When he sticks to stuff he understands, Ramaswany isn't always a fool.
The top problem with FDA is the agency’s reckless disregard for the impact of its daily decisions on the cost of new innovation. FDA’s day-to-day decisions include not just the final drug approval decisions that grab headlines, but their micromanagement of every single step of the clinical & even preclinical drug development process. This increases overall healthcare costs by raising the cost barriers to competition, which in turn advantages big pharma over smaller biotechs that face a higher cost of capital to fund their projects. That’s the *real* FDA issue we need to be talking much more about, even if it takes some level of nuance to understand. https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1858704283061153944
As an illustration of the costs of regulatory delay, priority review vouchers, which enable drug developers to get FDA review in 6 months, rather than a year, change hands for around $100m.
While I don't share the desire of the US right to get rid of all regulation, the left needs to realise the enormous cost of unnecessary regulation (which we've discussed often in the context of UK development). It's the one area where we could massively boost our prospects of economic growth without having to borrow.
We’re about to see in the US what a concerted effort at reducing government waste and needless regulation looks like.
The UK government will be a lot more efficient in general, but there’s still going to be plenty of savings available if the government really wanted to find them. Start with a serious attempt to measure outputs, and take a good look at all the legacy systems that don’t talk to each other.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
About that growth thing....
The gov't would have been better off telling everyone their manifesto was a pack of lies (Everyone thinks they've broken their promise anyway) and just whacking a penny on income tax.
The crazy thing is a) the Tories did it in 2010 and b) they set it all up with the £22bn black hole spin. They could have then gone sorry, lying Tories, big black hole, and in 5 years nobody will remember the 1p on income tax if the economy is growing etc.
Out of curiosity (and too lazy to look up if there are any exemptions) if I owned an engineering business with £2m of assets, what rate of IHT would my estate pay on it?
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
One of Scotland's most prestigious universities has blamed the UK Government's National Insurance hike for looming job cuts.
In an official message to all staff, Sir Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, says the change by the new Labour administration has created "a multi-million pound increase to our salary bill".
Student numbers are also down and Mathieson has warned staff it of "selective voluntary and, if unavoidable, compulsory redundancy" measures to come.
Edinburgh, like many of our top Universities, has become almost completely dependent on foreign students paying top whack to balance the books. A reduction in their numbers is the main source of the crisis, largely brought about by the previous government's crackdown on bringing family members with you. The NI increase will not have helped of course.
Its much tougher amongst the less prestigious Universities. Dundee has announced substantial redundancies as have Robert Gordon amongst others.
We had a voluntary severance scheme over six months ago (very generous, mostly people taking early retirement with a view to doing a bit of contract/part time work) and a limited voluntary redundancy scheme, but there will be no compulsory redundancy for the foreseeable future - the voluntary scheme has now closed, having hit its targets. Fortunately (as it turns out now) we've never been that good at attracting that many international students compared to our status - Russell group - and so have been less badly hit by the international student downturn. Within the department, research funding dwarfs student income, so that also helps locally.
There will, however, be many more universities with serious difficulties, particularly those with less of a research focus and more exposure to student income.
When he sticks to stuff he understands, Ramaswany isn't always a fool.
The top problem with FDA is the agency’s reckless disregard for the impact of its daily decisions on the cost of new innovation. FDA’s day-to-day decisions include not just the final drug approval decisions that grab headlines, but their micromanagement of every single step of the clinical & even preclinical drug development process. This increases overall healthcare costs by raising the cost barriers to competition, which in turn advantages big pharma over smaller biotechs that face a higher cost of capital to fund their projects. That’s the *real* FDA issue we need to be talking much more about, even if it takes some level of nuance to understand. https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1858704283061153944
As an illustration of the costs of regulatory delay, priority review vouchers, which enable drug developers to get FDA review in 6 months, rather than a year, change hands for around $100m.
While I don't share the desire of the US right to get rid of all regulation, the left needs to realise the enormous cost of unnecessary regulation (which we've discussed often in the context of UK development). It's the one area where we could massively boost our prospects of economic growth without having to borrow.
Music to my ears from you!
It's hardly new. We've been discussing the costs of unnecessary regulation for ages.
Lost in the general disaster for her, it wasn't well noted that this was also part of Harris's platform. We'll probably follow the US in this - in half a decade's time.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
About that growth thing....
The gov't would have been better off telling everyone their manifesto was a pack of lies (Everyone thinks they've broken their promise anyway) and just whacking a penny on income tax.
Instead they have gone down a route of raising small amounts of tax which upset a lot of people for little benefit, We are now heading in to month six of this government and they are all at sea. Since they havent had a break the charges of incompetence and sleaze will stick.
My casual discussions about politics are limited these days, but those I have had are people offering up inbidden how incredibly shite this new lot are at governing.
+1 to say that I'm underwhelmed would be an understatement...
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
One of Scotland's most prestigious universities has blamed the UK Government's National Insurance hike for looming job cuts.
In an official message to all staff, Sir Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, says the change by the new Labour administration has created "a multi-million pound increase to our salary bill".
Student numbers are also down and Mathieson has warned staff it of "selective voluntary and, if unavoidable, compulsory redundancy" measures to come.
Edinburgh, like many of our top Universities, has become almost completely dependent on foreign students paying top whack to balance the books. A reduction in their numbers is the main source of the crisis, largely brought about by the previous government's crackdown on bringing family members with you. The NI increase will not have helped of course.
Its much tougher amongst the less prestigious Universities. Dundee has announced substantial redundancies as have Robert Gordon amongst others.
The NI thing isn't even covered by the increase in student fees.
The Scottish universities have it slightly tougher than English ones but there are a lot of English ones in trouble.
Glen O'Hara who tweets about redundancies reported that Durham, Northumbria, Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are all trying to cut staff - and yes that is every university in the North East and 2 are the prestigious ones you refer to above (as probably is Northumbria nowadays).
Talking about the railways, I was chatting with a friend yday and we agreed how ridiculously expensive rail travel is in the UK. To prove the point I idly searched up Lon (Any) to Newcastle leaving at 9am in the morning tomorrow. There were no trains. So I picked a day next week. No trains. Next month - no trains.
It's bizarre you can't travel from London to Newcastle by train at any time in the train timetables apart from one train (£140) at I think 10.30am.
I searched up London - Manchester and if you want the journey to take 2hrs 20mins with no changes, rather than 3hrs 30mins with one change, it costs you £369 return (vs I think £170-odd).
ffs
I'm confused because LNER trains to Edinburgh run every half hour from 7:00 to 20:00 then hourly at 21:00 & 22:00.
But you are seriously penalised if you have to travel at no notice. I usually book a week or more in advance so my journey this week is £90 there and back - plus probably £40 for first class upgrades.
I do have to travel down Tuesday night rather than Wednesday morning but a 5:30 start doesn't do me any favours nowadays and it saves £160 which covers a decent hotel room.
A quick check of LNER website has 10 trains in the 0800-1100 period. Direct ones at 0800, 0830 and 0900.
Something's wrong with the search engine Topping is using.
Or something's wrong with the Topping using the search engine.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
One of Scotland's most prestigious universities has blamed the UK Government's National Insurance hike for looming job cuts.
In an official message to all staff, Sir Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, says the change by the new Labour administration has created "a multi-million pound increase to our salary bill".
Student numbers are also down and Mathieson has warned staff it of "selective voluntary and, if unavoidable, compulsory redundancy" measures to come.
Edinburgh, like many of our top Universities, has become almost completely dependent on foreign students paying top whack to balance the books. A reduction in their numbers is the main source of the crisis, largely brought about by the previous government's crackdown on bringing family members with you. The NI increase will not have helped of course.
Its much tougher amongst the less prestigious Universities. Dundee has announced substantial redundancies as have Robert Gordon amongst others.
The NI thing isn't even covered by the increase in student fees.
The Scottish universities have it slightly tougher than English ones but there are a lot of English ones in trouble.
Glen O'Hara who tweets about redundancies reported that Durham, Northumbria, Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are all trying to cut staff - and yes that is every university in the North East and 2 are the prestigious ones you refer to above (as probably is Northumbria nowadays).
Talking about the railways, I was chatting with a friend yday and we agreed how ridiculously expensive rail travel is in the UK. To prove the point I idly searched up Lon (Any) to Newcastle leaving at 9am in the morning tomorrow. There were no trains. So I picked a day next week. No trains. Next month - no trains.
It's bizarre you can't travel from London to Newcastle by train at any time in the train timetables apart from one train (£140) at I think 10.30am.
I searched up London - Manchester and if you want the journey to take 2hrs 20mins with no changes, rather than 3hrs 30mins with one change, it costs you £369 return (vs I think £170-odd).
To Newcastle? I am looking at the LNER website now for tomorrow travel and there's only one train at 10.45 (open return). Same with next Weds. At £168.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
One of Scotland's most prestigious universities has blamed the UK Government's National Insurance hike for looming job cuts.
In an official message to all staff, Sir Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, says the change by the new Labour administration has created "a multi-million pound increase to our salary bill".
Student numbers are also down and Mathieson has warned staff it of "selective voluntary and, if unavoidable, compulsory redundancy" measures to come.
Edinburgh, like many of our top Universities, has become almost completely dependent on foreign students paying top whack to balance the books. A reduction in their numbers is the main source of the crisis, largely brought about by the previous government's crackdown on bringing family members with you. The NI increase will not have helped of course.
Its much tougher amongst the less prestigious Universities. Dundee has announced substantial redundancies as have Robert Gordon amongst others.
The NI thing isn't even covered by the increase in student fees.
The Scottish universities have it slightly tougher than English ones but there are a lot of English ones in trouble.
Glen O'Hara who tweets about redundancies reported that Durham, Northumbria, Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are all trying to cut staff - and yes that is every university in the North East and 2 are the prestigious ones you refer to above (as probably is Northumbria nowadays).
Talking about the railways, I was chatting with a friend yday and we agreed how ridiculously expensive rail travel is in the UK. To prove the point I idly searched up Lon (Any) to Newcastle leaving at 9am in the morning tomorrow. There were no trains. So I picked a day next week. No trains. Next month - no trains.
It's bizarre you can't travel from London to Newcastle by train at any time in the train timetables apart from one train (£140) at I think 10.30am.
I searched up London - Manchester and if you want the journey to take 2hrs 20mins with no changes, rather than 3hrs 30mins with one change, it costs you £369 return (vs I think £170-odd).
To Newcastle? I am looking at the LNER website now for tomorrow travel and there's only one train at 10.45 (open return). Same with next Weds. At £168.
Looks like it snowed earlier this morning in suburban east London - some slushy ice on our kitchen skylights! But it's melted everywhere else, mind (street, car, garden, shed roof, etc).
It's snowing in Hamburg but we're coping
If were doing snow updates accross Europe, it has just started sleeting in Berlin.
Looks like it snowed earlier this morning in suburban east London - some slushy ice on our kitchen skylights! But it's melted everywhere else, mind (street, car, garden, shed roof, etc).
It's snowing in Hamburg but we're coping
If were doing snow updates accross Europe, it has just started sleeting in Berlin.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
One of Scotland's most prestigious universities has blamed the UK Government's National Insurance hike for looming job cuts.
In an official message to all staff, Sir Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, says the change by the new Labour administration has created "a multi-million pound increase to our salary bill".
Student numbers are also down and Mathieson has warned staff it of "selective voluntary and, if unavoidable, compulsory redundancy" measures to come.
Edinburgh, like many of our top Universities, has become almost completely dependent on foreign students paying top whack to balance the books. A reduction in their numbers is the main source of the crisis, largely brought about by the previous government's crackdown on bringing family members with you. The NI increase will not have helped of course.
Its much tougher amongst the less prestigious Universities. Dundee has announced substantial redundancies as have Robert Gordon amongst others.
The NI thing isn't even covered by the increase in student fees.
The Scottish universities have it slightly tougher than English ones but there are a lot of English ones in trouble.
Glen O'Hara who tweets about redundancies reported that Durham, Northumbria, Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are all trying to cut staff - and yes that is every university in the North East and 2 are the prestigious ones you refer to above (as probably is Northumbria nowadays).
Talking about the railways, I was chatting with a friend yday and we agreed how ridiculously expensive rail travel is in the UK. To prove the point I idly searched up Lon (Any) to Newcastle leaving at 9am in the morning tomorrow. There were no trains. So I picked a day next week. No trains. Next month - no trains.
It's bizarre you can't travel from London to Newcastle by train at any time in the train timetables apart from one train (£140) at I think 10.30am.
I searched up London - Manchester and if you want the journey to take 2hrs 20mins with no changes, rather than 3hrs 30mins with one change, it costs you £369 return (vs I think £170-odd).
ffs
I'm confused because LNER trains to Edinburgh run every half hour from 7:00 to 20:00 then hourly at 21:00 & 22:00.
But you are seriously penalised if you have to travel at no notice. I usually book a week or more in advance so my journey this week is £90 there and back - plus probably £40 for first class upgrades.
I do have to travel down Tuesday night rather than Wednesday morning but a 5:30 start doesn't do me any favours nowadays and it saves £160 which covers a decent hotel room.
A quick check of LNER website has 10 trains in the 0800-1100 period. Direct ones at 0800, 0830 and 0900.
Something's wrong with the search engine Topping is using.
Or something's wrong with the Topping using the search engine.
"“I don’t think the Government has any concept of how the tax changes and other policies for shutting down the North Sea are going to impact demand for decommissioning,” he said.
“They’ll be putting pressure on wind farms to add as much capacity as possible, but they haven’t realised that the oil industry needs the same equipment."
Badly informed by civil servants - or just ignoring the issue?
It is. But I fear, like our very own Sean Thomas, Meeks is someone who travels and sees what he wants to see. War-weariness is also far from unusual: from listening to my grandparents, you would have seen plenty of war-weariness here in Britain in 1942, 1943 and 1944. That does not mean they didn't want to continue the fight. But we also forget how many people did not fully obey the rules, from black-marketeers and the people who used them, to the many who did not obey the blackout at all times.
Meeks is a good writer, but he needs a good editor. He *always* over-writes. And that's quite an accusation coming from me.
(If you want to see a video from Ukraine which IMV is better than that article, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQQCq1ijRjc Sometimes images really do cover 1,000 words.)
I'm sure they were all sick of the totally unwanted and unnecessary war from Day One. But life is about tradeoffs, and I imagine most of them probably realise, like our ancestors, that giving way to a mad tyrant would be far worse for them and their children - those that survive anyway.
We can only be grateful that none of us have ever had to make similar choices, and we should do all we can to help that brave country so we never have to.
Our government is making different choices. The first quarter of PM yesterday was about our new "pragmatic" relationship with China that Starmer is promoting. And then we get headlines like this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2l4eynl4zo the very next day.
So the slightly remote possibility of further exports and modest growth seems to outweigh such considerations. Can't say I am impressed.
I suspect Starmer is hoping for Chinese 'investment'.
Hopefully more successful than this attempt:
A council which signed a £1bn investment deal with a Chinese manufacturing firm three years ago has admitted the deal is now "dead".
Sheffield City Council announced the 60-year agreement with the Sichuan Guodong construction firm in 2016.
It was hailed a "massive vote of confidence" for the city but will now not happen, a councillor has said.
However, the authority said it had "no regrets" because the deal had "put Sheffield on the map".
Altogether the council spent £40,000 on trips connected with the agreement.
When she signed the deal in July 2016 Julie Dore, leader of the Labour-run council, said Sheffield would see "benefits and achievements" for years and years.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
One of Scotland's most prestigious universities has blamed the UK Government's National Insurance hike for looming job cuts.
In an official message to all staff, Sir Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, says the change by the new Labour administration has created "a multi-million pound increase to our salary bill".
Student numbers are also down and Mathieson has warned staff it of "selective voluntary and, if unavoidable, compulsory redundancy" measures to come.
Edinburgh, like many of our top Universities, has become almost completely dependent on foreign students paying top whack to balance the books. A reduction in their numbers is the main source of the crisis, largely brought about by the previous government's crackdown on bringing family members with you. The NI increase will not have helped of course.
Its much tougher amongst the less prestigious Universities. Dundee has announced substantial redundancies as have Robert Gordon amongst others.
The NI thing isn't even covered by the increase in student fees.
The Scottish universities have it slightly tougher than English ones but there are a lot of English ones in trouble.
Glen O'Hara who tweets about redundancies reported that Durham, Northumbria, Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are all trying to cut staff - and yes that is every university in the North East and 2 are the prestigious ones you refer to above (as probably is Northumbria nowadays).
Talking about the railways, I was chatting with a friend yday and we agreed how ridiculously expensive rail travel is in the UK. To prove the point I idly searched up Lon (Any) to Newcastle leaving at 9am in the morning tomorrow. There were no trains. So I picked a day next week. No trains. Next month - no trains.
It's bizarre you can't travel from London to Newcastle by train at any time in the train timetables apart from one train (£140) at I think 10.30am.
I searched up London - Manchester and if you want the journey to take 2hrs 20mins with no changes, rather than 3hrs 30mins with one change, it costs you £369 return (vs I think £170-odd).
To Newcastle? I am looking at the LNER website now for tomorrow travel and there's only one train at 10.45 (open return). Same with next Weds. At £168.
Try clicking the Earlier Trains button?
The 10:45 is a Lumo open access train.
But I'm not sure what website he's looking at because the Lumo website lists all the LNER options...
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
One of Scotland's most prestigious universities has blamed the UK Government's National Insurance hike for looming job cuts.
In an official message to all staff, Sir Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, says the change by the new Labour administration has created "a multi-million pound increase to our salary bill".
Student numbers are also down and Mathieson has warned staff it of "selective voluntary and, if unavoidable, compulsory redundancy" measures to come.
Edinburgh, like many of our top Universities, has become almost completely dependent on foreign students paying top whack to balance the books. A reduction in their numbers is the main source of the crisis, largely brought about by the previous government's crackdown on bringing family members with you. The NI increase will not have helped of course.
Its much tougher amongst the less prestigious Universities. Dundee has announced substantial redundancies as have Robert Gordon amongst others.
The NI thing isn't even covered by the increase in student fees.
The Scottish universities have it slightly tougher than English ones but there are a lot of English ones in trouble.
Glen O'Hara who tweets about redundancies reported that Durham, Northumbria, Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are all trying to cut staff - and yes that is every university in the North East and 2 are the prestigious ones you refer to above (as probably is Northumbria nowadays).
Talking about the railways, I was chatting with a friend yday and we agreed how ridiculously expensive rail travel is in the UK. To prove the point I idly searched up Lon (Any) to Newcastle leaving at 9am in the morning tomorrow. There were no trains. So I picked a day next week. No trains. Next month - no trains.
It's bizarre you can't travel from London to Newcastle by train at any time in the train timetables apart from one train (£140) at I think 10.30am.
I searched up London - Manchester and if you want the journey to take 2hrs 20mins with no changes, rather than 3hrs 30mins with one change, it costs you £369 return (vs I think £170-odd).
ffs
I'm confused because LNER trains to Edinburgh run every half hour from 7:00 to 20:00 then hourly at 21:00 & 22:00.
But you are seriously penalised if you have to travel at no notice. I usually book a week or more in advance so my journey this week is £90 there and back - plus probably £40 for first class upgrades.
I do have to travel down Tuesday night rather than Wednesday morning but a 5:30 start doesn't do me any favours nowadays and it saves £160 which covers a decent hotel room.
A quick check of LNER website has 10 trains in the 0800-1100 period. Direct ones at 0800, 0830 and 0900.
Something's wrong with the search engine Topping is using.
Or something's wrong with the Topping using the search engine.
It's more a general incredulity that we seem to be inhabiting the same infoverse as Topping. Unless he is insisting that the train includes a horse box for his convenience, or rather his mount's?
"“I don’t think the Government has any concept of how the tax changes and other policies for shutting down the North Sea are going to impact demand for decommissioning,” he said.
“They’ll be putting pressure on wind farms to add as much capacity as possible, but they haven’t realised that the oil industry needs the same equipment."
Badly informed by civil servants - or just ignoring the issue?
There were so many things in the budget like this. Forgetting that GP surgery and care homes will also get whacked by NI when they are already at breaking point. The fact that you have introduced a new cliff edge at 5 employees, when we need to encourage small firms to grow (compared to your Greggs, Asdas, etc who probably more likely to be able to adapt). The tractor tax, with some more careful thought you could have whacked the big land owners trying to dodgy IHT without hitting genuine farmers.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
One of Scotland's most prestigious universities has blamed the UK Government's National Insurance hike for looming job cuts.
In an official message to all staff, Sir Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, says the change by the new Labour administration has created "a multi-million pound increase to our salary bill".
Student numbers are also down and Mathieson has warned staff it of "selective voluntary and, if unavoidable, compulsory redundancy" measures to come.
Edinburgh, like many of our top Universities, has become almost completely dependent on foreign students paying top whack to balance the books. A reduction in their numbers is the main source of the crisis, largely brought about by the previous government's crackdown on bringing family members with you. The NI increase will not have helped of course.
Its much tougher amongst the less prestigious Universities. Dundee has announced substantial redundancies as have Robert Gordon amongst others.
The NI thing isn't even covered by the increase in student fees.
The Scottish universities have it slightly tougher than English ones but there are a lot of English ones in trouble.
Glen O'Hara who tweets about redundancies reported that Durham, Northumbria, Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough are all trying to cut staff - and yes that is every university in the North East and 2 are the prestigious ones you refer to above (as probably is Northumbria nowadays).
Talking about the railways, I was chatting with a friend yday and we agreed how ridiculously expensive rail travel is in the UK. To prove the point I idly searched up Lon (Any) to Newcastle leaving at 9am in the morning tomorrow. There were no trains. So I picked a day next week. No trains. Next month - no trains.
It's bizarre you can't travel from London to Newcastle by train at any time in the train timetables apart from one train (£140) at I think 10.30am.
I searched up London - Manchester and if you want the journey to take 2hrs 20mins with no changes, rather than 3hrs 30mins with one change, it costs you £369 return (vs I think £170-odd).
ffs
I'm confused because LNER trains to Edinburgh run every half hour from 7:00 to 20:00 then hourly at 21:00 & 22:00.
But you are seriously penalised if you have to travel at no notice. I usually book a week or more in advance so my journey this week is £90 there and back - plus probably £40 for first class upgrades.
I do have to travel down Tuesday night rather than Wednesday morning but a 5:30 start doesn't do me any favours nowadays and it saves £160 which covers a decent hotel room.
A quick check of LNER website has 10 trains in the 0800-1100 period. Direct ones at 0800, 0830 and 0900.
Something's wrong with the search engine Topping is using.
Or something's wrong with the Topping using the search engine.
It's more a general incredulity that we seem to be inhabiting the same infoverse as Topping. Unless he is insisting that the train includes a horse box for his convenience, or rather his mount's?
Yep, I'm sure we're all checking and somewhat bemused. I see direct services from Kings Cross to Newcastle every half an hour tomorrow, including at 0900 for £141.
Maybe Topping's on a no fly ride list due to some past drunken indiscretion?
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
She has committed to reversing it and it's hardly a lot of money
Hmmm. I could write a very long list of things Oppositions commit to reverse and then never do. In fact they often extend them.
We had a similar discussion a few weeks ago where someone (@Luckyguy1983 I think) was referring to incoming governments reversing out previous Governments stuff and both myself and @Richard_Tyndall pointed out it rarely happened. Just a minority of stuff gets reversed. A new Government has its own agenda for moving forward. Reversing out the old Government stuff is low down on the list normally. It does seem like a good way of moving forward particularly with social changes.
"“I don’t think the Government has any concept of how the tax changes and other policies for shutting down the North Sea are going to impact demand for decommissioning,” he said.
“They’ll be putting pressure on wind farms to add as much capacity as possible, but they haven’t realised that the oil industry needs the same equipment."
Badly informed by civil servants - or just ignoring the issue?
He's heading for a bust up with the greens imo . Decommissioning the North Sea and leaving wells uncapped and rigs just floating about is an environmental nightmare especially iIf companies go bust as they cant afford to trade. The taxpayer will have to pick up the bill.
I look forward to @Richard_Tyndall 's view on what is happening.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
She has committed to reversing it and it's hardly a lot of money
Hmmm. I could write a very long list of things Oppositions commit to reverse and then never do. In fact they often extend them.
We had a similar discussion a few weeks ago where someone (@Luckyguy1983 I think) was referring to incoming governments reversing out previous Governments stuff and both myself and @Richard_Tyndall pointed out it rarely happened. Just a minority of stuff gets reversed. A new Government has its own agenda for moving forward. Reversing out the old Government stuff is low down on the list normally. It does seem like a good way of moving forward particularly with social changes.
This applies in spades to regulation. It's boring, and politicians don't much care about it, as they're not the ones who have to wade through the thickets they and their predecessors planted
It is. But I fear, like our very own Sean Thomas, Meeks is someone who travels and sees what he wants to see. War-weariness is also far from unusual: from listening to my grandparents, you would have seen plenty of war-weariness here in Britain in 1942, 1943 and 1944. That does not mean they didn't want to continue the fight. But we also forget how many people did not fully obey the rules, from black-marketeers and the people who used them, to the many who did not obey the blackout at all times.
Meeks is a good writer, but he needs a good editor. He *always* over-writes. And that's quite an accusation coming from me.
(If you want to see a video from Ukraine which IMV is better than that article, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQQCq1ijRjc Sometimes images really do cover 1,000 words.)
I'm sure they were all sick of the totally unwanted and unnecessary war from Day One. But life is about tradeoffs, and I imagine most of them probably realise, like our ancestors, that giving way to a mad tyrant would be far worse for them and their children - those that survive anyway.
We can only be grateful that none of us have ever had to make similar choices, and we should do all we can to help that brave country so we never have to.
Our government is making different choices. The first quarter of PM yesterday was about our new "pragmatic" relationship with China that Starmer is promoting. And then we get headlines like this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2l4eynl4zo the very next day.
So the slightly remote possibility of further exports and modest growth seems to outweigh such considerations. Can't say I am impressed.
I read the usual drivel from Simon Jenkins the other day about how Ukraine just needs to the throw in the towel, and spare the West further price rises.
There are truly people who would happily live under the jackboot, or compel others to live under the jackboot, so long as they saw the chance to gain pennies from it.
Not just money either.
I'm sure there are people who would do so if the jackboot offered:
To spend more on the NHS To increase the value of their house To let their football team win trophies To give them more foreign holidays
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
She has committed to reversing it and it's hardly a lot of money
Hmmm. I could write a very long list of things Oppositions commit to reverse and then never do. In fact they often extend them.
We had a similar discussion a few weeks ago where someone (@Luckyguy1983 I think) was referring to incoming governments reversing out previous Governments stuff and both myself and @Richard_Tyndall pointed out it rarely happened. Just a minority of stuff gets reversed. A new Government has its own agenda for moving forward. Reversing out the old Government stuff is low down on the list normally. It does seem like a good way of moving forward particularly with social changes.
I would just reiterate it is not a lot of money [ circa 700 million ] and lots of rural seats with Labour mps will be vulnerable and maybe it is why they Lib Dems are also very opposed to the policy
"“I don’t think the Government has any concept of how the tax changes and other policies for shutting down the North Sea are going to impact demand for decommissioning,” he said.
“They’ll be putting pressure on wind farms to add as much capacity as possible, but they haven’t realised that the oil industry needs the same equipment."
Badly informed by civil servants - or just ignoring the issue?
There were so many things in the budget like this. Forgetting that GP surgery and care homes will also get whacked by NI when they are already at breaking point. The fact that you have introduced a new cliff edge at 5 employees, when we need to encourage small firms to grow (compared to your Greggs, Asdas, etc who probably more likely to be able to adapt). The tractor tax, with some more careful thought you could have whacked the big land owners trying to dodgy IHT without hitting genuine farmers.
The french idea of farming licenses seems like a good one but wouldn't have got the, oh wait this IHT raid won't generate..... anything immediately....
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
She has committed to reversing it and it's hardly a lot of money
Hmmm. I could write a very long list of things Oppositions commit to reverse and then never do. In fact they often extend them.
We had a similar discussion a few weeks ago where someone (@Luckyguy1983 I think) was referring to incoming governments reversing out previous Governments stuff and both myself and @Richard_Tyndall pointed out it rarely happened. Just a minority of stuff gets reversed. A new Government has its own agenda for moving forward. Reversing out the old Government stuff is low down on the list normally. It does seem like a good way of moving forward particularly with social changes.
This applies in spades to regulation. It's boring, and politicians don't much care about it, as they're not the ones who have to wade through the thickets they and their predecessors planted
It is. But I fear, like our very own Sean Thomas, Meeks is someone who travels and sees what he wants to see. War-weariness is also far from unusual: from listening to my grandparents, you would have seen plenty of war-weariness here in Britain in 1942, 1943 and 1944. That does not mean they didn't want to continue the fight. But we also forget how many people did not fully obey the rules, from black-marketeers and the people who used them, to the many who did not obey the blackout at all times.
Meeks is a good writer, but he needs a good editor. He *always* over-writes. And that's quite an accusation coming from me.
(If you want to see a video from Ukraine which IMV is better than that article, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQQCq1ijRjc Sometimes images really do cover 1,000 words.)
I'm sure they were all sick of the totally unwanted and unnecessary war from Day One. But life is about tradeoffs, and I imagine most of them probably realise, like our ancestors, that giving way to a mad tyrant would be far worse for them and their children - those that survive anyway.
We can only be grateful that none of us have ever had to make similar choices, and we should do all we can to help that brave country so we never have to.
Our government is making different choices. The first quarter of PM yesterday was about our new "pragmatic" relationship with China that Starmer is promoting. And then we get headlines like this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2l4eynl4zo the very next day.
So the slightly remote possibility of further exports and modest growth seems to outweigh such considerations. Can't say I am impressed.
Starmer is clearly pushing closer ties with Beijing, especially after the tougher line Boris and Truss in particular took with China as PM. Xi also in turn had some positive words about the UK Labour government's new economic policies after his meeting with Sir Keir yesterday.
Starmer is also notably less fervently supportive of Zelensky than Boris and Truss and even Rishi were. While Biden has now allowed US missiles to be sent into Russian territory by the Ukrainians Starmer has still refused to follow suit for UK missiles
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
She has committed to reversing it and it's hardly a lot of money
Hmmm. I could write a very long list of things Oppositions commit to reverse and then never do. In fact they often extend them.
We had a similar discussion a few weeks ago where someone (@Luckyguy1983 I think) was referring to incoming governments reversing out previous Governments stuff and both myself and @Richard_Tyndall pointed out it rarely happened. Just a minority of stuff gets reversed. A new Government has its own agenda for moving forward. Reversing out the old Government stuff is low down on the list normally. It does seem like a good way of moving forward particularly with social changes.
The new Boris government in 2019 reversed Cameron's policies of 0.7% GDP for overseas aid and the FTPA.
It is. But I fear, like our very own Sean Thomas, Meeks is someone who travels and sees what he wants to see. War-weariness is also far from unusual: from listening to my grandparents, you would have seen plenty of war-weariness here in Britain in 1942, 1943 and 1944. That does not mean they didn't want to continue the fight. But we also forget how many people did not fully obey the rules, from black-marketeers and the people who used them, to the many who did not obey the blackout at all times.
Meeks is a good writer, but he needs a good editor. He *always* over-writes. And that's quite an accusation coming from me.
(If you want to see a video from Ukraine which IMV is better than that article, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQQCq1ijRjc Sometimes images really do cover 1,000 words.)
I'm sure they were all sick of the totally unwanted and unnecessary war from Day One. But life is about tradeoffs, and I imagine most of them probably realise, like our ancestors, that giving way to a mad tyrant would be far worse for them and their children - those that survive anyway.
We can only be grateful that none of us have ever had to make similar choices, and we should do all we can to help that brave country so we never have to.
Our government is making different choices. The first quarter of PM yesterday was about our new "pragmatic" relationship with China that Starmer is promoting. And then we get headlines like this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2l4eynl4zo the very next day.
So the slightly remote possibility of further exports and modest growth seems to outweigh such considerations. Can't say I am impressed.
Starmer is clearly pushing closer ties with Beijing, especially after the tougher line Boris and Truss in particular took with China as PM. Xi also in turn had some positive words about the UK Labour government's new economic policies after his meeting with Sir Keir yesterday.
Starmer is also notably less fervently supportive of Zelensky than Boris and Truss and even Rishi were. While Biden has now allowed US missiles to be sent into Russian territory by the Ukrainians Starmer has still refused to follow suit for UK missiles
When he sticks to stuff he understands, Ramaswany isn't always a fool.
The top problem with FDA is the agency’s reckless disregard for the impact of its daily decisions on the cost of new innovation. FDA’s day-to-day decisions include not just the final drug approval decisions that grab headlines, but their micromanagement of every single step of the clinical & even preclinical drug development process. This increases overall healthcare costs by raising the cost barriers to competition, which in turn advantages big pharma over smaller biotechs that face a higher cost of capital to fund their projects. That’s the *real* FDA issue we need to be talking much more about, even if it takes some level of nuance to understand. https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1858704283061153944
As an illustration of the costs of regulatory delay, priority review vouchers, which enable drug developers to get FDA review in 6 months, rather than a year, change hands for around $100m.
While I don't share the desire of the US right to get rid of all regulation, the left needs to realise the enormous cost of unnecessary regulation (which we've discussed often in the context of UK development). It's the one area where we could massively boost our prospects of economic growth without having to borrow.
Getting rid of all regulation is a toddlers approach. Smash!
Regulations and duties sound like fun to a politician. We Are Doing Something.
Lawyers love them.
People who are obsessed with “Professionalisation” love them - those lovely thick reports. With those lovely clean edges to the block of paper. Untouched since it came off the printer.
A little while ago, we were taking of the TSR2. The wonder plane to be in the 1960s. An utter disaster in terms of project management. One thing they had done was stack on more and more complexity in the electronics, without measuring the reliability of the system as a whole. So plane would break down before it finished taxiing to the runway - if it had ever been completed. Death by complexity….
At the moment regulations and laws are treated as if they are zero cost. They are not.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, increased pressure on higher wages to compensate, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
She'll have to go anyway.
When she's served her purpose SKS will have one of his ruthless days and she's gone.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
About that growth thing....
The gov't would have been better off telling everyone their manifesto was a pack of lies (Everyone thinks they've broken their promise anyway) and just whacking a penny on income tax.
Instead they have gone down a route of raising small amounts of tax which upset a lot of people for little benefit, We are now heading in to month six of this government and they are all at sea. Since they havent had a break the charges of incompetence and sleaze will stick.
My casual discussions about politics are limited these days, but those I have had are people offering up inbidden how incredibly shite this new lot are at governing.
It is starting to look that way. I was prepared to wait and see if they came up with significant reforms to improve our lot. We're nearly half a year in, well into the period where a new government spends its political capital, and so far... for what ?
They're banking everything on improving the NHS.
The cynics might cry that it's a black hole and the extra money will disappear without trace, but I don't think it's as bad as that. Extra money did improve the NHS 1997-2010, and there's a decent chance it will do so again. That might even be enough to win re-election.
But this seems to be pretty much the only thing of good that they're doing. And they've been so timid about tax reform, or providing political leadership, that the tax increases to support the increased NHS spending are towards the worst options for supporting the economy. And the British economy of 2024 is a lot weaker than in 1997.
It's tempting to compare Starmer's government with that of François Hollande, but the last French government of the centre-left started with a great deal more enthusiasm and optimism.
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
To govern is to chose.
Starmer and Reeves chose to raise taxes on workers and business.
And then exempted the public sector.
They would have been better off spreading the tax increase and saying "we're all in this together".
The fuel duty increase should have been implemented as well.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
About that growth thing....
The gov't would have been better off telling everyone their manifesto was a pack of lies (Everyone thinks they've broken their promise anyway) and just whacking a penny on income tax.
Instead they have gone down a route of raising small amounts of tax which upset a lot of people for little benefit, We are now heading in to month six of this government and they are all at sea. Since they havent had a break the charges of incompetence and sleaze will stick.
My casual discussions about politics are limited these days, but those I have had are people offering up inbidden how incredibly shite this new lot are at governing.
It is starting to look that way. I was prepared to wait and see if they came up with significant reforms to improve our lot. We're nearly half a year in, well into the period where a new government spends its political capital, and so far... for what ?
They're banking everything on improving the NHS.
The cynics might cry that it's a black hole and the extra money will disappear without trace, but I don't think it's as bad as that. Extra money did improve the NHS 1997-2010, and there's a decent chance it will do so again. That might even be enough to win re-election.
But this seems to be pretty much the only thing of good that they're doing. And they've been so timid about tax reform, or providing political leadership, that the tax increases to support the increased NHS spending are towards the worst options for supporting the economy. And the British economy of 2024 is a lot weaker than in 1997.
It's tempting to compare Starmer's government with that of François Hollande, but the last French government of the centre-left started with a great deal more enthusiasm and optimism.
there was a parliamentary question / answer that made clear that council tax reform was being looked at. But it doesn't exactly inspire confidence..
It is. But I fear, like our very own Sean Thomas, Meeks is someone who travels and sees what he wants to see. War-weariness is also far from unusual: from listening to my grandparents, you would have seen plenty of war-weariness here in Britain in 1942, 1943 and 1944. That does not mean they didn't want to continue the fight. But we also forget how many people did not fully obey the rules, from black-marketeers and the people who used them, to the many who did not obey the blackout at all times.
Meeks is a good writer, but he needs a good editor. He *always* over-writes. And that's quite an accusation coming from me.
(If you want to see a video from Ukraine which IMV is better than that article, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQQCq1ijRjc Sometimes images really do cover 1,000 words.)
I'm sure they were all sick of the totally unwanted and unnecessary war from Day One. But life is about tradeoffs, and I imagine most of them probably realise, like our ancestors, that giving way to a mad tyrant would be far worse for them and their children - those that survive anyway.
We can only be grateful that none of us have ever had to make similar choices, and we should do all we can to help that brave country so we never have to.
Our government is making different choices. The first quarter of PM yesterday was about our new "pragmatic" relationship with China that Starmer is promoting. And then we get headlines like this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2l4eynl4zo the very next day.
So the slightly remote possibility of further exports and modest growth seems to outweigh such considerations. Can't say I am impressed.
I suspect Starmer is hoping for Chinese 'investment'.
Hopefully more successful than this attempt:
A council which signed a £1bn investment deal with a Chinese manufacturing firm three years ago has admitted the deal is now "dead".
Sheffield City Council announced the 60-year agreement with the Sichuan Guodong construction firm in 2016.
It was hailed a "massive vote of confidence" for the city but will now not happen, a councillor has said.
However, the authority said it had "no regrets" because the deal had "put Sheffield on the map".
Altogether the council spent £40,000 on trips connected with the agreement.
When she signed the deal in July 2016 Julie Dore, leader of the Labour-run council, said Sheffield would see "benefits and achievements" for years and years.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
About that growth thing....
The gov't would have been better off telling everyone their manifesto was a pack of lies (Everyone thinks they've broken their promise anyway) and just whacking a penny on income tax.
Instead they have gone down a route of raising small amounts of tax which upset a lot of people for little benefit, We are now heading in to month six of this government and they are all at sea. Since they havent had a break the charges of incompetence and sleaze will stick.
My casual discussions about politics are limited these days, but those I have had are people offering up inbidden how incredibly shite this new lot are at governing.
It is starting to look that way. I was prepared to wait and see if they came up with significant reforms to improve our lot. We're nearly half a year in, well into the period where a new government spends its political capital, and so far... for what ?
They're banking everything on improving the NHS.
The cynics might cry that it's a black hole and the extra money will disappear without trace, but I don't think it's as bad as that. Extra money did improve the NHS 1997-2010, and there's a decent chance it will do so again. That might even be enough to win re-election.
But this seems to be pretty much the only thing of good that they're doing. And they've been so timid about tax reform, or providing political leadership, that the tax increases to support the increased NHS spending are towards the worst options for supporting the economy. And the British economy of 2024 is a lot weaker than in 1997.
It's tempting to compare Starmer's government with that of François Hollande, but the last French government of the centre-left started with a great deal more enthusiasm and optimism.
Even that is poorly thought out, with it all the front loaded over 2 years. That massively increases the chances of huge wastage as you get the use it or lose it mentality. It takes time to deploy capital and plan for it to be best usage.
I am sure there will be improvement, but the question is could it have been better done. Labour in 1997 didn't turn the taps on full blast from the get go. There was a lot more thought out approaches when Labour came in in 1997.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
Apparently Russia's latest baseline for 'peace' talks is not the current frontlines, but Ukrainian-held territories that have over a million Ukrainian residents. This is after Scholz's discussions with Putin.
And there have now been 1,000 days of this hideous war.
In the meantime, the ruble continues to fall. Putin is not negotiating from a particularly strong position.
It’s been that way for a long time. Full control over the 4 oblasts that he claims even where he doesn’t currently occupy them.
Trump will probably offer US recognition of Russian sovereignty there in exchange for Russian recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank (and cutting off Iran), or something.
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
To govern is to chose.
Starmer and Reeves chose to raise taxes on workers and business.
And then exempted the public sector.
They would have been better off spreading the tax increase and saying "we're all in this together".
The fuel duty increase should have been implemented as well.
It needed to be 3p on income tax to reflect that the 4p national insurance cut was the cause of the problem and that Pensioners did need to pay their share.
As I've pointed out before - implement that while keeping the WFA and you could have easily justified it as only pensioners on £20,000+ a year would have been impacted.
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
To govern is to chose.
Starmer and Reeves chose to raise taxes on workers and business.
And then exempted the public sector.
They would have been better off spreading the tax increase and saying "we're all in this together".
The fuel duty increase should have been implemented as well.
Of course accepting all those freebies makes it harder for Starmer to claim "we're all in this together".
Its amazing how willing our political leaders are to damage themselves for a few thousand quid.
It is. But I fear, like our very own Sean Thomas, Meeks is someone who travels and sees what he wants to see. War-weariness is also far from unusual: from listening to my grandparents, you would have seen plenty of war-weariness here in Britain in 1942, 1943 and 1944. That does not mean they didn't want to continue the fight. But we also forget how many people did not fully obey the rules, from black-marketeers and the people who used them, to the many who did not obey the blackout at all times.
Meeks is a good writer, but he needs a good editor. He *always* over-writes. And that's quite an accusation coming from me.
(If you want to see a video from Ukraine which IMV is better than that article, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQQCq1ijRjc Sometimes images really do cover 1,000 words.)
I'm sure they were all sick of the totally unwanted and unnecessary war from Day One. But life is about tradeoffs, and I imagine most of them probably realise, like our ancestors, that giving way to a mad tyrant would be far worse for them and their children - those that survive anyway.
We can only be grateful that none of us have ever had to make similar choices, and we should do all we can to help that brave country so we never have to.
Our government is making different choices. The first quarter of PM yesterday was about our new "pragmatic" relationship with China that Starmer is promoting. And then we get headlines like this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2l4eynl4zo the very next day.
So the slightly remote possibility of further exports and modest growth seems to outweigh such considerations. Can't say I am impressed.
I suspect Starmer is hoping for Chinese 'investment'.
Hopefully more successful than this attempt:
A council which signed a £1bn investment deal with a Chinese manufacturing firm three years ago has admitted the deal is now "dead".
Sheffield City Council announced the 60-year agreement with the Sichuan Guodong construction firm in 2016.
It was hailed a "massive vote of confidence" for the city but will now not happen, a councillor has said.
However, the authority said it had "no regrets" because the deal had "put Sheffield on the map".
Altogether the council spent £40,000 on trips connected with the agreement.
When she signed the deal in July 2016 Julie Dore, leader of the Labour-run council, said Sheffield would see "benefits and achievements" for years and years.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
About that growth thing....
The gov't would have been better off telling everyone their manifesto was a pack of lies (Everyone thinks they've broken their promise anyway) and just whacking a penny on income tax.
Instead they have gone down a route of raising small amounts of tax which upset a lot of people for little benefit, We are now heading in to month six of this government and they are all at sea. Since they havent had a break the charges of incompetence and sleaze will stick.
My casual discussions about politics are limited these days, but those I have had are people offering up inbidden how incredibly shite this new lot are at governing.
It is starting to look that way. I was prepared to wait and see if they came up with significant reforms to improve our lot. We're nearly half a year in, well into the period where a new government spends its political capital, and so far... for what ?
They're banking everything on improving the NHS.
The cynics might cry that it's a black hole and the extra money will disappear without trace, but I don't think it's as bad as that. Extra money did improve the NHS 1997-2010, and there's a decent chance it will do so again. That might even be enough to win re-election.
But this seems to be pretty much the only thing of good that they're doing. And they've been so timid about tax reform, or providing political leadership, that the tax increases to support the increased NHS spending are towards the worst options for supporting the economy. And the British economy of 2024 is a lot weaker than in 1997.
It's tempting to compare Starmer's government with that of François Hollande, but the last French government of the centre-left started with a great deal more enthusiasm and optimism.
there was a parliamentary question / answer that made clear that council tax reform was being looked at. But it doesn't exactly inspire confidence..
Osborne announced a review into merging income tax and national insurance. Rarely does much come of a review these days. They seem to absorb and deflect the impetus for change, rather than to focus it.
Meaningful reform seems to need to come as a result of work done in opposition, with a new government armed with a fresh sense of purpose and plans that are ready to implement.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
If Labour wanted to attack big landowners they could have set the thresholds higher - £10 million say - but they didnt, they wanted the small guys too.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
About that growth thing....
The gov't would have been better off telling everyone their manifesto was a pack of lies (Everyone thinks they've broken their promise anyway) and just whacking a penny on income tax.
Instead they have gone down a route of raising small amounts of tax which upset a lot of people for little benefit, We are now heading in to month six of this government and they are all at sea. Since they havent had a break the charges of incompetence and sleaze will stick.
My casual discussions about politics are limited these days, but those I have had are people offering up inbidden how incredibly shite this new lot are at governing.
It is starting to look that way. I was prepared to wait and see if they came up with significant reforms to improve our lot. We're nearly half a year in, well into the period where a new government spends its political capital, and so far... for what ?
They're banking everything on improving the NHS.
The cynics might cry that it's a black hole and the extra money will disappear without trace, but I don't think it's as bad as that. Extra money did improve the NHS 1997-2010, and there's a decent chance it will do so again. That might even be enough to win re-election.
But this seems to be pretty much the only thing of good that they're doing. And they've been so timid about tax reform, or providing political leadership, that the tax increases to support the increased NHS spending are towards the worst options for supporting the economy. And the British economy of 2024 is a lot weaker than in 1997.
It's tempting to compare Starmer's government with that of François Hollande, but the last French government of the centre-left started with a great deal more enthusiasm and optimism.
Even that is poorly thought out, with it all the front loaded over 2 years. That massively increases the chances of huge wastage as you get the use it or lose it mentality. It takes time to deploy capital and plan for it to be best usage.
My most recent experience of the NHS was extremely positive, thought something might be up so got on the phone. In amongst the normal GP message was a new smart triage online system https://www.larwoodhealthpartnership.co.uk/about/smart-triage/. Got cut off when I got through on the phone after about an hour so thought I'd try the new online triage option. Went through it all and staggeringly was given a choice of appointments at pretty much any time on the same day. Note - this is the first time I've ever seen a choice of times for seeing a GP. Booked in, left work drove back to the surgery (It's about 1/2 hr from my work) getting there a bit early. Was able to see doctor immediately, checked out and booked into hospital for a blood test. Drove to hospital (It's not far from the surgery) blood all done in about 15 minutes of getting there, back to work by lunch and results (All fine) available on the NHS app by the end of the day. Phones to the GPs are definitely a bottleneck, the new online smart triage system seems to have completely smashed that for my surgery at least.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
No politician would touch that.
Any attempt to improve margins in agriculture would result in food prices rises. Inflation, weekly shop etc etc.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
It's just another thing to be outraged about, see 20mph limits and all things Ed Miliband.
The IFS, Dan Neidle have done the work on this and it's going to affect very few farmers. The tax-free allowance for a couple is £2.65 million and there are only 462 inherited farms worth more than £1 million (out of around 200,000). And it's only the value above the allowance that is affected by IHT.
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
To govern is to chose.
Starmer and Reeves chose to raise taxes on workers and business.
And then exempted the public sector.
They would have been better off spreading the tax increase and saying "we're all in this together".
The fuel duty increase should have been implemented as well.
Of course accepting all those freebies makes it harder for Starmer to claim "we're all in this together".
Its amazing how willing our political leaders are to damage themselves for a few thousand quid.
Has Starmer reversed his pension deal yet or is that another fatcat promise ?
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
About that growth thing....
The gov't would have been better off telling everyone their manifesto was a pack of lies (Everyone thinks they've broken their promise anyway) and just whacking a penny on income tax.
Instead they have gone down a route of raising small amounts of tax which upset a lot of people for little benefit, We are now heading in to month six of this government and they are all at sea. Since they havent had a break the charges of incompetence and sleaze will stick.
My casual discussions about politics are limited these days, but those I have had are people offering up inbidden how incredibly shite this new lot are at governing.
It is starting to look that way. I was prepared to wait and see if they came up with significant reforms to improve our lot. We're nearly half a year in, well into the period where a new government spends its political capital, and so far... for what ?
They're banking everything on improving the NHS.
The cynics might cry that it's a black hole and the extra money will disappear without trace, but I don't think it's as bad as that. Extra money did improve the NHS 1997-2010, and there's a decent chance it will do so again. That might even be enough to win re-election.
But this seems to be pretty much the only thing of good that they're doing. And they've been so timid about tax reform, or providing political leadership, that the tax increases to support the increased NHS spending are towards the worst options for supporting the economy. And the British economy of 2024 is a lot weaker than in 1997.
It's tempting to compare Starmer's government with that of François Hollande, but the last French government of the centre-left started with a great deal more enthusiasm and optimism.
Even that is poorly thought out, with it all the front loaded over 2 years. That massively increases the chances of huge wastage as you get the use it or lose it mentality. It takes time to deploy capital and plan for it to be best usage.
I am sure there will be improvement, but the question is could it have been better done. Labour in 1997 didn't turn the taps on full blast from the get go. There was a lot more thought out approaches when Labour came in in 1997.
Well, it depends. It's possible that there's a plan that involves considerable upfront investment, that then creates savings that can be deployed in later years to support further improvements.
I would be more confident with a more measured approach, but there's a chance my instincts on this will be confounded, so I'll wait for the outcomes to judge on it.
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
To govern is to chose.
Starmer and Reeves chose to raise taxes on workers and business.
And then exempted the public sector.
They would have been better off spreading the tax increase and saying "we're all in this together".
The fuel duty increase should have been implemented as well.
“We’re all in this together” would have at least led to general groans but an accepting of the need to raise funds in the short term. With some skillful economic management, they could een have reversed an income tax increase before the next election, to say “thank you” to everyone.
Instead, they’ve picked on a few specific groups of people, who can organise against the government. Today it’s the turn of the farmers, and the news tonight is going to be of Jeremy Clarkson and hundreds of tractors on TV with opposition politicians.
It is. But I fear, like our very own Sean Thomas, Meeks is someone who travels and sees what he wants to see. War-weariness is also far from unusual: from listening to my grandparents, you would have seen plenty of war-weariness here in Britain in 1942, 1943 and 1944. That does not mean they didn't want to continue the fight. But we also forget how many people did not fully obey the rules, from black-marketeers and the people who used them, to the many who did not obey the blackout at all times.
Meeks is a good writer, but he needs a good editor. He *always* over-writes. And that's quite an accusation coming from me.
(If you want to see a video from Ukraine which IMV is better than that article, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQQCq1ijRjc Sometimes images really do cover 1,000 words.)
I'm sure they were all sick of the totally unwanted and unnecessary war from Day One. But life is about tradeoffs, and I imagine most of them probably realise, like our ancestors, that giving way to a mad tyrant would be far worse for them and their children - those that survive anyway.
We can only be grateful that none of us have ever had to make similar choices, and we should do all we can to help that brave country so we never have to.
Our government is making different choices. The first quarter of PM yesterday was about our new "pragmatic" relationship with China that Starmer is promoting. And then we get headlines like this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2l4eynl4zo the very next day.
So the slightly remote possibility of further exports and modest growth seems to outweigh such considerations. Can't say I am impressed.
I suspect Starmer is hoping for Chinese 'investment'.
Hopefully more successful than this attempt:
A council which signed a £1bn investment deal with a Chinese manufacturing firm three years ago has admitted the deal is now "dead".
Sheffield City Council announced the 60-year agreement with the Sichuan Guodong construction firm in 2016.
It was hailed a "massive vote of confidence" for the city but will now not happen, a councillor has said.
However, the authority said it had "no regrets" because the deal had "put Sheffield on the map".
Altogether the council spent £40,000 on trips connected with the agreement.
When she signed the deal in July 2016 Julie Dore, leader of the Labour-run council, said Sheffield would see "benefits and achievements" for years and years.
Mr. eek, it is true that US approval is required but it'd be bizarre if the Americans continued to refuse that given they now permit their own missiles to be used that way.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
It's just another thing to be outraged about, see 20mph limits and all things Ed Miliband.
The IFS, Dan Neidle have done the work on this and it's going to affect very few farmers. The tax-free allowance for a couple is £2.65 million and there are only 462 inherited farms worth more than £1 million (out of around 200,000). And it's only the value above the allowance that is affected by IHT.
Much that I like Dan Neidle - I think he's wrong.
Our Uni friend has just inherited part of a farm and it's gone up for sale for £5m - now I don't know how much land there is but as an anecdote it means I question Dan's figures...
Mr. eek, it is true that US approval is required but it'd be bizarre if the Americans continued to refuse that given they now permit their own missiles to be used that way.
I suspect the US ones were surplus to requirements and we plan to replace ours...
Am I right in thinking chopstick catch attempt #2 is at 10pm this evening?
22:07 GMT.
Plus the Indian Ocean splashdown will be in daylight hours, so more should be visible than an explosion, if the vessel survives a steeper re-entry with the tests to the heat shield.
There’s actually lots of little ones, or is it simply one massive Ed Miliband-sized fk up?
This is actually quite funny. O&G are being priced out of offshore infrastructure, equipment because the renewable sector is doing so well. Competitive market is competitive market.
The relative costs of decommissioning O&G versus offshore wind is something else we should consider when deciding what path we take.
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
To govern is to chose.
Starmer and Reeves chose to raise taxes on workers and business.
And then exempted the public sector.
They would have been better off spreading the tax increase and saying "we're all in this together".
The fuel duty increase should have been implemented as well.
Of course accepting all those freebies makes it harder for Starmer to claim "we're all in this together".
Its amazing how willing our political leaders are to damage themselves for a few thousand quid.
Has Starmer reversed his pension deal yet or is that another fatcat promise ?
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
To govern is to chose.
Starmer and Reeves chose to raise taxes on workers and business.
And then exempted the public sector.
They would have been better off spreading the tax increase and saying "we're all in this together".
The fuel duty increase should have been implemented as well.
Of course accepting all those freebies makes it harder for Starmer to claim "we're all in this together".
Its amazing how willing our political leaders are to damage themselves for a few thousand quid.
Has Starmer reversed his pension deal yet or is that another fatcat promise ?
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, increased pressure on higher wages to compensate, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
I think it's fair to say that Britain currently faces bad choices and worse choices, both politically and economically. So any budget could reasonably be criticised in numerous ways on political and economic grounds.
I don't think Reeves' budget was the worst possible budget in the circumstances, but it did fall short of middling in my view
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
She has committed to reversing it and it's hardly a lot of money
Hmmm. I could write a very long list of things Oppositions commit to reverse and then never do. In fact they often extend them.
We had a similar discussion a few weeks ago where someone (@Luckyguy1983 I think) was referring to incoming governments reversing out previous Governments stuff and both myself and @Richard_Tyndall pointed out it rarely happened. Just a minority of stuff gets reversed. A new Government has its own agenda for moving forward. Reversing out the old Government stuff is low down on the list normally. It does seem like a good way of moving forward particularly with social changes.
This applies in spades to regulation. It's boring, and politicians don't much care about it, as they're not the ones who have to wade through the thickets they and their predecessors planted
So just have less of it.
Great idea. But we've just had a decade and a half of Conservative government, which in theory is ideologically opposed to unnecessary regulation. And it got worse, not better.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
Holyrood election campaigning. (And the WFP is still there, just not for everyone.)
But Scottish Labout would have to take it out of the Scottish budget. No Barnett consequential if Labour HQ don't play ball. Which is why it is being cut in Scotland in the first place.
"High Street job losses are "inevitable", prices will rise, and shops will close as the result of the tax increases in the Budget and other rising costs, a group of the biggest retailers in the UK is warning.
Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next, and dozens of other chains are urging the Treasury to reconsider some of the measures."
About that growth thing....
The gov't would have been better off telling everyone their manifesto was a pack of lies (Everyone thinks they've broken their promise anyway) and just whacking a penny on income tax.
Instead they have gone down a route of raising small amounts of tax which upset a lot of people for little benefit, We are now heading in to month six of this government and they are all at sea. Since they havent had a break the charges of incompetence and sleaze will stick.
My casual discussions about politics are limited these days, but those I have had are people offering up inbidden how incredibly shite this new lot are at governing.
It is starting to look that way. I was prepared to wait and see if they came up with significant reforms to improve our lot. We're nearly half a year in, well into the period where a new government spends its political capital, and so far... for what ?
They're banking everything on improving the NHS.
The cynics might cry that it's a black hole and the extra money will disappear without trace, but I don't think it's as bad as that. Extra money did improve the NHS 1997-2010, and there's a decent chance it will do so again. That might even be enough to win re-election.
But this seems to be pretty much the only thing of good that they're doing. And they've been so timid about tax reform, or providing political leadership, that the tax increases to support the increased NHS spending are towards the worst options for supporting the economy. And the British economy of 2024 is a lot weaker than in 1997.
It's tempting to compare Starmer's government with that of François Hollande, but the last French government of the centre-left started with a great deal more enthusiasm and optimism.
Even that is poorly thought out, with it all the front loaded over 2 years. That massively increases the chances of huge wastage as you get the use it or lose it mentality. It takes time to deploy capital and plan for it to be best usage.
I am sure there will be improvement, but the question is could it have been better done. Labour in 1997 didn't turn the taps on full blast from the get go. There was a lot more thought out approaches when Labour came in in 1997.
Well, it depends. It's possible that there's a plan that involves considerable upfront investment, that then creates savings that can be deployed in later years to support further improvements.
I would be more confident with a more measured approach, but there's a chance my instincts on this will be confounded, so I'll wait for the outcomes to judge on it.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
She has committed to reversing it and it's hardly a lot of money
Hmmm. I could write a very long list of things Oppositions commit to reverse and then never do. In fact they often extend them.
We had a similar discussion a few weeks ago where someone (@Luckyguy1983 I think) was referring to incoming governments reversing out previous Governments stuff and both myself and @Richard_Tyndall pointed out it rarely happened. Just a minority of stuff gets reversed. A new Government has its own agenda for moving forward. Reversing out the old Government stuff is low down on the list normally. It does seem like a good way of moving forward particularly with social changes.
This applies in spades to regulation. It's boring, and politicians don't much care about it, as they're not the ones who have to wade through the thickets they and their predecessors planted
So just have less of it.
Great idea. But we've just had a decade and a half of Conservative government, which in theory is ideologically opposed to unnecessary regulation. And it got worse, not better.
Which illustrates the problem.
Im amazed you think the last 14 years were conservative government. They were centrist and they have failed, it was one of the reasons the Tories got their ass handed to them on a plate and why Farage is breathing down their necks.
Mr. HYUFD, Starmer should give the green light for missiles to be used in Russia. Failure to do so would be pathetic.
He won't, he is too wary of Putin's response.
Macron has more balls and probably will follow Biden's lead and allow Ukraine to send French as well as US missiles to Russian territory. Though even then I suspect Trump will cancel that permission after his inaugration in January (albeit if the Russians do anything against US bases in Europe Trump would be aggressive in his response)
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
It's just another thing to be outraged about, see 20mph limits and all things Ed Miliband.
The IFS, Dan Neidle have done the work on this and it's going to affect very few farmers. The tax-free allowance for a couple is £2.65 million and there are only 462 inherited farms worth more than £1 million (out of around 200,000). And it's only the value above the allowance that is affected by IHT.
Much that I like Dan Neidle - I think he's wrong.
Our Uni friend has just inherited part of a farm and it's gone up for sale for £5m - now I don't know how much land there is but as an anecdote it means I question Dan's figures...
Hmm. If we are going for land values alone, then that *part* of a farm must be more than 500 acres alone at current average values. That part of a farm is more than 2x the size of an entire average farm in the UK.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
To all those people who make farming families out to be rich: I'd like to see them get up at dawn and work until dusk, in all sorts of weathers. To have a year where the weather means all your profits are wiped out, or where government legislation floods the market with cheap meat. Where tourists routinely stray off the paths, interfere with livestock and knock down walls and fences. Where you have to go out in the snow to find ewes that are lambing. If they want us to be rich, then they should fucking well pay more for British food. Until then, I'll go work in an office and they can ****ing well starve.
Said to me, in rather stronger terms, by a farming relative.
Apparently Russia's latest baseline for 'peace' talks is not the current frontlines, but Ukrainian-held territories that have over a million Ukrainian residents. This is after Scholz's discussions with Putin.
And there have now been 1,000 days of this hideous war.
In the meantime, the ruble continues to fall. Putin is not negotiating from a particularly strong position.
It’s been that way for a long time. Full control over the 4 oblasts that he claims even where he doesn’t currently occupy them.
Trump will probably offer US recognition of Russian sovereignty there in exchange for Russian recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank (and cutting off Iran), or something.
The Art of the Deal, folks!
Yes, Europe might have to get used to the idea of the US as a semi-hostile power, like China.
Imagine if, instead of raising employers' NI, Reeves had done as many are suggesting and broken their manifesto promise by raising income tax and/or employees' NI. What would businesses and other government critics now be saying?
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
To govern is to chose.
Starmer and Reeves chose to raise taxes on workers and business.
And then exempted the public sector.
They would have been better off spreading the tax increase and saying "we're all in this together".
The fuel duty increase should have been implemented as well.
We are all in it together, as long as we are public sector workers who vote Labour and live in urban areas and are woke or a few big city firms and corporates Starmer and Reeves still want to milk for cash
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
Just on stats etc, the IFS has always been an institution I've viewed with contempt since an early Osborne Budget.
The changes were derided as 'regressive' by the IFS for a forecast cut in benefits. The reduction in benefits spending was forecast due to a prediction of more people working and unemployment declining.
How often does the IFS espouse a right rather than left wing perspective?
Mr. HYUFD, Starmer should give the green light for missiles to be used in Russia. Failure to do so would be pathetic.
He won't, he is too wary of Putin's response.
Macron has more balls and probably will follow Biden's lead and allow Ukraine to send French as well as US missiles to Russian territory. Though even then I suspect Trump will cancel that permission after his inaugration in January (albeit if the Russians do anything against US bases in Europe Trump would be aggressive in his response)
Reportedly Starmer has been pushing for US approval to allow Storm Shadow strikes into Russia, and it is also being suggested that supplies of the missiles were being held back so that they would be available when that approval was granted.
I don't think the preemptive criticism of Starmer on this point is warranted. I hope to see Storm Shadow strikes in Kursk within the week.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
She has committed to reversing it and it's hardly a lot of money
Hmmm. I could write a very long list of things Oppositions commit to reverse and then never do. In fact they often extend them.
We had a similar discussion a few weeks ago where someone (@Luckyguy1983 I think) was referring to incoming governments reversing out previous Governments stuff and both myself and @Richard_Tyndall pointed out it rarely happened. Just a minority of stuff gets reversed. A new Government has its own agenda for moving forward. Reversing out the old Government stuff is low down on the list normally. It does seem like a good way of moving forward particularly with social changes.
This applies in spades to regulation. It's boring, and politicians don't much care about it, as they're not the ones who have to wade through the thickets they and their predecessors planted
So just have less of it.
Great idea. But we've just had a decade and a half of Conservative government, which in theory is ideologically opposed to unnecessary regulation. And it got worse, not better.
Which illustrates the problem.
Im amazed you think the last 14 years were conservative government. They were centrist and they have failed, it was one of the reasons the Tories got their ass handed to them on a plate and why Farage is breathing down their necks.
Not conservative enough, not Brexit enough... Lol.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
It's just another thing to be outraged about, see 20mph limits and all things Ed Miliband.
The IFS, Dan Neidle have done the work on this and it's going to affect very few farmers. The tax-free allowance for a couple is £2.65 million and there are only 462 inherited farms worth more than £1 million (out of around 200,000). And it's only the value above the allowance that is affected by IHT.
Much that I like Dan Neidle - I think he's wrong.
Our Uni friend has just inherited part of a farm and it's gone up for sale for £5m - now I don't know how much land there is but as an anecdote it means I question Dan's figures...
Hmm. If we are going for land values alone, then that *part* of a farm must be more than 500 acres alone at current average values. That part of a farm is more than 2x the size of an entire average farm in the UK.
232 acres on the Ards Peninsula in Northern Ireland - its a faff to get to from Belfast - to the extent that we usually got the ferry back to Strangford in the hope to see dolphins...
Mr. HYUFD, Starmer should give the green light for missiles to be used in Russia. Failure to do so would be pathetic.
He won't, he is too wary of Putin's response.
Macron has more balls and probably will follow Biden's lead and allow Ukraine to send French as well as US missiles to Russian territory. Though even then I suspect Trump will cancel that permission after his inaugration in January (albeit if the Russians do anything against US bases in Europe Trump would be aggressive in his response)
Reportedly Starmer has been pushing for US approval to allow Storm Shadow strikes into Russia, and it is also being suggested that supplies of the missiles were being held back so that they would be available when that approval was granted.
I don't think the preemptive criticism of Starmer on this point is warranted. I hope to see Storm Shadow strikes in Kursk within the week.
We should not fear Russia. It has proved itself weak, rather than strong.
Putin would not be seeking aid from North Korea, if he had sufficient manpower.
To all those people who make farming families out to be rich: I'd like to see them get up at dawn and work until dusk, in all sorts of weathers. To have a year where the weather means all your profits are wiped out, or where government legislation floods the market with cheap meat. Where tourists routinely stray off the paths, interfere with livestock and knock down walls and fences. Where you have to go out in the snow to find ewes that are lambing. If they want us to be rich, then they should fucking well pay more for British food. Until then, I'll go work in an office and they can ****ing well starve.
Said to me, in rather stronger terms, by a farming relative.
This another strawman though. I don't think anyone thinks otherwise (particularly after Clarkson's farm). This is about a few very large and wealthy landowners, and also stopping the British countryside being bought up by billionaires as a tax dodge mechanism.
It's a relatively small amount of revenue for HMRC but a good example of them getting early before it becomes a big issue.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
They also expanded UK exports to Australia and NZ
For what? Model London Routemaster buses?
Probably, but I would think the AUKUS submarine contract would be bigger.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
It's just another thing to be outraged about, see 20mph limits and all things Ed Miliband.
The IFS, Dan Neidle have done the work on this and it's going to affect very few farmers. The tax-free allowance for a couple is £2.65 million and there are only 462 inherited farms worth more than £1 million (out of around 200,000). And it's only the value above the allowance that is affected by IHT.
Much that I like Dan Neidle - I think he's wrong.
Our Uni friend has just inherited part of a farm and it's gone up for sale for £5m - now I don't know how much land there is but as an anecdote it means I question Dan's figures...
Hmm. If we are going for land values alone, then that *part* of a farm must be more than 500 acres alone at current average values. That part of a farm is more than 2x the size of an entire average farm in the UK.
To all those people who make farming families out to be rich: I'd like to see them get up at dawn and work until dusk, in all sorts of weathers. To have a year where the weather means all your profits are wiped out, or where government legislation floods the market with cheap meat. Where tourists routinely stray off the paths, interfere with livestock and knock down walls and fences. Where you have to go out in the snow to find ewes that are lambing. If they want us to be rich, then they should fucking well pay more for British food. Until then, I'll go work in an office and they can ****ing well starve.
Said to me, in rather stronger terms, by a farming relative.
What a nasty person.
They should have the same tax treatment as the rest of us.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
Indeed. Reform, the LDs, even the SNP have joined Badenoch and the Tories in opposing the tractor tax and demanding it be reversed.
Just as with the WFA cut the Labour government have united the opposition parties against them
To all those people who make farming families out to be rich: I'd like to see them get up at dawn and work until dusk, in all sorts of weathers. To have a year where the weather means all your profits are wiped out, or where government legislation floods the market with cheap meat. Where tourists routinely stray off the paths, interfere with livestock and knock down walls and fences. Where you have to go out in the snow to find ewes that are lambing. If they want us to be rich, then they should fucking well pay more for British food. Until then, I'll go work in an office and they can ****ing well starve.
Said to me, in rather stronger terms, by a farming relative.
What a nasty person.
They should have the same tax treatment as the rest of us.
What do you mean - there's all sorts of different tax treatments for people depending on the 'structure above' right now.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
It's just another thing to be outraged about, see 20mph limits and all things Ed Miliband.
The IFS, Dan Neidle have done the work on this and it's going to affect very few farmers. The tax-free allowance for a couple is £2.65 million and there are only 462 inherited farms worth more than £1 million (out of around 200,000). And it's only the value above the allowance that is affected by IHT.
Much that I like Dan Neidle - I think he's wrong.
Our Uni friend has just inherited part of a farm and it's gone up for sale for £5m - now I don't know how much land there is but as an anecdote it means I question Dan's figures...
Hmm. If we are going for land values alone, then that *part* of a farm must be more than 500 acres alone at current average values. That part of a farm is more than 2x the size of an entire average farm in the UK.
To all those people who make farming families out to be rich: I'd like to see them get up at dawn and work until dusk, in all sorts of weathers. To have a year where the weather means all your profits are wiped out, or where government legislation floods the market with cheap meat. Where tourists routinely stray off the paths, interfere with livestock and knock down walls and fences. Where you have to go out in the snow to find ewes that are lambing. If they want us to be rich, then they should fucking well pay more for British food. Until then, I'll go work in an office and they can ****ing well starve.
Said to me, in rather stronger terms, by a farming relative.
What a nasty person.
They should have the same tax treatment as the rest of us.
Fuck off. Seriously, fuck off. He's a relative. Some farmers out there are in despair over this. Calling them 'nasty' is beneath you.
In response to @NickPalmer questioning if the conservatives will cancel the farmers IHT, Kemi is to join Jeremy Clarkson on stage to address and support the farmer's demonstration outside no 10
Also Scottish Labour are announcing they will reinstate the WFP
She may well be appearing but I bet decent money that unless Labour backs down (and it won't) the policy won't be changed by 2032...
If the policy is implemented we will see the actual effects.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
Are you sure......governments have a habit of sticking to their guns for both ideological and political reasons. They aren't run like a business...the cliff edge at £50-60k and £100-120k make no sense on a number of fronts if you want to maximise growth / productivity and not clear they maximise tax take either, yet here we are still with them 15 years later. We also have cliff edges in how many hours people can work per week.
If we see the whole farming sector steadily shutting down then that will lead to higher prices and outbreaks of panic buying.
Not a good image for governments.
It ill behoves the Tories to whine about farmers (as opposed to landowners, which is what IHT actually applies to) given how little they've done to promote fiid security and stop the supermarkets grinding the farmers down, as opposed to demanding more cheap food imports from Australia etc.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
They also expanded UK exports to Australia and NZ
For what? Model London Routemaster buses?
Probably, but I would think the AUKUS submarine contract would be bigger.
But that doesn't do UK farmers any good, which is the point here.
To all those people who make farming families out to be rich: I'd like to see them get up at dawn and work until dusk, in all sorts of weathers. To have a year where the weather means all your profits are wiped out, or where government legislation floods the market with cheap meat. Where tourists routinely stray off the paths, interfere with livestock and knock down walls and fences. Where you have to go out in the snow to find ewes that are lambing. If they want us to be rich, then they should fucking well pay more for British food. Until then, I'll go work in an office and they can ****ing well starve.
Said to me, in rather stronger terms, by a farming relative.
What a nasty person.
They should have the same tax treatment as the rest of us.
As I've previously said - they are collateral damage from the crackdown on tax avoidance. I've been subject to that for 25 years thanks to IR35 so my sympathy is very limited...
To all those people who make farming families out to be rich: I'd like to see them get up at dawn and work until dusk, in all sorts of weathers. To have a year where the weather means all your profits are wiped out, or where government legislation floods the market with cheap meat. Where tourists routinely stray off the paths, interfere with livestock and knock down walls and fences. Where you have to go out in the snow to find ewes that are lambing. If they want us to be rich, then they should fucking well pay more for British food. Until then, I'll go work in an office and they can ****ing well starve.
Said to me, in rather stronger terms, by a farming relative.
Ex-farming relative, presumably, and now working in an office? Or was that all piss and wind?
Comments
The UK government will be a lot more efficient in general, but there’s still going to be plenty of savings available if the government really wanted to find them. Start with a serious attempt to measure outputs, and take a good look at all the legacy systems that don’t talk to each other.
Here’s a thread with hundreds of replies about crap public sector efficiency.
https://x.com/timrunshismouth/status/1858581259259167155
Most of the examples are American, but similar will exist elsewhere.
There will, however, be many more universities with serious difficulties, particularly those with less of a research focus and more exposure to student income.
We've been discussing the costs of unnecessary regulation for ages.
Lost in the general disaster for her, it wasn't well noted that this was also part of Harris's platform. We'll probably follow the US in this - in half a decade's time.
If those are negative then the policy will be changed by someone at some point.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/19/milibands-wind-turbine-blitz-will-leave-north-sea-littered0/
“They’ll be putting pressure on wind farms to add as much capacity as possible, but they haven’t realised that the oil industry needs the same equipment."
Badly informed by civil servants - or just ignoring the issue?
The fecal Midas supreme
I expect Kemi will brush of any charges as politicians and protection officer within and around the old Sunak regime
Hopefully more successful than this attempt:
A council which signed a £1bn investment deal with a Chinese manufacturing firm three years ago has admitted the deal is now "dead".
Sheffield City Council announced the 60-year agreement with the Sichuan Guodong construction firm in 2016.
It was hailed a "massive vote of confidence" for the city but will now not happen, a councillor has said.
However, the authority said it had "no regrets" because the deal had "put Sheffield on the map".
Altogether the council spent £40,000 on trips connected with the agreement.
When she signed the deal in July 2016 Julie Dore, leader of the Labour-run council, said Sheffield would see "benefits and achievements" for years and years.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-48925175
But I'm not sure what website he's looking at because the Lumo website lists all the LNER options...
https://www.brc-stockbook.co.uk/horse.htm
Maybe Topping's on a no fly ride list due to some past drunken indiscretion?
We had a similar discussion a few weeks ago where someone (@Luckyguy1983 I think) was referring to incoming governments reversing out previous Governments stuff and both myself and @Richard_Tyndall pointed out it rarely happened. Just a minority of stuff gets reversed. A new Government has its own agenda for moving forward. Reversing out the old Government stuff is low down on the list normally. It does seem like a good way of moving forward particularly with social changes.
I look forward to @Richard_Tyndall 's view on what is happening.
It's boring, and politicians don't much care about it, as they're not the ones who have to wade through the thickets they and their predecessors planted
I'm sure there are people who would do so if the jackboot offered:
To spend more on the NHS
To increase the value of their house
To let their football team win trophies
To give them more foreign holidays
And doubtless several other things.
Starmer is also notably less fervently supportive of Zelensky than Boris and Truss and even Rishi were. While Biden has now allowed US missiles to be sent into Russian territory by the Ukrainians Starmer has still refused to follow suit for UK missiles
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-6
Regulations and duties sound like fun to a politician. We Are Doing Something.
Lawyers love them.
People who are obsessed with “Professionalisation” love them - those lovely thick reports. With those lovely clean edges to the block of paper. Untouched since it came off the printer.
A little while ago, we were taking of the TSR2. The wonder plane to be in the 1960s. An utter disaster in terms of project management. One thing they had done was stack on more and more complexity in the electronics, without measuring the reliability of the system as a whole. So plane would break down before it finished taxiing to the runway - if it had ever been completed. Death by complexity….
At the moment regulations and laws are treated as if they are zero cost. They are not.
Not a good image for governments.
At a guess: reducing people's disposable income will be hugely damaging to the economy - even lower growth due to less spending, increased pressure on higher wages to compensate, and this will lead to redundancies and businesses having to close. The Chancellor must go!
When she's served her purpose SKS will have one of his ruthless days and she's gone.
First female CoE to get sacked.
The cynics might cry that it's a black hole and the extra money will disappear without trace, but I don't think it's as bad as that. Extra money did improve the NHS 1997-2010, and there's a decent chance it will do so again. That might even be enough to win re-election.
But this seems to be pretty much the only thing of good that they're doing. And they've been so timid about tax reform, or providing political leadership, that the tax increases to support the increased NHS spending are towards the worst options for supporting the economy. And the British economy of 2024 is a lot weaker than in 1997.
It's tempting to compare Starmer's government with that of François Hollande, but the last French government of the centre-left started with a great deal more enthusiasm and optimism.
Starmer and Reeves chose to raise taxes on workers and business.
And then exempted the public sector.
They would have been better off spreading the tax increase and saying "we're all in this together".
The fuel duty increase should have been implemented as well.
I am sure there will be improvement, but the question is could it have been better done. Labour in 1997 didn't turn the taps on full blast from the get go. There was a lot more thought out approaches when Labour came in in 1997.
Putting farmers on a sounder economic footing would have been a better way toi approach the whole issue, including a rebalancing of agricultural land from its currently bloated values. But I have yet to read about Labour dealing with things like supermarket milk wholesale prices.
The Art of the Deal, folks!
As I've pointed out before - implement that while keeping the WFA and you could have easily justified it as only pensioners on £20,000+ a year would have been impacted.
Its amazing how willing our political leaders are to damage themselves for a few thousand quid.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-57837682
Meaningful reform seems to need to come as a result of work done in opposition, with a new government armed with a fresh sense of purpose and plans that are ready to implement.
Phones to the GPs are definitely a bottleneck, the new online smart triage system seems to have completely smashed that for my surgery at least.
Any attempt to improve margins in agriculture would result in food prices rises. Inflation, weekly shop etc etc.
The IFS, Dan Neidle have done the work on this and it's going to affect very few farmers. The tax-free allowance for a couple is £2.65 million and there are only 462 inherited farms worth more than £1 million (out of around 200,000). And it's only the value above the allowance that is affected by IHT.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-65052706
I would be more confident with a more measured approach, but there's a chance my instincts on this will be confounded, so I'll wait for the outcomes to judge on it.
Instead, they’ve picked on a few specific groups of people, who can organise against the government. Today it’s the turn of the farmers, and the news tonight is going to be of Jeremy Clarkson and hundreds of tractors on TV with opposition politicians.
It did it by wiping it off the map, but that's a mere quibble.
Our Uni friend has just inherited part of a farm and it's gone up for sale for £5m - now I don't know how much land there is but as an anecdote it means I question Dan's figures...
Plus the Indian Ocean splashdown will be in daylight hours, so more should be visible than an explosion, if the vessel survives a steeper re-entry with the tests to the heat shield.
The relative costs of decommissioning O&G versus offshore wind is something else we should consider when deciding what path we take.
I don't think Reeves' budget was the worst possible budget in the circumstances, but it did fall short of middling in my view
But we've just had a decade and a half of Conservative government, which in theory is ideologically opposed to unnecessary regulation. And it got worse, not better.
Which illustrates the problem.
But Scottish Labout would have to take it out of the Scottish budget. No Barnett consequential if Labour HQ don't play ball. Which is why it is being cut in Scotland in the first place.
Because there's no public hint of any such thing.
Der Schnee ... bleibt ...
About 5 inches.
And hoons being even more must get through on red than usual.
Macron has more balls and probably will follow Biden's lead and allow Ukraine to send French as well as US missiles to Russian territory. Though even then I suspect Trump will cancel that permission after his inaugration in January (albeit if the Russians do anything against US bases in Europe Trump would be aggressive in his response)
https://www.savills.co.uk/landing-pages/rural-land-values.aspx
Or does it have planning permission for building?
Said to me, in rather stronger terms, by a farming relative.
The changes were derided as 'regressive' by the IFS for a forecast cut in benefits. The reduction in benefits spending was forecast due to a prediction of more people working and unemployment declining.
How often does the IFS espouse a right rather than left wing perspective?
I don't think the preemptive criticism of Starmer on this point is warranted. I hope to see Storm Shadow strikes in Kursk within the week.
Putin would not be seeking aid from North Korea, if he had sufficient manpower.
It's a relatively small amount of revenue for HMRC but a good example of them getting early before it becomes a big issue.
They should have the same tax treatment as the rest of us.
Just as with the WFA cut the Labour government have united the opposition parties against them