Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
Yes, oldies were young once and they "just go on and made changes". They never wasted time on protests. The '60s and '70s were famous for how few protests there were, how little disruption there was.
The bulk of people as today didnt go on protests. And even today those who protest, are protesting about things which arent going to help them. Gaza isnt going to build you an affordable house.
The majority of people in today’s protests come across as the privileged upper-middle classes signalling their virtue, rather than average people trying to persuade the politicians to help make the lives of the protestors better directly.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
Yes, oldies were young once and they "just go on and made changes". They never wasted time on protests. The '60s and '70s were famous for how few protests there were, how little disruption there was.
Quite, the oldies like Alanbrooke don't know they are born these days.
I have the advantage that I was there and you were not.
This conversation leads me to an interesting question:
If the 2016 referendum had been Cameron's renegotiation versus Johnson's deal, would leave still have won?
Would anyone on here have voted differently?
An interesting question, and a problem for those who had a view going beyond 'Yes' and 'No'. At the time (Covid, Trump and Ukraine have changed the picture since) for me leaving was necessary but not sufficient. The direction of travel towards federal union was (and is) unstoppable once the Euro was in place, so we had to be out. Being in the SM was essential for reasons now obvious. So we had to be in EFTA/EEA (the 'Norway for Now option).
EU v Boris's deal would have closed off the sane option. I would have vote to remain, but reluctantly.
Those of us who argued before the vote that the 'sane option' would be extremely unlikely to be a real option proved correct. It was decisively rejected by Parliament.
Yes. It was however rational, if hopeful, to expect the majority of centrist remainers to agree, across party lines, to prefer achieving an EFTA/EEA deal to failing to achieve Remain while also agreeing to a worse deal than the EFTA one.
Sadly, during the whole 2016-2019 Brexit parliamentary farce, MPs of all parties, on all sides of the Brexit debate, wanted certain things to happen without being seen to vote for those things.
This conversation leads me to an interesting question:
If the 2016 referendum had been Cameron's renegotiation versus Johnson's deal, would leave still have won?
Would anyone on here have voted differently?
Can anyone remember what was in the renegotiation? Remain stopped talking about it straight away. Craig Oliver's book makes clear that they were never going to recommend leaving - and Merkel knew this - so it was a complete waste of time.
What was not in the renegotiation, which Cameron had asked for, was an emergency brake on immigration. Had he got that I suspect he would have won.
And, as a result of Merkel’s obduracy, all EU citizens lost freedom of movement to the UK.
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
They're claiming they they can fund a particular pledge by so doing. As the Reeves interview made very clear. (And it's quite possibly true.)
But it's a side issue as far as the larger problems of government are concerned.
But neither is it the equivalent that you suggest.
£5bn out of a tax gap of £36bn doesn't seem crazy unrealistic to me.
Notable also that she is promising to fund HMRC to have more tax officers.
Many people think it’s time for LIZ TRUSS to gracefully return to the helm.
She was hugely popular with many PB Tories of course, and with the wider world at large.
Perhaps this time she will stage a comeback based on a greater degree of ideological purity.
It seems inevitable.
TRUSS.
I do wish you wouldn't do that. I see the word and think 'oh good, something interesting on the Baltimore bridge collapse or something'. Instead of something that's chronologically stem-high to a lettuce.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
Yes, oldies were young once and they "just go on and made changes". They never wasted time on protests. The '60s and '70s were famous for how few protests there were, how little disruption there was.
Quite, the oldies like Alanbrooke don't know they are born these days.
I have the advantage that I was there and you were not.
British foreign secretary David Cameron recently visited Republican candidate Donald Trump in Trump's house at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to "hold talks". The Foreign Office said it's "standard practice" for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their international trips. Cameron didn't find time to meet Joe Biden, though.
When was the last time a British foreign secretary went to meet an oppositional US presidential candidate in his house, omitting to call on the serving president?
He met with Trump yesterday, and he’s meeting with Anthony Blinken - his counterpart in Biden’s cabinet - today.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
That's a life? Sounds like living death. Then again, "lower mortgage loan repayments" and "let's not cause any trouble - let's work within the system" were famous slogans from Paris in May 1968.
Lord Cameron meets Trump in Florida for talks on Ukraine and the Middle East before meeting US Secretary of State Blinken in DC to discuss foreign policy too "David Cameron meets Donald Trump in Florida ahead of Blinken talks - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68767194
One of Sunak’s very few unquestionionably good decisions, was persuading Dave to come back as the top UK diplomat. He seems happy to meet with anyone, and more importantly anyone will take the meeting with the former PM.
I’ll never forgive Cameron for calling the referendum and for his part in the woeful Remain campaign . But I do accept that’s so far he’s been a decent Foreign Secretary.
I disagreed with him as PM for different reasons, but he’s definitely doing well as foreign sec. That he can meet on consecutive days with Trump and Blinken, is very good for the UK in getting our aims and views heard across the Pond - especially on Ukraine, where the US political conversation is very different to what it is in Europe.
He has studiously avoided a visit to Rwanda so far, though.
Mr. L, Merkel's bizarre policy reactions on nuclear power and migration hooked Germany into Russian gas (and is now causing manufacturing problems because the costs, environmental credits, I think, of lignite is way higher than it was) and helped deliver the departure of the UK.
I feel some sympathy for Cameron on timing. Had he waited, he might have scraped a victory.
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
Problem with clamping done on tax dodgers is HMRC have been doing that for decades and there is very little left to easily grab.
It would be way more sensible to put Martin Lewis, Dan Neiddle and a few others in a room with a promise to implement every simplification they and think of which would be tax neutral.
Reducing the Vat threshold to £30,000 or so would solve a lot of tax avoidance and reduced working issues
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
Don't risk voting Labour - they might put up taxes.
Take the safe option and vote Conservative - the party with a track record of putting up taxes.
More to the point, the current government has notably avoided taking the hard decisions. They've baked into their future spending plans swingeing cuts in public spending for the majority of government departments, deferred those cuts into the next Parliament, and said precisely nothing about how they would achieve them.
The next government is going to have a very difficult first year in office.
The reason that Sunak is doomed is that he has done nothing material to change the narrative or give us any idea what kind of country he wants. We have been in a quagmire since the Truss fiasco where, as a BBC reporter put it recently, ideas go to Downing Street to die.
Sunak has, sadly, proved to be another Gordon Brown: desperate for the top job but with no idea whatsoever of what to do with it when he got it. We can only hope that Starmer does not turn out to be the same.
To me the difference between Brown and Sunak is that when Brown was Chancellor, I thought he had it in him to be a good PM. It came as a shock and disappointment to me when right from the outset he demonstrated that he was not really up to the job. In contrast, with Sunak I had not seen any evidence of PM qualities when he was at No. 11. Giving people free money and half price dinners is all I remember him for; a lightweight who wanted to be Mr Popular. I therefore had no expectations of him when he took over as PM - but if anything he has still managed to surprise on the downside.
Their common failing was an inability to make tough decisions. It is a key skill set for the job: things come at you fast in Number 10.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
Yes, oldies were young once and they "just go on and made changes". They never wasted time on protests. The '60s and '70s were famous for how few protests there were, how little disruption there was.
Quite, the oldies like Alanbrooke don't know they are born these days.
I have the advantage that I was there and you were not.
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
Of course! But how to clamp down on tax dodgers? Close loopholes, restaff HMRC, actually have HMRC Self Assessment open all year round.
Bit difficult for the Tories to attack this when - having already cut the staff at HMRC to a minimum - they wanted to shut it for half the year.
British foreign secretary David Cameron recently visited Republican candidate Donald Trump in Trump's house at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to "hold talks". The Foreign Office said it's "standard practice" for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their international trips. Cameron didn't find time to meet Joe Biden, though.
When was the last time a British foreign secretary went to meet an oppositional US presidential candidate in his house, omitting to call on the serving president?
He met the Secretary of State who is his opposite number.
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
They're claiming they they can fund a particular pledge by so doing. As the Reeves interview made very clear. (And it's quite possibly true.)
But it's a side issue as far as the larger problems of government are concerned.
But neither is it the equivalent that you suggest.
£5bn out of a tax gap of £36bn doesn't seem crazy unrealistic to me.
Notable also that she is promising to fund HMRC to have more tax officers.
It's not unrealistic.
But she's almost as silent as the Tories on what Labour will do about the really hard decisions. Understandable from a party in opposition, but it doesn't inspire huge confidence in her actually having solutions.
This conversation leads me to an interesting question:
If the 2016 referendum had been Cameron's renegotiation versus Johnson's deal, would leave still have won?
Would anyone on here have voted differently?
Can anyone remember what was in the renegotiation? Remain stopped talking about it straight away. Craig Oliver's book makes clear that they were never going to recommend leaving - and Merkel knew this - so it was a complete waste of time.
It was actually quite an interesting list of items, though poorly negotiated, so that few if any were binding. In an alternate history, it might nonetheless have formed a kernel of ideas for the European sceptics of further integration to build on.
IMO, Britain's biggest problem in the EU was (Thatcher partly excepted, interestingly) a failure to fully recognise or utilise our undoubted influence, and to build alliances to achieve policy ends.
Unsurprising really in a state whose own polity depends on confrontation and considers cooperation and coalition as signs of weakness.
Isn’t the EU the only Parliament that doesn’t have an Opposition?
It certainly has 'opposition', even if it's of the most petty and shrivelled kind.
Lord Cameron meets Trump in Florida for talks on Ukraine and the Middle East before meeting US Secretary of State Blinken in DC to discuss foreign policy too "David Cameron meets Donald Trump in Florida ahead of Blinken talks - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68767194
One of Sunak’s very few unquestionionably good decisions, was persuading Dave to come back as the top UK diplomat. He seems happy to meet with anyone, and more importantly anyone will take the meeting with the former PM.
Anything for free holidays and good scoff and drink, he will be even more debauched by the time he gets the boot at election. He is getting his airmiles piled up at public expense while he can.
This be fair I think he’s focused on refreshing his contact book. That’s good for the UK while also clearly being good for him
British foreign secretary David Cameron recently visited Republican candidate Donald Trump in Trump's house at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to "hold talks". The Foreign Office said it's "standard practice" for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their international trips. Cameron didn't find time to meet Joe Biden, though.
When was the last time a British foreign secretary went to meet an oppositional US presidential candidate in his house, omitting to call on the serving president?
He met with Trump yesterday, and he’s meeting with Anthony Blinken - his counterpart in Biden’s cabinet - today.
It would be a snub if say Sunak met Trump and not Biden . And current Presidents /PMs don’t tend to meet those lower in the pecking order . I admire Cameron trying to get Trump to change his mind on Ukraine but I expect it was a wasted effort .
Many people think it’s time for LIZ TRUSS to gracefully return to the helm.
She was hugely popular with many PB Tories of course, and with the wider world at large.
Perhaps this time she will stage a comeback based on a greater degree of ideological purity.
It seems inevitable.
TRUSS.
I do wish you wouldn't do that. I see the word and think 'oh good, something interesting on the Baltimore bridge collapse or something'. Instead of something that's chronologically stem-high to a lettuce.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
Yes, oldies were young once and they "just go on and made changes". They never wasted time on protests. The '60s and '70s were famous for how few protests there were, how little disruption there was.
Quite, the oldies like Alanbrooke don't know they are born these days.
I have the advantage that I was there and you were not.
Golden Dawn-backing long-term Spectator scribbler Taki Theodoracopulos used to boast that he was there in May 1968, when he charged rioters on his polo horse.
On the generational angst, so much of it just boils down to housing. I really feel like a govt which prioritised building houses themselves, not relying on developers, and keeping social housing public could make inroads in this.
Another issue is people (of all ages and political persuasions) expect to be able to live where they grew up. And our system doesn't work like that.
Peckham 30 years ago is not the same as Peckham now. Very few people will be able to make the wealth jump required in the shorty time available.
It’s not about public vs private.
It’s about resistance to building.
We are currently stockpiling planning permissions. Why?
Well, at one level, it is local monopolies. Governmental bodies love doing one big deal with a Big Firm to do a Big Job.
This enables everyone to write Big Documents that proven they are a Big Deal. With the Big Strategic Plan.
So the developer gets to modulate construction to hold house prices up.
But that isn’t the ultimate problem.
If construction actually happened quicker, the opponents of building would fight harder. The current rate of construction is political equilibrium between the pressure to build more and the objectors to building more.
The objectors aren’t just 5 Evul Pensioners. They are a whole range of people, who want no change.
Note the places these are overcome.
The Duchy of Cornwall is a megacorp that owns the land and has all the political pull. So when Chas says “Town Build’n Time” a town gets built.
Up in parts of Hackney, you’ve got a whole bunch of Orthodox Jews. Who have big families. So a huge local voting block for bigger houses. So every other house, on some streets, has another storey added.
The fault is in ourselves. I’ve met people who passionately demand more housing, while fighting every single development project. Even travelling miles to help others fight development. All while complaining about rents being high on WhatsApp.
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
Don't risk voting Labour - they might put up taxes.
Take the safe option and vote Conservative - the party with a track record of putting up taxes.
More to the point, the current government has notably avoided taking the hard decisions. They've baked into their future spending plans swingeing cuts in public spending for the majority of government departments, deferred those cuts into the next Parliament, and said precisely nothing about how they would achieve them.
The next government is going to have a very difficult first year in office.
Sounds exactly like Brown avoiding a spending review in 2010. It’s reprehensible but it’s what politicians do.
Lord Cameron meets Trump in Florida for talks on Ukraine and the Middle East before meeting US Secretary of State Blinken in DC to discuss foreign policy too "David Cameron meets Donald Trump in Florida ahead of Blinken talks - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68767194
One of Sunak’s very few unquestionionably good decisions, was persuading Dave to come back as the top UK diplomat. He seems happy to meet with anyone, and more importantly anyone will take the meeting with the former PM.
I’ll never forgive Cameron for calling the referendum and for his part in the woeful Remain campaign . But I do accept that’s so far he’s been a decent Foreign Secretary.
I disagreed with him as PM for different reasons, but he’s definitely doing well as foreign sec. That he can meet on consecutive days with Trump and Blinken, is very good for the UK in getting our aims and views heard across the Pond - especially on Ukraine, where the US political conversation is very different to what it is in Europe.
He has studiously avoided a visit to Rwanda so far, though.
They should at least send Phil & Kirsty (both very much Dave's kind of people) over to check out the housing market.
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
Don't risk voting Labour - they might put up taxes.
Take the safe option and vote Conservative - the party with a track record of putting up taxes.
More to the point, the current government has notably avoided taking the hard decisions. They've baked into their future spending plans swingeing cuts in public spending for the majority of government departments, deferred those cuts into the next Parliament, and said precisely nothing about how they would achieve them.
The next government is going to have a very difficult first year in office.
Sounds exactly like Brown avoiding a spending review in 2010. It’s reprehensible but it’s what politicians do.
It's actually worse than that. There was far more elbow room in 2010, and Brown hadn't taken the benefit of cuts deferred into the next Parliament to pay for a tax cut.
Tories should think about that: worse than Gordon Brown.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
Yes, oldies were young once and they "just go on and made changes". They never wasted time on protests. The '60s and '70s were famous for how few protests there were, how little disruption there was.
The bulk of people as today didnt go on protests. And even today those who protest, are protesting about things which arent going to help them. Gaza isnt going to build you an affordable house.
Not sure I'd want to live in a house built by Gazza, however affordable it was.
On the generational angst, so much of it just boils down to housing. I really feel like a govt which prioritised building houses themselves, not relying on developers, and keeping social housing public could make inroads in this.
Another issue is people (of all ages and political persuasions) expect to be able to live where they grew up. And our system doesn't work like that.
Peckham 30 years ago is not the same as Peckham now. Very few people will be able to make the wealth jump required in the shorty time available.
It’s not about public vs private.
It’s about resistance to building.
We are currently stockpiling planning permissions. Why?
Well, at one level, it is local monopolies. Governmental bodies love doing one big deal with a Big Firm to do a Big Job.
This enables everyone to write Big Documents that proven they are a Big Deal. With the Big Strategic Plan.
So the developer gets to modulate construction to hold house prices up.
But that isn’t the ultimate problem.
If construction actually happened quicker, the opponents of building would fight harder. The current rate of construction is political equilibrium between the pressure to build more and the objectors to building more.
The objectors aren’t just 5 Evul Pensioners. They are a whole range of people, who want no change.
Note the places these are overcome.
The Duchy of Cornwall is a megacorp that owns the land and has all the political pull. So when Chas says “Town Build’n Time” a town gets built.
Up in parts of Hackney, you’ve got a whole bunch of Orthodox Jews. Who have big families. So a huge local voting block for bigger houses. So every other house, on some streets, has another storey added.
The fault is in ourselves. I’ve met people who passionately demand more housing, while fighting every single development project. Even travelling miles to help others fight development. All while complaining about rents being high on WhatsApp.
I think it is about public vs private actually. Public housebuilding has collapsed.
The scale we need cannot be left to the private sector. They can't afford to take on massively risky projects.
The Duchy of Cornwall perhaps an example of essentially a state backed company who can do this.
I agree that people often oppose housebuilding even when in their own interest. Sad to see.
I've sometimes wondered if all the objections against a project should be tallied against the number of people who would get a home... we don't hear their voices, but they will exist.
Lord Cameron meets Trump in Florida for talks on Ukraine and the Middle East before meeting US Secretary of State Blinken in DC to discuss foreign policy too "David Cameron meets Donald Trump in Florida ahead of Blinken talks - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68767194
One of Sunak’s very few unquestionionably good decisions, was persuading Dave to come back as the top UK diplomat. He seems happy to meet with anyone, and more importantly anyone will take the meeting with the former PM.
I’ll never forgive Cameron for calling the referendum and for his part in the woeful Remain campaign . But I do accept that’s so far he’s been a decent Foreign Secretary.
I disagreed with him as PM for different reasons, but he’s definitely doing well as foreign sec. That he can meet on consecutive days with Trump and Blinken, is very good for the UK in getting our aims and views heard across the Pond - especially on Ukraine, where the US political conversation is very different to what it is in Europe.
He has studiously avoided a visit to Rwanda so far, though.
He probably sees that one as Sunak’s problem, and he’ll go if and when the PM is properly begging!
In the meantime meeting both sides in the US, to discuss primarily Ukraine and Israel, seems like as good a use as any of his time right now.
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
Don't risk voting Labour - they might put up taxes.
Take the safe option and vote Conservative - the party with a track record of putting up taxes.
More to the point, the current government has notably avoided taking the hard decisions. They've baked into their future spending plans swingeing cuts in public spending for the majority of government departments, deferred those cuts into the next Parliament, and said precisely nothing about how they would achieve them.
The next government is going to have a very difficult first year in office.
Sounds exactly like Brown avoiding a spending review in 2010. It’s reprehensible but it’s what politicians do.
It's actually worse than that. There was far more elbow room in 2010, and Brown hadn't taken the benefit of cuts deferred into the next Parliament to pay for a tax cut.
Tories should think about that: worse than Gordon Brown.
Seriously disagree with this. In 2010 this country had contingent liabilities well beyond our ability to meet them, we had a tax base built around financial services that had collapsed and wouldn’t recover for a decade or more and we had taken on worthy but highly ambitious spending commitments in respect of in work benefits.
Our current situation is not good but it’s nowhere near that bad.
The reason that Sunak is doomed is that he has done nothing material to change the narrative or give us any idea what kind of country he wants. We have been in a quagmire since the Truss fiasco where, as a BBC reporter put it recently, ideas go to Downing Street to die.
Sunak has, sadly, proved to be another Gordon Brown: desperate for the top job but with no idea whatsoever of what to do with it when he got it. We can only hope that Starmer does not turn out to be the same.
To me the difference between Brown and Sunak is that when Brown was Chancellor, I thought he had it in him to be a good PM. It came as a shock and disappointment to me when right from the outset he demonstrated that he was not really up to the job. In contrast, with Sunak I had not seen any evidence of PM qualities when he was at No. 11. Giving people free money and half price dinners is all I remember him for; a lightweight who wanted to be Mr Popular. I therefore had no expectations of him when he took over as PM - but if anything he has still managed to surprise on the downside.
Their common failing was an inability to make tough decisions. It is a key skill set for the job: things come at you fast in Number 10.
When politicians talk about tough decisions, what they usually mean is that the consequences of the decision are tough for the rest of us, rather than deciding what to do was tough. So those politicians who value popularity above doing what is right avoid making these decisions.
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
Nothing. Nothing happens. No-one cares what the Tories do between now and the GE.
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
Don't risk voting Labour - they might put up taxes.
Take the safe option and vote Conservative - the party with a track record of putting up taxes.
More to the point, the current government has notably avoided taking the hard decisions. They've baked into their future spending plans swingeing cuts in public spending for the majority of government departments, deferred those cuts into the next Parliament, and said precisely nothing about how they would achieve them.
The next government is going to have a very difficult first year in office.
Sounds exactly like Brown avoiding a spending review in 2010. It’s reprehensible but it’s what politicians do.
It's actually worse than that. There was far more elbow room in 2010, and Brown hadn't taken the benefit of cuts deferred into the next Parliament to pay for a tax cut.
Tories should think about that: worse than Gordon Brown.
Seriously disagree with this. In 2010 this country had contingent liabilities well beyond our ability to meet them, we had a tax base built around financial services that had collapsed and wouldn’t recover for a decade or more and we had taken on worthy but highly ambitious spending commitments in respect of in work benefits.
Our current situation is not good but it’s nowhere near that bad.
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
It might be intentional. Here's all the easy to say stuff, done, out of the way and it is in a worse state than we thought. If the ideas are stolen it gives Labour cover to be serious about tax on day 1, cos the Tories have done all the Rwanda small beer bollocks for them.
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
I was hoping to watch Rachel's speech, but there's an incredibly dull live stream of the post office (again)* on every news channel.
*yes, I know it's important but why does it need to be blanket broadcast across every network?
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
They're claiming they they can fund a particular pledge by so doing. As the Reeves interview made very clear. (And it's quite possibly true.)
But it's a side issue as far as the larger problems of government are concerned.
But neither is it the equivalent that you suggest.
£5bn out of a tax gap of £36bn doesn't seem crazy unrealistic to me.
Notable also that she is promising to fund HMRC to have more tax officers.
It's not unrealistic.
But she's almost as silent as the Tories on what Labour will do about the really hard decisions. Understandable from a party in opposition, but it doesn't inspire huge confidence in her actually having solutions.
Agree. And the little she has said is actually quite bad. Labour's fiscal rule are a dumb idea economically, perhaps not as bad as current lot but still a costly misunderstanding of macroeconomics.
But it's what they think they need to do to win the election I guess. Maybe they're right?
But I hope once in office they go for growth and investment. Otherwise I suspect we'll end up with a reform govt.
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
Nothing. Nothing happens. No-one cares what the Tories do between now and the GE.
What if they use those Labour measures to help fund tax cuts ?
Unless Labour then say we’re not going to honour those cuts where will they find the funding .
Many people think it’s time for LIZ TRUSS to gracefully return to the helm.
She was hugely popular with many PB Tories of course, and with the wider world at large.
Perhaps this time she will stage a comeback based on a greater degree of ideological purity.
It seems inevitable.
TRUSS.
I do wish you wouldn't do that. I see the word and think 'oh good, something interesting on the Baltimore bridge collapse or something'. Instead of something that's chronologically stem-high to a lettuce.
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
Don't worry. Hunt can say whatever he likes - he won't be Chancellor. So Reeves will have to do her own budget and will simply reallocate the funds.
British foreign secretary David Cameron recently visited Republican candidate Donald Trump in Trump's house at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to "hold talks". The Foreign Office said it's "standard practice" for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their international trips. Cameron didn't find time to meet Joe Biden, though.
When was the last time a British foreign secretary went to meet an oppositional US presidential candidate in his house, omitting to call on the serving president?
It is normal practice. Blair met Bush even before he was the Republican candidate
As for not meeting Biden, his counterpart is Blinken not Biden so he is meeting the appropriate person.
Lord Cameron meets Trump in Florida for talks on Ukraine and the Middle East before meeting US Secretary of State Blinken in DC to discuss foreign policy too "David Cameron meets Donald Trump in Florida ahead of Blinken talks - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68767194
One of Sunak’s very few unquestionionably good decisions, was persuading Dave to come back as the top UK diplomat. He seems happy to meet with anyone, and more importantly anyone will take the meeting with the former PM.
I’ll never forgive Cameron for calling the referendum and for his part in the woeful Remain campaign . But I do accept that’s so far he’s been a decent Foreign Secretary.
I disagreed with him as PM for different reasons, but he’s definitely doing well as foreign sec. That he can meet on consecutive days with Trump and Blinken, is very good for the UK in getting our aims and views heard across the Pond - especially on Ukraine, where the US political conversation is very different to what it is in Europe.
He has studiously avoided a visit to Rwanda so far, though.
On the Heathrow Express yesterday I was adverts for the launch of a new airline.
RwandAir
I assume it’s real and not someone trolling the Tories…
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
That's a life? Sounds like living death. Then again, "lower mortgage loan repayments" and "let's not cause any trouble - let's work within the system" were famous slogans from Paris in May 1968.
You can only wish for such a life as Alan leads Donkey.
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
Nothing. Nothing happens. No-one cares what the Tories do between now and the GE.
What if they use those Labour measures to help fund tax cuts ?
Unless Labour then say we’re not going to honour those cuts where will they find the funding .
Still nothing. Regardless of whether it is measure X that is allegedly used to fund the tax cuts, the Tory attack line is the same as always: i.e. whatever measures the opposition propose won't raise as much as specified, their plans will cost more than they say, and that they have secret plans to increase taxes after the election.
The opposition will say "our plans are fully costed, and we won't increase taxes on ordinary people".
Both of these lines are disingenuous and the voters know it. The only shocks are specific proposals that haven't been well-trailed beforehand (like May's sensible but fatal plans of 2017). Which is why Labour are trailing these "not exactly earth-shattering" ideas now.
I see Labour are claiming they can fund their pledges by clamping down on tax dodgers. Oh, were it that the world were so simple. Must be their equivalent of saying we can fund big increases in spending by sacking all EDI staff and lots of NHS managers.
They will increase taxes. You can count on it.
Don't risk voting Labour - they might put up taxes.
Take the safe option and vote Conservative - the party with a track record of putting up taxes.
More to the point, the current government has notably avoided taking the hard decisions. They've baked into their future spending plans swingeing cuts in public spending for the majority of government departments, deferred those cuts into the next Parliament, and said precisely nothing about how they would achieve them.
The next government is going to have a very difficult first year in office.
Sounds exactly like Brown avoiding a spending review in 2010. It’s reprehensible but it’s what politicians do.
I believe Brown was the first to do it - it may be a false memory but I think Clarke did the right thing back in 1997.
Part of the corruption of politics that happened in the Blair/post-Blair era: everything is politics. Osborne was just as bad.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
Yes - if Sunak had been a competent managerial PM, for example, the Conservatives would be doing much better.
If such a competent managerial type had been chosen instead of Truss, there would have been a chance to win. Possibly.
But he is a slow motion Truss.
The shambles that has existed since 2019 all stems from the fact the people "governing" the country
Sums up the tory predicament and they’re not getting out of it this side of the election.
I know a lot of people just wishing now to get it over with. That’s one of the reasons I think things could get worse for them as the year progresses.
I think that the Tories will have a bad but not disastrous round of local elections.
1) not many Reform candidates standing, so not many Reform votes accumulated.
2) it's the national party rather than local Conservatives that are deeply unpopular.
3) LDs, Greens and Independents likely to have a good night as they have much better prospects in council than national elections. This will often be at the expense of Labour.
Overall these will tend to inflate Tory vote share and suppress Labour share and deliver false hope to Sunak.
I think you are right.
Point 2 is the one I would stress. I know several people who are intending to vote for local Tory councillors but have zero intention of voting Tory at a GE.
To a lesser extent I come across people who will vote Lib Dem and Green at the local but say they will vote Labour tactically come the GE.
With any luck the Tory press will get terribly excited that they are doing better than the polls and Sunak, lacking any political instincts whatever, will be rush into a June election. Perhaps it's just wishful thinking!
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
I was hoping to watch Rachel's speech, but there's an incredibly dull live stream of the post office (again)* on every news channel.
*yes, I know it's important but why does it need to be blanket broadcast across every network?
It’s Alan Bates so one of those days where the interviewee is important.
The only more interesting day will be when Paula Vennells is destroyed lie by lie by lie
I think Sir John's point (and by extension TSE's point) is specious nonsense. People voting won't be voting for another 5 years of Boris as PM, or Truss as PM, they'll be voting for (or more likely not for) another 5 years of Sunak.
When Truss hit her polling lows, nobody said 'the damage has been done' by Boris - it would have been considered utterly absurd to say that. But when Sunak hits the same lows, apparently it's all the fault of his predecessors.
Fans of the 'grown ups coming back into the room' can't accept that their leader and the entire project of getting a corporatist managerial kiss-arse back into Number 10 was an electoral bust. They should have the class to admit that they were wrong.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
Yes, oldies were young once and they "just go on and made changes". They never wasted time on protests. The '60s and '70s were famous for how few protests there were, how little disruption there was.
The bulk of people as today didnt go on protests. And even today those who protest, are protesting about things which arent going to help them. Gaza isnt going to build you an affordable house.
Many of the protests in the '60s and '70s were altruistic (i.e., "about things which arent going to help them") too. I remember my parents going on a march in 1976? 1977? to save the whale, which wasn't a thing that was going to help them. My favourite British band from the 1970s are Yes, who were writing songs about the Vietnam War ("Yours is No Disgrace", "Long Distance Runaround"), even though the UK weren't even in the war!
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
OK I don't often agree with a lot of what @Alanbrooke says but I can't see why this comment would make you angry. It is stating the bleeding obvious and is what all should be aspiring to so that they can live a comfortable retirement and not depend upon the next generation to support them by having to be on benefits.
Yes times have changed when it comes to pensions and house prices, but also standards of living. Stuff changes. It is swings and roundabouts. Yes I got a free degree, but then only about 3% of the population went to University when I got my degree. Yes I have benefited from house price increases, but I also took one hell of a hit when they plummeted. But when I was a child we didn't have a car, central heating, or bathroom, just an outside loo. We also don't all have inflation proof pensions that youngsters think we have. I don't.
One needs a perspective. Stuff needs sorting. I am not happy about student debt and the un-affordable price of houses, if for no other reason that it impacts my children, but slagging off old people who have accumulated some wealth for retirement is not helpful.
So, how real is the tax gap and can “clamping down on tax dodgers” reduce it? I think it can, if targeted properly.
There are broadly 3 types of “tax dodging”:
- Hard avoidance (deliberate use of abusive, but legal, schemes to reduce or avoid tax) - Hard evasion: everything from paying staff cash in hand to international money laundering - Soft evasion: taxpayers taking shortcuts, not bothering to declare gains, over claiming reliefs or credits, either wilfully or through ignorance
Most big ticket hard avoidance has been successfully countered by HMRC in the last 2 decades through targeted and general anti avoidance rules, especially at the large corporate end of the spectrum. But some of it remains in the SME world alongside unscrupulous promoters. There is some scope there with greater HMRC resources, mainly through greater compliance enforcement.
Hard evasion will always exist and tackling it requires manpower and technology. But I’m not sure how big a tax gap is left there.
Soft evasion is pretty common and I’d say that’s where the most opportunity lies. The more effort and resources HMRC put in, the greater the yield.
There’s another thing altogether which gets conflated with “cracking down on tax dodgers” and that’s “closing loopholes”. That’s not cracking down on dodgers, it’s changing the law to broaden the tax base. In many cases the so called loophole is a deliberate policy position - to encourage investment say, or ensure fairness of proportionality. Nothing wrong with changing tax law but that counts as a tax rise, not closing the tax gap.
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
I was hoping to watch Rachel's speech, but there's an incredibly dull live stream of the post office (again)* on every news channel.
*yes, I know it's important but why does it need to be blanket broadcast across every network?
It’s Alan Bates so one of those days where the interviewee is important.
The only more interesting day will be when Paula Vennells is destroyed lie by lie by lie
If Rishi was a populist, he could declare a one off public holiday so we could all watch her evidence in the comfort of our own homes, rather than stream it at work...
Many people think it’s time for LIZ TRUSS to gracefully return to the helm.
She was hugely popular with many PB Tories of course, and with the wider world at large.
Perhaps this time she will stage a comeback based on a greater degree of ideological purity.
It seems inevitable.
TRUSS.
I do wish you wouldn't do that. I see the word and think 'oh good, something interesting on the Baltimore bridge collapse or something'. Instead of something that's chronologically stem-high to a lettuce.
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
I was hoping to watch Rachel's speech, but there's an incredibly dull live stream of the post office (again)* on every news channel.
*yes, I know it's important but why does it need to be blanket broadcast across every network?
It’s Alan Bates so one of those days where the interviewee is important.
The only more interesting day will be when Paula Vennells is destroyed lie by lie by lie
If Rishi was a populist, he could declare a one off public holiday so we could all watch her evidence in the comfort pod our own homes, rather than stream it at work...
Like it, Paula Vennells Day!
(Alternatively, schedule her interview for 27th May).
Many people think it’s time for LIZ TRUSS to gracefully return to the helm.
She was hugely popular with many PB Tories of course, and with the wider world at large.
Perhaps this time she will stage a comeback based on a greater degree of ideological purity.
It seems inevitable.
TRUSS.
I do wish you wouldn't do that. I see the word and think 'oh good, something interesting on the Baltimore bridge collapse or something'. Instead of something that's chronologically stem-high to a lettuce.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
Yes, oldies were young once and they "just go on and made changes". They never wasted time on protests. The '60s and '70s were famous for how few protests there were, how little disruption there was.
The bulk of people as today didnt go on protests. And even today those who protest, are protesting about things which arent going to help them. Gaza isnt going to build you an affordable house.
Many of the protests in the '60s and '70s were altruistic (i.e., "about things which arent going to help them") too. I remember my parents going on a march in 1976? 1977? to save the whale, which wasn't a thing that was going to help them. My favourite British band from the 1970s are Yes, who were writing songs about the Vietnam War ("Yours is No Disgrace", "Long Distance Runaround"), even though the UK weren't even in the war!
I did not know they were anti Vietnam songs. I saw Yes as a student and 'Yours is no disgrace' was one of my favourite songs. In those days though bands promoted their latest album, which I didn't know and I was bored ridged until the encore of my favourite track. You were also deafened in those days. Bands are much more entertaining these days. There you go, another advantage of being young today. I would love to be 30 again. The 30s were the best time of my life. The first time I had money to spend and I had grown up enough to enjoy life to the full.
I didn't attend protests except for two events (not marches) because of 2 atrocities local to the University. One was anti IRA the other anti NF.
Rishi Sunak's legacy will be banning cigarettes - and if so that's not too shabby.
He no doubt would have wanted something more substantial such as trashing the north (Thatcher) or invading Iraq (Blair) or destroying standards in public life (Johnson) but not everyone who gets to occupy Number Ten can be a transformational PM.
The UK has been told it must pay an extra £1.7bn (2.1bn euros) towards the European Union's budget because the economy has performed better than expected in recent years.
The payment follows new calculations by the EU that determine how much each member state should contribute.
Sure but if you don't recalculate then you end up with the mess like the current council tax system, which is plainly inequitable but no-one wants to touch with a barge pole.
I am behind the times. I thought the DM hated the RNLI for being too woke with their whole "rescuing people at sea" policy that was letting in illegal migrants.
This conversation leads me to an interesting question:
If the 2016 referendum had been Cameron's renegotiation versus Johnson's deal, would leave still have won?
Would anyone on here have voted differently?
Can anyone remember what was in the renegotiation? Remain stopped talking about it straight away. Craig Oliver's book makes clear that they were never going to recommend leaving - and Merkel knew this - so it was a complete waste of time.
Worse than a waste of time it was further proof that Cameron's EU negotiating was always 'posture, surrender, lie'.
Really? I mean, you say that when comparing it to the leave campaign and Johnson?
See Cameron's posture about not paying the £1.7bn extra EU bill of 2014, agreeing to pay it all and then claiming he had 'halved the bill'.
Lying about specific facts while in government is a whole level more dishonest than exaggerated half-truth promises in a political campaign.
Not to mention that the 'project fear' campaign that Cameron and Osborne waged was far more dishonest than anything Boris did:
Britain’s economy would be tipped into a year-long recession, with at least 500,000 jobs lost and GDP around 3.6% lower, following a vote to leave the EU, new Treasury analysis launched today by the Prime Minister and Chancellor shows.
David Cameron has warned that pledges to raise state pensions every year and ringfence spending for the NHS may have to be ditched in a brutal new phase of austerity if the country votes for Brexit.
This conversation leads me to an interesting question:
If the 2016 referendum had been Cameron's renegotiation versus Johnson's deal, would leave still have won?
Would anyone on here have voted differently?
Can anyone remember what was in the renegotiation? Remain stopped talking about it straight away. Craig Oliver's book makes clear that they were never going to recommend leaving - and Merkel knew this - so it was a complete waste of time.
What was not in the renegotiation, which Cameron had asked for, was an emergency brake on immigration. Had he got that I suspect he would have won.
And, as a result of Merkel’s obduracy, all EU citizens lost freedom of movement to the UK.
Aiui a lot of Merkel's obduracy was her repeatedly telling Cameron he had to negotiate with the EU and not Germany.
On the generational angst, so much of it just boils down to housing. I really feel like a govt which prioritised building houses themselves, not relying on developers, and keeping social housing public could make inroads in this.
Another issue is people (of all ages and political persuasions) expect to be able to live where they grew up. And our system doesn't work like that.
Peckham 30 years ago is not the same as Peckham now. Very few people will be able to make the wealth jump required in the shorty time available.
It’s not about public vs private.
It’s about resistance to building.
We are currently stockpiling planning permissions. Why?
Well, at one level, it is local monopolies. Governmental bodies love doing one big deal with a Big Firm to do a Big Job.
This enables everyone to write Big Documents that proven they are a Big Deal. With the Big Strategic Plan.
So the developer gets to modulate construction to hold house prices up.
But that isn’t the ultimate problem.
If construction actually happened quicker, the opponents of building would fight harder. The current rate of construction is political equilibrium between the pressure to build more and the objectors to building more.
The objectors aren’t just 5 Evul Pensioners. They are a whole range of people, who want no change.
Note the places these are overcome.
The Duchy of Cornwall is a megacorp that owns the land and has all the political pull. So when Chas says “Town Build’n Time” a town gets built.
Up in parts of Hackney, you’ve got a whole bunch of Orthodox Jews. Who have big families. So a huge local voting block for bigger houses. So every other house, on some streets, has another storey added.
The fault is in ourselves. I’ve met people who passionately demand more housing, while fighting every single development project. Even travelling miles to help others fight development. All while complaining about rents being high on WhatsApp.
I think it is about public vs private actually. Public housebuilding has collapsed.
The scale we need cannot be left to the private sector. They can't afford to take on massively risky projects.
The Duchy of Cornwall perhaps an example of essentially a state backed company who can do this.
I agree that people often oppose housebuilding even when in their own interest. Sad to see.
I've sometimes wondered if all the objections against a project should be tallied against the number of people who would get a home... we don't hear their voices, but they will exist.
Domestic property construction is a very low risk business. Which is why investors love it.
The problem is overcoming the various blocks in the system.
Don’t grant local monopolies. If the local monopoly is the council, then the NIMBYs will be campaign against that.
Pre build the infrastructure first. Then sell the plots to match.
Stop building crap rabbit hutches - if the houses look shit, the opposition is that much higher.
If this means that you get hate mail from award winning architects, report them in Scotland or something.
"Hamas Negotiators have reportedly told International Meditators in Cairo that it has No Ability to Release the 40 Hostages in the Humanitarian Category (Women, Children, and Elderly) that were included in yesterday’s Ceasefire Proposal because out of the 136 Hostages that remain in the Gaza Strip, a Significant number are now believed to be Dead."
So, how real is the tax gap and can “clamping down on tax dodgers” reduce it? I think it can, if targeted properly.
There are broadly 3 types of “tax dodging”:
- Hard avoidance (deliberate use of abusive, but legal, schemes to reduce or avoid tax) - Hard evasion: everything from paying staff cash in hand to international money laundering - Soft evasion: taxpayers taking shortcuts, not bothering to declare gains, over claiming reliefs or credits, either wilfully or through ignorance
Most big ticket hard avoidance has been successfully countered by HMRC in the last 2 decades through targeted and general anti avoidance rules, especially at the large corporate end of the spectrum. But some of it remains in the SME world alongside unscrupulous promoters. There is some scope there with greater HMRC resources, mainly through greater compliance enforcement.
Hard evasion will always exist and tackling it requires manpower and technology. But I’m not sure how big a tax gap is left there.
Soft evasion is pretty common and I’d say that’s where the most opportunity lies. The more effort and resources HMRC put in, the greater the yield.
There’s another thing altogether which gets conflated with “cracking down on tax dodgers” and that’s “closing loopholes”. That’s not cracking down on dodgers, it’s changing the law to broaden the tax base. In many cases the so called loophole is a deliberate policy position - to encourage investment say, or ensure fairness of proportionality. Nothing wrong with changing tax law but that counts as a tax rise, not closing the tax gap.
The introduction of Making Tax Digital for Income tax will help on the soft evasion category. This is one of its main purposes.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
Yes, oldies were young once and they "just go on and made changes". They never wasted time on protests. The '60s and '70s were famous for how few protests there were, how little disruption there was.
The bulk of people as today didnt go on protests. And even today those who protest, are protesting about things which arent going to help them. Gaza isnt going to build you an affordable house.
Many of the protests in the '60s and '70s were altruistic (i.e., "about things which arent going to help them") too. I remember my parents going on a march in 1976? 1977? to save the whale, which wasn't a thing that was going to help them. My favourite British band from the 1970s are Yes, who were writing songs about the Vietnam War ("Yours is No Disgrace", "Long Distance Runaround"), even though the UK weren't even in the war!
I did not know they were anti Vietnam songs. I saw Yes as a student and 'Yours is no disgrace' was one of my favourite songs. In those days though bands promoted their latest album, which I didn't know and I was bored ridged until the encore of my favourite track. You were also deafened in those days. Bands are much more entertaining these days. There you go, another advantage of being young today. I would love to be 30 again. The 30s were the best time of my life. The first time I had money to spend and I had grown up enough to enjoy life to the full.
I didn't attend protests except for two events (not marches) because of 2 atrocities local to the University. One was anti IRA the other anti NF.
Jon Anderson's approach to lyrics, including considerable pharmaceutical inspiration, can make his lyrics obscure. The lyrics for "Yours is No Disgrace" were written by Anderson and David Foster after a lot of dope. However, the central message is to the soldiers sent to fight in the Vietnam War that theirs is no disgrace. That is, they are just pawns, and the disgrace lies with governments.
"Long Distance Runaround" is, in part, about the 1970 Kent State shootings (when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on an anti-Vietnam protest): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings Anderson has said those events particularly inspired the line "hot colour melting the anger to stone."
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
I was hoping to watch Rachel's speech, but there's an incredibly dull live stream of the post office (again)* on every news channel.
*yes, I know it's important but why does it need to be blanket broadcast across every network?
It’s Alan Bates so one of those days where the interviewee is important.
The only more interesting day will be when Paula Vennells is destroyed lie by lie by lie
If Rishi was a populist, he could declare a one off public holiday so we could all watch her evidence in the comfort pod our own homes, rather than stream it at work...
Like it, Paula Vennells Day!
(Alternatively, schedule her interview for 27th May).
All Matters of Such National Importance To Take Place on a Bank Holiday Act 2024.
So, how real is the tax gap and can “clamping down on tax dodgers” reduce it? I think it can, if targeted properly.
There are broadly 3 types of “tax dodging”:
- Hard avoidance (deliberate use of abusive, but legal, schemes to reduce or avoid tax) - Hard evasion: everything from paying staff cash in hand to international money laundering - Soft evasion: taxpayers taking shortcuts, not bothering to declare gains, over claiming reliefs or credits, either wilfully or through ignorance
Most big ticket hard avoidance has been successfully countered by HMRC in the last 2 decades through targeted and general anti avoidance rules, especially at the large corporate end of the spectrum. But some of it remains in the SME world alongside unscrupulous promoters. There is some scope there with greater HMRC resources, mainly through greater compliance enforcement.
Hard evasion will always exist and tackling it requires manpower and technology. But I’m not sure how big a tax gap is left there.
Soft evasion is pretty common and I’d say that’s where the most opportunity lies. The more effort and resources HMRC put in, the greater the yield.
There’s another thing altogether which gets conflated with “cracking down on tax dodgers” and that’s “closing loopholes”. That’s not cracking down on dodgers, it’s changing the law to broaden the tax base. In many cases the so called loophole is a deliberate policy position - to encourage investment say, or ensure fairness of proportionality. Nothing wrong with changing tax law but that counts as a tax rise, not closing the tax gap.
One of the fascinating things about how much the rich really pay is the significant variation in the rates, as you say based on the very wide range of allowances and differential tax rates.
"one in ten people with total remuneration over £1 million paid a lower EATR than someone earning just £15,000. This proportion rises to one in four of those with total remuneration between £5 million and £10 million."
"An Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that required everyone earning more than £100,000 to pay at least a 35% tax rate on their taxable income and gains could raise around £11 billion. This is equivalent to the static effect of increasing the basic rate of Income Tax by 2p, or both the higher and additional rates by 5p. However, an AMT would raise the money from those among the rich who are paying the lowest shares, while limiting the scope for avoidance"
Earlier today, my fellow octogenarian, Big G from N.Wales, posted that the best thing to have in one's latter years was health, and he's unquestionably right. I wish I could do the things I could do two years ago, let alone 10 or 20! And as for 50 years ago: words fail me! I often agree with Malcolm, but this time I don't. It was easier to get a house 50 years ago; the price my wife and I paid for our first house was about three times my annual salary as a pharmacist; my eldest grandson, There was a difference back in the day, but it wasn't quite as great as it is now.a teacher, and his wife, another teacher, who have bought not such a nice house (not such a nice area anyway) have paid five times their combined annual salaries, and it's not so far from where we used to live. It's also at least twice the price of the house, his sister lives in; in Leeds There was a difference back in the day, but it wasn't quite as great as it is now. And my wife, and I, back in the day managed on my salary; she stayed at home and looked after me and the children. My grandson and his wife both need to work.
Incidentally I was mentally reminiscing about politics back in the day and came to the conclusion that we had a lot, as far as the EU is concerned, to blame General de Gaulle for. If he had not vetoed our entry into the EEC back in the early 60's we'd have been in one the ground floor, rather than playing catch up in the 70's.
I am behind the times. I thought the DM hated the RNLI for being too woke with their whole "rescuing people at sea" policy that was letting in illegal migrants.
Oh, it does. Or rather it knows its readers do. Very clear in the comments, though some are pushing the Wrong Line, heroes and all that. The newspaper equivalent of pouring a bucket of fish blood and guts into a tank of dogfish.
ISTR that in the seventies or early eighties, there was a traffic warden in Teignmouth, Devon, who did things like ticket hearses waiting outside a cemetery, or wedding cars. He was not a popular man...
So, how real is the tax gap and can “clamping down on tax dodgers” reduce it? I think it can, if targeted properly.
There are broadly 3 types of “tax dodging”:
- Hard avoidance (deliberate use of abusive, but legal, schemes to reduce or avoid tax) - Hard evasion: everything from paying staff cash in hand to international money laundering - Soft evasion: taxpayers taking shortcuts, not bothering to declare gains, over claiming reliefs or credits, either wilfully or through ignorance
Most big ticket hard avoidance has been successfully countered by HMRC in the last 2 decades through targeted and general anti avoidance rules, especially at the large corporate end of the spectrum. But some of it remains in the SME world alongside unscrupulous promoters. There is some scope there with greater HMRC resources, mainly through greater compliance enforcement.
Hard evasion will always exist and tackling it requires manpower and technology. But I’m not sure how big a tax gap is left there.
Soft evasion is pretty common and I’d say that’s where the most opportunity lies. The more effort and resources HMRC put in, the greater the yield.
There’s another thing altogether which gets conflated with “cracking down on tax dodgers” and that’s “closing loopholes”. That’s not cracking down on dodgers, it’s changing the law to broaden the tax base. In many cases the so called loophole is a deliberate policy position - to encourage investment say, or ensure fairness of proportionality. Nothing wrong with changing tax law but that counts as a tax rise, not closing the tax gap.
One of the fascinating things about how much the rich really pay is the significant variation in the rates, as you say based on the very wide range of allowances and differential tax rates.
"one in ten people with total remuneration over £1 million paid a lower EATR than someone earning just £15,000. This proportion rises to one in four of those with total remuneration between £5 million and £10 million."
"An Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that required everyone earning more than £100,000 to pay at least a 35% tax rate on their taxable income and gains could raise around £11 billion. This is equivalent to the static effect of increasing the basic rate of Income Tax by 2p, or both the higher and additional rates by 5p. However, an AMT would raise the money from those among the rich who are paying the lowest shares, while limiting the scope for avoidance"
Around the period 2006-2009, I was fortunate enough to be earning enough to fall in the 40% income tax band. And I remember, on this site, people moaning about a certain variety of CGT being raised from 8% to 18%, and they expected me to sympathise!
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
I was hoping to watch Rachel's speech, but there's an incredibly dull live stream of the post office (again)* on every news channel.
*yes, I know it's important but why does it need to be blanket broadcast across every network?
It’s Alan Bates so one of those days where the interviewee is important.
The only more interesting day will be when Paula Vennells is destroyed lie by lie by lie
So Labour have released some of their revenue raising measures . Are they really this stupid to now offer up more measures that Hunt is likely to steal in the autumn . They could have kept quiet and said they would release these at the time of the GE , and had a perfect excuse .
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
I was hoping to watch Rachel's speech, but there's an incredibly dull live stream of the post office (again)* on every news channel.
*yes, I know it's important but why does it need to be blanket broadcast across every network?
It’s Alan Bates so one of those days where the interviewee is important.
The only more interesting day will be when Paula Vennells is destroyed lie by lie by lie
My wife was a regular customer of Alan Bates and his shop in Craig y Don, Llandudno
It's conceivable that Boris could have made some kind of recovery. His misdemeanours were mainly scandals, which tend to fade from the collective memory. I remember when Andy Coulson absolutely dominated PB and the wider media, but who even remembers much of that now? Truss is another matter - wreck people's pensions and mortgages and that will never be forgiven. The Tory Party realized that, hence the speed and efficiency of the cull.
Whilst it is easy to see Boris’ party problems as being a factor, indeed they certainly undermined the Conservative position, I personally don’t think it was irreversible. The fatal error was made by Conservative members who chose the wrong replacement for Boris. It was clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that Truss was an utterly abysmal candidate who didn’t have the first clue. That her brief premiership was an ocean going clusterfuck was predictable and fairly well predicted. After that calling up the Archangel Gabriel wasn’t going to help the Conservative Party.
Once the inevitable election defeat occurs then clearly new leadership will be necessary, but any candidate who doesn’t tell the membership the truths they need to hear isn’t going to be worth bothering with. We now have object lessons from either side of the political divide in the dangers of allowing members too much say in the choice of leader. If you look at the experience of both parties since giving members their head in leadership elections it’s a succession of absolute duds with the very occasional half decent choice.
I get your point on members choosing duds, but it was MPs that gave them the choice between Truss and Sunak. Similarly it was MPs that added Corbyn to the shortlist.
Corbyn and the popcons are all cut from the same eu hating boomer cloth. 30p Lee.was campaigning for corbyn just a few years ago. The boomer working class vote went all the way out on the left and came out all the way on the right (the political spectrum went full circle) and now the tories and reform have their own unpragmatic ideological headache to work with
Your posts would work so much better if you didn’t use ‘boomer’ in every sentence. It’s not so much the repetition but the air of throwaway disdain that seems to come with it?
True, I’ve occasionally used the word ‘gammon’ with equal opprobrium, but I do so sparingly and only when riled.
There are plenty from either demographic who have worked hard and given good service. The systemic problems of this country cannot be laid at the feet of one or other group and we risk falling into the trap of what I mentioned here yesterday, namely scapegoating.
You can call me Gen X if you want... no hard feelings. It is just an age cohort descriptor. 😃
I’m often described as a cross between Millennial and Gen Z in my attitudes which tells me that the categorisations are pretty meaningless. Like a lot of social constructs they are designed to control others and sow divisions. When ideas challenge our own we seek to box people in.
I hope after the election that this country will move on from these social divisions and, albeit gradually, we begin to work together with greater mutual respect, understanding, and cohesion. Certainly we need to see an end to this 'anti-woke' and 'anti-gammon’ hatred.
We have to be able to talk about age as it is the key indicator of wealth distribution. And I guarantee you the numbers are insane. Why should we paper over social fact or silence it.
"over-50s now hold an eye-watering 78 per cent of all the UK's privately held housing wealth, with over-65s, the wealthiest age group, owning property worth a whopping £2.587 trillion net."
When youve worked for 30+ years you tend to have accumulated wealth, Wheres the surprise ?
It is these kinds of comments that enrage younger age cohorts.
Then perhaps you should get a life. Oldies were young once, had lots of things they didnt agree with at their age and just got on and made changes. Maybe youre getting enraged about the wrong things, Instead of Just stopping oil try just build some houses, it's in your interest.
Yes, oldies were young once and they "just go on and made changes". They never wasted time on protests. The '60s and '70s were famous for how few protests there were, how little disruption there was.
Quite, the oldies like Alanbrooke don't know they are born these days.
I have the advantage that I was there and you were not.
I was born in 1960 - ours has been a charmed generation Alan, there's no doubt of that.
British foreign secretary David Cameron recently visited Republican candidate Donald Trump in Trump's house at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to "hold talks". The Foreign Office said it's "standard practice" for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their international trips. Cameron didn't find time to meet Joe Biden, though.
When was the last time a British foreign secretary went to meet an oppositional US presidential candidate in his house, omitting to call on the serving president?
If Cammo had an invitation to see Biden's embalmed remains he would have gone because he'd have had no choice. The fact that he didn't go means there was no invitation.
So, how real is the tax gap and can “clamping down on tax dodgers” reduce it? I think it can, if targeted properly.
There are broadly 3 types of “tax dodging”:
- Hard avoidance (deliberate use of abusive, but legal, schemes to reduce or avoid tax) - Hard evasion: everything from paying staff cash in hand to international money laundering - Soft evasion: taxpayers taking shortcuts, not bothering to declare gains, over claiming reliefs or credits, either wilfully or through ignorance
Most big ticket hard avoidance has been successfully countered by HMRC in the last 2 decades through targeted and general anti avoidance rules, especially at the large corporate end of the spectrum. But some of it remains in the SME world alongside unscrupulous promoters. There is some scope there with greater HMRC resources, mainly through greater compliance enforcement.
Hard evasion will always exist and tackling it requires manpower and technology. But I’m not sure how big a tax gap is left there.
Soft evasion is pretty common and I’d say that’s where the most opportunity lies. The more effort and resources HMRC put in, the greater the yield.
There’s another thing altogether which gets conflated with “cracking down on tax dodgers” and that’s “closing loopholes”. That’s not cracking down on dodgers, it’s changing the law to broaden the tax base. In many cases the so called loophole is a deliberate policy position - to encourage investment say, or ensure fairness of proportionality. Nothing wrong with changing tax law but that counts as a tax rise, not closing the tax gap.
One of the fascinating things about how much the rich really pay is the significant variation in the rates, as you say based on the very wide range of allowances and differential tax rates.
"one in ten people with total remuneration over £1 million paid a lower EATR than someone earning just £15,000. This proportion rises to one in four of those with total remuneration between £5 million and £10 million."
"An Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that required everyone earning more than £100,000 to pay at least a 35% tax rate on their taxable income and gains could raise around £11 billion. This is equivalent to the static effect of increasing the basic rate of Income Tax by 2p, or both the higher and additional rates by 5p. However, an AMT would raise the money from those among the rich who are paying the lowest shares, while limiting the scope for avoidance"
Around the period 2006-2009, I was fortunate enough to be earning enough to fall in the 40% income tax band. And I remember, on this site, people moaning about a certain variety of CGT being raised from 8% to 18%, and they expected me to sympathise!
As I’ve commented in previous threads, my effective tax rate on all income is comfortably north of 50%. I don’t know what the opposite of tax dodging is, but that’s what it looks like.
Lord Cameron meets Trump in Florida for talks on Ukraine and the Middle East before meeting US Secretary of State Blinken in DC to discuss foreign policy too "David Cameron meets Donald Trump in Florida ahead of Blinken talks - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68767194
One of Sunak’s very few unquestionionably good decisions, was persuading Dave to come back as the top UK diplomat. He seems happy to meet with anyone, and more importantly anyone will take the meeting with the former PM.
I’ll never forgive Cameron for calling the referendum and for his part in the woeful Remain campaign . But I do accept that’s so far he’s been a decent Foreign Secretary.
I disagreed with him as PM for different reasons, but he’s definitely doing well as foreign sec. That he can meet on consecutive days with Trump and Blinken, is very good for the UK in getting our aims and views heard across the Pond - especially on Ukraine, where the US political conversation is very different to what it is in Europe.
He has studiously avoided a visit to Rwanda so far, though.
They should at least send Phil & Kirsty (both very much Dave's kind of people) over to check out the housing market.
Maybe Kirsty could make some Blue Peter style decorations to ensure the experience is more positive for the refugees.
British foreign secretary David Cameron recently visited Republican candidate Donald Trump in Trump's house at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to "hold talks". The Foreign Office said it's "standard practice" for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their international trips. Cameron didn't find time to meet Joe Biden, though.
When was the last time a British foreign secretary went to meet an oppositional US presidential candidate in his house, omitting to call on the serving president?
If Cammo had an invitation to see Biden's embalmed remains he would have gone because he'd have had no choice. The fact that he didn't go means there was no invitation.
Presumably he met President Obama in London during his recent visit.
Lord Cameron meets Trump in Florida for talks on Ukraine and the Middle East before meeting US Secretary of State Blinken in DC to discuss foreign policy too "David Cameron meets Donald Trump in Florida ahead of Blinken talks - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68767194
One of Sunak’s very few unquestionionably good decisions, was persuading Dave to come back as the top UK diplomat. He seems happy to meet with anyone, and more importantly anyone will take the meeting with the former PM.
I’ll never forgive Cameron for calling the referendum and for his part in the woeful Remain campaign . But I do accept that’s so far he’s been a decent Foreign Secretary.
I disagreed with him as PM for different reasons, but he’s definitely doing well as foreign sec. That he can meet on consecutive days with Trump and Blinken, is very good for the UK in getting our aims and views heard across the Pond - especially on Ukraine, where the US political conversation is very different to what it is in Europe.
He has studiously avoided a visit to Rwanda so far, though.
They should at least send Phil & Kirsty (both very much Dave's kind of people) over to check out the housing market.
That's a life? Sounds like living death. Then again, "lower mortgage loan repayments" and "let's not cause any trouble - let's work within the system" were famous slogans from Paris in May 1968.
Everywhere I hear the sound of marchin', chargin' feet, boy 'Cause summer's here and the time is right For saving up for the deposit on a nice semi
So, how real is the tax gap and can “clamping down on tax dodgers” reduce it? I think it can, if targeted properly.
There are broadly 3 types of “tax dodging”:
- Hard avoidance (deliberate use of abusive, but legal, schemes to reduce or avoid tax) - Hard evasion: everything from paying staff cash in hand to international money laundering - Soft evasion: taxpayers taking shortcuts, not bothering to declare gains, over claiming reliefs or credits, either wilfully or through ignorance
Most big ticket hard avoidance has been successfully countered by HMRC in the last 2 decades through targeted and general anti avoidance rules, especially at the large corporate end of the spectrum. But some of it remains in the SME world alongside unscrupulous promoters. There is some scope there with greater HMRC resources, mainly through greater compliance enforcement.
Hard evasion will always exist and tackling it requires manpower and technology. But I’m not sure how big a tax gap is left there.
Soft evasion is pretty common and I’d say that’s where the most opportunity lies. The more effort and resources HMRC put in, the greater the yield.
There’s another thing altogether which gets conflated with “cracking down on tax dodgers” and that’s “closing loopholes”. That’s not cracking down on dodgers, it’s changing the law to broaden the tax base. In many cases the so called loophole is a deliberate policy position - to encourage investment say, or ensure fairness of proportionality. Nothing wrong with changing tax law but that counts as a tax rise, not closing the tax gap.
One of the fascinating things about how much the rich really pay is the significant variation in the rates, as you say based on the very wide range of allowances and differential tax rates.
"one in ten people with total remuneration over £1 million paid a lower EATR than someone earning just £15,000. This proportion rises to one in four of those with total remuneration between £5 million and £10 million."
"An Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that required everyone earning more than £100,000 to pay at least a 35% tax rate on their taxable income and gains could raise around £11 billion. This is equivalent to the static effect of increasing the basic rate of Income Tax by 2p, or both the higher and additional rates by 5p. However, an AMT would raise the money from those among the rich who are paying the lowest shares, while limiting the scope for avoidance"
Around the period 2006-2009, I was fortunate enough to be earning enough to fall in the 40% income tax band. And I remember, on this site, people moaning about a certain variety of CGT being raised from 8% to 18%, and they expected me to sympathise!
As I’ve commented in previous threads, my effective tax rate on all income is comfortably north of 50%. I don’t know what the opposite of tax dodging is, but that’s what it looks like.
Without wishing to delve into you personal finances, how do you get close to that figure?
Are you including VAT on your spend, Council Tax, etc.?
So, how real is the tax gap and can “clamping down on tax dodgers” reduce it? I think it can, if targeted properly.
There are broadly 3 types of “tax dodging”:
- Hard avoidance (deliberate use of abusive, but legal, schemes to reduce or avoid tax) - Hard evasion: everything from paying staff cash in hand to international money laundering - Soft evasion: taxpayers taking shortcuts, not bothering to declare gains, over claiming reliefs or credits, either wilfully or through ignorance
Most big ticket hard avoidance has been successfully countered by HMRC in the last 2 decades through targeted and general anti avoidance rules, especially at the large corporate end of the spectrum. But some of it remains in the SME world alongside unscrupulous promoters. There is some scope there with greater HMRC resources, mainly through greater compliance enforcement.
Hard evasion will always exist and tackling it requires manpower and technology. But I’m not sure how big a tax gap is left there.
Soft evasion is pretty common and I’d say that’s where the most opportunity lies. The more effort and resources HMRC put in, the greater the yield.
There’s another thing altogether which gets conflated with “cracking down on tax dodgers” and that’s “closing loopholes”. That’s not cracking down on dodgers, it’s changing the law to broaden the tax base. In many cases the so called loophole is a deliberate policy position - to encourage investment say, or ensure fairness of proportionality. Nothing wrong with changing tax law but that counts as a tax rise, not closing the tax gap.
One of the fascinating things about how much the rich really pay is the significant variation in the rates, as you say based on the very wide range of allowances and differential tax rates.
"one in ten people with total remuneration over £1 million paid a lower EATR than someone earning just £15,000. This proportion rises to one in four of those with total remuneration between £5 million and £10 million."
"An Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that required everyone earning more than £100,000 to pay at least a 35% tax rate on their taxable income and gains could raise around £11 billion. This is equivalent to the static effect of increasing the basic rate of Income Tax by 2p, or both the higher and additional rates by 5p. However, an AMT would raise the money from those among the rich who are paying the lowest shares, while limiting the scope for avoidance"
Around the period 2006-2009, I was fortunate enough to be earning enough to fall in the 40% income tax band. And I remember, on this site, people moaning about a certain variety of CGT being raised from 8% to 18%, and they expected me to sympathise!
As I’ve commented in previous threads, my effective tax rate on all income is comfortably north of 50%. I don’t know what the opposite of tax dodging is, but that’s what it looks like.
British foreign secretary David Cameron recently visited Republican candidate Donald Trump in Trump's house at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to "hold talks". The Foreign Office said it's "standard practice" for ministers to meet with opposition candidates as part of their international trips. Cameron didn't find time to meet Joe Biden, though.
When was the last time a British foreign secretary went to meet an oppositional US presidential candidate in his house, omitting to call on the serving president?
If Cammo had an invitation to see Biden's embalmed remains he would have gone because he'd have had no choice. The fact that he didn't go means there was no invitation.
Presumably he met President Obama in London during his recent visit.
The President Obama that Trump thinks is his opponent in the upcoming Presidential Election? That President Obama.
Spectacularly bad ruling by the European Court of Human Rights here, which is playing right into the hands of those who would want to quit it (not least because its overreach is on a subject where its opponents also tend to hold opposite views).
Obviously a lot of that Courts role is policing the boundaries of legitimate political policy so there's inevitably continual intrusion into the political sphere. Even so, telling democratically-elected and -accountable governments what they can and can't (or worse, as here, must) do is something it should exercise considerable caution on when it comes to current divisive political debate. To do otherwise risks its credibility and turns it into a direct political player - as the US Supreme Court is. Except that whereas the US Court is clearly a contested political playing field, as as such, has some kind of legitimacy (and the US constitution can, in theory, also be amended by politicians), the European court is insulated on both points.
If courts insist on intervening in politics then politicians will inevitably respond by intervening in courts.
Spectacularly bad ruling by the European Court of Human Rights here, which is playing right into the hands of those who would want to quit it (not least because its overreach is on a subject where its opponents also tend to hold opposite views).
Many people think it’s time for LIZ TRUSS to gracefully return to the helm.
She was hugely popular with many PB Tories of course, and with the wider world at large.
Perhaps this time she will stage a comeback based on a greater degree of ideological purity.
It seems inevitable.
TRUSS.
I do wish you wouldn't do that. I see the word and think 'oh good, something interesting on the Baltimore bridge collapse or something'. Instead of something that's chronologically stem-high to a lettuce.
Spectacularly bad ruling by the European Court of Human Rights here, which is playing right into the hands of those who would want to quit it (not least because its overreach is on a subject where its opponents also tend to hold opposite views).
Obviously a lot of that Courts role is policing the boundaries of legitimate political policy so there's inevitably continual intrusion into the political sphere. Even so, telling democratically-elected and -accountable governments what they can and can't (or worse, as here, must) do is something it should exercise considerable caution on when it comes to current divisive political debate. To do otherwise risks its credibility and turns it into a direct political player - as the US Supreme Court is. Except that whereas the US Court is clearly a contested political playing field, as as such, has some kind of legitimacy (and the US constitution can, in theory, also be amended by politicians), the European court is insulated on both points.
If courts insist on intervening in politics then politicians will inevitably respond by intervening in courts.
Do we have the detail for this part of the story ? ...The court dismissed two other cases brought by six Portuguese young people and a former French mayor. Both argued that European governments had failed to tackle climate change quickly enough, violating their rights.
This conversation leads me to an interesting question:
If the 2016 referendum had been Cameron's renegotiation versus Johnson's deal, would leave still have won?
Would anyone on here have voted differently?
Given Johnson's deal replaced Cameron's negotiation and most people think it was a mistake, in principle the vote should have been different.
If it had been known in 2016 that we would have a trade deal with zero-tariffs and quotas, it would have neutralised project fear and Leave would have won by a bigger margin.
National treasure Nick Timothy has isolated that the British malaise has been created by a middle class elitist. It's all welders son Lewis Goodall's fault.
Comments
She was hugely popular with many PB Tories of course, and with the wider world at large.
Perhaps this time she will stage a comeback based on a greater degree of ideological purity.
It seems inevitable.
TRUSS.
And, as a result of Merkel’s obduracy, all EU citizens lost freedom of movement to the UK.
Notable also that she is promising to fund HMRC to have more tax officers.
Then again, "lower mortgage loan repayments" and "let's not cause any trouble - let's work within the system" were famous slogans from Paris in May 1968.
I feel some sympathy for Cameron on timing. Had he waited, he might have scraped a victory.
It would be way more sensible to put Martin Lewis, Dan Neiddle and a few others in a room with a promise to implement every simplification they and think of which would be tax neutral.
Reducing the Vat threshold to £30,000 or so would solve a lot of tax avoidance and reduced working issues
They've baked into their future spending plans swingeing cuts in public spending for the majority of government departments, deferred those cuts into the next Parliament, and said precisely nothing about how they would achieve them.
The next government is going to have a very difficult first year in office.
Bit difficult for the Tories to attack this when - having already cut the staff at HMRC to a minimum - they wanted to shut it for half the year.
But she's almost as silent as the Tories on what Labour will do about the really hard decisions.
Understandable from a party in opposition, but it doesn't inspire huge confidence in her actually having solutions.
Liz Truss says in book Queen told her to ‘pace yourself’, admits she didn’t listen
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/08/liz-truss-book-prime-minister-queen-elizabeth-ii
So planning for a comeback in 2030, then ?
There's no fool like an old fool.
It’s about resistance to building.
We are currently stockpiling planning permissions. Why?
Well, at one level, it is local monopolies. Governmental bodies love doing one big deal with a Big Firm to do a Big Job.
This enables everyone to write Big Documents that proven they are a Big Deal. With the Big Strategic Plan.
So the developer gets to modulate construction to hold house prices up.
But that isn’t the ultimate problem.
If construction actually happened quicker, the opponents of building would fight harder. The current rate of construction is political equilibrium between the pressure to build more and the objectors to building more.
The objectors aren’t just 5 Evul Pensioners. They are a whole range of people, who want no change.
Note the places these are overcome.
The Duchy of Cornwall is a megacorp that owns the land and has all the political pull. So when Chas says “Town Build’n Time” a town gets built.
Up in parts of Hackney, you’ve got a whole bunch of Orthodox Jews. Who have big families. So a huge local voting block for bigger houses. So every other house, on some streets, has another storey added.
The fault is in ourselves. I’ve met people who passionately demand more housing, while fighting every single development project. Even travelling miles to help others fight development. All while complaining about rents being high on WhatsApp.
What happens now if those measures are stolen by Hunt .
There was far more elbow room in 2010, and Brown hadn't taken the benefit of cuts deferred into the next Parliament to pay for a tax cut.
Tories should think about that: worse than Gordon Brown.
The scale we need cannot be left to the private sector. They can't afford to take on massively risky projects.
The Duchy of Cornwall perhaps an example of essentially a state backed company who can do this.
I agree that people often oppose housebuilding even when in their own interest. Sad to see.
I've sometimes wondered if all the objections against a project should be tallied against the number of people who would get a home... we don't hear their voices, but they will exist.
In the meantime meeting both sides in the US, to discuss primarily Ukraine and Israel, seems like as good a use as any of his time right now.
Our current situation is not good but it’s nowhere near that bad.
Not only do I agree with you, that's my favourite speech in all of Shakespeare.
*yes, I know it's important but why does it need to be blanket broadcast across every network?
But it's what they think they need to do to win the election I guess. Maybe they're right?
But I hope once in office they go for growth and investment. Otherwise I suspect we'll end up with a reform govt.
Unless Labour then say we’re not going to honour those cuts where will they find the funding .
Get thee behind me Satan.
Her time is NOW.
TRUSS.
As for not meeting Biden, his counterpart is Blinken not Biden so he is meeting the appropriate person.
RwandAir
I assume it’s real and not someone trolling the Tories…
😂
The opposition will say "our plans are fully costed, and we won't increase taxes on ordinary people".
Both of these lines are disingenuous and the voters know it. The only shocks are specific proposals that haven't been well-trailed beforehand (like May's sensible but fatal plans of 2017). Which is why Labour are trailing these "not exactly earth-shattering" ideas now.
Part of the corruption of politics that happened in the Blair/post-Blair era: everything is politics. Osborne was just as bad.
Point 2 is the one I would stress. I know several people who are intending to vote for local Tory councillors but have zero intention of voting Tory at a GE.
To a lesser extent I come across people who will vote Lib Dem and Green at the local but say they will vote Labour tactically come the GE.
With any luck the Tory press will get terribly excited that they are doing better than the polls and Sunak, lacking any political instincts whatever, will be rush into a June election. Perhaps it's just wishful thinking!
It’s Alan Bates so one of those days where the interviewee is important.
The only more interesting day will be when Paula Vennells is destroyed lie by lie by lie
When Truss hit her polling lows, nobody said 'the damage has been done' by Boris - it would have been considered utterly absurd to say that. But when Sunak hits the same lows, apparently it's all the fault of his predecessors.
Fans of the 'grown ups coming back into the room' can't accept that their leader and the entire project of getting a corporatist managerial kiss-arse back into Number 10 was an electoral bust. They should have the class to admit that they were wrong.
Yes times have changed when it comes to pensions and house prices, but also standards of living. Stuff changes. It is swings and roundabouts. Yes I got a free degree, but then only about 3% of the population went to University when I got my degree. Yes I have benefited from house price increases, but I also took one hell of a hit when they plummeted. But when I was a child we didn't have a car, central heating, or bathroom, just an outside loo. We also don't all have inflation proof pensions that youngsters think we have. I don't.
One needs a perspective. Stuff needs sorting. I am not happy about student debt and the un-affordable price of houses, if for no other reason that it impacts my children, but slagging off old people who have accumulated some wealth for retirement is not helpful.
There are broadly 3 types of “tax dodging”:
- Hard avoidance (deliberate use of abusive, but legal, schemes to reduce or avoid tax)
- Hard evasion: everything from paying staff cash in hand to international money laundering
- Soft evasion: taxpayers taking shortcuts, not bothering to declare gains, over claiming reliefs or credits, either wilfully or through ignorance
Most big ticket hard avoidance has been successfully countered by HMRC in the last 2 decades through targeted and general anti avoidance rules, especially at the large corporate end of the spectrum. But some of it remains in the SME world alongside unscrupulous promoters. There is some scope there with greater HMRC resources, mainly through greater compliance enforcement.
Hard evasion will always exist and tackling it requires manpower and technology. But I’m not sure how big a tax gap is left there.
Soft evasion is pretty common and I’d say that’s where the most opportunity lies. The more effort and resources HMRC put in, the greater the yield.
There’s another thing altogether which gets conflated with “cracking down on tax dodgers” and that’s “closing loopholes”. That’s not cracking down on dodgers, it’s changing the law to broaden the tax base. In many cases the so called loophole is a deliberate policy position - to encourage investment say, or ensure fairness of proportionality. Nothing wrong with changing tax law but that counts as a tax rise, not closing the tax gap.
(Alternatively, schedule her interview for 27th May).
I am still livid with her doctors for allowing her to be taken from us.
I didn't attend protests except for two events (not marches) because of 2 atrocities local to the University. One was anti IRA the other anti NF.
He no doubt would have wanted something more substantial such as trashing the north (Thatcher) or invading Iraq (Blair) or destroying standards in public life (Johnson) but not everyone who gets to occupy Number Ten can be a transformational PM.
https://www.cityam.com/forecasts-by-the-bank-and-the-obr-are-drifting-apart-is-it-a-problem/
The problem is overcoming the various blocks in the system.
Don’t grant local monopolies. If the local monopoly is the council, then the NIMBYs will be campaign against that.
Pre build the infrastructure first. Then sell the plots to match.
Stop building crap rabbit hutches - if the houses look shit, the opposition is that much higher.
If this means that you get hate mail from award winning architects, report them in Scotland or something.
"Hamas Negotiators have reportedly told International Meditators in Cairo that it has No Ability to Release the 40 Hostages in the Humanitarian Category (Women, Children, and Elderly) that were included in yesterday’s Ceasefire Proposal because out of the 136 Hostages that remain in the Gaza Strip, a Significant number are now believed to be Dead."
https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1777407937020936245
"Long Distance Runaround" is, in part, about the 1970 Kent State shootings (when the Ohio National Guard opened fire on an anti-Vietnam protest): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings Anderson has said those events particularly inspired the line "hot colour melting the anger to stone."
I'm seeing Yes later this year: see http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wnyesm.htm for details. I wish I'd been old enough to see them in the 1970s!
"one in ten people with total remuneration over £1 million paid a lower EATR than someone earning just £15,000. This
proportion rises to one in four of those with total remuneration between £5 million and £10 million."
"An Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that required everyone earning more than £100,000 to pay at least a 35% tax rate on their taxable income and gains could raise around £11 billion. This is equivalent to the static effect of
increasing the basic rate of Income Tax by 2p, or both the higher and additional rates by 5p. However, an AMT would raise the money from those among the rich who are paying the lowest shares, while limiting the scope for avoidance"
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/bn27.2020.pdf
I wish I could do the things I could do two years ago, let alone 10 or 20! And as for 50 years ago: words fail me!
I often agree with Malcolm, but this time I don't. It was easier to get a house 50 years ago; the price my wife and I paid for our first house was about three times my annual salary as a pharmacist; my eldest grandson, There was a difference back in the day, but it wasn't quite as great as it is now.a teacher, and his wife, another teacher, who have bought not such a nice house (not such a nice area anyway) have paid five times their combined annual salaries, and it's not so far from where we used to live. It's also at least twice the price of the house, his sister lives in; in Leeds
There was a difference back in the day, but it wasn't quite as great as it is now.
And my wife, and I, back in the day managed on my salary; she stayed at home and looked after me and the children. My grandson and his wife both need to work.
Incidentally I was mentally reminiscing about politics back in the day and came to the conclusion that we had a lot, as far as the EU is concerned, to blame General de Gaulle for. If he had not vetoed our entry into the EEC back in the early 60's we'd have been in one the ground floor, rather than playing catch up in the 70's.
So all is good...
And I remember, on this site, people moaning about a certain variety of CGT being raised from 8% to 18%, and they expected me to sympathise!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/09/humza-yousaf-brother-law-abduction-extortion/
Everywhere I hear the sound of marchin', chargin' feet, boy
'Cause summer's here and the time is right
For saving up for the deposit on a nice semi
Are you including VAT on your spend, Council Tax, etc.?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68768598
Obviously a lot of that Courts role is policing the boundaries of legitimate political policy so there's inevitably continual intrusion into the political sphere. Even so, telling democratically-elected and -accountable governments what they can and can't (or worse, as here, must) do is something it should exercise considerable caution on when it comes to current divisive political debate. To do otherwise risks its credibility and turns it into a direct political player - as the US Supreme Court is. Except that whereas the US Court is clearly a contested political playing field, as as such, has some kind of legitimacy (and the US constitution can, in theory, also be amended by politicians), the European court is insulated on both points.
If courts insist on intervening in politics then politicians will inevitably respond by intervening in courts.
Except for Rochdale, most PB Leavers seem rather comfortable with their decision in 2016.
...The court dismissed two other cases brought by six Portuguese young people and a former French mayor. Both argued that European governments had failed to tackle climate change quickly enough, violating their rights.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/07/liberal-elite-is-ascendant-in-britain/