Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
Increasing the personal allowance should be a priority as it would provide the greatest relief on those on low incomes. I suggest that it be increased from £12,570 to £15,000pa.
Personal allowance should IMHO be 35 hours at minimum wage, and increased with minimum wage increases.
I'd say 37.5 hours (9 to 5 with a half hour lunch break) but yes I completely agree with you.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Are there any tax cuts that wouldn't be nuts to you?
Given that right now,
1. I think we agree that not enough is being spent by the government on infrastructure,
2. The government is still borrowing far too much,
3. Nobody has a clue how to cut revenue spending any further (diversity officers and international aid aren't going to do anything meaningful)
Yes, talking of tax cuts right now is nuts.
Chancellors since at least Lawson have been playing pass the parcel with a time bomb. And it's finally gone off.
The tax burden is at its highest level since WWII. Some effective tax rates are obscene, and actively deterring work and investment.
Using your logic tax thresholds would never be raised again.
Any tax cutting should be targeted at fixing the obscene tax rates.
Unfortunately the Tories don't even seem to view the obscene tax rates, some of which they've created, some of which they've inherited, as even the problem.
The NZ fella has brought a big bit of wood on to the pitch with him. I enjoy the little dances that the South Pacific nations do before their games, but I don't really see why the other side ahould have to stand and watch. I quite liked David Campese's approach of practicing his kicking until they'd got it over with. He got into trouble for 'not respecting the haka'. But I don't think it's terribly respectful to do a little war dance at your opponenta before you start.
The Reform vote in both by-elections interests me. Is this a cohort of voters than can be squeezed with the right policies back into the Tory column, or is it, and I fear this may be true, a cohort of voters who don't want to vote for a party led by an PM of Indian heritage. We would all rightly abhor the racism, but I don't think we can discount the possibility that some of the Reform vote isn't salvagable for Con for that reason.
I don't think those are the two alternatives. The most likely reason they won't be squeezed is they neither trust the Tories to do anything they say, nor believe they are in any way competant enough to do it even if they want to. It is a view shared by the majority of the country and the main defining characteristic of Reform voters as opposed to Labour or Lib Dems is they don't trust those parties either.
I think there are lots of things at work but there is something about Sunak that some right of centre voters took against immediately. If you look at the Wiki wiggly line there was an immediate 3pp rise in RefUK support at the very moment Sunak became PM. Not at the time of the Truss debacle, not at the time of Partygate, and not gradually over the course of Sunak's premiership. It's not a massive cohort of people, it's certainly not a majority of Tory-inclined voters by any means, but unfortunately I do think that an element of racism is probably at work and contributing to the Tories' current unpopularity (maybe they just object to his wealth? Possibly, I doubt it).
Aren't you reading the tealeaves wrong there? I'm one of those who did vote for Boris*, would have voted for Truss (she had the diagnosis right, and possibly the solutions, just made a hash of the presentation, and was particularly unlucky with the timing) and is very unlikely to vote for Rishi.
That's nothing to do with the colour of his skin, and everything to do with the fact that he's a high tax, high spend, big government, nanny state managerialist, and several successive generations of those in power have ruined the country. That was obvious from before he got the job, so I was "out" from the moment he became Prime Minister.
I'm not a huge fan of RefUK, but that's the clearest message I can send in the current circumstances. Starmer clearly is utterly unfit to be prime minister (Covid showed that - we had too much lockdown, he always wanted more), the public seem to think he's the only option, but he's not getting my vote.
*I'm not sure I would have voted for him again, it seems that once he got into bed with Carrie he suddenly went soft left on everything.
Also- Rishi is the sort of globetrotting big finance sort of guy who some see as the problem. A citizen of nowhere, so to speak.
Are there any tax cuts that wouldn't be nuts to you?
Given that right now,
1. I think we agree that not enough is being spent by the government on infrastructure,
2. The government is still borrowing far too much,
3. Nobody has a clue how to cut revenue spending any further (diversity officers and international aid aren't going to do anything meaningful)
Yes, talking of tax cuts right now is nuts.
Chancellors since at least Lawson have been playing pass the parcel with a time bomb. And it's finally gone off.
The irony, of course, is that efforts were being made to punt that sufficiently far into the future for it to be the responsibility of the new government. As Keegan admitted over RAAC.
Hasn't quite worked...
And that's another calculation the government have to make about the election date. The longer they leave it, the more likely that one of those problems will catch up with them again.
Remember all those public sector strikes that were resolved with a one-off bonus for this year? What happens next year?
I am stuck in [train station] amongst the drunks, and my ETA back to little flat is "probably before midnight". Apparently most of England is underwater. This may be an aesthetic improvement but Charlie Train Don't Surf. All the big butch trains are hiding until they can get their wellies on. Oh, Lord, I'd forgotten how much drunks smell. Friday night, eh?
Grrr. 👿
When I am made supreme commander of the universe I will ban alcohol. And people. And trains. Sensible policies for a happier Britain.
Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
Which would be a reversal of Sunak's own tax rises.
Sunak was wrong to implement fiscal drag, it is a pernicious tax rise, ending fiscal drag is an entirely reasonable thing to do, but of course if he does it then it should be all thresholds rising not just the 40% threshold.
To keep the 20% and other thresholds frozen while lifting just the 40% one would be weird and not be appropriate.
Sunaks policy of fiscal drag was set for an era of 2% inflation rather than 11%. We have had 5 years of fiscal drag in one year.
It should help inflation though. But I'd agree there'd be no quicker way to cement the losses of places like Dudley North and Bassetlaw than raising the 40% threshold whilst not upping 20%
I doubt it'd just be one of them, but Sunak/Hunt have fallen into privileged establishment economic thinking of taxing well-off/higher earners a bit more to raise minimum wages/benefits of the poorest a bit more. New Labour used to do the same.
That offers virtually no political benefit to their base - which is (or has been historically) those middle earners between £30k-70k. And there will be plenty in all sorts of middle England constituencies.
Margaret Thatcher described them as "our people" and they've been entirely missed by this administration, possibly because both Hunt and Sunak are millionaires with poor political antenna.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was. It is now both heavily contributory and accrues on the basis of earnings.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
Comment on Joe Biden's speech from the Oval Office by Mark Sumner on Daily Kos:
"It’s an important speech, one that doesn’t deserve to be lost in a day of massive events and angry politics. It’s that rarest of things: a speech that doesn’t just call on America to live up to its ideals, but also doesn’t pretend that those ideals are limited to saying the right words. It’s easy to create a city on a hill when all it has to do is shine. Joe Biden is demanding something more: a nation willing to stand on the ground and reach out its hand."
Sumner would not pretend to be impartial but I think he has a point. Biden's actions and dynamism in this crisis contrasts sharply with Trump, who is ever more bogged down in his legal troubles, and Congress, where even Republicans can't find a Republican they like enough to vote for.
I am tempted to put some cash on Biden's re-election.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
It was reformed in 2015 for those who are still working.
For those who are claiming a final salary pension, nothing was done.
Changing a contract after the fact is not reasonable, but applying tax on a final salary pension at the same rate as the tax applied on those who are working is eminently reasonable.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
Has to be said (as a fellow PSP holder) that they are still pretty generous by the standards of the private sector.
But that's a sign you need to reform private sector pensions to improve them, because outside the railways they're currently an absolute joke.
(The railways are a bigger joke, but the sort that sees the beneficiaries laughing all the way to the bank.)
BBC The Rafah crossing has opened, with live footage showing trucks entering the border crossing from Egypt into Gaza.
I imagine there's been a lot of diplomatic "effort" going on behind the scenes involving, I suspect, Blinken talking a lot to both Cairo and Tel Aviv about what is and isn't going to happen.
The safe passage of innocent and defenceless civilians out of a war zone is one thing and I'd like to think we can all aceept that but of course the risk is Hamas operatives will be part of that evacuation as well and both Israel and Egypt have their reasons for not allowing that to happen.
The second point is what happens to these people in the medium and longer term? I can't imagine Egypt wanting a string of refugee camps along its border with Gaza and as history tells us such camps are where the next generation of radicals and martyrs are created.
Once the IDF has done its work and Gaza is a Hamas-free ruin (I suspect that's an aspiration rather than a realistic goal), what then? How is Gaza to be rebuilt and restored ?
The Reform vote in both by-elections interests me. Is this a cohort of voters than can be squeezed with the right policies back into the Tory column, or is it, and I fear this may be true, a cohort of voters who don't want to vote for a party led by an PM of Indian heritage. We would all rightly abhor the racism, but I don't think we can discount the possibility that some of the Reform vote isn't salvagable for Con for that reason.
I don't think those are the two alternatives. The most likely reason they won't be squeezed is they neither trust the Tories to do anything they say, nor believe they are in any way competant enough to do it even if they want to. It is a view shared by the majority of the country and the main defining characteristic of Reform voters as opposed to Labour or Lib Dems is they don't trust those parties either.
I think there are lots of things at work but there is something about Sunak that some right of centre voters took against immediately. If you look at the Wiki wiggly line there was an immediate 3pp rise in RefUK support at the very moment Sunak became PM. Not at the time of the Truss debacle, not at the time of Partygate, and not gradually over the course of Sunak's premiership. It's not a massive cohort of people, it's certainly not a majority of Tory-inclined voters by any means, but unfortunately I do think that an element of racism is probably at work and contributing to the Tories' current unpopularity (maybe they just object to his wealth? Possibly, I doubt it).
Aren't you reading the tealeaves wrong there? I'm one of those who did vote for Boris*, would have voted for Truss (she had the diagnosis right, and possibly the solutions, just made a hash of the presentation, and was particularly unlucky with the timing) and is very unlikely to vote for Rishi.
That's nothing to do with the colour of his skin, and everything to do with the fact that he's a high tax, high spend, big government, nanny state managerialist, and several successive generations of those in power have ruined the country. That was obvious from before he got the job, so I was "out" from the moment he became Prime Minister.
I'm not a huge fan of RefUK, but that's the clearest message I can send in the current circumstances. Starmer clearly is utterly unfit to be prime minister (Covid showed that - we had too much lockdown, he always wanted more), the public seem to think he's the only option, but he's not getting my vote.
*I'm not sure I would have voted for him again, it seems that once he got into bed with Carrie he suddenly went soft left on everything.
Also- Rishi is the sort of globetrotting big finance sort of guy who some see as the problem. A citizen of nowhere, so to speak.
Are there any tax cuts that wouldn't be nuts to you?
Given that right now,
1. I think we agree that not enough is being spent by the government on infrastructure,
2. The government is still borrowing far too much,
3. Nobody has a clue how to cut revenue spending any further (diversity officers and international aid aren't going to do anything meaningful)
Yes, talking of tax cuts right now is nuts.
Chancellors since at least Lawson have been playing pass the parcel with a time bomb. And it's finally gone off.
The irony, of course, is that efforts were being made to punt that sufficiently far into the future for it to be the responsibility of the new government. As Keegan admitted over RAAC.
Hasn't quite worked...
Cam & Osborne stuck the nation on an interest-only buy-to-let then buggered off to live the carefree life of a wealthy absentee landlord.
To the extent that I have any sympathy with the current government (and tbh I don’t really) it’s that the metaphorical schools are now starting to collapse in every department as a result.
Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
Which would be a reversal of Sunak's own tax rises.
Sunak was wrong to implement fiscal drag, it is a pernicious tax rise, ending fiscal drag is an entirely reasonable thing to do, but of course if he does it then it should be all thresholds rising not just the 40% threshold.
To keep the 20% and other thresholds frozen while lifting just the 40% one would be weird and not be appropriate.
Sunaks policy of fiscal drag was set for an era of 2% inflation rather than 11%. We have had 5 years of fiscal drag in one year.
It should help inflation though. But I'd agree there'd be no quicker way to cement the losses of places like Dudley North and Bassetlaw than raising the 40% threshold whilst not upping 20%
I doubt it'd just be one of them, but Sunak/Hunt have fallen into privileged establishment economic thinking of taxing well-off/higher earners a bit more to raise minimum wages/benefits of the poorest a bit more. New Labour used to do the same.
That offers virtually no political benefit to their base - which is (or has been historically) those middle earners between £30k-70k. And there will be plenty in all sorts of middle England constituencies.
Margaret Thatcher described them as "our people" and they've been entirely missed by this administration, possibly because both Hunt and Sunak are millionaires with poor political antenna.
Dudley North is being abolished, which is why its MP was selected to fight Tamworth for the Tories.
CR is right about the way the Tories are treating their working base, which would certainly include me on those figures, but it's wider than that. By screwing over everything at once to protect pensioners they're going to make bigger problems later. No infrastructure means no economy - and soon, no pensions and no hospitals.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
Hamas’s leader in 2010 said their founding charter was “no longer relevant” and their revised charter of 2017 seeks a Palestinian state within the borders as of early 1967.
Peace will only come with compromise. Implacable enemies can find common ground. Whether Hamas will ever do so, I’ve no idea.
BBC The Rafah crossing has opened, with live footage showing trucks entering the border crossing from Egypt into Gaza.
Perhaps 20 trucks for a population of 2 million that has had no supplies coming in for two weeks now? A fig leaf.
Mass starvation still beckons.
The estimates are that they need at least 100 trucks a day but the principle has been established. Egypt has a choice of either accepting 1m refugees or doing all it can to facilitate those refugees staying put. They will undoubtedly favour the latter.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
Hamas’s leader in 2010 said their founding charter was “no longer relevant” and their revised charter of 2017 seeks a Palestinian state within the borders as of early 1967.
Peace will only come with compromise. Implacable enemies can find common ground. Whether Hamas will ever do so, I’ve no idea.
If they are looking to do so they're going a very odd way about it.
Nixon in Vietnam springs to mind, and we know how that ended.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
I don't think there's any point in wasting political capital on most of these. You can ease the pressure on public sector pensions by getting rid of a lot of civil servants. You can offer incentives to use private healthcare to ease the burden on the NHS. You can reduce National Insurance progressively whilst maintaining or increasing Income Tax, more fairly distributing the burden of taxation and increasing tax take. Raising the pension age I agree with.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Starmer will just have to come in and sort out the utter mess the Tories have made.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
It was reformed in 2015 for those who are still working.
For those who are claiming a final salary pension, nothing was done.
Changing a contract after the fact is not reasonable, but applying tax on a final salary pension at the same rate as the tax applied on those who are working is eminently reasonable.
sure, but that would be NI reform not public sector final salary pension reform.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
Has to be said (as a fellow PSP holder) that they are still pretty generous by the standards of the private sector.
But that's a sign you need to reform private sector pensions to improve them, because outside the railways they're currently an absolute joke.
(The railways are a bigger joke, but the sort that sees the beneficiaries laughing all the way to the bank.)
The thing is though, that would take conjuring money out of nowhere. In tge real world, pensions like the public sector have simply aren't affordable; there is no way of tinkering which will generate the returns you would need to provide what PSPs can give.
Comment on Joe Biden's speech from the Oval Office by Mark Sumner on Daily Kos:
"It’s an important speech, one that doesn’t deserve to be lost in a day of massive events and angry politics. It’s that rarest of things: a speech that doesn’t just call on America to live up to its ideals, but also doesn’t pretend that those ideals are limited to saying the right words. It’s easy to create a city on a hill when all it has to do is shine. Joe Biden is demanding something more: a nation willing to stand on the ground and reach out its hand."
Sumner would not pretend to be impartial but I think he has a point. Biden's actions and dynamism in this crisis contrasts sharply with Trump, who is ever more bogged down in his legal troubles, and Congress, where even Republicans can't find a Republican they like enough to vote for.
I am tempted to put some cash on Biden's re-election.
Isn't Winthrop's original "shining city on a hill" widely misunderstood? It was indeed supposed to be exactly more than just sitting there shining, but an awareness the world was watching what the city actually did (originally in respect to God).
Can't recall the details but iirc Reagan changed its meaning a bit.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
It was reformed in 2015 for those who are still working.
For those who are claiming a final salary pension, nothing was done.
Changing a contract after the fact is not reasonable, but applying tax on a final salary pension at the same rate as the tax applied on those who are working is eminently reasonable.
You just cannot be as thick as you make out. Explain how anyone on a final salary pension pays less tax than anyone else on the same income you absolute bellend. Clue you cannot use your usual NI mince on someone who is not working. The contract was to pay NI for a period like every other person in the country. I wonder if you have ever paid it myself.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was. It is now both heavily contributory and accrues on the basis of earnings.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
NHS Superannuation contributions exceed payments by over £4 billion per year at present, according to the latest statements thereby making it a significant contributor to government funds. I don't know the status of the other public sector pensions.
So far from being a way to save money, abolishing NHS pensions is a revenue cost.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
Has to be said (as a fellow PSP holder) that they are still pretty generous by the standards of the private sector.
But that's a sign you need to reform private sector pensions to improve them, because outside the railways they're currently an absolute joke.
(The railways are a bigger joke, but the sort that sees the beneficiaries laughing all the way to the bank.)
The thing is though, that would take conjuring money out of nowhere. In tge real world, pensions like the public sector have simply aren't affordable; there is no way of tinkering which will generate the returns you would need to provide what PSPs can give.
Here is the issue though. At the moment, most people do not have enough money to stop working.
So we have two options.
We can be like Joe Biden or Dixon of Dock Green, carrying on with jobs long past the time we can actually do them.
Or we can sort out our pension system.
Neither is an easy option but we're going to have to choose one.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
Has to be said (as a fellow PSP holder) that they are still pretty generous by the standards of the private sector.
But that's a sign you need to reform private sector pensions to improve them, because outside the railways they're currently an absolute joke.
(The railways are a bigger joke, but the sort that sees the beneficiaries laughing all the way to the bank.)
The thing is though, that would take conjuring money out of nowhere. In tge real world, pensions like the public sector have simply aren't affordable; there is no way of tinkering which will generate the returns you would need to provide what PSPs can give.
The issue is that its pensioners who were public sector of the past whose pensions are unaffordable. And they're not expected to pay National Insurance.
Anyone joining the public sector today is expected to pay both NI and the Graduate Tax too if they're educated, but doesn't get the pension of the past as that option is no longer available.
Its todays pensioners that are screwing the finances, not the pensioners of 30 years time. But the Government are featherbedding today's pensioners instead of addressing the issue where it is.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
Hamas’s leader in 2010 said their founding charter was “no longer relevant” and their revised charter of 2017 seeks a Palestinian state within the borders as of early 1967.
Peace will only come with compromise. Implacable enemies can find common ground. Whether Hamas will ever do so, I’ve no idea.
I might suggest you listen to the interview linked yesterday with Hamas's leader, and ask yourself if a man talking about the deaths of millions as being acceptable for the cause is a man who is willing to compromise.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Though we’re different politically I tend to agree on pension reform (though as has been noted final salary is by and large gone now, and has been for a while - though of course it is still being paid for).
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
Has to be said (as a fellow PSP holder) that they are still pretty generous by the standards of the private sector.
But that's a sign you need to reform private sector pensions to improve them, because outside the railways they're currently an absolute joke.
(The railways are a bigger joke, but the sort that sees the beneficiaries laughing all the way to the bank.)
The other problem is the term "Public Sector Pensions" is used to cover a multitude of different schemes with different levels of contribution. Teachers, Firefighters, local Government workers and civil servants all have different schemes but the way you hear some of the lazy right-wing commentators talk it is all just one scheme.
Indeed, the commentary is never about the failure of private sector pensions. Some private companies do have very good pension schemes but there's this notion outside the "cosseted" public sector, everyone is on their own and doing their best. We were sold the pup in the 1980s if we all invested in the stock market or got someone to manage our money in the market we'd be fine as shares are always a one way ticket to prosperity.
The last 25-30 years has demonstrated you'd be better off trying to find the winners at Ascot or Newton Abbot this afternoon with a pin.
Presumably housing costs (it's all connected) make it difficult for younger people to start putting money into pensions at say 25-30 but that's when you have to start realistically to be able to fund a retirement at 67-70. Thus, looking at pensions in isolation is foolish - it's part of a bigger economic and societal issue around how individuals and families are able to manage costs and lifestyle expectations and the ways in which the State help or hinder that process.
Are there any tax cuts that wouldn't be nuts to you?
Given that right now,
1. I think we agree that not enough is being spent by the government on infrastructure,
2. The government is still borrowing far too much,
3. Nobody has a clue how to cut revenue spending any further (diversity officers and international aid aren't going to do anything meaningful)
Yes, talking of tax cuts right now is nuts.
Chancellors since at least Lawson have been playing pass the parcel with a time bomb. And it's finally gone off.
The tax burden is at its highest level since WWII. Some effective tax rates are obscene, and actively deterring work and investment.
Using your logic tax thresholds would never be raised again.
Any tax cutting should be targeted at fixing the obscene tax rates.
Unfortunately the Tories don't even seem to view the obscene tax rates, some of which they've created, some of which they've inherited, as even the problem.
The spikes are absurd and counterproductive and need to go. But there isn't really scope to just cut them. They mostly happened because governments have sought to extract extra revenue without admitting it by increasing headline rates.
And whilst overall UK tax levels are high by comparison with postwar years, they're still on the low side by international standards. With hindsight, we probably overdid the tax cutting since the 80s and the contrivances that sustained that have run out of road.
(And I can't shake the suspicion that all the money Mr/Mrs Taxpayer has saved has ended up in the bucket labelled "house price inflation", rather than anywhere useful or enjoyable.)
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
Hamas’s leader in 2010 said their founding charter was “no longer relevant” and their revised charter of 2017 seeks a Palestinian state within the borders as of early 1967.
Peace will only come with compromise. Implacable enemies can find common ground. Whether Hamas will ever do so, I’ve no idea.
If they are looking to do so they're going a very odd way about it.
Nixon in Vietnam springs to mind, and we know how that ended.
Things are bad now. That doesn’t mean they will always be so.
BBC The Rafah crossing has opened, with live footage showing trucks entering the border crossing from Egypt into Gaza.
Perhaps 20 trucks for a population of 2 million that has had no supplies coming in for two weeks now? A fig leaf.
Mass starvation still beckons.
Every journey starts …
Had a little look at this.
My suggestion is that - based on gross numbers - it needs 1000 trucks per week, depending on mix in the cargo of course.
The obvious variable if counting by weight is water. It also does not calculate in other essentials. A setup such as Oxfam will have better numbers somewhere.
That's based on a very quick internet such, considerable rounding, little stocks or internal capacity existing. All ballpark numbers.
Numbers: 10kg aid per person per week required. 2,000,000 people. 20,000 kg per truckload.
20,000,000 / 20000 = 1000 trucks.
Comparator: ballpark figure for food consumption for one Usonian is one tonne per annum, or 20kg per week, without water.
On the Israeli side, there are two significant barriers to peace: Netanyahu and the settlers. To his credit, Netanyahu has been trying to make peace deals with other regional states; but that is about the only thing to his credit. Israelis have the ability to democratically remove Netanyahu and to stop settlements (and preferably reverse the most egregious ones).
On the Palestinian (actually, mostly Gaza) side, the biggest barrier is Hamas. To be clear, Hamas do not want peace; at least, peace that includes the existence of an Israeli state. Palestinians do not have the ability to democratically remove Hamas. I doubt Israel can militarily destroy Hamas, especially when their leaders live it large in rich gulf states.
More widely, many states in the region and the wider world have been using this conflict as part of their various power plays. This is not helpful.
Is the two-state solution dead? With Hamas and Netanyahu in play, then yes. And the alternative is a 'win' for either Hamas or Israel that will be a tragedy not just for civilians on their opposing side, but also their own civilians.
Of course the 2 state solution is dead. There are not two states to do a deal. Israel has occupied and chopped up the West Bank - partly for justified security reasons, partly for religious nut job reasons. And Gaza is a terrorist enclave.
Is not the simple truth that the 2 state solution was never on because the Muslim crazies cannot sanction the Jewish state, and the Jewish crazies are happy to replicate terror with terror of their own.
The crank left repeat the end game: from the river to the sea. A one state solution- the creation for the first time of a Palestinian nation state where Israel now is. So park holier-than-thou we are the oppressed the Jew uniquely is Bad no that isn’t anti-Semitic cos the Jeremy wasn’t how dare you bullshit from the crank left. They don’t want 2 states, they want to remove Israel from existence.
Worse for Israel, remove them from the map is the policy of Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Hamas, Hesbollah, Islamic Jihad etc etc etc. the idea that Israel is the aggressor doesn’t stand up to logic or sanity.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was. It is now both heavily contributory and accrues on the basis of earnings.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
There are no straw men. My suggestions are focussed on reducing public spending to sustainable levels. It's precisely the debate we need to have and comments like this are both unwarranted and unnecessary. Yes, since 2015 most public sector pensions are now based on "career average" salaries - as opposed to a ratio of your final salary based on time in the job - but these are still much more generous than in the private sector.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Though we’re different politically I tend to agree on pension reform (though as has been noted final salary is by and large gone now, and has been for a while - though of course it is still being paid for).
I must say it's heartening, and encouraging, when some agreement is found across the political divide - even if it's only on an issue or two. Offers hope for the future.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
I don't think there's any point in wasting political capital on most of these. You can ease the pressure on public sector pensions by getting rid of a lot of civil servants. You can offer incentives to use private healthcare to ease the burden on the NHS. You can reduce National Insurance progressively whilst maintaining or increasing Income Tax, more fairly distributing the burden of taxation and increasing tax take. Raising the pension age I agree with.
I think getting rid of a lot of civil servants saves very little in the grand scheme of things. Even if you halved numbers from c.500k to c.250k you'd only save about £5bn per annum and it'd grind many departments and services to a halt. Done properly you could maybe shave £1-2bn off and a decent headcount number, but I'm looking at savings of £50-100bn+ per annum.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was. It is now both heavily contributory and accrues on the basis of earnings.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
I think all three of Casino's point's are moot, and perhaps verging on the fantastical. Maybe a suitable agenda for around 1997; this is now 2023 .
1 - As you say, Public Sector pensions have been heavily reformed. I have a family member working for the health regulators, who has been continually in a cleft stick between a Health Service pension scheme, and a Civil Servant pension scheme because UKHSA is not quite proper Health Service to some - the employer wants the staff on the cheapest one they can of course.
2 - The UK has been adjusting it's pension age since John Major's time (Pensions Act 1995), and we are now towards the higher end in Europe with a further rise from 66 to 67 in 2026-2028. Plus we have one of the stronger demographic profiles in Western Europe.
3 - The Triple Lock has added at most a small amount - when I calculated it I made it 5-6% a year over inflationary increases since 2010 or whenever it was. The inchoate political fury this generates is bizarre, as is the weight put on it.
I'd say that adjustments need to be on the revenue side more than the cost side - perhaps 80:20 or higher. We have have nearly 15 years of salami-slicing, and it is time to reverse ferret - which is why I hope Mr Starmer has some significant rebalancing proposals.
Extraordinary interview with Hamas. "Hamas does not kill civilians on purpose".
Derek Thompson @DKThomp · 18h This is a really interesting and compelling interview, in that it treats Hamas seriously, as a legitimate political actor, one with agency and purposeful strategy, and asks the next question: What *was* the logical end goal of luridly killing so many Israeli civilians?
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was. It is now both heavily contributory and accrues on the basis of earnings.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
I think all three of Casino's point's are moot, and perhaps verging on the fantastical. Maybe a suitable agenda for around 1997; this is now 2023 .
1 - As you say, Public Sector pensions have been heavily reformed. I have a family member working for the health regulators, who has been continually in a cleft stick between a Health Service pension scheme, and a Civil Servant pension scheme because UKHSA is not quite proper Health Service to some - the employer wants the staff on the cheapest one they can of course.
2 - The UK has been adjusting it's pension age since John Major's time (Pensions Act 1995), and we are now towards the higher end in Europe with a further rise from 66 to 67 in 2026-2028. Plus we have one of the stronger demographic profiles in Western Europe.
3 - The Triple Lock has added at most a small amount - when I calculated it I made it 5-6% a year over inflationary increases since 2010 or whenever it was. The inchoate political fury this generates is bizarre, as is the weight put on it.
I'd say that adjustments need to be on the revenue side more than the cost side - perhaps 80:20 or higher. We have have nearly 15 years of salami-slicing, and it is time to reverse ferret - which is why I hope Mr Starmer has some significant rebalancing proposals.
They're not moot in the slightest, you just don't like them.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
I don't think there's any point in wasting political capital on most of these. You can ease the pressure on public sector pensions by getting rid of a lot of civil servants. You can offer incentives to use private healthcare to ease the burden on the NHS. You can reduce National Insurance progressively whilst maintaining or increasing Income Tax, more fairly distributing the burden of taxation and increasing tax take. Raising the pension age I agree with.
I think getting rid of a lot of civil servants saves very little in the grand scheme of things. Even if you halved numbers from c.500k to c.250k you'd only save about £5bn per annum and it'd grind many departments and services to a halt. Done properly you could maybe shave £1-2bn off and a decent headcount number, but I'm looking at savings of £50-100bn+ per annum.
You don't get those with the low-hanging fruit.
Quite - it sounds like a quick fix, but it really doesn't achieve as much as people think it will, even if it came without at least short term immediate effects.
It's related to what I've seen referred to as the 'reform fairy' as a counterpart to the magic money tree of solutions - the idea vague, unspecified, or limited 'reform' will magically resolve some pretty massive issues.
Smaller, simple reforms can achieve a lot and can be done. But like with cutting spending it doesn't matter all that much if you cut 50% of the Justice budget if you are not touching Health and Welfare at all. If you want to make big savings, the target must be big.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
Has to be said (as a fellow PSP holder) that they are still pretty generous by the standards of the private sector.
But that's a sign you need to reform private sector pensions to improve them, because outside the railways they're currently an absolute joke.
(The railways are a bigger joke, but the sort that sees the beneficiaries laughing all the way to the bank.)
The other problem is the term "Public Sector Pensions" is used to cover a multitude of different schemes with different levels of contribution. Teachers, Firefighters, local Government workers and civil servants all have different schemes but the way you hear some of the lazy right-wing commentators talk it is all just one scheme.
Indeed, the commentary is never about the failure of private sector pensions. Some private companies do have very good pension schemes but there's this notion outside the "cosseted" public sector, everyone is on their own and doing their best. We were sold the pup in the 1980s if we all invested in the stock market or got someone to manage our money in the market we'd be fine as shares are always a one way ticket to prosperity.
The last 25-30 years has demonstrated you'd be better off trying to find the winners at Ascot or Newton Abbot this afternoon with a pin.
Presumably housing costs (it's all connected) make it difficult for younger people to start putting money into pensions at say 25-30 but that's when you have to start realistically to be able to fund a retirement at 67-70. Thus, looking at pensions in isolation is foolish - it's part of a bigger economic and societal issue around how individuals and families are able to manage costs and lifestyle expectations and the ways in which the State help or hinder that process.
The Teacher Pension Scheme was reformed some years ago to make it less beneficial to new entrants. One of the biggest issues at the moment is that the young people coming into the profession can't afford the pension payments, so they opt out.
Anyone qualifying today will typically be carrying 50-60k of student debt and facing massive housing costs, saving for retirement isn't on their radar.
The Tories have 'solved' the issue by making the profession so unattractive that we can't recruit enough people onto the training courses in the first place, so no need to worry about the pension scheme.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
Public sector final salary pensions were reformed in 2015. I can assure you mine was. It is now both heavily contributory and accrues on the basis of earnings.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
I think all three of Casino's point's are moot, and perhaps verging on the fantastical. Maybe a suitable agenda for around 1997; this is now 2023 .
1 - As you say, Public Sector pensions have been heavily reformed. I have a family member working for the health regulators, who has been continually in a cleft stick between a Health Service pension scheme, and a Civil Servant pension scheme because UKHSA is not quite proper Health Service to some - the employer wants the staff on the cheapest one they can of course.
2 - The UK has been adjusting it's pension age since John Major's time (Pensions Act 1995), and we are now towards the higher end in Europe with a further rise from 66 to 67 in 2026-2028. Plus we have one of the stronger demographic profiles in Western Europe.
3 - The Triple Lock has added at most a small amount - when I calculated it I made it 5-6% a year over inflationary increases since 2010 or whenever it was. The inchoate political fury this generates is bizarre, as is the weight put on it.
I'd say that adjustments need to be on the revenue side more than the cost side - perhaps 80:20 or higher. We have have nearly 15 years of salami-slicing, and it is time to reverse ferret - which is why I hope Mr Starmer has some significant rebalancing proposals.
They're not moot in the slightest, you just don't like them.
Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
Which would be a reversal of Sunak's own tax rises.
Sunak was wrong to implement fiscal drag, it is a pernicious tax rise, ending fiscal drag is an entirely reasonable thing to do, but of course if he does it then it should be all thresholds rising not just the 40% threshold.
To keep the 20% and other thresholds frozen while lifting just the 40% one would be weird and not be appropriate.
What should happen is the triple lock should end, the pension age be raised, public sector final salary pensions reformed, and co-funding should be introduced into healthcare, the same way it has now with private pensions.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
I don't think there's any point in wasting political capital on most of these. You can ease the pressure on public sector pensions by getting rid of a lot of civil servants. You can offer incentives to use private healthcare to ease the burden on the NHS. You can reduce National Insurance progressively whilst maintaining or increasing Income Tax, more fairly distributing the burden of taxation and increasing tax take. Raising the pension age I agree with.
I think getting rid of a lot of civil servants saves very little in the grand scheme of things. Even if you halved numbers from c.500k to c.250k you'd only save about £5bn per annum and it'd grind many departments and services to a halt. Done properly you could maybe shave £1-2bn off and a decent headcount number, but I'm looking at savings of £50-100bn+ per annum.
You don't get those with the low-hanging fruit.
Quite - it sounds like a quick fix, but it really doesn't achieve as much as people think it will, even if it came without at least short term immediate effects.
It's related to what I've seen referred to as the 'reform fairy' as a counterpart to the magic money tree of solutions - the idea vague, unspecified, or limited 'reform' will magically resolve some pretty massive issues.
Smaller, simple reforms can achieve a lot and can be done. But like with cutting spending it doesn't matter all that much if you cut 50% of the Justice budget if you are not touching Health and Welfare at all. If you want to make big savings, the target must be big.
Indeed:
Nigel Lawson talks a lot about this in his (generally excellent, if rather self serving) The View From Number Eleven.
Every government thinks there is some easy pot of things that they can do to save money (waste! tax evasion! civil servants!) and there will be no consequences.
Sadly, that is not the case. And, indeed, most of the "cost cutting" from the centre has been of the insidious kind, where they reduce the payments to local authorities and force them (who are already in poor financial straights) to try and make cuts.
The reality is that - if you wish to shrink the size of the state meaningfully - you have to do one or more of the following:
(1) Tell people to whom you have made promises in the past, like pensioners (and would be pensioners), that you will no longer do what you said you would do.
(2) Substantially reduce what the NHS offers.
(3) Cut whole areas of spending (like the armed forces)
None of these are particularly palatable. Indeed, one might make the case that lots of part of the State (such as the criminal justice system) are underfunded to the extent that they are beginning to have significant negative impacts on the economy as a whole.
Extraordinary interview with Hamas. "Hamas does not kill civilians on purpose".
Derek Thompson @DKThomp · 18h This is a really interesting and compelling interview, in that it treats Hamas seriously, as a legitimate political actor, one with agency and purposeful strategy, and asks the next question: What *was* the logical end goal of luridly killing so many Israeli civilians?
Hamas is a legitimate political actor in the region whether western moralists like it or not.
It is wrong to consider it a monolithic and coherent organisation with perfect command and control over everything that happens in Gaza. It's more like a series of concentric structures with the Shura Council at the centre and lessening authority in the outer layers.
Close to the centre there is Al-Nukhba (trained and funded by Qatar) then IQB then motley groups of armed raggy lads who give varying degrees of a fuck about what anybody tells them to do or not do. Beyond that there are straightforward armed criminal gangs. Also Hezb are very active in Gaza and pay no alleigance to the Shura Council at all, getting their orders from Tehran.
Comments
Using your logic tax thresholds would never be raised again.
Big savings in spending offered by all of those but would require immensely strong political leadership.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/maps-and-charts/rainfall-radar-forecast-map
Unfortunately the Tories don't even seem to view the obscene tax rates, some of which they've created, some of which they've inherited, as even the problem.
At least with Verstappen sixth there should be some overtaking.
Anyone got any ideas on what exciting and novel way Ferrari will find to screw this up? I'm thinking forgetting to fuel the car.
Remember all those public sector strikes that were resolved with a one-off bonus for this year? What happens next year?
That offers virtually no political benefit to their base - which is (or has been historically) those middle earners between £30k-70k. And there will be plenty in all sorts of middle England constituencies.
Margaret Thatcher described them as "our people" and they've been entirely missed by this administration, possibly because both Hunt and Sunak are millionaires with poor political antenna.
Mass starvation still beckons.
But admitting that takes away one of your standard straw men.
"It’s an important speech, one that doesn’t deserve to be lost in a day of massive events and angry politics. It’s that rarest of things: a speech that doesn’t just call on America to live up to its ideals, but also doesn’t pretend that those ideals are limited to saying the right words. It’s easy to create a city on a hill when all it has to do is shine. Joe Biden is demanding something more: a nation willing to stand on the ground and reach out its hand."
Sumner would not pretend to be impartial but I think he has a point. Biden's actions and dynamism in this crisis contrasts sharply with Trump, who is ever more bogged down in his legal troubles, and Congress, where even Republicans can't find a Republican they like enough to vote for.
I am tempted to put some cash on Biden's re-election.
For those who are claiming a final salary pension, nothing was done.
Changing a contract after the fact is not reasonable, but applying tax on a final salary pension at the same rate as the tax applied on those who are working is eminently reasonable.
But that's a sign you need to reform private sector pensions to improve them, because outside the railways they're currently an absolute joke.
(The railways are a bigger joke, but the sort that sees the beneficiaries laughing all the way to the bank.)
The safe passage of innocent and defenceless civilians out of a war zone is one thing and I'd like to think we can all aceept that but of course the risk is Hamas operatives will be part of that evacuation as well and both Israel and Egypt have their reasons for not allowing that to happen.
The second point is what happens to these people in the medium and longer term? I can't imagine Egypt wanting a string of refugee camps along its border with Gaza and as history tells us such camps are where the next generation of radicals and martyrs are created.
Once the IDF has done its work and Gaza is a Hamas-free ruin (I suspect that's an aspiration rather than a realistic goal), what then? How is Gaza to be rebuilt and restored ?
To the extent that I have any sympathy with the current government (and tbh I don’t really) it’s that the metaphorical schools are now starting to collapse in every department as a result.
Dudley North is being abolished, which is why its MP was selected to fight Tamworth for the Tories.
CR is right about the way the Tories are treating their working base, which would certainly include me on those figures, but it's wider than that. By screwing over everything at once to protect pensioners they're going to make bigger problems later. No infrastructure means no economy - and soon, no pensions and no hospitals.
Peace will only come with compromise. Implacable enemies can find common ground. Whether Hamas will ever do so, I’ve no idea.
Nixon in Vietnam springs to mind, and we know how that ended.
Can't recall the details but iirc Reagan changed its meaning a bit.
NEW THREAD
So far from being a way to save money, abolishing NHS pensions is a revenue cost.
https://twitter.com/goldstone_tony/status/1708166748845846657?t=4AjBX7IRL22a8i_wfEMRXA&s=19
So we have two options.
We can be like Joe Biden or Dixon of Dock Green, carrying on with jobs long past the time we can actually do them.
Or we can sort out our pension system.
Neither is an easy option but we're going to have to choose one.
Anyone joining the public sector today is expected to pay both NI and the Graduate Tax too if they're educated, but doesn't get the pension of the past as that option is no longer available.
Its todays pensioners that are screwing the finances, not the pensioners of 30 years time. But the Government are featherbedding today's pensioners instead of addressing the issue where it is.
Indeed, the commentary is never about the failure of private sector pensions. Some private companies do have very good pension schemes but there's this notion outside the "cosseted" public sector, everyone is on their own and doing their best. We were sold the pup in the 1980s if we all invested in the stock market or got someone to manage our money in the market we'd be fine as shares are always a one way ticket to prosperity.
The last 25-30 years has demonstrated you'd be better off trying to find the winners at Ascot or Newton Abbot this afternoon with a pin.
Presumably housing costs (it's all connected) make it difficult for younger people to start putting money into pensions at say 25-30 but that's when you have to start realistically to be able to fund a retirement at 67-70. Thus, looking at pensions in isolation is foolish - it's part of a bigger economic and societal issue around how individuals and families are able to manage costs and lifestyle expectations and the ways in which the State help or hinder that process.
And whilst overall UK tax levels are high by comparison with postwar years, they're still on the low side by international standards. With hindsight, we probably overdid the tax cutting since the 80s and the contrivances that sustained that have run out of road.
(And I can't shake the suspicion that all the money Mr/Mrs Taxpayer has saved has ended up in the bucket labelled "house price inflation", rather than anywhere useful or enjoyable.)
My suggestion is that - based on gross numbers - it needs 1000 trucks per week, depending on mix in the cargo of course.
The obvious variable if counting by weight is water. It also does not calculate in other essentials. A setup such as Oxfam will have better numbers somewhere.
That's based on a very quick internet such, considerable rounding, little stocks or internal capacity existing. All ballpark numbers.
Numbers: 10kg aid per person per week required. 2,000,000 people. 20,000 kg per truckload.
20,000,000 / 20000 = 1000 trucks.
Comparator: ballpark figure for food consumption for one Usonian is one tonne per annum, or 20kg per week, without water.
Links:
https://www.quora.com/How-much-food-do-you-need-to-feed-a-million-people
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/12/31/144478009/the-average-american-ate-literally-a-ton-this-year#:~:text=The figure is a little,the course of one year.
Is not the simple truth that the 2 state solution was never on because the Muslim crazies cannot sanction the Jewish state, and the Jewish crazies are happy to replicate terror with terror of their own.
The crank left repeat the end game: from the river to the sea. A one state solution- the creation for the first time of a Palestinian nation state where Israel now is. So park holier-than-thou we are the oppressed the Jew uniquely is Bad no that isn’t anti-Semitic cos the Jeremy wasn’t how dare you bullshit from the crank left. They don’t want 2 states, they want to remove Israel from existence.
Worse for Israel, remove them from the map is the policy of Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Hamas, Hesbollah, Islamic Jihad etc etc etc. the idea that Israel is the aggressor doesn’t stand up to logic or sanity.
What are your suggestions other than ad hominem?
Thank you.
You don't get those with the low-hanging fruit.
1 - As you say, Public Sector pensions have been heavily reformed. I have a family member working for the health regulators, who has been continually in a cleft stick between a Health Service pension scheme, and a Civil Servant pension scheme because UKHSA is not quite proper Health Service to some - the employer wants the staff on the cheapest one they can of course.
2 - The UK has been adjusting it's pension age since John Major's time (Pensions Act 1995), and we are now towards the higher end in Europe with a further rise from 66 to 67 in 2026-2028. Plus we have one of the stronger demographic profiles in Western Europe.
3 - The Triple Lock has added at most a small amount - when I calculated it I made it 5-6% a year over inflationary increases since 2010 or whenever it was. The inchoate political fury this generates is bizarre, as is the weight put on it.
I'd say that adjustments need to be on the revenue side more than the cost side - perhaps 80:20 or higher. We have have nearly 15 years of salami-slicing, and it is time to reverse ferret - which is why I hope Mr Starmer has some significant rebalancing proposals.
Derek Thompson
@DKThomp
·
18h
This is a really interesting and compelling interview, in that it treats Hamas seriously, as a legitimate political actor, one with agency and purposeful strategy, and asks the next question: What *was* the logical end goal of luridly killing so many Israeli civilians?
https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1715375403848843276
Because, interests.
It's related to what I've seen referred to as the 'reform fairy' as a counterpart to the magic money tree of solutions - the idea vague, unspecified, or limited 'reform' will magically resolve some pretty massive issues.
Smaller, simple reforms can achieve a lot and can be done. But like with cutting spending it doesn't matter all that much if you cut 50% of the Justice budget if you are not touching Health and Welfare at all. If you want to make big savings, the target must be big.
Anyone qualifying today will typically be carrying 50-60k of student debt and facing massive housing costs, saving for retirement isn't on their radar.
The Tories have 'solved' the issue by making the profession so unattractive that we can't recruit enough people onto the training courses in the first place, so no need to worry about the pension scheme.
So he’ll probably do it.
Nigel Lawson talks a lot about this in his (generally excellent, if rather self serving) The View From Number Eleven.
Every government thinks there is some easy pot of things that they can do to save money (waste! tax evasion! civil servants!) and there will be no consequences.
Sadly, that is not the case. And, indeed, most of the "cost cutting" from the centre has been of the insidious kind, where they reduce the payments to local authorities and force them (who are already in poor financial straights) to try and make cuts.
The reality is that - if you wish to shrink the size of the state meaningfully - you have to do one or more of the following:
(1) Tell people to whom you have made promises in the past, like pensioners (and would be pensioners), that you will no longer do what you said you would do.
(2) Substantially reduce what the NHS offers.
(3) Cut whole areas of spending (like the armed forces)
None of these are particularly palatable. Indeed, one might make the case that lots of part of the State (such as the criminal justice system) are underfunded to the extent that they are beginning to have significant negative impacts on the economy as a whole.
It is wrong to consider it a monolithic and coherent organisation with perfect command and control over everything that happens in Gaza. It's more like a series of concentric structures with the Shura Council at the centre and lessening authority in the outer layers.
Close to the centre there is Al-Nukhba (trained and funded by Qatar) then IQB then motley groups of armed raggy lads who give varying degrees of a fuck about what anybody tells them to do or not do. Beyond that there are straightforward armed criminal gangs. Also Hezb are very active in Gaza and pay no alleigance to the Shura Council at all, getting their orders from Tehran.