FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
Hunt needs to fix that £4k anomaly so as to encourage even lower-paid people back to work, without lighting the blue touch paper on industrial scale recycling by the better-off.
Having had to spend another period of time yesterday trying to explain to HY what defamation is, I see that Jonathan Gullis is trying for a new defence - stupidity. He definitely didn't libel Crispbag, he's just too stupid to comprehend what Crispbag actually said.
To be fair to the voters of Stoke on Trent, when they voted Gullis into parliament, it was for the betterment of their kids who had the comedic pleasure of having him as their teacher.
Have you got an answer to the question I asked yesterday, with regards to your comments about Stanley Johnson?
I don't recall seeing your question. As for my comments I refer you to truth, public interest, and honest opinion defences. Worth noting that Fiona Bruce herself didn't tell YAB not to make defamatory remarks, merely that they should be put into the correct context.
Gullis has no such defences should Sir Crispbag want to get a large donation to a charity of his choice.
That's all fair enough, but you seemed very certain about your claims. I was just asking for good sources for your claims (and not repeats of previous claims).
Can I refer you back to the first defence against defamation - truth. Considering who he is, how high profile he became and the age of this story, it is an honest opinion (another defence) that this story is simply actually true. Never denied, backed up by others, even repeated in passing by Bruce as established fact.
Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
You seem to be taking a rather legalistic approach to a simple question - perhaps, if I might make a guess, because you're on the wrong foot here?
I'm asking how you know the 'truth' of the allegations? As far as I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the allegations were made by his ex-wife in a book. A newspaper (and not one that leftists usually call reliable) claimed anonymous friends had backed the claims up.
What we've seen since then is people referring to those as if it is the truth. They are *allegations*.
Again, I could be wrong. Are there other first-hand sources?
Come on, the consistent defence of the establishment wrong-doers by certain posters on here is silly.
Is there a non zero chance it never happened sure. Is it very likely, based on the evidence in the public domain, that it happened, yes, at the least very likely.
That's what I'm trying to get to: what actual evidence *is* in the public domain? You provide none, but it's a fair question. What do you base your conclusion that it 'at least very likely' happened?
Just the book? The reporting on the book?
Along with a repeated non denial, yes. “He hit me many times, over many years.”
See my later post. If he denied it, are you honestly telling me you'd believe the denial? Really?
Depending on the denial, it would probably move me from very likely to likely and from wife beater to alleged wife beater.
And if President Trump or Desantis pulled back they'd do what exactly? 1-2 of them would directly criticise and maybe 5 would say they were disappointed.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
Yep, put my hands up to that error to Max. The threshold is much higher than 150k though, but that is being pedantic of me. I got it wrong. I was looking at the normal limits only.
Why are Rishi Sunak's personal ratings struggling to revive Tory electoral fortunes? (Part one) Sunak's ratings are significantly better than either of his predecessors. But the party continues to languish in the polls. Digging deeper into the polling reveals some possible reasons why.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
Yep, put my hands up to that error to Max. The threshold is much higher than 150k though, but that is being pedantic of me. I got it wrong. I was looking at the normal limits only.
I remember making the same error vs OLB. He is very well paid!
The priorities for me today in the budget are: (1) a continuation and extension of the super reliefs for capital spending (and ideally training as well). We have an urgent need to have an investment boom in this country. (2) Pension reforms so that doctors with over £1m in their pension funds do not feel a burning need to go and spend more time with their money. (3) some relaxation of budgetary constraints so that the wave of public sector strikes can be settled. (4) A clear path to reduced borrowing over the medium term. (5) A clear commitment to sorting out the National Insurance mess and the consolidation of NI into IT so that all income is taxed at the same rate for everyone regardless of age. (6) A commitment to tax simplification. (7) More investment in essential infrastructure. (8) A focus on education at all levels but with the promised training/education right to encourage life term learning.
We need to boost investment, improve productivity, increase real wages and reduce our balance of payments deficit. It is a very difficult circle to square.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
The government should certainly be encouraging pension savings amongst those who would otherwise be reliant on the state.
Should it also be encouraging pension savings on those who might earn £5m+ over a lifetime? Probably not to the same extent at all.
Exactly. At that level pensions are being used to increase tax free inheritances rather than additional pension.
After DeSantis won, Muraviev texted his congratulations to Parnas and Fruman, the indictment says. Muraviev’s partner Andrey Kukushkin, who was also charged and found guilty in the scheme, added his congratulations on “victory in Florida “ and wrote “[w]hen can we get a license and look for the stores,“ according to the indictment…The same company also gave $325,000 a month earlier to a super PAC associated with then-President Trump. Parnas and Fruman were bottom-feeders’ bottom-feeders, even by the standards of the previous administration. They are tied up with Rudy Giuliani’s alleged attempts to collect dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine....
Having had to spend another period of time yesterday trying to explain to HY what defamation is, I see that Jonathan Gullis is trying for a new defence - stupidity. He definitely didn't libel Crispbag, he's just too stupid to comprehend what Crispbag actually said.
To be fair to the voters of Stoke on Trent, when they voted Gullis into parliament, it was for the betterment of their kids who had the comedic pleasure of having him as their teacher.
Have you got an answer to the question I asked yesterday, with regards to your comments about Stanley Johnson?
I don't recall seeing your question. As for my comments I refer you to truth, public interest, and honest opinion defences. Worth noting that Fiona Bruce herself didn't tell YAB not to make defamatory remarks, merely that they should be put into the correct context.
Gullis has no such defences should Sir Crispbag want to get a large donation to a charity of his choice.
That's all fair enough, but you seemed very certain about your claims. I was just asking for good sources for your claims (and not repeats of previous claims).
Can I refer you back to the first defence against defamation - truth. Considering who he is, how high profile he became and the age of this story, it is an honest opinion (another defence) that this story is simply actually true. Never denied, backed up by others, even repeated in passing by Bruce as established fact.
Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
You seem to be taking a rather legalistic approach to a simple question - perhaps, if I might make a guess, because you're on the wrong foot here?
I'm asking how you know the 'truth' of the allegations? As far as I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the allegations were made by his ex-wife in a book. A newspaper (and not one that leftists usually call reliable) claimed anonymous friends had backed the claims up.
What we've seen since then is people referring to those as if it is the truth. They are *allegations*.
Again, I could be wrong. Are there other first-hand sources?
Come on, the consistent defence of the establishment wrong-doers by certain posters on here is silly.
Is there a non zero chance it never happened sure. Is it very likely, based on the evidence in the public domain, that it happened, yes, at the least very likely.
That's what I'm trying to get to: what actual evidence *is* in the public domain? You provide none, but it's a fair question. What do you base your conclusion that it 'at least very likely' happened?
Just the book? The reporting on the book?
Along with a repeated non denial, yes. “He hit me many times, over many years.”
See my later post. If he denied it, are you honestly telling me you'd believe the denial? Really?
Depending on the denial, it would probably move me from very likely to likely and from wife beater to alleged wife beater.
Given your certainty on it, I doubt that.
Besides, there're other issues there. We're talking about a family, and it's perfectly possible that kids / other relatives would rather the whole thing just go away - whether true, false, or somewhere in between. Constantly issuing denials just keeps it going amongst people who are your enemies just because you are perceived to have a political bias.
The priorities for me today in the budget are: (1) a continuation and extension of the super reliefs for capital spending (and ideally training as well). We have an urgent need to have an investment boom in this country. (2) Pension reforms so that doctors with over £1m in their pension funds do not feel a burning need to go and spend more time with their money. (3) some relaxation of budgetary constraints so that the wave of public sector strikes can be settled. (4) A clear path to reduced borrowing over the medium term. (5) A clear commitment to sorting out the National Insurance mess and the consolidation of NI into IT so that all income is taxed at the same rate for everyone regardless of age. (6) A commitment to tax simplification. (7) More investment in essential infrastructure. (8) A focus on education at all levels but with the promised training/education right to encourage life term learning.
We need to boost investment, improve productivity, increase real wages and reduce our balance of payments deficit. It is a very difficult circle to square.
A very good list David - I completely agree.
Sounds like a Labour budget though tbf.
It is a centre ground budget. And that is what Hunt and Sunak need to win back.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
The government should certainly be encouraging pension savings amongst those who would otherwise be reliant on the state.
Should it also be encouraging pension savings on those who might earn £5m+ over a lifetime? Probably not to the same extent at all.
Sure but it is a tax on aspiration. The properly wealthy have all kinds of schemes at their disposal, believe me. But if you work hard, and either through luck or talent have managed to earn a high salary, the effective tax rates are really quite punative - and far higher than for those above and below us in the income scale. I get it that we are not a group that commands much sympathy (although to the Tory donor class we are staff) and so keep the tiny violins in their cases. But don't be surprised if people respond to the incentives on offer as well as to the general message that the UK is not an aspirational country.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
The trouble is that argument (which is really just rhetorical, if you think about it and is rolled out time and time again to justify a whole suite of measures that peck against £100k+. Taxation, childcare vouchers, childcare support, other reliefs etc.
It gets to the point where you're actually better off earning 85-90k in cash terms, not working or going overseas. And that's exactly what's happening.
In an economy where there is little money that inhibits growth and full efficency from our working population and that's absolute madness.
The priorities for me today in the budget are: (1) a continuation and extension of the super reliefs for capital spending (and ideally training as well). We have an urgent need to have an investment boom in this country. (2) Pension reforms so that doctors with over £1m in their pension funds do not feel a burning need to go and spend more time with their money. (3) some relaxation of budgetary constraints so that the wave of public sector strikes can be settled. (4) A clear path to reduced borrowing over the medium term. (5) A clear commitment to sorting out the National Insurance mess and the consolidation of NI into IT so that all income is taxed at the same rate for everyone regardless of age. (6) A commitment to tax simplification. (7) More investment in essential infrastructure. (8) A focus on education at all levels but with the promised training/education right to encourage life term learning.
We need to boost investment, improve productivity, increase real wages and reduce our balance of payments deficit. It is a very difficult circle to square.
A very good list David - I completely agree.
Sounds like a Labour budget though tbf.
The fools like Truss determined to cut the headline rate of corporation tax completely ignore the need for capital investment incentives. With so much of corporate UK foreign owned, often all that tax cuts do is divert more cash overseas as dividends.
Enhanced capital allowances at least provide strong incentive to invest in the UK.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
And yet all you really end up doing is pushing people earning £100k into 4 day weeks. I've had three requests for it from my team over the last year. Only a complete mug would take the salary increase.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Not if you're a high earner, the threshold tapers down to £4k!
Yeah it's another ridiculous taper, the whole income tax, pensions, NI and savings system needs junking and rebooting. It's not fit for purpose. It punishes people who are able to earn more and discourages them rather than encouraging them to do so and pay more tax.
Exactly. Both main parties seem to struggle with this because they're terrified of the politics or wrestling the problem to the ground.
Politically, the ground should be prepared by spending 6-12 months making the arguments in public debate.
The priorities for me today in the budget are: (1) a continuation and extension of the super reliefs for capital spending (and ideally training as well). We have an urgent need to have an investment boom in this country. (2) Pension reforms so that doctors with over £1m in their pension funds do not feel a burning need to go and spend more time with their money. (3) some relaxation of budgetary constraints so that the wave of public sector strikes can be settled. (4) A clear path to reduced borrowing over the medium term. (5) A clear commitment to sorting out the National Insurance mess and the consolidation of NI into IT so that all income is taxed at the same rate for everyone regardless of age. (6) A commitment to tax simplification. (7) More investment in essential infrastructure. (8) A focus on education at all levels but with the promised training/education right to encourage life term learning.
We need to boost investment, improve productivity, increase real wages and reduce our balance of payments deficit. It is a very difficult circle to square.
A very good list David - I completely agree.
Sounds like a Labour budget though tbf.
It is a centre ground budget. And that is what Hunt and Sunak need to win back.
True indeed but the last 14 Labour budgets were also centre ground budgets, so my comment still stands ;-)
Why are Rishi Sunak's personal ratings struggling to revive Tory electoral fortunes? (Part one) Sunak's ratings are significantly better than either of his predecessors. But the party continues to languish in the polls. Digging deeper into the polling reveals some possible reasons why.
It's a good question when people often talk about personal ratings being important. But such cannot work miracles.
And a couple of points that have been made here before.
The key one (I think hat-tip to @Luckyguy1983 ) is that the people Sunak is doing better with are generally still not going to vote for him. Plenty of examples of that (including Conservatives in exile) here. Sunak has won back Tories terrified by Truss, but that's as far as it goes
The other is @HYUFD's point that Sunak is the man to shore up the blue wall but not the red one. That's probably sensible (and leaves the Conservatives a lot more coherent, to be honest).
Using Anderson and Boat-stopping to try to hold on to the redwallers makes sense. It may not work well, but it may work better than anything else.
Last week at PMQs Ed Davey told the story of Jean, who he said faced an 8 hour ambulance wait, drove herself to hospital, collapsed at the entrance to A&E, and then died an hour later - but almost all of those details were wrong.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
The government should certainly be encouraging pension savings amongst those who would otherwise be reliant on the state.
Should it also be encouraging pension savings on those who might earn £5m+ over a lifetime? Probably not to the same extent at all.
Sure but it is a tax on aspiration. The properly wealthy have all kinds of schemes at their disposal, believe me. But if you work hard, and either through luck or talent have managed to earn a high salary, the effective tax rates are really quite punative - and far higher than for those above and below us in the income scale. I get it that we are not a group that commands much sympathy (although to the Tory donor class we are staff) and so keep the tiny violins in their cases. But don't be surprised if people respond to the incentives on offer as well as to the general message that the UK is not an aspirational country.
Unlike Max (and perhaps yourself ?), I have no interest to declare here. But I strongly agree with you that the tax system should provide rational incentives for you guys.
Why are Rishi Sunak's personal ratings struggling to revive Tory electoral fortunes? (Part one) Sunak's ratings are significantly better than either of his predecessors. But the party continues to languish in the polls. Digging deeper into the polling reveals some possible reasons why.
It's a good question when people often talk about personal ratings being important. But such cannot work miracles.
The party isn’t seen as “belonging” to Sunak in the way it “belonged” to Boris. He needs some outriders to help with that. And, you know, some apparent beliefs.
But the reality is also that after 13 years it probably is the the other lot’s turn.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
What marginal tax rate does someone on £98k now face if offered a payrise, if they have pre-school age children?
I don't know. Severe, I suspect.
I will wait to see the precise announcements later.
Incidentally, I also don't like the UC taper (also too high) and think young people are taxed too highly for student loans.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
The government should certainly be encouraging pension savings amongst those who would otherwise be reliant on the state.
Should it also be encouraging pension savings on those who might earn £5m+ over a lifetime? Probably not to the same extent at all.
Sure but it is a tax on aspiration. The properly wealthy have all kinds of schemes at their disposal, believe me. But if you work hard, and either through luck or talent have managed to earn a high salary, the effective tax rates are really quite punative - and far higher than for those above and below us in the income scale. I get it that we are not a group that commands much sympathy (although to the Tory donor class we are staff) and so keep the tiny violins in their cases. But don't be surprised if people respond to the incentives on offer as well as to the general message that the UK is not an aspirational country.
You are properly wealthy, everyone bar Elon Musk or perhaps some Saudi royal has people wealthier than them. The richer you are the more likely you are to have benefitted from QE over the last 15 years which has created winners and losers as much as the tax system.
And several schemes presumably still available to you? ISAs, SEIS, EIS, VCTs? Entrepreneurs relief if you set something up yourself too.
"Using anonymised data from personal tax returns, we show that in 2015-16 the average rate of tax paid by people who received one million pounds in taxable income and gains was just 35 per cent: the same as someone earning £100,000. But one in four of these paid 45 per cent – close to the top rate – whilst another quarter paid less than 30 per cent overall. One in ten paid just 11 per cent—the same as someone earning £15,000. The rich, it seems, are not all in it together."
Having had to spend another period of time yesterday trying to explain to HY what defamation is, I see that Jonathan Gullis is trying for a new defence - stupidity. He definitely didn't libel Crispbag, he's just too stupid to comprehend what Crispbag actually said.
To be fair to the voters of Stoke on Trent, when they voted Gullis into parliament, it was for the betterment of their kids who had the comedic pleasure of having him as their teacher.
Have you got an answer to the question I asked yesterday, with regards to your comments about Stanley Johnson?
I don't recall seeing your question. As for my comments I refer you to truth, public interest, and honest opinion defences. Worth noting that Fiona Bruce herself didn't tell YAB not to make defamatory remarks, merely that they should be put into the correct context.
Gullis has no such defences should Sir Crispbag want to get a large donation to a charity of his choice.
That's all fair enough, but you seemed very certain about your claims. I was just asking for good sources for your claims (and not repeats of previous claims).
Can I refer you back to the first defence against defamation - truth. Considering who he is, how high profile he became and the age of this story, it is an honest opinion (another defence) that this story is simply actually true. Never denied, backed up by others, even repeated in passing by Bruce as established fact.
Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
You seem to be taking a rather legalistic approach to a simple question - perhaps, if I might make a guess, because you're on the wrong foot here?
I'm asking how you know the 'truth' of the allegations? As far as I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the allegations were made by his ex-wife in a book. A newspaper (and not one that leftists usually call reliable) claimed anonymous friends had backed the claims up.
What we've seen since then is people referring to those as if it is the truth. They are *allegations*.
Again, I could be wrong. Are there other first-hand sources?
I just go back to my journalism training all those years ago. Who what when where why how. Is it possible that his wife was lying? Yes. Is it possible that the journalist misquoted her, or made it up? Yes. But when you then look at what has happened afterwards those possibilities just fall away.
No defence or denial has been made. Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends". Over a long period of time. It is established fact whether you are satisfied with how we got here or not.
Once again I wonder what the point is you are making? That we shouldn't smear a man in this way? But the man himself doesn't claim its a smear, or at least offers zero rebuttal or defence or denial of the supposed smear.
Lordy. So there's the book, and newspaper claims.
You know what? If someone made a false claim about me in a book, I probably wouldn't sue, even if I was 100% sure it was untrue. Why? Because if they're lying enough to make the claim, they could lie in court. And it would be massively costly, perhaps even if I won. I might not even make a denial, as that might just give the claim the oxygen of publicity. It would depend on the type of claim and impact it had.
"Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends"."
Again, where is this evidence, aside from it being reported in a newspaper as existing?
It may have happened. It may not have happened. If it happened, it may have had a different slant on it to the one you give. There are many possibilities. But you *know*. Because you had 'journalism training'. (Which actually explains a lot, none of it good... )
I also refer you to Lord McAlpine, where serious allegations where whispered behind hid back for decades, and which were proved to be false.
The evidence comes from the alleged victim’s own testimony. If a defendant in a defamation claim raises truth as a defence the burden of proof shifts to them, on the balance of probabilities, to show that the accusation was justified. Crudely that means that the defendant has to show that it was more than 50% likely that such an assault happened. The defence could call the alleged victim who is on record as follows -
‘“ In the book, The Gambler, author Tom Bower describes Stanley's marriage to Boris Johnson's mum Charlotte as violent and unhappy.
She told the author: "He broke my nose. He made me feel like I deserved it."
So the defendant would call the ex-wife and possibly the other witnesses as to the veracity of the statement. They may rely on medical records. They would also make much of the fact that Johnson did not comment on the allegations when made.
All in all, and I fully accept that my media litigation practice consists of having done it at law school and spent six months of my training contract assisting such cases, I think there’s enough evidence in the public domain alone for a successful defence to a defamation claim to be made out. I also think that there would, on today’s rules in England, be enough evidence to charge him with assault and battery, possibly ABH, with or without the ex-wife’s help.
What the Govt could fo that wouldn't cost zillions is to takeaway the discriminatory inflation limit on those in the PPF and FAS. I don't get any increase in pension on any service before I think1994 but it might be 1997. Whichever it is my pension rose by less than I per cent as a result of this ... Govt unlikely to do anything about it as there aren't enough of us for them to worry about it , however much it might be the right thing to do.
Having had to spend another period of time yesterday trying to explain to HY what defamation is, I see that Jonathan Gullis is trying for a new defence - stupidity. He definitely didn't libel Crispbag, he's just too stupid to comprehend what Crispbag actually said.
To be fair to the voters of Stoke on Trent, when they voted Gullis into parliament, it was for the betterment of their kids who had the comedic pleasure of having him as their teacher.
Have you got an answer to the question I asked yesterday, with regards to your comments about Stanley Johnson?
I don't recall seeing your question. As for my comments I refer you to truth, public interest, and honest opinion defences. Worth noting that Fiona Bruce herself didn't tell YAB not to make defamatory remarks, merely that they should be put into the correct context.
Gullis has no such defences should Sir Crispbag want to get a large donation to a charity of his choice.
That's all fair enough, but you seemed very certain about your claims. I was just asking for good sources for your claims (and not repeats of previous claims).
Can I refer you back to the first defence against defamation - truth. Considering who he is, how high profile he became and the age of this story, it is an honest opinion (another defence) that this story is simply actually true. Never denied, backed up by others, even repeated in passing by Bruce as established fact.
Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
You seem to be taking a rather legalistic approach to a simple question - perhaps, if I might make a guess, because you're on the wrong foot here?
I'm asking how you know the 'truth' of the allegations? As far as I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the allegations were made by his ex-wife in a book. A newspaper (and not one that leftists usually call reliable) claimed anonymous friends had backed the claims up.
What we've seen since then is people referring to those as if it is the truth. They are *allegations*.
Again, I could be wrong. Are there other first-hand sources?
I just go back to my journalism training all those years ago. Who what when where why how. Is it possible that his wife was lying? Yes. Is it possible that the journalist misquoted her, or made it up? Yes. But when you then look at what has happened afterwards those possibilities just fall away.
No defence or denial has been made. Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends". Over a long period of time. It is established fact whether you are satisfied with how we got here or not.
Once again I wonder what the point is you are making? That we shouldn't smear a man in this way? But the man himself doesn't claim its a smear, or at least offers zero rebuttal or defence or denial of the supposed smear.
Lordy. So there's the book, and newspaper claims.
You know what? If someone made a false claim about me in a book, I probably wouldn't sue, even if I was 100% sure it was untrue. Why? Because if they're lying enough to make the claim, they could lie in court. And it would be massively costly, perhaps even if I won. I might not even make a denial, as that might just give the claim the oxygen of publicity. It would depend on the type of claim and impact it had.
"Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends"."
Again, where is this evidence, aside from it being reported in a newspaper as existing?
It may have happened. It may not have happened. If it happened, it may have had a different slant on it to the one you give. There are many possibilities. But you *know*. Because you had 'journalism training'. (Which actually explains a lot, none of it good... )
I also refer you to Lord McAlpine, where serious allegations where whispered behind hid back for decades, and which were proved to be false.
The evidence comes from the alleged victim’s own testimony. If a defendant in a defamation claim raises truth as a defence the burden of proof shifts to them, on the balance of probabilities, to show that the accusation was justified. Crudely that means that the defendant has to show that it was more than 50% likely that such an assault happened. The defence could call the alleged victim who is on record as follows -
‘“ In the book, The Gambler, author Tom Bower describes Stanley's marriage to Boris Johnson's mum Charlotte as violent and unhappy.
She told the author: "He broke my nose. He made me feel like I deserved it."
So the defendant would call the ex-wife and possibly the other witnesses as to the veracity of the statement. They may rely on medical records. They would also make much of the fact that Johnson did not comment on the allegations when made.
All in all, and I fully accept that my media litigation practice consists of having done it at law school and spent six months of my training contract assisting such cases, I think there’s enough evidence in the public domain alone for a successful defence to a defamation claim to be made out. I also think that there would, on today’s rules in England, be enough evidence to charge him with assault and battery, possibly ABH, with or without the ex-wife’s help.
I don't understand why this is vaguely controversial.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
Yep, put my hands up to that error to Max. The threshold is much higher than 150k though, but that is being pedantic of me. I got it wrong. I was looking at the normal limits only.
I remember making the same error vs OLB. He is very well paid!
He might be rich, but he does make some rather good posts.
What the Govt could fo that wouldn't cost zillions is to takeaway the discriminatory inflation limit on those in the PPF and FAS. I don't get any increase in pension on any service before I think1994 but it might be 1997. Whichever it is my pension rose by less than I per cent as a result of this ... Govt unlikely to do anything about it as there aren't enough of us for them to worry about it , however much it might be the right thing to do.
1997. And here is a post of yours that I have liked and liked in the past. I was in parliament two days ago on this very subject. I asked you before, are you a member of PAG? They are very good.
Having had to spend another period of time yesterday trying to explain to HY what defamation is, I see that Jonathan Gullis is trying for a new defence - stupidity. He definitely didn't libel Crispbag, he's just too stupid to comprehend what Crispbag actually said.
To be fair to the voters of Stoke on Trent, when they voted Gullis into parliament, it was for the betterment of their kids who had the comedic pleasure of having him as their teacher.
Have you got an answer to the question I asked yesterday, with regards to your comments about Stanley Johnson?
I don't recall seeing your question. As for my comments I refer you to truth, public interest, and honest opinion defences. Worth noting that Fiona Bruce herself didn't tell YAB not to make defamatory remarks, merely that they should be put into the correct context.
Gullis has no such defences should Sir Crispbag want to get a large donation to a charity of his choice.
That's all fair enough, but you seemed very certain about your claims. I was just asking for good sources for your claims (and not repeats of previous claims).
Can I refer you back to the first defence against defamation - truth. Considering who he is, how high profile he became and the age of this story, it is an honest opinion (another defence) that this story is simply actually true. Never denied, backed up by others, even repeated in passing by Bruce as established fact.
Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
You seem to be taking a rather legalistic approach to a simple question - perhaps, if I might make a guess, because you're on the wrong foot here?
I'm asking how you know the 'truth' of the allegations? As far as I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the allegations were made by his ex-wife in a book. A newspaper (and not one that leftists usually call reliable) claimed anonymous friends had backed the claims up.
What we've seen since then is people referring to those as if it is the truth. They are *allegations*.
Again, I could be wrong. Are there other first-hand sources?
I just go back to my journalism training all those years ago. Who what when where why how. Is it possible that his wife was lying? Yes. Is it possible that the journalist misquoted her, or made it up? Yes. But when you then look at what has happened afterwards those possibilities just fall away.
No defence or denial has been made. Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends". Over a long period of time. It is established fact whether you are satisfied with how we got here or not.
Once again I wonder what the point is you are making? That we shouldn't smear a man in this way? But the man himself doesn't claim its a smear, or at least offers zero rebuttal or defence or denial of the supposed smear.
Lordy. So there's the book, and newspaper claims.
You know what? If someone made a false claim about me in a book, I probably wouldn't sue, even if I was 100% sure it was untrue. Why? Because if they're lying enough to make the claim, they could lie in court. And it would be massively costly, perhaps even if I won. I might not even make a denial, as that might just give the claim the oxygen of publicity. It would depend on the type of claim and impact it had.
"Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends"."
Again, where is this evidence, aside from it being reported in a newspaper as existing?
It may have happened. It may not have happened. If it happened, it may have had a different slant on it to the one you give. There are many possibilities. But you *know*. Because you had 'journalism training'. (Which actually explains a lot, none of it good... )
I also refer you to Lord McAlpine, where serious allegations where whispered behind hid back for decades, and which were proved to be false.
The evidence comes from the alleged victim’s own testimony. If a defendant in a defamation claim raises truth as a defence the burden of proof shifts to them, on the balance of probabilities, to show that the accusation was justified. Crudely that means that the defendant has to show that it was more than 50% likely that such an assault happened. The defence could call the alleged victim who is on record as follows -
‘“ In the book, The Gambler, author Tom Bower describes Stanley's marriage to Boris Johnson's mum Charlotte as violent and unhappy.
She told the author: "He broke my nose. He made me feel like I deserved it."
So the defendant would call the ex-wife and possibly the other witnesses as to the veracity of the statement. They may rely on medical records. They would also make much of the fact that Johnson did not comment on the allegations when made.
All in all, and I fully accept that my media litigation practice consists of having done it at law school and spent six months of my training contract assisting such cases, I think there’s enough evidence in the public domain alone for a successful defence to a defamation claim to be made out. I also think that there would, on today’s rules in England, be enough evidence to charge him with assault and battery, possibly ABH, with or without the ex-wife’s help.
I don't understand why this is vaguely controversial.
"Ah but Lord McAlpine" is dangerously close to suggesting that because of one terrible injustice we must lay off all establishment figures regardless of the case, evidence or circumstances. We wouldn't even be talking about him had it not been for the proposed gong.
Having had to spend another period of time yesterday trying to explain to HY what defamation is, I see that Jonathan Gullis is trying for a new defence - stupidity. He definitely didn't libel Crispbag, he's just too stupid to comprehend what Crispbag actually said.
To be fair to the voters of Stoke on Trent, when they voted Gullis into parliament, it was for the betterment of their kids who had the comedic pleasure of having him as their teacher.
Have you got an answer to the question I asked yesterday, with regards to your comments about Stanley Johnson?
I don't recall seeing your question. As for my comments I refer you to truth, public interest, and honest opinion defences. Worth noting that Fiona Bruce herself didn't tell YAB not to make defamatory remarks, merely that they should be put into the correct context.
Gullis has no such defences should Sir Crispbag want to get a large donation to a charity of his choice.
That's all fair enough, but you seemed very certain about your claims. I was just asking for good sources for your claims (and not repeats of previous claims).
Can I refer you back to the first defence against defamation - truth. Considering who he is, how high profile he became and the age of this story, it is an honest opinion (another defence) that this story is simply actually true. Never denied, backed up by others, even repeated in passing by Bruce as established fact.
Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
You seem to be taking a rather legalistic approach to a simple question - perhaps, if I might make a guess, because you're on the wrong foot here?
I'm asking how you know the 'truth' of the allegations? As far as I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the allegations were made by his ex-wife in a book. A newspaper (and not one that leftists usually call reliable) claimed anonymous friends had backed the claims up.
What we've seen since then is people referring to those as if it is the truth. They are *allegations*.
Again, I could be wrong. Are there other first-hand sources?
I just go back to my journalism training all those years ago. Who what when where why how. Is it possible that his wife was lying? Yes. Is it possible that the journalist misquoted her, or made it up? Yes. But when you then look at what has happened afterwards those possibilities just fall away.
No defence or denial has been made. Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends". Over a long period of time. It is established fact whether you are satisfied with how we got here or not.
Once again I wonder what the point is you are making? That we shouldn't smear a man in this way? But the man himself doesn't claim its a smear, or at least offers zero rebuttal or defence or denial of the supposed smear.
Lordy. So there's the book, and newspaper claims.
You know what? If someone made a false claim about me in a book, I probably wouldn't sue, even if I was 100% sure it was untrue. Why? Because if they're lying enough to make the claim, they could lie in court. And it would be massively costly, perhaps even if I won. I might not even make a denial, as that might just give the claim the oxygen of publicity. It would depend on the type of claim and impact it had.
"Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends"."
Again, where is this evidence, aside from it being reported in a newspaper as existing?
It may have happened. It may not have happened. If it happened, it may have had a different slant on it to the one you give. There are many possibilities. But you *know*. Because you had 'journalism training'. (Which actually explains a lot, none of it good... )
I also refer you to Lord McAlpine, where serious allegations where whispered behind hid back for decades, and which were proved to be false.
The evidence comes from the alleged victim’s own testimony. If a defendant in a defamation claim raises truth as a defence the burden of proof shifts to them, on the balance of probabilities, to show that the accusation was justified. Crudely that means that the defendant has to show that it was more than 50% likely that such an assault happened. The defence could call the alleged victim who is on record as follows -
‘“ In the book, The Gambler, author Tom Bower describes Stanley's marriage to Boris Johnson's mum Charlotte as violent and unhappy.
She told the author: "He broke my nose. He made me feel like I deserved it."
So the defendant would call the ex-wife and possibly the other witnesses as to the veracity of the statement. They may rely on medical records. They would also make much of the fact that Johnson did not comment on the allegations when made.
All in all, and I fully accept that my media litigation practice consists of having done it at law school and spent six months of my training contract assisting such cases, I think there’s enough evidence in the public domain alone for a successful defence to a defamation claim to be made out. I also think that there would, on today’s rules in England, be enough evidence to charge him with assault and battery, possibly ABH, with or without the ex-wife’s help.
I don't understand why this is vaguely controversial.
Thanks. I like the image of me as a sharp suited media lawyer, friends with the stars, fixer of their problems. The reality is that I’m still in my pyjamas fretting about the politest way possible to tell a client not paying a bonus to someone because she went on maternity leave a week before bonuses were announced maybe a little…risky.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
The government should certainly be encouraging pension savings amongst those who would otherwise be reliant on the state.
Should it also be encouraging pension savings on those who might earn £5m+ over a lifetime? Probably not to the same extent at all.
Exactly. At that level pensions are being used to increase tax free inheritances rather than additional pension.
Some pensions, not all, allow transfer to offspring etc. AIUI? So it's a limited option?
Having had to spend another period of time yesterday trying to explain to HY what defamation is, I see that Jonathan Gullis is trying for a new defence - stupidity. He definitely didn't libel Crispbag, he's just too stupid to comprehend what Crispbag actually said.
To be fair to the voters of Stoke on Trent, when they voted Gullis into parliament, it was for the betterment of their kids who had the comedic pleasure of having him as their teacher.
Have you got an answer to the question I asked yesterday, with regards to your comments about Stanley Johnson?
I don't recall seeing your question. As for my comments I refer you to truth, public interest, and honest opinion defences. Worth noting that Fiona Bruce herself didn't tell YAB not to make defamatory remarks, merely that they should be put into the correct context.
Gullis has no such defences should Sir Crispbag want to get a large donation to a charity of his choice.
That's all fair enough, but you seemed very certain about your claims. I was just asking for good sources for your claims (and not repeats of previous claims).
Can I refer you back to the first defence against defamation - truth. Considering who he is, how high profile he became and the age of this story, it is an honest opinion (another defence) that this story is simply actually true. Never denied, backed up by others, even repeated in passing by Bruce as established fact.
Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
You seem to be taking a rather legalistic approach to a simple question - perhaps, if I might make a guess, because you're on the wrong foot here?
I'm asking how you know the 'truth' of the allegations? As far as I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the allegations were made by his ex-wife in a book. A newspaper (and not one that leftists usually call reliable) claimed anonymous friends had backed the claims up.
What we've seen since then is people referring to those as if it is the truth. They are *allegations*.
Again, I could be wrong. Are there other first-hand sources?
I just go back to my journalism training all those years ago. Who what when where why how. Is it possible that his wife was lying? Yes. Is it possible that the journalist misquoted her, or made it up? Yes. But when you then look at what has happened afterwards those possibilities just fall away.
No defence or denial has been made. Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends". Over a long period of time. It is established fact whether you are satisfied with how we got here or not.
Once again I wonder what the point is you are making? That we shouldn't smear a man in this way? But the man himself doesn't claim its a smear, or at least offers zero rebuttal or defence or denial of the supposed smear.
Lordy. So there's the book, and newspaper claims.
You know what? If someone made a false claim about me in a book, I probably wouldn't sue, even if I was 100% sure it was untrue. Why? Because if they're lying enough to make the claim, they could lie in court. And it would be massively costly, perhaps even if I won. I might not even make a denial, as that might just give the claim the oxygen of publicity. It would depend on the type of claim and impact it had.
"Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends"."
Again, where is this evidence, aside from it being reported in a newspaper as existing?
It may have happened. It may not have happened. If it happened, it may have had a different slant on it to the one you give. There are many possibilities. But you *know*. Because you had 'journalism training'. (Which actually explains a lot, none of it good... )
I also refer you to Lord McAlpine, where serious allegations where whispered behind hid back for decades, and which were proved to be false.
The evidence comes from the alleged victim’s own testimony. If a defendant in a defamation claim raises truth as a defence the burden of proof shifts to them, on the balance of probabilities, to show that the accusation was justified. Crudely that means that the defendant has to show that it was more than 50% likely that such an assault happened. The defence could call the alleged victim who is on record as follows -
‘“ In the book, The Gambler, author Tom Bower describes Stanley's marriage to Boris Johnson's mum Charlotte as violent and unhappy.
She told the author: "He broke my nose. He made me feel like I deserved it."
So the defendant would call the ex-wife and possibly the other witnesses as to the veracity of the statement. They may rely on medical records. They would also make much of the fact that Johnson did not comment on the allegations when made.
All in all, and I fully accept that my media litigation practice consists of having done it at law school and spent six months of my training contract assisting such cases, I think there’s enough evidence in the public domain alone for a successful defence to a defamation claim to be made out. I also think that there would, on today’s rules in England, be enough evidence to charge him with assault and battery, possibly ABH, with or without the ex-wife’s help.
I don't understand why this is vaguely controversial.
As in: 'Bloke who breaks his wife's nose is recommended for knighthood by his own son'? No, not controversial at all.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
And yet all you really end up doing is pushing people earning £100k into 4 day weeks. I've had three requests for it from my team over the last year. Only a complete mug would take the salary increase.
My heart bleeds.
Let's be clear - the issue is one that results in Doctors working shorter weeks and retiring way earlier than they otherwise might.
End result in 1 sector alone (healthcare / NHS) is longer waiting lists everywhere,
And if President Trump or Desantis pulled back they'd do what exactly? 1-2 of them would directly criticise and maybe 5 would say they were disappointed.
Why doesn't the Cuban angle come into play? If DeSantis isn't tough with Russia he is helping one of Cuba's main supporters. Surely in Florida that ought to be a vote loser?
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
The government should certainly be encouraging pension savings amongst those who would otherwise be reliant on the state.
Should it also be encouraging pension savings on those who might earn £5m+ over a lifetime? Probably not to the same extent at all.
Exactly. At that level pensions are being used to increase tax free inheritances rather than additional pension.
Some pensions, not all, allow transfer to offspring etc. AIUI? So it's a limited option?
If you transfer out and manage your own pension by drawing down from a pension pot the residual fund becomes inheritable. George Osborne has a lot to answer for.
Having had to spend another period of time yesterday trying to explain to HY what defamation is, I see that Jonathan Gullis is trying for a new defence - stupidity. He definitely didn't libel Crispbag, he's just too stupid to comprehend what Crispbag actually said.
To be fair to the voters of Stoke on Trent, when they voted Gullis into parliament, it was for the betterment of their kids who had the comedic pleasure of having him as their teacher.
Have you got an answer to the question I asked yesterday, with regards to your comments about Stanley Johnson?
I don't recall seeing your question. As for my comments I refer you to truth, public interest, and honest opinion defences. Worth noting that Fiona Bruce herself didn't tell YAB not to make defamatory remarks, merely that they should be put into the correct context.
Gullis has no such defences should Sir Crispbag want to get a large donation to a charity of his choice.
That's all fair enough, but you seemed very certain about your claims. I was just asking for good sources for your claims (and not repeats of previous claims).
Can I refer you back to the first defence against defamation - truth. Considering who he is, how high profile he became and the age of this story, it is an honest opinion (another defence) that this story is simply actually true. Never denied, backed up by others, even repeated in passing by Bruce as established fact.
Not sure what point you are trying to make here.
You seem to be taking a rather legalistic approach to a simple question - perhaps, if I might make a guess, because you're on the wrong foot here?
I'm asking how you know the 'truth' of the allegations? As far as I can tell (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the allegations were made by his ex-wife in a book. A newspaper (and not one that leftists usually call reliable) claimed anonymous friends had backed the claims up.
What we've seen since then is people referring to those as if it is the truth. They are *allegations*.
Again, I could be wrong. Are there other first-hand sources?
I just go back to my journalism training all those years ago. Who what when where why how. Is it possible that his wife was lying? Yes. Is it possible that the journalist misquoted her, or made it up? Yes. But when you then look at what has happened afterwards those possibilities just fall away.
No defence or denial has been made. Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends". Over a long period of time. It is established fact whether you are satisfied with how we got here or not.
Once again I wonder what the point is you are making? That we shouldn't smear a man in this way? But the man himself doesn't claim its a smear, or at least offers zero rebuttal or defence or denial of the supposed smear.
Lordy. So there's the book, and newspaper claims.
You know what? If someone made a false claim about me in a book, I probably wouldn't sue, even if I was 100% sure it was untrue. Why? Because if they're lying enough to make the claim, they could lie in court. And it would be massively costly, perhaps even if I won. I might not even make a denial, as that might just give the claim the oxygen of publicity. It would depend on the type of claim and impact it had.
"Supporting evidence validating that it happened has been provided by "friends"."
Again, where is this evidence, aside from it being reported in a newspaper as existing?
It may have happened. It may not have happened. If it happened, it may have had a different slant on it to the one you give. There are many possibilities. But you *know*. Because you had 'journalism training'. (Which actually explains a lot, none of it good... )
I also refer you to Lord McAlpine, where serious allegations where whispered behind hid back for decades, and which were proved to be false.
The evidence comes from the alleged victim’s own testimony. If a defendant in a defamation claim raises truth as a defence the burden of proof shifts to them, on the balance of probabilities, to show that the accusation was justified. Crudely that means that the defendant has to show that it was more than 50% likely that such an assault happened. The defence could call the alleged victim who is on record as follows -
‘“ In the book, The Gambler, author Tom Bower describes Stanley's marriage to Boris Johnson's mum Charlotte as violent and unhappy.
She told the author: "He broke my nose. He made me feel like I deserved it."
So the defendant would call the ex-wife and possibly the other witnesses as to the veracity of the statement. They may rely on medical records. They would also make much of the fact that Johnson did not comment on the allegations when made.
All in all, and I fully accept that my media litigation practice consists of having done it at law school and spent six months of my training contract assisting such cases, I think there’s enough evidence in the public domain alone for a successful defence to a defamation claim to be made out. I also think that there would, on today’s rules in England, be enough evidence to charge him with assault and battery, possibly ABH, with or without the ex-wife’s help.
I don't understand why this is vaguely controversial.
As in: 'Bloke who breaks his wife's nose is recommended for knighthood by his own son'? No, not controversial at all.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
What marginal tax rate does someone on £98k now face if offered a payrise, if they have pre-school age children?
I don't know. Severe, I suspect.
I will wait to see the precise announcements later.
Incidentally, I also don't like the UC taper (also too high) and think young people are taxed too highly for student loans.
It's all about incentivising work and aspiration.
The main objective of the current system is to keep the headline tax rates as low as possible. This means we get all of this additional complexity - child benefit clawback, personal allowance tapering, means-testing childcare, inventing new taxes (such as the graduate tax and the NHS tax), pension allowance tapering - in an attempt to raise more money without having to increase the numerical rate of income tax.
It's why Kwarteng proposed cutting the highest rate of tax from 45% to 40%, instead of dealing with the personal allowance taper. It's incredibly infantile.
But, whilst most of us on here could agree with getting rid of all the ridiculous tapers, in return for increasing the rates of tax - so that broadly speaking the same amount of tax was raised from the same people - doing so would be politically very courageous.
We will know that British politics has grown up when a government does it anyway, and manages to win the public debate on it being a sensible simplification rather than, "a massive tax grab from the middle class!" (Daily Mail), or, "a huge tax cut giveaway to the rich!" (Guardian).
What the Govt could fo that wouldn't cost zillions is to takeaway the discriminatory inflation limit on those in the PPF and FAS. I don't get any increase in pension on any service before I think1994 but it might be 1997. Whichever it is my pension rose by less than I per cent as a result of this ... Govt unlikely to do anything about it as there aren't enough of us for them to worry about it , however much it might be the right thing to do.
1997. And here is a post of yours that I have liked and liked in the past. I was in parliament two days ago on this very subject. I asked you before, are you a member of PAG? They are very good.
The chancellor also needs to heavily rebuke companies engaged on greedflation and announce a series of measures including breaking them up if they don't start passing savings onto consumers. I've said it many times and I'll say it again, if petrol forecourts had honest pricing that a proper functioning market would have rather than one dominated by 2 or 3 big players the pump price would be ~11p per litre lower than today for unleaded and diesel.
We've allowed industry consolidation to go too far and consumers are being ripped off. The chancellor must address this in today's budget either with punitive taxes on those companies or the threat of break up.
If my wife was awake she would be able to tell me the current price at Hawes (community ran not for profit petrol station that does hsave the rural tax discount but that really only reflects the extra delivery costs).
Think its £1.45 a litre of diesel though so that shows the profits being made...
I paid £1.53 at Costco yesterday which is generally close to a true price.
The priorities for me today in the budget are: (1) a continuation and extension of the super reliefs for capital spending (and ideally training as well). We have an urgent need to have an investment boom in this country. (2) Pension reforms so that doctors with over £1m in their pension funds do not feel a burning need to go and spend more time with their money. (3) some relaxation of budgetary constraints so that the wave of public sector strikes can be settled. (4) A clear path to reduced borrowing over the medium term. (5) A clear commitment to sorting out the National Insurance mess and the consolidation of NI into IT so that all income is taxed at the same rate for everyone regardless of age. (6) A commitment to tax simplification. (7) More investment in essential infrastructure. (8) A focus on education at all levels but with the promised training/education right to encourage life term learning.
We need to boost investment, improve productivity, increase real wages and reduce our balance of payments deficit. It is a very difficult circle to square.
A very good list David - I completely agree.
Sounds like a Labour budget though tbf.
The fools like Truss determined to cut the headline rate of corporation tax completely ignore the need for capital investment incentives. With so much of corporate UK foreign owned, often all that tax cuts do is divert more cash overseas as dividends.
Enhanced capital allowances at least provide strong incentive to invest in the UK.
Like it or not this is the direction of travel of most governments around the world and the UK is in the pack. Headline rates have converged to around 25% across most of the OECD including now the US, France, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Korea and Japan and meanwhile the low tax locations are having to shift up to the 15% global minimum tax rate. The differentiator is then incentives especially for capex and net zero. The tax breaks themselves are generally going above the line and becoming more and more like grants. This is the fiscal expression of out more interventionist and deglobalising world economy.
I have a busy day of budget commentary today and of course the two big topics are the tax breaks for investment and the support for return to work. My fear is that both will look and sound nice but end up underwhelming. Industrial strategy in particular is not something to be done in half measures - that way leads to British Volt.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
What marginal tax rate does someone on £98k now face if offered a payrise, if they have pre-school age children?
I don't know. Severe, I suspect.
I will wait to see the precise announcements later.
Incidentally, I also don't like the UC taper (also too high) and think young people are taxed too highly for student loans.
It's all about incentivising work and aspiration.
The main objective of the current system is to keep the headline tax rates as low as possible. This means we get all of this additional complexity - child benefit clawback, personal allowance tapering, means-testing childcare, inventing new taxes (such as the graduate tax and the NHS tax), pension allowance tapering - in an attempt to raise more money without having to increase the numerical rate of income tax.
It's why Kwarteng proposed cutting the highest rate of tax from 45% to 40%, instead of dealing with the personal allowance taper. It's incredibly infantile.
But, whilst most of us on here could agree with getting rid of all the ridiculous tapers, in return for increasing the rates of tax - so that broadly speaking the same amount of tax was raised from the same people - doing so would be politically very courageous.
We will know that British politics has grown up when a government does it anyway, and manages to win the public debate on it being a sensible simplification rather than, "a massive tax grab from the middle class!" (Daily Mail), or, "a huge tax cut giveaway to the rich!" (Guardian).
This is precisely what HMRC say about any kind of simplification along these lines. The winners are happy and quiet, and the losers are unhappy and noisy.
The priorities for me today in the budget are: (1) a continuation and extension of the super reliefs for capital spending (and ideally training as well). We have an urgent need to have an investment boom in this country. (2) Pension reforms so that doctors with over £1m in their pension funds do not feel a burning need to go and spend more time with their money. (3) some relaxation of budgetary constraints so that the wave of public sector strikes can be settled. (4) A clear path to reduced borrowing over the medium term. (5) A clear commitment to sorting out the National Insurance mess and the consolidation of NI into IT so that all income is taxed at the same rate for everyone regardless of age. (6) A commitment to tax simplification. (7) More investment in essential infrastructure. (8) A focus on education at all levels but with the promised training/education right to encourage life term learning.
We need to boost investment, improve productivity, increase real wages and reduce our balance of payments deficit. It is a very difficult circle to square.
A very good list David - I completely agree.
Sounds like a Labour budget though tbf.
The fools like Truss determined to cut the headline rate of corporation tax completely ignore the need for capital investment incentives. With so much of corporate UK foreign owned, often all that tax cuts do is divert more cash overseas as dividends.
Enhanced capital allowances at least provide strong incentive to invest in the UK.
Like it or not this is the direction of travel of most governments around the world and the UK is in the pack. Headline rates have converged to around 25% across most of the OECD including now the US, France, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Korea and Japan and meanwhile the low tax locations are having to shift up to the 15% global minimum tax rate. The differentiator is then incentives especially for capex and net zero. The tax breaks themselves are generally going above the line and becoming more and more like grants. This is the fiscal expression of out more interventionist and deglobalising world economy.
I have a busy day of budget commentary today and of course the two big topics are the tax breaks for investment and the support for return to work. My fear is that both will look and sound nice but end up underwhelming. Industrial strategy in particular is not something to be done in half measures - that way leads to British Volt.
The return to work rhetoric is completely undone by introducing yet another cliff edge at £100k. The marginal rate for a worker at £99k going up to £107k will be over 100% if they've got young children.
PB is quite upsetting this morning. It's heart-rending to read about the awful plight of those earning around or over £100k, and the life-changing decisions they have to face.
Combine that with the desperate plight of doctors who have to retire so young because they're already rich enough to do so, and I find myself sobbing.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
The government should certainly be encouraging pension savings amongst those who would otherwise be reliant on the state.
Should it also be encouraging pension savings on those who might earn £5m+ over a lifetime? Probably not to the same extent at all.
Exactly. At that level pensions are being used to increase tax free inheritances rather than additional pension.
Some pensions, not all, allow transfer to offspring etc. AIUI? So it's a limited option?
If you transfer out and manage your own pension by drawing down from a pension pot the residual fund becomes inheritable. George Osborne has a lot to answer for.
THanks. So onlyt DC and only private pensions and only part of it.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
That might be true, but Max makes a very good point about the tax mess for those on the £100k margin. Whatever you think about the wealthy/ very well of, it's stupid policy.
He does.
You would have to be stupid to earn just over the threshold and have HMRC start fiddling with your tax code. Thus, people are proactive in avoiding doing so.
The priorities for me today in the budget are: (1) a continuation and extension of the super reliefs for capital spending (and ideally training as well). We have an urgent need to have an investment boom in this country. (2) Pension reforms so that doctors with over £1m in their pension funds do not feel a burning need to go and spend more time with their money. (3) some relaxation of budgetary constraints so that the wave of public sector strikes can be settled. (4) A clear path to reduced borrowing over the medium term. (5) A clear commitment to sorting out the National Insurance mess and the consolidation of NI into IT so that all income is taxed at the same rate for everyone regardless of age. (6) A commitment to tax simplification. (7) More investment in essential infrastructure. (8) A focus on education at all levels but with the promised training/education right to encourage life term learning.
We need to boost investment, improve productivity, increase real wages and reduce our balance of payments deficit. It is a very difficult circle to square.
A very good list David - I completely agree.
Sounds like a Labour budget though tbf.
The fools like Truss determined to cut the headline rate of corporation tax completely ignore the need for capital investment incentives. With so much of corporate UK foreign owned, often all that tax cuts do is divert more cash overseas as dividends.
Enhanced capital allowances at least provide strong incentive to invest in the UK.
Like it or not this is the direction of travel of most governments around the world and the UK is in the pack. Headline rates have converged to around 25% across most of the OECD including now the US, France, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Korea and Japan and meanwhile the low tax locations are having to shift up to the 15% global minimum tax rate. The differentiator is then incentives especially for capex and net zero. The tax breaks themselves are generally going above the line and becoming more and more like grants. This is the fiscal expression of out more interventionist and deglobalising world economy.
I have a busy day of budget commentary today and of course the two big topics are the tax breaks for investment and the support for return to work. My fear is that both will look and sound nice but end up underwhelming. Industrial strategy in particular is not something to be done in half measures - that way leads to British Volt.
The return to work rhetoric is completely undone by introducing yet another cliff edge at £100k. The marginal rate for a worker at £99k going up to £107k will be over 100% if they've got young children.
The losers were going to vote Labour anyway. That's the realpolitik of the situation. The number of parents of young children on a professional salary likely to be tempted by the Tories anytime soon is close to rounding levels.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
I think the general public is broadly in favour of "stopping small boat crossings", and not as fussed as us lefties about how deterrence is achieved short of actually shooting at them. But I also think it's not something most people think about most of the time, even when deciding how to vote, so the impact in the polling booth will be pretty limited. There are lots of issues like that - climate change is another (very important, most people agree, but how many votes does it really change?).
The chancellor also needs to heavily rebuke companies engaged on greedflation and announce a series of measures including breaking them up if they don't start passing savings onto consumers. I've said it many times and I'll say it again, if petrol forecourts had honest pricing that a proper functioning market would have rather than one dominated by 2 or 3 big players the pump price would be ~11p per litre lower than today for unleaded and diesel.
We've allowed industry consolidation to go too far and consumers are being ripped off. The chancellor must address this in today's budget either with punitive taxes on those companies or the threat of break up.
If my wife was awake she would be able to tell me the current price at Hawes (community ran not for profit petrol station that does hsave the rural tax discount but that really only reflects the extra delivery costs).
Think its £1.45 a litre of diesel though so that shows the profits being made...
I paid £1.53 at Costco yesterday which is generally close to a true price.
My wife corrected me she paid £1.53 yesterday.
So there is a difference of 11-14p where a town has little competition with no independent station.
Do we think that if Hunt proceeds with the rise in corporation tax there will be any ructions from the back bench?
It depends on what the investment allowance looks like. If it is as billed - full expensing and unlimited, then everyone will probably be ok, if it's some half measure then I think there will be a rebellion.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
And yet all you really end up doing is pushing people earning £100k into 4 day weeks. I've had three requests for it from my team over the last year. Only a complete mug would take the salary increase.
My heart bleeds.
Well it might, but that's an awful lot of tax that the UK is not taking because of the disincentives to earning more money. The result of which is that those working 5 days a week for not that much have to bear more of the costs.
What the Govt could fo that wouldn't cost zillions is to takeaway the discriminatory inflation limit on those in the PPF and FAS. I don't get any increase in pension on any service before I think1994 but it might be 1997. Whichever it is my pension rose by less than I per cent as a result of this ... Govt unlikely to do anything about it as there aren't enough of us for them to worry about it , however much it might be the right thing to do.
1997. And here is a post of yours that I have liked and liked in the past. I was in parliament two days ago on this very subject. I asked you before, are you a member of PAG? They are very good.
PB is quite upsetting this morning. It's heart-rending to read about the awful plight of those earning around or over £100k, and the life-changing decisions they have to face.
Combine that with the desperate plight of doctors who have to retire so young because they're already rich enough to do so, and I find myself sobbing.
One thing that strikes me about NHS pay is that junior doctors are probably paid too little but once they're GPs too much. Would a flatter overall pay structure improve matters ?
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
As a sometimes contrarian, happy to go the opposite way here.
A lot of floating voters trust the Tories more than Labour on migration, and this will not change. The more effective the government is in controlling migration, the less it will rise to the top of voter priorities vs cost of living. Therefore the more effective the government is in controlling migration the less chance they have of being reelected.
This is why get loads of spin and rhetoric but no resources or sensible policies from them.
PB is quite upsetting this morning. It's heart-rending to read about the awful plight of those earning around or over £100k, and the life-changing decisions they have to face.
Combine that with the desperate plight of doctors who have to retire so young because they're already rich enough to do so, and I find myself sobbing.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
The government should certainly be encouraging pension savings amongst those who would otherwise be reliant on the state.
Should it also be encouraging pension savings on those who might earn £5m+ over a lifetime? Probably not to the same extent at all.
Exactly. At that level pensions are being used to increase tax free inheritances rather than additional pension.
Some pensions, not all, allow transfer to offspring etc. AIUI? So it's a limited option?
If you transfer out and manage your own pension by drawing down from a pension pot the residual fund becomes inheritable. George Osborne has a lot to answer for.
THanks. So onlyt DC and only private pensions and only part of it.
Only private pensions yes, but you can transfer out of DB private pensions. Recent very low annuity rates have made that especially attractive as the calculated pension pot to support a final salary pension becomes very high.
What the Govt could fo that wouldn't cost zillions is to takeaway the discriminatory inflation limit on those in the PPF and FAS. I don't get any increase in pension on any service before I think1994 but it might be 1997. Whichever it is my pension rose by less than I per cent as a result of this ... Govt unlikely to do anything about it as there aren't enough of us for them to worry about it , however much it might be the right thing to do.
1997. And here is a post of yours that I have liked and liked in the past. I was in parliament two days ago on this very subject. I asked you before, are you a member of PAG? They are very good.
No I will google it ty
Sorry if you type in PAG lots of crap comes up. Try Pensions Action Group and it come up.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
I think the general public is broadly in favour of "stopping small boat crossings", and not as fussed as us lefties about how deterrence is achieved short of actually shooting at them. But I also think it's not something most people think about most of the time, even when deciding how to vote, so the impact in the polling booth will be pretty limited. There are lots of issues like that - climate change is another (very important, most people agree, but how many votes does it really change?).
There’s a massive set of challenges facing the country. The focus on this single one by Tories, PB and otherwise, is not going to shift very much in the absence of action on the others. Max thinks the economy will sort itself out so that, in conjunction with “Stop the Boats” will mean an easy return to power next year. For them that’s dangerous
PB is quite upsetting this morning. It's heart-rending to read about the awful plight of those earning around or over £100k, and the life-changing decisions they have to face.
Combine that with the desperate plight of doctors who have to retire so young because they're already rich enough to do so, and I find myself sobbing.
I'd quite happily raise more tax overall from those paid >£100k, but I reckon you could do so with a tax system that had lower marginal rates of tax, by doing away with the complicated tapers, etc, and simply having a higher headline rate of tax. And you'd then avoid having all of these weird cliff edges which create perverse incentives.
Last week at PMQs Ed Davey told the story of Jean, who he said faced an 8 hour ambulance wait, drove herself to hospital, collapsed at the entrance to A&E, and then died an hour later - but almost all of those details were wrong.
The priorities for me today in the budget are: (1) a continuation and extension of the super reliefs for capital spending (and ideally training as well). We have an urgent need to have an investment boom in this country. (2) Pension reforms so that doctors with over £1m in their pension funds do not feel a burning need to go and spend more time with their money. (3) some relaxation of budgetary constraints so that the wave of public sector strikes can be settled. (4) A clear path to reduced borrowing over the medium term. (5) A clear commitment to sorting out the National Insurance mess and the consolidation of NI into IT so that all income is taxed at the same rate for everyone regardless of age. (6) A commitment to tax simplification. (7) More investment in essential infrastructure. (8) A focus on education at all levels but with the promised training/education right to encourage life term learning.
We need to boost investment, improve productivity, increase real wages and reduce our balance of payments deficit. It is a very difficult circle to square.
A very good list David - I completely agree.
Sounds like a Labour budget though tbf.
The fools like Truss determined to cut the headline rate of corporation tax completely ignore the need for capital investment incentives. With so much of corporate UK foreign owned, often all that tax cuts do is divert more cash overseas as dividends.
Enhanced capital allowances at least provide strong incentive to invest in the UK.
Like it or not this is the direction of travel of most governments around the world and the UK is in the pack. Headline rates have converged to around 25% across most of the OECD including now the US, France, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Korea and Japan and meanwhile the low tax locations are having to shift up to the 15% global minimum tax rate. The differentiator is then incentives especially for capex and net zero. The tax breaks themselves are generally going above the line and becoming more and more like grants. This is the fiscal expression of out more interventionist and deglobalising world economy.
I have a busy day of budget commentary today and of course the two big topics are the tax breaks for investment and the support for return to work. My fear is that both will look and sound nice but end up underwhelming. Industrial strategy in particular is not something to be done in half measures - that way leads to British Volt.
The return to work rhetoric is completely undone by introducing yet another cliff edge at £100k. The marginal rate for a worker at £99k going up to £107k will be over 100% if they've got young children.
The losers were going to vote Labour anyway. That's the realpolitik of the situation. The number of parents of young children on a professional salary likely to be tempted by the Tories anytime soon is close to rounding levels.
Not really, under Rishi they're probably quite easy to get, especially if you simplify their taxes and enable them to work full time again with fully funded childcare. It's also one of those barriers to higher growth that people bang on about, introduce it now and by the time the election rolls in we'll see a GDP gain from people at the top of the income scale working full time and NHS waiting lists falling.
And if President Trump or Desantis pulled back they'd do what exactly? 1-2 of them would directly criticise and maybe 5 would say they were disappointed.
Exactly. For the sake of Ukraine, Europe and the world we need the Democrats to win next year's Presidential election.
Which is bitterly disappointing, that the party of Reagan would have debased itself so much with those two individuals and those who appease them.
One solution to getting older people back to work while supporting childcare: a grandparent tax credit. If grandma and grandpa look after grandchildren during the working week they get a bung from government.
Min 3 days a week required. up to a max of 3 weeks leave for cruises allowed per year plus 1 week at a timeshare. iPad screentime to be no more than 2 hours per day. At least one grandparent to be on duty at any time, while other mows lawn / naps / has coffee morning with neighbours.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Not if you're a high earner, the threshold tapers down to £4k!
Yeah it's another ridiculous taper, the whole income tax, pensions, NI and savings system needs junking and rebooting. It's not fit for purpose. It punishes people who are able to earn more and discourages them rather than encouraging them to do so and pay more tax.
Exactly. Both main parties seem to struggle with this because they're terrified of the politics or wrestling the problem to the ground.
Politically, the ground should be prepared by spending 6-12 months making the arguments in public debate.
I think it’s easy enough to ease the cliff edge while also getting the right ‘optics’ - just introduce 45% at 100k, while binning the PA taper.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
I think the general public is broadly in favour of "stopping small boat crossings", and not as fussed as us lefties about how deterrence is achieved short of actually shooting at them. But I also think it's not something most people think about most of the time, even when deciding how to vote, so the impact in the polling booth will be pretty limited. There are lots of issues like that - climate change is another (very important, most people agree, but how many votes does it really change?).
There’s a massive set of challenges facing the country. The focus on this single one by Tories, PB and otherwise, is not going to shift very much in the absence of action on the others. Max thinks the economy will sort its self out so that, in conjunction with “Stop the Boats” will mean an easy return to power next year. For them that’s dangerous
I didn't say easy return to power, I said it opens the door to a 1992 style victory.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
The catch is that the Braverman plan very probably isn't going to work. Partly because of Lefty Lawyers, but mostly because
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
PB is quite upsetting this morning. It's heart-rending to read about the awful plight of those earning around or over £100k, and the life-changing decisions they have to face.
Combine that with the desperate plight of doctors who have to retire so young because they're already rich enough to do so, and I find myself sobbing.
You're missing the point. The point of all this isn't out of love or sympathy for the higher paid, it's to incentivise the higher paid to do more work, thereby providing a) more high value stuff we need (like experienced doctoring) and b) more tax take (since if our disincentives to work make the rich stop working or encourage them to work elsewhere, we get no tax income at all).
The priorities for me today in the budget are: (1) a continuation and extension of the super reliefs for capital spending (and ideally training as well). We have an urgent need to have an investment boom in this country. (2) Pension reforms so that doctors with over £1m in their pension funds do not feel a burning need to go and spend more time with their money. (3) some relaxation of budgetary constraints so that the wave of public sector strikes can be settled. (4) A clear path to reduced borrowing over the medium term. (5) A clear commitment to sorting out the National Insurance mess and the consolidation of NI into IT so that all income is taxed at the same rate for everyone regardless of age. (6) A commitment to tax simplification. (7) More investment in essential infrastructure. (8) A focus on education at all levels but with the promised training/education right to encourage life term learning.
We need to boost investment, improve productivity, increase real wages and reduce our balance of payments deficit. It is a very difficult circle to square.
A very good list David - I completely agree.
Sounds like a Labour budget though tbf.
The fools like Truss determined to cut the headline rate of corporation tax completely ignore the need for capital investment incentives. With so much of corporate UK foreign owned, often all that tax cuts do is divert more cash overseas as dividends.
Enhanced capital allowances at least provide strong incentive to invest in the UK.
Like it or not this is the direction of travel of most governments around the world and the UK is in the pack. Headline rates have converged to around 25% across most of the OECD including now the US, France, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Korea and Japan and meanwhile the low tax locations are having to shift up to the 15% global minimum tax rate. The differentiator is then incentives especially for capex and net zero. The tax breaks themselves are generally going above the line and becoming more and more like grants. This is the fiscal expression of out more interventionist and deglobalising world economy.
I have a busy day of budget commentary today and of course the two big topics are the tax breaks for investment and the support for return to work. My fear is that both will look and sound nice but end up underwhelming. Industrial strategy in particular is not something to be done in half measures - that way leads to British Volt.
The return to work rhetoric is completely undone by introducing yet another cliff edge at £100k. The marginal rate for a worker at £99k going up to £107k will be over 100% if they've got young children.
The losers were going to vote Labour anyway. That's the realpolitik of the situation. The number of parents of young children on a professional salary likely to be tempted by the Tories anytime soon is close to rounding levels.
Not really, under Rishi they're probably quite easy to get, especially if you simplify their taxes and enable them to work full time again with fully funded childcare. It's also one of those barriers to higher growth that people bang on about, introduce it now and by the time the election rolls in we'll see a GDP gain from people at the top of the income scale working full time and NHS waiting lists falling.
The polling numbers suggest Tory support in the 30-40 age range is tiny, and when you look at the graduate demographic it's even lower. There's no evidence of this bloc coming back anytime soon, particularly with no Corbyn to scare them on the other side.
The government has done virtually nothing for parents since 2015. Schools are in a mess, local government services have been starved of money, property is unaffordable, and meanwhile we've faffed around with Brexit and internal Tory squabbles.
Why are Rishi Sunak's personal ratings struggling to revive Tory electoral fortunes? (Part one) Sunak's ratings are significantly better than either of his predecessors. But the party continues to languish in the polls. Digging deeper into the polling reveals some possible reasons why.
It's a good question when people often talk about personal ratings being important. But such cannot work miracles.
Yes, that's a really perceptive article. At a trivially anecdotal level, I quite like Sunak and Hunt (my own MP). Am I going to vote for them? Of course not.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
I think the general public is broadly in favour of "stopping small boat crossings", and not as fussed as us lefties about how deterrence is achieved short of actually shooting at them. But I also think it's not something most people think about most of the time, even when deciding how to vote, so the impact in the polling booth will be pretty limited. There are lots of issues like that - climate change is another (very important, most people agree, but how many votes does it really change?).
There’s a massive set of challenges facing the country. The focus on this single one by Tories, PB and otherwise, is not going to shift very much in the absence of action on the others. Max thinks the economy will sort its self out so that, in conjunction with “Stop the Boats” will mean an easy return to power next year. For them that’s dangerous
I didn't say easy return to power, I said it opens the door to a 1992 style victory.
But you’re saying the Tories will definitely win come what may, 1992 or otherwise you’re confidently predicting that the Tories will win because of a single policy. That’s bold given that, while important, the issue generally comes in at fourth or fifth in voters lists of priorities. I think your confidence that the Tories can rely on this and sit back and watch a grateful nation sweep them back into power is a bit out of touch.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
The catch is that the Braverman plan very probably isn't going to work. Partly because of Lefty Lawyers, but mostly because
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
Without those arrangements, how does the government propose to move people somewhere else?
Saying you will do stuff is much much easier than actually doing it.
But they are doing it, whether you agree with it or not the fact that the High Courts ruling is being appealed isn't their fault. The judicial system needs to be able to run its course, unless you think they should be circumventing the judicial system what more can realistically be done?
Once the legal hoops are out of the way, the system can become operational - and if you object to it, then that's perfectly valid and should be debated in the political sphere, but if its legal and goes operational then unless opponents win a General Election the system can work.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
£100k isn't a dramatic salary these days. But it is unobtanium for so many people who work jobs much harder than the higher paid ones with no possibility of getting even to half that.
That isn't the fault of the people on £100k+ salaries, but it is the fault of the system they likely keep voting for. We have a huge class of worker who get paid salaries that get relatively smaller every year. Unless we do something about real wages - the disposable income we need them to have to drive the economy forward - then we will continue to have this as a live issue.
I can understand Labour playing the card that everyone earning over £100k is wealthy and not entitled to anything but heavy taxation, but I expect the Conservatives to defend aspiration and ambition - and encourage it.
Unfortunately, they are cowardly custards and Hunt/Sunak are actually so wealthy with assets in the millions that this won't affect them.
Surely the best way to look at this is that in an economy in which there is little money, those of us earning over £100k can not be a priority for help.
You might go further to say that those with broad shoulders might aspire to helping others.
Under the current system in this country it is a hard path trying to build up wealth by way of getting a job and then save up money from it. You need to either inherit wealth, own a business, or acquire assets that rise in value faster than inflation (ie housing).
That said, if you do earn over £100k, it isn't too difficult to become wealthy by investing in a private pension. It is only if you have high monthly overheads when the problems start to kick in.
Although you can only pay in £4k a year without paying tax on it twice.
I think you mean £40k?
Yep and you can use the previous 2 years allowance also. The 4k comes in when you have taken your pension to avoid recycling.
No above a certain income threshold, think it's about £150k, you can only pay in £4k tax free. That means if you are taxed at 45% on the way in and 40% on the way out then you face an effective tax rate of 67% on income paid in and taken in retirement. And the government says it wants to encourage retirement savings! Another piece of Osborne era idiocy.
The government should certainly be encouraging pension savings amongst those who would otherwise be reliant on the state.
Should it also be encouraging pension savings on those who might earn £5m+ over a lifetime? Probably not to the same extent at all.
Sure but it is a tax on aspiration. The properly wealthy have all kinds of schemes at their disposal, believe me. But if you work hard, and either through luck or talent have managed to earn a high salary, the effective tax rates are really quite punative - and far higher than for those above and below us in the income scale. I get it that we are not a group that commands much sympathy (although to the Tory donor class we are staff) and so keep the tiny violins in their cases. But don't be surprised if people respond to the incentives on offer as well as to the general message that the UK is not an aspirational country.
You are properly wealthy, everyone bar Elon Musk or perhaps some Saudi royal has people wealthier than them. The richer you are the more likely you are to have benefitted from QE over the last 15 years which has created winners and losers as much as the tax system.
And several schemes presumably still available to you? ISAs, SEIS, EIS, VCTs? Entrepreneurs relief if you set something up yourself too.
"Using anonymised data from personal tax returns, we show that in 2015-16 the average rate of tax paid by people who received one million pounds in taxable income and gains was just 35 per cent: the same as someone earning £100,000. But one in four of these paid 45 per cent – close to the top rate – whilst another quarter paid less than 30 per cent overall. One in ten paid just 11 per cent—the same as someone earning £15,000. The rich, it seems, are not all in it together."
Yes, the effective 62% tax rate in the £100K-£125K bracket is just odd - not left or right wing, but weird, since it could be trivially fixed with a more rational sliding rate. It's influencing me to cut back my working hours (though being 73 might be relevant too) and I'm sure that's a common reaction.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
The catch is that the Braverman plan very probably isn't going to work. Partly because of Lefty Lawyers, but mostly because
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
Without those arrangements, how does the government propose to move people somewhere else?
Saying you will do stuff is much much easier than actually doing it.
But they are doing it, whether you agree with it or not the fact that the High Courts ruling is being appealed isn't their fault. The judicial system needs to be able to run its course, unless you think they should be circumventing the judicial system what more can realistically be done?
Once the legal hoops are out of the way, the system can become operational - and if you object to it, then that's perfectly valid and should be debated in the political sphere, but if its legal and goes operational then unless opponents win a General Election the system can work.
You’re missing the point there. When Rwanda and the handful of others is ruled lawful we don’t have enough countries to send people to, whatever the outcome of the claims
Why are Rishi Sunak's personal ratings struggling to revive Tory electoral fortunes? (Part one) Sunak's ratings are significantly better than either of his predecessors. But the party continues to languish in the polls. Digging deeper into the polling reveals some possible reasons why.
It's a good question when people often talk about personal ratings being important. But such cannot work miracles.
Yes, that's a really perceptive article. At a trivially anecdotal level, I quite like Sunak and Hunt (my own MP). Am I going to vote for them? Of course not.
Yes, I think the 1992 comparisons farfetched. But it would be a pleasant change not to be motivated to vote primarily because of just how appalling is the present government.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
The catch is that the Braverman plan very probably isn't going to work. Partly because of Lefty Lawyers, but mostly because
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
Without those arrangements, how does the government propose to move people somewhere else?
Saying you will do stuff is much much easier than actually doing it.
But they are doing it, whether you agree with it or not the fact that the High Courts ruling is being appealed isn't their fault. The judicial system needs to be able to run its course, unless you think they should be circumventing the judicial system what more can realistically be done?
Once the legal hoops are out of the way, the system can become operational - and if you object to it, then that's perfectly valid and should be debated in the political sphere, but if its legal and goes operational then unless opponents win a General Election the system can work.
You’re missing the point there. When Rwanda and the handful of others is ruled lawful we don’t have enough countries to send people to, whatever the outcome of the claims
Once its ruled lawful you only need one country to send people to and the crossings will stop if people know they'll be sent there.
Nobody will cross the Channel in order to be sent to Rwanda. If they don't think they'll be sent there, then they will come, but if they know they will then they won't come, so capacity is instantly sufficient the moment that you have a scheme operational and certain to proceed.
Why are Rishi Sunak's personal ratings struggling to revive Tory electoral fortunes? (Part one) Sunak's ratings are significantly better than either of his predecessors. But the party continues to languish in the polls. Digging deeper into the polling reveals some possible reasons why.
It's a good question when people often talk about personal ratings being important. But such cannot work miracles.
Yes, that's a really perceptive article. At a trivially anecdotal level, I quite like Sunak and Hunt (my own MP). Am I going to vote for them? Of course not.
Yes, I think the 1992 comparisons farfetched. But it would be a pleasant change not to be motivated to vote primarily because of just how appalling is the present government.
It would be interesting to run 2023-rules polls on the electorate of 1991-2. Given that the polling fail of 1992 led to things like Spiral of Silence, it seems plausible that the Conservatives were never really behind after the fall of Thatcher.
Whereas even Opinium, who are pretty aggressively putting Conservative-inclined don't knows in the blue column, had a 17 point Labour lead in their most recent poll.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
The catch is that the Braverman plan very probably isn't going to work. Partly because of Lefty Lawyers, but mostly because
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
Without those arrangements, how does the government propose to move people somewhere else?
Saying you will do stuff is much much easier than actually doing it.
But the lefty lawyers and mealy-mouthed offering by Labour will be seen as WHY the problem can't be solved - and by very many. There are swathes of voters for whom this issue IS important. (If you doubt me, try door-knocking. It is quite eye-opening, given the wide consensus on here that it is a niche issue.)
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
The catch is that the Braverman plan very probably isn't going to work. Partly because of Lefty Lawyers, but mostly because
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
Without those arrangements, how does the government propose to move people somewhere else?
Saying you will do stuff is much much easier than actually doing it.
But the lefty lawyers and mealy-mouthed offering by Labour will be seen as WHY the problem can't be solved - and by very many. There are swathes of voters for whom this issue IS important. (If you doubt me, try door-knocking. It is quite eye-opening, given the wide consensus on here that it is a niche issue.)
This government's innate ability since 2010 to blame everyone but themselves for any problem with the country is remarkable and Oscar-worthy. Their tactical brilliance in that respect with the Lib Dems during the coalition was scintillating.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
The catch is that the Braverman plan very probably isn't going to work. Partly because of Lefty Lawyers, but mostly because
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
Without those arrangements, how does the government propose to move people somewhere else?
Saying you will do stuff is much much easier than actually doing it.
But the lefty lawyers and mealy-mouthed offering by Labour will be seen as WHY the problem can't be solved - and by very many. There are swathes of voters for whom this issue IS important. (If you doubt me, try door-knocking. It is quite eye-opening, given the wide consensus on here that it is a niche issue.)
I don't think any of the critics of the policy have said it is an electoral niche issue?
The criticisms I've heard (and made) tend to be ineffective, illegal, underresourced and dehumanising, with different posters picking and mixing from that list.
I think it is a vote winner for the Tories despite agreeing with all the criticisms.
Why are Rishi Sunak's personal ratings struggling to revive Tory electoral fortunes? (Part one) Sunak's ratings are significantly better than either of his predecessors. But the party continues to languish in the polls. Digging deeper into the polling reveals some possible reasons why.
It's a good question when people often talk about personal ratings being important. But such cannot work miracles.
I think a terrible leader costs the party votes - afterall, you have to visualise that person as your prime minister.
But if they're ok to good then it's more about the party perception overall. The truly exceptional can bring in votes, but then they also manage to change their parties to make them more attractive, too, so you don't see such a differential between party and leader ratings.
Terrible: Corbyn, Truss, IDS (probably, if he'd seen an election) Ok to good: Major, Cameron Exceptional: Blair, Thatcher (probably - I'm a bit young to judge on her)
Brown is somewhere between ok and terrible - probably cost Labour some votes. Cameron did change the Conservative party, at least superficially, but probably not exceptional. May on the bad side, in the end.
ETA: So, Sunak is not objectionable, particularly. But the loons still seem to be running much of the Tory party and there's an appetite to punish them.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
The catch is that the Braverman plan very probably isn't going to work. Partly because of Lefty Lawyers, but mostly because
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
Without those arrangements, how does the government propose to move people somewhere else?
Saying you will do stuff is much much easier than actually doing it.
But they are doing it, whether you agree with it or not the fact that the High Courts ruling is being appealed isn't their fault. The judicial system needs to be able to run its course, unless you think they should be circumventing the judicial system what more can realistically be done?
Once the legal hoops are out of the way, the system can become operational - and if you object to it, then that's perfectly valid and should be debated in the political sphere, but if its legal and goes operational then unless opponents win a General Election the system can work.
You’re missing the point there. When Rwanda and the handful of others is ruled lawful we don’t have enough countries to send people to, whatever the outcome of the claims
Once its ruled lawful you only need one country to send people to and the crossings will stop if people know they'll be sent there.
Nobody will cross the Channel in order to be sent to Rwanda. If they don't think they'll be sent there, then they will come, but if they know they will then they won't come, so capacity is instantly sufficient the moment that you have a scheme operational and certain to proceed.
Plain wrong. Wrong is too weak. We have a non-enforceable memorandum of understanding with Rwanda to send “some” (not all) migrants. Rwanda cannot, and had not agreed to, take all of them. Further as an MOU rather than a treaty they can say at anytime “that’s enough” and we have no comeback. That will happen as soon as they reach capacity, or earlier.
Secondly, you’re suggesting people who are already breaking the law will stop breaking it if the penalties are tougher. That is a canard that in so many cases has been proved wrong. Changing the classification of drugs, the death penalty, “short sharp shock”, equalities legislation, you name it. People will take chances they won’t be caught. Without enforcement this policy alone is a joke.
This reply to a Matthew Goodwin tweet shows why people should never comment on things they don't understand. The person replying makes a totally nonsensical point about what would happen if the poll were conducted in different parts of the country.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
Another anti-aspiration policy from the government if it's true. Very disappointing. I'd rather a higher overall rate than all of these idiotic marginal rates. Just bring the 45p rate in at £100k and get rid of all the withdrawals, caps and tapers. The income tax system in this country is disincentivising high earning people from working full time, there's no other country in the world that does the same, it's mental.
For once we agree Max, they seem determined to make highly skilled/paid people do less yet keep wittering on about needing more work/growth etc.
The chancellor also needs to heavily rebuke companies engaged on greedflation and announce a series of measures including breaking them up if they don't start passing savings onto consumers. I've said it many times and I'll say it again, if petrol forecourts had honest pricing that a proper functioning market would have rather than one dominated by 2 or 3 big players the pump price would be ~11p per litre lower than today for unleaded and diesel.
We've allowed industry consolidation to go too far and consumers are being ripped off. The chancellor must address this in today's budget either with punitive taxes on those companies or the threat of break up.
If my wife was awake she would be able to tell me the current price at Hawes (community ran not for profit petrol station that does hsave the rural tax discount but that really only reflects the extra delivery costs).
Think its £1.45 a litre of diesel though so that shows the profits being made...
I paid £1.53 at Costco yesterday which is generally close to a true price.
My wife corrected me she paid £1.53 yesterday.
So there is a difference of 11-14p where a town has little competition with no independent station.
It seems to vary so much by locality. Our local garages charge £165.9 for diesel. 10 miles south, it is 10p cheaper. 10 miles north it is even dearer..
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
As a sometimes contrarian, happy to go the opposite way here.
A lot of floating voters trust the Tories more than Labour on migration, and this will not change. The more effective the government is in controlling migration, the less it will rise to the top of voter priorities vs cost of living. Therefore the more effective the government is in controlling migration the less chance they have of being reelected.
This is why get loads of spin and rhetoric but no resources or sensible policies from them.
Immigration is a good issue for the Tories. So the benefit to them of 'stopping the boats' must be balanced against the benefit to Labour of immigration disappearing from the radar if they succeed. The sweet spot is probably for them to achieve some tangible progress via more 'grown up' working with France whist having their nasty stuff prevented from happening by lefty liberal bleeding heart lawyers like (hint hint) Keir Starmer.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
The catch is that the Braverman plan very probably isn't going to work. Partly because of Lefty Lawyers, but mostly because
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
Without those arrangements, how does the government propose to move people somewhere else?
Saying you will do stuff is much much easier than actually doing it.
But the lefty lawyers and mealy-mouthed offering by Labour will be seen as WHY the problem can't be solved - and by very many. There are swathes of voters for whom this issue IS important. (If you doubt me, try door-knocking. It is quite eye-opening, given the wide consensus on here that it is a niche issue.)
This government's innate ability since 2010 to blame everyone but themselves for any problem with the country is remarkable and Oscar-worthy. Their tactical brilliance in that respect with the Lib Dems during the coalition was scintillating.
They have re-invented themselves several times over that period with the fan boys not realising their support morphs between free market and protectionism, liberalism and authoritarian, centralisation and localism on an annual basis. As long as the rosette is blue, and the Daily Mail agrees they are on board.
And this is what I was suggesting last week. If the government does resolve it people will live with it regardless if how it was achieved. I think the general public is fed up with small boat arrivals and even if the method is lambasted by bleeding heart do gooder liberals voters will, in the privacy of the polling booth, vote accordingly.
So you’re suggesting the shy Tory effect will win the next election?
The catch is that the Braverman plan very probably isn't going to work. Partly because of Lefty Lawyers, but mostly because
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
Without those arrangements, how does the government propose to move people somewhere else?
Saying you will do stuff is much much easier than actually doing it.
But they are doing it, whether you agree with it or not the fact that the High Courts ruling is being appealed isn't their fault. The judicial system needs to be able to run its course, unless you think they should be circumventing the judicial system what more can realistically be done?
Once the legal hoops are out of the way, the system can become operational - and if you object to it, then that's perfectly valid and should be debated in the political sphere, but if its legal and goes operational then unless opponents win a General Election the system can work.
You’re missing the point there. When Rwanda and the handful of others is ruled lawful we don’t have enough countries to send people to, whatever the outcome of the claims
We can start making agreements with more third countries though (For oodles of cash !) but still Rwanda starting up would be a start.
FPT - I was excited about the 1-2 year childcare policy for about 5 minutes last night until I read the small print and I saw it was means-tested with a £100k income cap, unlike for childcare for 3-4 year olds.
So we're out.
Ouch - let’s hope there is something in the budget to fix the £100,000+ income issues because it already removes the incentive to earn that amount and there will be even more reasons to keep pay below that magic figure.
£100k+ is now almost viewed as offensive. It causes all sorts of issues with recruitment and retention. We're leaching a lot of staff to the Middle East and Australia.
Fiscal drag is now making many careers and professions pip over that post in their 40s and 50s, but always heavily mortgaged/indebted at the same time.
Another anti-aspiration policy from the government if it's true. Very disappointing. I'd rather a higher overall rate than all of these idiotic marginal rates. Just bring the 45p rate in at £100k and get rid of all the withdrawals, caps and tapers. The income tax system in this country is disincentivising high earning people from working full time, there's no other country in the world that does the same, it's mental.
For once we agree Max, they seem determined to make highly skilled/paid people do less yet keep wittering on about needing more work/growth etc.
It must be frosty in hell this morning!
(But, FWIW, I agree with both of you. I'm in favour of universal benefits for things like this - tax higher earners through tax rates, not through these odd cliff-edge withdrawals of benefits)
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Sounds like a Labour budget though tbf.
Russian oligarch Andrey Muraviev indicted in political contribution scheme linked to illegal donors to Trump PAC
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/14/russian-oligarch-andrey-muraviev-indicted-linked-to-trump-donors.html
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a39440982/lev-parnas-russian-associate-campaign-donations/
...Among the beneficiaries of Parnas and Fruman’s political giving was the Friends of Ron DeSantis Political Action Committee, which took in the $50,000 donation from a company tied to Parnas and Fruman in June 2018.
After DeSantis won, Muraviev texted his congratulations to Parnas and Fruman, the indictment says. Muraviev’s partner Andrey Kukushkin, who was also charged and found guilty in the scheme, added his congratulations on “victory in Florida “ and wrote “[w]hen can we get a license and look for the stores,“ according to the indictment…The same company also gave $325,000 a month earlier to a super PAC associated with then-President Trump.
Parnas and Fruman were bottom-feeders’ bottom-feeders, even by the standards of the previous administration. They are tied up with Rudy Giuliani’s alleged attempts to collect dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine....
Besides, there're other issues there. We're talking about a family, and it's perfectly possible that kids / other relatives would rather the whole thing just go away - whether true, false, or somewhere in between. Constantly issuing denials just keeps it going amongst people who are your enemies just because you are perceived to have a political bias.
Again, I refer you to Lord McAlpine.
It gets to the point where you're actually better off earning 85-90k in cash terms, not working or going overseas. And that's exactly what's happening.
In an economy where there is little money that inhibits growth and full efficency from our working population and that's absolute madness.
With so much of corporate UK foreign owned, often all that tax cuts do is divert more cash overseas as dividends.
Enhanced capital allowances at least provide strong incentive to invest in the UK.
Politically, the ground should be prepared by spending 6-12 months making the arguments in public debate.
The key one (I think hat-tip to @Luckyguy1983 ) is that the people Sunak is doing better with are generally still not going to vote for him. Plenty of examples of that (including Conservatives in exile) here. Sunak has won back Tories terrified by Truss, but that's as far as it goes
The other is @HYUFD's point that Sunak is the man to shore up the blue wall but not the red one. That's probably sensible (and leaves the Conservatives a lot more coherent, to be honest).
Using Anderson and Boat-stopping to try to hold on to the redwallers makes sense. It may not work well, but it may work better than anything else.
Davey now facing calls to correct the record.
https://twitter.com/Geri_E_L_Scott/status/1635919413109981186?s=20
But I strongly agree with you that the tax system should provide rational incentives for you guys.
But the reality is also that after 13 years it probably is the the other lot’s turn.
I will wait to see the precise announcements later.
Incidentally, I also don't like the UC taper (also too high) and think young people are taxed too highly for student loans.
It's all about incentivising work and aspiration.
And several schemes presumably still available to you? ISAs, SEIS, EIS, VCTs? Entrepreneurs relief if you set something up yourself too.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/economics/how-much-tax-do-the-rich-really-pay
"Using anonymised data from personal tax returns, we show that in 2015-16 the average rate of tax paid by people who received one million pounds in taxable income and gains was just 35 per cent: the same as someone earning £100,000. But one in four of these paid 45 per cent – close to the top rate – whilst another quarter paid less than 30 per cent overall. One in ten paid just 11 per cent—the same as someone earning £15,000. The rich, it seems, are not all in it together."
‘“ In the book, The Gambler, author Tom Bower describes Stanley's marriage to Boris Johnson's mum Charlotte as violent and unhappy.
She told the author: "He broke my nose. He made me feel like I deserved it."
"I want the truth to be told."’
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18769339.stanley-johnson-broke-wifes-nose-domestic-violence-incident/
So the defendant would call the ex-wife and possibly the other witnesses as to the veracity of the statement. They may rely on medical records. They would also make much of the fact that Johnson did not comment on the allegations when made.
All in all, and I fully accept that my media litigation practice consists of having done it at law school and spent six months of my training contract assisting such cases, I think there’s enough evidence in the public domain alone for a successful defence to a defamation claim to be made out. I also think that there would, on today’s rules in England, be enough evidence to charge him with assault and battery, possibly ABH, with or without the ex-wife’s help.
NEW from @JLPartnersPolls in @timesredbox.
Including the word ‘illegal’ when polling on the UK govt’s small boats policy makes no statistically significant difference to support.
We asked one representative sample a version with, and one without. Results 👇
https://twitter.com/jamesjohnson252/status/1635924088291049473?s=20
End result in 1 sector alone (healthcare / NHS) is longer waiting lists everywhere,
It's why Kwarteng proposed cutting the highest rate of tax from 45% to 40%, instead of dealing with the personal allowance taper. It's incredibly infantile.
But, whilst most of us on here could agree with getting rid of all the ridiculous tapers, in return for increasing the rates of tax - so that broadly speaking the same amount of tax was raised from the same people - doing so would be politically very courageous.
We will know that British politics has grown up when a government does it anyway, and manages to win the public debate on it being a sensible simplification rather than, "a massive tax grab from the middle class!" (Daily Mail), or, "a huge tax cut giveaway to the rich!" (Guardian).
#OnThisDay1981: “Have you noticed how exotic the humble crisp has become?”
That’s Life took to the streets, armed with a cornucopia of “exotic” flavoured crisps. Would they pass the blind taste test? [VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1635928838885765121?s=20
I have a busy day of budget commentary today and of course the two big topics are the tax breaks for investment and the support for return to work. My fear is that both will look and sound nice but end up underwhelming. Industrial strategy in particular is not something to be done in half measures - that way leads to British Volt.
Combine that with the desperate plight of doctors who have to retire so young because they're already rich enough to do so, and I find myself sobbing.
I wonder if there's a SE/London premium attached to childcare essentially as a result of the higher implied rents down there ?
You would have to be stupid to earn just over the threshold and have HMRC start fiddling with your tax code. Thus, people are proactive in avoiding doing so.
Just bring 45% in at £100k.
So there is a difference of 11-14p where a town has little competition with no independent station.
A lot of floating voters trust the Tories more than Labour on migration, and this will not change.
The more effective the government is in controlling migration, the less it will rise to the top of voter priorities vs cost of living.
Therefore the more effective the government is in controlling migration the less chance they have of being reelected.
This is why get loads of spin and rhetoric but no resources or sensible policies from them.
And good morning to all from a rather sunny North Essex!
Which is bitterly disappointing, that the party of Reagan would have debased itself so much with those two individuals and those who appease them.
Min 3 days a week required. up to a max of 3 weeks leave for cruises allowed per year plus 1 week at a timeshare. iPad screentime to be no more than 2 hours per day. At least one grandparent to be on duty at any time, while other mows lawn / naps / has coffee morning with neighbours.
I think it’s easy enough to ease the cliff edge while also getting the right ‘optics’ - just introduce 45% at 100k, while binning the PA taper.
At present the UK has no arrangements in place that would enable the transfer of asylum-seekers to safe third countries in practice. As noted above, there are currently no bilateral agreements with EU countries enabling the return of irregular migrants or asylum-seekers who have passed through them on the way to the UK. Agreements with other listed third countries, such as Rwanda, have not been operationalised: the High Court ruled the Rwanda asylum policy to be lawful in December 2023, but the decision is currently under appeal.
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/the-illegal-migration-bill/
Without those arrangements, how does the government propose to move people somewhere else?
Saying you will do stuff is much much easier than actually doing it.
The list gets bigger by the day !
The point of all this isn't out of love or sympathy for the higher paid, it's to incentivise the higher paid to do more work, thereby providing a) more high value stuff we need (like experienced doctoring) and b) more tax take (since if our disincentives to work make the rich stop working or encourage them to work elsewhere, we get no tax income at all).
The government has done virtually nothing for parents since 2015. Schools are in a mess, local government services have been starved of money, property is unaffordable, and meanwhile we've faffed around with Brexit and internal Tory squabbles.
Once the legal hoops are out of the way, the system can become operational - and if you object to it, then that's perfectly valid and should be debated in the political sphere, but if its legal and goes operational then unless opponents win a General Election the system can work.
But it would be a pleasant change not to be motivated to vote primarily because of just how appalling is the present government.
Nobody will cross the Channel in order to be sent to Rwanda. If they don't think they'll be sent there, then they will come, but if they know they will then they won't come, so capacity is instantly sufficient the moment that you have a scheme operational and certain to proceed.
Whereas even Opinium, who are pretty aggressively putting Conservative-inclined don't knows in the blue column, had a 17 point Labour lead in their most recent poll.
The criticisms I've heard (and made) tend to be ineffective, illegal, underresourced and dehumanising, with different posters picking and mixing from that list.
I think it is a vote winner for the Tories despite agreeing with all the criticisms.
But if they're ok to good then it's more about the party perception overall. The truly exceptional can bring in votes, but then they also manage to change their parties to make them more attractive, too, so you don't see such a differential between party and leader ratings.
Terrible: Corbyn, Truss, IDS (probably, if he'd seen an election)
Ok to good: Major, Cameron
Exceptional: Blair, Thatcher (probably - I'm a bit young to judge on her)
Brown is somewhere between ok and terrible - probably cost Labour some votes. Cameron did change the Conservative party, at least superficially, but probably not exceptional. May on the bad side, in the end.
ETA: So, Sunak is not objectionable, particularly. But the loons still seem to be running much of the Tory party and there's an appetite to punish them.
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/uk-rwanda-asylum-agreement-why-is-it-a-memorandum-of-understanding-and-not-a-treaty/#heading-1
Secondly, you’re suggesting people who are already breaking the law will stop breaking it if the penalties are tougher. That is a canard that in so many cases has been proved wrong. Changing the classification of drugs, the death penalty, “short sharp shock”, equalities legislation, you name it. People will take chances they won’t be caught. Without enforcement this policy alone is a joke.
https://twitter.com/mikecosgrove/status/1635927755333222400
(But, FWIW, I agree with both of you. I'm in favour of universal benefits for things like this - tax higher earners through tax rates, not through these odd cliff-edge withdrawals of benefits)