I remember the overthrow of the Shah quite vividly. Television coverage of young radicals with guns out on the street demanding the end of corruption, a more open society and a better distribution of wealth. The Shah fled and Ayatollah Khomeini flew into a tumultuous welcome. Then the state clammed up and the revolution ate its children. For over forty years now Iran has presented an austere face to the outside world, a theocratic monolith prepared to face off to all comers. That vision is what we have grown up with but now there are signs their monolith is cracking.
Comments
LAB: 46% (=)
CON: 22% (-3)
LDM: 11% (+1)
RFM: 8% (+1)
GRN: 7% (=)
SNP: 3% (+1)
Via @techneUK, 15-16 Nov.
Changes w/ 8-9 Nov.
Another triumphant poll for the World’s Greatest Reshuffle
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is considering plans to halve the rate of inheritance tax and cut taxes for small businesses in his autumn statement.
The Treasury has been told by official forecasters that it has far more “fiscal headroom” because of rising tax revenues and falling borrowing costs.
It has also been reported that council tax will rise by up to £120 a year for the average house, because the Treasury will allow local authorities to increase their bills by up to 5 per cent a year.
Improved public finances mean that government has more than £20 billion of headroom at Wednesday’s autumn statement, compared with £6.5 billion at the time of March’s budget. While some of the headroom will be retained as a “cushion”, Hunt is considering an array of tax cuts amid mounting pressure from Tory MPs.
One option includes halving the rate of inheritance tax, which is charged at 40 per cent for estates worth more than £325,000 with an extra £175,000 allowance towards a main residence if it is passed to children or grandchildren.
The Treasury is considering plans to cut the rate to 30 per cent or 20 per cent, while it is also examining proposals to increase the thresholds for the tax. The Tories are considering a proposal to abolish inheritance tax for its election manifesto next year.
Hunt is said to favour cutting inheritance tax rather than income tax because it would not have a big impact on inflation. It is also much cheaper to cut. Abolishing inheritance tax would cost about £7 billion a year, but cutting income tax by 2p in the pound would cost £13.7 billion a year.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jeremy-hunt-inheritance-tax-plan-small-businesses-vat-autumn-statement-07kbmj0gf
(Not forgetting he was also a Jew hating genocidal nutcase who would have got on well with the Ayatollahs.)
Is ther me any evidence of that?
Mr. Doethur, worth remembering Edward I did go on crusade, (he was in the Holy Land when he became king, and was perhaps the first medieval monarch to become king without immediately having a coronation).
Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
🤔
Somebody has profited mightily from this decision, but not the country.
Incidentally if he's worried about inflation surely a sane Chancellor would prioritise cutting VAT?
Remember when you were against electoral reform, now look at you.
He really is quite impressively bad at politics.
Not a howling and embarrassing error: like you acclaiming Sunak’s reshuffle as inspired - “I’ve got my party back”
Still, @topping agreed with you. So you’re not alone
If it’s not the reshuffle, what else do you think has caused this sudden and notable drop in Tory polling, right after the reshuffle? This is the fourth poll showing a plunge in Tory support, IIRC
It's a tragedy for the people involved of course and a small shame for me personally because Iran is one of the few countries left on my list to visit one day.
Foreign Affairs rarely moves opinion polls.
I actually wonder if Sunak is worse than Truss
So your opinion is that the sudden drop in Tory support after the Great Reshuffle has nothing to do with the reshuffle, it’s because so many people were annoyed by a column Suella Braverman wrote in the Times about even-handed policing?
There's a piece in the Independent quoting George Osborne as saying that with Cameron as Foreign Secretary, leaving the ECHR is "off the table", despite some of Cameron's past rhetoric.
I had to smile reading a quotation from Cameron in 2015:
"We are very clear about what we want, which is British judges making decisions in British courts."
Braverman's version seems to be "no judges making any decisions in any courts".
Increasing the threshold, I can sort of understand. Not enough to like it, but I can understand the "our people fear it, so move the threshold into the stratosphere" logic.
Cutting the rate means that nearly all the revenue forgone is from estates right at the very very top of the exponential distribution. Incompetent squillionaires, in other words. If not Rishi, then Rishi's kind of people.
The only time the Conservatives could get away with that is in the lame duck phase of a third hand mandate.
The big red flag for me was that we should be cautious is that the YouGov poll saw Labour's share fall even more, hence reducing their lead over the Tories.
Top end was around $150,000.
But we shall see. So far so bad for Sunak and Cameron
Biggest farce in F1 in America since 2005?
In other words, there could be even worse polls incoming, as more urine is directed at the canvas shelter.
Edit - That's the afternoon thread sorted.
They are going to obliterate Gaza and possibly the West Bank. And maybe take on Hezbollah as well
That’s my reading of the Israeli mood: the wave of global anti Semitism is only hardening their position. Israel must be secured, it can never be menaced again, Israel must have defensible borders with nukes ready to go if anyone tries anything serious
It is quite scary. I guess the Israeli calculation is that they have nothing to lose and a lot to gain: and that, in the end, for all the hand wringing, none of the larger Arab/muslim nations will actually do anything
I’m not sure even the Americans can stop the Israelis at this point
Not a howling and stupid error: like you acclaiming Sunak’s reshuffle as inspired - “I’ve got my party back” I think you’re probably deluded but you do know your onions - sometimes - so let’s see how it pans out over the coming week
Not great, though.
Yes to raising income tax thresholds for the personal allowance and 40% tax rate 👍
IHT is one of the most easily avoided taxes. Few estates pay it. If it were 20% or so that would bring it into line with a number of other countries (including some more “socialist” ones) and might be a rare example of a tax cut that increases revenue. There would be an opportunity, which they won’t take of course, to reform CGT and succession at the same time.
The other thing they could do is get ahead of Labour in reforming the anachronistic non dom regime, and introduce a time-limited tax exemption for wealthy foreign migrants but without the incentive to keep money offshore, alongside digital nomad visas. We might get more actual investment in then.
But the race is the main thing. It's like spending a fortune on some enticing hors d'oeuvre, in a spectacularly beautiful setting and with the the most attentive and well-dressed staff ever, only to serve a cold McDonalds for the main course. And a puddle of rancid sick for dessert.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/why-is-antisemitism-so-rife-in-uk-academic-settings-i-have-never-found-student-life-more-difficult/ar-AA1k2wOC?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=8ffd4c4f4d194456941f566bcb21ca50&ei=10
...
Britain’s economy has lost billions of pounds in investment since 2010 amid government “flip-flopping” on its industrial growth plans as it churned through 11 different economic strategies, according to [an IPPR] report.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/17/flip-flopping-cost-uk-billions-investment-cash-since-2010
Few will be aware that the exempt figure is already essentially £325,000 X 2 plus, plus, plus. So an exempt figure not far off £900,000 for most. Therefore around 95% of estates pay no IHT already.
However for the great unwashed they are panicking that with a threshold of £325,000 they will be charged IHT on mum and dad's £400,000 semi. Now the threshold has increased to half a million, panic over.
No net benefit is accrued by the hoi polloi, but in their minds they feel like they have dodged a bullet.
Cutting Day to Day Government by cutting Inheritance tax just reduces the money available to pay for day to day expenditure - say on road repairs, staff to quickly deal with asylum, staff to staff hospitals / courts / schools.
That the perpetual state of existential war since 1948 has forced the Israelis (who have no moral agency in this) to attack their oppressors (the Arabic world) ever harder.
It's worthy of a slogan on the side of a bus.
Circuit looks crap
Circus is painfully embarrassing
Pit building thrown together
Streets repaved but the cars are wholly different to Indycar and are sucking the manhole covers out of the concrete
Highly compressed timescale - race HAS to be done at local primetime on Saturday night
They're going to be driving effectively on (what for an F1 car is) ice
I'm away this weekend so will be watching it all on catch-up. Not sure we will get a race, or if we do, for how long it will last before the inevitable 14 car pileup.
Address his point.
That will only change if the boundary for full disclosure and enumeration fo assets is also moved up.
But it's a policy which will really benefit the well off, especially those with parents with the South who were clueless financially or caught out by the capital rise in house prices and too timid or too incapax to get the legalities sorted out.
Mr. Pioneers, proof is in the pudding, but I think the track itself looks alright. Problem is the temperature. And annoying the locals. And ridiculous pricing. And, apparently, not checking the manhole covers.
The Labour lead was slashed by 1% since the Return of the King.
SYNERGY
Am really looking forward to defending this tax cut for the wealthiest 3.7% whilst benefits are cuts.
The optics are great.
Israel was created out the back of WWII, where someone tried to exterminate them all. A Jewish homeland, safe and secure for Jews is difficult to argue against. Thanks to how it was created, its neighbours and its own actions, Israel is neither safe nor secure.
But it could be. The peace route. Or the war route. They will consider that they have tried peace. That failed. War has been brought to them again. That nutjob Netanyahu is probably the worst leader they could have right now, but you can see how they could be leaning towards pushing for a comprehensive military victory.
There is a horror scenario. Israel sweeps the arabs out of the levant, just as the arabs and their fellow travellers marching in London and elsewhere chant about sweeping Palestine of the Jews. There would be international condemnation. Rightly. Israel would have to build a wall. And repel anyone threatening its new border.
What about the Techne poll out today?
Four post-reshuffle polls now, showing Labour lead changes of: +2%, +5%, -1%, +3%. Do the math.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/minimum-salary-for-recruiting-foreign-workers-to-be-raised-to-30-000-in-bid-to-cut-migration/ar-AA1k3S26?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=2d5490e41dd14d75af6775b31dddaa11&ei=19
Once the reshuffle fully factors in to polls, it's not impossible the Tories' support falls further.
“Massive hype followed by quick and expensive disappointment just sounds like a standard night in Vegas to be honest.”
Your inner fascist is poking out
And it reminds me about that little Braverman story I’d forgotten until now: that she tried to get civil servants to sort her a private speed awareness appointment.
Woman of the people that she is.