I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
That was a party political broadcast by The Labour Party.
It does read remarkably like the ripostes of Brexiteers to remainer moaning after 2016 though. Both groups making the mistake of dismissing others' economic concerns if they don't chime with their preferred ideology.
"As for the type of person we’re dealing with … listen, I don’t want to say Waheed Alli “divides opinion”, because you know what? This week I asked several people in the know about him to give their opinion and they all said the exactly same thing. Unfortunately, it’s a single word that we don’t use in the Guardian unless it’s in reported speech."
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is quite a long read - that's just a brief introduction. But worth the effort.
(Fans of Attlee will not come away particularly happy.)
This paragraph shows what is at stake.
"To put the shortfall since 2008 into perspective, if Britain had grown in line with its trend between 1979 and 2008, it would be 24.8 percent more productive today. Assuming we continued working the same hours annually, that would mean a GDP per capita of £41,800 instead of £33,500, making the typical family about £8,700 better off before taxes and transfers. Tax revenues would be £1,282 billion instead of £1,027 billion, assuming tax rates are held constant. That would mean that, instead of a deficit of £85 billion, on current spending we would have a surplus of £170 billion, meaning that taxes could be much lower, and public services could be better funded."
Well, isn’t a good thing that the party that was in charge for most of the 2008-24 period is now out of power?
That sort of misses out the GFC ( Labour ) Covid and Putin. 2008 -2024 had a cocktail of bad karma. I could thouw in Brexit just to keep you happy but it little tangible effect.
I've been looking through budget history for an article. It's remarkable how unremarkable our £22 billion black hole and the likely tax rises to fund it are in historical terms.
Previous budgets (Howe in 1979, Osborne in 2010) hiked VAT by several %. Just increasing it by 2% now would fix most of the gap.
Osborne increased CGT from 18% to 28% in 2010 too. Similar such rises mooted now are being greeted like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.
The budgets of 1979 and 1981 both increased tax by amounts akin to £25bn in today's money.
And I hadn't fully clocked but the cumulative tax impacts of the Sunak 2021 and Hunt 2022 budgets were something like £65bn and £55bn respectively.
Yet Reeves has cocked up the messaging so much that everyone is viewing this autumn's event as uniquely apocalyptic.
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
What's fascinating about this post is how braindead posts like this are entirely representive of the limited level of thinking, if you can call it any thinking at all, at the top of government.
No thought at all about how people might change their behaviour off the back of it.
I get your irritation about the pay rises of others - the politics of envy is a very socialist thing after all.
Surely the train drivers are a great example of the free market in action? Due to terrible business planning by the government, we have these rail companies being both compelled to run a set level of service and compelled not to hire sufficient staff to legally and safely do so.
Supply and demand dictates that when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. If the government allowed their operators to actually train and hire sufficient drivers, the demand for their services and thus the price would go down.
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
Indeed, the best pension contribution I've ever had was 8% of regular salary and it was only matched so I had to put in 8% too. In my current job it's 6% matched contributions which is pretty generous in the private sector.
My employer is currently only contributing 3% of my first €52k - but I'm being paid more than twice as much as I would be in the public sector, so it wouldn't be hard for me to match the public sector pension contribution rate and have money leftover, if I wasn't concentrating on buying a house first.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
No one ever talks about the massive pensions you get in the public sector.
Never.
Ignoring pensions when looking at total compensation in the public sector is like ignoring bankers' bonuses.
Labour would be doing the country a favour if they got rid of final salary pension schemes in the public sector as a quid pro quo for pay rises.
Why don’t you trust in the invisible hand of the market? Lots of public sector bodies are struggling to recruit. That means the packages they are offering, pay + pension + everything else, are not attractive. Therefore, you need to make those packages more attractive.
But there is no "market" when it comes to public sector pay and pensions. It's all settled by unions and pay bodies. I'm sure if it were market led then pensions would be substantially lower and salaries somewhat higher.
I can only speak for the Local Government Pension Scheme but you can choose to opt in or opt out. Most opt in but it's not compulsory and presumably you can take your contribution as additional salary. The same is true of union membership - you can choose not to join a union and keep the money in your salary.
Not sure if the same is true for other public sector pension schemes.
Same is true of the Teacher scheme. You can opt out as an individual, and at least one academy trust wants to make that more widespread;
However, if your plan is to be retired for twenty years (and if not, what are you expecting to happen?), then the current model (about a third of total salary, a bit less than 10 % employee and a bit more than 25 % employer) is probably roughly what it costs.
People taking more money to spend now and not saving enough is one of the reasons we're collectively in this mess.
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is quite a long read - that's just a brief introduction. But worth the effort.
(Fans of Attlee will not come away particularly happy.)
This paragraph shows what is at stake.
"To put the shortfall since 2008 into perspective, if Britain had grown in line with its trend between 1979 and 2008, it would be 24.8 percent more productive today. Assuming we continued working the same hours annually, that would mean a GDP per capita of £41,800 instead of £33,500, making the typical family about £8,700 better off before taxes and transfers. Tax revenues would be £1,282 billion instead of £1,027 billion, assuming tax rates are held constant. That would mean that, instead of a deficit of £85 billion, on current spending we would have a surplus of £170 billion, meaning that taxes could be much lower, and public services could be better funded."
GDP growth has been entirely down to importing low value workers and throwing bodies at problems, it is the primary reason we've seen such poor per capita growth. Low skilled workers don't increase the overall GDP of the country enough to offset the spending requirements they bring. Fundamentally the nation didn't invest enough from 2005 to now whether public or private.
One of the reasons the LSE is struggling so badly compared to NYSE is because UK companies are not trusted by investors to deliver capital growth, UK listed companies trade a vastly lower PE ratios than US listed companies, some of that is potentially a bit of under and over pricing but mostly it's because UK companies prefer to deliver dividend growth over capital growth and it is a fundamentally short term way of doing business. The government is much the same, preferring current spending over investment, look at Labour since they got into power, huge increases in current spending from day one by pushing up public sector pay and giving in to the unions. That money is going to come from somewhere and it will mean less investment.
The nation didn’t invest enough because of austerity. That’s the number 1 culprit, I suspect.
Which was an exercise of protecting current expenditure at the expense of investment. Labour are about to do the same thing and it's a continuation of what Labour did from 2005 onwards.
I don't see how you've contradicted anything I've said.
Brownite Labour has simply picked up exactly where it left off in 2010.
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
That was a party political broadcast by The Labour Party.
It does read remarkably like the ripostes of Brexiteers to remainer moaning after 2016 though. Both groups making the mistake of dismissing others' economic concerns if they don't chime with their preferred ideology.
Well, it'd be nice to think we'd all moved on from that.
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
That was a party political broadcast by The Labour Party.
There is no money left? Nope, there's plenty of money sloshing around, just that it's in the hands of the fat cats!
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is quite a long read - that's just a brief introduction. But worth the effort.
(Fans of Attlee will not come away particularly happy.)
This paragraph shows what is at stake.
"To put the shortfall since 2008 into perspective, if Britain had grown in line with its trend between 1979 and 2008, it would be 24.8 percent more productive today. Assuming we continued working the same hours annually, that would mean a GDP per capita of £41,800 instead of £33,500, making the typical family about £8,700 better off before taxes and transfers. Tax revenues would be £1,282 billion instead of £1,027 billion, assuming tax rates are held constant. That would mean that, instead of a deficit of £85 billion, on current spending we would have a surplus of £170 billion, meaning that taxes could be much lower, and public services could be better funded."
GDP growth has been entirely down to importing low value workers and throwing bodies at problems, it is the primary reason we've seen such poor per capita growth. Low skilled workers don't increase the overall GDP of the country enough to offset the spending requirements they bring. Fundamentally the nation didn't invest enough from 2005 to now whether public or private.
One of the reasons the LSE is struggling so badly compared to NYSE is because UK companies are not trusted by investors to deliver capital growth, UK listed companies trade a vastly lower PE ratios than US listed companies, some of that is potentially a bit of under and over pricing but mostly it's because UK companies prefer to deliver dividend growth over capital growth and it is a fundamentally short term way of doing business. The government is much the same, preferring current spending over investment, look at Labour since they got into power, huge increases in current spending from day one by pushing up public sector pay and giving in to the unions. That money is going to come from somewhere and it will mean less investment.
The nation didn’t invest enough because of austerity. That’s the number 1 culprit, I suspect.
Which was an exercise of protecting current expenditure at the expense of investment. Labour are about to do the same thing and it's a continuation of what Labour did from 2005 onwards.
I don't see how you've contradicted anything I've said.
Brownite Labour has simply picked up exactly where it left off in 2010.
But worse.
Yes, it's going to be much worse. Whatever we think about Blair he kept the UK friendly to wealth creators. This current lot are making the nation actively hostile to wealth creators with rhetoric we see on here when people suggest HNW people leaving should sling their hook and fuck off etc...
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is jarring to read something, be nodding along, then come to a shuddering halt when they say something you know to be untrue. I've been head down in reservoir stuff for a few years. The last reservoir opened was Hawks Tor, a couple of years back (and I believe SW Water opened two others in a similar time period). Abberton Reservoir in Essex was MASSIVELY expanded in 2012, as well. On the heels of a huge and multi-decade expansion in reservoir capacity way beyond population growth from the Twenties to the Seventies.
This isn't to say we don't need an expansion of water capacity, but I've read the NIC report (repeatedly). They want water transfers and huge leakage reduction (we leak out at a greater rate than our intake from all reservoirs, which is absurd).
These are resisted by water companies due to commercial risk in relying on each other (transfers) and a lack of increase in regulated capital asset value (for leakage repair); building reservoirs means they can increase prices by RCAV, so that's their go-to, even in water stressed areas where they wouldn't be able to fill those reservoirs.
Anglian Water are in the process of developing 2 new reservoirs in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire to serve 750,000 additional houses in the Peterborough/Cambridge area. Portsmouth Water are also building a new one near Havant.
More to your point of transfers, Anglian have also invested millions in a huge new pipeline from Yorkshire down to East Anglia to aid water transfers.
Where by "in the process of developing" the Cambridgeshire reservoir we mean "have done phase two of consultation, won't even put in the official application until 2026/27, expect a decision from the secretary of state in 2027/28, might actually start construction in 2029/30, and don't expect it to be supplying any water to anybody until 2036 at the earliest"...
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is quite a long read - that's just a brief introduction. But worth the effort.
(Fans of Attlee will not come away particularly happy.)
This paragraph shows what is at stake.
"To put the shortfall since 2008 into perspective, if Britain had grown in line with its trend between 1979 and 2008, it would be 24.8 percent more productive today. Assuming we continued working the same hours annually, that would mean a GDP per capita of £41,800 instead of £33,500, making the typical family about £8,700 better off before taxes and transfers. Tax revenues would be £1,282 billion instead of £1,027 billion, assuming tax rates are held constant. That would mean that, instead of a deficit of £85 billion, on current spending we would have a surplus of £170 billion, meaning that taxes could be much lower, and public services could be better funded."
GDP growth has been entirely down to importing low value workers and throwing bodies at problems, it is the primary reason we've seen such poor per capita growth. Low skilled workers don't increase the overall GDP of the country enough to offset the spending requirements they bring. Fundamentally the nation didn't invest enough from 2005 to now whether public or private.
One of the reasons the LSE is struggling so badly compared to NYSE is because UK companies are not trusted by investors to deliver capital growth, UK listed companies trade a vastly lower PE ratios than US listed companies, some of that is potentially a bit of under and over pricing but mostly it's because UK companies prefer to deliver dividend growth over capital growth and it is a fundamentally short term way of doing business. The government is much the same, preferring current spending over investment, look at Labour since they got into power, huge increases in current spending from day one by pushing up public sector pay and giving in to the unions. That money is going to come from somewhere and it will mean less investment.
The nation didn’t invest enough because of austerity. That’s the number 1 culprit, I suspect.
Jobs were protected at the expense of investing in productivity. We need to have the courage to do things that make people redundant.
What do you understand by 'investment'? Giving people pay rises?
Is that you accepting you were wrong in your comments about redundancies?
What do I understand by investment? It can be done in many ways: new tech, new positions… yes, sometimes higher pay to you get better staff or fill vacancies.
No, if I was wrong then we wouldn't have a productivity crisis. The redundancies you cite are small compared to an equivalent private sector organisation and haven't impacted the overall headcount.
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is quite a long read - that's just a brief introduction. But worth the effort.
(Fans of Attlee will not come away particularly happy.)
This paragraph shows what is at stake.
"To put the shortfall since 2008 into perspective, if Britain had grown in line with its trend between 1979 and 2008, it would be 24.8 percent more productive today. Assuming we continued working the same hours annually, that would mean a GDP per capita of £41,800 instead of £33,500, making the typical family about £8,700 better off before taxes and transfers. Tax revenues would be £1,282 billion instead of £1,027 billion, assuming tax rates are held constant. That would mean that, instead of a deficit of £85 billion, on current spending we would have a surplus of £170 billion, meaning that taxes could be much lower, and public services could be better funded."
GDP growth has been entirely down to importing low value workers and throwing bodies at problems, it is the primary reason we've seen such poor per capita growth. Low skilled workers don't increase the overall GDP of the country enough to offset the spending requirements they bring. Fundamentally the nation didn't invest enough from 2005 to now whether public or private.
One of the reasons the LSE is struggling so badly compared to NYSE is because UK companies are not trusted by investors to deliver capital growth, UK listed companies trade a vastly lower PE ratios than US listed companies, some of that is potentially a bit of under and over pricing but mostly it's because UK companies prefer to deliver dividend growth over capital growth and it is a fundamentally short term way of doing business. The government is much the same, preferring current spending over investment, look at Labour since they got into power, huge increases in current spending from day one by pushing up public sector pay and giving in to the unions. That money is going to come from somewhere and it will mean less investment.
The nation didn’t invest enough because of austerity. That’s the number 1 culprit, I suspect.
Jobs were protected at the expense of investing in productivity. We need to have the courage to do things that make people redundant.
What do you understand by 'investment'? Giving people pay rises?
Is that you accepting you were wrong in your comments about redundancies?
What do I understand by investment? It can be done in many ways: new tech, new positions… yes, sometimes higher pay to you get better staff or fill vacancies.
No, if I was wrong then we wouldn't have a productivity crisis and the redundancies you cite are small compared to an equivalent private sector organisation and haven't impacted the overall headcount.
Look at the huge growth in the two green shades. Both of those could be cut in half and I doubt anyone would notice.
"As for the type of person we’re dealing with … listen, I don’t want to say Waheed Alli “divides opinion”, because you know what? This week I asked several people in the know about him to give their opinion and they all said the exactly same thing. Unfortunately, it’s a single word that we don’t use in the Guardian unless it’s in reported speech."
It's all like that
ANOTHER really brutal anti-Starmer article in the guardian. I make that about five in two days. And it’s from all sides - from the Owen jones left to the marina Hyde posh boho nihilistic centre
I know they want clicks but this feels far beyond that. I wonder if it is linked to internal feuding in the cabinet and number 10 being widely reported
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is quite a long read - that's just a brief introduction. But worth the effort.
(Fans of Attlee will not come away particularly happy.)
This paragraph shows what is at stake.
"To put the shortfall since 2008 into perspective, if Britain had grown in line with its trend between 1979 and 2008, it would be 24.8 percent more productive today. Assuming we continued working the same hours annually, that would mean a GDP per capita of £41,800 instead of £33,500, making the typical family about £8,700 better off before taxes and transfers. Tax revenues would be £1,282 billion instead of £1,027 billion, assuming tax rates are held constant. That would mean that, instead of a deficit of £85 billion, on current spending we would have a surplus of £170 billion, meaning that taxes could be much lower, and public services could be better funded."
Well, isn’t a good thing that the party that was in charge for most of the 2008-24 period is now out of power?
Oh indeed, I'm still delighted by the Tory defeat.
Hopefully Labour will make things better, but even if we generally accept that they're going to try to do the right things, I still have have doubts that they have the competence and resolve and leadership to pull it off.
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
What's fascinating about this post is how braindead posts like this are entirely representive of the limited level of thinking, if you can call it any thinking at all, at the top of government.
No thought at all about how people might change their behaviour off the back of it.
I get your irritation about the pay rises of others - the politics of envy is a very socialist thing after all.
Surely the train drivers are a great example of the free market in action? Due to terrible business planning by the government, we have these rail companies being both compelled to run a set level of service and compelled not to hire sufficient staff to legally and safely do so.
Supply and demand dictates that when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. If the government allowed their operators to actually train and hire sufficient drivers, the demand for their services and thus the price would go down.
It needs an enterprising university to offer a degree in train driving, and a lavish prospectus featuring the lifetime earnings uplift 'nailed on'.
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
What's fascinating about this post is how braindead posts like this are entirely representive of the limited level of thinking, if you can call it any thinking at all, at the top of government.
No thought at all about how people might change their behaviour off the back of it.
I get your irritation about the pay rises of others - the politics of envy is a very socialist thing after all.
Surely the train drivers are a great example of the free market in action? Due to terrible business planning by the government, we have these rail companies being both compelled to run a set level of service and compelled not to hire sufficient staff to legally and safely do so.
Supply and demand dictates that when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. If the government allowed their operators to actually train and hire sufficient drivers, the demand for their services and thus the price would go down.
Calling train drivers’ pay a ‘great example of the free market in action’ is like saying government-mandated Monopoly is a great example of competition. The rail industry is practically a state-subsidised hostage situation. The DfT compels companies to operate (your words), limits hiring, but somehow you’re pretending this is laissez-faire capitalism in action? Sure, and I'm the invisible hand. That’s like calling a puppet show a great example of individual agency - and you're missing a few strings.
You’re also invoking ‘supply and demand’ to explain wage increases, which is amusing considering you're describing a market so heavily distorted by government interventions and union straitjackets that it’s practically a command economy with more paperwork. If we were really seeing the free market in action, these companies wouldn’t be operating under government or collective pay-bargaining constraints in the first place.
Also, you suggest that if the government allowed more hiring and training, the supply of drivers would go up and wages would drop. Sure, but wouldn’t that imply that the unions pushing for higher pay atm are precisely doing what they can: capitalising on their scarcity to secure better wages? That's an unfree market. Not a free one.
It’s always fun when we try to explain complex economic systems by skipping over the messy bits like government intervention, labour rights, and monopoly providers. But hey, keep trying with the clever retorts you might get it right one day.
"As for the type of person we’re dealing with … listen, I don’t want to say Waheed Alli “divides opinion”, because you know what? This week I asked several people in the know about him to give their opinion and they all said the exactly same thing. Unfortunately, it’s a single word that we don’t use in the Guardian unless it’s in reported speech."
It's all like that
ANOTHER really brutal anti-Starmer article in the guardian. I make that about five in two days. And it’s from all sides - from the Owen jones left to the marina Hyde posh boho nihilistic centre
I know they want clicks but this feels far beyond that. I wonder if it is linked to internal feuding in the cabinet and number 10 being widely reported
Something is afoot
Could be they want Starmer gone and a real Leftie in charge
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is quite a long read - that's just a brief introduction. But worth the effort.
(Fans of Attlee will not come away particularly happy.)
This paragraph shows what is at stake.
"To put the shortfall since 2008 into perspective, if Britain had grown in line with its trend between 1979 and 2008, it would be 24.8 percent more productive today. Assuming we continued working the same hours annually, that would mean a GDP per capita of £41,800 instead of £33,500, making the typical family about £8,700 better off before taxes and transfers. Tax revenues would be £1,282 billion instead of £1,027 billion, assuming tax rates are held constant. That would mean that, instead of a deficit of £85 billion, on current spending we would have a surplus of £170 billion, meaning that taxes could be much lower, and public services could be better funded."
Well, isn’t a good thing that the party that was in charge for most of the 2008-24 period is now out of power?
That sort of misses out the GFC ( Labour ) Covid and Putin. 2008 -2024 had a cocktail of bad karma. I could thouw in Brexit just to keep you happy but it little tangible effect.
The two big hits in debt have been GFC and Covid as shown by the chart
You should read the article (though it does rather echo what @BartholomewRoberts argues here, but with better referencing).
We were not the only country to be hit by the GFC, Covid or Ukraine War, yet other countries have had productivity bounce back while ours is in the doldrums. You will be pleased that the article doesn't blame Brexit either, or for that matter demographics.
It's down to some very British problems, in particular the 1947 Town and Country planning act, but other planning regulations also.
I don't think if fully explains why the drop off took 60 years to impact, or why we could build reactors and reservoirs in the 60s and 70s but not now.
"As for the type of person we’re dealing with … listen, I don’t want to say Waheed Alli “divides opinion”, because you know what? This week I asked several people in the know about him to give their opinion and they all said the exactly same thing. Unfortunately, it’s a single word that we don’t use in the Guardian unless it’s in reported speech."
It's all like that
ANOTHER really brutal anti-Starmer article in the guardian. I make that about five in two days. And it’s from all sides - from the Owen jones left to the marina Hyde posh boho nihilistic centre
I know they want clicks but this feels far beyond that. I wonder if it is linked to internal feuding in the cabinet and number 10 being widely reported
Something is afoot
The guardian is economically fairly rightwing, and people writing there aren't actually that keen on wealthy people paying their fair share of tax, and they're afraid this might happen?
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is quite a long read - that's just a brief introduction. But worth the effort.
(Fans of Attlee will not come away particularly happy.)
This paragraph shows what is at stake.
"To put the shortfall since 2008 into perspective, if Britain had grown in line with its trend between 1979 and 2008, it would be 24.8 percent more productive today. Assuming we continued working the same hours annually, that would mean a GDP per capita of £41,800 instead of £33,500, making the typical family about £8,700 better off before taxes and transfers. Tax revenues would be £1,282 billion instead of £1,027 billion, assuming tax rates are held constant. That would mean that, instead of a deficit of £85 billion, on current spending we would have a surplus of £170 billion, meaning that taxes could be much lower, and public services could be better funded."
GDP growth has been entirely down to importing low value workers and throwing bodies at problems, it is the primary reason we've seen such poor per capita growth. Low skilled workers don't increase the overall GDP of the country enough to offset the spending requirements they bring. Fundamentally the nation didn't invest enough from 2005 to now whether public or private.
One of the reasons the LSE is struggling so badly compared to NYSE is because UK companies are not trusted by investors to deliver capital growth, UK listed companies trade a vastly lower PE ratios than US listed companies, some of that is potentially a bit of under and over pricing but mostly it's because UK companies prefer to deliver dividend growth over capital growth and it is a fundamentally short term way of doing business. The government is much the same, preferring current spending over investment, look at Labour since they got into power, huge increases in current spending from day one by pushing up public sector pay and giving in to the unions. That money is going to come from somewhere and it will mean less investment.
The nation didn’t invest enough because of austerity. That’s the number 1 culprit, I suspect.
Jobs were protected at the expense of investing in productivity. We need to have the courage to do things that make people redundant.
What do you understand by 'investment'? Giving people pay rises?
Is that you accepting you were wrong in your comments about redundancies?
What do I understand by investment? It can be done in many ways: new tech, new positions… yes, sometimes higher pay to you get better staff or fill vacancies.
No, if I was wrong then we wouldn't have a productivity crisis. The redundancies you cite are small compared to an equivalent private sector organisation and haven't impacted the overall headcount.
You're missing the point (unless those figures are for NHSE and NHSD combined, pre-merger) that NHSD was merged into NHSE. So a separate part of the NHS was merged into NHSE and some people lost their jobs - but in that context it's not surprising that the headcount of NHSE which, after merger, included parts of NHSD, continued to go up.
ETA: Actually the figure heading and subheading make this very unclear. The heading says NHS England, the subheader employed by the NHS in England. If the subheader is correct, then it would include NHSD; if the header is correct then it would not. E2TA: Well, looking at the numbers it's clearly NHS in England, including the Trusts. Be interesting to see whether it included NHSD and (parts of PHE that are also now in NHSE - the parts that didn't move to UKHSA)
TLDR: need to check it's apples and apples, not apples and oranges
He'll not last until GE 2029 as leader. But I guess they are determined to find out the hard way if the betting is any guide to what MPs will do in next couple of weeks.
Sky News @SkyNews "I am going to interrupt you, what is English identity?" - @MattBarbet
Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick MP gives his view on the importance of English identity.
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is quite a long read - that's just a brief introduction. But worth the effort.
(Fans of Attlee will not come away particularly happy.)
This paragraph shows what is at stake.
"To put the shortfall since 2008 into perspective, if Britain had grown in line with its trend between 1979 and 2008, it would be 24.8 percent more productive today. Assuming we continued working the same hours annually, that would mean a GDP per capita of £41,800 instead of £33,500, making the typical family about £8,700 better off before taxes and transfers. Tax revenues would be £1,282 billion instead of £1,027 billion, assuming tax rates are held constant. That would mean that, instead of a deficit of £85 billion, on current spending we would have a surplus of £170 billion, meaning that taxes could be much lower, and public services could be better funded."
Well, isn’t a good thing that the party that was in charge for most of the 2008-24 period is now out of power?
That sort of misses out the GFC ( Labour ) Covid and Putin. 2008 -2024 had a cocktail of bad karma. I could thouw in Brexit just to keep you happy but it little tangible effect.
The two big hits in debt have been GFC and Covid as shown by the chart
You should read the article (though it does rather echo what @BartholomewRoberts argues here, but with better referencing.
We were not the only country to be hit by the GFC, Covid or Ukraine War, yet other countries have had productivity bounce back while ours is in the doldrums. You will be pleased that the article doesn't blame Brexit either, or for that matter demographics.
It's down to some very British problems, in particular the 1947 Town and Country planning act, but other planning regulations also.
I don't think if fully explains why the drop off took 60 years to impact, or why we could build reactors and reservoirs in the 60s and 70s but not now.
It's worth a read.
Well of course other countries were hit. I simply am pointing out the period 2008-24 had more than its fair shar of big problems. The british political classes have taken a poor hand and played it badly. People like myself and @another_richard have been banging on for the need for investment, higher productivity and looking after our businesse. This has been scoffed at by those demanding immigration to avoid investment and training, nimby investment policies and hands off industrial policies.
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
That was a party political broadcast by The Labour Party.
It does read remarkably like the ripostes of Brexiteers to remainer moaning after 2016 though. Both groups making the mistake of dismissing others' economic concerns if they don't chime with their preferred ideology.
Well, it'd be nice to think we'd all moved on from that.
You mean now that THEY have had to suck it up and move on, WE mustn't be asked to suck up this new thing?
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
That was a party political broadcast by The Labour Party.
It does read remarkably like the ripostes of Brexiteers to remainer moaning after 2016 though. Both groups making the mistake of dismissing others' economic concerns if they don't chime with their preferred ideology.
Well, it'd be nice to think we'd all moved on from that.
You mean now that THEY have had to suck it up and move on, WE mustn't be asked to suck up this new thing?
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is jarring to read something, be nodding along, then come to a shuddering halt when they say something you know to be untrue. I've been head down in reservoir stuff for a few years. The last reservoir opened was Hawks Tor, a couple of years back (and I believe SW Water opened two others in a similar time period). Abberton Reservoir in Essex was MASSIVELY expanded in 2012, as well. On the heels of a huge and multi-decade expansion in reservoir capacity way beyond population growth from the Twenties to the Seventies.
This isn't to say we don't need an expansion of water capacity, but I've read the NIC report (repeatedly). They want water transfers and huge leakage reduction (we leak out at a greater rate than our intake from all reservoirs, which is absurd).
These are resisted by water companies due to commercial risk in relying on each other (transfers) and a lack of increase in regulated capital asset value (for leakage repair); building reservoirs means they can increase prices by RCAV, so that's their go-to, even in water stressed areas where they wouldn't be able to fill those reservoirs.
Anglian Water are in the process of developing 2 new reservoirs in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire to serve 750,000 additional houses in the Peterborough/Cambridge area. Portsmouth Water are also building a new one near Havant.
More to your point of transfers, Anglian have also invested millions in a huge new pipeline from Yorkshire down to East Anglia to aid water transfers.
Where by "in the process of developing" the Cambridgeshire reservoir we mean "have done phase two of consultation, won't even put in the official application until 2026/27, expect a decision from the secretary of state in 2027/28, might actually start construction in 2029/30, and don't expect it to be supplying any water to anybody until 2036 at the earliest"...
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is jarring to read something, be nodding along, then come to a shuddering halt when they say something you know to be untrue. I've been head down in reservoir stuff for a few years. The last reservoir opened was Hawks Tor, a couple of years back (and I believe SW Water opened two others in a similar time period). Abberton Reservoir in Essex was MASSIVELY expanded in 2012, as well. On the heels of a huge and multi-decade expansion in reservoir capacity way beyond population growth from the Twenties to the Seventies.
This isn't to say we don't need an expansion of water capacity, but I've read the NIC report (repeatedly). They want water transfers and huge leakage reduction (we leak out at a greater rate than our intake from all reservoirs, which is absurd).
These are resisted by water companies due to commercial risk in relying on each other (transfers) and a lack of increase in regulated capital asset value (for leakage repair); building reservoirs means they can increase prices by RCAV, so that's their go-to, even in water stressed areas where they wouldn't be able to fill those reservoirs.
Anglian Water are in the process of developing 2 new reservoirs in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire to serve 750,000 additional houses in the Peterborough/Cambridge area. Portsmouth Water are also building a new one near Havant.
More to your point of transfers, Anglian have also invested millions in a huge new pipeline from Yorkshire down to East Anglia to aid water transfers.
Where by "in the process of developing" the Cambridgeshire reservoir we mean "have done phase two of consultation, won't even put in the official application until 2026/27, expect a decision from the secretary of state in 2027/28, might actually start construction in 2029/30, and don't expect it to be supplying any water to anybody until 2036 at the earliest"...
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is jarring to read something, be nodding along, then come to a shuddering halt when they say something you know to be untrue. I've been head down in reservoir stuff for a few years. The last reservoir opened was Hawks Tor, a couple of years back (and I believe SW Water opened two others in a similar time period). Abberton Reservoir in Essex was MASSIVELY expanded in 2012, as well. On the heels of a huge and multi-decade expansion in reservoir capacity way beyond population growth from the Twenties to the Seventies.
This isn't to say we don't need an expansion of water capacity, but I've read the NIC report (repeatedly). They want water transfers and huge leakage reduction (we leak out at a greater rate than our intake from all reservoirs, which is absurd).
These are resisted by water companies due to commercial risk in relying on each other (transfers) and a lack of increase in regulated capital asset value (for leakage repair); building reservoirs means they can increase prices by RCAV, so that's their go-to, even in water stressed areas where they wouldn't be able to fill those reservoirs.
Anglian Water are in the process of developing 2 new reservoirs in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire to serve 750,000 additional houses in the Peterborough/Cambridge area. Portsmouth Water are also building a new one near Havant.
More to your point of transfers, Anglian have also invested millions in a huge new pipeline from Yorkshire down to East Anglia to aid water transfers.
Where by "in the process of developing" the Cambridgeshire reservoir we mean "have done phase two of consultation, won't even put in the official application until 2026/27, expect a decision from the secretary of state in 2027/28, might actually start construction in 2029/30, and don't expect it to be supplying any water to anybody until 2036 at the earliest"...
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is jarring to read something, be nodding along, then come to a shuddering halt when they say something you know to be untrue. I've been head down in reservoir stuff for a few years. The last reservoir opened was Hawks Tor, a couple of years back (and I believe SW Water opened two others in a similar time period). Abberton Reservoir in Essex was MASSIVELY expanded in 2012, as well. On the heels of a huge and multi-decade expansion in reservoir capacity way beyond population growth from the Twenties to the Seventies.
This isn't to say we don't need an expansion of water capacity, but I've read the NIC report (repeatedly). They want water transfers and huge leakage reduction (we leak out at a greater rate than our intake from all reservoirs, which is absurd).
These are resisted by water companies due to commercial risk in relying on each other (transfers) and a lack of increase in regulated capital asset value (for leakage repair); building reservoirs means they can increase prices by RCAV, so that's their go-to, even in water stressed areas where they wouldn't be able to fill those reservoirs.
Anglian Water are in the process of developing 2 new reservoirs in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire to serve 750,000 additional houses in the Peterborough/Cambridge area. Portsmouth Water are also building a new one near Havant.
More to your point of transfers, Anglian have also invested millions in a huge new pipeline from Yorkshire down to East Anglia to aid water transfers.
Where by "in the process of developing" the Cambridgeshire reservoir we mean "have done phase two of consultation, won't even put in the official application until 2026/27, expect a decision from the secretary of state in 2027/28, might actually start construction in 2029/30, and don't expect it to be supplying any water to anybody until 2036 at the earliest"...
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
What's fascinating about this post is how braindead posts like this are entirely representive of the limited level of thinking, if you can call it any thinking at all, at the top of government.
No thought at all about how people might change their behaviour off the back of it.
I get your irritation about the pay rises of others - the politics of envy is a very socialist thing after all.
Surely the train drivers are a great example of the free market in action? Due to terrible business planning by the government, we have these rail companies being both compelled to run a set level of service and compelled not to hire sufficient staff to legally and safely do so.
Supply and demand dictates that when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. If the government allowed their operators to actually train and hire sufficient drivers, the demand for their services and thus the price would go down.
Calling train drivers’ pay a ‘great example of the free market in action’ is like saying government-mandated Monopoly is a great example of competition. The rail industry is practically a state-subsidised hostage situation. The DfT compels companies to operate (your words), limits hiring, but somehow you’re pretending this is laissez-faire capitalism in action? Sure, and I'm the invisible hand. That’s like calling a puppet show a great example of individual agency - and you're missing a few strings.
You’re also invoking ‘supply and demand’ to explain wage increases, which is amusing considering you're describing a market so heavily distorted by government interventions and union straitjackets that it’s practically a command economy with more paperwork. If we were really seeing the free market in action, these companies wouldn’t be operating under government or collective pay-bargaining constraints in the first place.
Also, you suggest that if the government allowed more hiring and training, the supply of drivers would go up and wages would drop. Sure, but wouldn’t that imply that the unions pushing for higher pay atm are precisely doing what they can: capitalising on their scarcity to secure better wages? That's an unfree market. Not a free one.
It’s always fun when we try to explain complex economic systems by skipping over the messy bits like government intervention, labour rights, and monopoly providers. But hey, keep trying with the clever retorts you might get it right one day.
I was *slightly* taking the piss, which you have dourly chosen to ignore.
Train drivers can earn more money due to high demand for their services and low supply. Yes of course the "market" is unfree and distorted, but it is a shining example of supply and demand in action.
I do have to ask your Toryness a basic question - why did your lot create this mess? Had you not throttled the industry with the unfree horrors you rightly bemoan, then we wouldn't have had this problem needing to be solved.
Even the open operators aren't free. Lumo and the like can apply to compete with LNER, but your party dictated to it what type of trains it could have, how many seats there had to be, the whole smash.
Whither capitalism? Its fine for you you grumpily bemoan these issues, but *your party* has done all of this and *you voted to continue* with it.
"As for the type of person we’re dealing with … listen, I don’t want to say Waheed Alli “divides opinion”, because you know what? This week I asked several people in the know about him to give their opinion and they all said the exactly same thing. Unfortunately, it’s a single word that we don’t use in the Guardian unless it’s in reported speech."
It's all like that
ANOTHER really brutal anti-Starmer article in the guardian. I make that about five in two days. And it’s from all sides - from the Owen jones left to the marina Hyde posh boho nihilistic centre
I know they want clicks but this feels far beyond that. I wonder if it is linked to internal feuding in the cabinet and number 10 being widely reported
Something is afoot
The guardian is economically fairly rightwing, and people writing there aren't actually that keen on wealthy people paying their fair share of tax, and they're afraid this might happen?
Only a foreigner would misread British politics and British media this badly. A reminder that you generally don't have a clue whereof you speak, vis a vis the UK
I've been looking through budget history for an article. It's remarkable how unremarkable our £22 billion black hole and the likely tax rises to fund it are in historical terms.
Previous budgets (Howe in 1979, Osborne in 2010) hiked VAT by several %. Just increasing it by 2% now would fix most of the gap.
Osborne increased CGT from 18% to 28% in 2010 too. Similar such rises mooted now are being greeted like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.
The budgets of 1979 and 1981 both increased tax by amounts akin to £25bn in today's money.
And I hadn't fully clocked but the cumulative tax impacts of the Sunak 2021 and Hunt 2022 budgets were something like £65bn and £55bn respectively.
Yet Reeves has cocked up the messaging so much that everyone is viewing this autumn's event as uniquely apocalyptic.
The messaging cock up came from a place of hubris and arrogance - they didn’t accept they won because the Tories were dreadful and thought they were the grown ups so Reeves and co thought they could drive a stake the rough the Tories’ heart by lumping all the shit on them.
They didn’t pause to think that they have at least four years to blame the Tories for shit and got carried away with hatred of Tories and their own self-belief and didn’t stop to think “what will saying the country is fucked@ say to the markets, to investors, tax payers.
They also didn’t get that Sunak isn’t an idiot and if him and hunt couldn’t wave a magic financial wand then Reeves of the BOE and nothing substantial certainly wouldn’t.
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
What's fascinating about this post is how braindead posts like this are entirely representive of the limited level of thinking, if you can call it any thinking at all, at the top of government.
No thought at all about how people might change their behaviour off the back of it.
I get your irritation about the pay rises of others - the politics of envy is a very socialist thing after all.
Surely the train drivers are a great example of the free market in action? Due to terrible business planning by the government, we have these rail companies being both compelled to run a set level of service and compelled not to hire sufficient staff to legally and safely do so.
Supply and demand dictates that when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. If the government allowed their operators to actually train and hire sufficient drivers, the demand for their services and thus the price would go down.
It needs an enterprising university to offer a degree in train driving, and a lavish prospectus featuring the lifetime earnings uplift 'nailed on'.
Driving a train is much harder than armchair experts think. Needing to drive multiple different kinds of train in every possible conditions which greatly changes how the thing handles - its not simple.
But with the greatest respect to ASLEF, its not *that* complex. The idea that drivers should earn oodles compared to so many other jobs is daft.
We have a national shortage of drivers as the government bans train companies from hiring them as "we can't afford it". More drivers = no need for overtime working and more competition = lower wages. And far more importantly means that there's actually a reliable train service so that people can travel without enduring regular chaos.
You know what, for the first time I think Sir Keir isn't going to last. On the Right, absolutely everyone holds him in utter contempt (this wasn't the case with Blair, Brown or even Ed Miliband). Meanwhile, large parts of the Left are becoming increasingly open in their view that he's a clueless, grasping, politically clumsy mediocrity who got lucky. I suspect Labour already have a replacement lined up.
My suspicion has always been that Starmer intends to step down after one term. You won't believe this because his snazzy new glasses lend a youthful appearance but Starmer is already in his 60s.
I was in for an eye test today, because I am due for new glasses.
For a reason unknown to me there were (apparently for a "contact lens" day) advertising roundels stuck on the floor with a sexy young lady not wearing glasses (contact lens day ) in an outfit that more or less resembled the one worn by Jessica 6 in the first version of Logan's Run (ie leggy and not a lot of it).
I have no idea why, either.
It makes a change from the decades of studied sexy-librarian couples trying to suggest 'with spectacles you will pull' that have been the standard fare for most of my adulthood.
"As for the type of person we’re dealing with … listen, I don’t want to say Waheed Alli “divides opinion”, because you know what? This week I asked several people in the know about him to give their opinion and they all said the exactly same thing. Unfortunately, it’s a single word that we don’t use in the Guardian unless it’s in reported speech."
It's all like that
ANOTHER really brutal anti-Starmer article in the guardian. I make that about five in two days. And it’s from all sides - from the Owen jones left to the marina Hyde posh boho nihilistic centre
I know they want clicks but this feels far beyond that. I wonder if it is linked to internal feuding in the cabinet and number 10 being widely reported
Something is afoot
The guardian is economically fairly rightwing, and people writing there aren't actually that keen on wealthy people paying their fair share of tax, and they're afraid this might happen?
Only a foreigner would misread British politics and British media this badly. A reminder that you generally don't have a clue whereof you speak, vis a vis the UK
A reminder that you are so clueless you can call me a foreigner. Have you ever made a single accurate post about anything ever, apart from about what you are drinking?
I've been looking through budget history for an article. It's remarkable how unremarkable our £22 billion black hole and the likely tax rises to fund it are in historical terms.
Previous budgets (Howe in 1979, Osborne in 2010) hiked VAT by several %. Just increasing it by 2% now would fix most of the gap.
Osborne increased CGT from 18% to 28% in 2010 too. Similar such rises mooted now are being greeted like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.
The budgets of 1979 and 1981 both increased tax by amounts akin to £25bn in today's money.
And I hadn't fully clocked but the cumulative tax impacts of the Sunak 2021 and Hunt 2022 budgets were something like £65bn and £55bn respectively.
Yet Reeves has cocked up the messaging so much that everyone is viewing this autumn's event as uniquely apocalyptic.
The messaging cock up came from a place of hubris and arrogance - they didn’t accept they won because the Tories were dreadful and thought they were the grown ups so Reeves and co thought they could drive a stake the rough the Tories’ heart by lumping all the shit on them.
They didn’t pause to think that they have at least four years to blame the Tories for shit and got carried away with hatred of Tories and their own self-belief and didn’t stop to think “what will saying the country is fucked@ say to the markets, to investors, tax payers.
They also didn’t get that Sunak isn’t an idiot and if him and hunt couldn’t wave a magic financial wand then Reeves of the BOE and nothing substantial certainly wouldn’t.
Thinking about it they’ve potentially Ratnered the UK.
So Labour have actually plunged SEVEN points in 10 weeks. Given that Techne seem to wildly overstate Labour (40% on election day??) then Labour in reality might be down in the 20s
Are you "unskewing" the polls now?
Remember Mike's golden rule: an outlier is a poll you don't like.
Actually it’s not an outlier. It shows Labour down seven since the GE - a dramatic fall
Opinium in Scotland shows a similar fall, albeit even greater. Ten points (albeit using the GE as a marker)
New Scotland Only Westminster poll, Opinium 5-11 Sep (changes vs GE 2024):
The poll shows Labour well ahead despite doing unpopular stuff. It is an excellent poll for Labour.
Again – again! – Labour are not courting popularity. Indeed they would be mad to do so FIVE YEARS from an election.
They are scraping the barnacles off the boat. Get the shit out of the way early and take the hit.
Yet they remain streets ahead of the Tories, nevertheless.
Good for them.
What are these amazingly unpopular decisions they’ve taken that are nonetheless gonna steer UK into prosperity?
They’ve taken winter fuel off pensioners. Saving £1.5bn. That’s it. That’s the barnacle removed, now, following that immensely brave choice we can look forward to the sunny uplands. Right?
They are dreadful. Venal, petty, woke, puritan, hypocritical, talentless and devoid of any ideas at all
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
What's fascinating about this post is how braindead posts like this are entirely representive of the limited level of thinking, if you can call it any thinking at all, at the top of government.
No thought at all about how people might change their behaviour off the back of it.
I get your irritation about the pay rises of others - the politics of envy is a very socialist thing after all.
Surely the train drivers are a great example of the free market in action? Due to terrible business planning by the government, we have these rail companies being both compelled to run a set level of service and compelled not to hire sufficient staff to legally and safely do so.
Supply and demand dictates that when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. If the government allowed their operators to actually train and hire sufficient drivers, the demand for their services and thus the price would go down.
It needs an enterprising university to offer a degree in train driving, and a lavish prospectus featuring the lifetime earnings uplift 'nailed on'.
Driving a train is much harder than armchair experts think. Needing to drive multiple different kinds of train in every possible conditions which greatly changes how the thing handles - its not simple.
But with the greatest respect to ASLEF, its not *that* complex. The idea that drivers should earn oodles compared to so many other jobs is daft.
We have a national shortage of drivers as the government bans train companies from hiring them as "we can't afford it". More drivers = no need for overtime working and more competition = lower wages. And far more importantly means that there's actually a reliable train service so that people can travel without enduring regular chaos.
And worse than that, we have had multiple train companies chasing a slightly-too-small pool of drivers.
No wonder the rail unions have played them like fiddles.
I've been looking through budget history for an article. It's remarkable how unremarkable our £22 billion black hole and the likely tax rises to fund it are in historical terms.
Previous budgets (Howe in 1979, Osborne in 2010) hiked VAT by several %. Just increasing it by 2% now would fix most of the gap.
Osborne increased CGT from 18% to 28% in 2010 too. Similar such rises mooted now are being greeted like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.
The budgets of 1979 and 1981 both increased tax by amounts akin to £25bn in today's money.
And I hadn't fully clocked but the cumulative tax impacts of the Sunak 2021 and Hunt 2022 budgets were something like £65bn and £55bn respectively.
Yet Reeves has cocked up the messaging so much that everyone is viewing this autumn's event as uniquely apocalyptic.
The messaging cock up came from a place of hubris and arrogance - they didn’t accept they won because the Tories were dreadful and thought they were the grown ups so Reeves and co thought they could drive a stake the rough the Tories’ heart by lumping all the shit on them.
They didn’t pause to think that they have at least four years to blame the Tories for shit and got carried away with hatred of Tories and their own self-belief and didn’t stop to think “what will saying the country is fucked@ say to the markets, to investors, tax payers.
They also didn’t get that Sunak isn’t an idiot and if him and hunt couldn’t wave a magic financial wand then Reeves of the BOE and nothing substantial certainly wouldn’t.
I don't think the blaming Tories bit of it was the messaging cock up in the slightest. Osborne successfully blamed Labour in 2010, as did Howe in 1979, and Blair and Brown merrily blamed the Tories in 1997. It worked every time. Hell, Sunak managed to blame Truss and Johnson managed to blame May.
It was the speech, with one - highly controversial but actually not hugely revenue raising - benefits cut announced, and a promise of tax rises left to hang in the air for months before the actual budget. The choreography of it all was dire.
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
What's fascinating about this post is how braindead posts like this are entirely representive of the limited level of thinking, if you can call it any thinking at all, at the top of government.
No thought at all about how people might change their behaviour off the back of it.
I get your irritation about the pay rises of others - the politics of envy is a very socialist thing after all.
Surely the train drivers are a great example of the free market in action? Due to terrible business planning by the government, we have these rail companies being both compelled to run a set level of service and compelled not to hire sufficient staff to legally and safely do so.
Supply and demand dictates that when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. If the government allowed their operators to actually train and hire sufficient drivers, the demand for their services and thus the price would go down.
It needs an enterprising university to offer a degree in train driving, and a lavish prospectus featuring the lifetime earnings uplift 'nailed on'.
Driving a train is much harder than armchair experts think. Needing to drive multiple different kinds of train in every possible conditions which greatly changes how the thing handles - its not simple.
But with the greatest respect to ASLEF, its not *that* complex. The idea that drivers should earn oodles compared to so many other jobs is daft.
We have a national shortage of drivers as the government bans train companies from hiring them as "we can't afford it". More drivers = no need for overtime working and more competition = lower wages. And far more importantly means that there's actually a reliable train service so that people can travel without enduring regular chaos.
How long is the training period? 6 months? One year? Five years? How about flying planes? Clearly salary shouldn't just be linked to how long you need to train, but it surely gives an idea of the complexity of the task.
https://ukfoundations.co Here are some facts to set the scene about the state of the British economy. Between 2004 and 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industrial price of energy tripled in nominal terms, or doubled relative to consumer prices. With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families. Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada. Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and four times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia. Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000. At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux. Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million. Despite huge and rising demand, Heathrow annual flight numbers have been almost completely flat since 2000. Annual passenger numbers have risen by 10 million because planes have become larger, but this still compares poorly to the 22 million added at Amsterdam’s Schiphol and the 15 million added at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle. The right to take off and land at Heathrow once per week is worth tens of millions of pounds. The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under the Thames connecting Kent and Essex, runs to 360,000 pages, and the application process alone has cost £297 million. That is more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world.
These are not just disconnected observations. They highlight the most important economic fact about modern Britain: that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere...
It is jarring to read something, be nodding along, then come to a shuddering halt when they say something you know to be untrue. I've been head down in reservoir stuff for a few years. The last reservoir opened was Hawks Tor, a couple of years back (and I believe SW Water opened two others in a similar time period). Abberton Reservoir in Essex was MASSIVELY expanded in 2012, as well. On the heels of a huge and multi-decade expansion in reservoir capacity way beyond population growth from the Twenties to the Seventies.
This isn't to say we don't need an expansion of water capacity, but I've read the NIC report (repeatedly). They want water transfers and huge leakage reduction (we leak out at a greater rate than our intake from all reservoirs, which is absurd).
These are resisted by water companies due to commercial risk in relying on each other (transfers) and a lack of increase in regulated capital asset value (for leakage repair); building reservoirs means they can increase prices by RCAV, so that's their go-to, even in water stressed areas where they wouldn't be able to fill those reservoirs.
Anglian Water are in the process of developing 2 new reservoirs in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire to serve 750,000 additional houses in the Peterborough/Cambridge area. Portsmouth Water are also building a new one near Havant.
More to your point of transfers, Anglian have also invested millions in a huge new pipeline from Yorkshire down to East Anglia to aid water transfers.
Where by "in the process of developing" the Cambridgeshire reservoir we mean "have done phase two of consultation, won't even put in the official application until 2026/27, expect a decision from the secretary of state in 2027/28, might actually start construction in 2029/30, and don't expect it to be supplying any water to anybody until 2036 at the earliest"...
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
What's fascinating about this post is how braindead posts like this are entirely representive of the limited level of thinking, if you can call it any thinking at all, at the top of government.
No thought at all about how people might change their behaviour off the back of it.
I get your irritation about the pay rises of others - the politics of envy is a very socialist thing after all.
Surely the train drivers are a great example of the free market in action? Due to terrible business planning by the government, we have these rail companies being both compelled to run a set level of service and compelled not to hire sufficient staff to legally and safely do so.
Supply and demand dictates that when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. If the government allowed their operators to actually train and hire sufficient drivers, the demand for their services and thus the price would go down.
It needs an enterprising university to offer a degree in train driving, and a lavish prospectus featuring the lifetime earnings uplift 'nailed on'.
Driving a train is much harder than armchair experts think. Needing to drive multiple different kinds of train in every possible conditions which greatly changes how the thing handles - its not simple.
But with the greatest respect to ASLEF, its not *that* complex. The idea that drivers should earn oodles compared to so many other jobs is daft.
We have a national shortage of drivers as the government bans train companies from hiring them as "we can't afford it". More drivers = no need for overtime working and more competition = lower wages. And far more importantly means that there's actually a reliable train service so that people can travel without enduring regular chaos.
How long is the training period? 6 months? One year? Five years? How about flying planes? Clearly salary shouldn't just be linked to how long you need to train, but it surely gives an idea of the complexity of the task.
It's not driving the train that is complicated, it's driving the route.
A jet pilot needs to be certified to fly each different jet that they fly, but after that they can fly from Luton to Milan as easily as from Edinburgh to Malmö.
On the trains the driver has to learn each route and be certified for driving that route because they have to know what is coming up on the route before they see it.
This feels like something where technology could help massively in reducing the training overhead and increasing safety at the same time, which would allow train drivers to be deployed more efficiently too.
So Labour have actually plunged SEVEN points in 10 weeks. Given that Techne seem to wildly overstate Labour (40% on election day??) then Labour in reality might be down in the 20s
Are you "unskewing" the polls now?
Remember Mike's golden rule: an outlier is a poll you don't like.
Actually it’s not an outlier. It shows Labour down seven since the GE - a dramatic fall
Opinium in Scotland shows a similar fall, albeit even greater. Ten points (albeit using the GE as a marker)
New Scotland Only Westminster poll, Opinium 5-11 Sep (changes vs GE 2024):
The poll shows Labour well ahead despite doing unpopular stuff. It is an excellent poll for Labour.
Again – again! – Labour are not courting popularity. Indeed they would be mad to do so FIVE YEARS from an election.
They are scraping the barnacles off the boat. Get the shit out of the way early and take the hit.
Yet they remain streets ahead of the Tories, nevertheless.
Good for them.
What are these amazingly unpopular decisions they’ve taken that are nonetheless gonna steer UK into prosperity?
They’ve taken winter fuel off pensioners. Saving £1.5bn. That’s it. That’s the barnacle removed, now, following that immensely brave choice we can look forward to the sunny uplands. Right?
They are dreadful. Venal, petty, woke, puritan, hypocritical, talentless and devoid of any ideas at all
I agree. A clear improvement on the last lot.
I don't see how you can say that. They're just as incompetent and apparently about as dodgy with their donors plus they've just about managed to talk the nation into a recession after inheriting an annualised growth rate of 2.5%, you're a sensible person and I expect there's a level of buyer's remorse here that you're unwilling to face right now but you and a couple of million others abandoned the Tories and the nation is going to pay a very steep price.
Ref the Techne poll, this is what happens when you come into government without much of a positive plan, without much of a narrative other than 'the other lot are incompetent and corrupt and we're not' and without a decent day-to-day political ops team.
Labour did virtually none of the groundwork on the economy in getting the message across (unlike Blair/Brown pre-1997, even though the Tories had already done most of the hard lifting, and unlike Cameron pre-2010, when it really was valid). Starting off by cutting benefits may or may not be a sensible move from a Treasury point of view but it's one the country really wasn't ready for politically because there'd not been the case made that things were that bad - or if they were that bad, why the cuts had to fall there.
Meanwhile, Sue Grey doesn't have the political background to manage the private office, to anticipate and neuter hostile stories (whether towards her or Labour), or to push the government's own agenda (not least because there isn't a Big Picture from them at the moment). She might be a competent manager; she might be a decent person; she's not a politician - elected or administrative - and as such she's in the wrong job.
For a party which has been on the back foot in terms of media and public support / hostility for most of the time since 2002, they've adopted a remarkably passive attitude to letting things happen. Either you make the news or the news makes you.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
No one ever talks about the massive pensions you get in the public sector.
Never.
Ignoring pensions when looking at total compensation in the public sector is like ignoring bankers' bonuses.
Labour would be doing the country a favour if they got rid of final salary pension schemes in the public sector as a quid pro quo for pay rises.
Why don’t you trust in the invisible hand of the market? Lots of public sector bodies are struggling to recruit. That means the packages they are offering, pay + pension + everything else, are not attractive. Therefore, you need to make those packages more attractive.
When you’re £50k in debt and can’t get a mortgage, you don’t care about the pension. So public sector offers need to rebalance salary and pensions in favour of the former.
"As for the type of person we’re dealing with … listen, I don’t want to say Waheed Alli “divides opinion”, because you know what? This week I asked several people in the know about him to give their opinion and they all said the exactly same thing. Unfortunately, it’s a single word that we don’t use in the Guardian unless it’s in reported speech."
It's all like that
ANOTHER really brutal anti-Starmer article in the guardian. I make that about five in two days. And it’s from all sides - from the Owen jones left to the marina Hyde posh boho nihilistic centre
I know they want clicks but this feels far beyond that. I wonder if it is linked to internal feuding in the cabinet and number 10 being widely reported
Something is afoot
If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything.
I've always been employed by the private sector. Employer contributions have been: 5%, 5%, 6% and 6%, in that order, in a stakeholder plan. Which I have to match to even get that.
So when I see stories of final salary schemes and contributions of 26% or 35% to pension schemes, plus 30+ days holiday etc, you could understand why I'm not dripping with sympathy especially when my salary has just been frozen and I'm about to be taxed even more so train drivers can get a nice rise.
What hardships you face! It is painful to even read! How you suffer such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Oh, but your basic rate of pay is humongous. So maybe don’t be such a crybaby.
What's fascinating about this post is how braindead posts like this are entirely representive of the limited level of thinking, if you can call it any thinking at all, at the top of government.
No thought at all about how people might change their behaviour off the back of it.
I get your irritation about the pay rises of others - the politics of envy is a very socialist thing after all.
Surely the train drivers are a great example of the free market in action? Due to terrible business planning by the government, we have these rail companies being both compelled to run a set level of service and compelled not to hire sufficient staff to legally and safely do so.
Supply and demand dictates that when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. If the government allowed their operators to actually train and hire sufficient drivers, the demand for their services and thus the price would go down.
It needs an enterprising university to offer a degree in train driving, and a lavish prospectus featuring the lifetime earnings uplift 'nailed on'.
Driving a train is much harder than armchair experts think. Needing to drive multiple different kinds of train in every possible conditions which greatly changes how the thing handles - its not simple.
But with the greatest respect to ASLEF, its not *that* complex. The idea that drivers should earn oodles compared to so many other jobs is daft.
We have a national shortage of drivers as the government bans train companies from hiring them as "we can't afford it". More drivers = no need for overtime working and more competition = lower wages. And far more importantly means that there's actually a reliable train service so that people can travel without enduring regular chaos.
How long is the training period? 6 months? One year? Five years? How about flying planes? Clearly salary shouldn't just be linked to how long you need to train, but it surely gives an idea of the complexity of the task.
The “Pilot Shortage” is very real, because airlines don’t want to pay to train pilots, so the only people training to be pilots are those who can get £150k in debt (yes, £150k) to do so. The military used to supply loads of pilots to the airlines, but they don’t any more.
"As for the type of person we’re dealing with … listen, I don’t want to say Waheed Alli “divides opinion”, because you know what? This week I asked several people in the know about him to give their opinion and they all said the exactly same thing. Unfortunately, it’s a single word that we don’t use in the Guardian unless it’s in reported speech."
It's all like that
ANOTHER really brutal anti-Starmer article in the guardian. I make that about five in two days. And it’s from all sides - from the Owen jones left to the marina Hyde posh boho nihilistic centre
I know they want clicks but this feels far beyond that. I wonder if it is linked to internal feuding in the cabinet and number 10 being widely reported
Something is afoot
If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything.
Starmer is now fi mynding out what that's like.
I think he is a worthless unattractive self-promoter but to be scrupulously fair to him, I think he is getting a lot of undeserved hate as a result of the English class system. Posho hate because he is an oik and oik hate because he has pulled himself up into an apparently posho position in the legal system. The paradigm case of multimillionaire shit buying the government is Greensill, 1000 times as egregious as Starmer, but if you go to Eton and polish your forehead enough English snobbery wraps you in an invisibility cloak.
Comments
Marina Hyde
"As for the type of person we’re dealing with … listen, I don’t want to say Waheed Alli “divides opinion”, because you know what? This week I asked several people in the know about him to give their opinion and they all said the exactly same thing. Unfortunately, it’s a single word that we don’t use in the Guardian unless it’s in reported speech."
It's all like that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt#:~:text=The United Kingdom national debt is the total,£2,537.0 billion, or 100.5% gross domestic product.
The two big hits in debt have been GFC and Covid as shown by the chart
Previous budgets (Howe in 1979, Osborne in 2010) hiked VAT by several %. Just increasing it by 2% now would fix most of the gap.
Osborne increased CGT from 18% to 28% in 2010 too. Similar such rises mooted now are being greeted like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.
The budgets of 1979 and 1981 both increased tax by amounts akin to £25bn in today's money.
And I hadn't fully clocked but the cumulative tax impacts of the Sunak 2021 and Hunt 2022 budgets were something like £65bn and £55bn respectively.
Yet Reeves has cocked up the messaging so much that everyone is viewing this autumn's event as uniquely apocalyptic.
Surely the train drivers are a great example of the free market in action? Due to terrible business planning by the government, we have these rail companies being both compelled to run a set level of service and compelled not to hire sufficient staff to legally and safely do so.
Supply and demand dictates that when demand exceeds supply, the price goes up. If the government allowed their operators to actually train and hire sufficient drivers, the demand for their services and thus the price would go down.
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/united-learning-to-offer-45k-starting-salaries-by-offering-alternative-pension/
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/united-learnings-alternative-pension-plan-the-lawyers-views/
However, if your plan is to be retired for twenty years (and if not, what are you expecting to happen?), then the current model (about a third of total salary, a bit less than 10 % employee and a bit more than 25 % employer) is probably roughly what it costs.
People taking more money to spend now and not saving enough is one of the reasons we're collectively in this mess.
But worse.
https://fensreservoir.co.uk/proposals/process/
I know they want clicks but this feels far beyond that. I wonder if it is linked to internal feuding in the cabinet and number 10 being widely reported
Something is afoot
Hopefully Labour will make things better, but even if we generally accept that they're going to try to do the right things, I still have have doubts that they have the competence and resolve and leadership to pull it off.
You’re also invoking ‘supply and demand’ to explain wage increases, which is amusing considering you're describing a market so heavily distorted by government interventions and union straitjackets that it’s practically a command economy with more paperwork. If we were really seeing the free market in action, these companies wouldn’t be operating under government or collective pay-bargaining constraints in the first place.
Also, you suggest that if the government allowed more hiring and training, the supply of drivers would go up and wages would drop. Sure, but wouldn’t that imply that the unions pushing for higher pay atm are precisely doing what they can: capitalising on their scarcity to secure better wages? That's an unfree market. Not a free one.
It’s always fun when we try to explain complex economic systems by skipping over the messy bits like government intervention, labour rights, and monopoly providers. But hey, keep trying with the clever retorts you might get it right one day.
We were not the only country to be hit by the GFC, Covid or Ukraine War, yet other countries have had productivity bounce back while ours is in the doldrums. You will be pleased that the article doesn't blame Brexit either, or for that matter demographics.
It's down to some very British problems, in particular the 1947 Town and Country planning act, but other planning regulations also.
I don't think if fully explains why the drop off took 60 years to impact, or why we could build reactors and reservoirs in the 60s and 70s but not now.
It's worth a read.
ETA: Actually the figure heading and subheading make this very unclear. The heading says NHS England, the subheader employed by the NHS in England. If the subheader is correct, then it would include NHSD; if the header is correct then it would not.
E2TA: Well, looking at the numbers it's clearly NHS in England, including the Trusts. Be interesting to see whether it included NHSD and (parts of PHE that are also now in NHSE - the parts that didn't move to UKHSA)
TLDR: need to check it's apples and apples, not apples and oranges
He'll not last until GE 2029 as leader. But I guess they are determined to find out the hard way if the betting is any guide to what MPs will do in next couple of weeks.
Sky News
@SkyNews
"I am going to interrupt you, what is English identity?" - @MattBarbet
Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick MP gives his view on the importance of English identity.
https://trib.al/YKanzN3
https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1837106377895915720
Ten weeks sure is an eon in politics.
Train drivers can earn more money due to high demand for their services and low supply. Yes of course the "market" is unfree and distorted, but it is a shining example of supply and demand in action.
I do have to ask your Toryness a basic question - why did your lot create this mess? Had you not throttled the industry with the unfree horrors you rightly bemoan, then we wouldn't have had this problem needing to be solved.
Even the open operators aren't free. Lumo and the like can apply to compete with LNER, but your party dictated to it what type of trains it could have, how many seats there had to be, the whole smash.
Whither capitalism? Its fine for you you grumpily bemoan these issues, but *your party* has done all of this and *you voted to continue* with it.
They didn’t pause to think that they have at least four years to blame the Tories for shit and got carried away with hatred of Tories and their own self-belief and didn’t stop to think “what will saying the country is fucked@ say to the markets, to investors, tax payers.
They also didn’t get that Sunak isn’t an idiot and if him and hunt couldn’t wave a magic financial wand then Reeves of the BOE and nothing substantial certainly wouldn’t.
But with the greatest respect to ASLEF, its not *that* complex. The idea that drivers should earn oodles compared to so many other jobs is daft.
We have a national shortage of drivers as the government bans train companies from hiring them as "we can't afford it". More drivers = no need for overtime working and more competition = lower wages. And far more importantly means that there's actually a reliable train service so that people can travel without enduring regular chaos.
For a reason unknown to me there were (apparently for a "contact lens" day) advertising roundels stuck on the floor with a sexy young lady not wearing glasses (contact lens day
I have no idea why, either.
It makes a change from the decades of studied sexy-librarian couples trying to suggest 'with spectacles you will pull' that have been the standard fare for most of my adulthood.
NEW THREAD
No wonder the rail unions have played them like fiddles.
Has he said anything of substance?
It was the speech, with one - highly controversial but actually not hugely revenue raising - benefits cut announced, and a promise of tax rises left to hang in the air for months before the actual budget. The choreography of it all was dire.
Clearly salary shouldn't just be linked to how long you need to train, but it surely gives an idea of the complexity of the task.
A jet pilot needs to be certified to fly each different jet that they fly, but after that they can fly from Luton to Milan as easily as from Edinburgh to Malmö.
On the trains the driver has to learn each route and be certified for driving that route because they have to know what is coming up on the route before they see it.
This feels like something where technology could help massively in reducing the training overhead and increasing safety at the same time, which would allow train drivers to be deployed more efficiently too.
G-R-A-Y
Starmer is now finding out what that's like.