Foreign Secretary was an absolute car crash on Braverman. @Skynewsniall is right: people will find the notion that this wasn't grubby tit-for-tat an insult to their intelligence. Braverman's record of gaffes belies the idea she's an intellectual giant, indispensable to any gov't. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1585178779420602376/video/1
Yes, why were some of the more credulous PB Tories brushing it off last night? As soon as she was appointed it was blindly obvious that Sunak had made a stupid unforced error.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
I don't particularly want to see Suella Braverman in the Home office, but if it's the price of getting the party to work together and having a functioning government, then I can see the sense of it from Sunak's point of view.
How does "Suella Braverman in the Home Office" go with "having a functioning government"?
Because without her endorsement, presumably we’d be back to looking at a Johnson return
Again: 1. Sunak promises her return 2. Sunak is appointed PM 3. Sunak is very sorry but having been fully briefed he is unable to appoint her after all
Smart, ruthless politics.
No. Unacceptable politics. Sunak's USP was that he was different. He wasn't part of the Johnson clique. If it's seriously being suggested that he made a deal to keep Braverman onside then this is a big story. Sleaze on day one doesn't look good
No no, I AGREE with you. I was proposing the smart politics which was get her endorsement then regrettably not be able to carry it through.
Instead what we have is cowardice and being held prisoner by the ERG. Bad politics
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
Labour are in no position to lecture on diversity, whether gender or race.
It's not like the Tories haven't given Labour enough ammunition with which to beat them around the head . Stupid politics by Labour, flagging up their hypocrisy.
Labour need to work on their knee-jerk reactions. They get too easily triggered.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Morning all.
Yes, unless the housing bubble is significantly popped everything else means very little.
Now is probably the best time, as people moving are at a low, and we have just had 25% or so house price rises in a short period.
So the number of people who will be seriously negatively affected is a very small minority.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
"He owns two £2m homes in London, one of which is a £2.5m townhouse less than a mile from the Houses of Parliament. He also owns Eye Manor, a Grade I listed building in Herefordshire which he purchased for £1.1 million in 2009. His constituency of Newark is 150 miles (240 km) from his 'family home' in Herefordshire. He rents a £2,000-a-month property in his Newark constituency,[26] which is paid for by the MPs' second homes allowance."
What is your point? Didn't Tony Blair have a number of properties whilst PM? What housing and land holdings does Starmer have at the moment and in the past?
On Braverman, Monbiot once again points out today something that almost the entire rest of of the press have, staggeringly, missed. Under her Public Order Bill going through last week, anyone can be fitted with an "electronic monitoring device" for having attended a "disruptive" protest in the last 12 months, with any "disruption" already having been redefined by earlier legislation in 2022 to include noise. So in fact, under the Public Order Bill, you could be fitted with an electronic tag just for having attended any noisy protest within the last year.
Really don't get the criticism on here for appointing some right wingers - the consensus previously was that divided parties don't win elections. How could Rishi have completely got rid of all the right wingers and claimed to want to win the next election. My yard stick was Rees Mogg. He is more well known and despised by normal folk ,- political obsessives on here might know Bravermann but probably not too well known. Even Blair had John Prescott (although I don't think he had a choice)
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
First scandal brewing for Sunak then. Braverman. On day 1 he's in the position of having to defend the indefensible.
She's only there because it was her price for declaring for him and stopping Penny getting 100. I'm sure he regrets having to do it. Problem is for him now is that even if (when) she screws up then it will reflect even worse on him than appointing her in the first place.
First scandal brewing for Sunak then. Braverman. On day 1 he's in the position of having to defend the indefensible.
It's possible.
The lying about a leak of restricted documents - which clearly went well beyond the inadvertent error which she admitted to - didn't get a great deal of attention amid the Truss implosion. It would have been rapidly forgotten had she not been reappointed. As it is, it will become an exposed scab which the opposition will pick at.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
I suspect this may be close to a high point for him. Let's see where we are in 2 weeks.
The key for him is probably to try and run against his party's past, in the way that both May and Johnson tried and was at least partly successful for both of them, at least initially.
However I wonder whether Sunak has it in him to adopt such a strategy, which is politically quite cynical and doesn't sit well with his pledge to return to more honest politics - and also sits unhappily with his cabinet appointments which don't exactly scream new broom.
Nevertheless if he could pull off a pitch along the lines of "my economic competence will sort out Truss's toxic economic inheritance" and "my honesty and integrity will sort out Johnson's toxic political inheritance", it is his best chance of getting more of the public on his side.
I agree that hammering away at that line is his best way forward; but the contrast between words and deeds (c.f. yesterday's cabinet announcements, Mogg and Dorries rumblings) may only serve to throw it into sharp relief.
Really don't get the criticism on here for appointing some right wingers - the consensus previously was that divided parties don't win elections. How could Rishi have completely got rid of all the right wingers and claimed to want to win the next election. My yard stick was Rees Mogg. He is more well known and despised by normal folk ,- political obsessives on here might know Bravermann but probably not too well known. Even Blair had John Prescott (although I don't think he had a choice)
I haven't listened to commercial radio news since 6pm last night, but then the story was appointment of Braverman who quit because Liz Truss was shit. I paraphrase, naturally, but there was no mention of the official reason for the resignation. Time to see how the story has moved on for the majority of the country that doesn't follow politics obsessively.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
I think that living expenses are too high. This means that people feel the burden of taxation more heavily. If you can reduce living costs then it's easier to tolerate the same level of taxation.
The other effect is that, in part, high living costs are a result of it being too easy to make money by rent-seeking, so capital doesn't have to achieve productivity gains to make a profitable return, it simply has to own assets.
So if you can tackle rent-seeking then you can create a double benefit. You reduce living costs and increase living standards without having to cut public spending, and you encourage capital to be used to increase productivity, which should increase growth and living standards further.
The focus of public policy debates on taxation and public spending is all wrong.
Foreign Secretary was an absolute car crash on Braverman. @Skynewsniall is right: people will find the notion that this wasn't grubby tit-for-tat an insult to their intelligence. Braverman's record of gaffes belies the idea she's an intellectual giant, indispensable to any gov't. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1585178779420602376/video/1
Yes, why were some of the more credulous PB Tories brushing it off last night? As soon as she was appointed it was blindly obvious that Sunak had made a stupid unforced error.
Stupid forced error. Grubby tit for tat is right.
He should have, could have, just knifed her: reneged on some technicality.
Another day of almost 500 troops losses for Russia according to Ukraine. I know this is propaganda but if anywhere close to these figures then how is it sustainable? Their mobilised men are being rapidly destroyed as cannon fodder.
"Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies." Alexander Pope
Off for my COVID autumn booster - anyone had side effects?
Yes. I had Moderna (sp?). Reacted badly. I had COVID 1 month before with mild symptoms. The injection was as bad. Very bad aches, temperature and shivers for a day. Felt better the following day, but felt like I had been dragged through a hedge. 3rd day fine. COVID was no worse for me.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
That the UK has lower productivity than peers in Europe and is falling behind further is well documented. UK median incomes after housing were amongst the highest in Europe before the GFC, now in the lower half and falling further relatively. This is directly attributable to two Conservative government policies: Cameron/Osborne austerity and Brexit. I would say the article is spot on.
DIsclosure: I thought austerity was necessary back in 2010. I now realise I was mistaken
This is effectively saying that the median UK household is worse off relative to other European countries due to higher house prices, which is surely not right, on the contrary, most households gain from higher house prices because they get housing equity that they can liquidate for spending in retirement, unlike the typical German renter who needs to invest in ultra-safe pensions.
But this is the problem ffs! In very simple terms, everyone on high incomes AHC in the UK tends to be a no-mortgage Tory with no dependents. Huge wealth and disposable income. And nothing to do with it.
Meanwhile, someone like me has to chuck a huge amount of our salary into a mortgage or rent. We don't then have the money left over to go for a Masters degree or Further education, lowering our productivity. Or we don't have the spare cash to move to another part of the country to match our skills with a better job.
Some of us, like me, get a big chunk of money off our parents for the flat and/or the Masters. This entrenches generational inequality, further disincentivising people who are high-performers from even bothering to make something of themselves.
Productivity growth dies. No one has money to have kids, so the fertility rate drops. There is reduced working-age population which gets squeezed harder and harder to serve an older generation which, due to technological advances and an increase in chronic conditions, requires a huge number of carers (further reducing the working population).
The UK enters a death spiral and everyone sensible moves to somewhere that isn't going to get fucked by climate change.
This is what I did. Moved somewhere else where I got paid 60% more for the same job I did in the UK.
I'm moving to Aus in July/August.
Great move! An old school/rugby colleague of mine moved his family to Australia a few years ago. It was a big success. My only worry is if/when air travel becomes so prohibitively expensive that Aus/NZ get “cut off”. Back to steamers?
I have never for one moment regretted emigrating to Sweden. I absolutely love it here. Unfortunately I don’t think that I come up to @WillG ’s high standards - “moved somewhere else where I got paid 60% more for the same job I did in the UK” - but maybe 40% more, and the other benefits just blow Scotland out the water, eg:
- ridiculously long holidays + other time off (eg parental leave and time off to care for sick children) - short working hours (I have almost never worked more than 35 hours a week, often considerably less, all for F/T salary) - ridiculously short commuting times (approximately 17 minutes at present) and plenty of working from home - powerful trade unions that genuinely look after my interests - a clean, safe, attractive environment - outstanding library services that are so good I almost never need to buy a book or magazine ( anything they don’t already have, they order for me) - world class sports facilities and coaching - safe cycling - the gorgeous nature, coast, landscapes - sane, pleasant politicians - competent public services - media who are not habitual liars - beautiful seafood - sensible alcohol and drug environment - outstanding public transport - great schools and universities - I could go on all day
Obviously, Scotland can beat Sweden in various ways too. Few things in life are all gain and no pain. I miss my old mum and my old friends for example. And nowhere in Sweden is as gorgeous as Harris, Orkney or Ardnamurchan on a good day. The fresh smell of the Atlantic Ocean is unparalleled
I've always enjoyed my visits to Sweden for work and pleasure, and the Swedes are a pleasure to work with - they are very smart and the media definitely seems to pitch at a much higher level of intelligence than ours does. The one thing that I have always struggled with, though, is the reserve. They seem not to say a lot of stuff they may be thinking. And the mosquitos. They are sheer hell. But the light blue of the Swedish sky in summer and the dark blue of those Swedish lakes, that is magical. I also think the Swedish flag is the most beautiful in the world.
There is also a grim melancholia to Swedish people, with a rather austere and harsh Lutheran culture. Something that either you feel in tune with, or not. I am fine with it, but I can understand why others find "the Germans of the North" difficult.
Yes, you’ve both hit the nail on the head there. Never heard “the Germans of the North” term before, but there is a lot of truth in it. Modern Swedes try desperately to disguise their close bonds with Germany, going back to the dawn of history and almost certainly long before, but such profound cultural similarities cannot forever be suppressed.
Lutheranism: absolutely! Both for good and ill. They pretend they are irreligious, but you’ll never meet a bigger bunch of moralists in your life. My wife for example almost never crosses the threshold of a church, but the Lutheran work ethic is embedded in her soul like a stick of rock.
Melancholia: yepp. Especially in the rural bits. Of course, the upside is that they despise melodrama: it makes them feel uncomfortable.
Austere and harsh culture? No, not really. But then unless you’ve mastered the language (which is actually surprisingly easy) then I can understand why one might think that.
A pleasure to work with? Yepp. Bloody hard working and dependable. But after 4pm Monday-Thursday and 3pm on a Friday, or anytime between late June and late August: good luck getting anyone to answer a phone or email. Ditto the “red days” and the innumerable ”klämdagar”.
They are very smart? Yepp. And emotionally intelligent. They make your average Englishman look like an adolescent.
The media definitely seems to pitch at a much higher level of intelligence than ours does? Oh yes. And then some.
The reserve? Yes. This is hard for outsiders to get used to. It mostly explains why they have had such horrific problems integrating some immigrants.
They seem not to say a lot of stuff they may be thinking? Ho ho. Indeed! Good luck guessing what a Swede is *really* thinking. They are so quiet cos they hate being rude 😄
And the mosquitos. They are sheer hell? Only in the far north. Have you never met a Scottish cleg or midge?
But the light blue of the Swedish sky in summer and the dark blue of those Swedish lakes, that is magical? Exquisite. Stunning beyond comprehension.
I also think the Swedish flag is the most beautiful in the world? I love it. It is my flag, almost as much as the cherished Saltire.
Are Swedes any more similar to Germans than the English are to Germans? Or the Swedes are to the English?
- Is there really such a thing as Lutheran work ethic? I'm unconvinced.
- Reserved? Sounds more like Brits than Germans, I would say.
- Don't say what they are really thinking? Ditto. Most Germans are rarely shy about letting you know what they think.
- Melancholia? Again, can't see this as something that is more German than British.
- Mosquitoes in the north? Just like Britain.
Can't really comment on emotional intelligence. Dependability is a valued quality in Germany, so that is maybe one similarity.
You’ve misunderstood my post. I was dealing with all the points separately, not under a “Germany of the North” overall header.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
I think that living expenses are too high. This means that people feel the burden of taxation more heavily. If you can reduce living costs then it's easier to tolerate the same level of taxation.
The other effect is that, in part, high living costs are a result of it being too easy to make money by rent-seeking, so capital doesn't have to achieve productivity gains to make a profitable return, it simply has to own assets.
So if you can tackle rent-seeking then you can create a double benefit. You reduce living costs and increase living standards without having to cut public spending, and you encourage capital to be used to increase productivity, which should increase growth and living standards further.
The focus of public policy debates on taxation and public spending is all wrong.
I think there's a lot of truth in that, but rent/mortgage prices are only one aspect of living costs.
On Braverman, Monbiot once again points out today something that almost the entire rest of of the press have, staggeringly, missed. Under her Public Order Bill going through last week, anyone can be fitted with an "electronic monitoring device" for having attended a "disruptive" protest in the last 12 months, with any "disruption" already having been redefined by earlier legislation in 2022 to include noise. So in fact, under the Public Order Bill, you could be fitted with an electronic tag just for having attended any noisy protest within the last year.
Yes - and let's not forget the Rees Mogg EU law withdrawal legislation which is still wending its way through Parliament. This is a governing party that continues to demonstrate it has no attachment to democracy.
Really don't get the criticism on here for appointing some right wingers - the consensus previously was that divided parties don't win elections. How could Rishi have completely got rid of all the right wingers and claimed to want to win the next election. My yard stick was Rees Mogg. He is more well known and despised by normal folk ,- political obsessives on here might know Bravermann but probably not too well known. Even Blair had John Prescott (although I don't think he had a choice)
I don't think we're criticising "some right wingers"; there are some individual appointments that solicit a "good grief they're an idiot, but I kind of understand what's going on there" [e.g. Raab].
The one that has caused difficulty is Braverman not because she is well-known (though she has a higher profile than many), and not particularly because she is right wing, but because she offers an immediate counterfactual to the declaration of honesty and integrity. There is, within hours of his appointment, something for the press and the opposition to get their teeth into. They can paint the entire cabinet as the "same old Tories".
This was an unforced error (or perhaps a forced error!) and a promise of jam tomorrow after a short but definite period of penitence might have been a better way to handle it.
Labour planning to scrap tax-breaks for private schools. Unfortunate tactical rather than strategic thinking. What happens when those who can no longer afford private schools send them to local schools instead?
The Conservatives crashed the economy and now threaten to make deep cuts to school budgets.
Really don't get the criticism on here for appointing some right wingers - the consensus previously was that divided parties don't win elections. How could Rishi have completely got rid of all the right wingers and claimed to want to win the next election. My yard stick was Rees Mogg. He is more well known and despised by normal folk ,- political obsessives on here might know Bravermann but probably not too well known. Even Blair had John Prescott (although I don't think he had a choice)
I don't think we're criticising "some right wingers"; there are some individual appointments that solicit a "good grief they're an idiot, but I kind of understand what's going on there" [e.g. Raab].
The one that has caused difficulty is Braverman not because she is well-known (though she has a higher profile than many), and not particularly because she is right wing, but because she offers an immediate counterfactual to the declaration of honesty and integrity. There is, within hours of his appointment, something for the press and the opposition to get their teeth into. They can paint the entire cabinet as the "same old Tories".
This was an unforced error (or perhaps a forced error!) and a promise of jam tomorrow after a short but definite period of penitence might have been a better way to handle it.
Same ferrets in the same sack. Expect the same results.
I was referring to the latest election result (SNP 64, Con 31, Lab 22, Grn 8, LD 4), not to the next one.
If forced to predict, I’d say that the Scottish Tories will just about manage to achieve 3rd place, on a shocking reduction in vote share, but it’ll be close. The Scottish Lib Dems are going to thoroughly hoover up the Unionist vote in the North East, Borders and perhaps even wealthier suburbs of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Unfortunately, from their point of view, the new boundaries are going to totally screw their chances of seat gains, but there’ll be a lot of shock SLD 2nd places.
The Yougov polling gives Sunak a 26% favourable rating in Scotland, actually higher than the 25% the SCons got in 2019
"71% of housewives in East Lancashire and 81% in Hertfordshire expressed an interest in the concept of exotic ice-creams. Only 8% in Hertfordshire and 14% in Lancashire expressed positive hostility, whilst 5% expressed latent hostility. In Hertfordshire, 96% of the 50% who formed 20% of consumer spending were in favour. 0.6% told us where we could put our exotic ice creams."
We ought to keep that and paste it in every time Mini Franco spouts his gobbledygook.
Indeed.
I know it's rather missing the point but I also find it quite amusing that 'exotic ice-creams' have become a major 'thing' many years after poor old Reggie Perrin disappeared for good.
Showing your age! 😄
That was a true cult classic. What on earth is it with “Only Fools and Horses”?? It was pretty shite at the time, only marginally improving during the later series, but it is getting hyped beyond belief. I’ve never re-watched it after the original broadcasts. Some theatre even has a bloody musical(?!) on it down at Haymarket. WTF.
A common feature of successful British sitcoms is the feeling of being trapped and held back by circumstances, with the humour coming from that desperation.
Really don't get the criticism on here for appointing some right wingers - the consensus previously was that divided parties don't win elections. How could Rishi have completely got rid of all the right wingers and claimed to want to win the next election. My yard stick was Rees Mogg. He is more well known and despised by normal folk ,- political obsessives on here might know Bravermann but probably not too well known. Even Blair had John Prescott (although I don't think he had a choice)
I haven't listened to commercial radio news since 6pm last night, but then the story was appointment of Braverman who quit because Liz Truss was shit. I paraphrase, naturally, but there was no mention of the official reason for the resignation. Time to see how the story has moved on for the majority of the country that doesn't follow politics obsessively.
10am update: No metion of Braverman at all. Lead story was Sunak meeting his Cabinet ahead of his first PMQs, and the Foreign Secretary (name not given) saying the fiscal statement might be delayed for a few days. Then they moved on to talking about Kanye West.
Furthermore, Boris MUST have been rewarded by Sunak for dropping out. Must have been. He wouldn't give a key role to Braverman and fail to reward Boris for dropping out. The nature of that reward, we'll see in time I suppose.
That rather assumes Johnson dropped out through choice. I think it far more likely he had nothing like 100 backers.
I agree, that seemed the likeliest, but then it was confirmed that he did.
it wasn't confirmed. just more bs from one of his cronies.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
Foreign Secretary was an absolute car crash on Braverman. @Skynewsniall is right: people will find the notion that this wasn't grubby tit-for-tat an insult to their intelligence. Braverman's record of gaffes belies the idea she's an intellectual giant, indispensable to any gov't. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1585178779420602376/video/1
Her agenda might be seen as indispensable for the party, to Sunak and co anyway. She, however, is not.
That's why the attempts by AndyJS or others to claim the objection is about not wanting immigration laws enforced is disingenuous and just plain wrong.
Many of us might not like the government approach to immigration. But they could pursue that approach without Braverman, and given she 'resigned' to take responsibility for her actions, it should have.
There is no shortage of MPs happy to take a Braverman approach.
First scandal brewing for Sunak then. Braverman. On day 1 he's in the position of having to defend the indefensible.
It's possible.
The lying about a leak of restricted documents - which clearly went well beyond the inadvertent error which she admitted to - didn't get a great deal of attention amid the Truss implosion. It would have been rapidly forgotten had she not been reappointed. As it is, it will become an exposed scab which the opposition will pick at.
I’m not sure banging on about a politician who wants to be tough on illegal immigration is the winning strategy some appear to think it is. Us nerds know the granular detail, the general public may see a less detailed picture. Presumably Braverman has been told she’s on her final warning and if she does it again she’s sacked.
I suspect this may be close to a high point for him. Let's see where we are in 2 weeks.
The key for him is probably to try and run against his party's past, in the way that both May and Johnson tried and was at least partly successful for both of them, at least initially.
However I wonder whether Sunak has it in him to adopt such a strategy, which is politically quite cynical and doesn't sit well with his pledge to return to more honest politics - and also sits unhappily with his cabinet appointments which don't exactly scream new broom.
Nevertheless if he could pull off a pitch along the lines of "my economic competence will sort out Truss's toxic economic inheritance" and "my honesty and integrity will sort out Johnson's toxic political inheritance", it is his best chance of getting more of the public on his side.
If I was in Labour comms, I'd be putting together an image of cabinet members/ministers appointed under Truss (at any point) and Sunak. Same photo of the ministers, one with Truss's above, one with Sunak above. Then put them side by side with something like, "Meet Sunak's team, same as Truss's team, same old Tories". Truss was hugely disliked by the country, Labour (for them) need to push the line that essentially Sunak is more of the same.
(There will be a lot of people in common in the two teams, particularly if cherry picking from all the Truss appointments - e.g. Hunt in both - and most people will have no idea how much of the actual cabinet/government team that actually represents)
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
Bit spiky there Bart, and self-contradictory. If houses aren't investments what does "every investor" have to do with it? And bollocks anyway. Most stock portfolios are not intially leveraged 90%, or indeed at all. Negative equity will harm a lot more poor people who just wanted somewhere to live, than rich ones. Not to say it shouldn't happen, but them's the facts.
Disclaimer: I live in a paid for, 2 bedroom house, and I don't give a fuck what it is worth.
Foreign Secretary was an absolute car crash on Braverman. @Skynewsniall is right: people will find the notion that this wasn't grubby tit-for-tat an insult to their intelligence. Braverman's record of gaffes belies the idea she's an intellectual giant, indispensable to any gov't. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1585178779420602376/video/1
Her agenda might be seen as indispensable for the party, to Sunak and co anyway. She, however, is not.
That's why the attempts by AndyJS or others to claim the objection is about not wanting immigration laws enforced is disingenuous and just plain wrong.
Many of us might not like the government approach to immigration. But they could pursue that approach without Braverman, and given she 'resigned' to take responsibility for her actions, it should have.
There is no shortage of MPs happy to take a Braverman approach.
Peak Sunak will be around Christmas. It will be single figures. If it is close he needs to go for his own 20-30 seat mandate, before the ordure really meets the air conditioning.
All the movement so far is from a few days of no actual mad fuckups.
What will happen when Sunak & Co trey doing something, is another question.
On Braveman, is it possible that he is making sure that she will get sunk by her own policies?
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
I think that living expenses are too high. This means that people feel the burden of taxation more heavily. If you can reduce living costs then it's easier to tolerate the same level of taxation.
The other effect is that, in part, high living costs are a result of it being too easy to make money by rent-seeking, so capital doesn't have to achieve productivity gains to make a profitable return, it simply has to own assets.
So if you can tackle rent-seeking then you can create a double benefit. You reduce living costs and increase living standards without having to cut public spending, and you encourage capital to be used to increase productivity, which should increase growth and living standards further.
The focus of public policy debates on taxation and public spending is all wrong.
I think there's a lot of truth in that, but rent/mortgage prices are only one aspect of living costs.
By "rent-seeking" I include things like water charges from the water monopolies, or the CPI + 3.9% clauses in so many telecommunications contracts, etc. It dominates the entire British economy. It's not just what is literally called "rent".
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
I think that living expenses are too high. This means that people feel the burden of taxation more heavily. If you can reduce living costs then it's easier to tolerate the same level of taxation.
The other effect is that, in part, high living costs are a result of it being too easy to make money by rent-seeking, so capital doesn't have to achieve productivity gains to make a profitable return, it simply has to own assets.
So if you can tackle rent-seeking then you can create a double benefit. You reduce living costs and increase living standards without having to cut public spending, and you encourage capital to be used to increase productivity, which should increase growth and living standards further.
The focus of public policy debates on taxation and public spending is all wrong.
I think there's a lot of truth in that, but rent/mortgage prices are only one aspect of living costs.
Labour planning to scrap tax-breaks for private schools. Unfortunate tactical rather than strategic thinking. What happens when those who can no longer afford private schools send them to local schools instead?
The Conservatives crashed the economy and now threaten to make deep cuts to school budgets.
Foreign Secretary was an absolute car crash on Braverman. @Skynewsniall is right: people will find the notion that this wasn't grubby tit-for-tat an insult to their intelligence. Braverman's record of gaffes belies the idea she's an intellectual giant, indispensable to any gov't. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1585178779420602376/video/1
Yes, why were some of the more credulous PB Tories brushing it off last night? As soon as she was appointed it was blindly obvious that Sunak had made a stupid unforced error.
Stupid forced error. Grubby tit for tat is right.
He should have, could have, just knifed her: reneged on some technicality.
You do deals to get the leadership, fact of life. The problem here is the same ome as cabinet appointments - all available dealmakers and appointables are complete shits.
What looks bad to me is he showed an aptitude for knifing but just chose a soft target, the fragrant and relatively harmless Penny, but hadn't the balls to do Braverman.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
Bit spiky there Bart, and self-contradictory. If houses aren't investments what does "every investor" have to do with it? And bollocks anyway. Most stock portfolios are not intially leveraged 90%, or indeed at all. Negative equity will harm a lot more poor people who just wanted somewhere to live, than rich ones. Not to say it shouldn't happen, but them's the facts.
Disclaimer: I live in a paid for, 2 bedroom house, and I don't give a fuck what it is worth.
If people leverage themselves to make investments, then its their own damned fault if their investment loses money.
If someone is paying for their home as an expense, to live in, and not as an investment then it doesn't matter as much to them if house prices go down. Their mortgage is paying for the roof above their head, just as it would be if they were renting and it was dead money anyway.
By "investors" I mean those rent-seeking who are investing in property to make a return on investment, and not paying for a property as they need somewhere to live. Any investment can go down as well as up.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
FTSE is surely good value ?
The lack of growth is quite amazing, yes.
100 index is about where it was at the end of 1999 - 23 years ago.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
I think that living expenses are too high. This means that people feel the burden of taxation more heavily. If you can reduce living costs then it's easier to tolerate the same level of taxation.
The other effect is that, in part, high living costs are a result of it being too easy to make money by rent-seeking, so capital doesn't have to achieve productivity gains to make a profitable return, it simply has to own assets.
So if you can tackle rent-seeking then you can create a double benefit. You reduce living costs and increase living standards without having to cut public spending, and you encourage capital to be used to increase productivity, which should increase growth and living standards further.
The focus of public policy debates on taxation and public spending is all wrong.
I think there's a lot of truth in that, but rent/mortgage prices are only one aspect of living costs.
By "rent-seeking" I include things like water charges from the water monopolies, or the CPI + 3.9% clauses in so many telecommunications contracts, etc. It dominates the entire British economy. It's not just what is literally called "rent".
True, but I think it extends to capitalism generally. I like to hold VWRL just for the feeling that literally 100,000s of people are beavering away at all hours of the day and night on my behalf, so i don't have to.
Labour planning to scrap tax-breaks for private schools. Unfortunate tactical rather than strategic thinking. What happens when those who can no longer afford private schools send them to local schools instead?
The Conservatives crashed the economy and now threaten to make deep cuts to school budgets.
6% of all students are in private education - that's 581,000 students paying ~£9bn in fees.
Both sides of this argument overestimate the impact.
Those lobbying for the independent schools disingenuously assume that the entire sector would shut down and calculate the cost to the taxpayer of implementing this policy at £3.5bn. The Opposition figures assume no bleed from private to public sector.
The reality is inevitably somewhere inbetween. Fees will go up fairly substantially - somewhere between 10-15%, I would imagine, and that may cause some short term pain (and maybe close some of the most marginal institutions) but it would all shake out in the medium term.
Conversely, the ability to free up resources for e.g. free school meals will be absorbed into the overall increase in costs of delivery so it may be part of being able to maintain services through the difficult times ahead, but it won't be SureStart 2.0.
So then it becomes a beacon policy for either side, rather than an economic matter.
I don't think the tax-breaks change will achieve much, much like the ending of the assisted places scheme. It's gesture politics once again - either you radically transform the system, or you leave it alone.
The previous outbreak of New Labour gesture politics on this front in 2000, once again covering for a lack of radicalism in other areas, was actively counter-productive, making these schools much more exclusive, and with the 37 million saved and redistributed across the state sector having negligible comparative social effect.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
I think that living expenses are too high. This means that people feel the burden of taxation more heavily. If you can reduce living costs then it's easier to tolerate the same level of taxation.
The other effect is that, in part, high living costs are a result of it being too easy to make money by rent-seeking, so capital doesn't have to achieve productivity gains to make a profitable return, it simply has to own assets.
So if you can tackle rent-seeking then you can create a double benefit. You reduce living costs and increase living standards without having to cut public spending, and you encourage capital to be used to increase productivity, which should increase growth and living standards further.
The focus of public policy debates on taxation and public spending is all wrong.
I think there's a lot of truth in that, but rent/mortgage prices are only one aspect of living costs.
A bloody big part, though.
Yes, and also blooming problematic to solve - at least in a way that does not hurt lots of people with mortgages.
I think the instability and chaos in our housing market has a major root cause - the British desire to own a house with garden and a garage. Flat-living (and especially renting) is seen as being second-class, sometimes for good reasons.
Foreign Secretary was an absolute car crash on Braverman. @Skynewsniall is right: people will find the notion that this wasn't grubby tit-for-tat an insult to their intelligence. Braverman's record of gaffes belies the idea she's an intellectual giant, indispensable to any gov't. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1585178779420602376/video/1
Yes, why were some of the more credulous PB Tories brushing it off last night? As soon as she was appointed it was blindly obvious that Sunak had made a stupid unforced error.
Stupid forced error. Grubby tit for tat is right.
He should have, could have, just knifed her: reneged on some technicality.
You do deals to get the leadership, fact of life. The problem here is the same ome as cabinet appointments - all available dealmakers and appointables are complete shits.
What looks bad to me is he showed an aptitude for knifing but just chose a soft target, the fragrant and relatively harmless Penny, but hadn't the balls to do Braverman.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
Foreign Secretary was an absolute car crash on Braverman. @Skynewsniall is right: people will find the notion that this wasn't grubby tit-for-tat an insult to their intelligence. Braverman's record of gaffes belies the idea she's an intellectual giant, indispensable to any gov't. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1585178779420602376/video/1
Yes, why were some of the more credulous PB Tories brushing it off last night? As soon as she was appointed it was blindly obvious that Sunak had made a stupid unforced error.
Stupid forced error. Grubby tit for tat is right.
He should have, could have, just knifed her: reneged on some technicality.
You do deals to get the leadership, fact of life. The problem here is the same ome as cabinet appointments - all available dealmakers and appointables are complete shits.
What looks bad to me is he showed an aptitude for knifing but just chose a soft target, the fragrant and relatively harmless Penny, but hadn't the balls to do Braverman.
Indeed. And country was the loser - because Penny would have been a far better appointment to an office of state.
On Braverman’s return I’m reminded of the return of the first subject of the opening movement at the start of the second movement of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, just when you’ve been led to think it’s been vanquished by the love theme. The impact is equally startling and horrifying.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
FTSE is surely good value ?
The lack of growth is quite amazing, yes.
100 index is about where it was at the end of 1999 - 23 years ago.
Dividends though.
Yes, if you bought stocks in 1999 you would have received 23 years of dividends and had no growth in your asset value.
If you bought property as an investment in 1999 you would have received 23 years of rent and tripled your asset value as well as getting rent.
Oh and if you leveraged yourself to buy stocks in 1999 I doubt the dividends would have covered your leverage. If you leveraged yourself to buy to rent, the rent would have more than covered your BTL mortage.
The whole situation is unhealthy and unsustainable and long overdue a correction.
Off for my COVID autumn booster - anyone had side effects?
Felt pretty rough exactly 24 hours later for a few hours. But I had flu at same time so that might be a factor.
Otherwise all ok.
Very similar for me. Had mine (+flu) yesterday morning and felt fine all day. Then woke at about 6 this morning feeling pretty rotten (restless, achy and a little confused), but now feeling fine again.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
Labour are in no position to lecture on diversity, whether gender or race.
It's not like the Tories haven't given Labour enough ammunition with which to beat them around the head . Stupid politics by Labour, flagging up their hypocrisy.
Labour need to work on their knee-jerk reactions. They get too easily triggered.
Even if they were it's tedious and fucking boring.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
I think that living expenses are too high. This means that people feel the burden of taxation more heavily. If you can reduce living costs then it's easier to tolerate the same level of taxation.
The other effect is that, in part, high living costs are a result of it being too easy to make money by rent-seeking, so capital doesn't have to achieve productivity gains to make a profitable return, it simply has to own assets.
So if you can tackle rent-seeking then you can create a double benefit. You reduce living costs and increase living standards without having to cut public spending, and you encourage capital to be used to increase productivity, which should increase growth and living standards further.
The focus of public policy debates on taxation and public spending is all wrong.
I think there's a lot of truth in that, but rent/mortgage prices are only one aspect of living costs.
A bloody big part, though.
Depends.
If you are renting, or paying a mortgage based on 2020 prices, housing is a massive expense.
If your mortgage is based on, say, house prices in 2000, it's dead cheap.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
FTSE is surely good value ?
The lack of growth is quite amazing, yes.
100 index is about where it was at the end of 1999 - 23 years ago.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
I think that living expenses are too high. This means that people feel the burden of taxation more heavily. If you can reduce living costs then it's easier to tolerate the same level of taxation.
The other effect is that, in part, high living costs are a result of it being too easy to make money by rent-seeking, so capital doesn't have to achieve productivity gains to make a profitable return, it simply has to own assets.
So if you can tackle rent-seeking then you can create a double benefit. You reduce living costs and increase living standards without having to cut public spending, and you encourage capital to be used to increase productivity, which should increase growth and living standards further.
The focus of public policy debates on taxation and public spending is all wrong.
I think there's a lot of truth in that, but rent/mortgage prices are only one aspect of living costs.
A bloody big part, though.
Depends.
If you are renting, or paying a mortgage based on 2020 prices, housing is a massive expense.
If your mortgage is based on, say, house prices in 2000, it's dead cheap.
Individually your house going up in value is good news but in the round it gradually throttles disposable income.
First scandal brewing for Sunak then. Braverman. On day 1 he's in the position of having to defend the indefensible.
It's possible.
The lying about a leak of restricted documents - which clearly went well beyond the inadvertent error which she admitted to - didn't get a great deal of attention amid the Truss implosion. It would have been rapidly forgotten had she not been reappointed. As it is, it will become an exposed scab which the opposition will pick at.
I’m not sure banging on about a politician who wants to be tough on illegal immigration is the winning strategy some appear to think it is. Us nerds know the granular detail, the general public may see a less detailed picture. Presumably Braverman has been told she’s on her final warning and if she does it again she’s sacked.
I suppose she’ll only be worried when she’s on her final, final, really final warning, and even then..
On Braverman, Monbiot once again points out today something that almost the entire rest of of the press have, staggeringly, missed. Under her Public Order Bill going through last week, anyone can be fitted with an "electronic monitoring device" for having attended a "disruptive" protest in the last 12 months, with any "disruption" already having been redefined by earlier legislation in 2022 to include noise. So in fact, under the Public Order Bill, you could be fitted with an electronic tag just for having attended any noisy protest within the last year.
Forgive me, but at a quick read that just looks like the 2876th edition of the boilerplate Monbiot rantathon.
Has he explained his proposals for preventing the damage caused by the Just Stop Oil goons, or alternatively giving them some education to help them make a coherent case? I have yet to see it.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
This is the sort of regular wank you'll be getting day in day out if you vote Labour.
Actually, if you vote Labour it will minimize this kind of thing because they will be in Government rather than in Opposition. Surely a great argument for a Labour vote!
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
Bit spiky there Bart, and self-contradictory. If houses aren't investments what does "every investor" have to do with it? And bollocks anyway. Most stock portfolios are not intially leveraged 90%, or indeed at all. Negative equity will harm a lot more poor people who just wanted somewhere to live, than rich ones. Not to say it shouldn't happen, but them's the facts.
Disclaimer: I live in a paid for, 2 bedroom house, and I don't give a fuck what it is worth.
If people leverage themselves to make investments, then its their own damned fault if their investment loses money.
If someone is paying for their home as an expense, to live in, and not as an investment then it doesn't matter as much to them if house prices go down. Their mortgage is paying for the roof above their head, just as it would be if they were renting and it was dead money anyway.
By "investors" I mean those rent-seeking who are investing in property to make a return on investment, and not paying for a property as they need somewhere to live. Any investment can go down as well as up.
On Braverman, Monbiot once again points out today something that almost the entire rest of of the press have, staggeringly, missed. Under her Public Order Bill going through last week, anyone can be fitted with an "electronic monitoring device" for having attended a "disruptive" protest in the last 12 months, with any "disruption" already having been redefined by earlier legislation in 2022 to include noise. So in fact, under the Public Order Bill, you could be fitted with an electronic tag just for having attended any noisy protest within the last year.
Yes - and let's not forget the Rees Mogg EU law withdrawal legislation which is still wending its way through Parliament. This is a governing party that continues to demonstrate it has no attachment to democracy.
Indeed. And it's absolutely shocking that the combined forces of the media have, once again, missed the civil liberties implications of this recent set of governments' actions. If anything, Braverman's plan for tag-wearing for having attended any noisy protest is more of a threat than any of Patel's plans earlier in the year.
Foreign Secretary was an absolute car crash on Braverman. @Skynewsniall is right: people will find the notion that this wasn't grubby tit-for-tat an insult to their intelligence. Braverman's record of gaffes belies the idea she's an intellectual giant, indispensable to any gov't. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1585178779420602376/video/1
Yes, why were some of the more credulous PB Tories brushing it off last night? As soon as she was appointed it was blindly obvious that Sunak had made a stupid unforced error.
Stupid forced error. Grubby tit for tat is right.
He should have, could have, just knifed her: reneged on some technicality.
You do deals to get the leadership, fact of life. The problem here is the same ome as cabinet appointments - all available dealmakers and appointables are complete shits.
What looks bad to me is he showed an aptitude for knifing but just chose a soft target, the fragrant and relatively harmless Penny, but hadn't the balls to do Braverman.
How did he knife PM? He didn't owe her shit.
Thats why it might have been the smart move to appoint her to a more senior role, rather than Braverman. As it is, it tends to make him look both weak and unprincipled.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
FTSE is surely good value ?
The lack of growth is quite amazing, yes.
100 index is about where it was at the end of 1999 - 23 years ago.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
This is the sort of regular wank you'll be getting day in day out if you vote Labour.
Actually, if you vote Labour it will minimize this kind of thing because they will be in Government rather than in Opposition. Surely a great argument for a Labour vote!
Nah, they'll bang on about diversity, white privilege, trans, decolonisation and equity all the time.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
The way though to restore the house price/wage ratio is for incomes to rise. Ideally by genuine productivity rather than just wage inflation.
There would also need to be the same 3x income plus 1x spousal income ratio applied by lenders.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
On Braverman’s return I’m reminded of the return of the first subject of the opening movement at the start of the second movement of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, just when you’ve been led to think it’s been vanquished by the love theme. The impact is equally startling and horrifying.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
Bit spiky there Bart, and self-contradictory. If houses aren't investments what does "every investor" have to do with it? And bollocks anyway. Most stock portfolios are not intially leveraged 90%, or indeed at all. Negative equity will harm a lot more poor people who just wanted somewhere to live, than rich ones. Not to say it shouldn't happen, but them's the facts.
Disclaimer: I live in a paid for, 2 bedroom house, and I don't give a fuck what it is worth.
If people leverage themselves to make investments, then its their own damned fault if their investment loses money.
If someone is paying for their home as an expense, to live in, and not as an investment then it doesn't matter as much to them if house prices go down. Their mortgage is paying for the roof above their head, just as it would be if they were renting and it was dead money anyway.
By "investors" I mean those rent-seeking who are investing in property to make a return on investment, and not paying for a property as they need somewhere to live. Any investment can go down as well as up.
so you can forget them. NE seriously affects mobility for owner occupiers, which is why it matters.
Nah, where I want to be is house prices earnings ratio back to 3 so we aren't where I want to people and don't forget them, BTLers are still squatting owning the assets that you object to building more of. We need a massive house price crash and see all those who've bought to let selling up to people who want to buy to live at a reduced price. If people lose money on their investment, well I'll have as much sympathy for them as I do for people who bought Blockbuster shares.
Mobility for owner occupiers is a much smaller problem than living expenses for people who don't own being utterly unaffordable.
Labour planning to scrap tax-breaks for private schools. Unfortunate tactical rather than strategic thinking. What happens when those who can no longer afford private schools send them to local schools instead?
The Conservatives crashed the economy and now threaten to make deep cuts to school budgets.
What happens is that with more rich middle class people using them they get more funding.
This is the sort of fallacious nonsense - that pushy middle class parents automatically lead to much better state schools - that is truly believed on the Left, isn't it?
It's your equivalent of the dogmatic faith in grammar schools being the answer to all education problems on the right.
Foreign Secretary was an absolute car crash on Braverman. @Skynewsniall is right: people will find the notion that this wasn't grubby tit-for-tat an insult to their intelligence. Braverman's record of gaffes belies the idea she's an intellectual giant, indispensable to any gov't. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1585178779420602376/video/1
Yes, why were some of the more credulous PB Tories brushing it off last night? As soon as she was appointed it was blindly obvious that Sunak had made a stupid unforced error.
Stupid forced error. Grubby tit for tat is right.
He should have, could have, just knifed her: reneged on some technicality.
You do deals to get the leadership, fact of life. The problem here is the same ome as cabinet appointments - all available dealmakers and appointables are complete shits.
What looks bad to me is he showed an aptitude for knifing but just chose a soft target, the fragrant and relatively harmless Penny, but hadn't the balls to do Braverman.
How did he knife PM? He didn't owe her shit.
OK, but she deserved a role properly reflecting that hair and those big goo goo eyes.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
Bit spiky there Bart, and self-contradictory. If houses aren't investments what does "every investor" have to do with it? And bollocks anyway. Most stock portfolios are not intially leveraged 90%, or indeed at all. Negative equity will harm a lot more poor people who just wanted somewhere to live, than rich ones. Not to say it shouldn't happen, but them's the facts.
Disclaimer: I live in a paid for, 2 bedroom house, and I don't give a fuck what it is worth.
If people leverage themselves to make investments, then its their own damned fault if their investment loses money.
If someone is paying for their home as an expense, to live in, and not as an investment then it doesn't matter as much to them if house prices go down. Their mortgage is paying for the roof above their head, just as it would be if they were renting and it was dead money anyway.
By "investors" I mean those rent-seeking who are investing in property to make a return on investment, and not paying for a property as they need somewhere to live. Any investment can go down as well as up.
so you can forget them. NE seriously affects mobility for owner occupiers, which is why it matters.
Nah, where I want to be is house prices earnings ratio back to 3 so we aren't where I want to people and don't forget them, BTLers are still squatting owning the assets that you object to building more of. We need a massive house price crash and see all those who've bought to let selling up to people who want to buy to live at a reduced price. If people lose money on their investment, well I'll have as much sympathy for them as I do for people who bought Blockbuster shares.
Mobility for owner occupiers is a much smaller problem than living expenses for people who don't own being utterly unaffordable.
Why not develop a paying side hustle in the time you spend posting on PB? You'll have saved a 20% deposit in months.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
I'm well aware that I have no equity as a result of paying my landlords mortgage for the last seven years.
The point of my question was that it is very easy to wish negative equity on other people, and I wondered to what extent you would accept it for yourself.
Generally speaking a crash in prices would result in a disordered market and is best avoided. Also, if nothing is done about the fundamental incentives to invest in property rather than other assets, all a crash does is to prepare the stage for another boom. Normal people will get burned on the way down and on the way up.
I'm of like mind when it comes to a home being a home and not an investment, but you make that change by modifying the long-term investment incentives, not by willing on the damage of a short-term house price crash that would ultimately change nothing.
The objective is stable house prices. Neither a boom nor a crash.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
Another day of almost 500 troops losses for Russia according to Ukraine. I know this is propaganda but if anywhere close to these figures then how is it sustainable? Their mobilised men are being rapidly destroyed as cannon fodder.
"Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies." Alexander Pope
Labour planning to scrap tax-breaks for private schools. Unfortunate tactical rather than strategic thinking. What happens when those who can no longer afford private schools send them to local schools instead?
The Conservatives crashed the economy and now threaten to make deep cuts to school budgets.
What happens is that with more rich middle class people using them they get more funding.
This is the sort of fallacious nonsense - that pushy middle class parents automatically lead to much better state schools - that is truly believed on the Left, isn't it?
It's your equivalent of the dogmatic faith in grammar schools being the answer to all education problems on the right.
Have Labour yet demonstrated that it will be a net positive once they have paid the extra costs to educate children forced out of the independent sector into state schools?
I'd suggest that the policy is crude populism, which will undermine educational opportunities for many who don't fit the relatively boilerplate state model.
Nor am I convinced by the "The Conservatives crashed the economy" line. That doesn't stand up very well when we start making international comparisons with our peers. But it's not clear that anyone will be listening.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
I'm well aware that I have no equity as a result of paying my landlords mortgage for the last seven years.
The point of my question was that it is very easy to wish negative equity on other people, and I wondered to what extent you would accept it for yourself.
Generally speaking a crash in prices would result in a disordered market and is best avoided. Also, if nothing is done about the fundamental incentives to invest in property rather than other assets, all a crash does is to prepare the stage for another boom. Normal people will get burned on the way down and on the way up.
I'm of like mind when it comes to a home being a home and not an investment, but you make that change by modifying the long-term investment incentives, not by willing on the damage of a short-term house price crash that would ultimately change nothing.
The objective is stable house prices. Neither a boom nor a crash.
I'm prepared to accept it for myself, yes.
An orderly market would be best if we were in an orderly situation, we're not, we're at the peak of a bubble that has to burst.
Post bubble bursting stability would absolutely be ideal and the Bank of England should be given responsibility to take house prices into account as inflation when it determines interest rates in the future. Indeed given the direct link between interest rates and house prices is far greater than between CPI and interest rates, there'd be a good argument to be made that replacing CPI of 2% with house price stability as the Bank's mandate would make far more sense. But only post bubble bursting.
I think Anneliese Dodd's has clearly forgotten about Liz Truss, and the previous 2 female Tory PMs, already. Selectively forgetting the fact that Labour have never had anyone as a leader other than white, middle-aged men.
Just one in five of the ministers around Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet table are women.
I know the Conservatives struggle to add up, but women make up half the population.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
That the UK has lower productivity than peers in Europe and is falling behind further is well documented. UK median incomes after housing were amongst the highest in Europe before the GFC, now in the lower half and falling further relatively. This is directly attributable to two Conservative government policies: Cameron/Osborne austerity and Brexit. I would say the article is spot on.
DIsclosure: I thought austerity was necessary back in 2010. I now realise I was mistaken
This is effectively saying that the median UK household is worse off relative to other European countries due to higher house prices, which is surely not right, on the contrary, most households gain from higher house prices because they get housing equity that they can liquidate for spending in retirement, unlike the typical German renter who needs to invest in ultra-safe pensions.
But this is the problem ffs! In very simple terms, everyone on high incomes AHC in the UK tends to be a no-mortgage Tory with no dependents. Huge wealth and disposable income. And nothing to do with it.
Meanwhile, someone like me has to chuck a huge amount of our salary into a mortgage or rent. We don't then have the money left over to go for a Masters degree or Further education, lowering our productivity. Or we don't have the spare cash to move to another part of the country to match our skills with a better job.
Some of us, like me, get a big chunk of money off our parents for the flat and/or the Masters. This entrenches generational inequality, further disincentivising people who are high-performers from even bothering to make something of themselves.
Productivity growth dies. No one has money to have kids, so the fertility rate drops. There is reduced working-age population which gets squeezed harder and harder to serve an older generation which, due to technological advances and an increase in chronic conditions, requires a huge number of carers (further reducing the working population).
The UK enters a death spiral and everyone sensible moves to somewhere that isn't going to get fucked by climate change.
This is what I did. Moved somewhere else where I got paid 60% more for the same job I did in the UK.
I'm moving to Aus in July/August.
Great move! An old school/rugby colleague of mine moved his family to Australia a few years ago. It was a big success. My only worry is if/when air travel becomes so prohibitively expensive that Aus/NZ get “cut off”. Back to steamers?
I have never for one moment regretted emigrating to Sweden. I absolutely love it here. Unfortunately I don’t think that I come up to @WillG ’s high standards - “moved somewhere else where I got paid 60% more for the same job I did in the UK” - but maybe 40% more, and the other benefits just blow Scotland out the water, eg:
- ridiculously long holidays + other time off (eg parental leave and time off to care for sick children) - short working hours (I have almost never worked more than 35 hours a week, often considerably less, all for F/T salary) - ridiculously short commuting times (approximately 17 minutes at present) and plenty of working from home - powerful trade unions that genuinely look after my interests - a clean, safe, attractive environment - outstanding library services that are so good I almost never need to buy a book or magazine ( anything they don’t already have, they order for me) - world class sports facilities and coaching - safe cycling - the gorgeous nature, coast, landscapes - sane, pleasant politicians - competent public services - media who are not habitual liars - beautiful seafood - sensible alcohol and drug environment - outstanding public transport - great schools and universities - I could go on all day
Obviously, Scotland can beat Sweden in various ways too. Few things in life are all gain and no pain. I miss my old mum and my old friends for example. And nowhere in Sweden is as gorgeous as Harris, Orkney or Ardnamurchan on a good day. The fresh smell of the Atlantic Ocean is unparalleled
I've always enjoyed my visits to Sweden for work and pleasure, and the Swedes are a pleasure to work with - they are very smart and the media definitely seems to pitch at a much higher level of intelligence than ours does. The one thing that I have always struggled with, though, is the reserve. They seem not to say a lot of stuff they may be thinking. And the mosquitos. They are sheer hell. But the light blue of the Swedish sky in summer and the dark blue of those Swedish lakes, that is magical. I also think the Swedish flag is the most beautiful in the world.
There is also a grim melancholia to Swedish people, with a rather austere and harsh Lutheran culture. Something that either you feel in tune with, or not. I am fine with it, but I can understand why others find "the Germans of the North" difficult.
Yes, you’ve both hit the nail on the head there. Never heard “the Germans of the North” term before, but there is a lot of truth in it. Modern Swedes try desperately to disguise their close bonds with Germany, going back to the dawn of history and almost certainly long before, but such profound cultural similarities cannot forever be suppressed.
Lutheranism: absolutely! Both for good and ill. They pretend they are irreligious, but you’ll never meet a bigger bunch of moralists in your life. My wife for example almost never crosses the threshold of a church, but the Lutheran work ethic is embedded in her soul like a stick of rock.
Melancholia: yepp. Especially in the rural bits. Of course, the upside is that they despise melodrama: it makes them feel uncomfortable.
Austere and harsh culture? No, not really. But then unless you’ve mastered the language (which is actually surprisingly easy) then I can understand why one might think that.
A pleasure to work with? Yepp. Bloody hard working and dependable. But after 4pm Monday-Thursday and 3pm on a Friday, or anytime between late June and late August: good luck getting anyone to answer a phone or email. Ditto the “red days” and the innumerable ”klämdagar”.
They are very smart? Yepp. And emotionally intelligent. They make your average Englishman look like an adolescent.
The media definitely seems to pitch at a much higher level of intelligence than ours does? Oh yes. And then some.
The reserve? Yes. This is hard for outsiders to get used to. It mostly explains why they have had such horrific problems integrating some immigrants.
They seem not to say a lot of stuff they may be thinking? Ho ho. Indeed! Good luck guessing what a Swede is *really* thinking. They are so quiet cos they hate being rude 😄
And the mosquitos. They are sheer hell? Only in the far north. Have you never met a Scottish cleg or midge?
But the light blue of the Swedish sky in summer and the dark blue of those Swedish lakes, that is magical? Exquisite. Stunning beyond comprehension.
I also think the Swedish flag is the most beautiful in the world? I love it. It is my flag, almost as much as the cherished Saltire.
Are Swedes any more similar to Germans than the English are to Germans? Or the Swedes are to the English?
- Is there really such a thing as Lutheran work ethic? I'm unconvinced.
- Reserved? Sounds more like Brits than Germans, I would say.
- Don't say what they are really thinking? Ditto. Most Germans are rarely shy about letting you know what they think.
- Melancholia? Again, can't see this as something that is more German than British.
- Mosquitoes in the north? Just like Britain.
Can't really comment on emotional intelligence. Dependability is a valued quality in Germany, so that is maybe one similarity.
You’ve misunderstood my post. I was dealing with all the points separately, not under a “Germany of the North” overall header.
OK, then I'm still interested in what ways Swedes are *especially* like Germans.
Both countries are less individualistic then Britain, I guess, but this is something Sweden has in common with most of continental Europe, rather than just Germany.
American house prices are forecast to have a significant fall next year. Hopefully the same, but to an even greater extent, happens in this country too.
And don't bother responding bemoaning "negative equity". Negative equity is something every investor is supposed to potentially face in a rational market as prices go up or down in response to market conditions not ratchet only ever one way, and housing should primarily be somewhere to live not "equity" anyway.
How far would you like to see house prices fall, and what equity would that leave your with in your house, as a percentage?
Ideally I would like to see house price to income ratios returned to a 3x level they were at, at the turn of the century. So at least a 50% to 60% fall in house prices would be ideal, though if wages go up then that could be mitigated against.
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
The way though to restore the house price/wage ratio is for incomes to rise. Ideally by genuine productivity rather than just wage inflation.
There would also need to be the same 3x income plus 1x spousal income ratio applied by lenders.
Although that is "kind of true" I don't think it is as simple as that. Look at this graph from the ONS of income v. productivity.
The high house price areas *already* have vast income v. productivity disparity. And yet where housing is more affordable, people's incomes are vastly less than their productive output.
Somehow, you have to get house prices down in the areas where there is already less than no capacity for increasing income.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
Income is overtaxed and capital is undertaxed.
There is an emerging consensus on this.
I'm not sure about this - "capital has already been taxed" is the common refrain.
I've very reluctantly come to the conclusion that it was either Braverman as HS or risking Johnson back as PM.
Those were probably the political choices.
I think Sunak probably expects Braverman to self-immolate at some point whereupon she will be replaced.
Frankly, I'd like Gove in slot as I think he'd sort the boats, and the department, inside 6 months.
I wonder when you were laying into Truss, whether you thought you'd be making lame excuses for Sunak a day into his premiership. Oh well.
You seem to see me as some sort of "traitor" to Adam Smith/Hayek who's sold-out to a high-tax high-spending globalist consensus.
Nah. I am a right-wing Conservative who recognised Truss and her tin-ear as an absolute disaster for our party.
She tried to launch a 1988 budget in the conditions of 1979, and as if deficits didn't matter. She was dogmatic and naïve. She was obstinate. She was foolish. And she seems unrepentant too. That doesn't make me some sort of wet you need to dry out. It makes me realistic - she's probably shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs now.
She was nothing like Thatcher who was a consummate politician and both Thatcher, and Nigel Lawson, would agree with that.
If Truss has 'shat the bed for low tax for 20 yrs' then I'm actually glad. I just cannot see a sane way where 'low tax' is a practical and sustainable way forward for the UK. Austerity is fine; but you can only apply it so far before the system breaks. Growth cannot be commanded; only encouraged.
I see taxes as needing to rise a little. But I want any increased taxes to be spent *very* carefully. Yes, I know...
I think you can lower taxes once the deficit is under control, and a higher growth rate has been achieved.
This is the "sharing the proceeds of growth" approach that Cameron outlined in 2010.
I think working people are overtaxed, NI is too high and a tax on jobs, income tax thresholds need to start rising with earnings again, the 40p rate kicks-in too low, and the 100-120k tax trap zone is a mess causing all sorts of knock-on implications.
I would like to see all of that addressed.
"I think working people are overtaxed"
Yes and no, IMO. Workers on low pay are certainly overtaxed; workers with high pay are probably not paying enough tax. That's the problem with the word 'workers': it covers the guy who I bought a can of Red Bull from at Asda at five this morning, and the chap earning high six figures.
But in general, I think the total tax take in the country needs to increase. Who pays more, and how that money is spent, is where the issues become really difficult.
Income is overtaxed and capital is undertaxed.
There is an emerging consensus on this.
I'm not sure about this - "capital has already been taxed" is the common refrain.
Comments
Instead what we have is cowardice and being held prisoner by the ERG. Bad politics
It's not like the Tories haven't given Labour enough ammunition with which to beat them around the head . Stupid politics by Labour, flagging up their hypocrisy.
Labour need to work on their knee-jerk reactions. They get too easily triggered.
Howdy = Audi. It was a pun.
Yes, unless the housing bubble is significantly popped everything else means very little.
Now is probably the best time, as people moving are at a low, and we have just had 25% or so house price rises in a short period.
So the number of people who will be seriously negatively affected is a very small minority.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/26/rishi-sunak-britain-general-election-protest
What’s worse than the initial offence by Braverman is lying to the PM .
The lying about a leak of restricted documents - which clearly went well beyond the inadvertent error which she admitted to - didn't get a great deal of attention amid the Truss implosion.
It would have been rapidly forgotten had she not been reappointed. As it is, it will become an exposed scab which the opposition will pick at.
Speaking as a floating voter, you're not really selling them to me.
The other effect is that, in part, high living costs are a result of it being too easy to make money by rent-seeking, so capital doesn't have to achieve productivity gains to make a profitable return, it simply has to own assets.
So if you can tackle rent-seeking then you can create a double benefit. You reduce living costs and increase living standards without having to cut public spending, and you encourage capital to be used to increase productivity, which should increase growth and living standards further.
The focus of public policy debates on taxation and public spending is all wrong.
He should have, could have, just knifed her: reneged on some technicality.
"Honor and shame from no condition rise.
Act well your part: there all the honor lies."
Alexander Pope
Total combat losses of the enemy from Feb 24 to Oct 26:
https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1585192120457261056
Sticking two games on in Melbourne straight after each other during a La Nina year.
(sorry.)
The one that has caused difficulty is Braverman not because she is well-known (though she has a higher profile than many), and not particularly because she is right wing, but because she offers an immediate counterfactual to the declaration of honesty and integrity. There is, within hours of his appointment, something for the press and the opposition to get their teeth into. They can paint the entire cabinet as the "same old Tories".
This was an unforced error (or perhaps a forced error!) and a promise of jam tomorrow after a short but definite period of penitence might have been a better way to handle it.
The Conservatives crashed the economy and now threaten to make deep cuts to school budgets.
Rishi Sunak should end tax breaks for private schools and non-doms to pay for breakfast clubs and to invest in our brilliant state schools.
https://twitter.com/bphillipsonMP/status/1585186862942986241
I don't just care about myself, I think you'll find a lot of people have zero equity in their home and are paying rent to an "investor" instead. If everyone had no equity in their home, then that wouldn't be a problem, a home is somewhere to live, an expense, not supposed to be equity. Someone paying rent doesn't get equity for doing so - and if investors in homes get burnt, then that's something that can happen to investors in any market.
The histrionics over negative equity is beyond a joke, that is ratchetting rent from younger generations to the well off by putting housing ever further out of their reach. Imagine if any other market worked that way. If stock prices only ever rose and never fell, would that be healthy?
At the end of 1999 the FTSE 100 was 6930 and the average house price in England was £75k
Today the FTSE 100 is 6996 and according to the ONS the average house price reached £292k in July.
In 23 years the FTSE has gone up by less than 1%, while house prices have more than tripled. Is that healthy?
That's why the attempts by AndyJS or others to claim the objection is about not wanting immigration laws enforced is disingenuous and just plain wrong.
Many of us might not like the government approach to immigration. But they could pursue that approach without Braverman, and given she 'resigned' to take responsibility for her actions, it should have.
There is no shortage of MPs happy to take a Braverman approach.
(There will be a lot of people in common in the two teams, particularly if cherry picking from all the Truss appointments - e.g. Hunt in both - and most people will have no idea how much of the actual cabinet/government team that actually represents)
Otherwise all ok.
Disclaimer: I live in a paid for, 2 bedroom house, and I don't give a fuck what it is worth.
What will happen when Sunak & Co trey doing something, is another question.
On Braveman, is it possible that he is making sure that she will get sunk by her own policies?
The lack of growth is quite amazing, yes.
What looks bad to me is he showed an aptitude for knifing but just chose a soft target, the fragrant and relatively harmless Penny, but hadn't the balls to do Braverman.
If someone is paying for their home as an expense, to live in, and not as an investment then it doesn't matter as much to them if house prices go down. Their mortgage is paying for the roof above their head, just as it would be if they were renting and it was dead money anyway.
By "investors" I mean those rent-seeking who are investing in property to make a return on investment, and not paying for a property as they need somewhere to live. Any investment can go down as well as up.
Dividends though.
Both sides of this argument overestimate the impact.
Those lobbying for the independent schools disingenuously assume that the entire sector would shut down and calculate the cost to the taxpayer of implementing this policy at £3.5bn. The Opposition figures assume no bleed from private to public sector.
The reality is inevitably somewhere inbetween. Fees will go up fairly substantially - somewhere between 10-15%, I would imagine, and that may cause some short term pain (and maybe close some of the most marginal institutions) but it would all shake out in the medium term.
Conversely, the ability to free up resources for e.g. free school meals will be absorbed into the overall increase in costs of delivery so it may be part of being able to maintain services through the difficult times ahead, but it won't be SureStart 2.0.
So then it becomes a beacon policy for either side, rather than an economic matter.
The previous outbreak of New Labour gesture politics on this front in 2000, once again covering for a lack of radicalism in other areas, was actively counter-productive, making these schools much more exclusive, and with the 37 million saved and redistributed across the state sector having negligible comparative social effect.
I think the instability and chaos in our housing market has a major root cause - the British desire to own a house with garden and a garage. Flat-living (and especially renting) is seen as being second-class, sometimes for good reasons.
If you bought property as an investment in 1999 you would have received 23 years of rent and tripled your asset value as well as getting rent.
Oh and if you leveraged yourself to buy stocks in 1999 I doubt the dividends would have covered your leverage. If you leveraged yourself to buy to rent, the rent would have more than covered your BTL mortage.
The whole situation is unhealthy and unsustainable and long overdue a correction.
If you are renting, or paying a mortgage based on 2020 prices, housing is a massive expense.
If your mortgage is based on, say, house prices in 2000, it's dead cheap.
You're just gonna have to eat it up come 2024, given your preferred party has been such a disaster.
Has he explained his proposals for preventing the damage caused by the Just Stop Oil goons, or alternatively giving them some education to help them make a coherent case? I have yet to see it.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy-to-let/london-landlords-properties-becoming-unmortgageable
so you can forget them. NE seriously affects mobility for owner occupiers, which is why it matters.
As it is, it tends to make him look both weak and unprincipled.
Incessantly.
There would also need to be the same 3x income plus 1x spousal income ratio applied by lenders.
Don't expect me to be happy about it though.
Mobility for owner occupiers is a much smaller problem than living expenses for people who don't own being utterly unaffordable.
It's your equivalent of the dogmatic faith in grammar schools being the answer to all education problems on the right.
The point of my question was that it is very easy to wish negative equity on other people, and I wondered to what extent you would accept it for yourself.
Generally speaking a crash in prices would result in a disordered market and is best avoided. Also, if nothing is done about the fundamental incentives to invest in property rather than other assets, all a crash does is to prepare the stage for another boom. Normal people will get burned on the way down and on the way up.
I'm of like mind when it comes to a home being a home and not an investment, but you make that change by modifying the long-term investment incentives, not by willing on the damage of a short-term house price crash that would ultimately change nothing.
The objective is stable house prices. Neither a boom nor a crash.
There is an emerging consensus on this.
I'd suggest that the policy is crude populism, which will undermine educational opportunities for many who don't fit the relatively boilerplate state model.
Nor am I convinced by the "The Conservatives crashed the economy" line. That doesn't stand up very well when we start making international comparisons with our peers. But it's not clear that anyone will be listening.
An orderly market would be best if we were in an orderly situation, we're not, we're at the peak of a bubble that has to burst.
Post bubble bursting stability would absolutely be ideal and the Bank of England should be given responsibility to take house prices into account as inflation when it determines interest rates in the future. Indeed given the direct link between interest rates and house prices is far greater than between CPI and interest rates, there'd be a good argument to be made that replacing CPI of 2% with house price stability as the Bank's mandate would make far more sense. But only post bubble bursting.
Both countries are less individualistic then Britain, I guess, but this is something Sweden has in common with most of continental Europe, rather than just Germany.
The high house price areas *already* have vast income v. productivity disparity. And yet where housing is more affordable, people's incomes are vastly less than their productive output.
Somehow, you have to get house prices down in the areas where there is already less than no capacity for increasing income.