Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition
Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.
He's a male Heidi Allen.
On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.
On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.
Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.
✅ 5p on fuel ✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners ✅ VAT on private school fees ✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED
✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap ✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p ✅ Additional rate up to 50p ✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed
A - That I think would make sense. But there is the "four year countback" provision they will have to think about. B - Likely. With immediate application ie from midnight tonight? C - They have to navigate the "no income tax increases" promise. How? My take was roll it in with removing cliff-edges. D - Possible as discussed. What about the transferable married couples tax allowance, which I think was reintroduced in some form. Politically, this is a contrast with the marriage, gay and trans obsessed parts of the Conservative Right - which is a theme of National Conservatism aiui.
I'd make it 50p from £100,000k but get rid of the utterly stupid, ludicrous, moronic attack on the PA at £100,001. And yes, I do have skin in this game. The admin is awful never mind anything else: and it creates a huge disincentive to make (and spend) the income, which is a barrier to growth. This could be a masterstroke from Rachel if she dares.
I'm not against the withdrawal of the PA as you earn more as it is of greater benefit to higher earners when it is actually there for the low income people.
HOWEVER the current implementation is very crude resulting in the steps up and down in the marginal tax rates and the leap from 40% to 60% at £100,000 and then the drop later is just silly. It should be introduced earlier, but with a much, much more gradual withdrawal of the PA which ends at a new marginal tax rate when the PA is all lost.
So the marginal tax rate has the steps removed from it as much as possible and it becomes a smooth curve, thus removing the incentives to avoid going over certain tax points.
No.
If you remove the personal allowance - even if gradually between £100k and £150k - then you create the situation that your £150,001 pound is worth more than your £100,000 one.
If you want to make the tax system more progressive, raise rates, don't play silly buggers with personal allowances.
A simple thing to try and learn - the more you complicate tax rates, the more complex the reaction to them. Keep it simple.
Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition
Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.
He's a male Heidi Allen.
On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.
On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.
Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.
✅ 5p on fuel ✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners ✅ VAT on private school fees ✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED
✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap ✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p ✅ Additional rate up to 50p ✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed
I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:
1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.
4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.
It seems pretty significant if we want to understand dynamics on the British right. Reform supporters are totally different in their views of Trump from the rest of the electorate, including Tory voters.
I want to meet the 'Vote Trump' branch of the LDs, forming 16% of their voter base or just over 500,000 people. Why have I never met one?
They're just regular people who love the colour orange
Per mile VED is a terrible idea. It's basically a tax break for the 61% of car journeys below 5 miles - the main reason we have problems with congestion and exactly the kind of journey we want people to be walking or cycling instead.
Per journey would be better, but difficult to implement.
Dynamic road pricing?
4pm outside a school? £10 / mile. M74 through the borders late at night? 0.01p / mile.
Would mean universal car tracking through. Do we really want that?
On topic, well, at least that's different to the mid noughties when we never heard the end of 'you're all the same'.
Lowest turnout since 2001 when it was guaranteed that Blair would win massively. That alone back up "you're all the same" and I certainly heard it on the doorstep.
I think there is a deep-fuelled cynicism about politics and politicians, fuelled by the Faragista alt-right AND the Corbynista alt-left which is going to be very hard to shift. Harder still the longer that Osbornomics rules the economic roost...
Interesting view, because a lot of people say it's the boring centrists who are responsible for those feelings about politics. (Not my opinion btw).
Why is that not your opinion? It seems pretty obvious to me that complaints about politicians 'being all the same' are because they are all the same. Labour, Tory, or Lib Dem, they pretty much shed their skin upon the first whiff of power and pursue the same agenda. There's always a 'good reason' to be 'realistic' but the public knows it stinks, and is not in the national interest. And the same people always blame 'the extreme' parties for unsettling the plebs, as if they should shut up about migration going through the roof and then nobody would worry their pretty heads about it.
That's not how politics works.
In Opposition, the idea is to get back into power and in essence (and fact), Opposition party leaders will do and say whatever they need in order to win and that includes seemingly radical ideas.
Once in office and up against the cold hard wall of reality, they recognise the room for manoeuvre which exists in Opposition doesn't exist in Government. You might argue (and you'd probably be right) the days of any western Government opting for a significantly different economic policy have gone - Truss tried it and look what happened to her. I know, as a devotee of the policy, you thought it was right - doesn't matter, more powerful and influential forces decided it was wrong.
There's a window in which modern social democratic (let's not kid ourselves, Roy Jenkins won in the end) western Governments operate and you can't move too far from it. Britain's problem remains our obsession with American tax rates and European levels of public services and that's a circle which simply can't be squared.
Understandably for a social democrat, you're in favour of the encroachment of the blob because you think it's enshrining your values in the fabric of the state regardless of the wishes of voters. You therefore draw completely the wrong conclusions from the Truss experiment.
The only conclusion to draw if one actually wants the country to survive is that Britain's bloated, innefficient, unnaccountable, activist-minded state bureacracy is unfit for purpose, and needs taking down brick by brick. It is the only conclusion to draw because the way things are operating currently is undermining democracy, hobbling the economy, and accelerating national decline. It will happen anyway because the current trajectory is to run out of money. I'd rather it happened whilst we still have a choice.
Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition
Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.
He's a male Heidi Allen.
On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.
On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.
Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.
✅ 5p on fuel ✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners ✅ VAT on private school fees ✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED
✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap ✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p ✅ Additional rate up to 50p ✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed
I have no idea what Rachel Reeves will do, but in her shoes with the commitments she has made I would look at:
1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.
4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.
We need employers to contribute more to pensions not less.
Average house price in London is now £705,836. If Starmer did remove the £175k IHT allowance it would be suicide for Labour in London and the Home Counties and seats Labour have won like Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham, Cities of London and Westminster, Putney, Finchley and Golders Green, Eltham and Chislehurst, Welwyn Hatfield, Milton Keynes, Reading etc. It could even put seats like Hampstead and Cambridge in play for the Tories
I've heard it suggested that ANPR cameras should alert police when detecting groups of half a dozen or so motorbikes whose number plates have fallen off.
I am on a shady Telegram group were such things are discussed (of course I am) and there is a new 3d printing technique for making fake plates that is supposed to look fine to the human eye but makes it harder for the cameras to do character recognition and read the plates.
They have to be printed in resin so I've ordered the amazingly named 'Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra' and will report back. Possibly from HMP Frankston.
Wait. You mean you don't pass those speed cameras fast enough to make your plates unrecognisable in any case?
The frame rate of most speed cameras is 15fps so even at 120mph the car will only move 3.5m during the frame. As the cameras attack from behind like Chris Pincher MP that's still enough to get a good reading.
Good ECM and SIGINT is the key. Don't leave home without your Uniden R8. The power density of a pulse doppler radar signal is inversely proportional to the second power of the range. So you can detect a radar at four times the distance it can be used to usefully calculate speed. Probably more in practice due to atmospheric and reflective losses.
You lot might think you know something about speeding, but this is a full time fucking job for me. Behave yourselves.
Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition
Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.
He's a male Heidi Allen.
On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.
On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.
Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.
✅ 5p on fuel ✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners ✅ VAT on private school fees ✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED
✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap ✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p ✅ Additional rate up to 50p ✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed
A - That I think would make sense. But there is the "four year countback" provision they will have to think about. B - Likely. With immediate application ie from midnight tonight? C - They have to navigate the "no income tax increases" promise. How? My take was roll it in with removing cliff-edges. D - Possible as discussed. What about the transferable married couples tax allowance, which I think was reintroduced in some form. Politically, this is a contrast with the marriage, gay and trans obsessed parts of the Conservative Right - which is a theme of National Conservatism aiui.
I'd make it 50p from £100,000k but get rid of the utterly stupid, ludicrous, moronic attack on the PA at £100,001. And yes, I do have skin in this game. The admin is awful never mind anything else: and it creates a huge disincentive to make (and spend) the income, which is a barrier to growth. This could be a masterstroke from Rachel if she dares.
I'm not against the withdrawal of the PA as you earn more as it is of greater benefit to higher earners when it is actually there for the low income people.
HOWEVER the current implementation is very crude resulting in the steps up and down in the marginal tax rates and the leap from 40% to 60% at £100,000 and then the drop later is just silly. It should be introduced earlier, but with a much, much more gradual withdrawal of the PA which ends at a new marginal tax rate when the PA is all lost.
So the marginal tax rate has the steps removed from it as much as possible and it becomes a smooth curve, thus removing the incentives to avoid going over certain tax points.
No.
If you remove the personal allowance - even if gradually between £100k and £150k - then you create the situation that your £150,001 pound is worth more than your £100,000 one.
If you want to make the tax system more progressive, raise rates, don't play silly buggers with personal allowances.
A simple thing to try and learn - the more you complicate tax rates, the more complex the reaction to them. Keep it simple.
Just a shame that is almost always politically suboptimal
Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition
Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.
He's a male Heidi Allen.
On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.
On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.
Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.
✅ 5p on fuel ✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners ✅ VAT on private school fees ✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED
✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap ✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p ✅ Additional rate up to 50p ✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed
A - That I think would make sense. But there is the "four year countback" provision they will have to think about. B - Likely. With immediate application ie from midnight tonight? C - They have to navigate the "no income tax increases" promise. How? My take was roll it in with removing cliff-edges. D - Possible as discussed. What about the transferable married couples tax allowance, which I think was reintroduced in some form. Politically, this is a contrast with the marriage, gay and trans obsessed parts of the Conservative Right - which is a theme of National Conservatism aiui.
I'd make it 50p from £100,000k but get rid of the utterly stupid, ludicrous, moronic attack on the PA at £100,001. And yes, I do have skin in this game. The admin is awful never mind anything else: and it creates a huge disincentive to make (and spend) the income, which is a barrier to growth. This could be a masterstroke from Rachel if she dares.
I'm not against the withdrawal of the PA as you earn more as it is of greater benefit to higher earners when it is actually there for the low income people.
HOWEVER the current implementation is very crude resulting in the steps up and down in the marginal tax rates and the leap from 40% to 60% at £100,000 and then the drop later is just silly. It should be introduced earlier, but with a much, much more gradual withdrawal of the PA which ends at a new marginal tax rate when the PA is all lost.
So the marginal tax rate has the steps removed from it as much as possible and it becomes a smooth curve, thus removing the incentives to avoid going over certain tax points.
No.
If you remove the personal allowance - even if gradually between £100k and £150k - then you create the situation that your £150,001 pound is worth more than your £100,000 one.
If you want to make the tax system more progressive, raise rates, don't play silly buggers with personal allowances.
A simple thing to try and learn - the more you complicate tax rates, the more complex the reaction to them. Keep it simple.
The personal allowance withdrawal, childcare credit withdrawal, and child benefit withdrawal, all create a whole bunch of negative (to government revenue, and economic activity) behaviours, because they cause very high marginal income tax rates.
As of course do the Universal Credit withdrawal rates further down the scale, but that’s a more intractable problem to fix without dragging millions more into claiming them in the first place.
Truss's Mini Budget wasn't "governing from the left". Nor was the Rwanda scheme. Nor was cutting taxes when many public services were struggling. If the Conservative Party keeps misleading itself about why it lost, it will spend a long time in opposition
Gavin Barwell. Ugh. The less we hear from him the better.
He's a male Heidi Allen.
On immigration the tories governed left and spoke right- the rawanda scheme for example was never going to happen but they let in many more thousands of legal migrants than Labour.
On economics they taxed more than ever before- whilst cclaimimg to be a low taxed party. The two main reasons why people vote Tory they didn't deliver on.
Wait until you see what Labour have in store for October.
✅ 5p on fuel ✅ End of winter fuel allowance for 90% of pensioners ✅ VAT on private school fees ✅ Introduction of pay per mile VED
✅ Pensions down to basic relief only and lower lifetime cap ✅ CGT at higher level increased to 35p ✅ Additional rate up to 50p ✅ Inheritance tax married transfer removed
A - That I think would make sense. But there is the "four year countback" provision they will have to think about. B - Likely. With immediate application ie from midnight tonight? C - They have to navigate the "no income tax increases" promise. How? My take was roll it in with removing cliff-edges. D - Possible as discussed. What about the transferable married couples tax allowance, which I think was reintroduced in some form. Politically, this is a contrast with the marriage, gay and trans obsessed parts of the Conservative Right - which is a theme of National Conservatism aiui.
I'd make it 50p from £100,000k but get rid of the utterly stupid, ludicrous, moronic attack on the PA at £100,001. And yes, I do have skin in this game. The admin is awful never mind anything else: and it creates a huge disincentive to make (and spend) the income, which is a barrier to growth. This could be a masterstroke from Rachel if she dares.
I'm not against the withdrawal of the PA as you earn more as it is of greater benefit to higher earners when it is actually there for the low income people.
HOWEVER the current implementation is very crude resulting in the steps up and down in the marginal tax rates and the leap from 40% to 60% at £100,000 and then the drop later is just silly. It should be introduced earlier, but with a much, much more gradual withdrawal of the PA which ends at a new marginal tax rate when the PA is all lost.
So the marginal tax rate has the steps removed from it as much as possible and it becomes a smooth curve, thus removing the incentives to avoid going over certain tax points.
No.
If you remove the personal allowance - even if gradually between £100k and £150k - then you create the situation that your £150,001 pound is worth more than your £100,000 one.
If you want to make the tax system more progressive, raise rates, don't play silly buggers with personal allowances.
A simple thing to try and learn - the more you complicate tax rates, the more complex the reaction to them. Keep it simple.
The personal allowance withdrawal, childcare credit withdrawal, and child benefit withdrawal, all create a whole bunch of negative (to government revenue, and economic activity) behaviours, because they cause very high marginal income tax rates.
As of course do the Universal Credit withdrawal rates further down the scale, but that’s a more intractable problem to fix without dragging millions more into claiming them in the first place.
The best thing to help with Universe Credit is to aim to slash rents by increasing the housing supply. Then you can reduce the withdrawal rate and payments won't extend to everyone because the starting amount paid out is less.
Comments
1. Remove pensions from salary sacrifice and discount payments into pensions at around 30%. This is roughly neutral to the status quo for basic rate tax payers once you take NI into account and gives higher rate tax payers a substantial discount while still collecting useful revenue on the income funding those pension payments. It does however clobber employers contributing to pensions so they may need to be partially compensated for those.
4. The typical inheritance arrangement is husband/wife leaves their estate to each other then their children and grandchildren. Inheritance tax kicks in when the second spouse dies with an effective tax threshold of £1 million (2 spouse allowances of £325K plus £175K for property left to close family) I would remove the £175K part that was introduced by the previous government just a couple of years ago, resulting in a new typical threshold of £650K. I would also tighten up tax treatment of trusts that are used to avoid IHT - this is complicated and most normal people won't understand the differences.
The only conclusion to draw if one actually wants the country to survive is that Britain's bloated, innefficient, unnaccountable, activist-minded state bureacracy is unfit for purpose, and needs taking down brick by brick. It is the only conclusion to draw because the way things are operating currently is undermining democracy, hobbling the economy, and accelerating national decline. It will happen anyway because the current trajectory is to run out of money. I'd rather it happened whilst we still have a choice.
Average house price in London is now £705,836. If Starmer did remove the £175k IHT allowance it would be suicide for Labour in London and the Home Counties and seats Labour have won like Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham, Cities of London and Westminster, Putney, Finchley and Golders Green, Eltham and Chislehurst, Welwyn Hatfield, Milton Keynes, Reading etc. It could even put seats like Hampstead and Cambridge in play for the Tories
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices-in-London.html
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https://i.redd.it/efo74w83c6nx.jpg
As of course do the Universal Credit withdrawal rates further down the scale, but that’s a more intractable problem to fix without dragging millions more into claiming them in the first place.