the market to bear the cost of the energy price moves and £80bn of the Covid support on top of that.
Its not happening. The Bank can't do what it wants to do, without the financial reckoning it has put off until now. So unwinding the Covid support via QT is dead in the water now, lets be honest.
I have a solution to the crisis Fed and BofE pivot and start printing money again to save the economy and housing market Problem inflation so we need to slow the velocity of money Solution More covid lockdowns We can now print money without generating inflation
What makes you think anyone will obey covid lockdowns at this point? I'd rather go to prison than obey. It amounts to the same thing.
But you can't usefully disobey a lockdown if there's no cinemas, pubs, sport, flights...
You could go to other people's houses, have people over. That would have helped my frazzled mental state no end.
I did.
Good for you. Stupidly I followed the rules, like a good few others.
I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
No, the market didn't take fright from quantitative tightening. You're rewriting history. The market took fright from the UK government announcing £45bn in unfunded tax cuts and then suggesting additional economic growth from tax cuts on the rich would make them self funding. We're still there a week later which is where bond yields are still up despite the BoE using its big bazooka.
Like many conservatives I'm all in favour of properly targeted tax cuts to grow the economy, but I'm also a proper conservative and want them to be properly funded. Either with credible forecasts that show higher trend growth resulting from said tax cuts, spending cuts or a mixture of both. The government presented £45bn worth of additional borrowing per year heading into a recession and produced no spending cuts and no credible forecast that their plan would result in higher economic growth over the medium term to generate revenue over and above the additional borrowing.
This is an existential crisis for the Tory party and for the UK government's reputation of being a nation of sound finances that pays it's way.
On the other subject of interest rates, due to these tax cuts peak rates are now heading for 6% next year compared to expectations of 4% before the statement. That is going to hurt a lot of people, it's thousands extra per year on mortgages and because of higher inflation real negative interest rates will be largely similar. We've ended up with higher interest rates for absolutely no gain and all pain. It's a disaster.
And yet the Bank reversing tack and reversing its QT decision of a few days earlier stabilised the markets again. The Bank's proposed QT was £80bn, double the proposed tax cut.
Adding today's four polls to the EMA gives Labour a lead of 14% and an overall majority of 114.
Yes, that looks more realistic, though a simple average may not be a statistically valid methodology.
But it's not a simple average, it's an Exponentially Moving Average!
EDIT The weight of all the previous polls decay by 10% whenever a new poll is added to the list. So a poll taken six polls ago has weight .9x.9x.9x.9x.9x.9 i.e. 53%
I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
Any proof for that?
I mean on a timeline it was the statement that caused the reaction in the markets and I don't know exactly what you are basing this on. Which high level voices in the financial world have been saying that.
On a timeline, the Bank announced it would begin QT only last week.
Though it took some time for people to fully comprehend just what that meant, the sell off of Sterling began immediately, before the Chancellor even began to speak on Friday it had already started falling. Yes the markets overreacted to the Chancellor's statement, but missing what the Bank did is missing a critical piece of the puzzle.
The Bank reversing their QT decision has brought some measure of stability back to the markets.
QE combined with raising interest rates is not a stable policy combination.
The fact that the BoE was forced into it in order to prevent insolvency of pension funds is not a triumph of policy, nor one that can last. The clock is ticking on it already.
There is no stable policy combination though, and you were in favour of Covid lockdowns, this is the end result.
You don't get to spend hundreds of billions for Covid, then hundreds of billions for gas, put it on a national credit card bought off by the Bank of England printing money, then expect that to be unwound without it causing turmoil.
Had the Bank not engaged in QE in the first place, we'd never have been able to afford lockdown, and this reckoning would have happened years ago. You can only kick the can so far.
Oh come on: this isn't the result of Covid lockdowns (except possibly the result of Chinese Covid lockdowns on the world economy).
The economic problems we're suffering from are mostly the same as all countries:
(a) The removal of a very large amount of natural gas from the world market, which is sending gas and electricity prices through the roof.
(b) This is leading to inflation, resulting in pressure on wages, on government costs (the triple lock in the UK making it worse) and on the rate at which the government borrows.
(c) In parallel to this, there are long term secular trends in public expenditure that make it very hard for governments - in particular the issue of an ageing population, and a potentially inverting population pyramid. (See Japan and Italy for the long-term impacts of demographics on economic growth.)
(d) Finally, there are some non-trivial UK-specific headwinds - notably an excessive reliance on consumption for economic growth, high levels of consumer debt and (relatedly) a general mortgaging of the assets of UK PLC.
But we've gone pretty quickly from being seen as one of the safest countries in the G7 against default to one of the riskiest in the space of a few months? Why? None of those factors would suggest that. It's due to the recklessness of the government.
Well, there's a fair amount of overreaction in the market's reaction.
Here's my theory: most countries are choosing austerity in response to the impact from Ukraine. Belts are being tightened, and cuts are being made. That was also the path of the UK Government under Sunak. Caution was the watchword.
Now, by contrast, the UK is cutting taxes to try and get the economy moving (at the same time as offering massive support for energy bills). @BartholomewRoberts is right that we probably should be looking to reduce the tax burden. But it's also the case that we should seek to balance the budget, because there are second order effects (such as structurally higher interest rates) that come from not doing that.
Had Kwarteng come out with a plan that contained tax cuts, and also reductions in spending, then the market would have responded differently. But claiming that the budget would somehow pay for itself seems optimistic.
Tory MPs are threatening to block the abolition of the 45p tax rate as Liz Truss faces a rebellion over the mini-Budget.
Some Conservative backbenchers are furious about the measure, arguing that it is “toxic” and has come at “a high political cost for very little benefit”.
MPs have told how they are getting “shouted at in the street” about the tax cut for top earners while their inboxes are flooded with correspondence from constituents angry about the move.
Rebel Tories are preparing to vote down sections of the Finance Bill to block the abolition of the 45p rate by supporting amendments that
i think the pound may be rallying because the markets may be anticipating a fed pivot coming....that will change everything
Haha, the pound is rallying? Thoughts and prayers for Scott P.
Radio 4 PM said the USD was on the descent rather than UKP on the ascent but I haven't checked myself.
Well USD was on the ascent rather than GBP being on the descent all year long, didn't stop people saying the other way around until now though.
Cable is now basically back to where it was before Kwarteng started speaking on Friday.
To be honest Bart, cable is the least of our worries. Yesterday's buy back of Gilts when buying back of Gilts was the last thing the BoE wanted to do, is a big worry, and it was a direct response to the budget-not-a-budget. Whether you agree or not, Friday's event was tantamount to an overtaking manoeuvre around a blind bend.
Actually on this I agree with you.
Its the last thing the Bank wanted to do, but the Bank has spent years doing what it wants to do and has got us into this mess. It printed money and printed money to finance lockdown and now what it wants to do is to sell some of that back, as QT, but the market can't and won't bear it.
Basically the Bank in wanting to do QT now is basically expecting the market to bear the cost of the energy price moves and £80bn of the Covid support on top of that.
Its not happening. The Bank can't do what it wants to do, without the financial reckoning it has put off until now. So unwinding the Covid support via QT is dead in the water now, lets be honest.
But when the BoE announced £80bn in quantitative tightening the markets didn't move, bond yields were static and sterling likewise. The energy spending, slow interest rate rises and QT were all known quantities heading into Friday and this week. Markets moved on Friday, not Thursday. They moved because the government announced a series of tax cuts and didn't show any method of funding them beyond "if you believe hard enough then it will come true".
I have a solution to the crisis Fed and BofE pivot and start printing money again to save the economy and housing market Problem inflation so we need to slow the velocity of money Solution More covid lockdowns We can now print money without generating inflation
What makes you think anyone will obey covid lockdowns at this point? I'd rather go to prison than obey. It amounts to the same thing.
But you can't usefully disobey a lockdown if there's no cinemas, pubs, sport, flights...
You could go to other people's houses, have people over. That would have helped my frazzled mental state no end.
I did.
Good for you. Stupidly I followed the rules, like a good few others.
Yes, well, I have severe MH problems too and I thought and still think it would cost the state less if I controlled them by being flexible over rules, rather than adhered to the letter of the law.
Macron threatens to dissolve Parliament if his pension age increase from 62 - 65 is not passed as opposition and strikes mount
Whether one likes Macron or not, at least he has spent considerable time seeking political capital to make changes he wants, and invested a lot of time in it.
He didn't come up with radical, uncosted fantasies in 2 weeks and splooge it out with no preparation whatsoever.
@RedfieldWilton I am sure somebody will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the 1st subset (tiny sample - mega legit warning) in 7 years that shows Scottish Labour ahead in voting intention for next GE. @AnasSarwar
Tory MPs are threatening to block the abolition of the 45p tax rate as Liz Truss faces a rebellion over the mini-Budget.
Some Conservative backbenchers are furious about the measure, arguing that it is “toxic” and has come at “a high political cost for very little benefit”.
MPs have told how they are getting “shouted at in the street” about the tax cut for top earners while their inboxes are flooded with correspondence from constituents angry about the move.
Rebel Tories are preparing to vote down sections of the Finance Bill to block the abolition of the 45p rate by supporting amendments that
i think the pound may be rallying because the markets may be anticipating a fed pivot coming....that will change everything
Haha, the pound is rallying? Thoughts and prayers for Scott P.
Radio 4 PM said the USD was on the descent rather than UKP on the ascent but I haven't checked myself.
Well USD was on the ascent rather than GBP being on the descent all year long, didn't stop people saying the other way around until now though.
Cable is now basically back to where it was before Kwarteng started speaking on Friday.
Oh please stop with the “Cable” - I get it sounds like it’s authoritative city speak but unless you are in that world - and I’ve heard it used here more since Cicero used it the other week than I ever heard it in years of doing currency transactions - it’s not really a thing. It’s exciting to have a new word for something but it’s really silly.
Would Cable convince me? Nah. Not even in Davey's locker.
Actually that was quite clever so I gave it a like.
“Cable” doesn’t sound silly - “boulay” - it’s a proper jargon word, from when learning about how your currency is tanking on Wall Street had been technologically upgraded from homing pigeon.
Tory MPs are threatening to block the abolition of the 45p tax rate as Liz Truss faces a rebellion over the mini-Budget.
Some Conservative backbenchers are furious about the measure, arguing that it is “toxic” and has come at “a high political cost for very little benefit”.
MPs have told how they are getting “shouted at in the street” about the tax cut for top earners while their inboxes are flooded with correspondence from constituents angry about the move.
Rebel Tories are preparing to vote down sections of the Finance Bill to block the abolition of the 45p rate by supporting amendments that
I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
No, the market didn't take fright from quantitative tightening. You're rewriting history. The market took fright from the UK government announcing £45bn in unfunded tax cuts and then suggesting additional economic growth from tax cuts on the rich would make them self funding. We're still there a week later which is where bond yields are still up despite the BoE using its big bazooka.
Like many conservatives I'm all in favour of properly targeted tax cuts to grow the economy, but I'm also a proper conservative and want them to be properly funded. Either with credible forecasts that show higher trend growth resulting from said tax cuts, spending cuts or a mixture of both. The government presented £45bn worth of additional borrowing per year heading into a recession and produced no spending cuts and no credible forecast that their plan would result in higher economic growth over the medium term to generate revenue over and above the additional borrowing.
This is an existential crisis for the Tory party and for the UK government's reputation of being a nation of sound finances that pays it's way.
On the other subject of interest rates, due to these tax cuts peak rates are now heading for 6% next year compared to expectations of 4% before the statement. That is going to hurt a lot of people, it's thousands extra per year on mortgages and because of higher inflation real negative interest rates will be largely similar. We've ended up with higher interest rates for absolutely no gain and all pain. It's a disaster.
And yet the Bank reversing tack and reversing its QT decision of a few days earlier stabilised the markets again. The Bank's proposed QT was £80bn, double the proposed tax cut.
Tory MPs are threatening to block the abolition of the 45p tax rate as Liz Truss faces a rebellion over the mini-Budget.
Some Conservative backbenchers are furious about the measure, arguing that it is “toxic” and has come at “a high political cost for very little benefit”.
MPs have told how they are getting “shouted at in the street” about the tax cut for top earners while their inboxes are flooded with correspondence from constituents angry about the move.
Rebel Tories are preparing to vote down sections of the Finance Bill to block the abolition of the 45p rate by supporting amendments that
i think the pound may be rallying because the markets may be anticipating a fed pivot coming....that will change everything
Haha, the pound is rallying? Thoughts and prayers for Scott P.
Radio 4 PM said the USD was on the descent rather than UKP on the ascent but I haven't checked myself.
Well USD was on the ascent rather than GBP being on the descent all year long, didn't stop people saying the other way around until now though.
Cable is now basically back to where it was before Kwarteng started speaking on Friday.
Oh please stop with the “Cable” - I get it sounds like it’s authoritative city speak but unless you are in that world - and I’ve heard it used here more since Cicero used it the other week than I ever heard it in years of doing currency transactions - it’s not really a thing. It’s exciting to have a new word for something but it’s really silly.
Would Cable convince me? Nah. Not even in Davey's locker.
Actually that was quite clever so I gave it a like.
“Cable” doesn’t sound silly - “boulay” - it’s a proper jargon word, from when learning about how your currency is tanking on Wall Street had been technologically upgraded from homing pigeon.
Promise you it isn't. It's about like referring to cars as motor cars. Or station wagons, or shooting brakes.
That depends if the government collapses once again before these blasted boundary changes come in (I seriously hope they have started on the next ones). If I am still in Dundee West I will vote Labour. If I am in this new Angus/Perthshire thingy then yes, I probably will. Not exactly going to be cheering when I do though.
Macron threatens to dissolve Parliament if his pension age increase from 62 - 65 is not passed as opposition and strikes mount
Whether one likes Macron or not, at least he has spent considerable time seeking political capital to make changes he wants, and invested a lot of time in it.
He didn't come up with radical, uncosted fantasies in 2 weeks and splooge it out with no preparation whatsoever.
Gordon smiles his wierd smile and rubs his hands as the Tories tie themselves in knots over the not-45% rate.
It's an elephant trap that has waited a long time to be sprung. The fact it was an elephant trap should make it easy to spot. The geniuses in No10 and No11 failed to spot it.
If the Tories did want to get rid of this then the only acceptable time would be one where the country was booming.
I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
No, the market didn't take fright from quantitative tightening. You're rewriting history. The market took fright from the UK government announcing £45bn in unfunded tax cuts and then suggesting additional economic growth from tax cuts on the rich would make them self funding. We're still there a week later which is where bond yields are still up despite the BoE using its big bazooka.
Like many conservatives I'm all in favour of properly targeted tax cuts to grow the economy, but I'm also a proper conservative and want them to be properly funded. Either with credible forecasts that show higher trend growth resulting from said tax cuts, spending cuts or a mixture of both. The government presented £45bn worth of additional borrowing per year heading into a recession and produced no spending cuts and no credible forecast that their plan would result in higher economic growth over the medium term to generate revenue over and above the additional borrowing.
This is an existential crisis for the Tory party and for the UK government's reputation of being a nation of sound finances that pays it's way.
On the other subject of interest rates, due to these tax cuts peak rates are now heading for 6% next year compared to expectations of 4% before the statement. That is going to hurt a lot of people, it's thousands extra per year on mortgages and because of higher inflation real negative interest rates will be largely similar. We've ended up with higher interest rates for absolutely no gain and all pain. It's a disaster.
And yet the Bank reversing tack and reversing its QT decision of a few days earlier stabilised the markets again. The Bank's proposed QT was £80bn, double the proposed tax cut.
They didn't though, did they. Bond yields are still 4.2%, heading into Friday they were 3.6%, the Bank has just shored up the market and stopped the bottom falling out. Gilts now carry a risk premium that they didn't before this disaster. That's a price we're all going to pay along with our children.
You also can't compare quantitative tightening with tax cuts. The former is a one off reduction in money supply, the latter is a yearly decrease in government income that requires at least £45bn in additional bonds needing to be sold.
Don't get me wrong, I think that there's no real need for the tightening, especially when the other option was to raise rates a bit faster, yet that's not what caused all of the ructions in the market this week. That is purely down to the government presenting us with a bunch of unfunded tax cuts and fantasy economics alongside them.
Undoubtedly the 'budget' was a catalyst for a disastrous week, but I think the seeds of government unpopularity have been festering for a while. In my humble opinion, with all the high-flying and generally prosperous intellectuals on here, there's a tendency to over-complicate stuff. Most people haven't a clue what 'gilts' or 'bonds' are.
What they do know is that they have less disposable income and the cost of living is a nightmare. When Truss and Kwarteng use their 'energy support scheme' as a defence (ludicrously) and talk about 'saving on energy', they forget that even with the £2.5k cap most people are paying double what they were paying a year ago. Voters don't do gratitude. Add on high rents, the prospect of higher mortgages, higher food and fuel prices, combined with the toxic decision to give the rich more money, and it gets worse.
Here's my little example from today. I bought a bottle of vegetable oil from the Co-op (own range). £2.40. One year ago, the same oil was £1.09. Now, multiply that inflation by dozens of other basics and your weekly shopping bills have risen immensely - unlike your wages. I'm lucky enough to be able to withstand it. But we need to look at it from the point of view of the tens of milions of people who don't have much disposable income. They're pissed off, and blaming the government. That's what people do.
Great post, and a very useful reminder of how little of what is discussed on here is relevant to most voters.
However, I would add that, whilst 'gilts' and 'bonds' won't stick, most people will have picked up on the sense of incredulity and uncertainty and will feel the rug has been pulled out from under them. To give one example, the weekly MSE email, which is absurdly popular, basically says you're f*cked if you mortgage is coming to an end. That's a disastrous look for any government.
Thanks, and I agree; though I did mention the prospect of higher mortgages in my post. We're all (including me) a bit esoteric on here. Ordinary folk with not much spare income think they're being shafted at the moment, and blame the Tory government. As do I.
I suspect the repitition of "2.5% growth will solve all this" didn't help at all. No one sane can see where that is coming from in any Western economy any time soon with any policy mix whatsoever. It smacks of magical thinking. Because it is at root.
I have my card records of my 3 Covid vaccination records in my married name but my passport is in my maiden name as I use this for pretty much all purposes.
I'm travelling to the US next month and the US requires proof of vaccination but in the name used in my travel documents. I assume a marriage certificate won't help.
Do I just ask my GP to change the name and, if so, how then do I get a vaccination record in that name in time for my travel. I have only just realised the issue and am leaving on 25th October.
Thanks in advance.
You will need paper certificates ordered from the website or the phone app certificates - the vaccine cards won't do. Can you change your name in the NHS app or online?
You can get an AKA in your passport by renewing it, but I don't think they hand them out like candy, so it might be involved.
I have a solution to the crisis Fed and BofE pivot and start printing money again to save the economy and housing market Problem inflation so we need to slow the velocity of money Solution More covid lockdowns We can now print money without generating inflation
What makes you think anyone will obey covid lockdowns at this point? I'd rather go to prison than obey. It amounts to the same thing.
But you can't usefully disobey a lockdown if there's no cinemas, pubs, sport, flights...
You could go to other people's houses, have people over. That would have helped my frazzled mental state no end.
I did.
Good for you. Stupidly I followed the rules, like a good few others.
Yes, well, I have severe MH problems too and I thought and still think it would cost the state less if I controlled them by being flexible over rules, rather than adhered to the letter of the law.
I mean it, good for you. I was also paranoid about the effect on my standing in the solicitors profession, but I guess it's a truism that if every solicitor with a driving offense on their record were struck off, there wouldn't be a profession left, and I'm sure the same was true for FPNs.
i think the pound may be rallying because the markets may be anticipating a fed pivot coming....that will change everything
Haha, the pound is rallying? Thoughts and prayers for Scott P.
Radio 4 PM said the USD was on the descent rather than UKP on the ascent but I haven't checked myself.
Well USD was on the ascent rather than GBP being on the descent all year long, didn't stop people saying the other way around until now though.
Cable is now basically back to where it was before Kwarteng started speaking on Friday.
Oh please stop with the “Cable” - I get it sounds like it’s authoritative city speak but unless you are in that world - and I’ve heard it used here more since Cicero used it the other week than I ever heard it in years of doing currency transactions - it’s not really a thing. It’s exciting to have a new word for something but it’s really silly.
Would Cable convince me? Nah. Not even in Davey's locker.
Actually that was quite clever so I gave it a like.
“Cable” doesn’t sound silly - “boulay” - it’s a proper jargon word, from when learning about how your currency is tanking on Wall Street had been technologically upgraded from homing pigeon.
Promise you it isn't. It's about like referring to cars as motor cars. Or station wagons, or shooting brakes.
I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
No, the market didn't take fright from quantitative tightening. You're rewriting history. The market took fright from the UK government announcing £45bn in unfunded tax cuts and then suggesting additional economic growth from tax cuts on the rich would make them self funding. We're still there a week later which is where bond yields are still up despite the BoE using its big bazooka.
Like many conservatives I'm all in favour of properly targeted tax cuts to grow the economy, but I'm also a proper conservative and want them to be properly funded. Either with credible forecasts that show higher trend growth resulting from said tax cuts, spending cuts or a mixture of both. The government presented £45bn worth of additional borrowing per year heading into a recession and produced no spending cuts and no credible forecast that their plan would result in higher economic growth over the medium term to generate revenue over and above the additional borrowing.
This is an existential crisis for the Tory party and for the UK government's reputation of being a nation of sound finances that pays it's way.
On the other subject of interest rates, due to these tax cuts peak rates are now heading for 6% next year compared to expectations of 4% before the statement. That is going to hurt a lot of people, it's thousands extra per year on mortgages and because of higher inflation real negative interest rates will be largely similar. We've ended up with higher interest rates for absolutely no gain and all pain. It's a disaster.
And yet the Bank reversing tack and reversing its QT decision of a few days earlier stabilised the markets again. The Bank's proposed QT was £80bn, double the proposed tax cut.
It's not rewriting history - seeing this whole episode without acknowledging the role of the BOE in buying British Government debt and then switching to flogging it off, and blaming it all instead on Kwarteng's silly little tax cuts is history with the better half of it missing.
I have a solution to the crisis Fed and BofE pivot and start printing money again to save the economy and housing market Problem inflation so we need to slow the velocity of money Solution More covid lockdowns We can now print money without generating inflation
What makes you think anyone will obey covid lockdowns at this point? I'd rather go to prison than obey. It amounts to the same thing.
But you can't usefully disobey a lockdown if there's no cinemas, pubs, sport, flights...
You seem to forget that lockdowns involved not being allowed out of our houses for more than two hours a day, police arresting people for being more than five miles away from their place of residence without a reason, the police breaking down people's doors on suspicion they had people from outside their household on the premises, and people being fined five figure sums for hosting raves out in the middle of the woods.
There is more to life than going to bars and shopping.
Yeah well fuck that, I live on Dartmoor and can do whatever the fuck I like in the name of supervising my livestock. Anyone hosting raves out in the middle of the woods should be fined everything they possess and imprisoned for decades, lockdown or not.
Bah. I was a raver in my youth and say let the young ones have at it. You only live once.
I have my card records of my 3 Covid vaccination records in my married name but my passport is in my maiden name as I use this for pretty much all purposes.
I'm travelling to the US next month and the US requires proof of vaccination but in the name used in my travel documents. I assume a marriage certificate won't help.
Do I just ask my GP to change the name and, if so, how then do I get a vaccination record in that name in time for my travel. I have only just realised the issue and am leaving on 25th October.
Thanks in advance.
You will need paper certificates ordered from the website or the phone app certificates - the vaccine cards won't do. Can you change your name in the NHS app or online?
You can get an AKA in your passport by renewing it, but I don't think they hand them out like candy, so it might be involved.
Another thought: in the ESTA application, I think you can give AKA names, from memory. Maybe do a new ESTA with both names in, and also take your marriage certificate.
Edit: worth pointing out that your vaccine certificates are much more likely to be checked by your airline than anyone at immigration these days, which both simplifies and complicates the issue: a border agent probably knows the law, the lad on check in probably doesn't.
Anyway looking on the bright side Liz Truss has assured us several times today that after her intervention NO household will pay more than £2500 a year on energy bills. Wow! That is good news, I live in a six bedroom house and was already paying more than that last year...
Did she say who does pay for the freeze policy Pete?
No but she was very pleased with herself, so excited in fact that she made the error to which I have hinted.
Anyway young Rabbit, like my children your tax pounds will be paying for this measure and the 45% tax reduction that won't trouble me, for years to come. I thank you in advance because I will be long dead by the time my debt to you is settled.
I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
Any proof for that?
I mean on a timeline it was the statement that caused the reaction in the markets and I don't know exactly what you are basing this on. Which high level voices in the financial world have been saying that.
On a timeline, the Bank announced it would begin QT only last week.
Though it took some time for people to fully comprehend just what that meant, the sell off of Sterling began immediately, before the Chancellor even began to speak on Friday it had already started falling. Yes the markets overreacted to the Chancellor's statement, but missing what the Bank did is missing a critical piece of the puzzle.
The Bank reversing their QT decision has brought some measure of stability back to the markets.
QE combined with raising interest rates is not a stable policy combination.
The fact that the BoE was forced into it in order to prevent insolvency of pension funds is not a triumph of policy, nor one that can last. The clock is ticking on it already.
There is no stable policy combination though, and you were in favour of Covid lockdowns, this is the end result.
You don't get to spend hundreds of billions for Covid, then hundreds of billions for gas, put it on a national credit card bought off by the Bank of England printing money, then expect that to be unwound without it causing turmoil.
Had the Bank not engaged in QE in the first place, we'd never have been able to afford lockdown, and this reckoning would have happened years ago. You can only kick the can so far.
Oh come on: this isn't the result of Covid lockdowns (except possibly the result of Chinese Covid lockdowns on the world economy).
The economic problems we're suffering from are mostly the same as all countries:
(a) The removal of a very large amount of natural gas from the world market, which is sending gas and electricity prices through the roof.
(b) This is leading to inflation, resulting in pressure on wages, on government costs (the triple lock in the UK making it worse) and on the rate at which the government borrows.
(c) In parallel to this, there are long term secular trends in public expenditure that make it very hard for governments - in particular the issue of an ageing population, and a potentially inverting population pyramid. (See Japan and Italy for the long-term impacts of demographics on economic growth.)
(d) Finally, there are some non-trivial UK-specific headwinds - notably an excessive reliance on consumption for economic growth, high levels of consumer debt and (relatedly) a general mortgaging of the assets of UK PLC.
But we've gone pretty quickly from being seen as one of the safest countries in the G7 against default to one of the riskiest in the space of a few months? Why? None of those factors would suggest that. It's due to the recklessness of the government.
Well, there's a fair amount of overreaction in the market's reaction.
Here's my theory: most countries are choosing austerity in response to the impact from Ukraine. Belts are being tightened, and cuts are being made. That was also the path of the UK Government under Sunak. Caution was the watchword.
Now, by contrast, the UK is cutting taxes to try and get the economy moving (at the same time as offering massive support for energy bills). @BartholomewRoberts is right that we probably should be looking to reduce the tax burden. But it's also the case that we should seek to balance the budget, because there are second order effects (such as structurally higher interest rates) that come from not doing that.
Had Kwarteng come out with a plan that contained tax cuts, and also reductions in spending, then the market would have responded differently. But claiming that the budget would somehow pay for itself seems optimistic.
Isn't he an old university friend of yours?
Maybe the markets have overreacted. Maybe not. Paradoxically I wonder if some of the shift in the last 24 hours is because people are assuming that Truss or her plans are toast and they will have to change course. It will be interesting to see what the market reaction to her speech will be next week. If she tries 'the lady's not turning' and the markets panic it's surely over.
I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
No, the market didn't take fright from quantitative tightening. You're rewriting history. The market took fright from the UK government announcing £45bn in unfunded tax cuts and then suggesting additional economic growth from tax cuts on the rich would make them self funding. We're still there a week later which is where bond yields are still up despite the BoE using its big bazooka.
Like many conservatives I'm all in favour of properly targeted tax cuts to grow the economy, but I'm also a proper conservative and want them to be properly funded. Either with credible forecasts that show higher trend growth resulting from said tax cuts, spending cuts or a mixture of both. The government presented £45bn worth of additional borrowing per year heading into a recession and produced no spending cuts and no credible forecast that their plan would result in higher economic growth over the medium term to generate revenue over and above the additional borrowing.
This is an existential crisis for the Tory party and for the UK government's reputation of being a nation of sound finances that pays it's way.
On the other subject of interest rates, due to these tax cuts peak rates are now heading for 6% next year compared to expectations of 4% before the statement. That is going to hurt a lot of people, it's thousands extra per year on mortgages and because of higher inflation real negative interest rates will be largely similar. We've ended up with higher interest rates for absolutely no gain and all pain. It's a disaster.
And yet the Bank reversing tack and reversing its QT decision of a few days earlier stabilised the markets again. The Bank's proposed QT was £80bn, double the proposed tax cut.
They didn't though, did they. Bond yields are still 4.2%, heading into Friday they were 3.6%, the Bank has just shored up the market and stopped the bottom falling out. Gilts now carry a risk premium that they didn't before this disaster. That's a price we're all going to pay along with our children.
You also can't compare quantitative tightening with tax cuts. The former is a one off reduction in money supply, the latter is a yearly decrease in government income that requires at least £45bn in additional bonds needing to be sold.
Don't get me wrong, I think that there's no real need for the tightening, especially when the other option was to raise rates a bit faster, yet that's not what caused all of the ructions in the market this week. That is purely down to the government presenting us with a bunch of unfunded tax cuts and fantasy economics alongside them.
That's surely because the Bank has only temporarily stopped trying to sell British Government bonds. They have temporarily paused their policy, causing a temporary respite.
I have my card records of my 3 Covid vaccination records in my married name but my passport is in my maiden name as I use this for pretty much all purposes.
I'm travelling to the US next month and the US requires proof of vaccination but in the name used in my travel documents. I assume a marriage certificate won't help.
Do I just ask my GP to change the name and, if so, how then do I get a vaccination record in that name in time for my travel. I have only just realised the issue and am leaving on 25th October.
Thanks in advance.
You will need paper certificates ordered from the website or the phone app certificates - the vaccine cards won't do. Can you change your name in the NHS app or online?
You can get an AKA in your passport by renewing it, but I don't think they hand them out like candy, so it might be involved.
A quick google brings this up from someone who went through it:
Truss seems remarkably keen to emphasis how independent the BoE is now that she is in utter shit.
Is this the same Truss who hinted strongly during leadership election that this will be reviewed.
I think if the government proposed anything that had a whiff of interfering in monetary policy the bottom really would fall out for sterling and gilts. We'd be viewed as a rich (for now) Venezuela.
Gordon smiles his wierd smile and rubs his hands as the Tories tie themselves in knots over the not-45% rate.
It's an elephant trap that has waited a long time to be sprung. The fact it was an elephant trap should make it easy to spot. The geniuses in No10 and No11 failed to spot it.
If the Tories did want to get rid of this then the only acceptable time would be one where the country was booming.
Yes, it's a piddling irritant that reduces the IT take and the incentives to generate income here. But it's a totemic red herring which they've wasted political capital pursuing, even if they are right that we'd be better off without it.
PMs are leaders, they don't simply blow in the wind, this is true. But they do need to bring their own side with them, they cannot dictate how their MPs are supposed to act, they need to persuade them to some degree.
You'd think Truss would know that given she is in post because Boris lost trust with his MPs because he constantly demanded of them (to defend him) and was not longer giving them anything in return. But then, given she opposed that action, I suppose it should be no surprise she seems to have regarded MP backing as automatic.
There seems to have been little mention of the Kantar poll putting the Tories within 4 points of Labour. Did I miss the discussion, or are we just ignoring it?
First day of field work was before the Not-A-Budget.
Thanks, Al, but it is still a strikingly low number.
I think Kantar have a reputaution for being a bit maverick, which is not to say they are necessarily wrong, just different.
It is. Fieldwork was entirely before Monday though. Which is when the market turmoil hit. Still an outlier on what preceded that.
Just a movement of 3 from Kantor, not wildly different from their previous poll.
What I'm really interested in is whether, as I suspect it might have, that Yougov poll had later fieldwork than the others. More after yesterday afternoon / lunchtime.
Yougov methodology produces too much fluctuations. Things may have been working for them once, but not at the moment - it needs to go into the garage and poked around under the hood.
28th July they had a Labour lead of 1. 22nd July 7. It’s like a broken cursor leaping inaccurately across a screen.
The fact that @TheScreamingEagles is polled almost every week should show that something isn't entirely random about the polls.
Polls tend to be dominated by people who are interested in politics and are happy to sit down and share their views, a bit like this site really. They tend to jump around more based on the news as a result.
Possibly more of a challenge to get representative samples for Yougov - under some news narratives some persuasions of passionate political people may go to ground their heart not in replying?
I have my card records of my 3 Covid vaccination records in my married name but my passport is in my maiden name as I use this for pretty much all purposes.
I'm travelling to the US next month and the US requires proof of vaccination but in the name used in my travel documents. I assume a marriage certificate won't help.
Do I just ask my GP to change the name and, if so, how then do I get a vaccination record in that name in time for my travel. I have only just realised the issue and am leaving on 25th October.
I have been mulling over what I would've done differently if I were in charge and also with no access to any financial modelling. What I would have done:
- Scrapped the rise in NI - Scrapped the rise in corporation tax - Kept the 45% rate - Considered changing the 40% entry rate to a higher threshold but make it something like 42 or 43% (aim being to reduce taxes on middle classes so they can spend more - modelled to find the best balance of threshold). In better times later on merge in the 45% rate to this. - Get rid of different salary bandings for free childcare. This is a disincentive to work at certain salary levels. Everyone gets the same. - Get rid of the pension triple lock (pensioners have done well for a long time) - Introduce benefits triple lock - Means-test free bus passes, winter fuel allowance and TV licences
Who knows how this would financially work out for the country but it is something that I think I could sell to the people effectively.
I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
No, the market didn't take fright from quantitative tightening. You're rewriting history. The market took fright from the UK government announcing £45bn in unfunded tax cuts and then suggesting additional economic growth from tax cuts on the rich would make them self funding. We're still there a week later which is where bond yields are still up despite the BoE using its big bazooka.
Like many conservatives I'm all in favour of properly targeted tax cuts to grow the economy, but I'm also a proper conservative and want them to be properly funded. Either with credible forecasts that show higher trend growth resulting from said tax cuts, spending cuts or a mixture of both. The government presented £45bn worth of additional borrowing per year heading into a recession and produced no spending cuts and no credible forecast that their plan would result in higher economic growth over the medium term to generate revenue over and above the additional borrowing.
This is an existential crisis for the Tory party and for the UK government's reputation of being a nation of sound finances that pays it's way.
On the other subject of interest rates, due to these tax cuts peak rates are now heading for 6% next year compared to expectations of 4% before the statement. That is going to hurt a lot of people, it's thousands extra per year on mortgages and because of higher inflation real negative interest rates will be largely similar. We've ended up with higher interest rates for absolutely no gain and all pain. It's a disaster.
And yet the Bank reversing tack and reversing its QT decision of a few days earlier stabilised the markets again. The Bank's proposed QT was £80bn, double the proposed tax cut.
It's not rewriting history - seeing this whole episode without acknowledging the role of the BOE in buying British Government debt and then switching to flogging it off, and blaming it all instead on Kwarteng's silly little tax cuts is history with the better half of it missing.
'Silly little tax cuts'? I thought they were the biggest package of tax cuts in generations.
Have just been trying to work out what the last few seats would be on the poll above. According to Electoral Calculus the last 3 would be:
Dumfriesshire etc Aberdeenshire W Moray
So complete wipe out in England!
In reality a poll like this would break the swing calculators
That's a rather hilarious suggestion. I find it hard to believe even in this scenario, as you say the calculators cannot handle this sort of thing, but still amusing.
I have my card records of my 3 Covid vaccination records in my married name but my passport is in my maiden name as I use this for pretty much all purposes.
I'm travelling to the US next month and the US requires proof of vaccination but in the name used in my travel documents. I assume a marriage certificate won't help.
Do I just ask my GP to change the name and, if so, how then do I get a vaccination record in that name in time for my travel. I have only just realised the issue and am leaving on 25th October.
Thanks in advance.
You will need paper certificates ordered from the website or the phone app certificates - the vaccine cards won't do. Can you change your name in the NHS app or online?
You can get an AKA in your passport by renewing it, but I don't think they hand them out like candy, so it might be involved.
A quick google brings this up from someone who went through it:
You should check that your first name and your surname on your passport match how they are displayed by your NHS COVID Pass at least 3 weeks before you travel. If the names are different, contact your GP practice to have your details updated
I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
No, the market didn't take fright from quantitative tightening. You're rewriting history. The market took fright from the UK government announcing £45bn in unfunded tax cuts and then suggesting additional economic growth from tax cuts on the rich would make them self funding. We're still there a week later which is where bond yields are still up despite the BoE using its big bazooka.
Like many conservatives I'm all in favour of properly targeted tax cuts to grow the economy, but I'm also a proper conservative and want them to be properly funded. Either with credible forecasts that show higher trend growth resulting from said tax cuts, spending cuts or a mixture of both. The government presented £45bn worth of additional borrowing per year heading into a recession and produced no spending cuts and no credible forecast that their plan would result in higher economic growth over the medium term to generate revenue over and above the additional borrowing.
This is an existential crisis for the Tory party and for the UK government's reputation of being a nation of sound finances that pays it's way.
On the other subject of interest rates, due to these tax cuts peak rates are now heading for 6% next year compared to expectations of 4% before the statement. That is going to hurt a lot of people, it's thousands extra per year on mortgages and because of higher inflation real negative interest rates will be largely similar. We've ended up with higher interest rates for absolutely no gain and all pain. It's a disaster.
And yet the Bank reversing tack and reversing its QT decision of a few days earlier stabilised the markets again. The Bank's proposed QT was £80bn, double the proposed tax cut.
They didn't though, did they. Bond yields are still 4.2%, heading into Friday they were 3.6%, the Bank has just shored up the market and stopped the bottom falling out. Gilts now carry a risk premium that they didn't before this disaster. That's a price we're all going to pay along with our children.
You also can't compare quantitative tightening with tax cuts. The former is a one off reduction in money supply, the latter is a yearly decrease in government income that requires at least £45bn in additional bonds needing to be sold.
Don't get me wrong, I think that there's no real need for the tightening, especially when the other option was to raise rates a bit faster, yet that's not what caused all of the ructions in the market this week. That is purely down to the government presenting us with a bunch of unfunded tax cuts and fantasy economics alongside them.
That's surely because the Bank has only temporarily stopped trying to sell British Government bonds. They have temporarily paused their policy, causing a temporary respite.
The QT programme hadn't even started properly. It was merely announced on Thursday with a limit of £80bn and setting out market liquidity and cover that they would sell into.
All of you lot attempting to blame shift Friday's market movements to Thursday are attempting to rewrite history but it's all there in the charts on my terminal. Gilts and sterling held fairly steady on Thursday. On Friday gilt prices and sterling both tanked and then again on Monday because of the idiotic media rounds by the chancellor suggesting that tax cuts on the rich would generate enough additional growth to make these self funding.
Ultimately, politics usually comes down to simple, straightforward points that almost anyone can understand, except for those politicians so close to the trees that they can no longer see the wood.
This was, once, Boris's strength, until his blind spot came along, with even a schoolchild being able to see and understand that he'd wilfully ignored the rules and then lied to everyone about it.
When people are really struggling to afford food and heating, a government that thinks it clever to give millionaires a tax break and allow bankers to return to grotesque bonuses really deserves all that it gets by way of voter response.
I intend staying at home or voting for the independent
What about Plaid in solidarity with HY?
Not for me and it is a lost marginal for the conservatives anyway and I cannot support them under Truss
Before she was elected I said many times on here I did not know her and reserve judgment
It has only taken to last Friday for her to lose me completely with most other conservatives on this forum and in the wider electorate
Her mps must vote down her budget and find a way to remove her
The only sensible policy is the energy. The rest of it is a shambles. Get rid of Liz and Kwasi now.
Problem being that MPs removing Truss won't restore confidence, since who would be confident in a group that ousted the leader the party just chose weeks earlier (even if the MPs themselves did not)? But equally simply 'staying the course' doesn't restore confidence if the course is hated.
That's why they are now screwed - they've ruined any appearance of competence or compassion, but they have no path to restoring that. Because even if the Truss plan works, it was a plan which did not assume the shit show we've had this week and its associated effects (they've been self evidently stunned by it all), so that probably wipes out any gain. And that's the optimistic scenario.
Telegraph reporting tonight that working age benefits will rise by 5.4% (av earnings figure) and not inflation whilst - you guessed it - pensions triple lock remains.
Truss has chosen to have an "emergency meeting with the OBR, tomorrow" according to the Heil.
I wonder if George Osborne has allowed himself a dark smile of satisfaction in recent days. He invented the OBR, and the moment a government tried to bypass it all hell broke loose.
I have been mulling over what I would've done differently if I were in charge and also with no access to any financial modelling. What I would have done:
- Scrapped the rise in NI - Scrapped the rise in corporation tax - Kept the 45% rate - Considered changing the 40% entry rate to a higher threshold but make it something like 42 or 43% (aim being to reduce taxes on middle classes so they can spend more - modelled to find the best balance of threshold). In better times later on merge in the 45% rate to this. - Get rid of different salary bandings for free childcare. This is a disincentive to work at certain salary levels. Everyone gets the same. - Get rid of the pension triple lock (pensioners have done well for a long time) - Introduce benefits triple lock - Means-test free bus passes, winter fuel allowance and TV licences
Who knows how this would financially work out for the country but it is something that I think I could sell to the people effectively.
My problem is 12 years of low Corporation tax has not solved our lack of Corporate investment. So I would argue over the Corporation tax reversal...
Truss has chosen to have an "emergency meeting with the OBR, tomorrow" according to the Heil.
I wonder if George Osborne has allowed himself a dark smile of satisfaction in recent days. He invented the OBR, and the moment a government tried to bypass it all hell broke loose.
I am sure he came up with it to tie the hands of future Governments. I am not sure he expected them to be wearing the same rosettes
Have just been trying to work out what the last few seats would be on the poll above. According to Electoral Calculus the last 3 would be:
Dumfriesshire etc Aberdeenshire W Moray
So complete wipe out in England!
In reality a poll like this would break the swing calculators
And in reality it could be worse, since the models based on UNS don't factor in tactical voting and the LibDems' likely pulling over Labour supporters in their small number of key targets whilst shedding votes to Labour everywhere else.
I notice those shrugging their shoulders - Sean F, William G and Barth - are not mentioning the intervention by the Bank of England to stop pension funds collapsing. As for interest rates, we now have inflation. Of course interest are going to go up. It has already started. But the essential argument was whether the Bank should have gone 0.25% higher on Thursday, which now feels rather academic.
My sense is that certain people cannot accept that whilst Sunak's tax rises were in place the markets had confidence in UK borrowing. Once they were reversed and then some, the markets took fright. It goes against everything believed by people of a certain obsessive ideology. That tax cuts equal economic nirvana and tax rises equals economic doom. Reality is a bit more complicated.
I did mention the Bank's action actually. The Bank chose to engage in QT and that is when the markets took fright, but the mini budget got the blame.
The tax cuts are an irrelevant side show to be honest, though they get the political headlines and will carry the news. The Bank selling rather than buying £80bn of gilts while the State had to borrow to pay for energy support etc would have tipped over the market either way, with or without the taxes.
The Bank reversed their decision to engage in QT and the markets stabilised.
No, the market didn't take fright from quantitative tightening. You're rewriting history. The market took fright from the UK government announcing £45bn in unfunded tax cuts and then suggesting additional economic growth from tax cuts on the rich would make them self funding. We're still there a week later which is where bond yields are still up despite the BoE using its big bazooka.
Like many conservatives I'm all in favour of properly targeted tax cuts to grow the economy, but I'm also a proper conservative and want them to be properly funded. Either with credible forecasts that show higher trend growth resulting from said tax cuts, spending cuts or a mixture of both. The government presented £45bn worth of additional borrowing per year heading into a recession and produced no spending cuts and no credible forecast that their plan would result in higher economic growth over the medium term to generate revenue over and above the additional borrowing.
This is an existential crisis for the Tory party and for the UK government's reputation of being a nation of sound finances that pays it's way.
On the other subject of interest rates, due to these tax cuts peak rates are now heading for 6% next year compared to expectations of 4% before the statement. That is going to hurt a lot of people, it's thousands extra per year on mortgages and because of higher inflation real negative interest rates will be largely similar. We've ended up with higher interest rates for absolutely no gain and all pain. It's a disaster.
And yet the Bank reversing tack and reversing its QT decision of a few days earlier stabilised the markets again. The Bank's proposed QT was £80bn, double the proposed tax cut.
They didn't though, did they. Bond yields are still 4.2%, heading into Friday they were 3.6%, the Bank has just shored up the market and stopped the bottom falling out. Gilts now carry a risk premium that they didn't before this disaster. That's a price we're all going to pay along with our children.
You also can't compare quantitative tightening with tax cuts. The former is a one off reduction in money supply, the latter is a yearly decrease in government income that requires at least £45bn in additional bonds needing to be sold.
Don't get me wrong, I think that there's no real need for the tightening, especially when the other option was to raise rates a bit faster, yet that's not what caused all of the ructions in the market this week. That is purely down to the government presenting us with a bunch of unfunded tax cuts and fantasy economics alongside them.
That's surely because the Bank has only temporarily stopped trying to sell British Government bonds. They have temporarily paused their policy, causing a temporary respite.
The QT programme hadn't even started properly. It was merely announced on Thursday with a limit of £80bn and setting out market liquidity and cover that they would sell into.
All of you lot attempting to blame shift Friday's market movements to Thursday are attempting to rewrite history but it's all there in the charts on my terminal. Gilts and sterling held fairly steady on Thursday. On Friday gilt prices and sterling both tanked and then again on Monday because of the idiotic media rounds by the chancellor suggesting that tax cuts on the rich would generate enough additional growth to make these self funding.
And the pound has recovered. If however, you are insisting that the low current value of British bonds has nothing to do with the fact that the BOE has recently switched from years of buying them up, to now trying to sell a load of them just when global markets are reeling from US interest rate rises, then I really don't know what to say to you.
I have my card records of my 3 Covid vaccination records in my married name but my passport is in my maiden name as I use this for pretty much all purposes.
I'm travelling to the US next month and the US requires proof of vaccination but in the name used in my travel documents. I assume a marriage certificate won't help.
Do I just ask my GP to change the name and, if so, how then do I get a vaccination record in that name in time for my travel. I have only just realised the issue and am leaving on 25th October.
Thanks in advance.
You will need paper certificates ordered from the website or the phone app certificates - the vaccine cards won't do. Can you change your name in the NHS app or online?
You can get an AKA in your passport by renewing it, but I don't think they hand them out like candy, so it might be involved.
Another thought: in the ESTA application, I think you can give AKA names, from memory. Maybe do a new ESTA with both names in, and also take your marriage certificate.
Edit: worth pointing out that your vaccine certificates are much more likely to be checked by your airline than anyone at immigration these days, which both simplifies and complicates the issue: a border agent probably knows the law, the lad on check in probably doesn't.
I entered the US last month; as you say the only check was by the carrier, and a fairly cursory one. Flashing the NHS App would have done it. US immigration weren't interested in vaccination status.
I am very thankful we lost that particular sack of vituperative puss from PB.
Isn't vapid bilge the apposite term?
As the owner of a narrowboat, I can’t see where the adjective “vapid” comes from in this context. “Noxious” would be closer to the truth, especially the other weekend when I spent an hour or so with my hands in it trying to sort out the prop shaft.
There seems to have been little mention of the Kantar poll putting the Tories within 4 points of Labour. Did I miss the discussion, or are we just ignoring it?
First day of field work was before the Not-A-Budget.
Thanks, Al, but it is still a strikingly low number.
I think Kantar have a reputaution for being a bit maverick, which is not to say they are necessarily wrong, just different.
It is. Fieldwork was entirely before Monday though. Which is when the market turmoil hit. Still an outlier on what preceded that.
Just a movement of 3 from Kantor, not wildly different from their previous poll.
What I'm really interested in is whether, as I suspect it might have, that Yougov poll had later fieldwork than the others. More after yesterday afternoon / lunchtime.
Yougov methodology produces too much fluctuations. Things may have been working for them once, but not at the moment - it needs to go into the garage and poked around under the hood.
28th July they had a Labour lead of 1. 22nd July 7. It’s like a broken cursor leaping inaccurately across a screen.
The fact that @TheScreamingEagles is polled almost every week should show that something isn't entirely random about the polls.
Polls tend to be dominated by people who are interested in politics and are happy to sit down and share their views, a bit like this site really. They tend to jump around more based on the news as a result.
Possibly more of a challenge to get representative samples for Yougov - under some news narratives some persuasions of passionate political people may go to ground their heart not in replying?
you always know someone is losing when they start arguing that polling companies don't know how to get random sample of people
I am very thankful we lost that particular sack of vituperative puss from PB.
Pus, and he is a great and good man. Just a bit touchy.
He may have been a delight elsewhere, but he chose this place as a free venue to give vent to his most negative emotions and generally pour bitter scorn on anyone not blessed with enough intelligence to agree with him.
I'm not going to quote the whole article but I'll quote 2 paragraphs
More than four million people receive Universal Credit. The Resolution Foundation think tank said some working families could be £1,000 a year worse off if benefits do not rise with average prices.
However, ministers did move to reassure pensioners that the “triple lock” remains, meaning state pensions will rise in line with inflation despite the wider spending squeeze.
So they will protect pensioners in the hope that they continue to vote Tory.
Comments
Would be nice if that’s true in 2024/5.
Its the last thing the Bank wanted to do, but the Bank has spent years doing what it wants to do and has got us into this mess. It printed money and printed money to finance lockdown and now what it wants to do is to sell some of that back, as QT, but the market can't and won't bear it.
Basically the Bank in wanting to do QT now is basically expecting the market to bear the cost of the energy price moves and £80bn of the Covid support on top of that.
Its not happening. The Bank can't do what it wants to do, without the financial reckoning it has put off until now. So unwinding the Covid support via QT is dead in the water now, lets be honest.
EDIT The weight of all the previous polls decay by 10% whenever a new poll is added to the list. So a poll taken six polls ago has weight .9x.9x.9x.9x.9x.9 i.e. 53%
Here's my theory: most countries are choosing austerity in response to the impact from Ukraine. Belts are being tightened, and cuts are being made. That was also the path of the UK Government under Sunak. Caution was the watchword.
Now, by contrast, the UK is cutting taxes to try and get the economy moving (at the same time as offering massive support for energy bills). @BartholomewRoberts is right that we probably should be looking to reduce the tax burden. But it's also the case that we should seek to balance the budget, because there are second order effects (such as structurally higher interest rates) that come from not doing that.
Had Kwarteng come out with a plan that contained tax cuts, and also reductions in spending, then the market would have responded differently. But claiming that the budget would somehow pay for itself seems optimistic.
Google has announced plans to shut down its Stadia cloud gaming service and refund players.
Stadia was touted as a "Netflix for games" when it launched in November 2019, allowing players to stream games online without owning a console.
But the service will now come to an end on 18 January 2023 because of a lack of "traction" with gamers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63082320
KK: Fuck Off, I am in charge now.
OBR, this week:...
KK: Ummm, can we come over...
Liz Truss is embarked on a course of sheer madness, taking the Bank of England with her
Recent events are result of the fiscal misadventure of a careless, ideological government
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/09/29/liz-truss-embarked-course-sheer-madness-taking-bank-england1/
Macron threatens to dissolve Parliament if his pension age increase from 62 - 65 is not passed as opposition and strikes mount
Some Conservative backbenchers are furious about the measure, arguing that it is “toxic” and has come at “a high political cost for very little benefit”.
MPs have told how they are getting “shouted at in the street” about the tax cut for top earners while their inboxes are flooded with correspondence from constituents angry about the move.
Rebel Tories are preparing to vote down sections of the Finance Bill to block the abolition of the 45p rate by supporting amendments that
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/29/tory-mps-threaten-block-scrapping-45p-tax-rate/
He didn't come up with radical, uncosted fantasies in 2 weeks and splooge it out with no preparation whatsoever.
“Cable” doesn’t sound silly - “boulay” - it’s a proper jargon word, from when learning about how your currency is tanking on Wall Street had been technologically upgraded from homing pigeon.
It's almost a perfect match
If the Tories did want to get rid of this then the only acceptable time would be one where the country was booming.
You also can't compare quantitative tightening with tax cuts. The former is a one off reduction in money supply, the latter is a yearly decrease in government income that requires at least £45bn in additional bonds needing to be sold.
Don't get me wrong, I think that there's no real need for the tightening, especially when the other option was to raise rates a bit faster, yet that's not what caused all of the ructions in the market this week. That is purely down to the government presenting us with a bunch of unfunded tax cuts and fantasy economics alongside them.
No one sane can see where that is coming from in any Western economy any time soon with any policy mix whatsoever.
It smacks of magical thinking. Because it is at root.
You can get an AKA in your passport by renewing it, but I don't think they hand them out like candy, so it might be involved.
Before she was elected I said many times on here I did not know her and reserve judgment
It has only taken to last Friday for her to lose me completely with most other conservatives on this forum and in the wider electorate
Her mps must vote down her budget and find a way to remove her
https://www.fiat.co.uk/tipo/tipo-station-wagon
Edit: worth pointing out that your vaccine certificates are much more likely to be checked by your airline than anyone at immigration these days, which both simplifies and complicates the issue: a border agent probably knows the law, the lad on check in probably doesn't.
Is this the same Truss who hinted strongly during leadership election that this will be reviewed.
Just mischief.
Maybe the markets have overreacted. Maybe not. Paradoxically I wonder if some of the shift in the last 24 hours is because people are assuming that Truss or her plans are toast and they will have to change course. It will be interesting to see what the market reaction to her speech will be next week. If she tries 'the lady's not turning' and the markets panic it's surely over.
https://medium.com/@emine.noyan/what-to-do-if-your-nhs-app-details-are-wrong-f853d784cbbc
Dumfriesshire etc
Aberdeenshire W
Moray
So complete wipe out in England!
In reality a poll like this would break the swing calculators
You'd think Truss would know that given she is in post because Boris lost trust with his MPs because he constantly demanded of them (to defend him) and was not longer giving them anything in return. But then, given she opposed that action, I suppose it should be no surprise she seems to have regarded MP backing as automatic.
Google corporately has the attention span of a radish.
- Scrapped the rise in NI
- Scrapped the rise in corporation tax
- Kept the 45% rate
- Considered changing the 40% entry rate to a higher threshold but make it something like 42 or 43% (aim being to reduce taxes on middle classes so they can spend more - modelled to find the best balance of threshold). In better times later on merge in the 45% rate to this.
- Get rid of different salary bandings for free childcare. This is a disincentive to work at certain salary levels. Everyone gets the same.
- Get rid of the pension triple lock (pensioners have done well for a long time)
- Introduce benefits triple lock
- Means-test free bus passes, winter fuel allowance and TV licences
Who knows how this would financially work out for the country but it is something that I think I could sell to the people effectively.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-announces-new-growth-plan-with-biggest-package-of-tax-cuts-in-generations
Someone's not being straight with me here!
You should check that your first name and your surname on your passport match how they are displayed by your NHS COVID Pass at least 3 weeks before you travel. If the names are different, contact your GP practice to have your details updated
All of you lot attempting to blame shift Friday's market movements to Thursday are attempting to rewrite history but it's all there in the charts on my terminal. Gilts and sterling held fairly steady on Thursday. On Friday gilt prices and sterling both tanked and then again on Monday because of the idiotic media rounds by the chancellor suggesting that tax cuts on the rich would generate enough additional growth to make these self funding.
This was, once, Boris's strength, until his blind spot came along, with even a schoolchild being able to see and understand that he'd wilfully ignored the rules and then lied to everyone about it.
When people are really struggling to afford food and heating, a government that thinks it clever to give millionaires a tax break and allow bankers to return to grotesque bonuses really deserves all that it gets by way of voter response.
That's why they are now screwed - they've ruined any appearance of competence or compassion, but they have no path to restoring that. Because even if the Truss plan works, it was a plan which did not assume the shit show we've had this week and its associated effects (they've been self evidently stunned by it all), so that probably wipes out any gain. And that's the optimistic scenario.
Telegraph reporting tonight that working age benefits will rise by 5.4% (av earnings figure) and not inflation whilst - you guessed it - pensions triple lock remains.
There will be food riots this winter.
Don't say you haven't been warned.
Saw them at the Apollo, when AntiFrank was still playing bass...
Truss: "We know and we hear what people are saying about the cost of all this and so we are going to cut the poor's benefits."
More than four million people receive Universal Credit. The Resolution Foundation think tank said some working families could be £1,000 a year worse off if benefits do not rise with average prices.
However, ministers did move to reassure pensioners that the “triple lock” remains, meaning state pensions will rise in line with inflation despite the wider spending squeeze.
So they will protect pensioners in the hope that they continue to vote Tory.