On Today Amol Rajan was interviewing Cleverly about Ukraine and he suddenly switched to the economy and inflation. Oh dear! Then Robinson cruelly played it back after the interview with Reeves. Nasty bullies.... I bet they giggle at his name as well.
I listened to the interview with Cleverly - around 7.50 on Today. I don't say this lightly, but it was the most excruciating thing I've ever heard from a leading politician. On inflation, he was completely lost for words and became a gibbering wreck - it was almost cruel. He couldn't string two words together, let alone a sentence.
Hoist by their own petard on this. Promise to halve inflation knowing it's out of their control but is on track to halve in any case. Then things change and it isn't going to half. It's embedded. But the other bit remains the same - they can't do much because it's macro plus BoE plus luck. Now exposed as having made a fake opportunistic pledge as evidenced by gibberish answers to the eminently reasonable question: what are you going to do meet it? It's all going pear for the Tories. Big election defeat nailed on imo.
Add presenting the [supposed] halving of inflation to 5% in a way to imply that would make everything all right in itself - as if that would make prices actually go down. And bitterly opposing wage rises almost everywhere.
On Today Amol Rajan was interviewing Cleverly about Ukraine and he suddenly switched to the economy and inflation. Oh dear! Then Robinson cruelly played it back after the interview with Reeves. Nasty bullies.... I bet they giggle at his name as well.
I listened to the interview with Cleverly - around 7.50 on Today. I don't say this lightly, but it was the most excruciating thing I've ever heard from a leading politician. On inflation, he was completely lost for words and became a gibbering wreck - it was almost cruel. He couldn't string two words together, let alone a sentence.
Hoist by their own petard on this. Promise to halve inflation knowing it's out of their control but is on track to halve in any case. Then things change and it isn't going to half. It's embedded. But the other bit remains the same - they can't do much because it's macro plus BoE plus luck. Now exposed as having made a fake opportunistic pledge as evidenced by gibberish answers to the eminently reasonable question: what are you going to do meet it? It's all going pear for the Tories. Big election defeat nailed on imo.
I haven't seen a credible inflation busting plan from Starmer, but he doesn't really need one to win the next GE. The old adage will be true - oppositions don't win elections, Gov'ts lose them. And boy are Sunak and co in for a hiding.
On Today Amol Rajan was interviewing Cleverly about Ukraine and he suddenly switched to the economy and inflation. Oh dear! Then Robinson cruelly played it back after the interview with Reeves. Nasty bullies.... I bet they giggle at his name as well.
I listened to the interview with Cleverly - around 7.50 on Today. I don't say this lightly, but it was the most excruciating thing I've ever heard from a leading politician. On inflation, he was completely lost for words and became a gibbering wreck - it was almost cruel. He couldn't string two words together, let alone a sentence.
Hoist by their own petard on this. Promise to halve inflation knowing it's out of their control but is on track to halve in any case. Then things change and it isn't going to half. It's embedded. But the other bit remains the same - they can't do much because it's macro plus BoE plus luck. Now exposed as having made a fake opportunistic pledge as evidenced by gibberish answers to the eminently reasonable question: what are you going to do meet it? It's all going pear for the Tories. Big election defeat nailed on imo.
Add presenting the [supposed] halving of inflation to 5% in a way to imply that would make everything all right in itself - as if that would make prices actually go down. And bitterly opposing wage rises almost everywhere.
Even achieving 'Halve inflation' leaves it at 5% which is still at a hugely damaging level.
15% swing since the GE from the Tories to Lab in rural areas.
Another Brexit dividend.
The Tories aren’t in stepmom territory they are looking at Canada 1993.
Wouldn't it be nice if the current Conservative Party died on its arse, and from the ashes came a right of centre internationalist, non racist party perhaps called "One Nation" and all the corrupt halfwits and drama queens that have decimated your party just returned back up into Farage's rectum.
The only party that would replace the Tories is Farage's. About 2/3 of the current Tory vote is closer to Farage than Hunt
I don't believe we have an appetite for right wing extremism in this country.
The Conservative Party as it stands is an unhappy coalition of right wing populists and One Nation Tories. There is a much bigger voter base for a party of One Nation Tories to tap into. Butskellism lives!
Heathism over Thatcherism in other words. In reality only if Labour returns to the Corbynite left, otherwise swing voters won't switch from a more centrist Labour party unless a Labour government mucks up the economy whether the Tories are Thatcherite or Heathite
Yes they will.
Have you not heard of the Post-War (pre-Thatcher) Consensus?
Which saw Labour win 6 out of 10 general elections between 1945 and 1979?
While the Conservatives have won 8 out of 11 general elections since Thatcher came in in 1979
On Today Amol Rajan was interviewing Cleverly about Ukraine and he suddenly switched to the economy and inflation. Oh dear! Then Robinson cruelly played it back after the interview with Reeves. Nasty bullies.... I bet they giggle at his name as well.
I listened to the interview with Cleverly - around 7.50 on Today. I don't say this lightly, but it was the most excruciating thing I've ever heard from a leading politician. On inflation, he was completely lost for words and became a gibbering wreck - it was almost cruel. He couldn't string two words together, let alone a sentence.
Hoist by their own petard on this. Promise to halve inflation knowing it's out of their control but is on track to halve in any case. Then things change and it isn't going to half. It's embedded. But the other bit remains the same - they can't do much because it's macro plus BoE plus luck. Now exposed as having made a fake opportunistic pledge as evidenced by gibberish answers to the eminently reasonable question: what are you going to do meet it? It's all going pear for the Tories. Big election defeat nailed on imo.
I haven't seen a credible inflation busting plan from Starmer, but he doesn't really need one to win the next GE. The old adage will be true - oppositions don't win elections, Gov'ts lose them. And boy are Sunak and co in for a hiding.
Starmer can generate some economic following winds quite quickly with some stealth rejoin measures. I'm sure Wuss-in-Boots and Rat Eyes would love to do the same but they can't take the tory party with them on it.
She appears to believe that the energy company windfall tax will solve inflation by both reducing energy bills and paying for public sector pay rises which won't be inflationary
Rachel Reeves is not competent. I have no idea why anyone rates her, everytime I hear her speak I think we are going to be in big trouble with people like her running things.
"!What? Compared to the current lot? Its got to be worth a try!"- 90% of British voters.
15% swing since the GE from the Tories to Lab in rural areas.
Another Brexit dividend.
The Tories aren’t in stepmom territory they are looking at Canada 1993.
Wouldn't it be nice if the current Conservative Party died on its arse, and from the ashes came a right of centre internationalist, non racist party perhaps called "One Nation" and all the corrupt halfwits and drama queens that have decimated your party just returned back up into Farage's rectum.
The only party that would replace the Tories is Farage's. About 2/3 of the current Tory vote is closer to Farage than Hunt
Rubbish - membership maybe
No see also the 2019 European elections when Farage's party got 30% to just 9% for May's more One Nation, less hard Brexit Tories
You really are desperate if you have to refer to the 2019 European elections which was light years away from today in politics
I voted Tory even in the 2019 European elections, I was one of the 9% as I believe you were too. However I also know the right in this country ie about 30% of the country is closer to Farage than Sunak and Cameron, just Sunak and Cameron are more likely to appeal to the 10-15% who can get the right to 40-45% to win
Considering the Tories are currently polling about 28% in the polls, to say that 30% are so far to the right that they're closer to Farage than to Sunak - who is hardly a left-wing Tory - is absolutely ludicrous.
Add RefUK to the Sunak Tories and you get over 30%. Farage of course won 30% in the 2019 European elections.
If Farage was Conservative leader they would probably be polling 30-35% now. Sunak's problem is he has lost most swing voters to Starmer Labour and the LDs but is also leaking voters to his right to RefUK.
You are utterly riduculous
Farage is worse than Johnson and both are toxic with voters
On Today Amol Rajan was interviewing Cleverly about Ukraine and he suddenly switched to the economy and inflation. Oh dear! Then Robinson cruelly played it back after the interview with Reeves. Nasty bullies.... I bet they giggle at his name as well.
I listened to the interview with Cleverly - around 7.50 on Today. I don't say this lightly, but it was the most excruciating thing I've ever heard from a leading politician. On inflation, he was completely lost for words and became a gibbering wreck - it was almost cruel. He couldn't string two words together, let alone a sentence.
Well the answer for inflation was to have more hawks on the MPC. Because we've had more than a year of wondering why the Bank of England has been so slow and timid when raising rates. Just think about the number of times Max has had a rant on here about it.
Raising interest rates is relevant only for shoring up the exchange rate. The key remains commodity prices, not domestic inflation. Keep an eye on the SMO and Ukraine's tanks. Russia is making noises about ending safe passage for Ukrainian wheat unless it gets similar concessions.
Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.
It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?
But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.
This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For inexplicable reasons Labour look determined to share it.
15% swing since the GE from the Tories to Lab in rural areas.
Another Brexit dividend.
The Tories aren’t in stepmom territory they are looking at Canada 1993.
Wouldn't it be nice if the current Conservative Party died on its arse, and from the ashes came a right of centre internationalist, non racist party perhaps called "One Nation" and all the corrupt halfwits and drama queens that have decimated your party just returned back up into Farage's rectum.
The only party that would replace the Tories is Farage's. About 2/3 of the current Tory vote is closer to Farage than Hunt
I don't believe we have an appetite for right wing extremism in this country.
The Conservative Party as it stands is an unhappy coalition of right wing populists and One Nation Tories. There is a much bigger voter base for a party of One Nation Tories to tap into. Butskellism lives!
Heathism over Thatcherism in other words. In reality only if Labour returns to the Corbynite left, otherwise swing voters won't switch from a more centrist Labour party unless a Labour government mucks up the economy whether the Tories are Thatcherite or Heathite
Yes they will.
Have you not heard of the Post-War (pre-Thatcher) Consensus?
Which saw Labour win 6 out of 10 general elections between 1945 and 1979?
While the Conservatives have won 8 out of 11 general elections since Thatcher came in in 1979
Between 1945 and 1979 you had 17 years of Labour Governments and 17 years of Conservative Governments.
What is the point of being aimlessly in power as the Conservatives are now? You support the name not the policies.
On Today Amol Rajan was interviewing Cleverly about Ukraine and he suddenly switched to the economy and inflation. Oh dear! Then Robinson cruelly played it back after the interview with Reeves. Nasty bullies.... I bet they giggle at his name as well.
I listened to the interview with Cleverly - around 7.50 on Today. I don't say this lightly, but it was the most excruciating thing I've ever heard from a leading politician. On inflation, he was completely lost for words and became a gibbering wreck - it was almost cruel. He couldn't string two words together, let alone a sentence.
Hoist by their own petard on this. Promise to halve inflation knowing it's out of their control but is on track to halve in any case. Then things change and it isn't going to half. It's embedded. But the other bit remains the same - they can't do much because it's macro plus BoE plus luck. Now exposed as having made a fake opportunistic pledge as evidenced by gibberish answers to the eminently reasonable question: what are you going to do meet it? It's all going pear for the Tories. Big election defeat nailed on imo.
I haven't seen a credible inflation busting plan from Starmer, but he doesn't really need one to win the next GE. The old adage will be true - oppositions don't win elections, Gov'ts lose them. And boy are Sunak and co in for a hiding.
Starmer can generate some economic following winds quite quickly with some stealth rejoin measures. I'm sure Wuss-in-Boots and Rat Eyes would love to do the same but they can't take the tory party with them on it.
The screaming from the ERG would be entertaining.
The fact that it would be the right thing to do & would be just as much an exercise in sovereignty as any other choice won’t matter to them at all, they’ll be yelling “betrayal” from the rooftops in impotent apoplexy.
Sadly it won’t happen, since Sunak’s grip on power is tenuous & the current Conservative party is ungovernable.
Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.
It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect and salesman had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?
But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.
This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.
Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.
It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?
But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.
This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.
What do you expect them to do, Roger? Commit to rejoin? Seriously. Have think about what that entails. Many of us want to rejoin but you coming on here night after night after night day after day after day moaning about it is not going to allow for that. It's a generational project and sadly many of us on here will be dead when it happens. 2016 is over. We lost. Get over it. Fight the next one. You are incredibly tedious on this topic.
Oh, and your "Boris ever finds his way to the Cote d'Azur he'll be strung up" comment on expat property woes last night was exactly the reason we need people like you to STFU.
Always amuses me how "core" inflation is the stuff you DON'T need whereas non-core (Food, energy) are what most folk actually spend their money on.
The drivers of inflation (Ex food) look like highly discretionary stuff that people could miss out on if they were really hard up. So the interest rate hikes are just going to affect spending amongst the people that aren't likely driving the inflation in the first place. Like playing arcade whack a mole with a steel Timmy Mallet sized mallet. It will hit the moles, it could break the machine too.
She appears to believe that the energy company windfall tax will solve inflation by both reducing energy bills and paying for public sector pay rises which won't be inflationary
Rachel Reeves is not competent. I have no idea why anyone rates her, everytime I hear her speak I think we are going to be in big trouble with people like her running things.
"!What? Compared to the current lot? Its got to be worth a try!"- 90% of British voters.
She does give the impression of a degree of competence. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to populist fluff on the radio for the general public.
There has to be a chance, that if Sunak waits till autumn 2024, it could actually be worse for the Tories, 14 yrs, time for a change etc, might be better for them to go now, but what 3 word slogan they run on now, beats me
You do get the sense that - just like with energy bills - the Govt will ultimately cave to some degree on mortgages and come up with a support package of some kind.
Some potential levers :.
1) Longer term mortgages. Nationwide I believe offer the longest right now - Hunt could encourage other banks to offer long terms. 2) 99 year heritable mortgages - a more extreme version of 1), done in Japan I think. 3) Encourage banks to offer long term fixes (30 yr ?) - as happens in the USA. This way there's no shock for anyone midway through.
Those would all be free for the Gov't, and of course it won't help the poor schmucks who can barely afford their interest only as it is ( I think theres still some about that were offered at the bottom of the rates cycle o_O !!! )
There would be bitter regret and years of paying too much if interest rates dropped sharply - as happened in 2008.
IIRC tracker mortgages have a lower rate on the long term average than fixed rate or they at least did so when I had a mortgage.
On Today Amol Rajan was interviewing Cleverly about Ukraine and he suddenly switched to the economy and inflation. Oh dear! Then Robinson cruelly played it back after the interview with Reeves. Nasty bullies.... I bet they giggle at his name as well.
I listened to the interview with Cleverly - around 7.50 on Today. I don't say this lightly, but it was the most excruciating thing I've ever heard from a leading politician. On inflation, he was completely lost for words and became a gibbering wreck - it was almost cruel. He couldn't string two words together, let alone a sentence.
Hoist by their own petard on this. Promise to halve inflation knowing it's out of their control but is on track to halve in any case. Then things change and it isn't going to half. It's embedded. But the other bit remains the same - they can't do much because it's macro plus BoE plus luck. Now exposed as having made a fake opportunistic pledge as evidenced by gibberish answers to the eminently reasonable question: what are you going to do meet it? It's all going pear for the Tories. Big election defeat nailed on imo.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
You do get the sense that - just like with energy bills - the Govt will ultimately cave to some degree on mortgages and come up with a support package of some kind.
Some potential levers :.
1) Longer term mortgages. Nationwide I believe offer the longest right now - Hunt could encourage other banks to offer long terms. 2) 99 year heritable mortgages - a more extreme version of 1), done in Japan I think. 3) Encourage banks to offer long term fixes (30 yr ?) - as happens in the USA. This way there's no shock for anyone midway through.
Those would all be free for the Gov't, and of course it won't help the poor schmucks who can barely afford their interest only as it is ( I think theres still some about that were offered at the bottom of the rates cycle o_O !!! )
There would be bitter regret and years of paying too much if interest rates dropped sharply - as happened in 2008.
IIRC tracker mortgages have a lower rate on the long term average than fixed rate or they at least did so when I had a mortgage.
I think I'd probably tracker now rather than 2 year fix if I had to now.
Everyone loves a bellwether seat, so for this rural thread, I give you: Harborough.
Conservative at every election since 1950. Last election was Con 55%, Lab 25%, LD 16%. Like many such seats the LibDems were in second place until the Cleggtastrophe. Sane incumbent (Neil O'Brien), by the standards of the current Conservative Party at least.
Fairly typical rural seat in that it's one market town (Market Harborough itself), Leicester suburbia (Oadby and Wigston), and a whole lot of villages.
District Council is not coterminous but is a helpful indicator. Currently Con 15 (villages), LD 13 (Market Harborough and a bit of outer suburbia), Lab 3 (poorer Leicester suburbia), Green 3 (Market Harborough).
I think it's safe to assume that the LibDems don't have the resources to target this type of seat nationally; and that the Leicester suburbs will lean Labour in line with national swing.
So two questions. First, whether there's an effective Labour "squeeze" that wins the market town LibDems over. Second, whether the villages stay solidly Conservative or if there's some movement towards Labour there too.
I think it's possible but by no means nailed on. In an STV system the Conservatives would be losing Harborough without a doubt. FPTP always leaves the possibility of splitting the vote. But if the voters are sufficiently motivated to get the Conservatives out, and are electorally literate enough to coalesce behind one party, then Harborough is falling. And if Harborough falls, the Conservatives are in big trouble.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
It’s time for the Tories to hold their hands up and admit they’ve no idea how to sort the economy and say to Labour “Right, you have a go and see if you can do any better”.
They might have an idea but they don't want to say it as too many people don't want to hear it.
It would include the country having to live within its means, workers having to increase productivity and property taxes having to increase.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
Post of the year. I want to like it twice.
I was about to say exactly the same thing. Bravo, @Cicero.
Always amuses me how "core" inflation is the stuff you DON'T need whereas non-core (Food, energy) are what most folk actually spend their money on.
The drivers of inflation (Ex food) look like highly discretionary stuff that people could miss out on if they were really hard up. So the interest rate hikes are just going to affect spending amongst the people that aren't likely driving the inflation in the first place. Like playing arcade whack a mole with a steel Timmy Mallet sized mallet. It will hit the moles, it could break the machine too.
DJL's first law of economics: all economic statistics are bad approximations of the things they are supposed to be measuring. Inflation, as you note, depends on what is in the basket. Food is up a lot but as Leon constantly tells us, exotic holidays are cheap so there's that. Unemployment: am I unemployed? I'm not working but also not claiming. GDP: remember the jokes when cocaine and sex workers were added?
It’s time for the Tories to hold their hands up and admit they’ve no idea how to sort the economy and say to Labour “Right, you have a go and see if you can do any better”.
They might have an idea but they don't want to say it as too many people don't want to hear it.
It would include the country having to live within its means, workers having to increase productivity and property taxes having to increase.
Is there any effective difference between not having an idea, and having an idea you have no intention of either articulating or implementing?
Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".
The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.
There has to be a chance, that if Sunak waits till autumn 2024, it could actually be worse for the Tories, 14 yrs, time for a change etc, might be better for them to go now, but what 3 word slogan they run on now, beats me
'@GoodwinMJ · 17h The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'
Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.
Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.
The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.
Except we have established that net migration reached a new peak last year at over 600k. Some left after Brexit but many more came from around the world. Our labour market remains remarkably elastic. What we are not getting is productivity growth that can drive down prices. Poor productivity + higher wages, specifically increases in the NMW, = inflation. QED.
You can get high productivity growth in every sector and yet still get poor productivity growth overall. For example productivity in the retail sector is increasing as we move to DIY at the checkout and on-line trading.
The reason is a changing mix from high productivity sectors to poor productivity sectors - a trading down in the economy to poorly paid low productivity jobs such as shelf filling, care homes, delivery services.
High productivity will come from high growth in the technology, finance, pharmaceutical, defence and specialised manufacturing sectors based on rapidly growing exports. That's not happening fast enough. We're not very good as a nation at overseas sales and marketing.
There has to be a chance, that if Sunak waits till autumn 2024, it could actually be worse for the Tories, 14 yrs, time for a change etc, might be better for them to go now, but what 3 word slogan they run on now, beats me
You do get the sense that - just like with energy bills - the Govt will ultimately cave to some degree on mortgages and come up with a support package of some kind.
Some potential levers :.
1) Longer term mortgages. Nationwide I believe offer the longest right now - Hunt could encourage other banks to offer long terms. 2) 99 year heritable mortgages - a more extreme version of 1), done in Japan I think. 3) Encourage banks to offer long term fixes (30 yr ?) - as happens in the USA. This way there's no shock for anyone midway through.
Those would all be free for the Gov't, and of course it won't help the poor schmucks who can barely afford their interest only as it is ( I think theres still some about that were offered at the bottom of the rates cycle o_O !!! )
There would be bitter regret and years of paying too much if interest rates dropped sharply - as happened in 2008.
IIRC tracker mortgages have a lower rate on the long term average than fixed rate or they at least did so when I had a mortgage.
I think I'd probably tracker now rather than 2 year fix if I had to now.
Making the mortgage market ever more complicated hasn't worked.
Instead simplify to:
1) Minimum 5% deposit 2) Maximum 30 years 3) All mortgages are tracker at base rate +1% 4) Interest only banned
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
15% swing since the GE from the Tories to Lab in rural areas.
Another Brexit dividend.
The Tories aren’t in stepmom territory they are looking at Canada 1993.
Wouldn't it be nice if the current Conservative Party died on its arse, and from the ashes came a right of centre internationalist, non racist party perhaps called "One Nation" and all the corrupt halfwits and drama queens that have decimated your party just returned back up into Farage's rectum.
The only party that would replace the Tories is Farage's. About 2/3 of the current Tory vote is closer to Farage than Hunt
I don't believe we have an appetite for right wing extremism in this country.
The Conservative Party as it stands is an unhappy coalition of right wing populists and One Nation Tories. There is a much bigger voter base for a party of One Nation Tories to tap into. Butskellism lives!
Heathism over Thatcherism in other words. In reality only if Labour returns to the Corbynite left, otherwise swing voters won't switch from a more centrist Labour party unless a Labour government mucks up the economy whether the Tories are Thatcherite or Heathite
Yes they will.
Have you not heard of the Post-War (pre-Thatcher) Consensus?
Which saw Labour win 6 out of 10 general elections between 1945 and 1979?
While the Conservatives have won 8 out of 11 general elections since Thatcher came in in 1979
'@GoodwinMJ · 17h The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'
Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.
It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?
But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.
This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.
What do you expect them to do, Roger? Commit to rejoin? Seriously. Have think about what that entails. Many of us want to rejoin but you coming on here night after night after night day after day after day moaning about it is not going to allow for that. It's a generational project and sadly many of us on here will be dead when it happens. 2016 is over. We lost. Get over it. Fight the next one. You are incredibly tedious on this topic.
Oh, and your "Boris ever finds his way to the Cote d'Azur he'll be strung up" comment on expat property woes last night was exactly the reason we need people like you to STFU.
You want to rejoin. Cool.
Work out how to get from here to there. If you simply expect the magic fairy to wave a wand etc...
For example, Starmer isn't going to actively seek to reduce the wages of the low skilled. So, freedom of movement will be and issue - until a way round that is put in place.
So what you need to do is construct a set of policies by which you can freedom of movement, without reducing wages at the low end. This is possible.
It does mean that the shortage of sufficiently obsequious waiters may continue. But we all have to make sacrifices.
You do get the sense that - just like with energy bills - the Govt will ultimately cave to some degree on mortgages and come up with a support package of some kind.
Some potential levers :.
1) Longer term mortgages. Nationwide I believe offer the longest right now - Hunt could encourage other banks to offer long terms. 2) 99 year heritable mortgages - a more extreme version of 1), done in Japan I think. 3) Encourage banks to offer long term fixes (30 yr ?) - as happens in the USA. This way there's no shock for anyone midway through.
Those would all be free for the Gov't, and of course it won't help the poor schmucks who can barely afford their interest only as it is ( I think theres still some about that were offered at the bottom of the rates cycle o_O !!! )
There would be bitter regret and years of paying too much if interest rates dropped sharply - as happened in 2008.
IIRC tracker mortgages have a lower rate on the long term average than fixed rate or they at least did so when I had a mortgage.
I think I'd probably tracker now rather than 2 year fix if I had to now.
Making the mortgage market ever more complicated hasn't worked.
Instead simplify to:
1) Minimum 5% deposit 2) Maximum 30 years 3) All mortgages are tracker at base rate +1% 4) Interest only banned
One issue is the Gov't never takes the cash in the good times. Now fuel is low at 130 - 145 as opposed to 185 - 200 a while back. But they won't raise fuel rates now (Not that I want them to !)
Except we have established that net migration reached a new peak last year at over 600k. Some left after Brexit but many more came from around the world. Our labour market remains remarkably elastic. What we are not getting is productivity growth that can drive down prices. Poor productivity + higher wages, specifically increases in the NMW, = inflation. QED.
You can get high productivity growth in every sector and yet still get poor productivity growth overall. For example productivity in the retail sector is increasing as we move to DIY at the checkout and on-line trading.
The reason is a changing mix from high productivity sectors to poor productivity sectors - a trading down in the economy to poorly paid low productivity jobs such as shelf filling, care homes, delivery services.
High productivity will come from high growth in the technology, finance, pharmaceutical, defence and specialised manufacturing sectors based on rapidly growing exports. That's not happening fast enough. We're not very good as a nation at overseas sales and marketing.
Instead we decided to create a taxpayer subsidised hand car wash sector rife with exploitation and criminality.
You do get the sense that - just like with energy bills - the Govt will ultimately cave to some degree on mortgages and come up with a support package of some kind.
Some potential levers :.
1) Longer term mortgages. Nationwide I believe offer the longest right now - Hunt could encourage other banks to offer long terms. 2) 99 year heritable mortgages - a more extreme version of 1), done in Japan I think. 3) Encourage banks to offer long term fixes (30 yr ?) - as happens in the USA. This way there's no shock for anyone midway through.
Those would all be free for the Gov't, and of course it won't help the poor schmucks who can barely afford their interest only as it is ( I think theres still some about that were offered at the bottom of the rates cycle o_O !!! )
There would be bitter regret and years of paying too much if interest rates dropped sharply - as happened in 2008.
IIRC tracker mortgages have a lower rate on the long term average than fixed rate or they at least did so when I had a mortgage.
I think I'd probably tracker now rather than 2 year fix if I had to now.
Making the mortgage market ever more complicated hasn't worked.
Instead simplify to:
1) Minimum 5% deposit 2) Maximum 30 years 3) All mortgages are tracker at base rate +1% 4) Interest only banned
I would have said 3 would make things much worse, as it makes future financial planning very difficult. Yes, I know we've had stable interest rates for a long time but that's abnormal. A more usual scenario is they go up and down like Johnson's trousers.
Instead, the presumption should be fixes for 7-10 years to give more stability.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
Titanic mission switching from rescue to 'recovery' now I think.
"Oxygen on board the vessel carrying five people is forecast to run out at 12.08pm UK time today." Leaving aside the ridiculous spurious precision that is just launch plus 96 hours, so a back of fag packet 4 days. Not looking good.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
Cicero is a former Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate (twice over). If he was a former Tory voter it was a long, long time ago.
Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".
The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.
Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".
The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.
The house will be sold, probably to an owner occupier who presently rents.
The market will right a silly situation.
As long as the foolish govt. don't try and subsidise mortgages.....
At current high and rising rates of interest rates most of those who will be buying will be cash buyers or close to it. First time buyers can't afford to take out big mortgages
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
Cicero is a former Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate (twice over). If he was a former Tory voter it was a long, long time ago.
Titanic mission switching from rescue to 'recovery' now I think.
"Oxygen on board the vessel carrying five people is forecast to run out at 12.08pm UK time today." Leaving aside the ridiculous spurious precision that is just launch plus 96 hours, so a back of fag packet 4 days. Not looking good.
These things are always estimates. I ran out of air on a scuba dive once - used my more efficiently breathing instructors to rise through the Gulf of Thailand waters.
Always amuses me how "core" inflation is the stuff you DON'T need whereas non-core (Food, energy) are what most folk actually spend their money on.
The drivers of inflation (Ex food) look like highly discretionary stuff that people could miss out on if they were really hard up. So the interest rate hikes are just going to affect spending amongst the people that aren't likely driving the inflation in the first place. Like playing arcade whack a mole with a steel Timmy Mallet sized mallet. It will hit the moles, it could break the machine too.
Yep. The problem the BoE face is that if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".
The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.
The house will be sold, probably to an owner occupier who presently rents.
The market will right a silly situation.
As long as the foolish govt. don't try and subsidise mortgages.....
At current high and rising rates of interest rates most of those who will be buying will be cash buyers or close to it. First time buyers can't afford to take out big mortgages
Why would it have to be a FTB? The shrewd will have sold last year and are looking to re-enter the market
But frankly, rents are now so high in the private sector that even 6% mortgages are affordable.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
Always amuses me how "core" inflation is the stuff you DON'T need whereas non-core (Food, energy) are what most folk actually spend their money on.
The drivers of inflation (Ex food) look like highly discretionary stuff that people could miss out on if they were really hard up. So the interest rate hikes are just going to affect spending amongst the people that aren't likely driving the inflation in the first place. Like playing arcade whack a mole with a steel Timmy Mallet sized mallet. It will hit the moles, it could break the machine too.
Yep. The problem the BoE face is that if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I would have said the bigger problem is, when all of your senior staff are stupid twats, they generally end up looking like stupid twats.
What’s Philip Hammond been smoking? Let’s increase immigration to keep wage pressure down, really? Because immigrants definitely don’t need anywhere to live.
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
'@GoodwinMJ · 17h The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'
Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.
Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.
The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.
Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.
Baldy Ben's dream is over. Next time it comes round he'll be out of government.
I interviewed Ben Wallace, Britain's defence secretary, this morning. He told me he is out of the NATO race—"it's not going to happen"—and that the White House wants to extend Jens Stoltenberg's term. https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1671589814120980485
15% swing since the GE from the Tories to Lab in rural areas.
Another Brexit dividend.
The Tories aren’t in stepmom territory they are looking at Canada 1993.
Wouldn't it be nice if the current Conservative Party died on its arse, and from the ashes came a right of centre internationalist, non racist party perhaps called "One Nation" and all the corrupt halfwits and drama queens that have decimated your party just returned back up into Farage's rectum.
The only party that would replace the Tories is Farage's. About 2/3 of the current Tory vote is closer to Farage than Hunt
I don't believe we have an appetite for right wing extremism in this country.
The Conservative Party as it stands is an unhappy coalition of right wing populists and One Nation Tories. There is a much bigger voter base for a party of One Nation Tories to tap into. Butskellism lives!
Heathism over Thatcherism in other words. In reality only if Labour returns to the Corbynite left, otherwise swing voters won't switch from a more centrist Labour party unless a Labour government mucks up the economy whether the Tories are Thatcherite or Heathite
Yes they will.
Have you not heard of the Post-War (pre-Thatcher) Consensus?
Which saw Labour win 6 out of 10 general elections between 1945 and 1979?
While the Conservatives have won 8 out of 11 general elections since Thatcher came in in 1979
...
Exclude the 2008-2010 GFC under Labour and it was higher since 1979.
Strikes less frequent, industry more efficient, gdp per capita and home ownership also higher than 1945-1979
What’s Philip Hammond been smoking? Let’s increase immigration to keep wage pressure down, really? Because immigrants definitely don’t need anywhere to live.
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
He's right - increasing immigration should create downward wage pressure helping the inflation situation. There's no pleasent answers. Politically it's a non starter, well not to say it out loud anyway bit like Rose's comments during the Brexit ref.
What’s Philip Hammond been smoking? Let’s increase immigration to keep wage pressure down, really? Because immigrants definitely don’t need anywhere to live.
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
More immigration when we are at record levels, and in order to suppress wage increases at the bottom. Is Hammond working for the Labour Party?
Covid excess deaths: worse than Sweden which didn't lock down but better than America which, erm, didn't lock down. So that's clear. Note we did worst in year one, pre-vaccine when being old, poor and driving buses was not a good look.
Covid excess deaths: worse than Sweden which didn't lock down but better than America which, erm, didn't lock down. So that's clear. Note we did worst in year one, pre-vaccine when being old, poor and driving buses was not a good look.
'@GoodwinMJ · 17h The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'
Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.
Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.
The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.
Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.
No, the elite are also those who control the civil service and those in academia and schools pushing Wokeism to the young.
The CBI and most of the City established firms and FTSE 100 opposed Brexit.
You do get the sense that - just like with energy bills - the Govt will ultimately cave to some degree on mortgages and come up with a support package of some kind.
Some potential levers :.
1) Longer term mortgages. Nationwide I believe offer the longest right now - Hunt could encourage other banks to offer long terms. 2) 99 year heritable mortgages - a more extreme version of 1), done in Japan I think. 3) Encourage banks to offer long term fixes (30 yr ?) - as happens in the USA. This way there's no shock for anyone midway through.
Those would all be free for the Gov't, and of course it won't help the poor schmucks who can barely afford their interest only as it is ( I think theres still some about that were offered at the bottom of the rates cycle o_O !!! )
There would be bitter regret and years of paying too much if interest rates dropped sharply - as happened in 2008.
IIRC tracker mortgages have a lower rate on the long term average than fixed rate or they at least did so when I had a mortgage.
I think I'd probably tracker now rather than 2 year fix if I had to now.
Making the mortgage market ever more complicated hasn't worked.
Instead simplify to:
1) Minimum 5% deposit 2) Maximum 30 years 3) All mortgages are tracker at base rate +1% 4) Interest only banned
Encourage banks to offer much longer-term fixes, 10y. This does require an increase in liquidity for 10y money though. Deposit should be 10% minimum for a repayment mortgage, and 25% for an interest-only mortgage, as prices are going to start to fall.
Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.
It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?
But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.
This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.
What do you expect them to do, Roger? Commit to rejoin? Seriously. Have think about what that entails. Many of us want to rejoin but you coming on here night after night after night day after day after day moaning about it is not going to allow for that. It's a generational project and sadly many of us on here will be dead when it happens. 2016 is over. We lost. Get over it. Fight the next one. You are incredibly tedious on this topic.
Oh, and your "Boris ever finds his way to the Cote d'Azur he'll be strung up" comment on expat property woes last night was exactly the reason we need people like you to STFU.
You want to rejoin. Cool.
Work out how to get from here to there. If you simply expect the magic fairy to wave a wand etc...
For example, Starmer isn't going to actively seek to reduce the wages of the low skilled. So, freedom of movement will be and issue - until a way round that is put in place.
So what you need to do is construct a set of policies by which you can freedom of movement, without reducing wages at the low end. This is possible.
It does mean that the shortage of sufficiently obsequious waiters may continue. But we all have to make sacrifices.
But freedom of movement didn't reduce wages for low-skilled Brits; it reduced wages for low-skilled occupations. This is an important difference and one that people repeatedly fail to appreciate.
When freedom of movement ended, we had almost full employment. There weren't hordes of low-skilled Brits sitting around twiddling their thumbs while immigrants did the crap jobs. No, the low-skilled Brits were more likely to have had roles one step up the ladder. When freedom of movement ended, the wages for the crap jobs rose, but to fill those crap jobs, Brits need to take a step down the ladder to a rung that has risen but isn't as high as the one they were on.
That's why the end of freedom of movement will mean lower, rather than higher, wages for low-skilled Brits. This will gradually become more evident as time goes on.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
CON will come back, but it might take two terms. I don't think LAB have any answers though.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
Complacency to think that history guarantees survival.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
The Whigs/Liberals I’m sure used to say the same thing. The only sure thing on this planet is change. Things are changing. Cameron has managed to discredit Euroscepticism and destroy the Tory Party. Well done him.
'@GoodwinMJ · 17h The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'
Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.
Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.
The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.
Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.
I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.
What’s Philip Hammond been smoking? Let’s increase immigration to keep wage pressure down, really? Because immigrants definitely don’t need anywhere to live.
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
He's right - increasing immigration should create downward wage pressure helping the inflation situation. There's no pleasent answers. Politically it's a non starter, well not to say it out loud anyway bit like Rose's comments during the Brexit ref.
Wage inflation is not the problem, it's commodities. Even spuds according to a notice in my fish and chip shop.
What’s Philip Hammond been smoking? Let’s increase immigration to keep wage pressure down, really? Because immigrants definitely don’t need anywhere to live.
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
More immigration when we are at record levels, and in order to suppress wage increases at the bottom. Is Hammond working for the Labour Party?
We're spending £3bn plus a year keeping several 100k migrants from making any economic contribution at all.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
The Whigs/Liberals I’m sure used to say the same thing. The only sure thing on this planet is change. Things are changing. Cameron has managed to discredit Euroscepticism and destroy the Tory Party. Well done him.
It was universal suffrage that ended the Liberals role as the main non Tory Party rather than anything they did as all working class male voters got the vote by 1918 (with all adult over 21 women having the vote too by 1930) and they were then replaced by Labour.
The only thing that would replace the Tories is a Faragist populist right party, which you would despise even more than the Tories when it ultimately got into power
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
The Whigs/Liberals I’m sure used to say the same thing. The only sure thing on this planet is change. Things are changing. Cameron has managed to discredit Euroscepticism and destroy the Tory Party. Well done him.
The Liberals split three times in just 15 years (and when I say 'split' I mean, actually had separate organisations standing candidates against each other) to achieve that result. Also extensive changes in the franchise and the rise of a competitor party which was well-funded, well-organised and linked to a pre-existing mass movement.
I do not say the Tories can't go the same way, but I do say the circumstances they face are not analogous to those of the Liberals from 1916-32.
You do get the sense that - just like with energy bills - the Govt will ultimately cave to some degree on mortgages and come up with a support package of some kind.
Some potential levers :.
1) Longer term mortgages. Nationwide I believe offer the longest right now - Hunt could encourage other banks to offer long terms. 2) 99 year heritable mortgages - a more extreme version of 1), done in Japan I think. 3) Encourage banks to offer long term fixes (30 yr ?) - as happens in the USA. This way there's no shock for anyone midway through.
Those would all be free for the Gov't, and of course it won't help the poor schmucks who can barely afford their interest only as it is ( I think theres still some about that were offered at the bottom of the rates cycle o_O !!! )
Our banks would set their long term mortgage rates high enough to ensure that, whatever happened, they would profit. This wouldn’t help borrowers.
The banks could (Or should) buy 30 year gilts to set the long term price with 3). I've had the sense through my (re)mortgaging life that UK banks aren't particularly profiteering with mortgages - if they are it's in the "fee" element. Which tends to be a fixed £1-£2k a pop; they'll be losing money on older mortgages such as my 2020 renewal right now.
On the current accounts you can switch for £200 to a few providers now. And for people with more money more providers are offering higher rates. As with everything loyalty won't pay.
If loyalty doesn’t pay when dealing with banks, insurance companies or employers, why should politicians have an incumbency bonus?
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
The Whigs/Liberals I’m sure used to say the same thing. The only sure thing on this planet is change. Things are changing. Cameron has managed to discredit Euroscepticism and destroy the Tory Party. Well done him.
It's the Tory Party's failure to defend the national interest that is killing them, not their 'euroscepticism'. The next leader will be considerably tougher in their EU stance than the current abysmal pair.
What’s Philip Hammond been smoking? Let’s increase immigration to keep wage pressure down, really? Because immigrants definitely don’t need anywhere to live.
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
He's right - increasing immigration should create downward wage pressure helping the inflation situation. There's no pleasent answers. Politically it's a non starter, well not to say it out loud anyway bit like Rose's comments during the Brexit ref.
Wage inflation is not the problem, it's commodities. Even spuds according to a notice in my fish and chip shop.
It'll seep into wages eventually though. I think that's whats started already and caught Andrew "clueless" Bailey by surprise.
Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".
The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.
The house will be sold, probably to an owner occupier who presently rents.
The market will right a silly situation.
As long as the foolish govt. don't try and subsidise mortgages.....
At current high and rising rates of interest rates most of those who will be buying will be cash buyers or close to it. First time buyers can't afford to take out big mortgages
Why would it have to be a FTB? The shrewd will have sold last year and are looking to re-enter the market
But frankly, rents are now so high in the private sector that even 6% mortgages are affordable.
Didn't someone say that even as small private landlords are being squeezed out, private equity-backed corporates are replacing them as the law of large numbers guarantees rent returns? It will mean more money sucked out of the country but apparently no-one cares about that.
'@GoodwinMJ · 17h The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'
Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.
Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.
The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.
Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.
I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.
Yes, try and find a socially conservative, pro Brexit senior civil servant, judge or head of a quango or even FTSE 100 company
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
The Whigs/Liberals I’m sure used to say the same thing. The only sure thing on this planet is change. Things are changing. Cameron has managed to discredit Euroscepticism and destroy the Tory Party. Well done him.
The Liberals split three times in just 15 years (and when I say 'split' I mean, actually had separate organisations standing candidates against each other) to achieve that result. Also extensive changes in the franchise and the rise of a competitor party which was well-funded, well-organised and linked to a pre-existing mass movement.
I do not say the Tories can't go the same way, but I do say the circumstances they face are not analogous to those of the Liberals from 1916-32.
Additionally we have a whole theory of the power of The Brand which hardly existed back then. Ever since 1979 people have been saying that one of Con or Labour might disappear. Labour sort of did, but Blair reanimated its corpse.
What’s Philip Hammond been smoking? Let’s increase immigration to keep wage pressure down, really? Because immigrants definitely don’t need anywhere to live.
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
He's right - increasing immigration should create downward wage pressure helping the inflation situation. There's no pleasent answers. Politically it's a non starter, well not to say it out loud anyway bit like Rose's comments during the Brexit ref.
Wage inflation is not the problem, it's commodities. Even spuds according to a notice in my fish and chip shop.
It'll seep into wages eventually though. I think that's whats started already and caught Andrew "clueless" Bailey by surprise.
It's the exchange rate, not wages. Most commodities are priced in dollars and given we import almost everything, a falling pound drives up inflation.
Covid excess deaths: worse than Sweden which didn't lock down but better than America which, erm, didn't lock down. So that's clear. Note we did worst in year one, pre-vaccine when being old, poor and driving buses was not a good look.
Yes, our health system was poorly prepared for the pandemic, and the country's response to it was poorly managed. The effects of this were, however, mitigated to a certain extent by the early and successful introduction of vaccination.
Overall we did better than Eastern Europe and the US, but worse than the rest of Western Europe.
What’s Philip Hammond been smoking? Let’s increase immigration to keep wage pressure down, really? Because immigrants definitely don’t need anywhere to live.
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
He's right - increasing immigration should create downward wage pressure helping the inflation situation. There's no pleasent answers. Politically it's a non starter, well not to say it out loud anyway bit like Rose's comments during the Brexit ref.
He’d definitely right that flooding the country with immigrants would solve the “full employment problem” for employers, but it would solve neither the housing problem nor the cost-of-living problem - in fact, it would make both significantly worse.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
The Whigs/Liberals I’m sure used to say the same thing. The only sure thing on this planet is change. Things are changing. Cameron has managed to discredit Euroscepticism and destroy the Tory Party. Well done him.
The Liberals split three times in just 15 years (and when I say 'split' I mean, actually had separate organisations standing candidates against each other) to achieve that result. Also extensive changes in the franchise and the rise of a competitor party which was well-funded, well-organised and linked to a pre-existing mass movement.
I do not say the Tories can't go the same way, but I do say the circumstances they face are not analogous to those of the Liberals from 1916-32.
Additionally we have a whole theory of the power of The Brand which hardly existed back then. Ever since 1979 people have been saying that one of Con or Labour might disappear. Labour sort of did, but Blair reanimated its corpse.
The Liberals had quite a strong brand. Indeed, as late as 1964 the Conservatives were still trying to lay claim to it (ahead of the official Liberal party).
It was not strong enough to withstand the egos of Lloyd George and John Simon, plus the trade union movement entering politics, but few things are.
'@GoodwinMJ · 17h The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'
Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.
Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.
The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.
Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.
I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.
That's just the rule of law. If you want to get rid of that fine but I wouldn't recommend it.
You do get the sense that - just like with energy bills - the Govt will ultimately cave to some degree on mortgages and come up with a support package of some kind.
Some potential levers :.
1) Longer term mortgages. Nationwide I believe offer the longest right now - Hunt could encourage other banks to offer long terms. 2) 99 year heritable mortgages - a more extreme version of 1), done in Japan I think. 3) Encourage banks to offer long term fixes (30 yr ?) - as happens in the USA. This way there's no shock for anyone midway through.
Those would all be free for the Gov't, and of course it won't help the poor schmucks who can barely afford their interest only as it is ( I think theres still some about that were offered at the bottom of the rates cycle o_O !!! )
Our banks would set their long term mortgage rates high enough to ensure that, whatever happened, they would profit. This wouldn’t help borrowers.
The banks could (Or should) buy 30 year gilts to set the long term price with 3). I've had the sense through my (re)mortgaging life that UK banks aren't particularly profiteering with mortgages - if they are it's in the "fee" element. Which tends to be a fixed £1-£2k a pop; they'll be losing money on older mortgages such as my 2020 renewal right now.
On the current accounts you can switch for £200 to a few providers now. And for people with more money more providers are offering higher rates. As with everything loyalty won't pay.
If loyalty doesn’t pay when dealing with banks, insurance companies or employers, why should politicians have an incumbency bonus?
You do get the sense that - just like with energy bills - the Govt will ultimately cave to some degree on mortgages and come up with a support package of some kind.
Some potential levers :.
1) Longer term mortgages. Nationwide I believe offer the longest right now - Hunt could encourage other banks to offer long terms. 2) 99 year heritable mortgages - a more extreme version of 1), done in Japan I think. 3) Encourage banks to offer long term fixes (30 yr ?) - as happens in the USA. This way there's no shock for anyone midway through.
Those would all be free for the Gov't, and of course it won't help the poor schmucks who can barely afford their interest only as it is ( I think theres still some about that were offered at the bottom of the rates cycle o_O !!! )
There would be bitter regret and years of paying too much if interest rates dropped sharply - as happened in 2008.
IIRC tracker mortgages have a lower rate on the long term average than fixed rate or they at least did so when I had a mortgage.
I think I'd probably tracker now rather than 2 year fix if I had to now.
Making the mortgage market ever more complicated hasn't worked.
Instead simplify to:
1) Minimum 5% deposit 2) Maximum 30 years 3) All mortgages are tracker at base rate +1% 4) Interest only banned
Trouble is that there are plenty of things which are bad ideas for most people, but essential for some. We looked a few months ago at buying a derelict farmhouse for cash at auction, mortgaging the current house interest only to pay to make the farmhouse habitable, then flogging the current house to clear the mortgage once the new place was ready to move in. For most people an interest only mortgage is a bad idea, but for us it would have made perfect sense.
I did read a BBC sob story yesterday about a woman who'd been on an interest only mortgage for a fairly nice 3 bed house for 25 years and suddenly couldn't afford the repayments. I found it had to be too sympathetic (leaving aside the foolishness of getting into this position) when I considered it had probably risen in value 3x since purchase, so she could probably sell it, clear the mortgage and buy a respectful 2 bed with the remaining equity.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
The Whigs/Liberals I’m sure used to say the same thing. The only sure thing on this planet is change. Things are changing. Cameron has managed to discredit Euroscepticism and destroy the Tory Party. Well done him.
It's the Tory Party's failure to defend the national interest that is killing them, not their 'euroscepticism'. The next leader will be considerably tougher in their EU stance than the current abysmal pair.
Tougher with who? The EU? What will “tougher” achieve?
What’s Philip Hammond been smoking? Let’s increase immigration to keep wage pressure down, really? Because immigrants definitely don’t need anywhere to live.
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
More immigration when we are at record levels, and in order to suppress wage increases at the bottom. Is Hammond working for the Labour Party?
We're spending £3bn plus a year keeping several 100k migrants from making any economic contribution at all.
You might say something about that, too.
Sure we should get cracking on sorting out asylum claims to give people a right to remain or kick them out. But the idea that the UK doesn't have enough immigration when we are building nowhere near enough stuff to meet current population needs, is quite frankly ABSOLUTELY NUTS.
We need productivity improvements, and large investment increases, not more cheap labour. What a dismal view some people have of the UK economy, the only thing they want to do is keep wages down. I want wages to soar, and for the poorest the most, by having an economy the invests like crazy and basically punishes businesses that don't. I'd like to see bad employers go to the wall as fast as possible, and be replaced by businesses that actually want to pay their staff more for hitting higher levels of productivity. Any person in government or business who has as their goal "keeping wages down" can do one.
The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals
I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.
The Whigs/Liberals I’m sure used to say the same thing. The only sure thing on this planet is change. Things are changing. Cameron has managed to discredit Euroscepticism and destroy the Tory Party. Well done him.
The Liberals split three times in just 15 years (and when I say 'split' I mean, actually had separate organisations standing candidates against each other) to achieve that result. Also extensive changes in the franchise and the rise of a competitor party which was well-funded, well-organised and linked to a pre-existing mass movement.
I do not say the Tories can't go the same way, but I do say the circumstances they face are not analogous to those of the Liberals from 1916-32.
Additionally we have a whole theory of the power of The Brand which hardly existed back then. Ever since 1979 people have been saying that one of Con or Labour might disappear. Labour sort of did, but Blair reanimated its corpse.
Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.
It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect and salesman had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?
But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.
This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.
You use the word 'tedious'
Seems quite apt
Brave words from the man who once posted:
My wife and I have a welcoming certificate from South Georgia and the South Shetland Islands
As a matter of interest why is that tedious - I do not repeat it on a daily basis
What’s Philip Hammond been smoking? Let’s increase immigration to keep wage pressure down, really? Because immigrants definitely don’t need anywhere to live.
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
He's right - increasing immigration should create downward wage pressure helping the inflation situation. There's no pleasent answers. Politically it's a non starter, well not to say it out loud anyway bit like Rose's comments during the Brexit ref.
Wage inflation is not the problem, it's commodities. Even spuds according to a notice in my fish and chip shop.
It'll seep into wages eventually though. I think that's whats started already and caught Andrew "clueless" Bailey by surprise.
It's the exchange rate, not wages. Most commodities are priced in dollars and given we import almost everything, a falling pound drives up inflation.
Sterling has risen since about September of last year against the dollar. Low of 1.08, currently 1.28. Fuel has experienced deflation for the last few months.
'@GoodwinMJ · 17h The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'
Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.
Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.
The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.
Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.
The whole misuse of the concept of "elites" by people like HYUFD strikes me as so much playing with fire. To hear populist narratives coming out of the mouths of "conservatives" is disturbing.
The danger is that normalising such language opens the door of the town hall to far worse people than either the stupid conservatives speaking like this or the stupid people they are trying to attack.
Populism isn't a plaything. It's a vicious weapon that should only be unleashed when it's really, really needed. If your target is tweedy academics and pride flags, you can be damn sure it's not needed.
Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".
The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.
It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained & you’ve bought a huge long term interest bet to go alongside your rent payments.
The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.
'@GoodwinMJ · 17h The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'
Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.
Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.
The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.
Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.
I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.
Yes, try and find a socially conservative, pro Brexit senior civil servant, judge or head of a quango or even FTSE 100 company
Most people who have been educated to a level that involves critical thinking and a degree of quantitative awareness think that Brexit is a bad idea, so it's hardly surprising that most people in senior jobs hold that view. The question you should be asking is why support for Brexit is so low among the wider group. The obvious answer is that it tells you something about Brexit itself, rather than representing some kind of conspiracy.
Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.
It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?
But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.
This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.
What do you expect them to do, Roger? Commit to rejoin? Seriously. Have think about what that entails. Many of us want to rejoin but you coming on here night after night after night day after day after day moaning about it is not going to allow for that. It's a generational project and sadly many of us on here will be dead when it happens. 2016 is over. We lost. Get over it. Fight the next one. You are incredibly tedious on this topic.
Oh, and your "Boris ever finds his way to the Cote d'Azur he'll be strung up" comment on expat property woes last night was exactly the reason we need people like you to STFU.
Strange that a campaign which centred around bringing back control excludes the single most important issue facing us. What exactly are we in control of? Don't we now have a sovereign parliament? .
People's understanding of the benefits of EU were deliberately obscured in 2016. Now they are much less so. Polls suggest rejoin would win another referendum at a canter so the voters are on side
In answer to your question I'd like Labour to put the blame for our economic woes squarely on Brexit and the blame for Brexit squarely on this government. It's good Labour tactics and it'll give them plenty of room for manoeuvre when they get in.
Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".
The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.
It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained & you’ve bought a huge long term interest bet to go alongside your rent payments.
The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.
15% swing since the GE from the Tories to Lab in rural areas.
Another Brexit dividend.
The Tories aren’t in stepmom territory they are looking at Canada 1993.
Wouldn't it be nice if the current Conservative Party died on its arse, and from the ashes came a right of centre internationalist, non racist party perhaps called "One Nation" and all the corrupt halfwits and drama queens that have decimated your party just returned back up into Farage's rectum.
The only party that would replace the Tories is Farage's. About 2/3 of the current Tory vote is closer to Farage than Hunt
I don't believe we have an appetite for right wing extremism in this country.
The Conservative Party as it stands is an unhappy coalition of right wing populists and One Nation Tories. There is a much bigger voter base for a party of One Nation Tories to tap into. Butskellism lives!
Heathism over Thatcherism in other words. In reality only if Labour returns to the Corbynite left, otherwise swing voters won't switch from a more centrist Labour party unless a Labour government mucks up the economy whether the Tories are Thatcherite or Heathite
Yes they will.
Have you not heard of the Post-War (pre-Thatcher) Consensus?
Which saw Labour win 6 out of 10 general elections between 1945 and 1979?
While the Conservatives have won 8 out of 11 general elections since Thatcher came in in 1979
...
Exclude the 2008-2010 GFC under Labour and it was higher since 1979.
Strikes less frequent, industry more efficient, gdp per capita and home ownership also higher than 1945-1979
Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".
The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.
It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained.
The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.
I don't believe that for a second - interest rates were low but the capital repayment in the early years of a mortgage is so low that it hardly makes any difference.
The issue are 4 fold
House prices are too high (because supply is dire) Wages are too low (it's remarkable how many jobs that paid £30k 13 years ago still pay that now) Banks lent people too much over too long a period - with interest rates at 2% loans should have been 20 years max but instead banks were happy to extend to 35 years Debts / Monthly repayments that looked affordable when interest rates were 2% don't look so great when rates are 5%+ and still rising.
Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".
The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.
It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained & you’ve bought a huge long term interest bet to go alongside your rent payments.
The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.
But you have a 20/1 or 10/1 leverage on the investment, something that’s almost impossible for the average investor elsewhere.
Which is great when house prices are continually rising…
Comments
While the Conservatives have won 8 out of 11 general elections since Thatcher came in in 1979
Farage is worse than Johnson and both are toxic with voters
It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?
But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.
This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For inexplicable reasons Labour look determined to share it.
What is the point of being aimlessly in power as the Conservatives are now? You support the name not the policies.
The fact that it would be the right thing to do & would be just as much an exercise in sovereignty as any other choice won’t matter to them at all, they’ll be yelling “betrayal” from the rooftops in impotent apoplexy.
Sadly it won’t happen, since Sunak’s grip on power is tenuous & the current Conservative party is ungovernable.
Seems quite apt
Oh, and your "Boris ever finds his way to the Cote d'Azur he'll be strung up" comment on expat property woes last night was exactly the reason we need people like you to STFU.
The drivers of inflation (Ex food) look like highly discretionary stuff that people could miss out on if they were really hard up. So the interest rate hikes are just going to affect spending amongst the people that aren't likely driving the inflation in the first place. Like playing arcade whack a mole with a steel Timmy Mallet sized mallet. It will hit the moles, it could break the machine too.
IIRC tracker mortgages have a lower rate on the long term average than fixed rate or they at least did so when I had a mortgage.
All of this hits the nail on the head perfectly.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rage-is-swallowing-even-the-middle-ground-9s0lg2nf0 (Paywall)
I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.
The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).
There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.
Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.
The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.
The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.
This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.
Good.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.204152705
Conservative at every election since 1950. Last election was Con 55%, Lab 25%, LD 16%. Like many such seats the LibDems were in second place until the Cleggtastrophe. Sane incumbent (Neil O'Brien), by the standards of the current Conservative Party at least.
Fairly typical rural seat in that it's one market town (Market Harborough itself), Leicester suburbia (Oadby and Wigston), and a whole lot of villages.
District Council is not coterminous but is a helpful indicator. Currently Con 15 (villages), LD 13 (Market Harborough and a bit of outer suburbia), Lab 3 (poorer Leicester suburbia), Green 3 (Market Harborough).
I think it's safe to assume that the LibDems don't have the resources to target this type of seat nationally; and that the Leicester suburbs will lean Labour in line with national swing.
So two questions. First, whether there's an effective Labour "squeeze" that wins the market town LibDems over. Second, whether the villages stay solidly Conservative or if there's some movement towards Labour there too.
I think it's possible but by no means nailed on. In an STV system the Conservatives would be losing Harborough without a doubt. FPTP always leaves the possibility of splitting the vote. But if the voters are sufficiently motivated to get the Conservatives out, and are electorally literate enough to coalesce behind one party, then Harborough is falling. And if Harborough falls, the Conservatives are in big trouble.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harborough_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
It would include the country having to live within its means, workers having to increase productivity and property taxes having to increase.
Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".
The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-65761233
The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.
The reason is a changing mix from high productivity sectors to poor productivity sectors - a trading down in the economy to poorly paid low productivity jobs such as shelf filling, care homes, delivery services.
High productivity will come from high growth in the technology, finance, pharmaceutical, defence and specialised manufacturing sectors based on rapidly growing exports. That's not happening fast enough. We're not very good as a nation at overseas sales and marketing.
The Tory party is just going through the motions.
Instead simplify to:
1) Minimum 5% deposit
2) Maximum 30 years
3) All mortgages are tracker at base rate +1%
4) Interest only banned
Work out how to get from here to there. If you simply expect the magic fairy to wave a wand etc...
For example, Starmer isn't going to actively seek to reduce the wages of the low skilled. So, freedom of movement will be and issue - until a way round that is put in place.
So what you need to do is construct a set of policies by which you can freedom of movement, without reducing wages at the low end. This is possible.
It does mean that the shortage of sufficiently obsequious waiters may continue. But we all have to make sacrifices.
Instead, the presumption should be fixes for 7-10 years to give more stability.
Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.
The house will be sold, probably to an owner occupier who presently rents.
The market will right a silly situation.
As long as the foolish govt. don't try and subsidise mortgages.....
But frankly, rents are now so high in the private sector that even 6% mortgages are affordable.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/22/ftse-100-markets-news-interest-rate-rise-bank-of-england/
The Government should relax immigration rules to help ease the mortgage crisis gripping Britain, a former chancellor has urged.
Lord Hammond, who led the Treasury under Theresa May, said the Government has to strike a “balance” between the “politically toxic” increase in immigration with the impact of rising mortgage rates.
Relaxing immigration could help deal with record rises in wages across Britain by creating more competition for jobs and lowering workers’ ability to push for pay increases.
Next time it comes round he'll be out of government.
I interviewed Ben Wallace, Britain's defence secretary, this morning. He told me he is out of the NATO race—"it's not going to happen"—and that the White House wants to extend Jens Stoltenberg's term.
https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1671589814120980485
Strikes less frequent, industry more efficient, gdp per capita and home ownership also higher than 1945-1979
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65975154
The CBI and most of the City established firms and FTSE 100 opposed Brexit.
Deposit should be 10% minimum for a repayment mortgage, and 25% for an interest-only mortgage, as prices are going to start to fall.
When freedom of movement ended, we had almost full employment. There weren't hordes of low-skilled Brits sitting around twiddling their thumbs while immigrants did the crap jobs. No, the low-skilled Brits were more likely to have had roles one step up the ladder. When freedom of movement ended, the wages for the crap jobs rose, but to fill those crap jobs, Brits need to take a step down the ladder to a rung that has risen but isn't as high as the one they were on.
That's why the end of freedom of movement will mean lower, rather than higher, wages for low-skilled Brits. This will gradually become more evident as time goes on.
You might say something about that, too.
The only thing that would replace the Tories is a Faragist populist right party, which you would despise even more than the Tories when it ultimately got into power
I do not say the Tories can't go the same way, but I do say the circumstances they face are not analogous to those of the Liberals from 1916-32.
Overall we did better than Eastern Europe and the US, but worse than the rest of Western Europe.
It was not strong enough to withstand the egos of Lloyd George and John Simon, plus the trade union movement entering politics, but few things are.
For most people an interest only mortgage is a bad idea, but for us it would have made perfect sense.
I did read a BBC sob story yesterday about a woman who'd been on an interest only mortgage for a fairly nice 3 bed house for 25 years and suddenly couldn't afford the repayments. I found it had to be too sympathetic (leaving aside the foolishness of getting into this position) when I considered it had probably risen in value 3x since purchase, so she could probably sell it, clear the mortgage and buy a respectful 2 bed with the remaining equity.
We need productivity improvements, and large investment increases, not more cheap labour. What a dismal view some people have of the UK economy, the only thing they want to do is keep wages down. I want wages to soar, and for the poorest the most, by having an economy the invests like crazy and basically punishes businesses that don't. I'd like to see bad employers go to the wall as fast as possible, and be replaced by businesses that actually want to pay their staff more for hitting higher levels of productivity. Any person in government or business who has as their goal "keeping wages down" can do one.
The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.
People's understanding of the benefits of EU were deliberately obscured in 2016. Now they are much less so. Polls suggest rejoin would win another referendum at a canter so the voters are on side
In answer to your question I'd like Labour to put the blame for our economic woes squarely on Brexit and the blame for Brexit squarely on this government. It's good Labour tactics and it'll give them plenty of room for manoeuvre when they get in.
The issue are 4 fold
House prices are too high (because supply is dire)
Wages are too low (it's remarkable how many jobs that paid £30k 13 years ago still pay that now)
Banks lent people too much over too long a period - with interest rates at 2% loans should have been 20 years max but instead banks were happy to extend to 35 years
Debts / Monthly repayments that looked affordable when interest rates were 2% don't look so great when rates are 5%+ and still rising.
Which is great when house prices are continually rising…