I did hear the Taliban turned down an invite to CPAC as they thought it was bit too extreme for them.
Working up to it. ...“This is the final battle,” he continued. “They know it, I know it, You know it, everybody knows it. This is it. Either they win, or we win and if they win, we no longer have a country.” The former president went on to position himself as a “warrior” in a battle for “retribution” in Washington. “In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice.’ Today I add: I am your warrior, I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” ..
Its incredible that they fall for it. Even by the standards of most politicians he's all Me Me Me and they know it.
Yes, but America is a place well known to be crazy. I think Trump might win the next election and spend 4 years on spiteful culture war and personal vendettas. The consequences for America could be huge, and if he cuts off aid to Ukraine existential for that country.
I have realised over the years that just because a course of action is stupid and self-harming doesn't mean that it won't be taken.
Woukd be interesting to have a poll on Isabelle Oakshott and what she did. Frankly, I hopes she never gets a gig again. Journalists have always been held in low esteem. Oakshott just drags the profession closer to.the gutter.
The journalists condemning Isabel Oakeshott for doing her job didn’t do theirs properly Why are commentators so intent on killing the messenger, instead of focusing on the substance of the message?
Key one is that The Telegraph is pushing a line (lockdowns uniquely bad, should never have happened) that the public mostly don't agree with. Making Sunak out as an anti-lockdown hero works for some, but not many.
Second, we all know that we're only getting a small, selected slice of the messages. What's the whole story?
Indeed had the messages been leaked to the Grauniad and they were pushing a line (lockdowns unnecessarily delayed, should have happened sooner) then many of those extremely critical of Oakeshott would now be lauding the leak instead.
What we need to see is this sort of evidence being discussed at the covid enquiry, not least so we can plan better for the next crisis, which may not be so far away.
Instead because both sides fear for the results that it has been kicked into the long grass, so by the time it actually reports everyone will have forgotten the point.
What is the average time in cabinet for a modern cabinet minister? Median time might be 3-4 years at a guess. Most important public enquiries report 5-10 years after the events.......
Sweden published its own enquiry results a year ago, with a mixed picture of lessons learned.
At first glance it is obvious that is should be mainly for lessons learned and then to an extent holding people accountable for anything negligent (but not general mistakes).
In reality, each crisis is very different and there is a strong chance either the lessons learnt are forgotten or are the wrong lessons for the next crisis. And the people accountable will have moved on.
A much quicker, more streamlined report is clearly better for the public, but worse for the people in charge, so won't happen.
The enquiry really requires 3 parts:
1) A scientific analysis of what worked and what didn't in terms of disease control and mitigation. This needs to include resilience of the NHS, pandemic preparation, impact on non-covid services, impact of lockdowns on mental health etc.
2) a social and economic analysis of the impacts of pandemic and its control measures (these are intertwined) on how we lived, the changes to work, education and socialisation etc
3) an analysis of who took decisions, when, and on what advice.
The first and second are the important ones for future decision-making so needed soon, the 3rd for political mudslinging, so more likely to be contentious, but not really to matter much in future decades, and can take its time.
An analysis of how decisions were made in response to changing scientific information is also part of it - and will apply to any future pandemic. The disclosure of the messages means there will be less need to tiptoe around political sensitivities, and could speed things up considerably.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
It is made up of people many of whom have been top of their field in areas like business, law, the civil service and academia and the media and culture, not just ex politicians. The fact it is unelected also means that it won't seek to block Commons legislation, just revise it.
A fully elected upper house though would seek to use its mandate to block passage of legislation passed by the elected Commons
Bicameral systems across the world work fine with two elected houses, though personally I favour simple abolition.
The Commons just needs to be responsible enough to draft legislation properly, so it doesn't need editing.
Trump seems to be making waves at CPAC and leaving other contenders trailing behind, even DeSantis.
I've laid him some more for Next President, but he's got to currently be favourite for the nomination.
That depends how relevant you think CPAC has become. The jury is very much out in that.
My book likes this post but I'm not sure that's what's happening.
The polling looks good for Trump for the nom.
Agreed. CPAC was certainly a test which Trump had to pass, and he did so easily, but it doesn't make his nomination inevitable just yet. Notable was the cowardice of other candidates in backing off criticising him.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
It is made up of people many of whom have been top of their field in areas like business, law, the civil service and academia and the media and culture, not just ex politicians. The fact it is unelected also means that it won't seek to block Commons legislation, just revise it.
A fully elected upper house though would seek to use its mandate to block passage of legislation passed by the elected Commons
They’d both be elected though so why would that be a problem? In any event many, indeed most, democracies have a fully democratic (or at least more democratic) bicameral legislatures and pass stuff without any problems. The dysfunctional US Congress is an exemption in this regard. Germany, France, Japan, Australia, Ireland and many many more have elected senates, or similar upper houses, that work just fine. Why not us?
I did hear the Taliban turned down an invite to CPAC as they thought it was bit too extreme for them.
Working up to it. ...“This is the final battle,” he continued. “They know it, I know it, You know it, everybody knows it. This is it. Either they win, or we win and if they win, we no longer have a country.” The former president went on to position himself as a “warrior” in a battle for “retribution” in Washington. “In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice.’ Today I add: I am your warrior, I am your justice, and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” ..
Its incredible that they fall for it. Even by the standards of most politicians he's all Me Me Me and they know it.
Yes, but America is a place well known to be crazy. I think Trump might win the next election and spend 4 years on spiteful culture war and personal vendettas. The consequences for America could be huge, and if he cuts off aid to Ukraine existential for that country.
I have realised over the years that just because a course of action is stupid and self-harming doesn't mean that it won't be taken.
I think we all have to plan on the assumption he’ll be back. Might not be odds on but stranger things have happened. Hopefully not a big deal for Ukraine though. The election is in November 2024 and by the time he has a chance to do anything with aid it’ll be spring 2025. And you can be sure Biden, the dems and the more pro-Ukraine Republicans would ensure a load of support went through congress before Trump took over.
If the war is still going in 2025 then it’s going to be a Western front style stalemate.
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
It is made up of people many of whom have been top of their field in areas like business, law, the civil service and academia and the media and culture, not just ex politicians. The fact it is unelected also means that it won't seek to block Commons legislation, just revise it.
A fully elected upper house though would seek to use its mandate to block passage of legislation passed by the elected Commons
Bicameral systems across the world work fine with two elected houses, though personally I favour simple abolition.
The Commons just needs to be responsible enough to draft legislation properly, so it doesn't need editing.
In the US the fully elected Senate regularly blocks legislation from the elected House of Representatives.
Most upper houses where they exist whether in Canada, Ireland, India still have an appointed element for this reason or have members elected as delegates from the states as in Germany or by local councillors as in France
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
That’s actually exactly what we’ve been trying to say. The Telegraph have - not surprisingly - taken one part of the interview about US multinationals and run with it because it’s most aligned with their editorial position. Fair enough, they are journalists not transcribers.
The big action at the moment is in capex incentives, particularly for net zero. That’s what the IRA in the US is all about and it’s the big theme in a lot of discussions with clients.
Trump seems to be making waves at CPAC and leaving other contenders trailing behind, even DeSantis.
I've laid him some more for Next President, but he's got to currently be favourite for the nomination.
That depends how relevant you think CPAC has become. The jury is very much out in that.
My book likes this post but I'm not sure that's what's happening.
The polling looks good for Trump for the nom.
Agreed. CPAC was certainly a test which Trump had to pass, and he did so easily, but it doesn't make his nomination inevitable just yet. Notable was the cowardice of other candidates in backing off criticising him.
The biggest block for Trump at the moment is Fox News. With their support would be inevitable but they are still in the RDS camp.
Bicameral systems across the world work fine with two elected houses, though personally I favour simple abolition.
The Commons just needs to be responsible enough to draft legislation properly, so it doesn't need editing.
It would be I think more accurate to say "the government" since in our system they have extremely effective control of the Commons. Given that we have an FPTP system that gives the government absolute control on a minority of the vote, I quite like the ability of the Lords to act as a mild brake of the "slow down and think about this" type -- Governments seem to me to benefit massively from having their more fruitcake schemes have some barriers to implementation. The current Lords is a weird anachronism but I'm not sure how to reform it so as to keep the brake merely a brake and not have it drift into being either irrelevant (two elected houses controlled by the same party) or a deadlock mechanism (two elected houses controlled by opposing parties).
I had a really weird dream last night. I dreamt that Sunak won the election with a reduced majority of 20. A sort of 1992 result. It was a surprisingly detailed dream which had Labour recovering a number of seats in Scotland and being 50 seats up overall, a good enough result for SKS to stay on. I really need to get out more.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
On Eat Covid to Catch Covid, it had the same impact on the industry as giving someone crack cocaine. A brief buzz, followed immediately by a crashing decline. They could have found other ways to keep hospitality afloat which actually kept hospitality afloat without spreading the pox.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
If didnt care = thought it was on balance a price worth paying, which you strongly disagree with, then sure. If didnt care = didnt care, then no.
The unknown is whether Sunak thought that Covid was basically over- enough of us had caught it that we didn't really need to be careful any more. Whatever happened to the Oxford academic who had modelling that claimed that was the case?
Had that been true, EO2HO might have been a wizard wheeze.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
I think 1 is correct, but there is a price on human life in all health economics. It may be uncomfortable to discuss and set, but sometimes it is the uncomfortable discussions that are most important.
"What should we spend to keep people alive?" Is a question that needs to be asked and answered. The answer will vary between what society thinks and what an individual in mortal peril thinks.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
It is made up of people many of whom have been top of their field in areas like business, law, the civil service and academia and the media and culture, not just ex politicians. The fact it is unelected also means that it won't seek to block Commons legislation, just revise it.
A fully elected upper house though would seek to use its mandate to block passage of legislation passed by the elected Commons
Bicameral systems across the world work fine with two elected houses, though personally I favour simple abolition.
The Commons just needs to be responsible enough to draft legislation properly, so it doesn't need editing.
In the US the fully elected Senate regularly blocks legislation from the elected House of Representatives.
Most upper houses where they exist whether in Canada, Ireland, India and France still have an appointed element for this reason or have members indirectly elected by the states as in Germany
Japan and Australia don’t and they get on just fine. You slightly mislead re Ireland as well. The reason the Seanned doesn’t block Dáil legislation is because, like the the House of Lords, it can only delay laws with which it disagrees, rather than veto them outright. That has nothing to do with the method of appointment. I don’t see why an elected upper house in the U.K. would not retain that limitation. You don’t have to change the Upper House’s powers, just make the method of appointment a lot less corrupt. Ireland would be a good model - most members being elected from five special panels of nominees representing specific areas of society and the economy. That would actually enhance the expertise of the House and clean out the people nominated for bunging to the ruling party.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
If didnt care = thought it was on balance a price worth paying, which you strongly disagree with, then sure. If didnt care = didnt care, then no.
The unknown is whether Sunak thought that Covid was basically over- enough of us had caught it that we didn't really need to be careful any more. Whatever happened to the Oxford academic who had modelling that claimed that was the case?
Had that been true, EO2HO might have been a wizard wheeze.
That was pretty fringe, and Sunak is pretty mainstream and getting mainstream info, so strongly doubt it.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
I think 1 is correct, but there is a price on human life in all health economics. It may be uncomfortable to discuss and set, but sometimes it is the uncomfortable discussions that are most important.
"What should we spend to keep people alive?" Is a question that needs to be asked and answered. The answer will vary between what society thinks and what an individual in mortal peril thinks.
That's an interesting post, that goes into some potentially uncomfortable territory. IMV we need to have a discussion in this country on our attitude towards death, particularly wrt assisted dying. I'm unsure I like the Swiss approach, but ours can seem rather inhumane as well.
The biggest block for Trump at the moment is Fox News. With their support would be inevitable but they are still in the RDS camp.
We know from 2016 that Fox will follow their viewers on whether they support Trump, if enough of their viewers make their feelings known...
Viewers already support Trump, and yes Fox will back him blindly vs a Democrat. Until the Dominion case is resolved they will probably keep their distance in the Republican nominations though. (Trump is still strong value and has been throughout for the nomination).
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
Listening to Laura Kuenssberg on BBC this morning interviewing Jonathan Ashworth, who was labour's shadow health minister at the time, confirming that labour backed the eat out scheme as they also wanted to help the hospitality industry.
This highlights the problem of these what's app messages as they do not give the whole story at the time
Back on topic. Last year I took part in a European wide medical study which looked at the a number of research groups which had asked the "same" question in their own way. We were given questionnaires from several research bodies and it quickly became apparent that the differences ranged from the very subtle to the very diverse and that the order of the topics also influenced the answers.
In the great scheme of things, how important actually are the Oakeshott revelations? Everyone of us who has sat in management meetings will know that there are differences of interpretation and differences of opinion among the members.
One question that should not be missed is why are ministers using Whatsapp in the first place? Obviously, the government cannot put the instant messaging genie back in the bottle but there should be a properly archived and secure channel.
Yup! They should have something like a local instance of Slack or Teams for messaging, all properly archived. If they want an informal channel for stuff that would usually be done by phone or in person, then use Signal configured to delete messages after an hour. And no personal phones allowed on government premises, only those issued and managed centrally.
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
When companies are considering where to base themselves, doing various exercises, some countries won't even be considered if the headline rate of CT is too high. Investment incentives lessen some of the harmful impacts of high CT for some companies, but they are no substitute for having a low rate that is stable in the long term. The Chancellor and PM are actively ruining the economy, and it should concern everyone. Meanwhile those Tories fighting tooth and nail for growth are the ones labelled 'headbangers'.
My hope is that the privileges committee unanimously find Johnson guilty as charged which of course includes the 4 conservative mps
This would send a message to Johnson it is over and if there is a recall I do not expect him to fight for his seat but resign as he is a coward and could not face the humiliation
Conservative mps need to wake up and smell the coffee and rally behind Sunak and tell Johnson to go
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
Listening to Laura Kuenssberg on BBC this morning interviewing Jonathan Ashworth, who was labour's shadow health minister at the time, confirming that labour backed the eat out scheme as they also wanted to help the hospitality industry.
This highlights the problem of these what's app messages as they do not give the whole story at the time
“Best information at the time “probably applies here. To be fair to all concerned we were in a situation that we’d never been in before, and some judgements were bound to be wrong. Like war!
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
It is made up of people many of whom have been top of their field in areas like business, law, the civil service and academia and the media and culture, not just ex politicians. The fact it is unelected also means that it won't seek to block Commons legislation, just revise it.
A fully elected upper house though would seek to use its mandate to block passage of legislation passed by the elected Commons
Bicameral systems across the world work fine with two elected houses, though personally I favour simple abolition.
The Commons just needs to be responsible enough to draft legislation properly, so it doesn't need editing.
In the US the fully elected Senate regularly blocks legislation from the elected House of Representatives.
Most upper houses where they exist whether in Canada, Ireland, India and France still have an appointed element for this reason or have members indirectly elected by the states as in Germany
Japan and Australia don’t and they get on just fine. You slightly mislead re Ireland as well. The reason the Seanned doesn’t block Dáil legislation is because, like the the House of Lords, it can only delay laws with which it disagrees, rather than veto them outright. That has nothing to do with the method of appointment. I don’t see why an elected upper house in the U.K. would not retain that limitation. You don’t have to change the Upper House’s powers, just make the method of appointment a lot less corrupt. Ireland would be a good model - most members being elected from five special panels of nominees representing specific areas of society and the economy. That would actually enhance the expertise of the House and clean out the people nominated for bunging to the ruling party.
The elected lower house in Japan needs a 2/3 majority to override a block on its legislation from the elected upper house, unless related to budget matters, appointment of the PM or Treaties.
The Upper House in Ireland includes figures from the arts and science appointed by the President and representatives of the universities and doesn't try and block legislation of the Dail as it has no elected mandate to.
An upper house elected by voters in the UK would certainly try and block legislation of the Commons, especially if a different party had a majority. If say Labour won a majority in the House of Commons at the next general election and abolished the Lords and replaced it with an elected upper house midterm as Starmer proposes, you can be sure that if the Conservatives won a midterm election for the new elected Senate they would use that mandate to try and block every piece of legislation passed by the Labour controlled House of Commons
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
Yes, it's very concerning.
I must say, I've been disappointed by Hunt whilst Sunak has exceeded my expectations.
Hunt seems to be another Hammond. And possibly less than that.
"France smoking rate for 2020 was 33.40%, a 0.2% decline from 2019. France smoking rate for 2019 was 33.60%, a 0% increase from 2018. France smoking rate for 2018 was 33.60%, a 0.1% decline from 2015. France smoking rate for 2015 was 33.70%, a 0.1% decline from 2010."
"In 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3%, which equates to 6.6 million people. There has been a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of smokers from 2020 (14.0% of the population)."
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Excellent post! There was a suggestion some years ago, that members should have a term of 15 years, but only one.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Why can they not just be allocated proportionally according to votes cast in the most recent GE? It's an added incentive to vote without any added complexity.
I'd have lifetime terms with a minimum activity level to avoid a polite letter advising retirement. I'd also keep bishops and hereditaries.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
It is made up of people many of whom have been top of their field in areas like business, law, the civil service and academia and the media and culture, not just ex politicians. The fact it is unelected also means that it won't seek to block Commons legislation, just revise it.
A fully elected upper house though would seek to use its mandate to block passage of legislation passed by the elected Commons
Bicameral systems across the world work fine with two elected houses, though personally I favour simple abolition.
The Commons just needs to be responsible enough to draft legislation properly, so it doesn't need editing.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
I don't like flushing over 1,000 years of history down the drain.
I'd keep the name, the heritage and the traditions and have it as a mix of a body of experts (largely if not solely crossbencher) and others elected for life to represent counties and boroughs.
"France smoking rate for 2020 was 33.40%, a 0.2% decline from 2019. France smoking rate for 2019 was 33.60%, a 0% increase from 2018. France smoking rate for 2018 was 33.60%, a 0.1% decline from 2015. France smoking rate for 2015 was 33.70%, a 0.1% decline from 2010."
"In 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3%, which equates to 6.6 million people. There has been a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of smokers from 2020 (14.0% of the population)."
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
It is made up of people many of whom have been top of their field in areas like business, law, the civil service and academia and the media and culture, not just ex politicians. The fact it is unelected also means that it won't seek to block Commons legislation, just revise it.
A fully elected upper house though would seek to use its mandate to block passage of legislation passed by the elected Commons
Bicameral systems across the world work fine with two elected houses, though personally I favour simple abolition.
The Commons just needs to be responsible enough to draft legislation properly, so it doesn't need editing.
In the US the fully elected Senate regularly blocks legislation from the elected House of Representatives.
Most upper houses where they exist whether in Canada, Ireland, India and France still have an appointed element for this reason or have members indirectly elected by the states as in Germany
Japan and Australia don’t and they get on just fine. You slightly mislead re Ireland as well. The reason the Seanned doesn’t block Dáil legislation is because, like the the House of Lords, it can only delay laws with which it disagrees, rather than veto them outright. That has nothing to do with the method of appointment. I don’t see why an elected upper house in the U.K. would not retain that limitation. You don’t have to change the Upper House’s powers, just make the method of appointment a lot less corrupt. Ireland would be a good model - most members being elected from five special panels of nominees representing specific areas of society and the economy. That would actually enhance the expertise of the House and clean out the people nominated for bunging to the ruling party.
The elected lower house in Japan needs a 2/3 majority to override a block on its legislation from the elected upper house, unless related to budget matters, appointment of the PM or Treaties.
The Upper House in Ireland includes figures from the arts and science appointed by the President and representatives of the universities and doesn't try and block legislation of the Dail as it has no elected mandate to.
An upper house elected by voters in the UK would certainly try and block legislation of the Commons, especially if a different party had a majority. If say Labour won a majority in the House of Commons at the next general election and abolished the Lords and replaced it with an elected upper house midterm as Starmer proposes, you can be sure that if the Conservatives won a midterm election for the new elected Senate they would use that mandate to try and block every piece of legislation passed by the Labour controlled House of Commons
"France smoking rate for 2020 was 33.40%, a 0.2% decline from 2019. France smoking rate for 2019 was 33.60%, a 0% increase from 2018. France smoking rate for 2018 was 33.60%, a 0.1% decline from 2015. France smoking rate for 2015 was 33.70%, a 0.1% decline from 2010."
"In 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3%, which equates to 6.6 million people. There has been a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of smokers from 2020 (14.0% of the population)."
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
It is made up of people many of whom have been top of their field in areas like business, law, the civil service and academia and the media and culture, not just ex politicians. The fact it is unelected also means that it won't seek to block Commons legislation, just revise it.
A fully elected upper house though would seek to use its mandate to block passage of legislation passed by the elected Commons
Bicameral systems across the world work fine with two elected houses, though personally I favour simple abolition.
The Commons just needs to be responsible enough to draft legislation properly, so it doesn't need editing.
In the US the fully elected Senate regularly blocks legislation from the elected House of Representatives.
Most upper houses where they exist whether in Canada, Ireland, India and France still have an appointed element for this reason or have members indirectly elected by the states as in Germany
Japan and Australia don’t and they get on just fine. You slightly mislead re Ireland as well. The reason the Seanned doesn’t block Dáil legislation is because, like the the House of Lords, it can only delay laws with which it disagrees, rather than veto them outright. That has nothing to do with the method of appointment. I don’t see why an elected upper house in the U.K. would not retain that limitation. You don’t have to change the Upper House’s powers, just make the method of appointment a lot less corrupt. Ireland would be a good model - most members being elected from five special panels of nominees representing specific areas of society and the economy. That would actually enhance the expertise of the House and clean out the people nominated for bunging to the ruling party.
The elected lower house in Japan needs a 2/3 majority to override a block on its legislation from the elected upper house, unless related to budget matters, appointment of the PM or Treaties.
The Upper House in Ireland includes figures from the arts and science appointed by the President and representatives of the universities and doesn't try and block legislation of the Dail as it has no elected mandate to.
An upper house elected by voters in the UK would certainly try and block legislation of the Commons, especially if a different party had a majority. If say Labour won a majority in the House of Commons at the next general election and abolished the Lords and replaced it with an elected upper house midterm as Starmer proposes, you can be sure that if the Conservatives won a midterm election for the new elected Senate they would use that mandate to try and block every piece of legislation passed by the Labour controlled House of Commons
The elected Senate in Australia can even vote down budgets passed by the elected House of Representatives outright
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
How about we give London extra power to balance it all out......
Woukd be interesting to have a poll on Isabelle Oakshott and what she did. Frankly, I hopes she never gets a gig again. Journalists have always been held in low esteem. Oakshott just drags the profession closer to.the gutter.
Nah. Telegraph just justifying it. I am not surprised Hancock is livid. It will make politicians more careful if nothing else. There are not words I can use to describe what I think of Oakshott as I don't want to add to the Lent swear word charity donation box which is already at £6 however justified the use of the word might be
Why does IO so inflame your pisshole? It's only Matt Hancock she fucked over not a normal human being.
Pfffft
Is that the sound of a pisshole being inflamed? Not uncommon in Schloss Squareroot I imagine.
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
When companies are considering where to base themselves, doing various exercises, some countries won't even be considered if the headline rate of CT is too high. Investment incentives lessen some of the harmful impacts of high CT for some companies, but they are no substitute for having a low rate that is stable in the long term. The Chancellor and PM are actively ruining the economy, and it should concern everyone. Meanwhile those Tories fighting tooth and nail for growth are the ones labelled 'headbangers'.
Truss ruined the economic in just 6 weeks of madness which has required Sunak and Hunt to take steps to stabilise the economy and they have achieved that
What comes next will be revealed in the budget and I would like to see a change to a responsible pro business tax regime
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
"France smoking rate for 2020 was 33.40%, a 0.2% decline from 2019. France smoking rate for 2019 was 33.60%, a 0% increase from 2018. France smoking rate for 2018 was 33.60%, a 0.1% decline from 2015. France smoking rate for 2015 was 33.70%, a 0.1% decline from 2010."
"In 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3%, which equates to 6.6 million people. There has been a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of smokers from 2020 (14.0% of the population)."
How about vaping? I don't think I know anyone who still smokes cigarettes - all the smokers are now vapers.
I’m amazed at those stats. Barely one in, what, 20 or 30 people I know here smokes yet apparently it’s still 14% of the population. There must be parts of the country where everyone’s at it. But who? Is it an age thing? I doubt it’s a class thing because cigarettes are extremely expensive.
And in France too. I know a couple of French smokers but if I had to guess I’d have said 5 or 6%, not 30%.
Woukd be interesting to have a poll on Isabelle Oakshott and what she did. Frankly, I hopes she never gets a gig again. Journalists have always been held in low esteem. Oakshott just drags the profession closer to.the gutter.
Shafted the Tory grifting arseholes and showed what they really thought of the plebs. Very well done in my book.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
Listening to Laura Kuenssberg on BBC this morning interviewing Jonathan Ashworth, who was labour's shadow health minister at the time, confirming that labour backed the eat out scheme as they also wanted to help the hospitality industry.
This highlights the problem of these what's app messages as they do not give the whole story at the time
We do not have relevant emails, letters, phone calls, memoranda or conversations that would provide the context, so only a small part of the story is being written about. Also you can be certain that the Telegraph is carefully picking the messages they publish, they have an axe to grind.
The Telegraph was a much better paper when it was owned by a crook.
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
It would be interesting to consider a contra universe, in which a Liz Truss led government, was in power for five years!
"France smoking rate for 2020 was 33.40%, a 0.2% decline from 2019. France smoking rate for 2019 was 33.60%, a 0% increase from 2018. France smoking rate for 2018 was 33.60%, a 0.1% decline from 2015. France smoking rate for 2015 was 33.70%, a 0.1% decline from 2010."
"In 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3%, which equates to 6.6 million people. There has been a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of smokers from 2020 (14.0% of the population)."
How can there be no data on Cocaine consumption in Scotland? Anecdotally, it seems off the charts as it has got a lot cheaper and more plentiful in recent years.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
Depends what the government trying to achieve.
If it's to favour investment over taking profits now, it's probably a higher rate of corp tax with more investment deductions.
If it's to encourage companies to funnel money through the UK, it's a lower rate, but that feels like the sort of dead end that's got us here. These days, it's too easy to pass money between countries without creating jobs.
If it's to win the next election, the best plan is probably to take as much as possible from companies to fund goodies for voters.
I think the trouble is that it's not attracting much investment either.
To win the next election the economy needs to grow and the cost of living crisis needs to abate.
And it's getting awfully late to do things with the economy. The next election is 14-20 months away, and "feel less bad" is going to have to do the job of feel good.
That's all that can be hoped for.
You've got to play the hand you've been dealt.
Yup. For a while now, British prosperity has felt a bit like pixie gold. Sunak's misfortune (mangling metaphors a bit) is to be left holding Cinderella's carriage as the clock strikes midnight and it turns back into a pumpkin.
Nicely put and I have this feeling too - that our relative material prosperity (and this applies not just to us) has been in some way and for a long time artificially propped up and is not merited by how smart we are and how hard we work.
'Living beyond our means' resonates with me but not quite in the Thatcherite sense. Something more than overdrawn public finances or balance of trade deficits. I can't spreadsheet this - it's too inchoate and also quite possibly bollocks - so I have to reach for what people always resort to when they float a theory and wish to dodge a proper explanation of it, the analogy box.
In a deeply unfair world we are the wellborn private schoolboy who has been surfing his privilege for profit, and as the world becomes more meritocratic so our privilege counts for less and we get 'found out'. This is one of my main mental images of the UK.
In all seriousness we (London) are as different and important part of the UK as Scotland, Wales or NI, and our objectives are often not represented at national level. If they get separate representation I don't really see why we shouldn't either.
Woukd be interesting to have a poll on Isabelle Oakshott and what she did. Frankly, I hopes she never gets a gig again. Journalists have always been held in low esteem. Oakshott just drags the profession closer to.the gutter.
Nah. Telegraph just justifying it. I am not surprised Hancock is livid. It will make politicians more careful if nothing else. There are not words I can use to describe what I think of Oakshott as I don't want to add to the Lent swear word charity donation box which is already at £6 however justified the use of the word might be
Surprised not at the poster or the fannies who like this utter snowflake pretendy tripe about their Tory idols feet of clay having a light shone on them.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Why can they not just be allocated proportionally according to votes cast in the most recent GE? It's an added incentive to vote without any added complexity.
I'd have lifetime terms with a minimum activity level to avoid a polite letter advising retirement. I'd also keep bishops and hereditaries.
Indeed, how can you be a Tory and not support Church of England Diocesan Bishops and hereditary peers in the Upper House?
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
I think 1 is correct, but there is a price on human life in all health economics. It may be uncomfortable to discuss and set, but sometimes it is the uncomfortable discussions that are most important.
"What should we spend to keep people alive?" Is a question that needs to be asked and answered. The answer will vary between what society thinks and what an individual in mortal peril thinks.
That's an interesting post, that goes into some potentially uncomfortable territory. IMV we need to have a discussion in this country on our attitude towards death, particularly wrt assisted dying. I'm unsure I like the Swiss approach, but ours can seem rather inhumane as well.
There are several separate issues here:
1. If you want to die, should assisted death be facilitated, tolerated or even illegal? (I'm fine with it so long as there are proper safeguards to try to ensure it's your settled preference) 2. If you want to live, but extending your life by a year of healthy living costs £X, how high can X be for it to be publicly financed? (NICE reckons £130,000 IIRC) 3. If society as a whole will be Y% better off if you are exposed to Z% more risk of dying a year earlier, how is the right relationship between Y and Z? (Eat Out to Help Out reckoned that helping the hospitality industry was worth a moderate increase in death, which I didn't and don't think is right, but I concede is hard to assess, especially if you don't actually know what Z is)
Extreme cases are easy, but 2 in particular is worth a proper discussion.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
I had a really weird dream last night. I dreamt that Sunak won the election with a reduced majority of 20. A sort of 1992 result. It was a surprisingly detailed dream which had Labour recovering a number of seats in Scotland and being 50 seats up overall, a good enough result for SKS to stay on. I really need to get out more.
Sounds like a typical Scottish Unionist dream (I hesitate to add wet to the description).
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
Yes but you are a Liberal not a Tory, Tories support the hereditary principle.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
When companies are considering where to base themselves, doing various exercises, some countries won't even be considered if the headline rate of CT is too high. Investment incentives lessen some of the harmful impacts of high CT for some companies, but they are no substitute for having a low rate that is stable in the long term. The Chancellor and PM are actively ruining the economy, and it should concern everyone. Meanwhile those Tories fighting tooth and nail for growth are the ones labelled 'headbangers'.
Truss ruined the economic in just 6 weeks of madness which has required Sunak and Hunt to take steps to stabilise the economy and they have achieved that
What comes next will be revealed in the budget and I would like to see a change to a responsible pro business tax regime
There is nothing stabilising about hiking corporation tax, it does not increase tax receipts, it discourages investment and encourages offshoring of profits. Hunt knows this, hence his proposal during the leadership campaign was to reduce CT to 15%. His plan to increase it has already harmed the economy and continues to do so.
I had a really weird dream last night. I dreamt that Sunak won the election with a reduced majority of 20. A sort of 1992 result. It was a surprisingly detailed dream which had Labour recovering a number of seats in Scotland and being 50 seats up overall, a good enough result for SKS to stay on. I really need to get out more.
Sounds like a Scottish Unionist dream (I hesitate to add wet to the description).
You would be right to do so, Sunak just isn't that exciting.
Woukd be interesting to have a poll on Isabelle Oakshott and what she did. Frankly, I hopes she never gets a gig again. Journalists have always been held in low esteem. Oakshott just drags the profession closer to.the gutter.
Nah. Telegraph just justifying it. I am not surprised Hancock is livid. It will make politicians more careful if nothing else. There are not words I can use to describe what I think of Oakshott as I don't want to add to the Lent swear word charity donation box which is already at £6 however justified the use of the word might be
Both could be right. Oakshott has betrayed Hancock, and in doing so probably undermined trust in all journalists, but also there was a distinct lack of investigative journalism. The Spectator was most active on a budget of £3.50. From the Telegraph's point of view, they've paid Oakshott for Hancock's Whatsapp dump. Is this materially different from the Telegraph paying for MPs' expenses data?
Mps were cheating the system financially.Oakeshott is betraying someone she was working for. I hope he can sue her for £££££££. I am not a supporter of Hancock but she needs as much opprobrium chucked over her as is possible.
You could say the same about whoever sold the expenses data. Or you could call both whistleblowing. Or cashing in.
Problem might be if this was covered by a non-disclosure agreement, which the expenses data wasn't.
Big deal, they are just used to save the evil doers antics from being highlighted in public, always by people in positions of power. The whole rotten bunch are getting exactly what they deserve.
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Why can they not just be allocated proportionally according to votes cast in the most recent GE? It's an added incentive to vote without any added complexity.
I'd have lifetime terms with a minimum activity level to avoid a polite letter advising retirement. I'd also keep bishops and hereditaries.
Indeed, how can you be a Tory and not support Church of England Diocesan Bishops and hereditary peers in the Upper House?
OK I can understand your reason for Bishops (although I disagree), but what on earth can be the justification for hereditary peers who are simply there by accident of birth.
Right then. More banging going on in our shop-to-be former bank. Ring Cam not picking up any movement, but definitely door banging going on.
Context - house & bank/shop are one U-shaped building. House is southern wing and upstairs across the middle & northern wing, bank is downstairs in the middle and northern wing. Wifey's office upstairs is directly above the former banking hall entrance door. Which keeps being slammed despite nobody being in that part of the building.
Sounds like a draught from somewhere unless it is a big heavy door.
I had a really weird dream last night. I dreamt that Sunak won the election with a reduced majority of 20. A sort of 1992 result. It was a surprisingly detailed dream which had Labour recovering a number of seats in Scotland and being 50 seats up overall, a good enough result for SKS to stay on. I really need to get out more.
Sounds like a Scottish Unionist dream (I hesitate to add wet to the description).
You would be right to do so, Sunak just isn't that exciting.
Come now, I can think of at least 2 PBers who have become unnaturally excited by Sunak, he even gives the horn to one of them.
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Really? What about all those press reports I read saying she was elected by members of the Tory party? Was there some mistake?
Trump seems to be making waves at CPAC and leaving other contenders trailing behind, even DeSantis.
I've laid him some more for Next President, but he's got to currently be favourite for the nomination.
That depends how relevant you think CPAC has become. The jury is very much out in that.
My book likes this post but I'm not sure that's what's happening.
The polling looks good for Trump for the nom.
The same polling that said the GOP was gonna romp the midterms?
That was a nice surprise indeed. Still, even allowing for the price differential, laying Trump for the WH is probably a better bet than for the Nom. Most of my Big Short is for the WH and I'm glad that it is.
"France smoking rate for 2020 was 33.40%, a 0.2% decline from 2019. France smoking rate for 2019 was 33.60%, a 0% increase from 2018. France smoking rate for 2018 was 33.60%, a 0.1% decline from 2015. France smoking rate for 2015 was 33.70%, a 0.1% decline from 2010."
"In 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3%, which equates to 6.6 million people. There has been a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of smokers from 2020 (14.0% of the population)."
That looks remarkably low, even in England and France, which have the highest usage rates. I suspect that the real rate is much higher in both countries.
Mr. L, what impact do you think disestablishing the Church of England would have?
For most people none, apart from they couldn't automatically get married or buried in their local Church of England Parish Church anymore unless they regularly attended it or had been baptised there
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
Yes but you are a Liberal not a Tory, Tories support the hereditary principle.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
I refer you to the enclosure acts of the 18th century. Savage land grabbers!
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Wasn’t that plan for most of the power to come upwards from local authorities, rather than downwards from central government? So it was an extra bunch of politicians to be paid for, but with the power ending up further from the people.
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
Yes but you are a Liberal not a Tory, Tories support the hereditary principle.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
My apologies, but I have asked a question elsewhere that you have answered here so please ignore my other post.
Surely you are talking about a minuscule minority that you describe here, yet they have a say over everything, the vast majority of which has nothing whatsoever to do with their land or estates.
The House of Lords? Abolish it. Replace it with a British senate. 25 Senators for each home nation copying the US principle where big states can't outvote small states. Add in representatives of the British dependencies - IoM, the Bailiwicks, Gibraltar, Falklands etc.
In the great scheme of things, how important actually are the Oakeshott revelations? Everyone of us who has sat in management meetings will know that there are differences of interpretation and differences of opinion among the members.
I'm finding them more buttock clenching than jaw dropping.
It merely confirms that the Tories running the country are the shitstains we thought they were.
"France smoking rate for 2020 was 33.40%, a 0.2% decline from 2019. France smoking rate for 2019 was 33.60%, a 0% increase from 2018. France smoking rate for 2018 was 33.60%, a 0.1% decline from 2015. France smoking rate for 2015 was 33.70%, a 0.1% decline from 2010."
"In 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3%, which equates to 6.6 million people. There has been a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of smokers from 2020 (14.0% of the population)."
That looks remarkably low, even in England and France, which have the highest usage rates. I suspect that the real rate is much higher in both countries.
I would be interested to see the figures in the higher age groups.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Yes, hence Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies without referendum this time from the North East of England to the South East
I can't believe that raising corporate taxes would drive corporations away.
Some mistake surely?
It will be interesting to see how Hunt addresses this in the budget.
He will have to do so.
I don't think he will. He seems bereft of imagination. It's not such a bad thing to put corporation tax up but it needs to be coupled with a very big investment incentive so companies can funnel cash into capital growth. We've done the first and not done the second, it's going to result in lower growth.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
When companies are considering where to base themselves, doing various exercises, some countries won't even be considered if the headline rate of CT is too high. Investment incentives lessen some of the harmful impacts of high CT for some companies, but they are no substitute for having a low rate that is stable in the long term. The Chancellor and PM are actively ruining the economy, and it should concern everyone. Meanwhile those Tories fighting tooth and nail for growth are the ones labelled 'headbangers'.
Truss ruined the economic in just 6 weeks of madness which has required Sunak and Hunt to take steps to stabilise the economy and they have achieved that
What comes next will be revealed in the budget and I would like to see a change to a responsible pro business tax regime
There is nothing stabilising about hiking corporation tax, it does not increase tax receipts, it discourages investment and encourages offshoring of profits. Hunt knows this, hence his proposal during the leadership campaign was to reduce CT to 15%. His plan to increase it has already harmed the economy and continues to do so.
Truss did far more harm to our economy than imaginable
The pound fell to 1.03 $ on her watch and has climbed back to 1.20$ under Hunt
The economy has been stabilised and is the pre cursor to reducing taxes
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Really? What about all those press reports I read saying she was elected by members of the Tory party? Was there some mistake?
She was elected mainly by the Libertarian and hard Brexiteer elements of today's Conservative Party, most Tories within the Conservative Party voted for Sunak.
Today's Conservative Party being a mix of traditional Tories and Unionists, Libertarians and Brexiteers
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Wasn’t that plan for most of the power to come upwards from local authorities, rather than downwards from central government? So it was an extra bunch of politicians to be paid for, but with the power ending up further from the people.
As I recall it, yes, you are right. Might well have been part of the reason it was defeated. However, I can’t see regional assemblies replacing counties.
Woukd be interesting to have a poll on Isabelle Oakshott and what she did. Frankly, I hopes she never gets a gig again. Journalists have always been held in low esteem. Oakshott just drags the profession closer to.the gutter.
It’s pretty shocking.
It’s always fun to embarrass Hancock but she was given this information for a specific purpose and under an NDA.
She has clearly demonstrated that she simply cannot be trusted
you got your panties in a bunch luv, the sheer horror of her perfidy is breathtaking. She Outwitted and outed a turnip headed clown.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Wasn’t that plan for most of the power to come upwards from local authorities, rather than downwards from central government? So it was an extra bunch of politicians to be paid for, but with the power ending up further from the people.
As I recall it, yes, you are right. Might well have been part of the reason it was defeated. However, I can’t see regional assemblies replacing counties.
County Councils and District Councils would be abolished and replaced by Unitary Councils as is already the case in Buckinghamshire or about to be from May in North Yorkshire.
In London and Scotland for example there is only one layer of Council below the Scottish Parliament and London Assembly
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
Yes but you are a Liberal not a Tory, Tories support the hereditary principle.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
This Tory finds the hereditory principle impossible to argue for.
Also, having England the only part of the UK with no devolved Parliament/Assembly, and with voters in English constituencies having dramatically less voting power (from memory, England is about 85% of the population) than everywhere else is not something that can be considered remotely fair or justifiable.
As well as abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected Senate, I also suspect Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies in England without referendum to complete the New Labour project Blair started as PM when he abolished most of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords and created the Scottish Parliament and Welsh, Northern Irish and London Assemblies
If you remember John Prescott, as minister for the regions, after the north-east, its own assembly and in a referendum, it was turned down, if I recall correctly, 85 to 15.
Yes, hence Starmer would push through elected regional assemblies without referendum this time from the North East of England to the South East
Is Essex big enough to be a region on its own or would we be combined with East Anglia? Or perhaps with Hertfordshire?
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Really? What about all those press reports I read saying she was elected by members of the Tory party? Was there some mistake?
She was elected mainly by the Libertarian and hard Brexiteer elements of today's Conservative Party, most Tories within the Conservative Party voted for Sunak.
Today's Conservative Party being a mix of traditional Tories and Unionists, Libertarians and Brexiteers
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Why can they not just be allocated proportionally according to votes cast in the most recent GE? It's an added incentive to vote without any added complexity.
I'd have lifetime terms with a minimum activity level to avoid a polite letter advising retirement. I'd also keep bishops and hereditaries.
Indeed, how can you be a Tory and not support Church of England Diocesan Bishops and hereditary peers in the Upper House?
Woukd be interesting to have a poll on Isabelle Oakshott and what she did. Frankly, I hopes she never gets a gig again. Journalists have always been held in low esteem. Oakshott just drags the profession closer to.the gutter.
It’s pretty shocking.
It’s always fun to embarrass Hancock but she was given this information for a specific purpose and under an NDA.
She has clearly demonstrated that she simply cannot be trusted
you got your panties in a bunch luv, the sheer horror of her perfidy is breathtaking. She Outwitted and outed a turnip headed clown.
The obvious thing to say about this is how would you feel if you had all your personal and business emails and messages gone through, and released in a manner, and with a commentary, designed to make you look bad?
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Excellent post! There was a suggestion some years ago, that members should have a term of 15 years, but only one.
It's a nice idea, but a blocking majority on behalf of less than 17% of the electorate seems also too unbalanced not to be destabilising. If Scotland, Wakes and NI had between them a third of the votes, it would at least require a quarter if English votes too.
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Really? What about all those press reports I read saying she was elected by members of the Tory party? Was there some mistake?
She was elected mainly by the Libertarian and hard Brexiteer elements of today's Conservative Party, most Tories within the Conservative Party voted for Sunak.
Today's Conservative Party being a mix of traditional Tories and Unionists, Libertarians and Brexiteers
So the financial markets were at risk of collapsing sterling because of a Conservative, not Tory, Government? That's the distinction, the Conservative Party nearly tanked the economy last Autumn.
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Gosh, how awful, wanting to abolish hereditary peers. Shocked to the core that we don't want Government by people whose very distant ancestors proved their ability of being better at killing people than others.
Yes but you are a Liberal not a Tory, Tories support the hereditary principle.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
This Tory finds the hereditory principle impossible to argue for.
Then by definition you are not a Tory then, just a free marketeer who is pro Brexit within the Conservative Party.
Inheritance and the monarchy also work on the hereditary principle
Being in their own words 'somewhere near the middle of the pack' on tax at the moment rather than low tax is not so bad as the financial markets collapsing sterling due to the huge tax cuts for corporations under Truss and Kwarteng which were not matched with spending cuts and expanded the deficit
Tory governments, eh? Watchagonna do?
Sunak and Hunt are running a Tory government, Truss was effectively running the UK's first Libertarian government not a Tory government (indeed according to the Times today Truss even wanted to abolish the remaining hereditary peers!)
Really? What about all those press reports I read saying she was elected by members of the Tory party? Was there some mistake?
Yes. She was elected by members of the Conservative Party...
Sunak’s secret meetings about the Lords — and why he thinks it needs reform
With more than 800 members, the upper chamber is second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress in size, and not everyone contributes equally
Male peers, as well as those based in London and the southeast, are overrepresented in the chamber when compared with the general population.
Yet they turn up and speak less than their female counterparts or those from the north and Midlands, our analysis shows....
..More than 45 per cent of current peers reside in London and the southeast, compared with only 27 per cent of the population. The northwest and West Midlands are the least represented, with only 8 per cent of peers living in these regions compared with 20 per cent of the population....
...Peers from ethnic minorities claim less in expenses than their white counterparts, and contribute more to debates. Only 7 per cent of current peers are non-white, versus 18 per cent of the country’s population.
No Sunak won't abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper house as Sir Keir is proposing to do. He might reform it however
The House of Lords is an anachronism and needs comprehensive reform
Quite frankly, and somewhat perversely, reform sometimes makes it worse.
The behaviour of the hereditaries is much better than that of the life peers.
If people focus on principle being the issue then the answer is obviously abolition and then there's difficult questions and precisely what to have instead.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
The Upper House should be a house of the nations with elected representatives from the 4 constituent countries. At the moment the refusal of the SNP to play means that Scotland is somewhat underrepresented. Personally, I would prefer that the numbers be balanced so that Scotland, Wales and NI can together outvote England, if only just. I think that this would restore some balance to our Union.
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
Excellent post! There was a suggestion some years ago, that members should have a term of 15 years, but only one.
It's a nice idea, but a blocking majority on behalf of less than 17% of the electorate seems also too unbalanced not to be destabilising. If Scotland, Wakes and NI had between them a third of the votes, it would at least require a quarter if English votes too.
"France smoking rate for 2020 was 33.40%, a 0.2% decline from 2019. France smoking rate for 2019 was 33.60%, a 0% increase from 2018. France smoking rate for 2018 was 33.60%, a 0.1% decline from 2015. France smoking rate for 2015 was 33.70%, a 0.1% decline from 2010."
"In 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3%, which equates to 6.6 million people. There has been a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of smokers from 2020 (14.0% of the population)."
That looks remarkably low, even in England and France, which have the highest usage rates. I suspect that the real rate is much higher in both countries.
I would be interested to see the figures in the higher age groups.
Official figures probably similar. Real figures for Gen X very much higher, both in England and France, I’d estimate.
Comments
I have realised over the years that just because a course of action is stupid and self-harming doesn't mean that it won't be taken.
The disclosure of the messages means there will be less need to tiptoe around political sensitivities, and could speed things up considerably.
The Commons just needs to be responsible enough to draft legislation properly, so it doesn't need editing.
Notable was the cowardice of other candidates in backing off criticising him.
If the war is still going in 2025 then it’s going to be a Western front style stalemate.
The ideal scenario is for companies to cut their corporation tax bill to zero by investing all of their profit into capital growth which gives us more and better paid jobs which are taxed at net 25-35% vs CT at 25%. Jeremy Hunt has completely lost sight of business investment as a mechanism to grow the economy. The NHS tax on the pharmaceuticals industry is a disaster atm, a bunch of my university friends are suggesting if it isn't axed then it will result in billions of investment over the next 2-3 years being diverted to Ireland and the Netherlands. It punishes pharma companies who do research and manufacturing in the UK, it's cheaper for them to do it all out of the UK and import the finished product because it won't attract anywhere near the same taxation. Unsurprisingly pharma companies are beginning to do this.
1. Sunak knew that Eat out to spread Covid was a stupid idea, but didn't care that more people would catch Covid and die as a result.
2. Bozo is innumerate.
On 1, I was saying this at the time, as were many others. On 2, I think we already knew this.
Most upper houses where they exist whether in Canada, Ireland, India still have an appointed element for this reason or have members elected as delegates from the states as in Germany or by local councillors as in France
The big action at the moment is in capex incentives, particularly for net zero. That’s what the IRA in the US is all about and it’s the big theme in a lot of discussions with clients.
Had that been true, EO2HO might have been a wizard wheeze.
"What should we spend to keep people alive?" Is a question that needs to be asked and answered. The answer will vary between what society thinks and what an individual in mortal peril thinks.
If people focus on effectiveness and efficiency being the issue then its far simpler and quicker to sort out, with some big early options to cut down size without doing more than cutting out the time servers and partisan hacks.
This highlights the problem of these what's app messages as they do not give the whole story at the time
Last year I took part in a European wide medical study which looked at the a number of research groups which had asked the "same" question in their own way. We were given questionnaires from several research bodies and it quickly became apparent that the differences ranged from the very subtle to the very diverse and that the order of the topics also influenced the answers.
This would send a message to Johnson it is over and if there is a recall I do not expect him to fight for his seat but resign as he is a coward and could not face the humiliation
Conservative mps need to wake up and smell the coffee and rally behind Sunak and tell Johnson to go
I think that the members should have slightly longer terms, say 6 years, and be limited to 2 terms. The membership should be elected by proportional representation with a minimum of, say, 5%. Absolutely no hereditaries, no churchmen and no placemen.
The Upper House in Ireland includes figures from the arts and science appointed by the President and representatives of the universities and doesn't try and block legislation of the Dail as it has no elected mandate to.
An upper house elected by voters in the UK would certainly try and block legislation of the Commons, especially if a different party had a majority. If say Labour won a majority in the House of Commons at the next general election and abolished the Lords and replaced it with an elected upper house midterm as Starmer proposes, you can be sure that if the Conservatives won a midterm election for the new elected Senate they would use that mandate to try and block every piece of legislation passed by the Labour controlled House of Commons
I must say, I've been disappointed by Hunt whilst Sunak has exceeded my expectations.
Hunt seems to be another Hammond. And possibly less than that.
"France smoking rate for 2020 was 33.40%, a 0.2% decline from 2019.
France smoking rate for 2019 was 33.60%, a 0% increase from 2018.
France smoking rate for 2018 was 33.60%, a 0.1% decline from 2015.
France smoking rate for 2015 was 33.70%, a 0.1% decline from 2010."
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/FRA/france/smoking-rate-statistics
"In 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3%, which equates to 6.6 million people. There has been a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of smokers from 2020 (14.0% of the population)."
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/adultsmokinghabitsingreatbritain/2021#:~:text=In 2021, the proportion of,14.0% of the population).
There was a suggestion some years ago, that members should have a term of 15 years, but only one.
I'd have lifetime terms with a minimum activity level to avoid a polite letter advising retirement. I'd also keep bishops and hereditaries.
I'd keep the name, the heritage and the traditions and have it as a mix of a body of experts (largely if not solely crossbencher) and others elected for life to represent counties and boroughs.
Not uncommon in Schloss Squareroot I imagine.
What comes next will be revealed in the budget and I would like to see a change to a responsible pro business tax regime
And in France too. I know a couple of French smokers but if I had to guess I’d have said 5 or 6%, not 30%.
The Telegraph was a much better paper when it was owned by a crook.
This non-story gets repeated every time. Pubs haven’t been restricted to 11pm closing for TWENTY YEARS.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64846894
'Living beyond our means' resonates with me but not quite in the Thatcherite sense. Something more than overdrawn public finances or balance of trade deficits. I can't spreadsheet this - it's too inchoate and also quite possibly bollocks - so I have to reach for what people always resort to when they float a theory and wish to dodge a proper explanation of it, the analogy box.
In a deeply unfair world we are the wellborn private schoolboy who has been surfing his privilege for profit, and as the world becomes more meritocratic so our privilege counts for less and we get 'found out'. This is one of my main mental images of the UK.
1. If you want to die, should assisted death be facilitated, tolerated or even illegal? (I'm fine with it so long as there are proper safeguards to try to ensure it's your settled preference)
2. If you want to live, but extending your life by a year of healthy living costs £X, how high can X be for it to be publicly financed? (NICE reckons £130,000 IIRC)
3. If society as a whole will be Y% better off if you are exposed to Z% more risk of dying a year earlier, how is the right relationship between Y and Z? (Eat Out to Help Out reckoned that helping the hospitality industry was worth a moderate increase in death, which I didn't and don't think is right, but I concede is hard to assess, especially if you don't actually know what Z is)
Extreme cases are easy, but 2 in particular is worth a proper discussion.
Hereditaries families have a vested interest in the land, their families having managed much of the land in England on their estates for generations
That looks remarkably low, even in England and France, which have the highest usage rates. I suspect that the real rate is much higher in both countries.
Surely you are talking about a minuscule minority that you describe here, yet they have a say over everything, the vast majority of which has nothing whatsoever to do with their land or estates.
The pound fell to 1.03 $ on her watch and has climbed back to 1.20$ under Hunt
The economy has been stabilised and is the pre cursor to reducing taxes
Today's Conservative Party being a mix of traditional Tories and Unionists, Libertarians and Brexiteers
In London and Scotland for example there is only one layer of Council below the Scottish Parliament and London Assembly
Or perhaps with Hertfordshire?
If Scotland, Wakes and NI had between them a third of the votes, it would at least require a quarter if English votes too.
Inheritance and the monarchy also work on the hereditary principle