The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cuts - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
"There are next to no negative externalities from motoring." Despite strong competition, that has got to be the craziest stupidest most disgusting thing I have ever read on pb.com
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cut - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
But fuel duty is a percentage of the total cost. If the cost of fuel goes down, then the amount raised will go down. The rate of fuel duty hasn’t been cut, as far as I am aware.
"actually you're still paying the most amount of tax ever"
This keeps being said, but I'm not sure it's true for me personally. Maybe I'm just an anomoly but on my end of year bonus payment I paid 22.4% total tax and NI because whilst still being in the basic rate for tax on the annual basis I benefitted from the payment in the month exceeding the monthly NI threshold. Anyway income over the basic threshold will now be taxed at 26% rather than the eye watering 32% it was previously. Would have been nice financially if my daughter was 23 days older as we'd have got this term funded rather than waiting for September's 15 hours (A wrinkle the hours moving down to 9 months will obliterate for future cohorts and then some) but you can't have everything
It won't be true for every individual. But the majority of voters are screaming under the burden. They know, and being told "we have just cut your taxes again" won't help the Tories as people see their taxes going up, not down.
Most people don't really know what tax rates they pay. It's just not a visible thing. Even those with self-assessment and tax returns see the *amount* they pay much more visibly than the *rate*.
But even more important is the essential bills people pay, which includes tax but also rent, mortgages, utilities and necessary weekly shop, for example. The overall combination of that lot - and the amount left over afterwards - matters far more than the individual items, still less their internal calculations.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
Well, the obvious thing would be to increase income tax to compensate. So it's easily funded. However, presumably Hunt wouldn't want the inevitable Pensioner Tax headlines it'd generate (despite it being entirely right that non-workers on £x per year should pay at least as much direct tax as a non-worker on £x, IMO).
(I'm talking about Employees contributions only here; obviously the employers NI is a different kettle of fish, but also one people rarely talk about, and I don't think Hunt was doing so either)
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
It’s not an unfunded tax cut since it hasn’t been put forward as a proposal without compensatory changes elsewhere. Getting rid of NI will be a good thing, but Labour want to poison the well on this, too, like they did with social care?
The Tories may have to spend half the GE campaign trying to explain why scrapping NI wont destroy public services and take away the state pension from those who have worked hard all their lives and paid in.
I see Reeves has already started this morning.
It's amazing how a long overdue tax cut for workers is immediately and ludicrously rebadged as an attack on state pensions, which are fully protected and triple locked.
Exactly and to be honest it will be a process over several years as income tax becomes payable at the same rate for workers and pensioners and fairness established in the tax system
I think you are both missing the simple fact that after 50+ years of being told that you need NI to have a state pension, many people will be thinking that phasing out NI means phasing out the state pension, only the Tories aren't admitting it.
In a lot of ways NI doesn't make sense - but its continued existence does act as a political check on any efforts to means test or otherwise limit the state pension, simply because so many people view it as a contributory system. You get rid of NI, you make it much easier to start chipping away at the pension too. You can understand people's worries. Child benefit was meant to be universal too, and look at what happened with that.
The state pension should be means tested. There's no reason for people like my mum and dad to receive it, they have income in retirement in excess of £120k per year from equity investments and private pensions.
As was discussed on here yesterday, the risk with means testing the pension (aside from the social cohesion issue - those who don't get it not wanting to fund other "scroungers") is the behavioural effect. Unless you set the taper very carefully you get a bunch of people stopping saving for retirement because it's better to have a smaller private pension and still get your state one. Same issue as the behavioural effects of the lifetime allowance or the child benefit taper.
The income tax system can take care of the "Rich Pensioner Problem".
It already does, to an extent.
Yes. @MaxPB’s parents will pay way more in income tax than they receive in state pensions, and the cost of means testing everyone to stop the paying the top 1% or even 10% of pensioners will be disproportionate - not to mention those who will for many reasons fall through the cracks of a complex system.
I’m sure Richard Branson and Jim Ratcliffe get paid something of a state pension too, a trivial amount of money dwarfed by other taxes paid by themselves and their companies.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
Well, the obvious thing would be to increase income tax to compensate. So it's easily funded. However, presumably Hunt wouldn't want the inevitable Pensioner Tax headlines it'd generate (despite it being entirely right that non-workers on £x per year should pay at least as much direct tax as a non-worker on £x, IMO).
Liz Truss's big mistake was not the unfunded tax cuts per se. It was that she bypassed the entire economic establishment in order to make unfunded tax cuts. That is what spooked the markets. Whereas when the Gnomes of Zurich examine Hunt's effort, they will see the same holes but figure that if the OBR and BoE and Treasury are happy, it is probably be all right.
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cuts - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
How much should, in your opinion, a litre of petrol cost?
"actually you're still paying the most amount of tax ever"
This keeps being said, but I'm not sure it's true for me personally. Maybe I'm just an anomoly but on my end of year bonus payment I paid 22.4% total tax and NI because whilst still being in the basic rate for tax on the annual basis I benefitted from the payment in the month exceeding the monthly NI threshold. Anyway income over the basic threshold will now be taxed at 26% rather than the eye watering 32% it was previously. Would have been nice financially if my daughter was 23 days older as we'd have got this term funded rather than waiting for September's 15 hours (A wrinkle the hours moving down to 9 months will obliterate for future cohorts and then some) but you can't have everything
It won't be true for every individual. But the majority of voters are screaming under the burden. They know, and being told "we have just cut your taxes again" won't help the Tories as people see their taxes going up, not down.
Most people don't really know what tax rates they pay. It's just not a visible thing. Even those with self-assessment and tax returns see the *amount* they pay much more visibly than the *rate*.
But even more important is the essential bills people pay, which includes tax but also rent, mortgages, utilities and necessary weekly shop, for example. The overall combination of that lot - and the amount left over afterwards - matters far more than the individual items, still less their internal calculations.
Yeah "tax" gets conflated into a whole lot of other stuff that simply isn't tax, my home insurance was up over 30% yesterday (With nothing cheaper on the comparison sites). It's not tax but is is an essential.
A bit like when people complain about bots on social media. Sometimes they do mean actual bots but other times it's a shorthand for a large number of actual people who disagree with them.
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular..
It's fairly clear how it's paid for; the balance of taxation has been shifted a bit from workers onto pensioners (and other non employment income). Average of around £1000 tax increase in pensioner taxpayers, I think.
A sensible policy which the core vote might dislike when they wake up to it.
Pensioners have done very well over the last 2 years with pension increases of 10.1% and 8.5% in April
No, they haven't done very well in themselves. Those are neutral changes in the always rather poor UK state pension, and some of the costs pensioners have have gone up more than other inflation.
The real issue is what is being done to working people.
The ignorance on here re your average pensioner is breathtaking, both from rich pensioners and mainly non pensioners. The let them eat cake meme si pretty pathetic. Speaking as a "richish" pensioner.
The Tories may have to spend half the GE campaign trying to explain why scrapping NI wont destroy public services and take away the state pension from those who have worked hard all their lives and paid in.
I see Reeves has already started this morning.
It's amazing how a long overdue tax cut for workers is immediately and ludicrously rebadged as an attack on state pensions, which are fully protected and triple locked.
Exactly and to be honest it will be a process over several years as income tax becomes payable at the same rate for workers and pensioners and fairness established in the tax system
I think you are both missing the simple fact that after 50+ years of being told that you need NI to have a state pension, many people will be thinking that phasing out NI means phasing out the state pension, only the Tories aren't admitting it.
In a lot of ways NI doesn't make sense - but its continued existence does act as a political check on any efforts to means test or otherwise limit the state pension, simply because so many people view it as a contributory system. You get rid of NI, you make it much easier to start chipping away at the pension too. You can understand people's worries. Child benefit was meant to be universal too, and look at what happened with that.
The state pension should be means tested. There's no reason for people like my mum and dad to receive it, they have income in retirement in excess of £120k per year from equity investments and private pensions.
As was discussed on here yesterday, the risk with means testing the pension (aside from the social cohesion issue - those who don't get it not wanting to fund other "scroungers") is the behavioural effect. Unless you set the taper very carefully you get a bunch of people stopping saving for retirement because it's better to have a smaller private pension and still get your state one. Same issue as the behavioural effects of the lifetime allowance or the child benefit taper.
The income tax system can take care of the "Rich Pensioner Problem".
It already does, to an extent.
Yes. @MaxPB’s parents will pay way more in income tax than they receive in state pensions, and the cost of means testing everyone to stop the paying the top 1% or even 10% of pensioners will be disproportionate - not to mention those who will for many reasons fall through the cracks of a complex system.
I’m sure Richard Branson and Jim Ratcliffe get paid something of a state pension too, a trivial amount of money dwarfed by other taxes paid by themselves and their companies.
Also means testing simply doesn’t work when you get to elderly people - the number of people who don’t claim what they are entitled to is scary - even locally it’s high and people put effort into ensuring people know what they are entitled to
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
Well, the obvious thing would be to increase income tax to compensate. So it's easily funded. However, presumably Hunt wouldn't want the inevitable Pensioner Tax headlines it'd generate (despite it being entirely right that non-workers on £x per year should pay at least as much direct tax as a non-worker on £x, IMO).
(I'm talking about Employees contributions only here; obviously the employers NI is a different kettle of fish, but also one people rarely talk about, and I don't think Hunt was doing so either)
The obvious plan is that fiscal drag pulls up income tax receipts. And is compensated (to an extent) with the gradual abolition of NI.
Which means the Chancellor can announce tax cuts, year after year. As more tax comes in.
In a close election, does Biden have a chance in North Carolina? It's the state that Trump won in 2020 by the narrowest margin (1.35%). Will Republicans choosing this guy as candidate for governor be worth a few votes for Biden?:
"Robinson, North Carolina’s current lieutenant governor, has hurled hateful remarks at everyone from Michelle Obama to the survivors of the Parkland school shooting. He’s called the LGBTQ community “filth.” He threatened to use his AR-15 against the government if it “gets too big for its britches,” and he wants to outlaw all abortions as well as return to a time when women couldn’t vote. He’s also ridiculed the Me Too movement, women generally, and climate change.
It seems Robinson is willing to entertain all manner of conspiracy theories, too. He’s a Holocaust denier and has a history of antisemitic remarks. He’s suggested that the 1969 moon landing might have been fake, that 9/11 was an “inside job,” that the music industry is run by Satan, and that billionaire Democratic donor George Soros orchestrated the Boko Haram kidnappings of school girls in 2014."
Of the six toss-up states Biden won in 2020, he can only afford to lose 2, or at most 3 depending on which 3. If he could flip N Carolina, he could afford to lose 3 or 4 of them. Roughly, winning N Carolina would make up for losing Michigan.
The polling doesn't look great. The latest Morning Consult has Trump +9 in North Carolina, Trump +2 in Michigan. Latest Emerson College has Trump +3 in North Carolina, Trump +2 Michigan. But who knows?
First Light Fusion becomes the first private fusion company to fire a successful shot on Sandia's 'Z Machine'
https://firstlightfusion.com/media/first-light-fusion-becomes-the-first-private-fusion-company-to-fire-a-successful-shot-on-sandias-z-machine ..First Light’s successful experiment set a new pressure record for quartz at Sandia’s facility, lifting it from 1.5 terapascal (TPa) to 1.85 TPa, whilst also maintaining the sample conditions required for high precision measurements for which the Sandia Lab is world-recognised. The experiment provided valuable insight into amplifier development giving the team considerable confidence in its modelling and simulations. The shot also proves that First Light’s hydrodynamic amplification technology works when driven by different types of projectiles. It allows measurements of material behaviour at extreme pressures previously unattainable on this facility, such as can be found in planetary cores or inertial confinement fusion targets.
Work is now underway to increase this pressure further as First Light continues to explore the ultimate potential of its unique amplifier technology. The UK fusion leader will fire its next shot on the Z Machine at the end of this year when further progress is expected.
First Light has been awarded three shots in total on the Z Machine, as part of its ongoing partnership with the US-government funded research organisation. The experiments form part of Sandia’s ‘Z Fundamental Science’ programme and follows the successful demonstration of the platform on SNL’s STAR 2SLGG last year..
The Tories may have to spend half the GE campaign trying to explain why scrapping NI wont destroy public services and take away the state pension from those who have worked hard all their lives and paid in.
I see Reeves has already started this morning.
It's amazing how a long overdue tax cut for workers is immediately and ludicrously rebadged as an attack on state pensions, which are fully protected and triple locked.
Exactly and to be honest it will be a process over several years as income tax becomes payable at the same rate for workers and pensioners and fairness established in the tax system
I think you are both missing the simple fact that after 50+ years of being told that you need NI to have a state pension, many people will be thinking that phasing out NI means phasing out the state pension, only the Tories aren't admitting it.
In a lot of ways NI doesn't make sense - but its continued existence does act as a political check on any efforts to means test or otherwise limit the state pension, simply because so many people view it as a contributory system. You get rid of NI, you make it much easier to start chipping away at the pension too. You can understand people's worries. Child benefit was meant to be universal too, and look at what happened with that.
The state pension should be means tested. There's no reason for people like my mum and dad to receive it, they have income in retirement in excess of £120k per year from equity investments and private pensions.
As was discussed on here yesterday, the risk with means testing the pension (aside from the social cohesion issue - those who don't get it not wanting to fund other "scroungers") is the behavioural effect. Unless you set the taper very carefully you get a bunch of people stopping saving for retirement because it's better to have a smaller private pension and still get your state one. Same issue as the behavioural effects of the lifetime allowance or the child benefit taper.
The income tax system can take care of the "Rich Pensioner Problem".
It already does, to an extent.
Yes. @MaxPB’s parents will pay way more in income tax than they receive in state pensions, and the cost of means testing everyone to stop the paying the top 1% or even 10% of pensioners will be disproportionate - not to mention those who will for many reasons fall through the cracks of a complex system.
I’m sure Richard Branson and Jim Ratcliffe get paid something of a state pension too, a trivial amount of money dwarfed by other taxes paid by themselves and their companies.
Are you aware of how Branson started off his empire?
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cut - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
But fuel duty is a percentage of the total cost. If the cost of fuel goes down, then the amount raised will go down. The rate of fuel duty hasn’t been cut, as far as I am aware.
Fuel duty is an absolute value and has been at fixed at that value since 2011-12, plus a 5p cut from 2022-23.
Interesting development. https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=370140 ..To implement LLMs typically utilized in generative AI tasks, a substantial number of graphic processing units (GPUs) and 250 watts of power are typically required. However, the KAIST research team managed to implement the language model using a compact AI chip measuring just 4.5 millimeters by 4.5 millimeters.
"Neuromorphic computing is a technology that even companies like IBM and Intel have not been able to implement, and we are proud to be the first in the world to run the LLM with a low-power neuromorphic accelerator," Yoo said...
..The research team said this semiconductor uses only 1/625 of the power and is only 1/41 the size of Nvidia's GPU for the same tasks.
As the research chip was produced with a 28nm feature size, any commercial products ought to be significantly more efficient.
That's interesting, and it's unsurprising that there are more efficient techniques- people have been working on neuron-like schemes for years. 28nm is also far from the cutting edge; but some things are rather hard to do at smaller gate sizes (Mrs j still occasionally works with 45nm, now 17 years old).
But as ever, I'd exercise caution. Wait until people without skin in the game get hold of samples.
I'd be a bit nervous if I had a lot of money in Nvidia. If this proves a practical product, it might remove the chip bottleneck which allows them such high margins in their chips.
Apart from anything else, the physical size is an order of magnitude smaller - and if it can be fabbed on older lines, then that also has interesting implications.
If it can mine bitcoin too, Nvidia gfx will go back to being well a gfx provider.
The bulk of Nvidia's business is now business, not the consumer, and even if another AI winter approaches or the ML bubble pops Nvidia is still the most important player in HPC, and their business is more diverse than ever, as they have significant networking and software businesses as well. I expect Nvidia to effectively invest the huge amounts of cash they are generating from AI/ML to beef up their other products and move into more enterprise and business markets. It's highly likely that Nvidia will produce more general purpose Arm server chips, as well as offering semi-custom parts to the webscale giants. Also Nvidia, and AMD, are both believed to have PC Arm parts in development aimed at the Windows 12 AI PC platform.
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cuts - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
How much should, in your opinion, a litre of petrol cost?
Dunno. I'm just pointing out that, of all the options for reducing the tax burden on households, cutting fuel duty is a regressive way of doing it.
The Tories may have to spend half the GE campaign trying to explain why scrapping NI wont destroy public services and take away the state pension from those who have worked hard all their lives and paid in.
I see Reeves has already started this morning.
It's amazing how a long overdue tax cut for workers is immediately and ludicrously rebadged as an attack on state pensions, which are fully protected and triple locked.
Exactly and to be honest it will be a process over several years as income tax becomes payable at the same rate for workers and pensioners and fairness established in the tax system
I think you are both missing the simple fact that after 50+ years of being told that you need NI to have a state pension, many people will be thinking that phasing out NI means phasing out the state pension, only the Tories aren't admitting it.
In a lot of ways NI doesn't make sense - but its continued existence does act as a political check on any efforts to means test or otherwise limit the state pension, simply because so many people view it as a contributory system. You get rid of NI, you make it much easier to start chipping away at the pension too. You can understand people's worries. Child benefit was meant to be universal too, and look at what happened with that.
The state pension should be means tested. There's no reason for people like my mum and dad to receive it, they have income in retirement in excess of £120k per year from equity investments and private pensions.
As was discussed on here yesterday, the risk with means testing the pension (aside from the social cohesion issue - those who don't get it not wanting to fund other "scroungers") is the behavioural effect. Unless you set the taper very carefully you get a bunch of people stopping saving for retirement because it's better to have a smaller private pension and still get your state one. Same issue as the behavioural effects of the lifetime allowance or the child benefit taper.
The income tax system can take care of the "Rich Pensioner Problem".
It already does, to an extent.
Yes. @MaxPB’s parents will pay way more in income tax than they receive in state pensions, and the cost of means testing everyone to stop the paying the top 1% or even 10% of pensioners will be disproportionate - not to mention those who will for many reasons fall through the cracks of a complex system.
I’m sure Richard Branson and Jim Ratcliffe get paid something of a state pension too, a trivial amount of money dwarfed by other taxes paid by themselves and their companies.
Are you aware of how Branson started off his empire?
Yep, he’s always been something of a maverick thinking he can get away with stuff. Of course these days he’s legally based on his island in the BVI, alongside many of his businesses, still trying to avoid taxes.
If the BBC had an editorial policy of never asking back people who don't answer questions their act would be sharpened up quite a bit.
Interesting idea ... politics coverage without any politicians ...
There is a point to this. Politicians have a permanent live forum for comment and debate, it's called parliament. In general why should the media, especially the BBC, prioritise interviews with the same people who already have this unique forum?
The BBC would do better to report better what politicians say and do in parliament and in the plethora of documents they publish formally. Comment and questioning is much better done by outfits like the IFS, IfG, and a selection of the better academics + selected retired politicians than by either journalistic generalists or politicians speaking beyond parliament where they have quite enough space to fill already.
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cuts - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
How much should, in your opinion, a litre of petrol cost?
Dunno. I'm just pointing out that, of all the options for reducing the tax burden on households, cutting fuel duty is a regressive way of doing it.
The cost of fuel is the single biggest determinant of both inflation and labour mobility, as was demonstrated in the past couple of years. The people most affected by increasing fuel prices are the working poor in rural communities.
Penny Mordaunt has overtaken Kemi Badenoch to top the Cabinet popularity rankings among a panel of grassroots Tory Party activists.
The Leader of the Commons and the Business Secretary are the two bookmakers’ favourites to succeed Rishi Sunak if the Tories lose the next general election.
In this month’s ranking of Cabinet ministers by ConservativeHome, the Tory news and opinion website, Ms Mordaunt’s net satisfaction score rose by almost eight points from 47.5 to 55.3.
It is the first time the MP for Portsmouth North has topped the rankings since June 2019, when she was defence secretary, and comes in the wake of her attack on Sir Keir Starmer after he lobbied the Speaker to secure a vote on Labour’s stance on Gaza.
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cuts - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
How much should, in your opinion, a litre of petrol cost?
Under minimal alcohol pricing it should be at least £5, shouldn't it? (E10 -> 100ml ethanol -> 10 units @ 50p -> £5)
Of course, drivers of old bangers that need E5 could save 50%
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cuts - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
How much should, in your opinion, a litre of petrol cost?
Dunno. I'm just pointing out that, of all the options for reducing the tax burden on households, cutting fuel duty is a regressive way of doing it.
The cost of fuel is the single biggest determinant of both inflation and labour mobility, as was demonstrated in the past couple of years. The people most affected by increasing fuel prices are the working poor in rural communities.
Which I pointed out. Imagine what you could have done for rural communities with £100 billion though - a few extra bus services I reckon. Perhaps even some levelling up.
The Tories may have to spend half the GE campaign trying to explain why scrapping NI wont destroy public services and take away the state pension from those who have worked hard all their lives and paid in.
I see Reeves has already started this morning.
It's amazing how a long overdue tax cut for workers is immediately and ludicrously rebadged as an attack on state pensions, which are fully protected and triple locked.
Exactly and to be honest it will be a process over several years as income tax becomes payable at the same rate for workers and pensioners and fairness established in the tax system
I think you are both missing the simple fact that after 50+ years of being told that you need NI to have a state pension, many people will be thinking that phasing out NI means phasing out the state pension, only the Tories aren't admitting it.
In a lot of ways NI doesn't make sense - but its continued existence does act as a political check on any efforts to means test or otherwise limit the state pension, simply because so many people view it as a contributory system. You get rid of NI, you make it much easier to start chipping away at the pension too. You can understand people's worries. Child benefit was meant to be universal too, and look at what happened with that.
The state pension should be means tested. There's no reason for people like my mum and dad to receive it, they have income in retirement in excess of £120k per year from equity investments and private pensions.
As was discussed on here yesterday, the risk with means testing the pension (aside from the social cohesion issue - those who don't get it not wanting to fund other "scroungers") is the behavioural effect. Unless you set the taper very carefully you get a bunch of people stopping saving for retirement because it's better to have a smaller private pension and still get your state one. Same issue as the behavioural effects of the lifetime allowance or the child benefit taper.
The income tax system can take care of the "Rich Pensioner Problem".
It already does, to an extent.
Yes. @MaxPB’s parents will pay way more in income tax than they receive in state pensions, and the cost of means testing everyone to stop the paying the top 1% or even 10% of pensioners will be disproportionate - not to mention those who will for many reasons fall through the cracks of a complex system.
I’m sure Richard Branson and Jim Ratcliffe get paid something of a state pension too, a trivial amount of money dwarfed by other taxes paid by themselves and their companies.
Are you aware of how Branson started off his empire?
Yep, he’s always been something of a maverick thinking he can get away with stuff. Of course these days he’s legally based on his island in the BVI, alongside many of his businesses, still trying to avoid taxes.
That wasn't being a 'maverick'; it was a simple fraud.
I'm of the view that if someone starts off a business in a certain way, they'll continue. See also Zuckerberg and data theft.
Penny Mordaunt has overtaken Kemi Badenoch to top the Cabinet popularity rankings among a panel of grassroots Tory Party activists.
The Leader of the Commons and the Business Secretary are the two bookmakers’ favourites to succeed Rishi Sunak if the Tories lose the next general election.
In this month’s ranking of Cabinet ministers by ConservativeHome, the Tory news and opinion website, Ms Mordaunt’s net satisfaction score rose by almost eight points from 47.5 to 55.3.
It is the first time the MP for Portsmouth North has topped the rankings since June 2019, when she was defence secretary, and comes in the wake of her attack on Sir Keir Starmer after he lobbied the Speaker to secure a vote on Labour’s stance on Gaza.
The purported appeal of Bad Enoch was never clear. She went from invisible to useless as Business Secretary; is a wooden, uninspiring speaker and has zero leadership credentials.
Apart from all of those flaws, she is the perfect candidate.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has accused members of Parliament of hate speech and revealed he carries a panic alarm because of threats made against him.
The Most Rev Justin Welby said he had heard MPs and members of the Church of England making hateful comments “in the last few weeks” without specifying the incidents he was referring to.
The Archbishop’s remarks in an interview with The Spectator come less than a week after Rishi Sunak warned that extremists were attempting to undermine British democracy.
Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chairman, has also been suspended from the party after refusing to apologise for saying that Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, was controlled by “Islamists”.
In an apparent reference to the criticism the Church has faced for opposing the Rwanda plan, the Archbishop said it had been accused of “colluding with evil” and that he carried a panic alarm, although further details were not disclosed.
“And we certainly – particularly bishops who are women – have had an enormous increase over the last year or two in abusive language,” he said.
He added: “More can be done legally, I’m sure it can, rigorous prosecution of threats, rigorous prosecution of abusive use of social media.
“Members of both Houses of Parliament being very careful about language and not accepting hate speech.”
The Church said last month that it was conducting an urgent review of its policies towards asylum seekers after being accused of presiding over a “conveyor belt” of fake conversions that enabled baptised migrants to gain leave to remain.
It has since admitted that it may have been “scammed” in some cases but has insisted that the Home Office bears ultimate responsibility for approving or rejecting asylum applications.
But Mr Welby said he does not support open borders and agrees with the Government that immigration should be cut.
“There’s a lot of what the Government says which I entirely agree with,” he said. “The boats must be stopped. We must limit access to our borders: three-quarters of a million in any year seems to me to be far too many.
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cuts - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
How much should, in your opinion, a litre of petrol cost?
Dunno. I'm just pointing out that, of all the options for reducing the tax burden on households, cutting fuel duty is a regressive way of doing it.
The cost of fuel is the single biggest determinant of both inflation and labour mobility, as was demonstrated in the past couple of years. The people most affected by increasing fuel prices are the working poor in rural communities.
Which I pointed out. Imagine what you could have done for rural communities with £100 billion though - a few extra bus services I reckon. Perhaps even some levelling up.
But where does your £100bn come from? How much would petrol cost, under a scenario where £100bn extra was raised in taxes on it?
The Tories may have to spend half the GE campaign trying to explain why scrapping NI wont destroy public services and take away the state pension from those who have worked hard all their lives and paid in.
I see Reeves has already started this morning.
It's amazing how a long overdue tax cut for workers is immediately and ludicrously rebadged as an attack on state pensions, which are fully protected and triple locked.
Exactly and to be honest it will be a process over several years as income tax becomes payable at the same rate for workers and pensioners and fairness established in the tax system
I think you are both missing the simple fact that after 50+ years of being told that you need NI to have a state pension, many people will be thinking that phasing out NI means phasing out the state pension, only the Tories aren't admitting it.
In a lot of ways NI doesn't make sense - but its continued existence does act as a political check on any efforts to means test or otherwise limit the state pension, simply because so many people view it as a contributory system. You get rid of NI, you make it much easier to start chipping away at the pension too. You can understand people's worries. Child benefit was meant to be universal too, and look at what happened with that.
The state pension should be means tested. There's no reason for people like my mum and dad to receive it, they have income in retirement in excess of £120k per year from equity investments and private pensions.
As was discussed on here yesterday, the risk with means testing the pension (aside from the social cohesion issue - those who don't get it not wanting to fund other "scroungers") is the behavioural effect. Unless you set the taper very carefully you get a bunch of people stopping saving for retirement because it's better to have a smaller private pension and still get your state one. Same issue as the behavioural effects of the lifetime allowance or the child benefit taper.
The income tax system can take care of the "Rich Pensioner Problem".
It already does, to an extent.
Yes. @MaxPB’s parents will pay way more in income tax than they receive in state pensions, and the cost of means testing everyone to stop the paying the top 1% or even 10% of pensioners will be disproportionate - not to mention those who will for many reasons fall through the cracks of a complex system.
I’m sure Richard Branson and Jim Ratcliffe get paid something of a state pension too, a trivial amount of money dwarfed by other taxes paid by themselves and their companies.
Are you aware of how Branson started off his empire?
So, calculate for a typical 3-bed semi with two working parents (a "typical family") the delta of council tax, mortage/rent, energy bills, food bills, employment tax and transport/fuel today v. 2019. Also do it for nominal salary growth so you get it in real-terms.
In my case - four bed detached home that's 40 years old and heavily mortgaged - it's probably council tax up £60 a month, mortgage up £500 a month, energy up £50 a month, food bills up £150 a month, fuel roughly the same and trains up £100 a month. Tax down £100 per month but fiscally squeezed.
So probably £800 a month worse off. And that's before you get to leisure and going out.£10k a year. That's a big deal. But if the baseline were 2007-8 when mortgage rates were more normal it'd be more like £300.
Salary not representative since I got a big new job in 2021 that's absorbed it. But it's no wonder people aren't happy.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
Well, the obvious thing would be to increase income tax to compensate. So it's easily funded. However, presumably Hunt wouldn't want the inevitable Pensioner Tax headlines it'd generate (despite it being entirely right that non-workers on £x per year should pay at least as much direct tax as a non-worker on £x, IMO).
Liz Truss's big mistake was not the unfunded tax cuts per se. It was that she bypassed the entire economic establishment in order to make unfunded tax cuts. That is what spooked the markets. Whereas when the Gnomes of Zurich examine Hunt's effort, they will see the same holes but figure that if the OBR and BoE and Treasury are happy, it is probably be all right.
It was shocking hubris and imo the point at which the next election became unwinnable for the Cons. Probably not just the next one either. The Cons have trashed the thing most electorally valuable to them - the notion that they are better than Labour at taking care of the economy and the public finances.
This was always a nonsense but perceptions count for more than reality in politics (as Joe Biden is finding to his cost at the moment). Because of Truss the Cons are now seen as less competent on money matters than Labour. Unless Labour have their own Truss moment this will likely remain the case for quite some time. Which means the Cons will likely be out of power for quite some time too.
Looking at it, it seems to be a Daily Mail budget - for those who Hunt hopes (perhaps folornly) may vote for them.
So a budget for Shrodinger's Conservative Voter.
Benefits for Middle England, on salaries of approx 35k to 80k, paid for by the less rich and the very rich, and savings on public services paid for by service users.
The OBR predictions demonstrate that said Conservative voter will be bent over and porked from 2025, but being a DM reader may be hoped to be too gullible to notice.
Analysis from the Resolution Foundation:
"‘Sweet and sour’ Budget combines £8 billion election year personal tax cuts with post-election plans for £38 billion of tax rises and spending cuts Middle earners gain at the expense of pensioners and public service users"
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cuts - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
How much should, in your opinion, a litre of petrol cost?
Dunno. I'm just pointing out that, of all the options for reducing the tax burden on households, cutting fuel duty is a regressive way of doing it.
The cost of fuel is the single biggest determinant of both inflation and labour mobility, as was demonstrated in the past couple of years. The people most affected by increasing fuel prices are the working poor in rural communities.
Which I pointed out. Imagine what you could have done for rural communities with £100 billion though - a few extra bus services I reckon. Perhaps even some levelling up.
But where does your £100bn come from? How much would petrol cost, under a scenario where £100bn extra was raised in taxes on it?
You could make the same argument about any tax - what about VAT? The point is that it's a short term regressive measure for the Tory client vote. If you were really concerned about the cost-of-living crisis or poverty, you would have distributed that £100 billion in a more equitable way - a NICs cut? Universal Credit?
Alternatively, you would have built something like HS2.
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cut - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
But fuel duty is a percentage of the total cost. If the cost of fuel goes down, then the amount raised will go down. The rate of fuel duty hasn’t been cut, as far as I am aware.
Fuel duty is an absolute value and has been at fixed at that value since 2011-12, plus a 5p cut from 2022-23.
Sorry, I had thought it was proportional. If the fraction of the total cost is relatively stable I don’t see it as a problem.
The Tories may have to spend half the GE campaign trying to explain why scrapping NI wont destroy public services and take away the state pension from those who have worked hard all their lives and paid in.
I see Reeves has already started this morning.
It's amazing how a long overdue tax cut for workers is immediately and ludicrously rebadged as an attack on state pensions, which are fully protected and triple locked.
Exactly and to be honest it will be a process over several years as income tax becomes payable at the same rate for workers and pensioners and fairness established in the tax system
I think you are both missing the simple fact that after 50+ years of being told that you need NI to have a state pension, many people will be thinking that phasing out NI means phasing out the state pension, only the Tories aren't admitting it.
In a lot of ways NI doesn't make sense - but its continued existence does act as a political check on any efforts to means test or otherwise limit the state pension, simply because so many people view it as a contributory system. You get rid of NI, you make it much easier to start chipping away at the pension too. You can understand people's worries. Child benefit was meant to be universal too, and look at what happened with that.
The state pension should be means tested. There's no reason for people like my mum and dad to receive it, they have income in retirement in excess of £120k per year from equity investments and private pensions.
As was discussed on here yesterday, the risk with means testing the pension (aside from the social cohesion issue - those who don't get it not wanting to fund other "scroungers") is the behavioural effect. Unless you set the taper very carefully you get a bunch of people stopping saving for retirement because it's better to have a smaller private pension and still get your state one. Same issue as the behavioural effects of the lifetime allowance or the child benefit taper.
The income tax system can take care of the "Rich Pensioner Problem".
It already does, to an extent.
Yes. @MaxPB’s parents will pay way more in income tax than they receive in state pensions, and the cost of means testing everyone to stop the paying the top 1% or even 10% of pensioners will be disproportionate - not to mention those who will for many reasons fall through the cracks of a complex system.
I’m sure Richard Branson and Jim Ratcliffe get paid something of a state pension too, a trivial amount of money dwarfed by other taxes paid by themselves and their companies.
Also means testing simply doesn’t work when you get to elderly people - the number of people who don’t claim what they are entitled to is scary - even locally it’s high and people put effort into ensuring people know what they are entitled to
As an elderly person, I reckon I will have paid far more in NI than I have received in State Pension, other state benefits and my demands on the NHS. I don’t have a problem with this, and am happy to pay my share of tax.
Those bemoaning the triple lock should remember that the State Pension is less generous than in most other comparable countries. The triple lock is helping redress the imbalance. It should be allowed to increase until pension credit is not required to help provide sufficient income for poorer pensioners to live on.
Private pensions are what forward thinking people use, if they can afford the contributions, to put aside money when they are working, to help fund a comfortable lifestyle when they can no longer work. If that means their income in retirement means they pay more tax, so be it.
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
You live in a world of fantasy, comrade.
Putting aside all the other, well trodden arguments - the £100 billion cumulative cut to fuel duty has been regressive, with car ownership and car mileage highly correlated with household incomes.
That's not a blanket rule, of course - many people in the highlands of Scotland are poor and entirely reliant on their cars. But still - most poor people are relatively much more likely walk or take a bus (where it exists).
Has it been cut? I thought it simply wasn’t increased.
14 years of real terms cuts - the inverse of what has been going on with income tax bands, for example.
How much should, in your opinion, a litre of petrol cost?
Dunno. I'm just pointing out that, of all the options for reducing the tax burden on households, cutting fuel duty is a regressive way of doing it.
The cost of fuel is the single biggest determinant of both inflation and labour mobility, as was demonstrated in the past couple of years. The people most affected by increasing fuel prices are the working poor in rural communities.
Which I pointed out. Imagine what you could have done for rural communities with £100 billion though - a few extra bus services I reckon. Perhaps even some levelling up.
But where does your £100bn come from? How much would petrol cost, under a scenario where £100bn extra was raised in taxes on it?
You could make the same argument about any tax - what about VAT? The point is that it's a short term regressive measure for the Tory client vote. If you were really concerned about the cost-of-living crisis or poverty, you would have distributed that £100 billion in a more equitable way - a NICs cut? Universal Credit?
Alternatively, you would have built something like HS2.
But the problem is the £100bn number is plucked from thin air. If petrol had cost, because of government policy, what it did in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, continually for the past decade, economic growth and overall tax revenues would have fallen quite dramatically and there would have been significant protests.
Okay, I’ll give you some numbers. Duty on a litre of fuel is 52p and raises £25bn per year.
So in order to have raised £100bn extra in the past decade, it would need to be approx £2.50 per litre in duty, so petrol would cost around £3.20. Assuming that no-one changed their behaviour and bought less of the stuff, and no-one quit their job and claimed unemployment because they coudn’t afford to get to work.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
Well, the obvious thing would be to increase income tax to compensate. So it's easily funded. However, presumably Hunt wouldn't want the inevitable Pensioner Tax headlines it'd generate (despite it being entirely right that non-workers on £x per year should pay at least as much direct tax as a non-worker on £x, IMO).
Liz Truss's big mistake was not the unfunded tax cuts per se. It was that she bypassed the entire economic establishment in order to make unfunded tax cuts. That is what spooked the markets. Whereas when the Gnomes of Zurich examine Hunt's effort, they will see the same holes but figure that if the OBR and BoE and Treasury are happy, it is probably be all right.
It was shocking hubris and imo the point at which the next election became unwinnable for the Cons. Probably not just the next one either. The Cons have trashed the thing most electorally valuable to them - the notion that they are better than Labour at taking care of the economy and the public finances.
This was always a nonsense but perceptions count for more than reality in politics (as Joe Biden is finding to his cost at the moment). Because of Truss the Cons are now seen as less competent on money matters than Labour. Unless Labour have their own Truss moment this will likely remain the case for quite some time. Which means the Cons will likely be out of power for quite some time too.
Funny thing is in stealing a lot of Labour policies, the Tories have neutralised their own criticisms of them - and SKS was being pretty cowardly in putting policies forwasrd anyway. So it has reset the electoral situation in a way that absolves Labour of blame for these policies, while opening up Labour options.
So, calculate for a typical 3-bed semi with two working parents (a "typical family") the delta of council tax, mortage/rent, energy bills, food bills, employment tax and transport/fuel today v. 2019. Also do it for nominal salary growth so you get it in real-terms.
In my case - four bed detached home that's 40 years old and heavily mortgaged - it's probably council tax up £60 a month, mortgage up £500 a month, energy up £50 a month, food bills up £150 a month, fuel roughly the same and trains up £100 a month. Tax down £100 per month but fiscally squeezed.
So probably £800 a month worse off. And that's before you get to leisure and going out.£10k a year. That's a big deal. But if the baseline were 2007-8 when mortgage rates were more normal it'd be more like £300.
Salary not representative since I got a big new job in 2021 that's absorbed it. But it's no wonder people aren't happy.
And yet the country collectively is still living beyond its means and isn't spending enough on business or state investment.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
The Tories may have to spend half the GE campaign trying to explain why scrapping NI wont destroy public services and take away the state pension from those who have worked hard all their lives and paid in.
I see Reeves has already started this morning.
It's amazing how a long overdue tax cut for workers is immediately and ludicrously rebadged as an attack on state pensions, which are fully protected and triple locked.
Exactly and to be honest it will be a process over several years as income tax becomes payable at the same rate for workers and pensioners and fairness established in the tax system
I think you are both missing the simple fact that after 50+ years of being told that you need NI to have a state pension, many people will be thinking that phasing out NI means phasing out the state pension, only the Tories aren't admitting it.
In a lot of ways NI doesn't make sense - but its continued existence does act as a political check on any efforts to means test or otherwise limit the state pension, simply because so many people view it as a contributory system. You get rid of NI, you make it much easier to start chipping away at the pension too. You can understand people's worries. Child benefit was meant to be universal too, and look at what happened with that.
The state pension should be means tested. There's no reason for people like my mum and dad to receive it, they have income in retirement in excess of £120k per year from equity investments and private pensions.
As was discussed on here yesterday, the risk with means testing the pension (aside from the social cohesion issue - those who don't get it not wanting to fund other "scroungers") is the behavioural effect. Unless you set the taper very carefully you get a bunch of people stopping saving for retirement because it's better to have a smaller private pension and still get your state one. Same issue as the behavioural effects of the lifetime allowance or the child benefit taper.
The income tax system can take care of the "Rich Pensioner Problem".
It already does, to an extent.
Yes. @MaxPB’s parents will pay way more in income tax than they receive in state pensions, and the cost of means testing everyone to stop the paying the top 1% or even 10% of pensioners will be disproportionate - not to mention those who will for many reasons fall through the cracks of a complex system.
I’m sure Richard Branson and Jim Ratcliffe get paid something of a state pension too, a trivial amount of money dwarfed by other taxes paid by themselves and their companies.
Also means testing simply doesn’t work when you get to elderly people - the number of people who don’t claim what they are entitled to is scary - even locally it’s high and people put effort into ensuring people know what they are entitled to
As an elderly person, I reckon I will have paid far more in NI than I have received in State Pension, other state benefits and my demands on the NHS. I don’t have a problem with this, and am happy to pay my share of tax.
Those bemoaning the triple lock should remember that the State Pension is less generous than in most other comparable countries. The triple lock is helping redress the imbalance. It should be allowed to increase until pension credit is not required to help provide sufficient income for poorer pensioners to live on.
Private pensions are what forward thinking people use, if they can afford the contributions, to put aside money when they are working, to help fund a comfortable lifestyle when they can no longer work. If that means their income in retirement means they pay more tax, so be it.
As I understand it the retired cohort, as a whole, are taking out much more in pensions and health and social care than they put in. The demographic evolution of the last few decades guarantees this.
Our pensions are indeed much lower than most other comparable European countries as is our spending on health and social care, but then so is our tax burden as a proportion of GDP. The difference being made up largely by employers' social security payments.
The triple lock did have some logic to it when first introduced and would I think have been justifiable if everyone else was also getting increases in government support or service quality. The issue has been pensions rising steadily while pretty much everything else goes down.
As an elderly person, I reckon I will have paid far more in NI than I have received in State Pension, other state benefits and my demands on the NHS.
Probably true for the first few years after you hit state pension age, but for a lifetime unless you die relatively young given the NI employees pay on 100k is less than 5 grand a year and the state pension is over double that the numbers will be very small and in aggregate pension costs are definitely going to be higher than employee NI over a lifetime now with these changes.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Penny Mordaunt has overtaken Kemi Badenoch to top the Cabinet popularity rankings among a panel of grassroots Tory Party activists.
The Leader of the Commons and the Business Secretary are the two bookmakers’ favourites to succeed Rishi Sunak if the Tories lose the next general election.
In this month’s ranking of Cabinet ministers by ConservativeHome, the Tory news and opinion website, Ms Mordaunt’s net satisfaction score rose by almost eight points from 47.5 to 55.3.
It is the first time the MP for Portsmouth North has topped the rankings since June 2019, when she was defence secretary, and comes in the wake of her attack on Sir Keir Starmer after he lobbied the Speaker to secure a vote on Labour’s stance on Gaza.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
Well, the obvious thing would be to increase income tax to compensate. So it's easily funded. However, presumably Hunt wouldn't want the inevitable Pensioner Tax headlines it'd generate (despite it being entirely right that non-workers on £x per year should pay at least as much direct tax as a non-worker on £x, IMO).
Liz Truss's big mistake was not the unfunded tax cuts per se. It was that she bypassed the entire economic establishment in order to make unfunded tax cuts. That is what spooked the markets. Whereas when the Gnomes of Zurich examine Hunt's effort, they will see the same holes but figure that if the OBR and BoE and Treasury are happy, it is probably be all right.
I always wonder how far the Queen's death played into that situation.
I think I'm right in saying that Tom Scholar was removed as Permanent Secretary at the Treasury on the very day of the Queen's death. That would have been a big deal, with a lot of pressure on Truss/Kwarteng from markets and MPs to appoint someone in whom there was equivalent confidence very promptly and before any major budget announcements. But this was all immediately swept out of the news cycle by events at Balmoral, and the news was wholly dominated by the Queen for a couple of weeks. There was no Permanent Secretary whilst the "mini" Budget was being prepared, and essentially no political or press scrutiny of a new and (choosing words carefully) full of "confidence" Chancellor preparing his move. Scholar's successor, James Bowler, didn't come in from the Department for International Trade until the crisis was in full swing, a couple of days before Kwarteng was forced out.
Kwarteng and Truss were always bonkers, clearly, and the Queen dying didn't cause that. But, potentially, it was everyone's eyes being completely off the ball in September 2022 that allowed things to go so far, so fast.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
Well, the obvious thing would be to increase income tax to compensate. So it's easily funded. However, presumably Hunt wouldn't want the inevitable Pensioner Tax headlines it'd generate (despite it being entirely right that non-workers on £x per year should pay at least as much direct tax as a non-worker on £x, IMO).
Liz Truss's big mistake was not the unfunded tax cuts per se. It was that she bypassed the entire economic establishment in order to make unfunded tax cuts. That is what spooked the markets. Whereas when the Gnomes of Zurich examine Hunt's effort, they will see the same holes but figure that if the OBR and BoE and Treasury are happy, it is probably be all right.
It was shocking hubris and imo the point at which the next election became unwinnable for the Cons. Probably not just the next one either. The Cons have trashed the thing most electorally valuable to them - the notion that they are better than Labour at taking care of the economy and the public finances.
This was always a nonsense but perceptions count for more than reality in politics (as Joe Biden is finding to his cost at the moment). Because of Truss the Cons are now seen as less competent on money matters than Labour. Unless Labour have their own Truss moment this will likely remain the case for quite some time. Which means the Cons will likely be out of power for quite some time too.
Funny thing is in stealing a lot of Labour policies, the Tories have neutralised their own criticisms of them - and SKS was being pretty cowardly in putting policies forwasrd anyway. So it has reset the electoral situation in a way that absolves Labour of blame for these policies, while opening up Labour options.
I suppose the idea is to throw Labour's fiscal calculations out of balance so they either commit to tax rises ("Same old Labour, taxing you to death") or to spending cuts ("What's the point of Labour if they just mimic us?") or go with unfunded proposals ("Same old Labour, maxing out the credit card").
"actually you're still paying the most amount of tax ever"
This keeps being said, but I'm not sure it's true for me personally. Maybe I'm just an anomoly but on my end of year bonus payment I paid 22.4% total tax and NI because whilst still being in the basic rate for tax on the annual basis I benefitted from the payment in the month exceeding the monthly NI threshold. Anyway income over the basic threshold will now be taxed at 26% rather than the eye watering 32% it was previously. Would have been nice financially if my daughter was 23 days older as we'd have got this term funded rather than waiting for September's 15 hours (A wrinkle the hours moving down to 9 months will obliterate for future cohorts and then some) but you can't have everything
It won't be true for every individual. But the majority of voters are screaming under the burden. They know, and being told "we have just cut your taxes again" won't help the Tories as people see their taxes going up, not down.
Most people don't really know what tax rates they pay. It's just not a visible thing. Even those with self-assessment and tax returns see the *amount* they pay much more visibly than the *rate*.
But even more important is the essential bills people pay, which includes tax but also rent, mortgages, utilities and necessary weekly shop, for example. The overall combination of that lot - and the amount left over afterwards - matters far more than the individual items, still less their internal calculations.
I think that's true, despite the UK having much sharper blocs of tax (20/40/45) than many countries. When I lived in Switzerland, income tax was gently increaed right up the scale, so if you earned 1000 francs more, you'd pay 36.6% instead of 36.4%, etc. Taxpayers were all sent spreadsheets to show what to expect, but they'd certainly struggle to give you an exact %.
That is probably why the £100-125K 60% tax bracket never gets fixed, despite being a really obvious anomaly compared with, say, a 43% tax from £80K.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
Well, the obvious thing would be to increase income tax to compensate. So it's easily funded. However, presumably Hunt wouldn't want the inevitable Pensioner Tax headlines it'd generate (despite it being entirely right that non-workers on £x per year should pay at least as much direct tax as a non-worker on £x, IMO).
Liz Truss's big mistake was not the unfunded tax cuts per se. It was that she bypassed the entire economic establishment in order to make unfunded tax cuts. That is what spooked the markets. Whereas when the Gnomes of Zurich examine Hunt's effort, they will see the same holes but figure that if the OBR and BoE and Treasury are happy, it is probably be all right.
I always wonder how far the Queen's death played into that situation.
I think I'm right in saying that Tom Scholar was removed as Permanent Secretary at the Treasury on the very day of the Queen's death. That would have been a big deal, with a lot of pressure on Truss/Kwarteng from markets and MPs to appoint someone in whom there was equivalent confidence very promptly and before any major budget announcements. But this was all immediately swept out of the news cycle by events at Balmoral, and the news was wholly dominated by the Queen for a couple of weeks. There was no Permanent Secretary whilst the "mini" Budget was being prepared, and essentially no political or press scrutiny of a new and (choosing words carefully) full of "confidence" Chancellor preparing his move. Scholar's successor, James Bowler, didn't come in from the Department for International Trade until the crisis was in full swing, a couple of days before Kwarteng was forced out.
Kwarteng and Truss were always bonkers, clearly, and the Queen dying didn't cause that. But, potentially, it was everyone's eyes being completely off the ball in September 2022 that allowed things to go so far, so fast.
To an extent, perhaps, but at root, Liz Truss had form for sacking senior civil servants from her previous departments, so getting rid of Tom Scholar and sidelining the BoE and OBR were part of the plan.
Just LOLing at today's 'only on PB' claim that UK motorists pay the full cost of motoring.
Trivially debunked with a 20-second google search.
LOL
Show your workings then.
Not my workings, but workings of easily searchable academic studies. I love my car, I like big SUVs... but the idea that motoring pays for itself is for the birds I'm afraid.
Cars are a major household expense, yet there is limited comprehension of their private (internal) and social (external) cost per km, year, or lifetime of use. So says ‘The lifetime cost of driving a car‘ by Stefan Gossling, Jessica Kees and Todd Litman (Linnaeus University and Lund University in Sweden), new research which puts the sum at about £500,000 – an eye watering sum of which society pays 41%.
The internal costs are particularly burdensome to low-income motorists who must invest a large share of their net income to own and operate a private vehicle. Furthermore, poorer neighbourhoods are more likely to be plagued by motor traffic air pollution and road danger. This has many implications for households, policy makers and practitioners.
It’s not the first time academic research has highlighted the true cost of motoring. The fallacy that drivers are ‘cash cows’ and pay a disproportionate amount of tax was debunked by a study in 2012 which demonstrated that road traffic collisions, pollution and noise associated with motor vehicles cost every EU citizen more than £600 a year.
First, the good news: another academic study using conventional cost-benefit analysis finds that motorists in the 27 EU countries have a net economic cost to society, with the UK second only to Germany in costs. Take a look at the nice short summary in the Guardian. It’s good to counteract what the Guardian correctly calls “The perennial complaint from drivers that they are excessively taxed”, not least the prejudice that cyclists are cheating by “not paying a tax”. The figure given for these external costs – £48 billion per annum, some £10 billion more than the total of motoring taxation revenue – looks pretty damning. However, it can be argued that the costs of motoring to society are considerably greater than those in the picture painted in the study, and that the report is inadequately critical of the status quo.
...There are next to no negative externalities from motoring...
Apart from the deaths and injuries and the cost of the emergency services?
The average number of deaths per mile driven in the UK is 0.000000009
A figure so minisculely low you need scientific notation to get a calculator to even display it.
What number of deaths per mile would you need for it to count as a negative externality?
Ultimately, there are about 1,500 deaths in the UK on the roads each year - and we're one of the safest countries in which to drive in the world. There are many more significant injuries. I'd certainly not argue that people shouldn't drive because of it - and that's not what a negative externality is. But to pretend it's a trivial negative externality is not one of your better takes.
Penny Mordaunt has overtaken Kemi Badenoch to top the Cabinet popularity rankings among a panel of grassroots Tory Party activists.
The Leader of the Commons and the Business Secretary are the two bookmakers’ favourites to succeed Rishi Sunak if the Tories lose the next general election.
In this month’s ranking of Cabinet ministers by ConservativeHome, the Tory news and opinion website, Ms Mordaunt’s net satisfaction score rose by almost eight points from 47.5 to 55.3.
It is the first time the MP for Portsmouth North has topped the rankings since June 2019, when she was defence secretary, and comes in the wake of her attack on Sir Keir Starmer after he lobbied the Speaker to secure a vote on Labour’s stance on Gaza.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
...There are next to no negative externalities from motoring...
Apart from the deaths and injuries and the cost of the emergency services?
The average number of deaths per mile driven in the UK is 0.000000009
A figure so minisculely low you need scientific notation to get a calculator to even display it.
What number of deaths per mile would you need for it to count as a negative externality?
Ultimately, there are about 1,500 deaths in the UK on the roads each year - and we're one of the safest countries in which to drive in the world. There are many more significant injuries. I'd certainly not argue that people shouldn't drive because of it - and that's not what a negative externality is. But to pretend it's a trivial negative externality is not one of your better takes.
I guess if you haven't killed someone while driving then you haven't driven far enough for the good of the economy and your freedom.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
If something's broadly universally acknowledged to be a good idea though (Non Dom tax rather than the thorny issue of appropriate motoring taxation) - why should we care which party implements it ?
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Yes, but there is a balance to be struck.
If you are seeking a mandate then it is incumbent on you in a representative democracy to at least try to set out your stall. If Labour think that the right way to govern is to keep schtum until after the votes have been cast and then worry about selling the way forward to voters after the election, then that is a very high risk strategy for a first term government, and not particularly encouraging.
I don’t expect them to set out their full stall now.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
I think the nondom policy (and the windfall tax) goes beyond that old adage, given how long and loud the Tories opposed the policy, and how much Tory opposition there is to the windfall tax.
It's a sign of desperation for the Tories that they will implement Labour policies they disagree with, solely for the purpose of trying to create a difficulty for Labour when it comes to writing their manifesto.
It was the same with HS2. The point of scrapping it was mainly to create a trap for Labour.
There's quite a lot of random damage being done to public policy as a result of that sort of game-playing.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
Well, the obvious thing would be to increase income tax to compensate. So it's easily funded. However, presumably Hunt wouldn't want the inevitable Pensioner Tax headlines it'd generate (despite it being entirely right that non-workers on £x per year should pay at least as much direct tax as a non-worker on £x, IMO).
Liz Truss's big mistake was not the unfunded tax cuts per se. It was that she bypassed the entire economic establishment in order to make unfunded tax cuts. That is what spooked the markets. Whereas when the Gnomes of Zurich examine Hunt's effort, they will see the same holes but figure that if the OBR and BoE and Treasury are happy, it is probably be all right.
I always wonder how far the Queen's death played into that situation.
I think I'm right in saying that Tom Scholar was removed as Permanent Secretary at the Treasury on the very day of the Queen's death. That would have been a big deal, with a lot of pressure on Truss/Kwarteng from markets and MPs to appoint someone in whom there was equivalent confidence very promptly and before any major budget announcements. But this was all immediately swept out of the news cycle by events at Balmoral, and the news was wholly dominated by the Queen for a couple of weeks. There was no Permanent Secretary whilst the "mini" Budget was being prepared, and essentially no political or press scrutiny of a new and (choosing words carefully) full of "confidence" Chancellor preparing his move. Scholar's successor, James Bowler, didn't come in from the Department for International Trade until the crisis was in full swing, a couple of days before Kwarteng was forced out.
Kwarteng and Truss were always bonkers, clearly, and the Queen dying didn't cause that. But, potentially, it was everyone's eyes being completely off the ball in September 2022 that allowed things to go so far, so fast.
To an extent, perhaps, but at root, Liz Truss had form for sacking senior civil servants from her previous departments, so getting rid of Tom Scholar and sidelining the BoE and OBR were part of the plan.
I think that's right, and actually it isn't in itself the worst thing in the world to want a team of senior civil servants around you who are aligned with what you're trying to do. Often, you can do that by shuffling the deck but, right at the top, you can't - there was no move for Tom Scholar that wouldn't have been a major demotion.
My point is that, absent the Queen's death, there would have been a great deal of pressure to appoint an appropriate replacement promptly and certainly before the mini Budget. Tom Scholar was highly respected, but John Bowler was a perfectly fine replacement who is still there - just he came in a fortnight too late.
I suspect a permanent replacement would have had sufficient authority to say something along the lines, "Fine, you feel the OBR is overly cautious and restrictive. So let's ensure they review proposals and, when they raise concerns, ensure we have plausible responses to all of them. We can worry about reforming or removing the OBR later via legislation".
No doubt senior civil servants were saying that, but they would have lacked the authority (particularly if they had an eye on promotion to the vacant top job) to lead the debate.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
If something's broadly universally acknowledged to be a good idea though (Non Dom tax rather than the thorny issue of appropriate motoring taxation) - why should we care which party implements it ?
No, but in terms of political strategy it's silly to reveal policies ahead of the campaign for the reasons stated.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
I think the nondom policy (and the windfall tax) goes beyond that old adage, given how long and loud the Tories opposed the policy, and how much Tory opposition there is to the windfall tax.
It's a sign of desperation for the Tories that they will implement Labour policies they disagree with, solely for the purpose of trying to create a difficulty for Labour when it comes to writing their manifesto.
It was the same with HS2. The point of scrapping it was mainly to create a trap for Labour.
There's quite a lot of random damage being done to public policy as a result of that sort of game-playing.
Sure, but politics is a brutal game.
Labour need to be more savvy – the nondom heist is proof of that.
Yep. As I pointed out yesterday - this is effectively a Brucey Bonus for landlords who are selling.
Ordinary voters dont pay it as not on residential property you live in.
What on earth is Hunt's logic with this cut?
I'm neither a tenant nor a landlord myself but isn't shifting the burden to landlords ongoing costs (As has been happening) and reducing their capital gains on sale going to reduce overall market friction for the same net ? And as @MattW pointed out this tax is 0% (Rightly in my view) for OO.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
Yes. I would add that Labour's manifesto is going to shed little light. It will say "We are where we are because of Tories, we would like to be where we would like to be because we are Labour, and because of Tories we will put everything that costs more than 10p or a single GE vote up for review once we have examined the treasury's books, after which we shall tell you what those review items are".
And, to be fair, that would be as close to honesty as they can get.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Yes, but there is a balance to be struck.
If you are seeking a mandate then it is incumbent on you in a representative democracy to at least try to set out your stall. If Labour think that the right way to govern is to keep schtum until after the votes have been cast and then worry about selling the way forward to voters after the election, then that is a very high risk strategy for a first term government, and not particularly encouraging.
I don’t expect them to set out their full stall now.
The time to do that stall-setting is in a manifesto – not months or years prior to a general election.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
Well, the obvious thing would be to increase income tax to compensate. So it's easily funded. However, presumably Hunt wouldn't want the inevitable Pensioner Tax headlines it'd generate (despite it being entirely right that non-workers on £x per year should pay at least as much direct tax as a non-worker on £x, IMO).
Liz Truss's big mistake was not the unfunded tax cuts per se. It was that she bypassed the entire economic establishment in order to make unfunded tax cuts. That is what spooked the markets. Whereas when the Gnomes of Zurich examine Hunt's effort, they will see the same holes but figure that if the OBR and BoE and Treasury are happy, it is probably be all right.
It was shocking hubris and imo the point at which the next election became unwinnable for the Cons. Probably not just the next one either. The Cons have trashed the thing most electorally valuable to them - the notion that they are better than Labour at taking care of the economy and the public finances.
This was always a nonsense but perceptions count for more than reality in politics (as Joe Biden is finding to his cost at the moment). Because of Truss the Cons are now seen as less competent on money matters than Labour. Unless Labour have their own Truss moment this will likely remain the case for quite some time. Which means the Cons will likely be out of power for quite some time too.
Funny thing is in stealing a lot of Labour policies, the Tories have neutralised their own criticisms of them - and SKS was being pretty cowardly in putting policies forwasrd anyway. So it has reset the electoral situation in a way that absolves Labour of blame for these policies, while opening up Labour options.
It would be funny if the Cons forced Lab into rediscovering their radical (well, weakly progressive) mojo by stealing their not frightening the tabloid reading horses manifesto. I suspect there would be a lot of searching around for alternative milquetoast policies first though.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
It’s not an unfunded tax cut since it hasn’t been put forward as a proposal without compensatory changes elsewhere. Getting rid of NI will be a good thing, but Labour want to poison the well on this, too, like they did with social care?
I think you've got your tenses wrong.
"Will" refers to it as something that is going to happen. Clearly you meant to use would i.e "Getting rid of NI WOULD be a good thing...". The plans for such a change don't exist beyond a vague ambition floated by someone who won't be around as Chancellor in 2025 and may not even be an MP, and as you say the compensatory changes are not spelt out.
However, even by floating the idea of getting rid of NI, what Hunt might have done is to open the door to a future Labour government merging income tax and employees NI into a new "national income contribution". If that was done simply by abolishing employees NI and loading the basic rate of income tax, then to raise the same amount of revenue the new rebranded tax could be levied at a lower basic rate than the present 20% income tax and 8% employees NI combined. And if the basic rate of the new "national income contribution" were set at say 25% or 26%, then Tory sophistry couldn't ignore NI and accuse Labour of raising the basic rate of income tax, because income tax would no longer exist.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
I think the nondom policy (and the windfall tax) goes beyond that old adage, given how long and loud the Tories opposed the policy, and how much Tory opposition there is to the windfall tax.
It's a sign of desperation for the Tories that they will implement Labour policies they disagree with, solely for the purpose of trying to create a difficulty for Labour when it comes to writing their manifesto.
It was the same with HS2. The point of scrapping it was mainly to create a trap for Labour.
There's quite a lot of random damage being done to public policy as a result of that sort of game-playing.
Sure, but politics is a brutal game.
Labour need to be more savvy – the nondom heist is proof of that.
I agree. Labour should have done more in terms of general mood music - this is what is wrong, and these are the principles that will make things better - and less of the specific policy proposals.
When the Tories took over in 2010 they had a very clear message - Labour overspending and mismanagement crashed the economy and we have to do grown-up things to clear up the mess.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
I think the nondom policy (and the windfall tax) goes beyond that old adage, given how long and loud the Tories opposed the policy, and how much Tory opposition there is to the windfall tax.
It's a sign of desperation for the Tories that they will implement Labour policies they disagree with, solely for the purpose of trying to create a difficulty for Labour when it comes to writing their manifesto.
It was the same with HS2. The point of scrapping it was mainly to create a trap for Labour.
There's quite a lot of random damage being done to public policy as a result of that sort of game-playing.
Sure, but politics is a brutal game.
Labour need to be more savvy – the nondom heist is proof of that.
I agree. Labour should have done more in terms of general mood music - this is what is wrong, and these are the principles that will make things better - and less of the specific policy proposals.
When the Tories took over in 2010 they had a very clear message - Labour overspending and mismanagement crashed the economy and we have to do grown-up things to clear up the mess.
What's Labour's message?
Hunt's proposed future NI changes give the opportunity for a clear dividing line. Tories less tax. Labour, better public services. Now admittedly that's been the traditional dividing line since time began, t'was ever thus.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Yes, but there is a balance to be struck.
If you are seeking a mandate then it is incumbent on you in a representative democracy to at least try to set out your stall. If Labour think that the right way to govern is to keep schtum until after the votes have been cast and then worry about selling the way forward to voters after the election, then that is a very high risk strategy for a first term government, and not particularly encouraging.
I don’t expect them to set out their full stall now.
The time to do that stall-setting is in a manifesto – not months or years prior to a general election.
From a strategic viewpoint, quite possibly. This doesn’t alleviate my concerns, however, about the lack of real distinguishing being attempted. But maybe this will come in the manifesto. I hope so, because I want Labour to have grasped the magnitude of the situation, and I want them to form a government that will make things better.
@e_casalicchio Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
It’s not an unfunded tax cut since it hasn’t been put forward as a proposal without compensatory changes elsewhere. Getting rid of NI will be a good thing, but Labour want to poison the well on this, too, like they did with social care?
I think you've got your tenses wrong.
"Will" refers to it as something that is going to happen. Clearly you meant to use would i.e "Getting rid of NI WOULD be a good thing...". The plans for such a change don't exist beyond a vague ambition floated by someone who won't be around as Chancellor in 2025 and may not even be an MP, and as you say the compensatory changes are not spelt out.
However, even by floating the idea of getting rid of NI, what Hunt might have done is to open the door to a future Labour government merging income tax and employees NI into a new "national income contribution". If that was done simply by abolishing employees NI and loading the basic rate of income tax, then to raise the same amount of revenue the new rebranded tax could be levied at a lower basic rate than the present 20% income tax and 8% employees NI combined. And if the basic rate of the new "national income contribution" were set at say 25% or 26%, then Tory sophistry couldn't ignore NI and accuse Labour of raising the basic rate of income tax, because income tax would no longer exist.
Pensioner fury ! I think Malc would pop if that happened.
Yep. As I pointed out yesterday - this is effectively a Brucey Bonus for landlords who are selling.
Ordinary voters dont pay it as not on residential property you live in.
What on earth is Hunt's logic with this cut?
I'm neither a tenant nor a landlord myself but isn't shifting the burden to landlords ongoing costs (As has been happening) and reducing their capital gains on sale going to reduce overall market friction for the same net ? And as @MattW pointed out this tax is 0% (Rightly in my view) for OO.
Seems that is the logic:
"In their March 2024 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO), the OBR estimate that the cut in capital gains tax payable on residential property gains increases property transactions by approximately 2% in the near term, before tapering away over the remainder of the forecast."
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
I think the nondom policy (and the windfall tax) goes beyond that old adage, given how long and loud the Tories opposed the policy, and how much Tory opposition there is to the windfall tax.
It's a sign of desperation for the Tories that they will implement Labour policies they disagree with, solely for the purpose of trying to create a difficulty for Labour when it comes to writing their manifesto.
It was the same with HS2. The point of scrapping it was mainly to create a trap for Labour.
There's quite a lot of random damage being done to public policy as a result of that sort of game-playing.
Sure, but politics is a brutal game.
Labour need to be more savvy – the nondom heist is proof of that.
I agree. Labour should have done more in terms of general mood music - this is what is wrong, and these are the principles that will make things better - and less of the specific policy proposals.
When the Tories took over in 2010 they had a very clear message - Labour overspending and mismanagement crashed the economy and we have to do grown-up things to clear up the mess.
What's Labour's message?
"We are only 20 points ahead in the polls; Where did we all go wrong"?
More seriously, their address to most voters is: We are centrist boring Labour and we are not the Tories. Vote for us. Secondly: Only two parties can form a UK government. It isn't possible to be less competent than the current one. As Sherlock Holmes says 'Once you have eliminated the impossible'.....'
How much difference does a manifesto make, really?
Plenty of important things governments do (like this enthusiasm for cutting NI) aren't in a manifesto, and plenty of things that are in manifestoes never happen (fixing social care, for example).
Whatever the complexion of the next government, it is going to have to do some combination of tax rises and spending cuts, because the current plans are pure fantasy. And it's in nobody's interest to be the first one to point this out pre-election, because comforting fantasy always beats uncomfortable reality in the popularity stakes.
The operational impact of changing 28% to 24% for CGT on property:
"Operational impact (£million) (HMRC or other) HMRC will need to make changes to its IT systems to implement this change at a cost in the region of £2 million."
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Yes, but there is a balance to be struck.
If you are seeking a mandate then it is incumbent on you in a representative democracy to at least try to set out your stall. If Labour think that the right way to govern is to keep schtum until after the votes have been cast and then worry about selling the way forward to voters after the election, then that is a very high risk strategy for a first term government, and not particularly encouraging.
I don’t expect them to set out their full stall now.
The time to do that stall-setting is in a manifesto – not months or years prior to a general election.
Absolutely. The announcement about non-doms yesterday only vindicates Labour's strategy to keep most of its plans under wraps until the point when it publishes its manifesto. You can be absolutely sure that if Labour had last year put forward some other half-sensible policies to fund its agenda, they too would have been apparently stolen by Hunt.
I use "apparently" because Hunt was incredibly vague about what exactly would replace the current treatment of non-doms, so I'm not taking a level playing field for non-doms as a given just yet.
At least one country has no problem with building new houses.
Sheep as a lamb is probably the thinking.
Stealing someone's back yard certainly solves the NIMBY thing.
It's not stealing, it was owned by Jordan and Jordan relinquished it.
Arafat had an opportunity to create a Palestinian state in that land but rejected it. He chose instead to keep the border issue undecided in favour of future negotiations.
C'est la vie.
Israel can and absolutely should do whatever suits their own interests and strengthens their hand in future negotiations. Pandering has failed.
Nonsense. Israel has no more right to annex (and ethnically cleanse) the West Bank than Russia does to annex Crimea. Israel, like all countries, should obey international law.
Replace "Israel" in your last paragraph with "Russia" and read it back. Would you agree with that? Why does Israel get to act differently?
The operational impact of changing 28% to 24% for CGT on property:
"Operational impact (£million) (HMRC or other) HMRC will need to make changes to its IT systems to implement this change at a cost in the region of £2 million."
£2m!!!
£2million to change one % in the system.
Jeez.
My guess is the entire HMRC IT system is probably subbed out on some horrific PFI deal.
The operational impact of changing 28% to 24% for CGT on property:
"Operational impact (£million) (HMRC or other) HMRC will need to make changes to its IT systems to implement this change at a cost in the region of £2 million."
£2m!!!
£2million to change one % in the system.
Jeez.
It will be across a lot of areas - for us the NI change was 30 seconds work but that was because we’ve seen so many rapid tweaks to taxes we now keep them in 1 single config file. The job was literally change the end date on 1 line and create a new line for the new value
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
I think the nondom policy (and the windfall tax) goes beyond that old adage, given how long and loud the Tories opposed the policy, and how much Tory opposition there is to the windfall tax.
It's a sign of desperation for the Tories that they will implement Labour policies they disagree with, solely for the purpose of trying to create a difficulty for Labour when it comes to writing their manifesto.
It was the same with HS2. The point of scrapping it was mainly to create a trap for Labour.
There's quite a lot of random damage being done to public policy as a result of that sort of game-playing.
Sure, but politics is a brutal game.
Labour need to be more savvy – the nondom heist is proof of that.
I agree. Labour should have done more in terms of general mood music - this is what is wrong, and these are the principles that will make things better - and less of the specific policy proposals.
When the Tories took over in 2010 they had a very clear message - Labour overspending and mismanagement crashed the economy and we have to do grown-up things to clear up the mess.
What's Labour's message?
"We are only 20 points ahead in the polls; Where did we all go wrong"?
More seriously, their address to most voters is: We are centrist boring Labour and we are not the Tories. Vote for us. Secondly: Only two parties can form a UK government. It isn't possible to be less competent than the current one. As Sherlock Holmes says 'Once you have eliminated the impossible'.....'
That's fair. Perhaps the Tories would have done better in 2010 with less of a message?
But I think the benefit of creating a story like this is felt more at the election afterwards. The Tories were able to do a lot of unpopular things during 2010-15, and the story they told the public about those changes won them a majority in 2015.
Starmer and Labour might win a massive majority on the back of vagueness, but they then face losing it all in one go at the election afterwards if they have failed to create the narrative for their government.
How much difference does a manifesto make, really?
Plenty of important things governments do (like this enthusiasm for cutting NI) aren't in a manifesto, and plenty of things that are in manifestoes never happen (fixing social care, for example).
Whatever the complexion of the next government, it is going to have to do some combination of tax rises and spending cuts, because the current plans are pure fantasy. And it's in nobody's interest to be the first one to point this out pre-election, because comforting fantasy always beats uncomfortable reality in the popularity stakes.
On the whole a manifesto cannot help on the upside; but can inflict massive self harm on the downside. For example, a single line in a 60 page Labour manifesto that said "we shall review the nature and purpose of our independent nuclear deterrent and implement a policy which takes account of the UK's place in the modern world" would lose them the election.
(Note to the Daily Mail: I have made this up. It isn't Labour policy.)
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Yes, but there is a balance to be struck.
If you are seeking a mandate then it is incumbent on you in a representative democracy to at least try to set out your stall. If Labour think that the right way to govern is to keep schtum until after the votes have been cast and then worry about selling the way forward to voters after the election, then that is a very high risk strategy for a first term government, and not particularly encouraging.
I don’t expect them to set out their full stall now.
The time to do that stall-setting is in a manifesto – not months or years prior to a general election.
From a strategic viewpoint, quite possibly. This doesn’t alleviate my concerns, however, about the lack of real distinguishing being attempted. But maybe this will come in the manifesto. I hope so, because I want Labour to have grasped the magnitude of the situation, and I want them to form a government that will make things better.
That worked so well with May’s attempt to fix social care that some things are now set up well in advance to avoid nasty shocks and prepare people for the change
The fact Trump has any chance is deeply disturbing
On the budget, after Hunt concluded Starmer was ready for an immediate response, but when Eleanor Laing asked for approval on what is normally given , the SNP loudly said no and even though Laing asked again they repeated the 'no' resulting in a needless division and Starmer having to wait 20 minutes, interrupting the media coverage of Starmer's reply and frankly diluting the moment
Looks like the SNP are going to disrupt proceedings as much as possible as a protest over Speaker Hoyle's error over the Gaza debate
No grown up politics there then
On the budget it was sensible and political and the big story is undoubtedly the ending of NI in time. It is something @BartholomewRoberts has been campaigning for and others and seems to have Labour demanding to know how it is paid for, which indicates they had not given it thought and are worried it would be popular
It is grossly unfair on workers and equalising IT and NI into one tax is the right thing to do and would make work pay
I also note labour are going to approve all the budget measures which does ask the question what are they going to do differently
And finally the next election will follow Hunt's autumn statement and I would think 14th November may well be favourite
If the Tories had had half a brain, they would have abolished NI now, and put up income tax to compensate, with a stated aim of eventually getting income tax down some more. That way they could actually claim some tax simplification.
It would also help solve the use of personal service companies to doge NI, so they could then abolish IR35 which is a significant barrier to growth.
The issue with IR35 is around Employer NI, rather than employee NI.
Employer NI is a nightmare to abolish, because most people don’t experience it directly yet it raises £100bn.
If Employers paid the 13.8% of NI they pay into government into employees pensions instead then everyone would have amazing private pension pots.
That's not a bad idea tbh. I think it's right the Gov't reduces employee NI first though, the problem with reducing something like VAT or the 5p fuel cut is it gets snaffled by retailers/forecourt as additional profit whereas people can see tax reductions directly on their payslip.
Thanks. I think VAT or fuel duty cuts do work their way through on the reduction side, but they are much more 'sticky' in feeding through.
Fuel duty cuts for the motorist. Train fare increases for the non-motorist.
Clearly all part of the "war on the motorist".
Can you remind me which one is heavily subsidised and which one is taxed through the wazoo ?
Yes. The negative externalities resulting from motoring are indeed heavily subsidised.
There are next to no negative externalities from motoring. Especially as we transition to clean vehicles.
Congestion is a far worse problem on rail than roads, hence all the bitching and moaning about how shite the rails are despite them carrying a miniscule amount of traffic versus our roads.
"There are next to no negative externalities from motoring." Despite strong competition, that has got to be the craziest stupidest most disgusting thing I have ever read on pb.com
Tetra-ethyl lead ...
Not sold any more.
Decades of the stuff, though. The fact that it's seriously considered an agent of mental damage is horrific.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently.
Labour is going "OMG taxes are so high!" whilst having not the slightest intention of cutting taxes and spending. I think Labour plans to "solve" the problem with above trend growth and yet has not come up with anything beyond the usual hot-air for explaining how that might be achieved. I'm 90% sure Labour isn't remotely willing to take the sort of gambles that might be required to really support higher growth.
I heard a fair bit of commentary yesterday about the budget from politicians of various parties and almost all of it was either nonsense or simply wrong. Mind you I'm only mildly worried about the economy as I think we face far more trouble if Trump is re-elected. Whoever wins the general election is going to find the next term in office as difficult or even worse than this one.
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
I agree with this. Labour's shyness on the difficult decisions seems to have developed into utter terror at saying anything remotely different from the government.
Absolutely, and it is very discouraging.
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
There are loads of ways Labour can still fail to win the election. Unvarnished honesty is right at the top of the list. If we go into the GE with Labour saying "It's loads worse than you think and we can't afford what we have now let alone free unicorns and owls, we ought to join the Single Market but we can't" while the Tories are saying "It's been tough because of reasons (Blair, Brown, EU, Covid, Ukraine, Russia, unions, Jezza, Hamas), but it's getting better because of Tories, don't let the socialists or the friends of Hamas near your wallet" then Labour will lose.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
Quite so. See also the endless siren calls on here for Labour to release its policies before manifesto time.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
I think the nondom policy (and the windfall tax) goes beyond that old adage, given how long and loud the Tories opposed the policy, and how much Tory opposition there is to the windfall tax.
It's a sign of desperation for the Tories that they will implement Labour policies they disagree with, solely for the purpose of trying to create a difficulty for Labour when it comes to writing their manifesto.
It was the same with HS2. The point of scrapping it was mainly to create a trap for Labour.
There's quite a lot of random damage being done to public policy as a result of that sort of game-playing.
Sure, but politics is a brutal game.
Labour need to be more savvy – the nondom heist is proof of that.
I agree. Labour should have done more in terms of general mood music - this is what is wrong, and these are the principles that will make things better - and less of the specific policy proposals.
When the Tories took over in 2010 they had a very clear message - Labour overspending and mismanagement crashed the economy and we have to do grown-up things to clear up the mess.
What's Labour's message?
"We are only 20 points ahead in the polls; Where did we all go wrong"?
More seriously, their address to most voters is: We are centrist boring Labour and we are not the Tories. Vote for us. Secondly: Only two parties can form a UK government. It isn't possible to be less competent than the current one. As Sherlock Holmes says 'Once you have eliminated the impossible'.....'
That's fair. Perhaps the Tories would have done better in 2010 with less of a message?
But I think the benefit of creating a story like this is felt more at the election afterwards. The Tories were able to do a lot of unpopular things during 2010-15, and the story they told the public about those changes won them a majority in 2015.
Starmer and Labour might win a massive majority on the back of vagueness, but they then face losing it all in one go at the election afterwards if they have failed to create the narrative for their government.
Of course. The great way of not having to face that problem is to lose the 2024 election. Which is what would happen if they went in for transparent honesty. Elections are fought exactly one at a time.
Comments
But even more important is the essential bills people pay, which includes tax but also rent, mortgages, utilities and necessary weekly shop, for example. The overall combination of that lot - and the amount left over afterwards - matters far more than the individual items, still less their internal calculations.
Little surprise Hunt is now pouring cold water on his own NICs-abolishing hint.
Labour is arguing it's a BIGGER unfunded tax pledge than Truss announced — even though it's a vague ambition with no timeline
But last thing Hunt wants is to be put in the same boat as Truss
(I'm talking about Employees contributions only here; obviously the employers NI is a different kettle of fish, but also one people rarely talk about, and I don't think Hunt was doing so either)
I’m sure Richard Branson and Jim Ratcliffe get paid something of a state pension too, a trivial amount of money dwarfed by other taxes paid by themselves and their companies.
A bit like when people complain about bots on social media. Sometimes they do mean actual bots but other times it's a shorthand for a large number of actual people who disagree with them.
Which means the Chancellor can announce tax cuts, year after year. As more tax comes in.
In a close election, does Biden have a chance in North Carolina? It's the state that Trump won in 2020 by the narrowest margin (1.35%). Will Republicans choosing this guy as candidate for governor be worth a few votes for Biden?:
https://www.vox.com/politics/24092798/mark-robinson-north-carolina-governors-race-2024
"Robinson, North Carolina’s current lieutenant governor, has hurled hateful remarks at everyone from Michelle Obama to the survivors of the Parkland school shooting. He’s called the LGBTQ community “filth.” He threatened to use his AR-15 against the government if it “gets too big for its britches,” and he wants to outlaw all abortions as well as return to a time when women couldn’t vote. He’s also ridiculed the Me Too movement, women generally, and climate change.
It seems Robinson is willing to entertain all manner of conspiracy theories, too. He’s a Holocaust denier and has a history of antisemitic remarks. He’s suggested that the 1969 moon landing might have been fake, that 9/11 was an “inside job,” that the music industry is run by Satan, and that billionaire Democratic donor George Soros orchestrated the Boko Haram kidnappings of school girls in 2014."
Of the six toss-up states Biden won in 2020, he can only afford to lose 2, or at most 3 depending on which 3. If he could flip N Carolina, he could afford to lose 3 or 4 of them. Roughly, winning N Carolina would make up for losing Michigan.
The polling doesn't look great. The latest Morning Consult has Trump +9 in North Carolina, Trump +2 in Michigan. Latest Emerson College has Trump +3 in North Carolina, Trump +2 Michigan. But who knows?
https://firstlightfusion.com/media/first-light-fusion-becomes-the-first-private-fusion-company-to-fire-a-successful-shot-on-sandias-z-machine
..First Light’s successful experiment set a new pressure record for quartz at Sandia’s facility, lifting it from 1.5 terapascal (TPa) to 1.85 TPa, whilst also maintaining the sample conditions required for high precision measurements for which the Sandia Lab is world-recognised. The experiment provided valuable insight into amplifier development giving the team considerable confidence in its modelling and simulations. The shot also proves that First Light’s hydrodynamic amplification technology works when driven by different types of projectiles. It allows measurements of material behaviour at extreme pressures previously unattainable on this facility, such as can be found in planetary cores or inertial confinement fusion targets.
Work is now underway to increase this pressure further as First Light continues to explore the ultimate potential of its unique amplifier technology. The UK fusion leader will fire its next shot on the Z Machine at the end of this year when further progress is expected.
First Light has been awarded three shots in total on the Z Machine, as part of its ongoing partnership with the US-government funded research organisation. The experiments form part of Sandia’s ‘Z Fundamental Science’ programme and follows the successful demonstration of the platform on SNL’s STAR 2SLGG last year..
https://slate.com/business/2014/05/richard-branson-tax-fraud-how-a-youthful-indiscretion-helped-create-a-billionaire.html
The BBC would do better to report better what politicians say and do in parliament and in the plethora of documents they publish formally. Comment and questioning is much better done by outfits like the IFS, IfG, and a selection of the better academics + selected retired politicians than by either journalistic generalists or politicians speaking beyond parliament where they have quite enough space to fill already.
Penny Mordaunt has overtaken Kemi Badenoch to top the Cabinet popularity rankings among a panel of grassroots Tory Party activists.
The Leader of the Commons and the Business Secretary are the two bookmakers’ favourites to succeed Rishi Sunak if the Tories lose the next general election.
In this month’s ranking of Cabinet ministers by ConservativeHome, the Tory news and opinion website, Ms Mordaunt’s net satisfaction score rose by almost eight points from 47.5 to 55.3.
It is the first time the MP for Portsmouth North has topped the rankings since June 2019, when she was defence secretary, and comes in the wake of her attack on Sir Keir Starmer after he lobbied the Speaker to secure a vote on Labour’s stance on Gaza.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/06/penny-mordaunt-most-popular-cabinet-minister-tory-members/
Of course, drivers of old bangers that need E5 could save 50%
I'm of the view that if someone starts off a business in a certain way, they'll continue. See also Zuckerberg and data theft.
Apart from all of those flaws, she is the perfect candidate.
The Most Rev Justin Welby said he had heard MPs and members of the Church of England making hateful comments “in the last few weeks” without specifying the incidents he was referring to.
The Archbishop’s remarks in an interview with The Spectator come less than a week after Rishi Sunak warned that extremists were attempting to undermine British democracy.
Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chairman, has also been suspended from the party after refusing to apologise for saying that Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, was controlled by “Islamists”.
In an apparent reference to the criticism the Church has faced for opposing the Rwanda plan, the Archbishop said it had been accused of “colluding with evil” and that he carried a panic alarm, although further details were not disclosed.
“And we certainly – particularly bishops who are women – have had an enormous increase over the last year or two in abusive language,” he said.
He added: “More can be done legally, I’m sure it can, rigorous prosecution of threats, rigorous prosecution of abusive use of social media.
“Members of both Houses of Parliament being very careful about language and not accepting hate speech.”
The Church said last month that it was conducting an urgent review of its policies towards asylum seekers after being accused of presiding over a “conveyor belt” of fake conversions that enabled baptised migrants to gain leave to remain.
It has since admitted that it may have been “scammed” in some cases but has insisted that the Home Office bears ultimate responsibility for approving or rejecting asylum applications.
But Mr Welby said he does not support open borders and agrees with the Government that immigration should be cut.
“There’s a lot of what the Government says which I entirely agree with,” he said. “The boats must be stopped. We must limit access to our borders: three-quarters of a million in any year seems to me to be far too many.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/07/justin-welby-archbishop-canterbury-accuses-mps-hate-speech/
In my case - four bed detached home that's 40 years old and heavily mortgaged - it's probably council tax up £60 a month, mortgage up £500 a month, energy up £50 a month, food bills up £150 a month, fuel roughly the same and trains up £100 a month. Tax down £100 per month but fiscally squeezed.
So probably £800 a month worse off. And that's before you get to leisure and going out.£10k a year. That's a big deal. But if the baseline were 2007-8 when mortgage rates were more normal it'd be more like £300.
Salary not representative since I got a big new job in 2021 that's absorbed it. But it's no wonder people aren't happy.
This was always a nonsense but perceptions count for more than reality in politics (as Joe Biden is finding to his cost at the moment). Because of Truss the Cons are now seen as less competent on money matters than Labour. Unless Labour have their own Truss moment this will likely remain the case for quite some time. Which means the Cons will likely be out of power for quite some time too.
Looking at it, it seems to be a Daily Mail budget - for those who Hunt hopes (perhaps folornly) may vote for them.
So a budget for Shrodinger's Conservative Voter.
Benefits for Middle England, on salaries of approx 35k to 80k, paid for by the less rich and the very rich, and savings on public services paid for by service users.
The OBR predictions demonstrate that said Conservative voter will be bent over and porked from 2025, but being a DM reader may be hoped to be too gullible to notice.
Analysis from the Resolution Foundation:
"‘Sweet and sour’ Budget combines £8 billion election year personal tax cuts with post-election plans for £38 billion of tax rises and spending cuts
Middle earners gain at the expense of pensioners and public service users"
https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/press-releases/sweet-and-sour-budget-combines-8-billion-election-year-personal-tax-cuts-with-post-election-plans-for-38-billion-of-tax-rises-and-spending-cuts/
Alternatively, you would have built something like HS2.
Those bemoaning the triple lock should remember that the State Pension is less generous than in most other comparable countries. The triple lock is helping redress the imbalance. It should be allowed to increase until pension credit is not required to help provide sufficient income for poorer pensioners to live on.
Private pensions are what forward thinking people use, if they can afford the contributions, to put aside money when they are working, to help fund a comfortable lifestyle when they can no longer work. If that means their income in retirement means they pay more tax, so be it.
Okay, I’ll give you some numbers. Duty on a litre of fuel is 52p and raises £25bn per year.
So in order to have raised £100bn extra in the past decade, it would need to be approx £2.50 per litre in duty, so petrol would cost around £3.20. Assuming that no-one changed their behaviour and bought less of the stuff, and no-one quit their job and claimed unemployment because they coudn’t afford to get to work.
A figure so minisculely low you need scientific notation to get a calculator to even display it.
NEW @TheIFS verdict on the budget:
“Government and opposition are joining in a conspiracy of silence in not acknowledging the scale of the choices and trade-offs that will face us after the election. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening”
Our pensions are indeed much lower than most other comparable European countries as is our spending on health and social care, but then so is our tax burden as a proportion of GDP. The difference being made up largely by employers' social security payments.
The triple lock did have some logic to it when first introduced and would I think have been justifiable if everyone else was also getting increases in government support or service quality. The issue has been pensions rising steadily while pretty much everything else goes down.
That's what a war on woke does to sensible decision making.
Trivially debunked with a 20-second google search.
LOL
I have given them until the manifesto launch, because I am hoping that some of this is keeping their powder dry and making sure the Tories can’t set the narrative, but it worries me. A lot.
Starmer and Reeves’ criticisms of the budget and the Tory government are all very worthy and accurate. The question still remains what they would do differently. Because at this point it feels there’s a cigarette paper between them. And there’ll be a reckoning coming for any government who ducks the difficult decisions after the election. I don’t want Labour to fail, because I fear what would replace them as an alternative.
I think I'm right in saying that Tom Scholar was removed as Permanent Secretary at the Treasury on the very day of the Queen's death. That would have been a big deal, with a lot of pressure on Truss/Kwarteng from markets and MPs to appoint someone in whom there was equivalent confidence very promptly and before any major budget announcements. But this was all immediately swept out of the news cycle by events at Balmoral, and the news was wholly dominated by the Queen for a couple of weeks. There was no Permanent Secretary whilst the "mini" Budget was being prepared, and essentially no political or press scrutiny of a new and (choosing words carefully) full of "confidence" Chancellor preparing his move. Scholar's successor, James Bowler, didn't come in from the Department for International Trade until the crisis was in full swing, a couple of days before Kwarteng was forced out.
Kwarteng and Truss were always bonkers, clearly, and the Queen dying didn't cause that. But, potentially, it was everyone's eyes being completely off the ball in September 2022 that allowed things to go so far, so fast.
That is probably why the £100-125K 60% tax bracket never gets fixed, despite being a really obvious anomaly compared with, say, a 43% tax from £80K.
https://www.eta.co.uk/2022/03/15/what-is-the-true-cost-of-motoring/
Cars are a major household expense, yet there is limited comprehension of their private (internal) and social (external) cost per km, year, or lifetime of use. So says ‘The lifetime cost of driving a car‘ by Stefan Gossling, Jessica Kees and Todd Litman (Linnaeus University and Lund University in Sweden), new research which puts the sum at about £500,000 – an eye watering sum of which society pays 41%.
The internal costs are particularly burdensome to low-income motorists who must invest a large share of their net income to own and operate a private vehicle. Furthermore, poorer neighbourhoods are more likely to be plagued by motor traffic air pollution and road danger. This has many implications for households, policy makers and practitioners.
It’s not the first time academic research has highlighted the true cost of motoring. The fallacy that drivers are ‘cash cows’ and pay a disproportionate amount of tax was debunked by a study in 2012 which demonstrated that road traffic collisions, pollution and noise associated with motor vehicles cost every EU citizen more than £600 a year.
https://rdrf.org.uk/2012/12/31/the-true-costs-of-automobility-external-costs-of-cars/#:~:text=The figure given for these,taxation revenue –%20looks%20pretty%20damning.
First, the good news: another academic study using conventional cost-benefit analysis finds that motorists in the 27 EU countries have a net economic cost to society, with the UK second only to Germany in costs. Take a look at the nice short summary in the Guardian. It’s good to counteract what the Guardian correctly calls “The perennial complaint from drivers that they are excessively taxed”, not least the prejudice that cyclists are cheating by “not paying a tax”. The figure given for these external costs – £48 billion per annum, some £10 billion more than the total of motoring taxation revenue – looks pretty damning. However, it can be argued that the costs of motoring to society are considerably greater than those in the picture painted in the study, and that the report is inadequately critical of the status quo.
Ultimately, there are about 1,500 deaths in the UK on the roads each year - and we're one of the safest countries in which to drive in the world. There are many more significant injuries. I'd certainly not argue that people shouldn't drive because of it - and that's not what a negative externality is. But to pretend it's a trivial negative externality is not one of your better takes.
They have to win the voters, not PBers.
The nondom policy heist proves the old adage: "If the opposition broadcasts any good ideas, the government will simply steal them."
Chancellor refuses to disclose number of houses owned but says he will pay higher tax rate on proceeds from sales
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/07/jeremy-hunt-vows-pay-more-capital-gains-tax-his-properties
If you are seeking a mandate then it is incumbent on you in a representative democracy to at least try to set out your stall. If Labour think that the right way to govern is to keep schtum until after the votes have been cast and then worry about selling the way forward to voters after the election, then that is a very high risk strategy for a first term government, and not particularly encouraging.
I don’t expect them to set out their full stall now.
Ordinary voters dont pay it as not on residential property you live in.
What on earth is Hunt's logic with this cut?
It's a sign of desperation for the Tories that they will implement Labour policies they disagree with, solely for the purpose of trying to create a difficulty for Labour when it comes to writing their manifesto.
It was the same with HS2. The point of scrapping it was mainly to create a trap for Labour.
There's quite a lot of random damage being done to public policy as a result of that sort of game-playing.
My point is that, absent the Queen's death, there would have been a great deal of pressure to appoint an appropriate replacement promptly and certainly before the mini Budget. Tom Scholar was highly respected, but John Bowler was a perfectly fine replacement who is still there - just he came in a fortnight too late.
I suspect a permanent replacement would have had sufficient authority to say something along the lines, "Fine, you feel the OBR is overly cautious and restrictive. So let's ensure they review proposals and, when they raise concerns, ensure we have plausible responses to all of them. We can worry about reforming or removing the OBR later via legislation".
No doubt senior civil servants were saying that, but they would have lacked the authority (particularly if they had an eye on promotion to the vacant top job) to lead the debate.
Labour need to be more savvy – the nondom heist is proof of that.
And as @MattW pointed out this tax is 0% (Rightly in my view) for OO.
And, to be fair, that would be as close to honesty as they can get.
"Will" refers to it as something that is going to happen. Clearly you meant to use would i.e "Getting rid of NI WOULD be a good thing...". The plans for such a change don't exist beyond a vague ambition floated by someone who won't be around as Chancellor in 2025 and may not even be an MP, and as you say the compensatory changes are not spelt out.
However, even by floating the idea of getting rid of NI, what Hunt might have done is to open the door to a future Labour government merging income tax and employees NI into a new "national income contribution". If that was done simply by abolishing employees NI and loading the basic rate of income tax, then to raise the same amount of revenue the new rebranded tax could be levied at a lower basic rate than the present 20% income tax and 8% employees NI combined. And if the basic rate of the new "national income contribution" were set at say 25% or 26%, then Tory sophistry couldn't ignore NI and accuse Labour of raising the basic rate of income tax, because income tax would no longer exist.
When the Tories took over in 2010 they had a very clear message - Labour overspending and mismanagement crashed the economy and we have to do grown-up things to clear up the mess.
What's Labour's message?
In practice it may encourage second home owners to sell, particularly those with furnished let's, thereby potentially allowing others to buy.
Now admittedly that's been the traditional dividing line since time began, t'was ever thus.
"In their March 2024 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO), the OBR estimate that the cut in capital gains tax payable on residential property gains increases property transactions by approximately 2% in the near term, before tapering away over the remainder of the forecast."
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/capital-gains-tax-changes-to-the-higher-rate-of-tax-on-residential-property-disposals/capital-gains-tax-rate-on-disposals-of-residential-property-from-6-april-2024
Great start on the Tories' £46bn blackhole.
The Hunt is now The Hunted.
More seriously, their address to most voters is: We are centrist boring Labour and we are not the Tories. Vote for us. Secondly: Only two parties can form a UK government. It isn't possible to be less competent than the current one. As Sherlock Holmes says 'Once you have eliminated the impossible'.....'
Plenty of important things governments do (like this enthusiasm for cutting NI) aren't in a manifesto, and plenty of things that are in manifestoes never happen (fixing social care, for example).
Whatever the complexion of the next government, it is going to have to do some combination of tax rises and spending cuts, because the current plans are pure fantasy. And it's in nobody's interest to be the first one to point this out pre-election, because comforting fantasy always beats uncomfortable reality in the popularity stakes.
The operational impact of changing 28% to 24% for CGT on property:
"Operational impact (£million) (HMRC or other)
HMRC will need to make changes to its IT systems to implement this change at a cost in the region of £2 million."
£2m!!!
£2million to change one % in the system.
Jeez.
I use "apparently" because Hunt was incredibly vague about what exactly would replace the current treatment of non-doms, so I'm not taking a level playing field for non-doms as a given just yet.
Replace "Israel" in your last paragraph with "Russia" and read it back. Would you agree with that? Why does Israel get to act differently?
But I think the benefit of creating a story like this is felt more at the election afterwards. The Tories were able to do a lot of unpopular things during 2010-15, and the story they told the public about those changes won them a majority in 2015.
Starmer and Labour might win a massive majority on the back of vagueness, but they then face losing it all in one go at the election afterwards if they have failed to create the narrative for their government.
(Note to the Daily Mail: I have made this up. It isn't Labour policy.)
Diesel particulates are still an issue.
I heard a fair bit of commentary yesterday about the budget from politicians of various parties and almost all of it was either nonsense or simply wrong. Mind you I'm only mildly worried about the economy as I think we face far more trouble if Trump is re-elected. Whoever wins the general election is going to find the next term in office as difficult or even worse than this one.