[W]hat kinds of economic malfunction are permitted and which ones aren’t. Making these judgments over the past four weeks has required some remarkable hypocrisy on the part of technocrats, rival politicians and former politicians, but that has not deterred them.
The International Monetary Fund scolded Britain for letting its monetary policy and its fiscal policy pull in different directions. While the Bank of England has been trying to tackle inflation with interest rate rises, Kwarteng’s Treasury was guilty of contributing to inflation with tax cuts. Some “policy coherence” was sternly advised.
And yet, a conflict between monetary and fiscal policy was the central feature of the dismal decade that followed the 2008 financial crisis. While George Osborne starved local government, the welfare state and infrastructure projects of money, the Bank of England pumped unprecedented quantities of credit into the financial system to prevent a full-on depression. The combined effect was socially devastating (to an extent it affected life expectancy) and financially lucrative, as asset values soared. Was that really “coherent”? Or was it simply having the right priorities, from the IMF’s point of view?
Per The Times: Hunt will postpone cap on Social Care costs.
Good. The oldies (and their heirs) need to pay their way.
Nah - you should protect against catastrophic risk. Care costs about £50k per year (between about £850 p/w for public funding and can be substantially higher for private).
Most people spend 18-24 months in a home at the outside (people like to spend as long as possible at home). But sad cases - especially Alzheimer’s - can be 10+ years in a home.
It’s reasonable to set a cap (say at £150k) *and* minimum of 2 years at which point the state steps in as insurer of last resort (or you could require people to take out insurance for years 2-5). Otherwise you can end up with people bankrupted through bad luck (in which case the state pays for them anyway).
What's wrong with people getting bankrupted?
If they run out of money, they run out of money, but the taxpayer shouldn't be on the hook to prevent that.
They're at the end of their life and can't take it with them, anyway. And if you have a cap it should be that the final x amount of your savings are protected, not that the first x amount won't be.
It's perverse to say someone with £1mn in assets must only pay £150k to avoid being bankrupted, with the taxpayer then covering their £850k after that, while saying someone with £200k (more than the mean House price in much of the Nort) should also pay £150k.
To step back a bit, bankruptcy in general is a mechanism by which the state absorbs the costs of someone running out of money. It means an individual isn’t pursued in perpetuity for money and can re-build, with the state telling debtors they have to lump it. I wondered if you disapproved of the very concept of bankruptcy, given it’s anti-libertarian?
No. The debtors just have to lump it and should be more careful.
I'm a libertarian not an anarchist, I dont think there should be no state or no rules at all.
I would oppose the state (read: taxpayer) stepping in to pay so the debtors don't lump it.
But if someone subsequently, post-bankruptcy, makes lots of money, you’re OK with the state telling the debtors that they can’t have any of that?
Yes. People should be able to rebuild their lives and the fact they have shouldn't mean that debtors who made bad choices investing in them before they did shouldn't be able to evade the consequences of their own choices.
Responsibility cuts both ways.
Creditors have "invested in" their debtors?
Yes. Typically for an expected return, not normally out of charity of the goodness of their own heart.
And frequently with risk premiums associated too, so if that investment goes south then that's their own responsibility.
Personal responsibility means things can go bad as well as good. The state should not bail people out of bad decisions, apart from as a safety net, and if you lend to someone who can't pay you back, that's your own fault.
Bart, the tenuity of your connection with the real world amazes more and more. The creditors in a typical bankruptcy are not convertible preferred class A 5% bond holders, they are the Inland Revenue and the butchers and bakers who have unpaid bills outstanding.
Years I saw a whole set of problems when an employment agency's customer's customer went belly up.
When the end client ceased trading on a Wednesday, within a week it had taken down multiple consultancies who were supplying that client and half the agencies who were provide contractors to those consultancies.
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to see around a 14% (one-seventh) increase in their broadband and mobile phone prices.
ISTR you flagged this up before, Mr Eagles. But it looks as though you may have underestimated the problem.
I have my fibre broadband from a small company called Aquiss. Don't all switch to them at once, they'd probably struggle to satisfy too fast an increase in demand, but they don't have the annual price increase by CPI +3.5% that so many of the big providers have.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
It doesn't look like history will be kind to Johnson. He'll be knocking around with Chamberlain and Eden
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Per The Times: Hunt will postpone cap on Social Care costs.
Good. The oldies (and their heirs) need to pay their way.
Nah - you should protect against catastrophic risk. Care costs about £50k per year (between about £850 p/w for public funding and can be substantially higher for private).
Most people spend 18-24 months in a home at the outside (people like to spend as long as possible at home). But sad cases - especially Alzheimer’s - can be 10+ years in a home.
It’s reasonable to set a cap (say at £150k) *and* minimum of 2 years at which point the state steps in as insurer of last resort (or you could require people to take out insurance for years 2-5). Otherwise you can end up with people bankrupted through bad luck (in which case the state pays for them anyway).
What's wrong with people getting bankrupted?
If they run out of money, they run out of money, but the taxpayer shouldn't be on the hook to prevent that.
They're at the end of their life and can't take it with them, anyway. And if you have a cap it should be that the final x amount of your savings are protected, not that the first x amount won't be.
It's perverse to say someone with £1mn in assets must only pay £150k to avoid being bankrupted, with the taxpayer then covering their £850k after that, while saying someone with £200k (more than the mean House price in much of the Nort) should also pay £150k.
To step back a bit, bankruptcy in general is a mechanism by which the state absorbs the costs of someone running out of money. It means an individual isn’t pursued in perpetuity for money and can re-build, with the state telling debtors they have to lump it. I wondered if you disapproved of the very concept of bankruptcy, given it’s anti-libertarian?
No. The debtors just have to lump it and should be more careful.
I'm a libertarian not an anarchist, I dont think there should be no state or no rules at all.
I would oppose the state (read: taxpayer) stepping in to pay so the debtors don't lump it.
But if someone subsequently, post-bankruptcy, makes lots of money, you’re OK with the state telling the debtors that they can’t have any of that?
Yes. People should be able to rebuild their lives and the fact they have shouldn't mean that debtors who made bad choices investing in them before they did shouldn't be able to evade the consequences of their own choices.
Responsibility cuts both ways.
Creditors have "invested in" their debtors?
Yes. Typically for an expected return, not normally out of charity of the goodness of their own heart.
And frequently with risk premiums associated too, so if that investment goes south then that's their own responsibility.
Personal responsibility means things can go bad as well as good. The state should not bail people out of bad decisions, apart from as a safety net, and if you lend to someone who can't pay you back, that's your own fault.
Bart, the tenuity of your connection with the real world amazes more and more. The creditors in a typical bankruptcy are not convertible preferred class A 5% bond holders, they are the Inland Revenue and the butchers and bakers who have unpaid bills outstanding.
Indeed, who have made investments in their own way.
HMRC allows firms to collect money that belongs to them, and allows them to keep hold of that money and gives them time to pay for their bills because they accept the risk of bankruptcy and know that by allowing firms that time they will generate more money from taxation than if there was a more complicated system with payments made automatically or sooner to HMRC.
Butchers and bakers could demand cash on delivery or cash or payment up front for all payments if they wanted to. They allow businesses and their clients time to pay their outstanding bills because they think they will make more profit that way than if they demanded payment up front and didn't get the client.
If a butcher invests in giving its stock to a client on the expectation of future payment, then that is done for an expected future payment and profit, it won't be done at cost.
He's right in saying the mini-budget was so bad that even reversing the mini-budget doesn't fix the damage it created but that will take a lot of explaining to the general public.
The story Labour needs to tell the general public needs to be simpler. But he is 110% correct that the budget has destroyed any ability for the Tory Party to use economic and low tax arguments in the next 15-20 years
Starmer needs to follow Dave and George's lead from 2008 onwards and explain to the country why austerity is essential and if we don't the medicine later on will be much much worse.
Then the Unions will strike even more and Labour left MPs will revolt.
Hence Starmer will likely just have to heavily increase tax
You run out of other people's money very quickly so then you borrow and the markets take their action and the IMF are called in
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
He's right in saying the mini-budget was so bad that even reversing the mini-budget doesn't fix the damage it created but that will take a lot of explaining to the general public.
The story Labour needs to tell the general public needs to be simpler. But he is 110% correct that the budget has destroyed any ability for the Tory Party to use economic and low tax arguments in the next 15-20 years
Starmer needs to follow Dave and George's lead from 2008 onwards and explain to the country why austerity is essential and if we don't the medicine later on will be much much worse.
I don't think Starmer has it in him to go for a Nixon to China moment. He's not brave enough to tell Labour supporters the truth of what's coming over the next decade.
I don't think they need to do much beyond - the future is going to be tight.
And then tighten the screw on local government spending because a lot of councils are now Tory lead and will revert to Labour as the local Tory council cops the blame for everything falling apart.
Maybe but that doesn't change the fundamentals that we have all been living beyond out means on a long period of low interest rates and that is ending and we will all be poorer
Senior Tory MPs have told Express.co.uk it is “now common knowledge” that Mr Hunt is organising a reshuffle of Ms Truss’ ministerial team.
Doesn't Truss have to go for her own self-respect now?
Its tricky.
Go now and she is by some distance the shortest serving PM. Very embarrassing.
Stick around and have Hunt do whatever he wants and ignore her. Very embarrassing.
I think avoiding the former is something she would bear a lot for.
She needs a tangible achievement to show for having been PM. Perhaps the deal could be that she goes but her pledge to build the Northern Powerhouse Rail is kept.
The only thing I can think of that is theoretically achievable, and helpfully doesn't cost any money, would be a deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Unfortunately, the DUP have hardened their position, and the position of Liz Truss is so weak that negotiators might wonder if it's worth negotiating with her, or waiting for her successor.
However, if there was some way to get all parties to come to an agreement so that power-sharing could be restored, then that would be a solid achievement Truss could point to even if her tenure was shorter than Canning's.
Senior Tory MPs have told Express.co.uk it is “now common knowledge” that Mr Hunt is organising a reshuffle of Ms Truss’ ministerial team.
Doesn't Truss have to go for her own self-respect now?
Its tricky.
Go now and she is by some distance the shortest serving PM. Very embarrassing.
Stick around and have Hunt do whatever he wants and ignore her. Very embarrassing.
I think avoiding the former is something she would bear a lot for.
Still convinced the MPs daren't move till they figure out how to get a new leader in place without involving the loopy membership.
Also she can't be VONCed for a year unless there is a rule change. Not knowledgeable about Tory internal rules so unsure what would be required to make that change. How much power do the ERG and fellow travellers have to block changes?
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Yeah, my usage skyrocketed when pornhub started offering 8k.
No care cost cap and care costs now outside of the scope of 7 IHT year rule. Easy. Wealthy older people pay their own way and their kids won't benefit from asset transfers.
If the care costs cap has not come in by the next general election there will be hell to pay for the Tories in the blue wall, it would be dementia tax 2 except worse. The redwall as the thread header says has already gone back to Labour, if the bluewall goes too then that is annihilation for Tory MPs.
Lifelong Tory voters in the Home counties and West London will simply stay home or vote RefUK or even LD, as if they and their heirs get their assets taken at least they know the LDs don't want to build over the greenbelt unlike Truss.
A temporary delay given the deficit manageable but the £86k cap must come in by the next election
Not sure if you have been reading the polls that you are so fond off, but we are already at the point where you say there will be hell to pay when one poll gives the conservatives just 4 seats so they only have 4 more to lose to go into extinction
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
Lot of green cheese on here re people who have actually worked hard for 50 years to get a bob or two whereas these scrotums want to take it off them so that they can be subsidised and be idle in their lives. Pathetic.
He's right in saying the mini-budget was so bad that even reversing the mini-budget doesn't fix the damage it created but that will take a lot of explaining to the general public.
The story Labour needs to tell the general public needs to be simpler. But he is 110% correct that the budget has destroyed any ability for the Tory Party to use economic and low tax arguments in the next 15-20 years
Starmer needs to follow Dave and George's lead from 2008 onwards and explain to the country why austerity is essential and if we don't the medicine later on will be much much worse.
Then the Unions will strike even more and Labour left MPs will revolt.
Hence Starmer will likely just have to heavily increase tax
You run out of other people's money very quickly so then you borrow and the markets take their action and the IMF are called in
So what, the unions would still strike even more and pressured by the left and leftwing Labour MPs on his backbenches Starmer would find it much more difficult than the Tories to impose spending cuts.
Even if Starmer would find it easier than the Tories to impose tax rises, especially on higher earners and the rich, which he would
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
He's right in saying the mini-budget was so bad that even reversing the mini-budget doesn't fix the damage it created but that will take a lot of explaining to the general public.
The story Labour needs to tell the general public needs to be simpler. But he is 110% correct that the budget has destroyed any ability for the Tory Party to use economic and low tax arguments in the next 15-20 years
Starmer needs to follow Dave and George's lead from 2008 onwards and explain to the country why austerity is essential and if we don't the medicine later on will be much much worse.
Then the Unions will strike even more and Labour left MPs will revolt.
Hence Starmer will likely just have to heavily increase tax
You run out of other people's money very quickly so then you borrow and the markets take their action and the IMF are called in
That is why a Labour victory in the next election is not 'nailed on'. Starmer is doing a good job but Labour MP's are engaging in their tendency to militate for increases in pay rises and every possible form of handout to their preferred groups. For instance, the 'enough is enough' campaign:
"The movement is in talks with premier league footballers and household-name actors to boost its profile. Another lead organiser, Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool, West Derby, said the coming crisis was “like the blitz” and a comparable threat to Covid-19.
“We are dealing with maybe 35 million people being plunged into fuel poverty,” he said. “Let’s be brutal. People are going to die. People can’t afford to eat, they can’t afford to put the heating on"....
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said its call for a inflation-matching public sector pay rise would cost an extra £19bn a year, and the Fabian Society thinktank said the proposed energy bill cuts could cost £75bn a year, with the universal credit increase costing £4bn a year."
I think we have seen and heard this all before and it the general public may ultimately come to prefer what they are hearing from Jeremy Hunt, rather than Zarah Sultana.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
It doesn't look like history will be kind to Johnson. He'll be knocking around with Chamberlain and Eden
No he won't, he will be up there as the best Tory PM after Churchill and Thatcher and maybe Macmillan post war.
Boris won a landslide Tory majority, Boris delivered Brexit, Boris got us through Covid with furlough and the vaccine.
Truss will be going down worse than Chamberlain and Eden, Boris won't
He's right in saying the mini-budget was so bad that even reversing the mini-budget doesn't fix the damage it created but that will take a lot of explaining to the general public.
The story Labour needs to tell the general public needs to be simpler. But he is 110% correct that the budget has destroyed any ability for the Tory Party to use economic and low tax arguments in the next 15-20 years
Starmer needs to follow Dave and George's lead from 2008 onwards and explain to the country why austerity is essential and if we don't the medicine later on will be much much worse.
Then the Unions will strike even more and Labour left MPs will revolt.
Hence Starmer will likely just have to heavily increase tax
You run out of other people's money very quickly so then you borrow and the markets take their action and the IMF are called in
So what, the unions would still strike even more and pressured by the left and leftwing Labour MPs on his backbenches Starmer would find it much more difficult than the Tories to impose spending cuts.
Even if Starmer would find it easier than the Tories to impose tax rises, especially on higher earners and the rich, which he would
So what is your response to the IMF being called in
He's right in saying the mini-budget was so bad that even reversing the mini-budget doesn't fix the damage it created but that will take a lot of explaining to the general public.
The story Labour needs to tell the general public needs to be simpler. But he is 110% correct that the budget has destroyed any ability for the Tory Party to use economic and low tax arguments in the next 15-20 years
Starmer needs to follow Dave and George's lead from 2008 onwards and explain to the country why austerity is essential and if we don't the medicine later on will be much much worse.
I don't think Starmer has it in him to go for a Nixon to China moment. He's not brave enough to tell Labour supporters the truth of what's coming over the next decade.
I think this is right. I'd also add that I don't think he's imaginative enough to come up with the new ideas that would help us to adjust. But who is?
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
He's right in saying the mini-budget was so bad that even reversing the mini-budget doesn't fix the damage it created but that will take a lot of explaining to the general public.
The story Labour needs to tell the general public needs to be simpler. But he is 110% correct that the budget has destroyed any ability for the Tory Party to use economic and low tax arguments in the next 15-20 years
Starmer needs to follow Dave and George's lead from 2008 onwards and explain to the country why austerity is essential and if we don't the medicine later on will be much much worse.
Then the Unions will strike even more and Labour left MPs will revolt.
Hence Starmer will likely just have to heavily increase tax
You run out of other people's money very quickly so then you borrow and the markets take their action and the IMF are called in
That is why a Labour victory in the next election is not 'nailed on'. Starmer is doing a good job but Labour MP's are engaging in their tendency to militate for increases in pay rises and every possible form of handout to their preferred groups. For instance, the 'enough is enough' campaign:
"The movement is in talks with premier league footballers and household-name actors to boost its profile. Another lead organiser, Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool, West Derby, said the coming crisis was “like the blitz” and a comparable threat to Covid-19.
“We are dealing with maybe 35 million people being plunged into fuel poverty,” he said. “Let’s be brutal. People are going to die. People can’t afford to eat, they can’t afford to put the heating on"....
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said its call for a inflation-matching public sector pay rise would cost an extra £19bn a year, and the Fabian Society thinktank said the proposed energy bill cuts could cost £75bn a year, with the universal credit increase costing £4bn a year."
I think we have seen and heard this all before and it the general public may ultimately come to prefer what they are hearing from Jeremy Hunt, rather than Zarah Sultana.
"The movement is in talks with premier league footballers and household-name actors to boost its profile"
Maybe the former in particular can talk about the need for those earning obscene wages to be taxed sufficiently. Maybe they could even make a meaningful contribution so their actions match their words.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
Yet, I sense any tactical voting would be of the 'Labour can't win' variety because they've never been close and people would have a feel for that - also from campaign priorities.
LDs were close and Labour nowhere near between 1997-2005.
He's right in saying the mini-budget was so bad that even reversing the mini-budget doesn't fix the damage it created but that will take a lot of explaining to the general public.
The story Labour needs to tell the general public needs to be simpler. But he is 110% correct that the budget has destroyed any ability for the Tory Party to use economic and low tax arguments in the next 15-20 years
Starmer needs to follow Dave and George's lead from 2008 onwards and explain to the country why austerity is essential and if we don't the medicine later on will be much much worse.
Then the Unions will strike even more and Labour left MPs will revolt.
Hence Starmer will likely just have to heavily increase tax
You run out of other people's money very quickly so then you borrow and the markets take their action and the IMF are called in
So what, the unions would still strike even more and pressured by the left and leftwing Labour MPs on his backbenches Starmer would find it much more difficult than the Tories to impose spending cuts.
Even if Starmer would find it easier than the Tories to impose tax rises, especially on higher earners and the rich, which he would
So what is your response to the IMF being called in
Happened with the 1974 to 1979 Labour government before Thatcher got in
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
They don't pay the same rate on their income as those working for a living do.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
I find Totnes fascinating full stop: 2 very different constituencies in one. Like mashing together Brighton Pavilion and North Thanet.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
It doesn't look like history will be kind to Johnson. He'll be knocking around with Chamberlain and Eden
No he won't, he will be up there as the best Tory PM after Churchill and Thatcher and maybe Macmillan post war.
Boris won a landslide Tory majority, Boris delivered Brexit, Boris got us through Covid with furlough and the vaccine.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Whoops. Looks like I am arguing with myself. That was supposed to be a reply to HYUFD claiming Boris will go down in history as a hero of the conservative party. World of own!
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Brexit is done, not screwed up, as much as Theresa May nearly screwed it up.
Everything HYUFD said is true. He did get a landslide majority, he did deliver Brexit, he did get us through Covid as the first major nation in the world to get vaccinated. That's really not a bad legacy.
He was also a deeply flawed individual who was serially dishonest and that will also be remembered.
Many past PMs and across the pond Presidents with a good legacy are also remembered for being flawed individuals. Boris fits in that category.
On energy, isn't one of the best investments going to be expanding LNG terminal (& storage) capacity ? I mean the fact is we have a hell of a lot of gas generation capacity, and whilst recent events have bitten us on the arse that's a non reversible fact. We could have got some cheap gas waiting off the coast of Spain with extra facilities.
He's right in saying the mini-budget was so bad that even reversing the mini-budget doesn't fix the damage it created but that will take a lot of explaining to the general public.
The story Labour needs to tell the general public needs to be simpler. But he is 110% correct that the budget has destroyed any ability for the Tory Party to use economic and low tax arguments in the next 15-20 years
Starmer needs to follow Dave and George's lead from 2008 onwards and explain to the country why austerity is essential and if we don't the medicine later on will be much much worse.
Then the Unions will strike even more and Labour left MPs will revolt.
Hence Starmer will likely just have to heavily increase tax
You run out of other people's money very quickly so then you borrow and the markets take their action and the IMF are called in
That is why a Labour victory in the next election is not 'nailed on'. Starmer is doing a good job but Labour MP's are engaging in their tendency to militate for increases in pay rises and every possible form of handout to their preferred groups. For instance, the 'enough is enough' campaign:
"The movement is in talks with premier league footballers and household-name actors to boost its profile. Another lead organiser, Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool, West Derby, said the coming crisis was “like the blitz” and a comparable threat to Covid-19.
“We are dealing with maybe 35 million people being plunged into fuel poverty,” he said. “Let’s be brutal. People are going to die. People can’t afford to eat, they can’t afford to put the heating on"....
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said its call for a inflation-matching public sector pay rise would cost an extra £19bn a year, and the Fabian Society thinktank said the proposed energy bill cuts could cost £75bn a year, with the universal credit increase costing £4bn a year."
I think we have seen and heard this all before and it the general public may ultimately come to prefer what they are hearing from Jeremy Hunt, rather than Zarah Sultana.
We've had years of Tory outriders indulging in a mixture of bloodcurdling populist rhetoric on the one hand, and IEA-style libertarian anarchism on the other, so I don't see how the wingnuts of the Labour Left will have any more influence on floating voters than their Tory counterparts.
More pertinently those Tory wingnuts have been much closer to the centre of power - and in some cases (Truss, Braverman) able to enact policy - than the Labour whackos who have been relegated to the margins since Starmer took power.
He's right in saying the mini-budget was so bad that even reversing the mini-budget doesn't fix the damage it created but that will take a lot of explaining to the general public.
The story Labour needs to tell the general public needs to be simpler. But he is 110% correct that the budget has destroyed any ability for the Tory Party to use economic and low tax arguments in the next 15-20 years
Starmer needs to follow Dave and George's lead from 2008 onwards and explain to the country why austerity is essential and if we don't the medicine later on will be much much worse.
Then the Unions will strike even more and Labour left MPs will revolt.
Hence Starmer will likely just have to heavily increase tax
You run out of other people's money very quickly so then you borrow and the markets take their action and the IMF are called in
That is why a Labour victory in the next election is not 'nailed on'. Starmer is doing a good job but Labour MP's are engaging in their tendency to militate for increases in pay rises and every possible form of handout to their preferred groups. For instance, the 'enough is enough' campaign:
"The movement is in talks with premier league footballers and household-name actors to boost its profile. Another lead organiser, Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool, West Derby, said the coming crisis was “like the blitz” and a comparable threat to Covid-19.
“We are dealing with maybe 35 million people being plunged into fuel poverty,” he said. “Let’s be brutal. People are going to die. People can’t afford to eat, they can’t afford to put the heating on"....
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said its call for a inflation-matching public sector pay rise would cost an extra £19bn a year, and the Fabian Society thinktank said the proposed energy bill cuts could cost £75bn a year, with the universal credit increase costing £4bn a year."
I think we have seen and heard this all before and it the general public may ultimately come to prefer what they are hearing from Jeremy Hunt, rather than Zarah Sultana.
Both parties have their extremists, and always have had. Corbyn was a Labour MP right through the Blair years.
What matters is how much power they have. At the moment I would say that under Starmer the left have about as much power as they had under Blair, ie very little. On the other hand I would say the right have pretty much controlled the Tory Party since Brexit though that may be about to change.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
You are just wrong. It is difficult to imagine how wrong you can be. Truss is there because the Tories removed Boris. Why do you think they did that? Nobody else could. Why do you think you are right and they are wrong and they could see his corruption at first hand.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
You are really poor at politics if you cannot accept Johnson's toxic behaviour which led to public resentment and anger was not the start of the process, which through the memberships choice of Truss is leading to the near extinction of the party
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Always? Unless you're getting a hefty discount on the phone itself, that seems unlikely.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Always? Unless you're getting a hefty discount on the phone itself, that seems unlikely.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
Really - last time I looked the cost only looked less because you think it's a 2 year contract and it's actually a 3 year contract.
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Always? Unless you're getting a hefty discount on the phone itself, that seems unlikely.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
But when the contract expires - go SIM only. You don't need a new phone every two years. I'm paying £10.00 a month for 8GB and grandfather rights to EU roaming.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
That is just drooling, fuckwitted, straitjackets-and-thorazine insanity, HYUFD. 60 ministers don't resign in two days because of a bit of whingeing from the shires.
One sees comments about Say what you like about HYUFD he is sound on con party poilitics. you aren't.
Johnson was a corrupt adulterous liar, just the sort of poster boy conservative christianity needs.
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Always? Unless you're getting a hefty discount on the phone itself, that seems unlikely.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
There are many enduring mysteries in the world, but one of them has always been why so many people sign up to contracts with a CPI+x% clause. For me it has always been an automatic disqualification. It's so obviously taking the piss.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
You are just wrong. It is difficult to imagine how wrong you can be. Truss is there because the Tories removed Boris. Why do you think they did that? Nobody else could. Why do you think you are right and they are wrong and they could see his corruption at first hand.
Yes so Truss would not be there as PM if Tory MPs had listened to me and kept Boris not you and BigG
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Always? Unless you're getting a hefty discount on the phone itself, that seems unlikely.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
Really - last time I looked the cost only looked less because you think it's a 2 year contract and it's actually a 3 year contract.
Really. They may have changed since, but even with that, yes, mine was cheaper than buying the phone outright.
To be fair though I've had my phone for about five years now, I bought the phone (a Galaxy S9+) via contract from Sky when they launched Sky Mobile and its still in perfectly good working order so I don't feel the need to upgrade again. So their offer may have been more generous when they launched than it still is.
Not replacing your perfectly fine phone every 2 years when you don't need to saves more money than any other decisions you can make.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Whoops. Looks like I am arguing with myself. That was supposed to be a reply to HYUFD claiming Boris will go down in history as a hero of the conservative party. World of own!
He will, even now most Tory members would take Boris back as PM tomorrow.
For Tories Boris is up there after Churchill and Thatcher already as our best Conservative PM of the last 100 years
It has had its day, but they are superb for cooking on if you know what you are doing, and the author is an arse who doesn't.
Best peace dividend for getting rid of one: after decades of home bread baking to use up a tiny fraction of the wasted energy, now that I am all electric it is cost ineffective and I can go back to buying the stuff in shops.
[W]hat kinds of economic malfunction are permitted and which ones aren’t. Making these judgments over the past four weeks has required some remarkable hypocrisy on the part of technocrats, rival politicians and former politicians, but that has not deterred them.
The International Monetary Fund scolded Britain for letting its monetary policy and its fiscal policy pull in different directions. While the Bank of England has been trying to tackle inflation with interest rate rises, Kwarteng’s Treasury was guilty of contributing to inflation with tax cuts. Some “policy coherence” was sternly advised.
And yet, a conflict between monetary and fiscal policy was the central feature of the dismal decade that followed the 2008 financial crisis. While George Osborne starved local government, the welfare state and infrastructure projects of money, the Bank of England pumped unprecedented quantities of credit into the financial system to prevent a full-on depression. The combined effect was socially devastating (to an extent it affected life expectancy) and financially lucrative, as asset values soared. Was that really “coherent”? Or was it simply having the right priorities, from the IMF’s point of view?
Indeed, this is why I have always been highly critical of Osborne era austerity. It doesn't mean that going to the opposite extreme is smart though.
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Always? Unless you're getting a hefty discount on the phone itself, that seems unlikely.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
But when the contract expires - go SIM only. You don't need a new phone every two years. I'm paying £10.00 a month for 8GB and grandfather rights to EU roaming.
It already has expired and it already is SIM only as a result, that happens automatically.
I'm paying £10 a month each for 10GB for both my wife and I which rolls over monthly so my pot is now about 200GB so effectively unlimited.
Most firms now offer contracts that are phone element plus SIM element so are automatically SIM only at the end of contract. If any firms exist that still charge you for the phone even at the end of the contract, then in the words of the Prime Minister: that is a disgrace.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
[W]hat kinds of economic malfunction are permitted and which ones aren’t. Making these judgments over the past four weeks has required some remarkable hypocrisy on the part of technocrats, rival politicians and former politicians, but that has not deterred them.
The International Monetary Fund scolded Britain for letting its monetary policy and its fiscal policy pull in different directions. While the Bank of England has been trying to tackle inflation with interest rate rises, Kwarteng’s Treasury was guilty of contributing to inflation with tax cuts. Some “policy coherence” was sternly advised.
And yet, a conflict between monetary and fiscal policy was the central feature of the dismal decade that followed the 2008 financial crisis. While George Osborne starved local government, the welfare state and infrastructure projects of money, the Bank of England pumped unprecedented quantities of credit into the financial system to prevent a full-on depression. The combined effect was socially devastating (to an extent it affected life expectancy) and financially lucrative, as asset values soared. Was that really “coherent”? Or was it simply having the right priorities, from the IMF’s point of view?
Indeed, this is why I have always been highly critical of Osborne era austerity. It doesn't mean that going to the opposite extreme is smart though.
To be honest, I come it this from the opposite view, but monetary policy was an utter disgrace for over a decade. But as the piece says, it's only when mortgage holders suffer that it gets attention.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Always? Unless you're getting a hefty discount on the phone itself, that seems unlikely.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
But when the contract expires - go SIM only. You don't need a new phone every two years. I'm paying £10.00 a month for 8GB and grandfather rights to EU roaming.
It already has expired and it already is SIM only as a result, that happens automatically.
I'm paying £10 a month each for 10GB for both my wife and I which rolls over monthly so my pot is now about 200GB so effectively unlimited.
Most firms now offer contracts that are phone element plus SIM element so are automatically SIM only at the end of contract. If any firms exist that still charge you for the phone even at the end of the contract, then in the words of the Prime Minister: that is a disgrace.
You simply have to cancel the contract. I realise I could probably get a better deal on my SIM but I'm consistently within 4-6GB and the roaming is of benefit.
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately (even second hand) - there is sod all real difference between a refurbished iPhone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
I'm on 3 business. £10 a month + VAT for unlimited everything
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Whoops. Looks like I am arguing with myself. That was supposed to be a reply to HYUFD claiming Boris will go down in history as a hero of the conservative party. World of own!
He will, even now most Tory members would take Boris back as PM tomorrow.
For Tories Boris is up there after Churchill and Thatcher already as our best Conservative PM of the last 100 years
I wonder when we'll see the first statue erected of Boris. In recognition of his twin triumphs of Brexit and Covid, perhaps they should have it holding a blue passport in one hand and a syringe in the other.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Whoops. Looks like I am arguing with myself. That was supposed to be a reply to HYUFD claiming Boris will go down in history as a hero of the conservative party. World of own!
He will, even now most Tory members would take Boris back as PM tomorrow.
For Tories Boris is up there after Churchill and Thatcher already as our best Conservative PM of the last 100 years
Apart from the Tory parliamentary party, who threw him out of office ignominiously.
But perhaps they could not have been true Tories, by definition ...
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Always? Unless you're getting a hefty discount on the phone itself, that seems unlikely.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
Really - last time I looked the cost only looked less because you think it's a 2 year contract and it's actually a 3 year contract.
Just looked into this, for a SIM-free S22 buying from Samsung's website direct its £769 to buy outright. Its the same price SIM-free at Argos, Carphone Warehouse and other major retailers.
Buying from Sky its £24 a month for 2 years, then £16 a month for year 3, so total repayable is £768. So £1 cheaper and with no price rises in the contract.
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Always? Unless you're getting a hefty discount on the phone itself, that seems unlikely.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
But when the contract expires - go SIM only. You don't need a new phone every two years. I'm paying £10.00 a month for 8GB and grandfather rights to EU roaming.
It already has expired and it already is SIM only as a result, that happens automatically.
I'm paying £10 a month each for 10GB for both my wife and I which rolls over monthly so my pot is now about 200GB so effectively unlimited.
Most firms now offer contracts that are phone element plus SIM element so are automatically SIM only at the end of contract. If any firms exist that still charge you for the phone even at the end of the contract, then in the words of the Prime Minister: that is a disgrace.
And even if they do have an automatic uplift it's only on the SIM element.
On energy, isn't one of the best investments going to be expanding LNG terminal (& storage) capacity ? I mean the fact is we have a hell of a lot of gas generation capacity, and whilst recent events have bitten us on the arse that's a non reversible fact. We could have got some cheap gas waiting off the coast of Spain with extra facilities.
Morning Pulpstar.
I don't know much about the downstream facilities, but I thought a couple of months ago people were talking about a lot of LNG heading into Europe via Britain because we had more extensive facilities than on the Continent. I understood that for us the issue is not so much facilities to deal with LNG as the availability of vessels capable of bringing the stuff to us from the Middle East. Though as I say I don't know a huge amount about this and so may have got the wrong end of the stick.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
NI is charged twice on incomes, Employers and Employees.
Sucks for anyone who thought they'd evade it in the future if they no longer do, but shit happens.
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
"Experienced, wiser, greyer heads"? Perusing the document containing 2010 ministerial appointments (the first time we had a largely-Tory cabinet in 20 years) - who do you bring back?
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
Not the correct example. The two NIs are levied in parallel, not serially.
Leader writer from The Daily Mail The Sun The Express The Telegraph The Observer
The thing that never happens, and women are bigots/idiots/hysterical for raising concerns about, has just happened again. Male sex offender identifies as a woman to gain access to vulnerable female victims, this time in a women’s shelter…..
….Scotland is on the verge of introducing similar laws to Canada, where this happened. Scottish parliamentarians have effectively ignored these concerns because it doesn’t suit their agenda.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
Yep I am not sure I would go so far as charging NI on Pensions (although I am not completely opposed to the idea) but I do think that if you continue to work past pension age you should pay NI on any earnings other than your pension. And that should include all earnings, including 'unearned' income.
[W]hat kinds of economic malfunction are permitted and which ones aren’t. Making these judgments over the past four weeks has required some remarkable hypocrisy on the part of technocrats, rival politicians and former politicians, but that has not deterred them.
The International Monetary Fund scolded Britain for letting its monetary policy and its fiscal policy pull in different directions. While the Bank of England has been trying to tackle inflation with interest rate rises, Kwarteng’s Treasury was guilty of contributing to inflation with tax cuts. Some “policy coherence” was sternly advised.
And yet, a conflict between monetary and fiscal policy was the central feature of the dismal decade that followed the 2008 financial crisis. While George Osborne starved local government, the welfare state and infrastructure projects of money, the Bank of England pumped unprecedented quantities of credit into the financial system to prevent a full-on depression. The combined effect was socially devastating (to an extent it affected life expectancy) and financially lucrative, as asset values soared. Was that really “coherent”? Or was it simply having the right priorities, from the IMF’s point of view?
Life expectancy increased 2010 to 2015, and 2015 to 2020.
Maybe it would or should have increased more, but that is not "social devastating"
[W]hat kinds of economic malfunction are permitted and which ones aren’t. Making these judgments over the past four weeks has required some remarkable hypocrisy on the part of technocrats, rival politicians and former politicians, but that has not deterred them.
The International Monetary Fund scolded Britain for letting its monetary policy and its fiscal policy pull in different directions. While the Bank of England has been trying to tackle inflation with interest rate rises, Kwarteng’s Treasury was guilty of contributing to inflation with tax cuts. Some “policy coherence” was sternly advised.
And yet, a conflict between monetary and fiscal policy was the central feature of the dismal decade that followed the 2008 financial crisis. While George Osborne starved local government, the welfare state and infrastructure projects of money, the Bank of England pumped unprecedented quantities of credit into the financial system to prevent a full-on depression. The combined effect was socially devastating (to an extent it affected life expectancy) and financially lucrative, as asset values soared. Was that really “coherent”? Or was it simply having the right priorities, from the IMF’s point of view?
Life expectancy increased 2010 to 2015, and 2015 to 2020.
Maybe it would or should have increased more, but that is not "social devastating"
Yeah, that bit is bollocks, but the soaring asset values - or, perhaps, not decreasing asset values as should have happened post-2008 - is correct.
What is it with these PMs who go by their middle names? Mary Truss, Alexander Johnson and James Brown. At least you can see why James "Sex Machine" Brown might have chosen to go by Gordon. Is it that common among normal people?
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Whoops. Looks like I am arguing with myself. That was supposed to be a reply to HYUFD claiming Boris will go down in history as a hero of the conservative party. World of own!
He will, even now most Tory members would take Boris back as PM tomorrow.
For Tories Boris is up there after Churchill and Thatcher already as our best Conservative PM of the last 100 years
Apart from the Tory parliamentary party, who threw him out of office ignominiously.
But perhaps they could not have been true Tories, by definition ...
Half of whom only won their seats in 2019 thanks to Boris
In the Commons tea room, the mood is mutinous. Even newer MPs normally reluctant to stick their heads above the parapet are telling the whips she should go. Members of the Old Guard are in despair, not least at the calibre of the Cabinet. “There needs to be a total clear-out and the return of experienced, wiser, greyer heads,” said one.
Telegrph
Boris cleared out nearly all the old guard. The destruction of the Tories starts with him. Truss is simply a symptom. HYUFD thinks he is their winner, whereas Boris is the cause of their collapse.
No he isn't, the Labour lead was half what it is now when Boris left No 10
What part of 'starts' don't you get? What part of 'simply a symptom ' don't you get?
Yep Labour lead was half then. So what. He created the mess that has led to Truss with his half baked Brexit, his lies, his corruption, his attempts to corrupt the constitution. He is the cause of this mess. The Tories are now relying on one of the sane old guard to finally stop the slide.
Truss is simply a symptom of the destruction Boris caused.
No, it is Truss and her mini budget which has led to this not Boris.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
You are just wrong. It is difficult to imagine how wrong you can be. Truss is there because the Tories removed Boris. Why do you think they did that? Nobody else could. Why do you think you are right and they are wrong and they could see his corruption at first hand.
Yes so Truss would not be there as PM if Tory MPs had listened to me and kept Boris not you and BigG
I can assure you not a single Tory MP listened to me nor BigG, They did this all by themselves, because of the mess Boris had got them into.
If Boris was still there the lies and corruption and the disruption due to those lies and corruption will still be going on and the Tory vote would be where it is now or even lower.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
Not the correct example. The two NIs are levied in parallel, not serially.
But serial charges happen all the time too.
If you get paid an income which you invest in a pension on the expectation of further income in the future, then that's not the same income you receive in the future, its new income that hasn't yet been taxed.
If instead of a pension you get paid an income which you invest in stocks on the expectation of future dividends to live off in the future, then you would still be expected, rightly, to pay the tax due on those dividends when they arise.
If its just deferred income then the tax exemption should extend only to the amount of tax that wasn't paid at the time, with no uplifting. If its new income, it should be taxed.
Which month's figures are used for determining the rise in phone/broadband contract prices?
December.
Edit - sorry, misunderstood something.
Which means that next April unless we have a quite extraordinary turnaround in the next month people are going to struggle to afford their broadband contracts.
Not just broadband, pretty much all the mobile networks, except Sky Mobile, have CPI/RPI +3.9% increases baked in from next March as well.
Top end contracts are £100+ per month, which means there's going to be £20 monthly increases there.
O2 are pretty good at splitting their airtime and device costs so you only pay the increase on the airtime, EE and others, the whole contract
Tis why all 4 mobile contracts we have are sim only and even then, I'm ruthless at shopping round.
If looking (and depending on the data you need)
Plusnet if not much data Giffgaff / Smarty if it's for teenagers who use Gbs a day. both of them still have Eu roaming as well.
And buy the phone separately - there is sod all real difference between an iphone 12 pro and a 14 pro.
SIM only is always the cheapest option, I'm fortunate that I have like 18 contracts with EE and they give me hefty discounts when I renew my SIM only deals.
Plus I get a 25% discount via work which makes it very good deal.
Always? Unless you're getting a hefty discount on the phone itself, that seems unlikely.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
But when the contract expires - go SIM only. You don't need a new phone every two years. I'm paying £10.00 a month for 8GB and grandfather rights to EU roaming.
It already has expired and it already is SIM only as a result, that happens automatically.
I'm paying £10 a month each for 10GB for both my wife and I which rolls over monthly so my pot is now about 200GB so effectively unlimited.
Most firms now offer contracts that are phone element plus SIM element so are automatically SIM only at the end of contract. If any firms exist that still charge you for the phone even at the end of the contract, then in the words of the Prime Minister: that is a disgrace.
I get a giff gaff sim which gives me 100 plus gig of data for 20 a month and just pay 100 for a phone from CEX when the old one breaks does me fine.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
NI is charged twice on incomes, Employers and Employees.
Sucks for anyone who thought they'd evade it in the future if they no longer do, but shit happens.
Maybe I'm more sick than I thought. Aren't I the lefty?
I'm not opposed to taxing people more, but just on the mechanisms with taxing pensions the deal has always been to encourage pension saving, so that people are not wholly reliant on the State when they're too old to work. If you tax pension income on the way in, and on the way out, that will discourage pension saving and you'll end up with less pension saving, probably less saving in general, and more pensioners more reliant on the state when they're incapable of working.
Is that really the outcome you want?
I'm not wholly opposed to taxing pensioners more, but there's a risk that you make saving for a pension a way of losing money and then people will stop doing it.
Understand Liz Truss has been informed by Graham Brady the traditional threshold of letters for a leadership challenge has been breached. But he is insisting on a threshold of half the parliamentary party before acting. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582662302553501696
The Triple Lock should be fixed (even though I'm a beneficiary). Social Care should also be fixed. Trouble is doing either will lose you votes, just ask Theresa May.
Tell you what needs to end - the stain that is the ERG on the Tory party. Holds too much influence, has caused many of the problems. Still continues to believe it holds some sort of moral high ground and purpose. Get rid.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Brexit is done, not screwed up, as much as Theresa May nearly screwed it up.
Everything HYUFD said is true. He did get a landslide majority, he did deliver Brexit, he did get us through Covid as the first major nation in the world to get vaccinated. That's really not a bad legacy.
He was also a deeply flawed individual who was serially dishonest and that will also be remembered.
Many past PMs and across the pond Presidents with a good legacy are also remembered for being flawed individuals. Boris fits in that category.
Brexit done is a matter of opinion. There are oodles of stuff outstanding or botched and Boris lied about much of this stuff. The obvious one in NI. He lied about that and then left it undone. I could list many more that are in a state of disarray.
His landslide victory was due to 2 things: Get Brexit done and Corbyn.
Covid is a mixed bag and that wasn't a bad job. Probably as well if not better than many Govt would have done. Vaccines and Nightingale hospitals were a really good success, but track and trace and contracts were a shambles, the Xmas lockdown was a huge cockup and furlough was mixed. Good idea, but too generous, and with lots of groups missing out altogether. First time around that was understandable, but not after that.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
The thing about NI is that it, ostensibly, is an insurance premium for welfare. People don't stop needing welfare just because they get old. Low income people are exempt anyway now with the higher threshold so people who receive the state pension and not much else wouldn't pay any NI just as working poor people don't.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
NI is charged twice on incomes, Employers and Employees.
Sucks for anyone who thought they'd evade it in the future if they no longer do, but shit happens.
Maybe I'm more sick than I thought. Aren't I the lefty?
I'm not opposed to taxing people more, but just on the mechanisms with taxing pensions the deal has always been to encourage pension saving, so that people are not wholly reliant on the State when they're too old to work. If you tax pension income on the way in, and on the way out, that will discourage pension saving and you'll end up with less pension saving, probably less saving in general, and more pensioners more reliant on the state when they're incapable of working.
Is that really the outcome you want?
I'm not wholly opposed to taxing pensioners more, but there's a risk that you make saving for a pension a way of losing money and then people will stop doing it.
But any other investment gets taxed on the way in, and the way out, too - people still invest in alternatives.
If you get paid you get taxed on that, if you use your taxed income to invest in BTL property, then later sell that property, you get taxed CGT on that, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in stocks, then later get dividends or sell those stocks, you get taxed on the way out, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in setting up a business, which later makes a profit, you get taxed on your profits, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
Taxation never stops, because the state's expenditure never stops. All money is always taxed later on. Why, uniquely, should pensioners incomes uniquely of all investments be exempt from taxation on a double taxation principle when any other incomes from investments would be taxed?
All forms of saving, and all forms of investment, and all forms of income, should be treated fairly and consistently.
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Whoops. Looks like I am arguing with myself. That was supposed to be a reply to HYUFD claiming Boris will go down in history as a hero of the conservative party. World of own!
He will, even now most Tory members would take Boris back as PM tomorrow.
For Tories Boris is up there after Churchill and Thatcher already as our best Conservative PM of the last 100 years
Apart from the Tory parliamentary party, who threw him out of office ignominiously.
But perhaps they could not have been true Tories, by definition ...
Half of whom only won their seats in 2019 thanks to Boris
One of the mysteries in the last few weeks is why the LibDems are suffering. They are normally a safe haven for protest votes.
I've asked this before and the informed response from other posters was that tactical voting only crystallises in the run up to elections. We can expect to see them surge later.
Having said that, I do wonder if an election were to happen now it would be quite tricky to work out who would be the nearest challenger to the Tories given how mad the polls are.
Totnes is an interesting seat. LibDems did better than Labour last time, because of Dr. Sarah Wollaston being their candidate. But the latest detailed "result" for an election now shows the Tory holding by a couple of points with Labour nicking enough votes off the LibDems to come second - but not win.
If tactical working doesn't work, which is more likely with Lab surge and LDs not doing well, this will become a common result. There are plenty of seats (even with Lab in 2nd place) where Lab can not win, but LD can, but won't.
Deluded. He will go down as the PM who destroyed the Tory party for at least a decade. He will be identified as the PM who screwed up Brexit. His corruption and lies will go down in history.
Brexit is done, not screwed up, as much as Theresa May nearly screwed it up.
Everything HYUFD said is true. He did get a landslide majority, he did deliver Brexit, he did get us through Covid as the first major nation in the world to get vaccinated. That's really not a bad legacy.
He was also a deeply flawed individual who was serially dishonest and that will also be remembered.
Many past PMs and across the pond Presidents with a good legacy are also remembered for being flawed individuals. Boris fits in that category.
Brexit done is a matter of opinion.
No, it's a matter of fact - the UK is no longer a member of the EU.
Having reflected on some of the discussions that I have read on here, I've come around to the view that the best way forward is for a form of NI to be payable on all forms of income. This would include pensions, dividend income, capital gains etc.
In the interests of fairness and to avoid hardship, the actual rate payable could be varied based on total personal income; but the total amount should be at least 13.5% in the case of pensioners who have an income that is higher than the median average wage, but for those who are relying on the state pension, or have a very small private pension the rate should be zero. This would be the core revenue raising part of the policy.
The flipside of this would be that the state pension would rise slightly, and the triple lock would remain - and is paid universally. So the policy would benefit a majority of pensioners.
Politically I think a revolt of wealthy pensioners would be comical and counterproductive. Their mouths have been stuffed with gold for too long.
Is your last paragraph right? The alleged stuffing is the triple lock on the STATE pension which is irrelevant because it is pocket money to anyone describable by any stretch as wealthy. What else? Bus passes?
If the state pension is your main source of income, it isn't that great; it just covers your living costs, assuming that you have housing sorted out. The policy is targeted at those pensioners receiving the state pension plus significant incomes through either a) defined benefit or private pensions or b) savings and investments. I'm suggesting they should just pay an extra circa 13.5% tax. In the case of the very wealthy it would have the effect of negating the state pension, they just pay it back in tax. So the policy just really targets the very rich who don't really need the state pension.
Yeah i am not against your plan, I have proposed an alternative assault on the universality of the state pension elsewhere in the thread. My question was what breaks are wealthy pensioners getting at present?
No NI on earned income if they still work, no NI on pension income, dividend tax rates are lower than income tax rates.
First point valid, second misses the point of NI, third point div tax PLUS corp tax is the relevant measure - rare genuine example of taxing the same money twice.
Second is perfectly valid, the point of NI is to raise money for the Exchequer. Wealthy pensioners should pay their fair share too.
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
The thing about pensions is that you pay national insurance on your pension contributions (but you don't pay income tax), so that's always been the logical justification for only levying income tax on the pension paid - you've already paid the NI due, as pensions are deferred income.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
The thing about NI is that it, ostensibly, is an insurance premium for welfare. People don't stop needing welfare just because they get old. Low income people are exempt anyway now with the higher threshold so people who receive the state pension and not much else wouldn't pay any NI just as working poor people don't.
Um, you don't really pay NI on pension contributions unless you voluntarily make pension payments from your own bank account.
If the pension contributions form part of a PAYE salary payment then (depending on how its down) the only NI charged will be the Employer NI side of the Employee's contribution - it's taken off alongside the Employee NI calculation.
The Triple Lock should be fixed (even though I'm a beneficiary). Social Care should also be fixed. Trouble is doing either will lose you votes, just ask Theresa May.
I noticed something interesting (to me anyway) today. The front pages of the papers are used in quite a few politics updates, and often on here, but does that over promote the agenda of older people who still read physical papers?
The Express today has almost the whole front page with the words, Don't Dare Go Back On Pension Triple Lock. That's a pretty strong message that this is the most important issue in their eyes.
The Express website currently has the same story as a minor link with 35 other stories above it on the home page. It's even a minor story in 18th position on it's dedicated Politics page.
"Beware what happens in the coming days and weeks. We must not let the Conservative party blame this all on Truss, anoint her successor, and then regroup and reset, as if everything is back to normal."
So do Starmer & Co, I imagine. Hence - I'm pleased to note - frequent use from them of "Conservatives" or "Tory" rather than "Truss" as the descriptor to go with "catastrophe" and "uber-mess" and "total fucking disaster" and all the rest of it.
Understand Liz Truss has been informed by Graham Brady the traditional threshold of letters for a leadership challenge has been breached. But he is insisting on a threshold of half the parliamentary party before acting. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582662302553501696
I take it he hasn't told Tory MPs that fact. If he had that number would be reached within a couple of hours.
Although 50% of the parliamentary party is a high bar when 15-25% of them are in the payroll of Mrs Truss and many of them have zero chance of being a minister in anyone else's cabinet.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/19/britain-suffering-mortgage-homeowners-westminster
[W]hat kinds of economic malfunction are permitted and which ones aren’t. Making these judgments over the past four weeks has required some remarkable hypocrisy on the part of technocrats, rival politicians and former politicians, but that has not deterred them.
The International Monetary Fund scolded Britain for letting its monetary policy and its fiscal policy pull in different directions. While the Bank of England has been trying to tackle inflation with interest rate rises, Kwarteng’s Treasury was guilty of contributing to inflation with tax cuts. Some “policy coherence” was sternly advised.
And yet, a conflict between monetary and fiscal policy was the central feature of the dismal decade that followed the 2008 financial crisis. While George Osborne starved local government, the welfare state and infrastructure projects of money, the Bank of England pumped unprecedented quantities of credit into the financial system to prevent a full-on depression. The combined effect was socially devastating (to an extent it affected life expectancy) and financially lucrative, as asset values soared. Was that really “coherent”? Or was it simply having the right priorities, from the IMF’s point of view?
When the end client ceased trading on a Wednesday, within a week it had taken down multiple consultancies who were supplying that client and half the agencies who were provide contractors to those consultancies.
There are alternatives out there.
From what I can tell, the first freshwater angelfish genome was just published by a high schooler using a MinION to sequence the DNA of his dead pet
https://mobile.twitter.com/richabdill/status/1582483998554525697
Apparently also crowdfunded.
https://experiment.com/projects/sequencing-the-genome-of-the-freshwater-angelfish
HMRC allows firms to collect money that belongs to them, and allows them to keep hold of that money and gives them time to pay for their bills because they accept the risk of bankruptcy and know that by allowing firms that time they will generate more money from taxation than if there was a more complicated system with payments made automatically or sooner to HMRC.
Butchers and bakers could demand cash on delivery or cash or payment up front for all payments if they wanted to. They allow businesses and their clients time to pay their outstanding bills because they think they will make more profit that way than if they demanded payment up front and didn't get the client.
If a butcher invests in giving its stock to a client on the expectation of future payment, then that is done for an expected future payment and profit, it won't be done at cost.
@TheScreamingEagles and others are correct
Unfortunately, the DUP have hardened their position, and the position of Liz Truss is so weak that negotiators might wonder if it's worth negotiating with her, or waiting for her successor.
However, if there was some way to get all parties to come to an agreement so that power-sharing could be restored, then that would be a solid achievement Truss could point to even if her tenure was shorter than Canning's.
Also she can't be VONCed for a year unless there is a rule change. Not knowledgeable about Tory internal rules so unsure what would be required to make that change. How much power do the ERG and fellow travellers have to block changes?
Even if Starmer would find it easier than the Tories to impose tax rises, especially on higher earners and the rich, which he would
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/24/enough-is-enough-movement-gathers-pace-with-andy-burnham-latest-backer
"The movement is in talks with premier league footballers and household-name actors to boost its profile. Another lead organiser, Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool, West Derby, said the coming crisis was “like the blitz” and a comparable threat to Covid-19.
“We are dealing with maybe 35 million people being plunged into fuel poverty,” he said. “Let’s be brutal. People are going to die. People can’t afford to eat, they can’t afford to put the heating on"....
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said its call for a inflation-matching public sector pay rise would cost an extra £19bn a year, and the Fabian Society thinktank said the proposed energy bill cuts could cost £75bn a year, with the universal credit increase costing £4bn a year."
I think we have seen and heard this all before and it the general public may ultimately come to prefer what they are hearing from Jeremy Hunt, rather than Zarah Sultana.
Boris won a landslide Tory majority, Boris delivered Brexit, Boris got us through Covid with furlough and the vaccine.
Truss will be going down worse than Chamberlain and Eden, Boris won't
Maybe the former in particular can talk about the need for those earning obscene wages to be taxed sufficiently. Maybe they could even make a meaningful contribution so their actions match their words.
Tory MPs listening to whingers like you and BigG got rid of the best Tory PM since Thatcher and ensures the Tories likely face a decade or more in opposition
LDs were close and Labour nowhere near between 1997-2005.
Similar to Lewes constituency in Sussex.
Meanwhile at kindergarten No31 in the town of Korolyov, just outside Moscow
https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1582653606410735617
Everything HYUFD said is true. He did get a landslide majority, he did deliver Brexit, he did get us through Covid as the first major nation in the world to get vaccinated. That's really not a bad legacy.
He was also a deeply flawed individual who was serially dishonest and that will also be remembered.
Many past PMs and across the pond Presidents with a good legacy are also remembered for being flawed individuals. Boris fits in that category.
I mean the fact is we have a hell of a lot of gas generation capacity, and whilst recent events have bitten us on the arse that's a non reversible fact.
We could have got some cheap gas waiting off the coast of Spain with extra facilities.
This isn't quite right either, but it does capture both "hitting the ground from day one", and the state of Truss's planning.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SlenderSherbet/status/1581892220344336384
More pertinently those Tory wingnuts have been much closer to the centre of power - and in some cases (Truss, Braverman) able to enact policy - than the Labour whackos who have been relegated to the margins since Starmer took power.
What matters is how much power they have. At the moment I would say that under Starmer the left have about as much power as they had under Blair, ie very little. On the other hand I would say the right have pretty much controlled the Tory Party since Brexit though that may be about to change.
I get my contracts from Sky, who don't have the usurious CPI+x% in the contract, and my contract costs me less than buying the phone outright would have done even without a SIM.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/has-the-aga-had-its-day
One sees comments about Say what you like about HYUFD he is sound on con party poilitics. you aren't.
Johnson was a corrupt adulterous liar, just the sort of poster boy conservative christianity needs.
To be fair though I've had my phone for about five years now, I bought the phone (a Galaxy S9+) via contract from Sky when they launched Sky Mobile and its still in perfectly good working order so I don't feel the need to upgrade again. So their offer may have been more generous when they launched than it still is.
Not replacing your perfectly fine phone every 2 years when you don't need to saves more money than any other decisions you can make.
For Tories Boris is up there after Churchill and Thatcher already as our best Conservative PM of the last 100 years
Best peace dividend for getting rid of one: after decades of home bread baking to use up a tiny fraction of the wasted energy, now that I am all electric it is cost ineffective and I can go back to buying the stuff in shops.
I'm paying £10 a month each for 10GB for both my wife and I which rolls over monthly so my pot is now about 200GB so effectively unlimited.
Most firms now offer contracts that are phone element plus SIM element so are automatically SIM only at the end of contract. If any firms exist that still charge you for the phone even at the end of the contract, then in the words of the Prime Minister: that is a disgrace.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582658045515268096
https://twitter.com/patrickkmaguire/status/1582637667304382464
For the latter a rare genuine example? Examples happen all the time.
Someone who works for a living has their remuneration taxed three times: Employers NI + Employee NI + Income Tax. If we're abolishing "secondary" taxes, we should certainly abolish tertiary ones.
Or VAT on fuel duty. Not just a tax, but taxing a tax.
But perhaps they could not have been true Tories, by definition ...
Buying from Sky its £24 a month for 2 years, then £16 a month for year 3, so total repayable is £768. So £1 cheaper and with no price rises in the contract.
I don't know much about the downstream facilities, but I thought a couple of months ago people were talking about a lot of LNG heading into Europe via Britain because we had more extensive facilities than on the Continent. I understood that for us the issue is not so much facilities to deal with LNG as the availability of vessels capable of bringing the stuff to us from the Middle East. Though as I say I don't know a huge amount about this and so may have got the wrong end of the stick.
This probably doesn't quite work for DB pensions if the contributions don't fully cover the cost of the payouts. So perhaps there's an argument for charging NI on DB pensions that aren't fully funded. But if pensions are simply deferred income then it doesn't make sense to charge NI on them twice.
Sucks for anyone who thought they'd evade it in the future if they no longer do, but shit happens.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06544/
The Daily Mail
The Sun
The Express
The Telegraph
The Observer
The thing that never happens, and women are bigots/idiots/hysterical for raising concerns about, has just happened again. Male sex offender identifies as a woman to gain access to vulnerable female victims, this time in a women’s shelter…..
….Scotland is on the verge of introducing similar laws to Canada, where this happened. Scottish parliamentarians have effectively ignored these concerns because it doesn’t suit their agenda.
https://twitter.com/soniasodha/status/1582622217715986432
Maybe it would or should have increased more, but that is not "social devastating"
If Boris was still there the lies and corruption and the disruption due to those lies and corruption will still be going on and the Tory vote would be where it is now or even lower.
If you get paid an income which you invest in a pension on the expectation of further income in the future, then that's not the same income you receive in the future, its new income that hasn't yet been taxed.
If instead of a pension you get paid an income which you invest in stocks on the expectation of future dividends to live off in the future, then you would still be expected, rightly, to pay the tax due on those dividends when they arise.
If its just deferred income then the tax exemption should extend only to the amount of tax that wasn't paid at the time, with no uplifting. If its new income, it should be taxed.
I'm not opposed to taxing people more, but just on the mechanisms with taxing pensions the deal has always been to encourage pension saving, so that people are not wholly reliant on the State when they're too old to work. If you tax pension income on the way in, and on the way out, that will discourage pension saving and you'll end up with less pension saving, probably less saving in general, and more pensioners more reliant on the state when they're incapable of working.
Is that really the outcome you want?
I'm not wholly opposed to taxing pensioners more, but there's a risk that you make saving for a pension a way of losing money and then people will stop doing it.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582662302553501696
Social Care should also be fixed.
Trouble is doing either will lose you votes, just ask Theresa May.
His landslide victory was due to 2 things: Get Brexit done and Corbyn.
Covid is a mixed bag and that wasn't a bad job. Probably as well if not better than many Govt would have done. Vaccines and Nightingale hospitals were a really good success, but track and trace and contracts were a shambles, the Xmas lockdown was a huge cockup and furlough was mixed. Good idea, but too generous, and with lots of groups missing out altogether. First time around that was understandable, but not after that.
If you get paid you get taxed on that, if you use your taxed income to invest in BTL property, then later sell that property, you get taxed CGT on that, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in stocks, then later get dividends or sell those stocks, you get taxed on the way out, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
If you get paid and used your taxed income to invest in setting up a business, which later makes a profit, you get taxed on your profits, despite having already been taxed on the way in.
Taxation never stops, because the state's expenditure never stops. All money is always taxed later on. Why, uniquely, should pensioners incomes uniquely of all investments be exempt from taxation on a double taxation principle when any other incomes from investments would be taxed?
All forms of saving, and all forms of investment, and all forms of income, should be treated fairly and consistently.
If the Conservative leadership election were rerun today, 64% of would vote for Rishi Sunak, while 36% would back Liz Truss. https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1582665358489669636/photo/1
Truss has no mandate at all to continue and needs to face reality .
If the pension contributions form part of a PAYE salary payment then (depending on how its down) the only NI charged will be the Employer NI side of the Employee's contribution - it's taken off alongside the Employee NI calculation.
The Express today has almost the whole front page with the words, Don't Dare Go Back On Pension Triple Lock. That's a pretty strong message that this is the most important issue in their eyes.
The Express website currently has the same story as a minor link with 35 other stories above it on the home page. It's even a minor story in 18th position on it's dedicated Politics page.
I very much agree with this from the above:
"Beware what happens in the coming days and weeks. We must not let the Conservative party blame this all on Truss, anoint her successor, and then regroup and reset, as if everything is back to normal."
So do Starmer & Co, I imagine. Hence - I'm pleased to note - frequent use from them of "Conservatives" or "Tory" rather than "Truss" as the descriptor to go with "catastrophe" and "uber-mess" and "total fucking disaster" and all the rest of it.
Although 50% of the parliamentary party is a high bar when 15-25% of them are in the payroll of Mrs Truss and many of them have zero chance of being a minister in anyone else's cabinet.