B+ Moonrabbit. And I'm a harsh marker, so you should be pleased with that.
What went well: I think there is a fundamental honesty in this piece that is lacking in both sides' more partisan bleatings on our current issues.
Next steps: incorporate the relative willingness of the parties to court unpopularity by actually tackling the mess we're in. For all his flaws, Starmer cultivated the narrative that things are broken and need fixing. Sunak couldn't do this as he'd be pointing definitively to the large hole in his own foot. This now means Labour has more space to say how bad things are, and can do more to put things right (whether he does or not remains to be seen).
Second marker agrees.
What fundamentally disappointed me about Sunak and Hunt (especially Hunt) was their failure to acknowledge their prospects (inevitable defeat) and the freedom that gave them to do the right thing by the country; namely, to do some genuinely unpopular but genuinely necessary stuff. Planning reform, recalibration of taxes and spending, that sort of thing. Hand over a better inheritance to the next government. They'd still have lost the election, but kept their self-respect and maybe won history.
Instead, we got further NI cuts which didn't win them many votes, "funded" by spending cuts that didn't even qualify as fictional.
As for the bigger picture, we have had a few decades of favourable demographics and other windfalls. They're over, and as the party lights turn out, they seem to have mostly gone on house price inflation and tat. Whoever runs things from here isn't going to find it easy.
And it's those NI cuts that have created the biggest problem Labour has - it's instantly put them on the back foot.
The downside is that the Tories are still unpopular so the party that will benefit from Hunt's trap is likely to be Reform..
"The YouTuber Charlie Anderson’s most popular video, Unlock the secret steps for winning your Pip claims, had 378,000 views and offered advice for people seeking personal independence payments, which are meant to provide extra support for difficulties caused by physical or mental health conditions and disabilities.
In the video, she said: “I have a 100 per cent success rate at winning Pip claims for people because of understanding the point system and how to communicate it in a manner that then scores the points.”
She also posted templates for claims on her website as well as reviews for chargeable services of up to £950 for a personal session."
Um. So she's working then.
Does it say she’s claiming benefit? I find it hard to get worked up by people getting what they are entitled to so long as it isn’t illegal. The problem is the system is too lax, and there should be a higher bar.
I have a real problem in people getting tutored on how to game the system at the expense of the taxpayer.
Us.
It’s the same as tax planning. You can blame the system for encouraging it, it shouldn’t be one that relies on people not knowing what they are entitled to in order to be affordable.
"The YouTuber Charlie Anderson’s most popular video, Unlock the secret steps for winning your Pip claims, had 378,000 views and offered advice for people seeking personal independence payments, which are meant to provide extra support for difficulties caused by physical or mental health conditions and disabilities.
In the video, she said: “I have a 100 per cent success rate at winning Pip claims for people because of understanding the point system and how to communicate it in a manner that then scores the points.”
She also posted templates for claims on her website as well as reviews for chargeable services of up to £950 for a personal session."
Um. So she's working then.
Does it say she’s claiming benefit? I find it hard to get worked up by people getting what they are entitled to so long as it isn’t illegal. The problem is the system is too lax, and there should be a higher bar.
I have a real problem in people getting tutored on how to game the system at the expense of the taxpayer.
Us.
It’s the same as tax planning. You can blame the system for encouraging it, it shouldn’t be one that relies on people not knowing what they are entitled to in order to be affordable.
I expect people to show integrity.
I wouldn't try and exploit it to get benefits.
Take-up of many benefits, and particularly passported benefits like free school meals, tend to be much lower than you would expect. This is particularly the case for those who are most vulnerable as they often don't have access to a computer and, frankly, don't have intellect to navigate the complexity of the system (I'm not sure I do either...).
They don't benefit from financial advisers in the same way people avoiding tax do.
Yeah, bollocks, I'm not buying the bleeding heart stuff on vulnerable. £100bn. Insane and offensive.
"Stress", "anxiety", "depression".. these are workshy lazy shysters who can't be arsed, are gaming the system and are probably close to the bottle and their nearest fast food joint.
You can see it in their faces.
I think both things can be true. You will have people who are genuinely suffering but put off from claiming, and then you will have people acting selfishly looking to get one over the system.
The processes in place don't appear much interested in sorting between the two.
Yes - though I suspect the cost of providing the full extent of social security to those genuinely entitled to it far out outweighs the savings that could be achieved by tightening up the process for those gaming the system.
The worrying thing is overall upward trend for incapacity benefits is consistent since about 2012. Was about 5 per cent of the working age population then, now about 7 per cent, pretty much a straight line between the two.
Slightly higher for men, much higher for older age groups, and the increase is consistent across age groups.
Over that time, there has been an increase in people claiming for mental health problems, with a clear break at the pandemic. A boost from 30 to 40 per cent of all claims.
And that the number of new people claiming hasn't risen particularly quickly - it's the number of people not coming off incapacity benefits which is the bigger issue.
I think mental health is a serious and ever increasing problem with so many saying they have some form of neurodivergent issues
For the third time in just 3 weeks our inshore lifeboat was called to the rescue of the same young woman who had walked into the sea and had to be taken aboard and flown to hospital by the coastguard with severe hypothermia
At least they did save her this time, but it is so sad and questions why is she has not received the mental health help she needs
Never have much problem with parking apps to be fair. They are a good idea. Being able to add time remotely is a really useful advantage over the old meters.
But, there should be just one universal app. Downloading a plethora of apps is a pain. The government should invite tenders and contract it out over a four/five year period or some such.
They'd need to sort out the land registry first. Again you have an obsession with using your bleeding phone for everything. We don't all need or want a smartphone to run our lives.
Agree with others. Interesting and welcome article, which I agree with.
And add. The "black hole" isn't just a thing, it's worse than Labour claims it to be. They have political reasons to claim a big, but not too big, black hole, which is likely the kind of dishonesty you refer to. In that case the Conservatives are more dishonest again in pretending there is no black hole.
The point is, most of the tax rises are going towards stopping public services getting even worse, not towards improvements.
To answer Moonrabbit's question, we cannot really know what a victorious Sunak Government would have done. What a good Conservative government would do would be to cut Government spending, particularly in terms of CS personnel - back to 2014 levels initially. There was no shortage of Government in 2014. Then move the economy forward with targeted tax cuts on business and innovation, planning reform, Labour market reform. And get cheap, secure domestically sourced energy as the overriding priority. Cheapest energy in Europe as an initial goal.
No one can address the ballooning welfare budget while the triple lock still exists.
It's hard to tackle the numbers off sick with mental health issues without investment in that Cinderella of the NHS, mental health services. Often what the anxious and depressed need is a purpose in life, and getting back to work is a step towards that. Work gives a reason to get out of bed, social contact and income. Getting people back into work is a key part of therapy, but should be carrot more than stick.
No wonder we have a 2 year wait for CAMHS assessment when a quarter of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist posts in the country are vacant and unfillable.
I suspect the biggest driver for poor mental is lack of housing. As always build, build, build.
Great header - really well argued. The other factor I'd argue we have going against us is demographics. We need productivity progress just to stand still. And we haven't even had that.
Never have much problem with parking apps to be fair. They are a good idea. Being able to add time remotely is a really useful advantage over the old meters.
But, there should be just one universal app. Downloading a plethora of apps is a pain. The government should invite tenders and contract it out over a four/five year period or some such.
They'd need to sort out the land registry first. Again you have an obsession with using your bleeding phone for everything. We don't all need or want a smartphone to run our lives.
No they don't - open market is in progress for car parking as most operators just want payments to be simple
As an aside on MoonRabbit's thought-provoking piece, I think it's probably time that all political parties realised that there is one inescapable fact about the modern world - it's complicated, it's going to get even more complicated, and governing it (in the widest sense) s going to get ever more expensive. Consequently, government spending is going to rise, whether they (or we) want it to or not.
Election campaigns based on a premise of reducing government expenditure, reducing taxes, and getting the government out of our hair are a pipe dream. Yes, there's a lot that can be done to ensure efficiencies are made, and the worst excesses kept in check, but the fact reamins - the modern world is a complicated place, and both Labour and the Conservatives are goping to have to face it, and raise the money if they want to try to control it.
Probably a fair summary from MoonRabbit. But for me the issue has not just been Labour failing to provide a balanced budget. It has been the fact that, after promising to be a clean slate, honest with the public, honest in their own dealings and at least mildly competent, they have turned out, to a large extent, to be no better than the last lot.
They follow the same old tired, dishonest matra about everything being disastrously bad, exaggerating the black hole (as an example) and making stupid, unforced errors. They show themselves to be completely out of touch with reality when it comes to large sections of the economy and people's real lives and at the same time continue the indefensible practice of sucking up to the multinationals and the rich and powerful.
I said before the election that, although I would not vote for them, I didn't fear a Labour victory and at least they would be able to do the basic job competently. I mistook boring for competence and sadly I was wrong.
You are right in substance, Richard, but they are not quite as bad as you say.
Never mind. Give them thirteen years and I am sure they will become every bit as bad as the previous lot.
"The YouTuber Charlie Anderson’s most popular video, Unlock the secret steps for winning your Pip claims, had 378,000 views and offered advice for people seeking personal independence payments, which are meant to provide extra support for difficulties caused by physical or mental health conditions and disabilities.
In the video, she said: “I have a 100 per cent success rate at winning Pip claims for people because of understanding the point system and how to communicate it in a manner that then scores the points.”
She also posted templates for claims on her website as well as reviews for chargeable services of up to £950 for a personal session."
Um. So she's working then.
Does it say she’s claiming benefit? I find it hard to get worked up by people getting what they are entitled to so long as it isn’t illegal. The problem is the system is too lax, and there should be a higher bar.
I have a real problem in people getting tutored on how to game the system at the expense of the taxpayer.
Us.
It’s the same as tax planning. You can blame the system for encouraging it, it shouldn’t be one that relies on people not knowing what they are entitled to in order to be affordable.
"The YouTuber Charlie Anderson’s most popular video, Unlock the secret steps for winning your Pip claims, had 378,000 views and offered advice for people seeking personal independence payments, which are meant to provide extra support for difficulties caused by physical or mental health conditions and disabilities.
In the video, she said: “I have a 100 per cent success rate at winning Pip claims for people because of understanding the point system and how to communicate it in a manner that then scores the points.”
She also posted templates for claims on her website as well as reviews for chargeable services of up to £950 for a personal session."
Um. So she's working then.
Does it say she’s claiming benefit? I find it hard to get worked up by people getting what they are entitled to so long as it isn’t illegal. The problem is the system is too lax, and there should be a higher bar.
I have a real problem in people getting tutored on how to game the system at the expense of the taxpayer.
Us.
It’s the same as tax planning. You can blame the system for encouraging it, it shouldn’t be one that relies on people not knowing what they are entitled to in order to be affordable.
I expect people to show integrity.
I wouldn't try and exploit it to get benefits.
Take-up of many benefits, and particularly passported benefits like free school meals, tend to be much lower than you would expect. This is particularly the case for those who are most vulnerable as they often don't have access to a computer and, frankly, don't have intellect to navigate the complexity of the system (I'm not sure I do either...).
They don't benefit from financial advisers in the same way people avoiding tax do.
Yeah, bollocks, I'm not buying the bleeding heart stuff on vulnerable. £100bn. Insane and offensive.
"Stress", "anxiety", "depression".. these are workshy lazy shysters who can't be arsed, are gaming the system and are probably close to the bottle and their nearest fast food joint.
You can see it in their faces.
I think both things can be true. You will have people who are genuinely suffering but put off from claiming, and then you will have people acting selfishly looking to get one over the system.
The processes in place don't appear much interested in sorting between the two.
Yes - though I suspect the cost of providing the full extent of social security to those genuinely entitled to it far out outweighs the savings that could be achieved by tightening up the process for those gaming the system.
The worrying thing is overall upward trend for incapacity benefits is consistent since about 2012. Was about 5 per cent of the working age population then, now about 7 per cent, pretty much a straight line between the two.
Slightly higher for men, much higher for older age groups, and the increase is consistent across age groups.
Over that time, there has been an increase in people claiming for mental health problems, with a clear break at the pandemic. A boost from 30 to 40 per cent of all claims.
And that the number of new people claiming hasn't risen particularly quickly - it's the number of people not coming off incapacity benefits which is the bigger issue.
I think mental health is a serious and ever increasing problem with so many saying they have some form of neurodivergent issues
For the third time in just 3 weeks our inshore lifeboat was called to the rescue of the same young woman who had walked into the sea and had to be taken aboard and flown to hospital by the coastguard with severe hypothermia
At least they did save her this time, but it is so sad and questions why is she has not received the mental health help she needs
Unfortunately, treating mental health issues is difficult, expensive, unglamorous and stigmatised by the "pull yourself together" tendency.
Long story short, it's one of those things that doesn't work well, but probably as well as it can understand the circumstances.
This is the sort of thing that is normally ruled to be an unreasonable condition. Companies can't just put anything in terms and conditions.
1st up it's clearly an unreasonable condition. So if I was the judge I'd assess her time, say £100/hr - say she spent 19 hours on this nonsense... and make a judgement accordingly.
If they win or lose at court it won’t matter to them. When people get these threatening letters the vast majority just pay up.
Indeed, but they should be careful what they wish for.
If there's an outcry, and the judge does rule against them, and it leads to political action, they will be out of business.
It's clearly a wheeze to maximise profitability from a base operation by creating unreasonable conditions and implied contracts, with big penalties for technical infringements, and then pursuing people relentlessly for it.
This is the sort of thing that is normally ruled to be an unreasonable condition. Companies can't just put anything in terms and conditions.
1st up it's clearly an unreasonable condition. So if I was the judge I'd assess her time, say £100/hr - say she spent 19 hours on this nonsense... and make a judgement accordingly.
If they win or lose at court it won’t matter to them. When people get these threatening letters the vast majority just pay up.
Indeed, but they should be careful what they wish for.
If there's an outcry, and the judge does rule against them, and it leads to political action, they will be out of business.
It's clearly a wheeze to maximise profitability from a base operation by creating unreasonable conditions and implied contracts, with big penalties for technical infringements, and then pursuing people relentlessly for it.
The whole thing stinks.
But entirely legal, as per the appeal case mentioned earlier. Free enterprise, open market, no excuses. Nobody *has* to park.
On the parking thing - it needs regulating. Casino rightly described the parking companies as vultures - they exist to issue tickets and send threatening letters. Operating a car park is merely their entrapment scam.
I had a run-in with one of them a decade or so back. Parked in a leisure park on the edge of the town centre. Crossed the road at the edge of the park, went into one shop for 2 minutes then into the cinema on the park. Came back and found that I had been ticketed for "leaving the leisure park".
So I went round with a camera doing my research. There was a sign with their terms and conditions. Not on the access road I entered on, not in the car park I parked in, not on the (extended) footpath to the pedestrian crossing by the cinema which I briefly crossed. Off in the other corner where no-one could see it. Whats more there's no cameras at the pedestrian crossing owned by the leisure park (just traffic cams pointing at traffic on the crossing lights).
So how had I been seen breaking the rule that I hadn't contractually accepted? Then I spotted the gnome in his cabin. Genuinely sculking about following pedestrians. Their evidence was their employee following me to catch me leaving.
Lets just say that I had fun writing the successful appeal letter...
I am gradually weaning myself off the drug of Political Leon. com, but too many headers like that and I would be hooked again.
I would award your thesis a first Class Honours degree. Although this is PB, and that counts for nothing if you are studying at the wrong University.
Since the election I have found it good to dip in and out a bit more. Still enjoy the debates and the range of knowledge on here is great.
Congrats to the mods (and to Leon) for reining him in a bit this year.
The mods have indeed done a good job on this subject. The restriction to one photo a day was a work of genius. Post ban contrition however tends to last no more than three posts and we are as we were.
This is the sort of thing that is normally ruled to be an unreasonable condition. Companies can't just put anything in terms and conditions.
1st up it's clearly an unreasonable condition. So if I was the judge I'd assess her time, say £100/hr - say she spent 19 hours on this nonsense... and make a judgement accordingly.
If they win or lose at court it won’t matter to them. When people get these threatening letters the vast majority just pay up.
Indeed, but they should be careful what they wish for.
If there's an outcry, and the judge does rule against them, and it leads to political action, they will be out of business.
It's clearly a wheeze to maximise profitability from a base operation by creating unreasonable conditions and implied contracts, with big penalties for technical infringements, and then pursuing people relentlessly for it.
The whole thing stinks.
The whole start of the outlawing of wheelclamping on private land came about because Betty Boothroyd was clamped at the infamous car park by the Brontë museum in Haworth.
One thing stands out - the mess we are in and the economic headwinds of H2 would have meant the same economics regardless of who won the election.
This is why ReformUK are on the rise - and why similar alt-right parties are rising across Europe. Our economic model is barely working and people are sick of nothing changing regardless of who they vote for.
We need to make the economy work for people again. Make it so that work pays the bills, consumers able to consumer which drives jobs and investment - basic capitalism.
To get there we need to transform how we think about stuff. Stop talking about about what it costs, and talk about what it returns. Not spending "because we can't afford it" is not an option, its not an equation with a zero on the side of not spending. Cut spending and you spend more in emergency management dealing with the mess that the cuts create.
Spending money isn't the problem. Spending is good. Spending works - when it is investment which delivers a return on investment. Our problem is that we're spending money on all the wrong things. How are we spending record amounts on the NHS but seeing a record shortage of cash to provide actual front-line medical services? Because the cash is being wasted. Cut the waste, not the cash.
Ironically Lou Haigh was the best transport secretary we've had in a decade.A cut the crap approach to redirect focus onto delivery and not onto the cost. Knowing that delivering transport services is a lower cost than not delivering it. And now she's gone...
"The YouTuber Charlie Anderson’s most popular video, Unlock the secret steps for winning your Pip claims, had 378,000 views and offered advice for people seeking personal independence payments, which are meant to provide extra support for difficulties caused by physical or mental health conditions and disabilities.
In the video, she said: “I have a 100 per cent success rate at winning Pip claims for people because of understanding the point system and how to communicate it in a manner that then scores the points.”
She also posted templates for claims on her website as well as reviews for chargeable services of up to £950 for a personal session."
Um. So she's working then.
Does it say she’s claiming benefit? I find it hard to get worked up by people getting what they are entitled to so long as it isn’t illegal. The problem is the system is too lax, and there should be a higher bar.
I have a real problem in people getting tutored on how to game the system at the expense of the taxpayer.
Us.
So do I, but the additional underlying problem, which makes it understandable, is that people don't trust the state to get things right if people applying are a bit dim, hesitant or unclear, and not good at jumping through hoops.
And they also don't trust the state to ensure that no money goes to fraudsters and chancers.
The state should be best at deivering to the genuine, even if they are dim, and best at disqualifying the clever trickster even though they can score points and tick boxes. Sort this, and there will be no problem.
Parking is a racket, run by rogue companies. I hope the Courts pull this bunch of cowboys up short, but I'm not hopeful.
The five minute rule is ridiculous. It would take that long just to read all the terms and conditions.
If indeed you can find them, they are printed clearly and the light is adequate.
Camden Council run a highly profitable parking racket in which the rules are deliberately constructed to catch out the inexperienced and unwary. For example, they break up the area into Zones, with different rules for each Zone. You may very well find yourself studying the rules on the notice opposite the space where you have parked only to learn later that you were in a different Zone, the rules for which were shown on a notice fifty yards away and round the corner.
Kingsbury Station has no area for dropping off and picking up passengers. You could spend all day reading the lengthy rules displayed by the entrance and not discover what you are supposed to do. The technically correct answer is that you must find an empty parking space and pay for a day's parking. Regular users know that if you are quick you can get in and out without punishment, but you are taking a chance. Some prefer to park on the double yellow lines by the entrance and sit in the car with the engine running, but this creates difficulties and dangers for others. It's a system that the Car Park Company has created in order to encourage infractions which it can then penalise.
I find this a very common approach with Private Companies, less so with Public Authorities (Camden Council notwithstanding.)
No, MR is not 'miles out', it's a good header imo. The challenges were the same whoever had won the GE, an era of low growth which no UK govt can do much about, a need to spend more on infrastructure and public services, stressed public finances, and a strange national decision that it's pretty much illegal to raise any of the main taxes. This makes for a tight box.
One thing stands out - the mess we are in and the economic headwinds of H2 would have meant the same economics regardless of who won the election.
This is why ReformUK are on the rise - and why similar alt-right parties are rising across Europe. Our economic model is barely working and people are sick of nothing changing regardless of who they vote for.
We need to make the economy work for people again. Make it so that work pays the bills, consumers able to consumer which drives jobs and investment - basic capitalism.
To get there we need to transform how we think about stuff. Stop talking about about what it costs, and talk about what it returns. Not spending "because we can't afford it" is not an option, its not an equation with a zero on the side of not spending. Cut spending and you spend more in emergency management dealing with the mess that the cuts create.
Spending money isn't the problem. Spending is good. Spending works - when it is investment which delivers a return on investment. Our problem is that we're spending money on all the wrong things. How are we spending record amounts on the NHS but seeing a record shortage of cash to provide actual front-line medical services? Because the cash is being wasted. Cut the waste, not the cash.
Ironically Lou Haigh was the best transport secretary we've had in a decade.A cut the crap approach to redirect focus onto delivery and not onto the cost. Knowing that delivering transport services is a lower cost than not delivering it. And now she's gone...
This is all true but Reform - sadly - have not produced a credible set of policies to explain the better economic model or an account of all the waste no-one else has yet been able to cut.
The country does feel a bit shite. Loughborough is in a real funk at the minute. Town centre looks rundown. More shops empty than open, with the open ones being Turkish barbers, vape/foreign mini-markets, fast food outlets, cafes or pound land derivatives. Lots of homeless and beggars, with mini encampments in the empty shops with bigger doorways. No big employers apart from the University and a couple of chemical/pharma companies clinging on down the industrial estate. Lots of crime, with an out of control feral group nicking bikes and scooters seemingly right under the nose of the few police who inhabit the town. We've moved to the "nice" Forest Side of town, which put my VW insurance up by 3 hundred quid a year as we've apparently moved into a high crime area! I don't think there is any current politicial party that can "fix" the country in the short-medium term. It's going to be a tough few years ahead of us.
This is the sort of thing that is normally ruled to be an unreasonable condition. Companies can't just put anything in terms and conditions.
1st up it's clearly an unreasonable condition. So if I was the judge I'd assess her time, say £100/hr - say she spent 19 hours on this nonsense... and make a judgement accordingly.
If they win or lose at court it won’t matter to them. When people get these threatening letters the vast majority just pay up.
Indeed, but they should be careful what they wish for.
If there's an outcry, and the judge does rule against them, and it leads to political action, they will be out of business.
It's clearly a wheeze to maximise profitability from a base operation by creating unreasonable conditions and implied contracts, with big penalties for technical infringements, and then pursuing people relentlessly for it.
The whole thing stinks.
But entirely legal, as per the appeal case mentioned earlier. Free enterprise, open market, no excuses. Nobody *has* to park.
Unless it's a PFI hospital, of course.
You're not clever enough to realise you're not making the clever point you think you are.
Parking is a racket, run by rogue companies. I hope the Courts pull this bunch of cowboys up short, but I'm not hopeful.
The five minute rule is ridiculous. It would take that long just to read all the terms and conditions.
If indeed you can find them, they are printed clearly and the light is adequate.
Camden Council run a highly profitable parking racket in which the rules are deliberately constructed to catch out the inexperienced and unwary. For example, they break up the area into Zones, with different rules for each Zone. You may very well find yourself studying the rules on the notice opposite the space where you have parked only to learn later that you were in a different Zone, the rules for which were shown on a notice fifty yards away and round the corner.
Kingsbury Station has no area for dropping off and picking up passengers. You could spend all day reading the lengthy rules displayed by the entrance and not discover what you are supposed to do when dropping off and picking up. The technically correct answer is that you must find an empty parking space and pay for a day's parking. Regular users know that if you are quick you can get in and out without punishment, but you are taking a chance. Some prefer to park on the double yellow lines by the entrance and sit in the car with the engine running, but this creates difficulties and dangers for others. It's a system that the Car Park Company has created in order to encourage infractions which it can then penalise.
I find this a very common approach with Private Companies, less so with Public Authorities (Camden Council notwithstanding.)
Yep - I was caught out a couple of weeks ago in a pub carpark.
Which won't actually impact the pub where I was parked (only there once every few years) but does rather impact the chain as we used to eat there once a month (say £100 a time) and we won't be visiting that chain for a couple of years (until I forget about it).
So the £60 I paid to the parking firm is going to cost them £2400 or so in lost revenue.
This is the sort of thing that is normally ruled to be an unreasonable condition. Companies can't just put anything in terms and conditions.
1st up it's clearly an unreasonable condition. So if I was the judge I'd assess her time, say £100/hr - say she spent 19 hours on this nonsense... and make a judgement accordingly.
If they win or lose at court it won’t matter to them. When people get these threatening letters the vast majority just pay up.
Indeed, but they should be careful what they wish for.
If there's an outcry, and the judge does rule against them, and it leads to political action, they will be out of business.
It's clearly a wheeze to maximise profitability from a base operation by creating unreasonable conditions and implied contracts, with big penalties for technical infringements, and then pursuing people relentlessly for it.
The whole thing stinks.
But entirely legal, as per the appeal case mentioned earlier. Free enterprise, open market, no excuses. Nobody *has* to park.
Unless it's a PFI hospital, of course.
You're not clever enough to realise you're not making the clever point you think you are.
You're being too clever for your own good.
My comment is not intended to make a clever point. It's a strictly factual one. You need to read about the appeal judgement DavidL posted earlier.
A simple fix would be amend the Consumer Rights Act to make it so penalties/liquidated damages have to be genuine pre-estimates of loss. Unfortunately it would probably kill the parking industry (maybe that isn’t a bad thing).
The alternative is prescriptive regulations targeted at one sector, which I personally hate, prescribing grace periods down to a minute.
The two times I've been caught out at a car park with advertised fees - I've paid the fee and told them to chase the risk whilst quoting the appropriate case about charges having to appropriate...
In the case above - the carpark didn't have a charge so I just paid the fee - over the past 10 years the parking scam firms have editted their T&Cs to cover the old escape routes.
I don’t blame Labour for cutting the WFP. And, a lot of nettles need to be grasped, like ending the triple lock, and putting the age for free prescriptions up to 70. This is just useless expenditure,
I don’t blame Labour for cutting the WFP. And, a lot of nettles need to be grasped, like ending the triple lock, and putting the age for free prescriptions up to 70. This is just useless expenditure,
I remember looking at prescriptions costs a while ago and paid for prescriptions generates surprisingly little revenue - to the extent that I wondered if making them free would be a very cheap manifesto policy winner.
No, MR is not 'miles out', it's a good header imo. The challenges were the same whoever had won the GE, an era of low growth which no UK govt can do much about, a need to spend more on infrastructure and public services, stressed public finances, and a strange national decision that it's pretty much illegal to raise any of the main taxes. This makes for a tight box.
One story I've heard about Louise Haigh is that she was removed for going rogue on the train driver pay increase and she was the block on the planned approval of Heathrow runway 3....
I don’t blame Labour for cutting the WFP. And, a lot of nettles need to be grasped, like ending the triple lock, and putting the age for free prescriptions up to 70. This is just useless expenditure,
I remember looking at prescriptions costs a while ago and paid for prescriptions generates surprisingly little revenue - to the extent that I wondered if making them free would be a very cheap manifesto policy winner.
That's exactly the point made in Holyrood by the SNP years ago. Saved so much on bureaucracy.
Probably a fair summary from MoonRabbit. But for me the issue has not just been Labour failing to provide a balanced budget. It has been the fact that, after promising to be a clean slate, honest with the public, honest in their own dealings and at least mildly competent, they have turned out, to a large extent, to be no better than the last lot.
They follow the same old tired, dishonest matra about everything being disastrously bad, exaggerating the black hole (as an example) and making stupid, unforced errors. They show themselves to be completely out of touch with reality when it comes to large sections of the economy and people's real lives and at the same time continue the indefensible practice of sucking up to the multinationals and the rich and powerful.
I said before the election that, although I would not vote for them, I didn't fear a Labour victory and at least they would be able to do the basic job competently. I mistook boring for competence and sadly I was wrong.
It's still early days although the signs are not promising. Sticking to the Tories pretence that quality services can be provided without adequate taxation in the light of limited economic growth is a disingenuous lie.
Labour with their enormous majority had the opportunity to come clean. They remain fearful of upsetting the Daily Mail, perhaps unaware that the Daily Mail despise them not for their fiscal policy but just because they hate them because they can. They need to do what they need to do, and to Hell with the Daily Mail. Pandering to the Daily Mail will not redistribute a fairer society. "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate" isn't a sustainable economic model.
The Conservative offering is equally disingenuous and Hunt cutting NI twice in anticipation of an election was unequivocal dereliction of duty. The Conservatives harp on at Labour being the "high tax party" despite their recent record on taxation. If anything their outright lie is even more appalling. "Only the Conservatives can cut taxes and improve services". The politics of the magic money tree is a very tempting offer.
Only Nigel offers a realistic option. Yes he will cut your taxes, but he will also decimate your public services. If for example reduced taxes means a reduced NHS funding package Reform can look to the insurance model. The same applies to education and the social safety net ( charities can resolve that issue- or the workhouse?). If that isn't what you want don't vote Reform, although they are at least adding the sums up.
SKS has abandoned his pledge to achieve the highest highest growth in the G7.
The pledge was central to Labour's election campaign, and was the top promise of SKS's "Five Missions".
Less than 150 days into power, it's been dumped.
Explaining to do from his fans on here methinks
Good. Because you can't "pledge" something like that. The UK government has only a marginal impact on how much we grow and no impact at all on how much other G7 countries do.
The second part of that is certainly true. On the first, well, we're buffetted about by the financial weather - but some basic economic common sense would at least point the rudder in the right direction. I freely admit there are things to prioritise as well as growth, but the contrast between that pledge and Reeves' subsequent decision making does seem quite glaring.
She's borrowing more and splitting it between the NHS and investment. It's not anti growth.
We are now deep enough into the Labour term in office to make reasonable predictions. And one is this: the Labour government's economic policies are so dated, wrong-headed and anti-growth - driving away investment, scaring away the rich, piling up debt to spook the markets - it is highly likely we will have the SLOWEST growth in the G7, with the probable exception of Germany, which is in a peculiar crisis of its own
It is therefore not surprising they have abandoned the stupid "target"
Starmer and Co are going to be utterly vanquished in the next election, as angry voters turn on them - they were never popular in the first place - and there is a pretty good chance Reform will hugely benefit, as per the threader
Labour has been a PR disaster and full of unforced errors. That is conceded. But WRT economic policies as such, governing has to be done with precision and actual concrete decision. Critics are permitted to generalise and pick and choose.
So, Leon, in econonic policy what exactly should they have done instead?
Fuck knows. Not my job. Their job
I'd need to spend a few hours mulling over a reasonable answer (which you deserve), I may do it at some point
But I know for a fact that what they have announced, and planned, shows zero ideas for amping up growth. It is mere verbiage, and the few things they have done - tax jobs - drive non doms and rich people away - are actually anti-growth
I have a theory that rich people generally do fuck all for growth. I'm quite rich and I suspect you're even richer. We do fuck-all for growth.
Poor people OTOH spend every penny they get. Give the poorest 10% an extra £1bn and that's an extra £bn of growth right away.
Er, fuck off
In the last 20 years I have generated millions - literally - in tax for HMRC. And that comes from money earned overseas, going into UK coffers. And marketing and selling my flints employs, in part, a fair few people
What else am I expected to do, to personally generate growth?
So, yeah, fuck off
Ben Pointer is an affable chap whose posts show evidence of good humour.
In his politics however, he acknowledges that he has zero ambitions for Britain's economy to grow, and indeed he thinks it's probably right that it shrinks.
That removes any ounce of respect I have for his political arguments, or any policy that he might ever recommend as being beneficial to our economy.
Yes, I like @Benpointer - and his life story is a genuine inspiration
My "fuck off" is only aimed at his outrageous assertion that I am some affluent dude who just sits back and does fuck all but faff about in nice hotels in Bali. I am self-employed, successfully, and I have in my later years generated large amounts of income and business from abroad, all of which comes to the UK and a large chunk of the taxable cash goes to the Inland Revenue; and the marketing, promoting and selling of my products in the UK employs a large number of people (not full time, but they all spend part of their time doing that)
I am pretty certain I add more "growth" to the UK economy than 95% of Britons. Earning money abroad and paying tax on it in Britain is surely one of the purest ways of benefiting the UK
There are two different arguments being conflated here.
Do rich people contribute disproportionately to spending and tax revenue, as a result of being rich and having the capacity to invest? Yes.
Does a pound in tax cuts or benefits given to a poor person get recycled back into the economy more quickly than the equivalent pound given to a rich person? Yes.
No. If you are self employed and a successful primary producer - like a gold miner or a farmer or, most of all, an artist - you are creating wealth and value when there was none before. It comes out of my mind and with hard work I turn my thoughts into something that can make a six figure salary. That is taxed by HMRC, and it also brings in lots of money from abroad, also taxed by HMRC
At the same time the promoting, making, advertising and selling of my mental efforts turned into flints itself generates employment, and profit, and thus further adds to the wealth of the UK and money the government can then spend as it wishes, eg stimulating more business elsewhere
If that doesn't boost growth, what does? I readily confess I am not exactly James Dyson, but I am pretty sure I do more for the UK economy and UK "growth" than 19 out of 20 of my fellow Brits. I create valuable stuff from scratch
Wealth is created by moving assets from low-value to high-value uses. Value is expressed by the amount of money one is willing to provide to purchase that asset. By changing stone from a sharp-edged monolith that nobody wants to a smoothly polished dildo that somebody wants to fill their guts with, you are creating wealth. The amount of wealth is the increase in value.
There y'go. That's proper economics. You can carve it into your goods if you like.
In your scenario you weren't at the productive frontier in the first place. Yes output increases until you get to full capacity. But for growth that has to expand year by year, and you can't get any more by shifting from low producivity to high prdoductivity activity
Of course you can always get more and we are never at the productive frontier in the first, second or third or any other place.
There is plenty of more productive stuff people could be doing and aren't. Though of course there's an army of people making a living from ensuring that others are less productive.
I thought you had studied economics? What you seem to be talking about is using current resources more efficiently. Once you have done that where does the growth come from?
I did.
The misunderstanding is you seem to be thinking that we have ever "done" that.
We have never used our current resources as efficiently as we could.
Humans are not perfect creatures. We can always iterate to be more productive, more efficient. There is no need or requirement to ever rest upon our laurels.
New technologies absolutely can and do help us to become more productive, more efficient. But iterative, more productive/efficient choices can and do allow the same thing too.
This is one thing I 100% agree with @rcs1000 who repeatedly makes the same point too - never underestimate the power of iteration.
The country does feel a bit shite. Loughborough is in a real funk at the minute. Town centre looks rundown. More shops empty than open, with the open ones being Turkish barbers, vape/foreign mini-markets, fast food outlets, cafes or pound land derivatives. Lots of homeless and beggars, with mini encampments in the empty shops with bigger doorways. No big employers apart from the University and a couple of chemical/pharma companies clinging on down the industrial estate. Lots of crime, with an out of control feral group nicking bikes and scooters seemingly right under the nose of the few police who inhabit the town. We've moved to the "nice" Forest Side of town, which put my VW insurance up by 3 hundred quid a year as we've apparently moved into a high crime area! I don't think there is any current politicial party that can "fix" the country in the short-medium term. It's going to be a tough few years ahead of us.
Yes, the country is in a similar mess to how it was in the 1970s, and for the same reason - some external shocks combined with an out of control state that thinks it knows how to spend other people's money than the private sector, even though it is staggeringly unproductive and wasteful. It is some but not much consolation that, this time, France and Germany aren't doing any better.
The solution is the same as it was in the 1980s - supply side reform and chopping the public sector back down to an affordable size. Painful in the short term, but it will deliver growth in the medium to long term, until of course the government and the electorate get lazy and complacent, take growth for granted and we start the cycle again.
I am gradually weaning myself off the drug of Political Leon. com, but too many headers like that and I would be hooked again.
I would award your thesis a first Class Honours degree. Although this is PB, and that counts for nothing if you are studying at the wrong University.
Since the election I have found it good to dip in and out a bit more. Still enjoy the debates and the range of knowledge on here is great.
Congrats to the mods (and to Leon) for reining him in a bit this year.
The mods have indeed done a good job on this subject. The restriction to one photo a day was a work of genius. Post ban contrition however tends to last no more than three posts and we are as we were.
Just popping by to make sure you’re still talking about me EVEN WHEN I’M NOT HERE
Two unfunded and unnecessary employee NI cuts from Hunt salted the earth.
Labour fell hook line and sinker in to the political trap by committing so quickly to honour both.
It will define the first 2 budgets at least probably 3.Even refusing to honour the second or just going back on it on 6 July would have given headway.
Aside from a clearly managed and hostile right wing and tv media, they are producing shed loads of promising policy aims. Delivery within 3 years will be key.
Tories have managed to appoint a Leader worse than any of the last 3 by all measures and that will give Starmer breathing space.
Lib Dems are toothless in that 3rd Party slot that HoC set up disadvantages.
Reform get unprecedented air time from their in house pripofanda station but as time goes by the bulk of the electorate will come to realise there is
Trumps puppet Two multi millionaire Businessmen Swop a Party for a fee Lee and Andrea A convicted partner basher and very little else other than funding from Musk, Bannon and Putin.
The 2029 election will be defined in economy, migration and cost of living data in January 2028...no sooner probably not later.
SKS has abandoned his pledge to achieve the highest highest growth in the G7.
The pledge was central to Labour's election campaign, and was the top promise of SKS's "Five Missions".
Less than 150 days into power, it's been dumped.
Explaining to do from his fans on here methinks
Good. Because you can't "pledge" something like that. The UK government has only a marginal impact on how much we grow and no impact at all on how much other G7 countries do.
The second part of that is certainly true. On the first, well, we're buffetted about by the financial weather - but some basic economic common sense would at least point the rudder in the right direction. I freely admit there are things to prioritise as well as growth, but the contrast between that pledge and Reeves' subsequent decision making does seem quite glaring.
She's borrowing more and splitting it between the NHS and investment. It's not anti growth.
We are now deep enough into the Labour term in office to make reasonable predictions. And one is this: the Labour government's economic policies are so dated, wrong-headed and anti-growth - driving away investment, scaring away the rich, piling up debt to spook the markets - it is highly likely we will have the SLOWEST growth in the G7, with the probable exception of Germany, which is in a peculiar crisis of its own
It is therefore not surprising they have abandoned the stupid "target"
Starmer and Co are going to be utterly vanquished in the next election, as angry voters turn on them - they were never popular in the first place - and there is a pretty good chance Reform will hugely benefit, as per the threader
Labour has been a PR disaster and full of unforced errors. That is conceded. But WRT economic policies as such, governing has to be done with precision and actual concrete decision. Critics are permitted to generalise and pick and choose.
So, Leon, in econonic policy what exactly should they have done instead?
Fuck knows. Not my job. Their job
I'd need to spend a few hours mulling over a reasonable answer (which you deserve), I may do it at some point
But I know for a fact that what they have announced, and planned, shows zero ideas for amping up growth. It is mere verbiage, and the few things they have done - tax jobs - drive non doms and rich people away - are actually anti-growth
I have a theory that rich people generally do fuck all for growth. I'm quite rich and I suspect you're even richer. We do fuck-all for growth.
Poor people OTOH spend every penny they get. Give the poorest 10% an extra £1bn and that's an extra £bn of growth right away.
Er, fuck off
In the last 20 years I have generated millions - literally - in tax for HMRC. And that comes from money earned overseas, going into UK coffers. And marketing and selling my flints employs, in part, a fair few people
What else am I expected to do, to personally generate growth?
So, yeah, fuck off
Ben Pointer is an affable chap whose posts show evidence of good humour.
In his politics however, he acknowledges that he has zero ambitions for Britain's economy to grow, and indeed he thinks it's probably right that it shrinks.
That removes any ounce of respect I have for his political arguments, or any policy that he might ever recommend as being beneficial to our economy.
Yes, I like @Benpointer - and his life story is a genuine inspiration
My "fuck off" is only aimed at his outrageous assertion that I am some affluent dude who just sits back and does fuck all but faff about in nice hotels in Bali. I am self-employed, successfully, and I have in my later years generated large amounts of income and business from abroad, all of which comes to the UK and a large chunk of the taxable cash goes to the Inland Revenue; and the marketing, promoting and selling of my products in the UK employs a large number of people (not full time, but they all spend part of their time doing that)
I am pretty certain I add more "growth" to the UK economy than 95% of Britons. Earning money abroad and paying tax on it in Britain is surely one of the purest ways of benefiting the UK
There are two different arguments being conflated here.
Do rich people contribute disproportionately to spending and tax revenue, as a result of being rich and having the capacity to invest? Yes.
Does a pound in tax cuts or benefits given to a poor person get recycled back into the economy more quickly than the equivalent pound given to a rich person? Yes.
No. If you are self employed and a successful primary producer - like a gold miner or a farmer or, most of all, an artist - you are creating wealth and value when there was none before. It comes out of my mind and with hard work I turn my thoughts into something that can make a six figure salary. That is taxed by HMRC, and it also brings in lots of money from abroad, also taxed by HMRC
At the same time the promoting, making, advertising and selling of my mental efforts turned into flints itself generates employment, and profit, and thus further adds to the wealth of the UK and money the government can then spend as it wishes, eg stimulating more business elsewhere
If that doesn't boost growth, what does? I readily confess I am not exactly James Dyson, but I am pretty sure I do more for the UK economy and UK "growth" than 19 out of 20 of my fellow Brits. I create valuable stuff from scratch
Wealth is created by moving assets from low-value to high-value uses. Value is expressed by the amount of money one is willing to provide to purchase that asset. By changing stone from a sharp-edged monolith that nobody wants to a smoothly polished dildo that somebody wants to fill their guts with, you are creating wealth. The amount of wealth is the increase in value.
There y'go. That's proper economics. You can carve it into your goods if you like.
In your scenario you weren't at the productive frontier in the first place. Yes output increases until you get to full capacity. But for growth that has to expand year by year, and you can't get any more by shifting from low producivity to high prdoductivity activity
Of course you can always get more and we are never at the productive frontier in the first, second or third or any other place.
There is plenty of more productive stuff people could be doing and aren't. Though of course there's an army of people making a living from ensuring that others are less productive.
I thought you had studied economics? What you seem to be talking about is using current resources more efficiently. Once you have done that where does the growth come from?
I did.
The misunderstanding is you seem to be thinking that we have ever "done" that.
We have never used our current resources as efficiently as we could.
Humans are not perfect creatures. We can always iterate to be more productive, more efficient. There is no need or requirement to ever rest upon our laurels.
New technologies absolutely can and do help us to become more productive, more efficient. But iterative, more productive/efficient choices can and do allow the same thing too.
This is one thing I 100% agree with @rcs1000 who repeatedly makes the same point too - never underestimate the power of iteration.
No argument with anything you say there. But sustained growth requires sustained expansion of productive potential. That comes only from technological change
I am gradually weaning myself off the drug of Political Leon. com, but too many headers like that and I would be hooked again.
I would award your thesis a first Class Honours degree. Although this is PB, and that counts for nothing if you are studying at the wrong University.
Since the election I have found it good to dip in and out a bit more. Still enjoy the debates and the range of knowledge on here is great.
Congrats to the mods (and to Leon) for reining him in a bit this year.
The mods have indeed done a good job on this subject. The restriction to one photo a day was a work of genius. Post ban contrition however tends to last no more than three posts and we are as we were.
Just popping by to make sure you’re still talking about me EVEN WHEN I’M NOT HERE
*chuffed*
*disappears again*
You are omnipresent. You are always here. Even when you are not.
On topic, a B+ at best from me. Written from what I sense to be a Conservative perspective, it almost admits had Sunak and Hunt somehow remained in power, they'd have faced the same challenges as they would have but we know they'd have done nothing about winter fuel allowance and we'd have likely had a summer of strikes on the rails and from the junior doctors (and possibly others).
Hunt's NI cuts salted the earth for the incoming Government - they were a deliberate politically motivated act.
As for Reeves and Starmer, they have done what you must never do in politics - taken good ideas and turned them into bad ones. The winter fuel allowance, as it was, was wholly unsustainable and being given to some who frankly didn't need it. That said, the messaging, targetting and cliff-edge nature of the new measures were all avoidable mistakes.
The damning figures showing many people (not all by any stretch) are no better off now than in 2008 explain so much. After decades of cheap food, cheap fuel, cheap money and endlessly rising asset prices, we may be entering a prolonged period of anaemic growth at best and stagflation at worst. We all want to be better off than our parents and for our children to be better off than us but that part of the capitalist "contract" hasn't been delivered.
This sense of going nowhere fast (or slowly if you follow productivity numbers) is pervasive and corrosive and explains the appeal of those who claim they have "the answers" whether it's slashing "the public sector" by 50% or net zero migration. I don't see how one or both works but if you are desperate and feel trapped any glimmer of light will be welcomed.
If you have or seem to have no answers, no one will support you. If you have answers, even if they are the wrong ones, you will attract supporters. That's populism.
Yes. I know we need to be wary of attempts to "explain" Trump's success, but I think that the definition of populism in the final para is spot on. Harris offered a sunny version of "carry on as we are", Trump offered a dodgy chasnge package which most people could see the holes in but felt it at least offered some change, hopefully for the better.
If that's right, it's a challenge to democracy. A system that only works in good times is essentially vulnerable.
Thank you Moonrabbit. You are about right. What is needed?
1) A better political, general, media and parliamentary climate in which the emphasis is on solution finding.
2) Abolish IHT (a wealth tax which is irregular, random, avoidable and crippling) and introduce a sensible wealth tax at low level %.
3) Reform land/property taxes which are regressive
4) Join the SM and CU of the EU via EFTA/EEA route (absolutely in line with Brexit referendum).
5) Allow asylum seekers to work
6) Raise VAT on luxury goods, and introduce it at a very low level (3%?) on all food
7) Give local authorities freedom to tax so that responsibility and power to pay for it belong together
8) Stop outsourcing things which are state matters (eg prisons and justice)
9) Answer questions and tell the truth.
Some of that I agree with. Certainly agree on the EFTA/EEA move. Sadly the CU is not an option under any circumstances even if we as a country wanted it. The only way to rejoin the CU is to rejoin the EU. Good luck with that campaign.
VAT on food is very much regressive. I think the exclusions we have for VAT currently are about right . The main reason I would oppose changing general VAT is a spurious but widespread reason. Currently it is easy to calculate. Move it away from 20% and it becomes a pain in the arse. That is no reason not to do it of course but the groan from businesses up and down the country would be loud.
SKS has abandoned his pledge to achieve the highest highest growth in the G7.
The pledge was central to Labour's election campaign, and was the top promise of SKS's "Five Missions".
Less than 150 days into power, it's been dumped.
Explaining to do from his fans on here methinks
Good. Because you can't "pledge" something like that. The UK government has only a marginal impact on how much we grow and no impact at all on how much other G7 countries do.
The second part of that is certainly true. On the first, well, we're buffetted about by the financial weather - but some basic economic common sense would at least point the rudder in the right direction. I freely admit there are things to prioritise as well as growth, but the contrast between that pledge and Reeves' subsequent decision making does seem quite glaring.
She's borrowing more and splitting it between the NHS and investment. It's not anti growth.
We are now deep enough into the Labour term in office to make reasonable predictions. And one is this: the Labour government's economic policies are so dated, wrong-headed and anti-growth - driving away investment, scaring away the rich, piling up debt to spook the markets - it is highly likely we will have the SLOWEST growth in the G7, with the probable exception of Germany, which is in a peculiar crisis of its own
It is therefore not surprising they have abandoned the stupid "target"
Starmer and Co are going to be utterly vanquished in the next election, as angry voters turn on them - they were never popular in the first place - and there is a pretty good chance Reform will hugely benefit, as per the threader
Labour has been a PR disaster and full of unforced errors. That is conceded. But WRT economic policies as such, governing has to be done with precision and actual concrete decision. Critics are permitted to generalise and pick and choose.
So, Leon, in econonic policy what exactly should they have done instead?
Fuck knows. Not my job. Their job
I'd need to spend a few hours mulling over a reasonable answer (which you deserve), I may do it at some point
But I know for a fact that what they have announced, and planned, shows zero ideas for amping up growth. It is mere verbiage, and the few things they have done - tax jobs - drive non doms and rich people away - are actually anti-growth
I have a theory that rich people generally do fuck all for growth. I'm quite rich and I suspect you're even richer. We do fuck-all for growth.
Poor people OTOH spend every penny they get. Give the poorest 10% an extra £1bn and that's an extra £bn of growth right away.
Er, fuck off
In the last 20 years I have generated millions - literally - in tax for HMRC. And that comes from money earned overseas, going into UK coffers. And marketing and selling my flints employs, in part, a fair few people
What else am I expected to do, to personally generate growth?
So, yeah, fuck off
Ben Pointer is an affable chap whose posts show evidence of good humour.
In his politics however, he acknowledges that he has zero ambitions for Britain's economy to grow, and indeed he thinks it's probably right that it shrinks.
That removes any ounce of respect I have for his political arguments, or any policy that he might ever recommend as being beneficial to our economy.
Yes, I like @Benpointer - and his life story is a genuine inspiration
My "fuck off" is only aimed at his outrageous assertion that I am some affluent dude who just sits back and does fuck all but faff about in nice hotels in Bali. I am self-employed, successfully, and I have in my later years generated large amounts of income and business from abroad, all of which comes to the UK and a large chunk of the taxable cash goes to the Inland Revenue; and the marketing, promoting and selling of my products in the UK employs a large number of people (not full time, but they all spend part of their time doing that)
I am pretty certain I add more "growth" to the UK economy than 95% of Britons. Earning money abroad and paying tax on it in Britain is surely one of the purest ways of benefiting the UK
There are two different arguments being conflated here.
Do rich people contribute disproportionately to spending and tax revenue, as a result of being rich and having the capacity to invest? Yes.
Does a pound in tax cuts or benefits given to a poor person get recycled back into the economy more quickly than the equivalent pound given to a rich person? Yes.
No. If you are self employed and a successful primary producer - like a gold miner or a farmer or, most of all, an artist - you are creating wealth and value when there was none before. It comes out of my mind and with hard work I turn my thoughts into something that can make a six figure salary. That is taxed by HMRC, and it also brings in lots of money from abroad, also taxed by HMRC
At the same time the promoting, making, advertising and selling of my mental efforts turned into flints itself generates employment, and profit, and thus further adds to the wealth of the UK and money the government can then spend as it wishes, eg stimulating more business elsewhere
If that doesn't boost growth, what does? I readily confess I am not exactly James Dyson, but I am pretty sure I do more for the UK economy and UK "growth" than 19 out of 20 of my fellow Brits. I create valuable stuff from scratch
Wealth is created by moving assets from low-value to high-value uses. Value is expressed by the amount of money one is willing to provide to purchase that asset. By changing stone from a sharp-edged monolith that nobody wants to a smoothly polished dildo that somebody wants to fill their guts with, you are creating wealth. The amount of wealth is the increase in value.
There y'go. That's proper economics. You can carve it into your goods if you like.
In your scenario you weren't at the productive frontier in the first place. Yes output increases until you get to full capacity. But for growth that has to expand year by year, and you can't get any more by shifting from low producivity to high prdoductivity activity
Of course you can always get more and we are never at the productive frontier in the first, second or third or any other place.
There is plenty of more productive stuff people could be doing and aren't. Though of course there's an army of people making a living from ensuring that others are less productive.
I thought you had studied economics? What you seem to be talking about is using current resources more efficiently. Once you have done that where does the growth come from?
I did.
The misunderstanding is you seem to be thinking that we have ever "done" that.
We have never used our current resources as efficiently as we could.
Humans are not perfect creatures. We can always iterate to be more productive, more efficient. There is no need or requirement to ever rest upon our laurels.
New technologies absolutely can and do help us to become more productive, more efficient. But iterative, more productive/efficient choices can and do allow the same thing too.
This is one thing I 100% agree with @rcs1000 who repeatedly makes the same point too - never underestimate the power of iteration.
No argument with anything you say there. But sustained growth requires sustained expansion of productive potential. That comes only from technological change
It comes from both. We have plenty of untapped potential growth without our existing technologies and existing resources.
Louise Haigh was convicted of fraud after a mobile phone that she reported to police as stolen was used to call one of her relatives, The Times has been told.
Haigh resigned as transport secretary on Thursday night after confirming that she had pleaded guilty after a police investigation involving stolen and missing phones in 2014.
Sources close to Haigh said that she reported the matter “in full” to Sir Keir Starmer when she joined the shadow cabinet in 2020.
However, Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, advised her to resign when No 10 became concerned that Haigh had not revealed all the details of the conviction after a report in The Times....
...Haigh said in a statement that she was mugged during a night out in 2013. “I was a young woman and the experience was terrifying,” she said. She was said to have reported the incident to police three or four days later and had told them a man put his arm around her outside a pub, slipped off her handbag and ran off.
She gave police a list of items that she said were in her handbag, including her company phone that was supplied by her employer Aviva.
Haigh said she subsequently found the mobile phone in a drawer in her house and made a mistake by failing to inform Aviva straight away.
The Times has been told that Aviva began a formal investigation into Haigh after establishing that the stolen mobile phone was being used to call her existing contacts, including one of her relatives.
Investigations by police confirmed that the same numbers had been called by the phone before and after the report of the theft. Haigh did not respond to questions about the use of the phone when approached for comment.
A case file was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service and she was charged with fraud by false representation. Haigh pleaded guilty when she appeared at Camberwell Green magistrates court in November 2014.
There's still the mystery of the references in Times and Guardian yesterday to multiple phones being involved....?
From what I read elsewhere the implication was that was a way of getting the latest handset.
A fairly common tactic in the late 2000s, though I'm a bit surprised Aviva were letting it happen as late as 2014. Most corporate IT departments had moved to a "if you need a replacement, you can only take the oldest one from back of our spares cupboard" model by then.
I was struck by the shockingly poor response from James Cleverly, who asked of Starmer "if it was declared to Proprietary & Ethics on her appointment to Cabinet (must have been), why is he throwing her under the bus now?"
Well, the government's response to that is that although a full declaration to P&E was made she failed to also declare it on the departmental conflicts of interest register. Apparently that declaration form only specifically gives 'unspent convictions' as an example of what should be registered, so her spent conviction was in a bit of a grey zone, but omitting it counts as not being as frank as she could have been.
Starmer clearly has a low tolerance of anything that even hints of misconduct. And that's fine. Cleverly's intervention serves only to highlight that standards are now higher under Labour, in stark contrast to the Boris-tainted Tory years.
Dreadful tactics, but it did at least get hidden by the Assisted Dying debate. I'm sure they'll get better at it as they go along, but they quite desperately really need to learn to oppose in a way that doesn't rebound on to their own time in office.
I am gradually weaning myself off the drug of Political Leon. com, but too many headers like that and I would be hooked again.
I would award your thesis a first Class Honours degree. Although this is PB, and that counts for nothing if you are studying at the wrong University.
Since the election I have found it good to dip in and out a bit more. Still enjoy the debates and the range of knowledge on here is great.
Congrats to the mods (and to Leon) for reining him in a bit this year.
The mods have indeed done a good job on this subject. The restriction to one photo a day was a work of genius. Post ban contrition however tends to last no more than three posts and we are as we were.
Just popping by to make sure you’re still talking about me EVEN WHEN I’M NOT HERE
*chuffed*
*disappears again*
You are omnipresent. You are always here. Even when you are not.
Louise Haigh was convicted of fraud after a mobile phone that she reported to police as stolen was used to call one of her relatives, The Times has been told.
Haigh resigned as transport secretary on Thursday night after confirming that she had pleaded guilty after a police investigation involving stolen and missing phones in 2014.
Sources close to Haigh said that she reported the matter “in full” to Sir Keir Starmer when she joined the shadow cabinet in 2020.
However, Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, advised her to resign when No 10 became concerned that Haigh had not revealed all the details of the conviction after a report in The Times....
...Haigh said in a statement that she was mugged during a night out in 2013. “I was a young woman and the experience was terrifying,” she said. She was said to have reported the incident to police three or four days later and had told them a man put his arm around her outside a pub, slipped off her handbag and ran off.
She gave police a list of items that she said were in her handbag, including her company phone that was supplied by her employer Aviva.
Haigh said she subsequently found the mobile phone in a drawer in her house and made a mistake by failing to inform Aviva straight away.
The Times has been told that Aviva began a formal investigation into Haigh after establishing that the stolen mobile phone was being used to call her existing contacts, including one of her relatives.
Investigations by police confirmed that the same numbers had been called by the phone before and after the report of the theft. Haigh did not respond to questions about the use of the phone when approached for comment.
A case file was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service and she was charged with fraud by false representation. Haigh pleaded guilty when she appeared at Camberwell Green magistrates court in November 2014.
There's still the mystery of the references in Times and Guardian yesterday to multiple phones being involved....?
From what I read elsewhere the implication was that was a way of getting the latest handset.
A fairly common tactic in the late 2000s, though I'm a bit surprised Aviva were letting it happen as late as 2014. Most corporate IT departments had moved to a "if you need a replacement, you can only take the oldest one from back of our spares cupboard" model by then.
I was struck by the shockingly poor response from James Cleverly, who asked of Starmer "if it was declared to Proprietary & Ethics on her appointment to Cabinet (must have been), why is he throwing her under the bus now?"
Well, the government's response to that is that although a full declaration to P&E was made she failed to also declare it on the departmental conflicts of interest register. Apparently that declaration form only specifically gives 'unspent convictions' as an example of what should be registered, so her spent conviction was in a bit of a grey zone, but omitting it counts as not being as frank as she could have been.
Starmer clearly has a low tolerance of anything that even hints of misconduct. And that's fine. Cleverly's intervention serves only to highlight that standards are now higher under Labour, in stark contrast to the Boris-tainted Tory years.
Dreadful tactics, but it did at least get hidden by the Assisted Dying debate. I'm sure they'll get better at it as they go along, but they quite desperately really need to learn to oppose in a way that doesn't rebound on to their own time in office.
It is fairly clear that if the form mentions 'unspent convictions' as an example that spent convictions do not have to be declared. Otherwise unspent is not just completely superfluous but also misleading.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
On topic, a B+ at best from me. Written from what I sense to be a Conservative perspective, it almost admits had Sunak and Hunt somehow remained in power, they'd have faced the same challenges as they would have but we know they'd have done nothing about winter fuel allowance and we'd have likely had a summer of strikes on the rails and from the junior doctors (and possibly others).
Hunt's NI cuts salted the earth for the incoming Government - they were a deliberate politically motivated act.
As for Reeves and Starmer, they have done what you must never do in politics - taken good ideas and turned them into bad ones. The winter fuel allowance, as it was, was wholly unsustainable and being given to some who frankly didn't need it. That said, the messaging, targetting and cliff-edge nature of the new measures were all avoidable mistakes.
The damning figures showing many people (not all by any stretch) are no better off now than in 2008 explain so much. After decades of cheap food, cheap fuel, cheap money and endlessly rising asset prices, we may be entering a prolonged period of anaemic growth at best and stagflation at worst. We all want to be better off than our parents and for our children to be better off than us but that part of the capitalist "contract" hasn't been delivered.
This sense of going nowhere fast (or slowly if you follow productivity numbers) is pervasive and corrosive and explains the appeal of those who claim they have "the answers" whether it's slashing "the public sector" by 50% or net zero migration. I don't see how one or both works but if you are desperate and feel trapped any glimmer of light will be welcomed.
If you have or seem to have no answers, no one will support you. If you have answers, even if they are the wrong ones, you will attract supporters. That's populism.
Yes. I know we need to be wary of attempts to "explain" Trump's success, but I think that the definition of populism in the final para is spot on. Harris offered a sunny version of "carry on as we are", Trump offered a dodgy chasnge package which most people could see the holes in but felt it at least offered some change, hopefully for the better.
If that's right, it's a challenge to democracy. A system that only works in good times is essentially vulnerable.
I think democracy is beyond vulnerable. It is on the precipice of becoming a historical relic. We have allowed too much power and wealth into the hands of a few and with the rapid technological change of the next few decades that will be almost impossible to unravel.
The head of MI6 is raising the alarm over Russian recklessness. We are at an inflection point. How the Ukraine Russia war ends really matters. Putin needs to lose. We can forget the idea of a complete Ukrainian military victory. That ship sailed long ago with the dithering of the Nato countries. What still can be achieved is a reasonably just peace for Ukraine and a choice for Russia. It can choose Putinist decline or rebuild its relationship with the west on our not unreasonable terms. I increasingly feel that there may not be a deal that can be done with Putin and we should be fine with that. His position is precarious anyway given the economic decline and overall cost of the war to little benefit for Russia - essentially the Crimean land bridge.
So what do we want to do? Prepare the furnishings so the negotiations can be as amicable as possible? Or support Ukraine to the maximum and pressurise Putin to the fullest to get the best possible outcome. The arrival of Kellogg as envoy suggests amazingly that Trump might turn out to be better on this than Biden.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Two unfunded and unnecessary employee NI cuts from Hunt salted the earth.
Labour fell hook line and sinker in to the political trap by committing so quickly to honour both.
It will define the first 2 budgets at least probably 3.Even refusing to honour the second or just going back on it on 6 July would have given headway.
Aside from a clearly managed and hostile right wing and tv media, they are producing shed loads of promising policy aims. Delivery within 3 years will be key.
Tories have managed to appoint a Leader worse than any of the last 3 by all measures and that will give Starmer breathing space.
Lib Dems are toothless in that 3rd Party slot that HoC set up disadvantages.
Reform get unprecedented air time from their in house pripofanda station but as time goes by the bulk of the electorate will come to realise there is
Trumps puppet Two multi millionaire Businessmen Swop a Party for a fee Lee and Andrea A convicted partner basher and very little else other than funding from Musk, Bannon and Putin.
The 2029 election will be defined in economy, migration and cost of living data in January 2028...no sooner probably not later.
Yes Hunt salted the earth with the NI cuts but Labour agreed not to repeal them. Labour are implying they were affordable, they are not. Reeves has been a disaster, her budget tinkered around the edges. If Labour didn't have the cajones to be brutally honest and brutally painful about the tax and spend dilemma ( if you want universal public services taxation needs to correlate) no one else will either.
Perhaps we need Nigel to take social policy back to the 1930s to learn that "cost of service" and "value of service" are not necessarily inclusive ideas.
Louise Haigh was convicted of fraud after a mobile phone that she reported to police as stolen was used to call one of her relatives, The Times has been told.
Haigh resigned as transport secretary on Thursday night after confirming that she had pleaded guilty after a police investigation involving stolen and missing phones in 2014.
Sources close to Haigh said that she reported the matter “in full” to Sir Keir Starmer when she joined the shadow cabinet in 2020.
However, Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, advised her to resign when No 10 became concerned that Haigh had not revealed all the details of the conviction after a report in The Times....
...Haigh said in a statement that she was mugged during a night out in 2013. “I was a young woman and the experience was terrifying,” she said. She was said to have reported the incident to police three or four days later and had told them a man put his arm around her outside a pub, slipped off her handbag and ran off.
She gave police a list of items that she said were in her handbag, including her company phone that was supplied by her employer Aviva.
Haigh said she subsequently found the mobile phone in a drawer in her house and made a mistake by failing to inform Aviva straight away.
The Times has been told that Aviva began a formal investigation into Haigh after establishing that the stolen mobile phone was being used to call her existing contacts, including one of her relatives.
Investigations by police confirmed that the same numbers had been called by the phone before and after the report of the theft. Haigh did not respond to questions about the use of the phone when approached for comment.
A case file was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service and she was charged with fraud by false representation. Haigh pleaded guilty when she appeared at Camberwell Green magistrates court in November 2014.
There's still the mystery of the references in Times and Guardian yesterday to multiple phones being involved....?
From what I read elsewhere the implication was that was a way of getting the latest handset.
A fairly common tactic in the late 2000s, though I'm a bit surprised Aviva were letting it happen as late as 2014. Most corporate IT departments had moved to a "if you need a replacement, you can only take the oldest one from back of our spares cupboard" model by then.
I was struck by the shockingly poor response from James Cleverly, who asked of Starmer "if it was declared to Proprietary & Ethics on her appointment to Cabinet (must have been), why is he throwing her under the bus now?"
Well, the government's response to that is that although a full declaration to P&E was made she failed to also declare it on the departmental conflicts of interest register. Apparently that declaration form only specifically gives 'unspent convictions' as an example of what should be registered, so her spent conviction was in a bit of a grey zone, but omitting it counts as not being as frank as she could have been.
Starmer clearly has a low tolerance of anything that even hints of misconduct. And that's fine. Cleverly's intervention serves only to highlight that standards are now higher under Labour, in stark contrast to the Boris-tainted Tory years.
Dreadful tactics, but it did at least get hidden by the Assisted Dying debate. I'm sure they'll get better at it as they go along, but they quite desperately really need to learn to oppose in a way that doesn't rebound on to their own time in office.
It is fairly clear that if the form mentions 'unspent convictions' as an example that spent convictions do not have to be declared. Otherwise unspent is not just completely superfluous but also misleading.
I agree that it seems harsh - but why on earth did Cleverly choose to highlight that aspect of it?
He'd have been much better concentrating on the fact that Starmer put someone he knew had been convicted of a crime of dishonesty into his cabinet on the first place. Still dangerous given the Tories' recent record (Sunak gained two convictions whilst in office!), but probably just about doable if he went really hard on the "dishonest" aspect rather than the fact of the conviction itself.
SKS has abandoned his pledge to achieve the highest highest growth in the G7.
The pledge was central to Labour's election campaign, and was the top promise of SKS's "Five Missions".
Less than 150 days into power, it's been dumped.
Explaining to do from his fans on here methinks
Good. Because you can't "pledge" something like that. The UK government has only a marginal impact on how much we grow and no impact at all on how much other G7 countries do.
The second part of that is certainly true. On the first, well, we're buffetted about by the financial weather - but some basic economic common sense would at least point the rudder in the right direction. I freely admit there are things to prioritise as well as growth, but the contrast between that pledge and Reeves' subsequent decision making does seem quite glaring.
She's borrowing more and splitting it between the NHS and investment. It's not anti growth.
We are now deep enough into the Labour term in office to make reasonable predictions. And one is this: the Labour government's economic policies are so dated, wrong-headed and anti-growth - driving away investment, scaring away the rich, piling up debt to spook the markets - it is highly likely we will have the SLOWEST growth in the G7, with the probable exception of Germany, which is in a peculiar crisis of its own
It is therefore not surprising they have abandoned the stupid "target"
Starmer and Co are going to be utterly vanquished in the next election, as angry voters turn on them - they were never popular in the first place - and there is a pretty good chance Reform will hugely benefit, as per the threader
Labour has been a PR disaster and full of unforced errors. That is conceded. But WRT economic policies as such, governing has to be done with precision and actual concrete decision. Critics are permitted to generalise and pick and choose.
So, Leon, in econonic policy what exactly should they have done instead?
Fuck knows. Not my job. Their job
I'd need to spend a few hours mulling over a reasonable answer (which you deserve), I may do it at some point
But I know for a fact that what they have announced, and planned, shows zero ideas for amping up growth. It is mere verbiage, and the few things they have done - tax jobs - drive non doms and rich people away - are actually anti-growth
I have a theory that rich people generally do fuck all for growth. I'm quite rich and I suspect you're even richer. We do fuck-all for growth.
Poor people OTOH spend every penny they get. Give the poorest 10% an extra £1bn and that's an extra £bn of growth right away.
Er, fuck off
In the last 20 years I have generated millions - literally - in tax for HMRC. And that comes from money earned overseas, going into UK coffers. And marketing and selling my flints employs, in part, a fair few people
What else am I expected to do, to personally generate growth?
So, yeah, fuck off
Ben Pointer is an affable chap whose posts show evidence of good humour.
In his politics however, he acknowledges that he has zero ambitions for Britain's economy to grow, and indeed he thinks it's probably right that it shrinks.
That removes any ounce of respect I have for his political arguments, or any policy that he might ever recommend as being beneficial to our economy.
Yes, I like @Benpointer - and his life story is a genuine inspiration
My "fuck off" is only aimed at his outrageous assertion that I am some affluent dude who just sits back and does fuck all but faff about in nice hotels in Bali. I am self-employed, successfully, and I have in my later years generated large amounts of income and business from abroad, all of which comes to the UK and a large chunk of the taxable cash goes to the Inland Revenue; and the marketing, promoting and selling of my products in the UK employs a large number of people (not full time, but they all spend part of their time doing that)
I am pretty certain I add more "growth" to the UK economy than 95% of Britons. Earning money abroad and paying tax on it in Britain is surely one of the purest ways of benefiting the UK
There are two different arguments being conflated here.
Do rich people contribute disproportionately to spending and tax revenue, as a result of being rich and having the capacity to invest? Yes.
Does a pound in tax cuts or benefits given to a poor person get recycled back into the economy more quickly than the equivalent pound given to a rich person? Yes.
No. If you are self employed and a successful primary producer - like a gold miner or a farmer or, most of all, an artist - you are creating wealth and value when there was none before. It comes out of my mind and with hard work I turn my thoughts into something that can make a six figure salary. That is taxed by HMRC, and it also brings in lots of money from abroad, also taxed by HMRC
At the same time the promoting, making, advertising and selling of my mental efforts turned into flints itself generates employment, and profit, and thus further adds to the wealth of the UK and money the government can then spend as it wishes, eg stimulating more business elsewhere
If that doesn't boost growth, what does? I readily confess I am not exactly James Dyson, but I am pretty sure I do more for the UK economy and UK "growth" than 19 out of 20 of my fellow Brits. I create valuable stuff from scratch
Wealth is created by moving assets from low-value to high-value uses. Value is expressed by the amount of money one is willing to provide to purchase that asset. By changing stone from a sharp-edged monolith that nobody wants to a smoothly polished dildo that somebody wants to fill their guts with, you are creating wealth. The amount of wealth is the increase in value.
There y'go. That's proper economics. You can carve it into your goods if you like.
In your scenario you weren't at the productive frontier in the first place. Yes output increases until you get to full capacity. But for growth that has to expand year by year, and you can't get any more by shifting from low producivity to high prdoductivity activity
Of course you can always get more and we are never at the productive frontier in the first, second or third or any other place.
There is plenty of more productive stuff people could be doing and aren't. Though of course there's an army of people making a living from ensuring that others are less productive.
I thought you had studied economics? What you seem to be talking about is using current resources more efficiently. Once you have done that where does the growth come from?
I did.
The misunderstanding is you seem to be thinking that we have ever "done" that.
We have never used our current resources as efficiently as we could.
Humans are not perfect creatures. We can always iterate to be more productive, more efficient. There is no need or requirement to ever rest upon our laurels.
New technologies absolutely can and do help us to become more productive, more efficient. But iterative, more productive/efficient choices can and do allow the same thing too.
This is one thing I 100% agree with @rcs1000 who repeatedly makes the same point too - never underestimate the power of iteration.
No argument with anything you say there. But sustained growth requires sustained expansion of productive potential. That comes only from technological change
It comes from both. We have plenty of untapped potential growth without our existing technologies and existing resources.
No doubt we can do and arrange things more efficiently, but within a given technology that is just getting closer to the production possibilities frontier - becoming more efficient at using resources. Growth properly speaking shifts that frontier and makes it possible to do things that were not possible before even though we might have been at maximal efficiency.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
It does sound like an unusually intelligent and thoughtful debate yesterday. There's a lot to be said for free votes.
I am gradually weaning myself off the drug of Political Leon. com, but too many headers like that and I would be hooked again.
I would award your thesis a first Class Honours degree. Although this is PB, and that counts for nothing if you are studying at the wrong University.
Since the election I have found it good to dip in and out a bit more. Still enjoy the debates and the range of knowledge on here is great.
Congrats to the mods (and to Leon) for reining him in a bit this year.
The mods have indeed done a good job on this subject. The restriction to one photo a day was a work of genius. Post ban contrition however tends to last no more than three posts and we are as we were.
Just popping by to make sure you’re still talking about me EVEN WHEN I’M NOT HERE
*chuffed*
*disappears again*
You are omnipresent. You are always here. Even when you are not.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Yes, Kim Leadbeater deserves a huge amount of credit. Even those opposed to her Bill, I think, recognise that she has conducted herself with dignity, thoughtfulness, and a genuine consideration for those who disagree with her.
SKS has abandoned his pledge to achieve the highest highest growth in the G7.
The pledge was central to Labour's election campaign, and was the top promise of SKS's "Five Missions".
Less than 150 days into power, it's been dumped.
Explaining to do from his fans on here methinks
Good. Because you can't "pledge" something like that. The UK government has only a marginal impact on how much we grow and no impact at all on how much other G7 countries do.
The second part of that is certainly true. On the first, well, we're buffetted about by the financial weather - but some basic economic common sense would at least point the rudder in the right direction. I freely admit there are things to prioritise as well as growth, but the contrast between that pledge and Reeves' subsequent decision making does seem quite glaring.
She's borrowing more and splitting it between the NHS and investment. It's not anti growth.
We are now deep enough into the Labour term in office to make reasonable predictions. And one is this: the Labour government's economic policies are so dated, wrong-headed and anti-growth - driving away investment, scaring away the rich, piling up debt to spook the markets - it is highly likely we will have the SLOWEST growth in the G7, with the probable exception of Germany, which is in a peculiar crisis of its own
It is therefore not surprising they have abandoned the stupid "target"
Starmer and Co are going to be utterly vanquished in the next election, as angry voters turn on them - they were never popular in the first place - and there is a pretty good chance Reform will hugely benefit, as per the threader
Labour has been a PR disaster and full of unforced errors. That is conceded. But WRT economic policies as such, governing has to be done with precision and actual concrete decision. Critics are permitted to generalise and pick and choose.
So, Leon, in econonic policy what exactly should they have done instead?
Fuck knows. Not my job. Their job
I'd need to spend a few hours mulling over a reasonable answer (which you deserve), I may do it at some point
But I know for a fact that what they have announced, and planned, shows zero ideas for amping up growth. It is mere verbiage, and the few things they have done - tax jobs - drive non doms and rich people away - are actually anti-growth
I have a theory that rich people generally do fuck all for growth. I'm quite rich and I suspect you're even richer. We do fuck-all for growth.
Poor people OTOH spend every penny they get. Give the poorest 10% an extra £1bn and that's an extra £bn of growth right away.
Er, fuck off
In the last 20 years I have generated millions - literally - in tax for HMRC. And that comes from money earned overseas, going into UK coffers. And marketing and selling my flints employs, in part, a fair few people
What else am I expected to do, to personally generate growth?
So, yeah, fuck off
Ben Pointer is an affable chap whose posts show evidence of good humour.
In his politics however, he acknowledges that he has zero ambitions for Britain's economy to grow, and indeed he thinks it's probably right that it shrinks.
That removes any ounce of respect I have for his political arguments, or any policy that he might ever recommend as being beneficial to our economy.
Yes, I like @Benpointer - and his life story is a genuine inspiration
My "fuck off" is only aimed at his outrageous assertion that I am some affluent dude who just sits back and does fuck all but faff about in nice hotels in Bali. I am self-employed, successfully, and I have in my later years generated large amounts of income and business from abroad, all of which comes to the UK and a large chunk of the taxable cash goes to the Inland Revenue; and the marketing, promoting and selling of my products in the UK employs a large number of people (not full time, but they all spend part of their time doing that)
I am pretty certain I add more "growth" to the UK economy than 95% of Britons. Earning money abroad and paying tax on it in Britain is surely one of the purest ways of benefiting the UK
There are two different arguments being conflated here.
Do rich people contribute disproportionately to spending and tax revenue, as a result of being rich and having the capacity to invest? Yes.
Does a pound in tax cuts or benefits given to a poor person get recycled back into the economy more quickly than the equivalent pound given to a rich person? Yes.
No. If you are self employed and a successful primary producer - like a gold miner or a farmer or, most of all, an artist - you are creating wealth and value when there was none before. It comes out of my mind and with hard work I turn my thoughts into something that can make a six figure salary. That is taxed by HMRC, and it also brings in lots of money from abroad, also taxed by HMRC
At the same time the promoting, making, advertising and selling of my mental efforts turned into flints itself generates employment, and profit, and thus further adds to the wealth of the UK and money the government can then spend as it wishes, eg stimulating more business elsewhere
If that doesn't boost growth, what does? I readily confess I am not exactly James Dyson, but I am pretty sure I do more for the UK economy and UK "growth" than 19 out of 20 of my fellow Brits. I create valuable stuff from scratch
Wealth is created by moving assets from low-value to high-value uses. Value is expressed by the amount of money one is willing to provide to purchase that asset. By changing stone from a sharp-edged monolith that nobody wants to a smoothly polished dildo that somebody wants to fill their guts with, you are creating wealth. The amount of wealth is the increase in value.
There y'go. That's proper economics. You can carve it into your goods if you like.
In your scenario you weren't at the productive frontier in the first place. Yes output increases until you get to full capacity. But for growth that has to expand year by year, and you can't get any more by shifting from low producivity to high prdoductivity activity
Of course you can always get more and we are never at the productive frontier in the first, second or third or any other place.
There is plenty of more productive stuff people could be doing and aren't. Though of course there's an army of people making a living from ensuring that others are less productive.
I thought you had studied economics? What you seem to be talking about is using current resources more efficiently. Once you have done that where does the growth come from?
I did.
The misunderstanding is you seem to be thinking that we have ever "done" that.
We have never used our current resources as efficiently as we could.
Humans are not perfect creatures. We can always iterate to be more productive, more efficient. There is no need or requirement to ever rest upon our laurels.
New technologies absolutely can and do help us to become more productive, more efficient. But iterative, more productive/efficient choices can and do allow the same thing too.
This is one thing I 100% agree with @rcs1000 who repeatedly makes the same point too - never underestimate the power of iteration.
No argument with anything you say there. But sustained growth requires sustained expansion of productive potential. That comes only from technological change
It comes from both. We have plenty of untapped potential growth without our existing technologies and existing resources.
No doubt we can do and arrange things more efficiently, but within a given technology that is just getting closer to the production possibilities frontier - becoming more efficient at using resources. Growth properly speaking shifts that frontier and makes it possible to do things that were not possible before even though we might have been at maximal efficiency.
That acts as if we are ever at, or ever could reach, the production possibilities frontier.
The frontier is so far away as to effectively not exist. We are not remotely as productive as we could be - and never will be.
Technologies are still improving annually anyway but even if they stopped if we chose to and prioritised it we could iterate improvements every year for the next century and still never have got anywhere close to that frontier.
We never have been and never will be at "maximal efficiency".
Probably a fair summary from MoonRabbit. But for me the issue has not just been Labour failing to provide a balanced budget. It has been the fact that, after promising to be a clean slate, honest with the public, honest in their own dealings and at least mildly competent, they have turned out, to a large extent, to be no better than the last lot.
I'm always baffled as to why people thought Starmer would be either honest or competent.
On honesty - he is a lawyer, a fundamentally dishonest profession where, like estate agents or prostitutes, you say what you want to get your way. As he did in his campaign to become Labour leader, after which he promptly reneged on everything he said.
On competence, he repeatedly made the wrong call when in Opposition, e.g. during the pandemic, his EU policy, which nobody ever understood, and during the election campaign when he said nothing and barely even pretended to have any solution to the country's problems. And as DPP his office was plagued with numerous disasters, and he seemed to make it a habit to avoid knowing about them - handy for dodging blame and climbing the greasy pole, but lousy for running an organisation well.
Everything he did up to the election was either dishonest or incompetent, or more often both. So that he has turned out to be just as dishonest, slippery and incompetent in government as in opposition, as well as having no solutions to this country's problems, was both inevtiable and entirely predictable.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Always remember, Starmer is a proven lawyer. Which means he has learnt two things
First- don't ask a question when you don't already know the answer.
Second- think whether your thumb on the scales will make things better or worse.
The best chance this has of becoming law is as a free vote. Prime Ministerial support muddies that water and would have made it harder for the twentysomething Conservatives to back the bill. Without them, it would have been a very close-run thing.
On the parking thing - it needs regulating. Casino rightly described the parking companies as vultures - they exist to issue tickets and send threatening letters. Operating a car park is merely their entrapment scam.
I had a run-in with one of them a decade or so back. Parked in a leisure park on the edge of the town centre. Crossed the road at the edge of the park, went into one shop for 2 minutes then into the cinema on the park. Came back and found that I had been ticketed for "leaving the leisure park".
So I went round with a camera doing my research. There was a sign with their terms and conditions. Not on the access road I entered on, not in the car park I parked in, not on the (extended) footpath to the pedestrian crossing by the cinema which I briefly crossed. Off in the other corner where no-one could see it. Whats more there's no cameras at the pedestrian crossing owned by the leisure park (just traffic cams pointing at traffic on the crossing lights).
So how had I been seen breaking the rule that I hadn't contractually accepted? Then I spotted the gnome in his cabin. Genuinely sculking about following pedestrians. Their evidence was their employee following me to catch me leaving.
Lets just say that I had fun writing the successful appeal letter...
My favourite car park experience was getting a fine for parking in my father’s parking space in a car park he owned. A half hour argument on the phone with the company where I was trying to explain to them I had done nothing wrong and desperately trying not to pull the “my dad owns the fucking car park” card ensued. Ultimately I had to say “my dad owns the fucking car park” as they wouldn’t accept the fact that they had no reason to fine me anyway.
Two unfunded and unnecessary employee NI cuts from Hunt salted the earth.
Labour fell hook line and sinker in to the political trap by committing so quickly to honour both.
It will define the first 2 budgets at least probably 3.Even refusing to honour the second or just going back on it on 6 July would have given headway.
Aside from a clearly managed and hostile right wing and tv media, they are producing shed loads of promising policy aims. Delivery within 3 years will be key.
Tories have managed to appoint a Leader worse than any of the last 3 by all measures and that will give Starmer breathing space.
Lib Dems are toothless in that 3rd Party slot that HoC set up disadvantages.
Reform get unprecedented air time from their in house pripofanda station but as time goes by the bulk of the electorate will come to realise there is
Trumps puppet Two multi millionaire Businessmen Swop a Party for a fee Lee and Andrea A convicted partner basher and very little else other than funding from Musk, Bannon and Putin.
The 2029 election will be defined in economy, migration and cost of living data in January 2028...no sooner probably not later.
Yes Hunt salted the earth with the NI cuts but Labour agreed not to repeal them. Labour are implying they were affordable, they are not. Reeves has been a disaster, her budget tinkered around the edges. If Labour didn't have the cajones to be brutally honest and brutally painful about the tax and spend dilemma ( if you want universal public services taxation needs to correlate) no one else will either.
Perhaps we need Nigel to take social policy back to the 1930s to learn that "cost of service" and "value of service" are not necessarily inclusive ideas.
Your first paragraph basically repeats the point I made about Labours mistake in not reversing NI
As for Farage, I would bet now that he won't be an MP by 2028.Far too many skeletons in so many cupboards plus his own lack of ability to do detail or to be accountable for anything.
If the Russian Report ever sees the light of day it will out him and destroy him.
I am gradually weaning myself off the drug of Political Leon. com, but too many headers like that and I would be hooked again.
I would award your thesis a first Class Honours degree. Although this is PB, and that counts for nothing if you are studying at the wrong University.
Since the election I have found it good to dip in and out a bit more. Still enjoy the debates and the range of knowledge on here is great.
Congrats to the mods (and to Leon) for reining him in a bit this year.
The mods have indeed done a good job on this subject. The restriction to one photo a day was a work of genius. Post ban contrition however tends to last no more than three posts and we are as we were.
Just popping by to make sure you’re still talking about me EVEN WHEN I’M NOT HERE
*chuffed*
*disappears again*
You are omnipresent. You are always here. Even when you are not.
Two unfunded and unnecessary employee NI cuts from Hunt salted the earth.
Labour fell hook line and sinker in to the political trap by committing so quickly to honour both.
It will define the first 2 budgets at least probably 3.Even refusing to honour the second or just going back on it on 6 July would have given headway.
Aside from a clearly managed and hostile right wing and tv media, they are producing shed loads of promising policy aims. Delivery within 3 years will be key.
Tories have managed to appoint a Leader worse than any of the last 3 by all measures and that will give Starmer breathing space.
Lib Dems are toothless in that 3rd Party slot that HoC set up disadvantages.
Reform get unprecedented air time from their in house pripofanda station but as time goes by the bulk of the electorate will come to realise there is
Trumps puppet Two multi millionaire Businessmen Swop a Party for a fee Lee and Andrea A convicted partner basher and very little else other than funding from Musk, Bannon and Putin.
The 2029 election will be defined in economy, migration and cost of living data in January 2028...no sooner probably not later.
Yes Hunt salted the earth with the NI cuts but Labour agreed not to repeal them. Labour are implying they were affordable, they are not. Reeves has been a disaster, her budget tinkered around the edges. If Labour didn't have the cajones to be brutally honest and brutally painful about the tax and spend dilemma ( if you want universal public services taxation needs to correlate) no one else will either.
Perhaps we need Nigel to take social policy back to the 1930s to learn that "cost of service" and "value of service" are not necessarily inclusive ideas.
Again with this lie over the NI cuts.
The NI cuts were part of a package of tax rises, not "salting the earth".
Labour should repeat them. Extend the threshold freeze but cut NI so that taxes are raised overall but earned incomes are protected and unearned incomes are the ones hit.
Repeat that until NI is abolished.
Taxes go up net but the imbalance between earned and unearned incomes is eliminated.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
It does sound like an unusually intelligent and thoughtful debate yesterday. There's a lot to be said for free votes.
Yes, it seems a much better process than a long-winded Royal Commission would have been.
I do think it's worth keeping an eye on how other countries handle these sort of social and constitutional changes, though - the developing Irish model of constitutional assemblies, especially.
I am gradually weaning myself off the drug of Political Leon. com, but too many headers like that and I would be hooked again.
I would award your thesis a first Class Honours degree. Although this is PB, and that counts for nothing if you are studying at the wrong University.
Since the election I have found it good to dip in and out a bit more. Still enjoy the debates and the range of knowledge on here is great.
Congrats to the mods (and to Leon) for reining him in a bit this year.
The mods have indeed done a good job on this subject. The restriction to one photo a day was a work of genius. Post ban contrition however tends to last no more than three posts and we are as we were.
Just popping by to make sure you’re still talking about me EVEN WHEN I’M NOT HERE
*chuffed*
*disappears again*
You are omnipresent. You are always here. Even when you are not.
So, a bit like, er, God?
I’ll take that
[Vin Diesel voice] "Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God. And I absolutely hate the fucker!"
Probably a fair summary from MoonRabbit. But for me the issue has not just been Labour failing to provide a balanced budget. It has been the fact that, after promising to be a clean slate, honest with the public, honest in their own dealings and at least mildly competent, they have turned out, to a large extent, to be no better than the last lot.
They follow the same old tired, dishonest matra about everything being disastrously bad, exaggerating the black hole (as an example) and making stupid, unforced errors. They show themselves to be completely out of touch with reality when it comes to large sections of the economy and people's real lives and at the same time continue the indefensible practice of sucking up to the multinationals and the rich and powerful.
I said before the election that, although I would not vote for them, I didn't fear a Labour victory and at least they would be able to do the basic job competently. I mistook boring for competence and sadly I was wrong.
It's still early days although the signs are not promising. Sticking to the Tories pretence that quality services can be provided without adequate taxation in the light of limited economic growth is a disingenuous lie.
Labour with their enormous majority had the opportunity to come clean. They remain fearful of upsetting the Daily Mail, perhaps unaware that the Daily Mail despise them not for their fiscal policy but just because they hate them because they can. They need to do what they need to do, and to Hell with the Daily Mail. Pandering to the Daily Mail will not redistribute a fairer society. "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate" isn't a sustainable economic model.
The Conservative offering is equally disingenuous and Hunt cutting NI twice in anticipation of an election was unequivocal dereliction of duty. The Conservatives harp on at Labour being the "high tax party" despite their recent record on taxation. If anything their outright lie is even more appalling. "Only the Conservatives can cut taxes and improve services". The politics of the magic money tree is a very tempting offer.
Only Nigel offers a realistic option. Yes he will cut your taxes, but he will also decimate your public services. If for example reduced taxes means a reduced NHS funding package Reform can look to the insurance model. The same applies to education and the social safety net ( charities can resolve that issue- or the workhouse?). If that isn't what you want don't vote Reform, although they are at least adding the sums up.
Not Labour, not Conservative, possibly Reform.
Who is missing from that list? The Spectator has an article this week chiding the LibDems for their lack of seriousness in the week Ed Davey released a charity single.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Yes, Kim Leadbeater deserves a huge amount of credit. Even those opposed to her Bill, I think, recognise that she has conducted herself with dignity, thoughtfulness, and a genuine consideration for those who disagree with her.
Leadbitter was outstanding year as was Kit Malthouse
What Starmer will benefit from if the bill passes in to law will be in keeping a promise made to Esther Rantzen, facilitating a free vote to honour that promise and being seen as a PM who will oversee generational change on an emotive topic.
The uniquivocal backing of The Daily Express paradoxically does him no harm either
The head of MI6 is raising the alarm over Russian recklessness. We are at an inflection point. How the Ukraine Russia war ends really matters. Putin needs to lose. We can forget the idea of a complete Ukrainian military victory. That ship sailed long ago with the dithering of the Nato countries. What still can be achieved is a reasonably just peace for Ukraine and a choice for Russia. It can choose Putinist decline or rebuild its relationship with the west on our not unreasonable terms. I increasingly feel that there may not be a deal that can be done with Putin and we should be fine with that. His position is precarious anyway given the economic decline and overall cost of the war to little benefit for Russia - essentially the Crimean land bridge.
So what do we want to do? Prepare the furnishings so the negotiations can be as amicable as possible? Or support Ukraine to the maximum and pressurise Putin to the fullest to get the best possible outcome. The arrival of Kellogg as envoy suggests amazingly that Trump might turn out to be better on this than Biden.
The Trump administration is filled with crunchy nuts so we shall have to see which of his pop(ulist) tarts are in favour as we approach the time when Ukraine gets all frosties. Anyway, lets hope he can do something special. K?
On the parking thing - it needs regulating. Casino rightly described the parking companies as vultures - they exist to issue tickets and send threatening letters. Operating a car park is merely their entrapment scam.
I had a run-in with one of them a decade or so back. Parked in a leisure park on the edge of the town centre. Crossed the road at the edge of the park, went into one shop for 2 minutes then into the cinema on the park. Came back and found that I had been ticketed for "leaving the leisure park".
So I went round with a camera doing my research. There was a sign with their terms and conditions. Not on the access road I entered on, not in the car park I parked in, not on the (extended) footpath to the pedestrian crossing by the cinema which I briefly crossed. Off in the other corner where no-one could see it. Whats more there's no cameras at the pedestrian crossing owned by the leisure park (just traffic cams pointing at traffic on the crossing lights).
So how had I been seen breaking the rule that I hadn't contractually accepted? Then I spotted the gnome in his cabin. Genuinely sculking about following pedestrians. Their evidence was their employee following me to catch me leaving.
Lets just say that I had fun writing the successful appeal letter...
My favourite car park experience was getting a fine for parking in my father’s parking space in a car park he owned. A half hour argument on the phone with the company where I was trying to explain to them I had done nothing wrong and desperately trying not to pull the “my dad owns the fucking car park” card ensued. Ultimately I had to say “my dad owns the fucking car park” as they wouldn’t accept the fact that they had no reason to fine me anyway.
So you callously deprived your father of his income... serves you right if he turns the car park into a farm so Rachel can tax your inheritance.
The country does feel a bit shite. Loughborough is in a real funk at the minute. Town centre looks rundown. More shops empty than open, with the open ones being Turkish barbers, vape/foreign mini-markets, fast food outlets, cafes or pound land derivatives. Lots of homeless and beggars, with mini encampments in the empty shops with bigger doorways. No big employers apart from the University and a couple of chemical/pharma companies clinging on down the industrial estate. Lots of crime, with an out of control feral group nicking bikes and scooters seemingly right under the nose of the few police who inhabit the town. We've moved to the "nice" Forest Side of town, which put my VW insurance up by 3 hundred quid a year as we've apparently moved into a high crime area! I don't think there is any current politicial party that can "fix" the country in the short-medium term. It's going to be a tough few years ahead of us.
Yes, the country is in a similar mess to how it was in the 1970s, and for the same reason - some external shocks combined with an out of control state that thinks it knows how to spend other people's money than the private sector, even though it is staggeringly unproductive and wasteful. It is some but not much consolation that, this time, France and Germany aren't doing any better.
The solution is the same as it was in the 1980s - supply side reform and chopping the public sector back down to an affordable size. Painful in the short term, but it will deliver growth in the medium to long term, until of course the government and the electorate get lazy and complacent, take growth for granted and we start the cycle again.
The demographics are very different to the 1970s, in particular the number of elderly, most of whom vote Tory or Reform. Employment is very different too, and there are few bits of privatisation possible and neither is there North Sea oil to finance an economic restructuring.
Believing Thatcherism is the answer to a very different nation and economy is as delusional as Corbynism. The solutions have to change to meet the national and international situation. We are not in the eighties any more.
As @MoonRabbit says in the header, neither party had serious deliverable plans inthe election, and we saw how inept Trusses plans were previously. We need to understand that we cannot borrow our way to prosperity. We have to pay more tax, get less from the state and work longer to balance the books.
Cutting benefits like the WFP was an essential step, and Badenoch funked it. She should have stuck to her previous position of supporting its abolition.
I don't think the country adequately understands what needs doing, and I blame our politicians. They know the real position, just fear that telling the truth is the end of their careers.
Never have much problem with parking apps to be fair. They are a good idea. Being able to add time remotely is a really useful advantage over the old meters.
But, there should be just one universal app. Downloading a plethora of apps is a pain. The government should invite tenders and contract it out over a four/five year period or some such.
They'd need to sort out the land registry first. Again you have an obsession with using your bleeding phone for everything. We don't all need or want a smartphone to run our lives.
No they don't - open market is in progress for car parking as most operators just want payments to be simple
I don't really understand why we can't mandate a simple PAYG fallback using normal contactless payments. Sure, it might not give discounts or other benefits that might be available through a specific app, but it would have the benefit of being universal, cheap to implement, and easy to use.
The same goes for EV charging points, though I believe there's already voluntary movement in that direction from some of the providers.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Yes, Kim Leadbeater deserves a huge amount of credit. Even those opposed to her Bill, I think, recognise that she has conducted herself with dignity, thoughtfulness, and a genuine consideration for those who disagree with her.
Leadbitter was outstanding year as was Kit Malthouse
What Starmer will benefit from if the bill passes in to law will be in keeping a promise made to Esther Rantzen, facilitating a free vote to honour that promise and being seen as a PM who will oversee generational change on an emotive topic.
The uniquivocal backing of The Daily Express paradoxically does him no harm either
Diane Abbott too was well-received, even on PB which is not her normal fanbase.
Two unfunded and unnecessary employee NI cuts from Hunt salted the earth.
Labour fell hook line and sinker in to the political trap by committing so quickly to honour both.
It will define the first 2 budgets at least probably 3.Even refusing to honour the second or just going back on it on 6 July would have given headway.
Aside from a clearly managed and hostile right wing and tv media, they are producing shed loads of promising policy aims. Delivery within 3 years will be key.
Tories have managed to appoint a Leader worse than any of the last 3 by all measures and that will give Starmer breathing space.
Lib Dems are toothless in that 3rd Party slot that HoC set up disadvantages.
Reform get unprecedented air time from their in house pripofanda station but as time goes by the bulk of the electorate will come to realise there is
Trumps puppet Two multi millionaire Businessmen Swop a Party for a fee Lee and Andrea A convicted partner basher and very little else other than funding from Musk, Bannon and Putin.
The 2029 election will be defined in economy, migration and cost of living data in January 2028...no sooner probably not later.
Yes Hunt salted the earth with the NI cuts but Labour agreed not to repeal them. Labour are implying they were affordable, they are not. Reeves has been a disaster, her budget tinkered around the edges. If Labour didn't have the cajones to be brutally honest and brutally painful about the tax and spend dilemma ( if you want universal public services taxation needs to correlate) no one else will either.
Perhaps we need Nigel to take social policy back to the 1930s to learn that "cost of service" and "value of service" are not necessarily inclusive ideas.
Again with this lie over the NI cuts.
The NI cuts were part of a package of tax rises, not "salting the earth".
Labour should repeat them. Extend the threshold freeze but cut NI so that taxes are raised overall but earned incomes are protected and unearned incomes are the ones hit.
Repeat that until NI is abolished.
Taxes go up net but the imbalance between earned and unearned incomes is eliminated.
But Bart, NI cuts were not replaced by an income tax rise. It was simply an unaffordable con-trick tax cut. I agree that NI and income tax should be merged. There is little chance of that under Reeves, she would panic that GB News and the Telegraph would only report the income tax rise and not the NI cut.
"The YouTuber Charlie Anderson’s most popular video, Unlock the secret steps for winning your Pip claims, had 378,000 views and offered advice for people seeking personal independence payments, which are meant to provide extra support for difficulties caused by physical or mental health conditions and disabilities.
In the video, she said: “I have a 100 per cent success rate at winning Pip claims for people because of understanding the point system and how to communicate it in a manner that then scores the points.”
She also posted templates for claims on her website as well as reviews for chargeable services of up to £950 for a personal session."
Um. So she's working then.
Does it say she’s claiming benefit? I find it hard to get worked up by people getting what they are entitled to so long as it isn’t illegal. The problem is the system is too lax, and there should be a higher bar.
I have a real problem in people getting tutored on how to game the system at the expense of the taxpayer.
Us.
It’s the same as tax planning. You can blame the system for encouraging it, it shouldn’t be one that relies on people not knowing what they are entitled to in order to be affordable.
"The YouTuber Charlie Anderson’s most popular video, Unlock the secret steps for winning your Pip claims, had 378,000 views and offered advice for people seeking personal independence payments, which are meant to provide extra support for difficulties caused by physical or mental health conditions and disabilities.
In the video, she said: “I have a 100 per cent success rate at winning Pip claims for people because of understanding the point system and how to communicate it in a manner that then scores the points.”
She also posted templates for claims on her website as well as reviews for chargeable services of up to £950 for a personal session."
Um. So she's working then.
Does it say she’s claiming benefit? I find it hard to get worked up by people getting what they are entitled to so long as it isn’t illegal. The problem is the system is too lax, and there should be a higher bar.
I have a real problem in people getting tutored on how to game the system at the expense of the taxpayer.
Us.
It’s the same as tax planning. You can blame the system for encouraging it, it shouldn’t be one that relies on people not knowing what they are entitled to in order to be affordable.
I expect people to show integrity.
I wouldn't try and exploit it to get benefits.
Take-up of many benefits, and particularly passported benefits like free school meals, tend to be much lower than you would expect. This is particularly the case for those who are most vulnerable as they often don't have access to a computer and, frankly, don't have intellect to navigate the complexity of the system (I'm not sure I do either...).
They don't benefit from financial advisers in the same way people avoiding tax do.
Yeah, bollocks, I'm not buying the bleeding heart stuff on vulnerable. £100bn. Insane and offensive.
"Stress", "anxiety", "depression".. these are workshy lazy shysters who can't be arsed, are gaming the system and are probably close to the bottle and their nearest fast food joint.
You can see it in their faces.
I think both things can be true. You will have people who are genuinely suffering but put off from claiming, and then you will have people acting selfishly looking to get one over the system.
The processes in place don't appear much interested in sorting between the two.
Yes - though I suspect the cost of providing the full extent of social security to those genuinely entitled to it far out outweighs the savings that could be achieved by tightening up the process for those gaming the system.
[snip]
That was the thing with Universal Credit. The reform of combining 6 benefits into 1 application meant people were being paid benefits they were entitled to, but previously had not claimed for. So Osborne simply cut the benefits, much to IDS' annoyance. To give a personal example. I was made redundant in 2012, pre-UC. I got contributary JSA, but I would have had to apply for other benefits separately. Actually I didn't apply, because I knew my redundancy and PILON took me over the savings threshold for the other benefits.
Never have much problem with parking apps to be fair. They are a good idea. Being able to add time remotely is a really useful advantage over the old meters.
But, there should be just one universal app. Downloading a plethora of apps is a pain. The government should invite tenders and contract it out over a four/five year period or some such.
They'd need to sort out the land registry first. Again you have an obsession with using your bleeding phone for everything. We don't all need or want a smartphone to run our lives.
No they don't - open market is in progress for car parking as most operators just want payments to be simple
I don't really understand why we can't mandate a simple PAYG fallback using normal contactless payments. Sure, it might not give discounts or other benefits that might be available through a specific app, but it would have the benefit of being universal, cheap to implement, and easy to use.
The same goes for EV charging points, though I believe there's already voluntary movement in that direction from some of the providers.
Because the scenario that doesn't cover is dodgy signal in the area resulting in PAYG failing to work..
The country does feel a bit shite. Loughborough is in a real funk at the minute. Town centre looks rundown. More shops empty than open, with the open ones being Turkish barbers, vape/foreign mini-markets, fast food outlets, cafes or pound land derivatives. Lots of homeless and beggars, with mini encampments in the empty shops with bigger doorways. No big employers apart from the University and a couple of chemical/pharma companies clinging on down the industrial estate. Lots of crime, with an out of control feral group nicking bikes and scooters seemingly right under the nose of the few police who inhabit the town. We've moved to the "nice" Forest Side of town, which put my VW insurance up by 3 hundred quid a year as we've apparently moved into a high crime area! I don't think there is any current politicial party that can "fix" the country in the short-medium term. It's going to be a tough few years ahead of us.
I sympathize. Leicester city centre has gone downhill too in a big way, as I am sure you are fully aware. There are lots of empty shops or downmarket temporary stores. No M and S, no Debenhams, Blacks gone, Fenwicks gone loads of banks gone. More fast food and bars with the shift to the night time economy, but that leaves it a bit rough.
This is what drives the discontent in "left behind" towns and cities, the feeling of civic decline, but it is being driven by forces not easy to reverse. I did a lot of my Chrismas shopping online taking advantage of Black Friday. It is very tough on the High St retailers.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Yes, Kim Leadbeater deserves a huge amount of credit. Even those opposed to her Bill, I think, recognise that she has conducted herself with dignity, thoughtfulness, and a genuine consideration for those who disagree with her.
Leadbitter was outstanding year as was Kit Malthouse
What Starmer will benefit from if the bill passes in to law will be in keeping a promise made to Esther Rantzen, facilitating a free vote to honour that promise and being seen as a PM who will oversee generational change on an emotive topic.
The uniquivocal backing of The Daily Express paradoxically does him no harm either
Diane Abbott too was well-received, even on PB which is not her normal fanbase.
I get the impression that there seems to be a bit of a general feeling that that's that and it is now the law e.g. media full of commentators saying 'we live in a different country now' etc.
This was the second reading. It still has committee stage and third reading and the HoL.
Not a done deal at all imho. 55 majority could possibly melt away if a lot of them mainly voted to continue the debate into committee stage when detail thrashed out. Maybe not as 55 is pretty high - as Rentoul has posted.
But, I am not so sure we are there yet. Those of us who want change are going to face an onslaught now I think via the media from those who don't e.g. religious leaders, non-progressives like Kruger and so on. There'll be a stream of dire warnings about granny being forced to top herself by bad family etc etc.
Two unfunded and unnecessary employee NI cuts from Hunt salted the earth.
Labour fell hook line and sinker in to the political trap by committing so quickly to honour both.
It will define the first 2 budgets at least probably 3.Even refusing to honour the second or just going back on it on 6 July would have given headway.
Aside from a clearly managed and hostile right wing and tv media, they are producing shed loads of promising policy aims. Delivery within 3 years will be key.
Tories have managed to appoint a Leader worse than any of the last 3 by all measures and that will give Starmer breathing space.
Lib Dems are toothless in that 3rd Party slot that HoC set up disadvantages.
Reform get unprecedented air time from their in house pripofanda station but as time goes by the bulk of the electorate will come to realise there is
Trumps puppet Two multi millionaire Businessmen Swop a Party for a fee Lee and Andrea A convicted partner basher and very little else other than funding from Musk, Bannon and Putin.
The 2029 election will be defined in economy, migration and cost of living data in January 2028...no sooner probably not later.
Yes Hunt salted the earth with the NI cuts but Labour agreed not to repeal them. Labour are implying they were affordable, they are not. Reeves has been a disaster, her budget tinkered around the edges. If Labour didn't have the cajones to be brutally honest and brutally painful about the tax and spend dilemma ( if you want universal public services taxation needs to correlate) no one else will either.
Perhaps we need Nigel to take social policy back to the 1930s to learn that "cost of service" and "value of service" are not necessarily inclusive ideas.
Again with this lie over the NI cuts.
The NI cuts were part of a package of tax rises, not "salting the earth".
Labour should repeat them. Extend the threshold freeze but cut NI so that taxes are raised overall but earned incomes are protected and unearned incomes are the ones hit.
Repeat that until NI is abolished.
Taxes go up net but the imbalance between earned and unearned incomes is eliminated.
But Bart, NI cuts were not replaced by an income tax rise. It was simply an unaffordable con-trick tax cut. I agree that NI and income tax should be merged. There is little chance of that under Reeves, she would panic that GB News and the Telegraph would only report the income tax rise and not the NI cut.
You are wrong, they were replaced with a tax rise.
The freeze on tax thresholds was extended, that IS a tax rise. On both income tax and NI. With the NI cut being fully funded by that tax rise so earned incomes are protected while unearned ones pay the tax rise but get no benefit from the cut.
Reeves could repeat that if she chose. No rise in the rate of tax necessary.
On the parking thing - it needs regulating. Casino rightly described the parking companies as vultures - they exist to issue tickets and send threatening letters. Operating a car park is merely their entrapment scam.
I had a run-in with one of them a decade or so back. Parked in a leisure park on the edge of the town centre. Crossed the road at the edge of the park, went into one shop for 2 minutes then into the cinema on the park. Came back and found that I had been ticketed for "leaving the leisure park".
So I went round with a camera doing my research. There was a sign with their terms and conditions. Not on the access road I entered on, not in the car park I parked in, not on the (extended) footpath to the pedestrian crossing by the cinema which I briefly crossed. Off in the other corner where no-one could see it. Whats more there's no cameras at the pedestrian crossing owned by the leisure park (just traffic cams pointing at traffic on the crossing lights).
So how had I been seen breaking the rule that I hadn't contractually accepted? Then I spotted the gnome in his cabin. Genuinely sculking about following pedestrians. Their evidence was their employee following me to catch me leaving.
Lets just say that I had fun writing the successful appeal letter...
My favourite car park experience was getting a fine for parking in my father’s parking space in a car park he owned. A half hour argument on the phone with the company where I was trying to explain to them I had done nothing wrong and desperately trying not to pull the “my dad owns the fucking car park” card ensued. Ultimately I had to say “my dad owns the fucking car park” as they wouldn’t accept the fact that they had no reason to fine me anyway.
So you callously deprived your father of his income... serves you right if he turns the car park into a farm so Rachel can tax your inheritance.
I have cunningly avoided Rachael’s IHT by preemptively being born in and living in a place out of her reach where there is no IHT or CGT.
The country does feel a bit shite. Loughborough is in a real funk at the minute. Town centre looks rundown. More shops empty than open, with the open ones being Turkish barbers, vape/foreign mini-markets, fast food outlets, cafes or pound land derivatives. Lots of homeless and beggars, with mini encampments in the empty shops with bigger doorways. No big employers apart from the University and a couple of chemical/pharma companies clinging on down the industrial estate. Lots of crime, with an out of control feral group nicking bikes and scooters seemingly right under the nose of the few police who inhabit the town. We've moved to the "nice" Forest Side of town, which put my VW insurance up by 3 hundred quid a year as we've apparently moved into a high crime area! I don't think there is any current politicial party that can "fix" the country in the short-medium term. It's going to be a tough few years ahead of us.
Yes, the country is in a similar mess to how it was in the 1970s, and for the same reason - some external shocks combined with an out of control state that thinks it knows how to spend other people's money than the private sector, even though it is staggeringly unproductive and wasteful. It is some but not much consolation that, this time, France and Germany aren't doing any better.
The solution is the same as it was in the 1980s - supply side reform and chopping the public sector back down to an affordable size. Painful in the short term, but it will deliver growth in the medium to long term, until of course the government and the electorate get lazy and complacent, take growth for granted and we start the cycle again.
Yes, this is 1975 not 1997. The worst is yet to come.
The country does feel a bit shite. Loughborough is in a real funk at the minute. Town centre looks rundown. More shops empty than open, with the open ones being Turkish barbers, vape/foreign mini-markets, fast food outlets, cafes or pound land derivatives. Lots of homeless and beggars, with mini encampments in the empty shops with bigger doorways. No big employers apart from the University and a couple of chemical/pharma companies clinging on down the industrial estate. Lots of crime, with an out of control feral group nicking bikes and scooters seemingly right under the nose of the few police who inhabit the town. We've moved to the "nice" Forest Side of town, which put my VW insurance up by 3 hundred quid a year as we've apparently moved into a high crime area! I don't think there is any current politicial party that can "fix" the country in the short-medium term. It's going to be a tough few years ahead of us.
Yes, the country is in a similar mess to how it was in the 1970s, and for the same reason - some external shocks combined with an out of control state that thinks it knows how to spend other people's money than the private sector, even though it is staggeringly unproductive and wasteful. It is some but not much consolation that, this time, France and Germany aren't doing any better.
The solution is the same as it was in the 1980s - supply side reform and chopping the public sector back down to an affordable size. Painful in the short term, but it will deliver growth in the medium to long term, until of course the government and the electorate get lazy and complacent, take growth for granted and we start the cycle again.
The demographics are very different to the 1970s, in particular the number of elderly, most of whom vote Tory or Reform. Employment is very different too, and there are few bits of privatisation possible and neither is there North Sea oil to finance an economic restructuring.
Believing Thatcherism is the answer to a very different nation and economy is as delusional as Corbynism. The solutions have to change to meet the national and international situation. We are not in the eighties any more.
As @MoonRabbit says in the header, neither party had serious deliverable plans inthe election, and we saw how inept Trusses plans were previously. We need to understand that we cannot borrow our way to prosperity. We have to pay more tax, get less from the state and work longer to balance the books.
Cutting benefits like the WFP was an essential step, and Badenoch funked it. She should have stuck to her previous position of supporting its abolition.
I don't think the country adequately understands what needs doing, and I blame our politicians. They know the real position, just fear that telling the truth is the end of their careers.
No country has successfully fought the scourge of demographic decline yet. Yes there are some that have grown rapidly while ageing - Poland and Korea for example - but they were and are in catch up mode.
Where is our model to follow? Not Denmark, with a small population benefiting from the huge success of a couple of large multinationals. Not Ireland, with a small population benefiting from US transfer pricing planning. Not Norway with its oil and gas and hydro, nor Australia with its mining or the US with its oil and gas, vast internal market and somewhat younger demographics.
Germany’s model is struggling, as is Sweden’s. France is finding its way through similar challenges to ours and doesn’t hold many clues for us, except that we should maybe have invested more in nuclear decades ago. The Netherlands is a possible model for South East England but it doesn’t help us see the future for our post industrial regions.
The country does feel a bit shite. Loughborough is in a real funk at the minute. Town centre looks rundown. More shops empty than open, with the open ones being Turkish barbers, vape/foreign mini-markets, fast food outlets, cafes or pound land derivatives. Lots of homeless and beggars, with mini encampments in the empty shops with bigger doorways. No big employers apart from the University and a couple of chemical/pharma companies clinging on down the industrial estate. Lots of crime, with an out of control feral group nicking bikes and scooters seemingly right under the nose of the few police who inhabit the town. We've moved to the "nice" Forest Side of town, which put my VW insurance up by 3 hundred quid a year as we've apparently moved into a high crime area! I don't think there is any current politicial party that can "fix" the country in the short-medium term. It's going to be a tough few years ahead of us.
Yes, the country is in a similar mess to how it was in the 1970s, and for the same reason - some external shocks combined with an out of control state that thinks it knows how to spend other people's money than the private sector, even though it is staggeringly unproductive and wasteful. It is some but not much consolation that, this time, France and Germany aren't doing any better.
The solution is the same as it was in the 1980s - supply side reform and chopping the public sector back down to an affordable size. Painful in the short term, but it will deliver growth in the medium to long term, until of course the government and the electorate get lazy and complacent, take growth for granted and we start the cycle again.
Yes, this is 1975 not 1997. The worst is yet to come.
As others have pointed out, our population makeup is totally different. The burden of state spending now gets directed almost entirely to supporting the old. Any public sector chopping means taking money off people over 65, and we know what happens when anyone attempts that.
The country does feel a bit shite. Loughborough is in a real funk at the minute. Town centre looks rundown. More shops empty than open, with the open ones being Turkish barbers, vape/foreign mini-markets, fast food outlets, cafes or pound land derivatives. Lots of homeless and beggars, with mini encampments in the empty shops with bigger doorways. No big employers apart from the University and a couple of chemical/pharma companies clinging on down the industrial estate. Lots of crime, with an out of control feral group nicking bikes and scooters seemingly right under the nose of the few police who inhabit the town. We've moved to the "nice" Forest Side of town, which put my VW insurance up by 3 hundred quid a year as we've apparently moved into a high crime area! I don't think there is any current politicial party that can "fix" the country in the short-medium term. It's going to be a tough few years ahead of us.
I sympathize. Leicester city centre has gone downhill too in a big way, as I am sure you are fully aware. There are lots of empty shops or downmarket temporary stores. No M and S, no Debenhams, Blacks gone, Fenwicks gone loads of banks gone. More fast food and bars with the shift to the night time economy, but that leaves it a bit rough.
This is what drives the discontent in "left behind" towns and cities, the feeling of civic decline, but it is being driven by forces not easy to reverse. I did a lot of my Chrismas shopping online taking advantage of Black Friday. It is very tough on the High St retailers.
"No big employers apart from the University"
This is the situation in quite a few towns now. The uni is the big employer and the anchor for the local economy.
The unis are going into the shitter at the moment with financial issues and some towns could lose their institution or see it massively curtailed.
There's huge trouble coming down the tracks for Labour on this one and absolutely no sign the government has woken up to this crisis.
Never have much problem with parking apps to be fair. They are a good idea. Being able to add time remotely is a really useful advantage over the old meters.
But, there should be just one universal app. Downloading a plethora of apps is a pain. The government should invite tenders and contract it out over a four/five year period or some such.
They'd need to sort out the land registry first. Again you have an obsession with using your bleeding phone for everything. We don't all need or want a smartphone to run our lives.
No they don't - open market is in progress for car parking as most operators just want payments to be simple
I don't really understand why we can't mandate a simple PAYG fallback using normal contactless payments. Sure, it might not give discounts or other benefits that might be available through a specific app, but it would have the benefit of being universal, cheap to implement, and easy to use.
The same goes for EV charging points, though I believe there's already voluntary movement in that direction from some of the providers.
Because the scenario that doesn't cover is dodgy signal in the area resulting in PAYG failing to work..
I would have thought that if an individual parking meter isn't sufficiently profitable to cover the £8/month-ish cost of a wholesale wired connection, then there's probably not much point in charging for parking at that location in the first place.
Never have much problem with parking apps to be fair. They are a good idea. Being able to add time remotely is a really useful advantage over the old meters.
But, there should be just one universal app. Downloading a plethora of apps is a pain. The government should invite tenders and contract it out over a four/five year period or some such.
They'd need to sort out the land registry first. Again you have an obsession with using your bleeding phone for everything. We don't all need or want a smartphone to run our lives.
No they don't - open market is in progress for car parking as most operators just want payments to be simple
I don't really understand why we can't mandate a simple PAYG fallback using normal contactless payments. Sure, it might not give discounts or other benefits that might be available through a specific app, but it would have the benefit of being universal, cheap to implement, and easy to use.
The same goes for EV charging points, though I believe there's already voluntary movement in that direction from some of the providers.
Octopus (of course) now has a card and app to enable exactly this for EV.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Yes, Kim Leadbeater deserves a huge amount of credit. Even those opposed to her Bill, I think, recognise that she has conducted herself with dignity, thoughtfulness, and a genuine consideration for those who disagree with her.
Leadbitter was outstanding year as was Kit Malthouse
What Starmer will benefit from if the bill passes in to law will be in keeping a promise made to Esther Rantzen, facilitating a free vote to honour that promise and being seen as a PM who will oversee generational change on an emotive topic.
The uniquivocal backing of The Daily Express paradoxically does him no harm either
Diane Abbott too was well-received, even on PB which is not her normal fanbase.
It's the kind of thing she does well. If she did more of it rather than the customary cheerleading for hopeless causes she'd be better thought of.
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Yes, Kim Leadbeater deserves a huge amount of credit. Even those opposed to her Bill, I think, recognise that she has conducted herself with dignity, thoughtfulness, and a genuine consideration for those who disagree with her.
Leadbitter was outstanding year as was Kit Malthouse
What Starmer will benefit from if the bill passes in to law will be in keeping a promise made to Esther Rantzen, facilitating a free vote to honour that promise and being seen as a PM who will oversee generational change on an emotive topic.
The uniquivocal backing of The Daily Express paradoxically does him no harm either
Good governance is indeed based on promises made to former TV presenters as opposed to manifesto commitments. 🙄
So I went for a short stroll to see a local road that's closed because of flooding, for the third time this year. The locals are getting (rightly) fed up with the disruption and the long diversion required. The flooding is because the Great Ouse has burst its banks.
I chatted to a couple of locals on the adjacent footbridge (clear of water and open). One said to me: "I wouldn't mind, but it's not our rain causing the flooding."
Which led me to think, not say: "Blooming immigrant water, causing flooding" or "We want local rain, for local people!"
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Yes, Kim Leadbeater deserves a huge amount of credit. Even those opposed to her Bill, I think, recognise that she has conducted herself with dignity, thoughtfulness, and a genuine consideration for those who disagree with her.
Leadbitter was outstanding year as was Kit Malthouse
What Starmer will benefit from if the bill passes in to law will be in keeping a promise made to Esther Rantzen, facilitating a free vote to honour that promise and being seen as a PM who will oversee generational change on an emotive topic.
The uniquivocal backing of The Daily Express paradoxically does him no harm either
Is the Express backing assisted dying? Do they really want to kill all their readers?
So I went for a short stroll to see a local road that's closed because of flooding, for the third time this year. The locals are getting (rightly) fed up with the disruption and the long diversion required. The flooding is because the Great Ouse has burst its banks.
I chatted to a couple of locals on the adjacent footbridge (clear of water and open). One said to me: "I wouldn't mind, but it's not our rain causing the flooding."
Which led me to think, not say: "Blooming immigrant water, causing flooding" or "We want local rain, for local people!"
Those upstream bastards with their rainy upland catchments!
Reposting this thread from last night on Starmer's long history of support for assisted suicide. It's interesting because it strongly suggests that he was one of the prime movers behind the Leadbeater bill.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Yes, Kim Leadbeater deserves a huge amount of credit. Even those opposed to her Bill, I think, recognise that she has conducted herself with dignity, thoughtfulness, and a genuine consideration for those who disagree with her.
Leadbitter was outstanding year as was Kit Malthouse
What Starmer will benefit from if the bill passes in to law will be in keeping a promise made to Esther Rantzen, facilitating a free vote to honour that promise and being seen as a PM who will oversee generational change on an emotive topic.
The uniquivocal backing of The Daily Express paradoxically does him no harm either
Is the Express backing assisted dying? Do they really want to kill all their readers?
They're down to about 130000 copies a day. At some point quite soon, printing the paper really will be more trouble than it's worth.
(Having said that, it's an interesting point where the Mail and the Express have taken different paths.)
On the parking thing - it needs regulating. Casino rightly described the parking companies as vultures - they exist to issue tickets and send threatening letters. Operating a car park is merely their entrapment scam.
I had a run-in with one of them a decade or so back. Parked in a leisure park on the edge of the town centre. Crossed the road at the edge of the park, went into one shop for 2 minutes then into the cinema on the park. Came back and found that I had been ticketed for "leaving the leisure park".
So I went round with a camera doing my research. There was a sign with their terms and conditions. Not on the access road I entered on, not in the car park I parked in, not on the (extended) footpath to the pedestrian crossing by the cinema which I briefly crossed. Off in the other corner where no-one could see it. Whats more there's no cameras at the pedestrian crossing owned by the leisure park (just traffic cams pointing at traffic on the crossing lights).
So how had I been seen breaking the rule that I hadn't contractually accepted? Then I spotted the gnome in his cabin. Genuinely sculking about following pedestrians. Their evidence was their employee following me to catch me leaving.
Lets just say that I had fun writing the successful appeal letter...
My favourite car park experience was getting a fine for parking in my father’s parking space in a car park he owned. A half hour argument on the phone with the company where I was trying to explain to them I had done nothing wrong and desperately trying not to pull the “my dad owns the fucking car park” card ensued. Ultimately I had to say “my dad owns the fucking car park” as they wouldn’t accept the fact that they had no reason to fine me anyway.
We had exactly the same experience with a car park in central Derby (since redeveloped); except they did it to the owner (who had an agreement for free use of the car park). IIRC he sent the fine letter back to them with a letter threatening termination of the contract to lease the land. They backed down...
The country does feel a bit shite. Loughborough is in a real funk at the minute. Town centre looks rundown. More shops empty than open, with the open ones being Turkish barbers, vape/foreign mini-markets, fast food outlets, cafes or pound land derivatives. Lots of homeless and beggars, with mini encampments in the empty shops with bigger doorways. No big employers apart from the University and a couple of chemical/pharma companies clinging on down the industrial estate. Lots of crime, with an out of control feral group nicking bikes and scooters seemingly right under the nose of the few police who inhabit the town. We've moved to the "nice" Forest Side of town, which put my VW insurance up by 3 hundred quid a year as we've apparently moved into a high crime area! I don't think there is any current politicial party that can "fix" the country in the short-medium term. It's going to be a tough few years ahead of us.
I sympathize. Leicester city centre has gone downhill too in a big way, as I am sure you are fully aware. There are lots of empty shops or downmarket temporary stores. No M and S, no Debenhams, Blacks gone, Fenwicks gone loads of banks gone. More fast food and bars with the shift to the night time economy, but that leaves it a bit rough.
This is what drives the discontent in "left behind" towns and cities, the feeling of civic decline, but it is being driven by forces not easy to reverse. I did a lot of my Chrismas shopping online taking advantage of Black Friday. It is very tough on the High St retailers.
"No big employers apart from the University"
This is the situation in quite a few towns now. The uni is the big employer and the anchor for the local economy.
The unis are going into the shitter at the moment with financial issues and some towns could lose their institution or see it massively curtailed.
There's huge trouble coming down the tracks for Labour on this one and absolutely no sign the government has woken up to this crisis.
Let failing institutions fail.
Too many Universities have treated students, both domestic and foreign, as a cash crop to be exploited. And leveraged themselves into debt too.
I've mentioned before but where my wife works many of her colleagues are "students" who work for minimum wage while their mobile phone is set to one side with a lecture going on to which they're paying zero attention to.
For people to be paying universities a fee in order to get a visa, let's not pretend it's to get a degree, in order to work for minimum wage, so employers don't have to pay higher than minimum wage to fill vacancies is obscene and exploitative.
On the parking thing - it needs regulating. Casino rightly described the parking companies as vultures - they exist to issue tickets and send threatening letters. Operating a car park is merely their entrapment scam.
I had a run-in with one of them a decade or so back. Parked in a leisure park on the edge of the town centre. Crossed the road at the edge of the park, went into one shop for 2 minutes then into the cinema on the park. Came back and found that I had been ticketed for "leaving the leisure park".
So I went round with a camera doing my research. There was a sign with their terms and conditions. Not on the access road I entered on, not in the car park I parked in, not on the (extended) footpath to the pedestrian crossing by the cinema which I briefly crossed. Off in the other corner where no-one could see it. Whats more there's no cameras at the pedestrian crossing owned by the leisure park (just traffic cams pointing at traffic on the crossing lights).
So how had I been seen breaking the rule that I hadn't contractually accepted? Then I spotted the gnome in his cabin. Genuinely sculking about following pedestrians. Their evidence was their employee following me to catch me leaving.
Lets just say that I had fun writing the successful appeal letter...
My favourite car park experience was getting a fine for parking in my father’s parking space in a car park he owned. A half hour argument on the phone with the company where I was trying to explain to them I had done nothing wrong and desperately trying not to pull the “my dad owns the fucking car park” card ensued. Ultimately I had to say “my dad owns the fucking car park” as they wouldn’t accept the fact that they had no reason to fine me anyway.
We had exactly the same experience with a car park in central Derby (since redeveloped); except they did it to the owner (who had an agreement for free use of the car park). IIRC he sent the fine letter back to them with a letter threatening termination of the contract to lease the land. They backed down...
My wife was got last week at a retail and leisure park. 5 hour free parking limit, which she didn’t know about but no doubt is written in small print on the notice boards.
2 hours at IKEA, then in to the cinema to watch a film with our daughter. All in all 5 hours 10 minutes. £45.
Being had by car parks or restricted roads (of which there are many around us) is a bit like tripping and dropping the milk carton on the floor, or arriving at the station as the train’s just pulling away. That moment of “oh bugger” then the resigned acceptance you’ll have to do something about it.
Very early days but my initial thought is not how much will change but how little.
I suspect FF and FG probably do have just about enough votes to carry on.
Yeah. And despite their "disastrous" campaign FG look to be the only one of the big three to increase their vote share. Incumbents winning. The poor old Greens appear to have suffered.
Comments
The downside is that the Tories are still unpopular so the party that will benefit from Hunt's trap is likely to be Reform..
For the third time in just 3 weeks our inshore lifeboat was called to the rescue of the same young woman who had walked into the sea and had to be taken aboard and flown to hospital by the coastguard with severe hypothermia
At least they did save her this time, but it is so sad and questions why is she has not received the mental health help she needs
And add. The "black hole" isn't just a thing, it's worse than Labour claims it to be. They have political reasons to claim a big, but not too big, black hole, which is likely the kind of dishonesty you refer to. In that case the Conservatives are more dishonest again in pretending there is no black hole.
The point is, most of the tax rises are going towards stopping public services getting even worse, not towards improvements.
https://ringgo.co.uk/parking-operators/open-market says the use a single app is supposed to be going live about now - if I find some details I'll post later..
Election campaigns based on a premise of reducing government expenditure, reducing taxes, and getting the government out of our hair are a pipe dream. Yes, there's a lot that can be done to ensure efficiencies are made, and the worst excesses kept in check, but the fact reamins - the modern world is a complicated place, and both Labour and the Conservatives are goping to have to face it, and raise the money if they want to try to control it.
Never mind. Give them thirteen years and I am sure they will become every bit as bad as the previous lot.
Long story short, it's one of those things that doesn't work well, but probably as well as it can understand the circumstances.
If there's an outcry, and the judge does rule against them, and it leads to political action, they will be out of business.
It's clearly a wheeze to maximise profitability from a base operation by creating unreasonable conditions and implied contracts, with big penalties for technical infringements, and then pursuing people relentlessly for it.
The whole thing stinks.
Unless it's a PFI hospital, of course.
I had a run-in with one of them a decade or so back. Parked in a leisure park on the edge of the town centre. Crossed the road at the edge of the park, went into one shop for 2 minutes then into the cinema on the park. Came back and found that I had been ticketed for "leaving the leisure park".
So I went round with a camera doing my research. There was a sign with their terms and conditions. Not on the access road I entered on, not in the car park I parked in, not on the (extended) footpath to the pedestrian crossing by the cinema which I briefly crossed. Off in the other corner where no-one could see it. Whats more there's no cameras at the pedestrian crossing owned by the leisure park (just traffic cams pointing at traffic on the crossing lights).
So how had I been seen breaking the rule that I hadn't contractually accepted? Then I spotted the gnome in his cabin. Genuinely sculking about following pedestrians. Their evidence was their employee following me to catch me leaving.
Lets just say that I had fun writing the successful appeal letter...
One thing stands out - the mess we are in and the economic headwinds of H2 would have meant the same economics regardless of who won the election.
This is why ReformUK are on the rise - and why similar alt-right parties are rising across Europe. Our economic model is barely working and people are sick of nothing changing regardless of who they vote for.
We need to make the economy work for people again. Make it so that work pays the bills, consumers able to consumer which drives jobs and investment - basic capitalism.
To get there we need to transform how we think about stuff. Stop talking about about what it costs, and talk about what it returns. Not spending "because we can't afford it" is not an option, its not an equation with a zero on the side of not spending. Cut spending and you spend more in emergency management dealing with the mess that the cuts create.
Spending money isn't the problem. Spending is good. Spending works - when it is investment which delivers a return on investment. Our problem is that we're spending money on all the wrong things. How are we spending record amounts on the NHS but seeing a record shortage of cash to provide actual front-line medical services? Because the cash is being wasted. Cut the waste, not the cash.
Ironically Lou Haigh was the best transport secretary we've had in a decade.A cut the crap approach to redirect focus onto delivery and not onto the cost. Knowing that delivering transport services is a lower cost than not delivering it. And now she's gone...
And they also don't trust the state to ensure that no money goes to fraudsters and chancers.
The state should be best at deivering to the genuine, even if they are dim, and best at disqualifying the clever trickster even though they can score points and tick boxes. Sort this, and there will be no problem.
Camden Council run a highly profitable parking racket in which the rules are deliberately constructed to catch out the inexperienced and unwary. For example, they break up the area into Zones, with different rules for each Zone. You may very well find yourself studying the rules on the notice opposite the space where you have parked only to learn later that you were in a different Zone, the rules for which were shown on a notice fifty yards away and round the corner.
Kingsbury Station has no area for dropping off and picking up passengers. You could spend all day reading the lengthy rules displayed by the entrance and not discover what you are supposed to do. The technically correct answer is that you must find an empty parking space and pay for a day's parking. Regular users know that if you are quick you can get in and out without punishment, but you are taking a chance. Some prefer to park on the double yellow lines by the entrance and sit in the car with the engine running, but this creates difficulties and dangers for others. It's a system that the Car Park Company has created in order to encourage infractions which it can then penalise.
I find this a very common approach with Private Companies, less so with Public Authorities (Camden Council notwithstanding.)
No big employers apart from the University and a couple of chemical/pharma companies clinging on down the industrial estate.
Lots of crime, with an out of control feral group nicking bikes and scooters seemingly right under the nose of the few police who inhabit the town.
We've moved to the "nice" Forest Side of town, which put my VW insurance up by 3 hundred quid a year as we've apparently moved into a high crime area!
I don't think there is any current politicial party that can "fix" the country in the short-medium term. It's going to be a tough few years ahead of us.
Going by a different second name
Which won't actually impact the pub where I was parked (only there once every few years) but does rather impact the chain as we used to eat there once a month (say £100 a time) and we won't be visiting that chain for a couple of years (until I forget about it).
So the £60 I paid to the parking firm is going to cost them £2400 or so in lost revenue.
My comment is not intended to make a clever point. It's a strictly factual one. You need to read about the appeal judgement DavidL posted earlier.
In the case above - the carpark didn't have a charge so I just paid the fee - over the past 10 years the parking scam firms have editted their T&Cs to cover the old escape routes.
1) A better political, general, media and parliamentary climate in which the emphasis is on solution finding.
2) Abolish IHT (a wealth tax which is irregular, random, avoidable and crippling) and introduce a sensible wealth tax at low level %.
3) Reform land/property taxes which are regressive
4) Join the SM and CU of the EU via EFTA/EEA route (absolutely in line with Brexit referendum).
5) Allow asylum seekers to work
6) Raise VAT on luxury goods, and introduce it at a very low level (3%?) on all food
7) Give local authorities freedom to tax so that responsibility and power to pay for it belong together
8) Stop outsourcing things which are state matters (eg prisons and justice)
9) Answer questions and tell the truth.
Labour with their enormous majority had the opportunity to come clean. They remain fearful of upsetting the Daily Mail, perhaps unaware that the Daily Mail despise them not for their fiscal policy but just because they hate them because they can. They need to do what they need to do, and to Hell with the Daily Mail. Pandering to the Daily Mail will not redistribute a fairer society. "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate" isn't a sustainable economic model.
The Conservative offering is equally disingenuous and Hunt cutting NI twice in anticipation of an election was unequivocal dereliction of duty. The Conservatives harp on at Labour being the "high tax party" despite their recent record on taxation. If anything their outright lie is even more appalling. "Only the Conservatives can cut taxes and improve services". The politics of the magic money tree is a very tempting offer.
Only Nigel offers a realistic option. Yes he will cut your taxes, but he will also decimate your public services. If for example reduced taxes means a reduced NHS funding package Reform can look to the insurance model. The same applies to education and the social safety net ( charities can resolve that issue- or the workhouse?). If that isn't what you want don't vote Reform, although they are at least adding the sums up.
The misunderstanding is you seem to be thinking that we have ever "done" that.
We have never used our current resources as efficiently as we could.
Humans are not perfect creatures. We can always iterate to be more productive, more efficient. There is no need or requirement to ever rest upon our laurels.
New technologies absolutely can and do help us to become more productive, more efficient. But iterative, more productive/efficient choices can and do allow the same thing too.
This is one thing I 100% agree with @rcs1000 who repeatedly makes the same point too - never underestimate the power of iteration.
The solution is the same as it was in the 1980s - supply side reform and chopping the public sector back down to an affordable size. Painful in the short term, but it will deliver growth in the medium to long term, until of course the government and the electorate get lazy and complacent, take growth for granted and we start the cycle again.
*chuffed*
*disappears again*
Two unfunded and unnecessary employee NI cuts from Hunt salted the earth.
Labour fell hook line and sinker in to the political trap by committing so quickly to honour both.
It will define the first 2 budgets at least probably 3.Even refusing to honour the second or just going back on it on 6 July would have given headway.
Aside from a clearly managed and hostile right wing and tv media, they are producing shed loads of promising policy aims. Delivery within 3 years will be key.
Tories have managed to appoint a Leader worse than any of the last 3 by all measures and that will give Starmer breathing space.
Lib Dems are toothless in that 3rd Party slot that HoC set up disadvantages.
Reform get unprecedented air time from their in house pripofanda station but as time goes by the bulk of the electorate will come to realise there is
Trumps puppet
Two multi millionaire Businessmen
Swop a Party for a fee Lee and Andrea
A convicted partner basher
and very little else other than funding from Musk, Bannon and Putin.
The 2029 election will be defined in economy, migration and cost of living data in January 2028...no sooner probably not later.
If that's right, it's a challenge to democracy. A system that only works in good times is essentially vulnerable.
VAT on food is very much regressive. I think the exclusions we have for VAT currently are about right . The main reason I would oppose changing general VAT is a spurious but widespread reason. Currently it is easy to calculate. Move it away from 20% and it becomes a pain in the arse. That is no reason not to do it of course but the groan from businesses up and down the country would be loud.
I was struck by the shockingly poor response from James Cleverly, who asked of Starmer "if it was declared to Proprietary & Ethics on her appointment to Cabinet (must have been), why is he throwing her under the bus now?"
Well, the government's response to that is that although a full declaration to P&E was made she failed to also declare it on the departmental conflicts of interest register. Apparently that declaration form only specifically gives 'unspent convictions' as an example of what should be registered, so her spent conviction was in a bit of a grey zone, but omitting it counts as not being as frank as she could have been.
Starmer clearly has a low tolerance of anything that even hints of misconduct. And that's fine. Cleverly's intervention serves only to highlight that standards are now higher under Labour, in stark contrast to the Boris-tainted Tory years.
Dreadful tactics, but it did at least get hidden by the Assisted Dying debate. I'm sure they'll get better at it as they go along, but they quite desperately really need to learn to oppose in a way that doesn't rebound on to their own time in office.
I’ll take that
https://x.com/paul_b_coleman/status/1862413981849194579
So what do we want to do? Prepare the furnishings so the negotiations can be as amicable as possible? Or support Ukraine to the maximum and pressurise Putin to the fullest to get the best possible outcome. The arrival of Kellogg as envoy suggests amazingly that Trump might turn out to be better on this than Biden.
But I don't think he deserves the credit.
He stayed quiet during a conscience vote, which he does deserve credit for instead - unlike his Health Secretary whose actions were reprehensible given the guidance that the Cabinet should not exert pressure either way.
I think Leadbetter and other MPs deserve the credit for finally catching up doing their bloody job as MPs should have done for years. As the Supreme Court said MPs should be the ones doing it. As every opinion poll shows an overwhelming majority of the public wanted them to do.
Well done MPs for finally doing the right thing. At long last.
Perhaps we need Nigel to take social policy back to the 1930s to learn that "cost of service" and "value of service" are not necessarily inclusive ideas.
He'd have been much better concentrating on the fact that Starmer put someone he knew had been convicted of a crime of dishonesty into his cabinet on the first place. Still dangerous given the Tories' recent record (Sunak gained two convictions whilst in office!), but probably just about doable if he went really hard on the "dishonest" aspect rather than the fact of the conviction itself.
The frontier is so far away as to effectively not exist. We are not remotely as productive as we could be - and never will be.
Technologies are still improving annually anyway but even if they stopped if we chose to and prioritised it we could iterate improvements every year for the next century and still never have got anywhere close to that frontier.
We never have been and never will be at "maximal efficiency".
On honesty - he is a lawyer, a fundamentally dishonest profession where, like estate agents or prostitutes, you say what you want to get your way. As he did in his campaign to become Labour leader, after which he promptly reneged on everything he said.
On competence, he repeatedly made the wrong call when in Opposition, e.g. during the pandemic, his EU policy, which nobody ever understood, and during the election campaign when he said nothing and barely even pretended to have any solution to the country's problems. And as DPP his office was plagued with numerous disasters, and he seemed to make it a habit to avoid knowing about them - handy for dodging blame and climbing the greasy pole, but lousy for running an organisation well.
Everything he did up to the election was either dishonest or incompetent, or more often both. So that he has turned out to be just as dishonest, slippery and incompetent in government as in opposition, as well as having no solutions to this country's problems, was both inevtiable and entirely predictable.
First- don't ask a question when you don't already know the answer.
Second- think whether your thumb on the scales will make things better or worse.
The best chance this has of becoming law is as a free vote. Prime Ministerial support muddies that water and would have made it harder for the twentysomething Conservatives to back the bill. Without them, it would have been a very close-run thing.
As for Farage, I would bet now that he won't be an MP by 2028.Far too many skeletons in so many cupboards plus his own lack of ability to do detail or to be accountable for anything.
If the Russian Report ever sees the light of day it will out him and destroy him.
The NI cuts were part of a package of tax rises, not "salting the earth".
Labour should repeat them. Extend the threshold freeze but cut NI so that taxes are raised overall but earned incomes are protected and unearned incomes are the ones hit.
Repeat that until NI is abolished.
Taxes go up net but the imbalance between earned and unearned incomes is eliminated.
I do think it's worth keeping an eye on how other countries handle these sort of social and constitutional changes, though - the developing Irish model of constitutional assemblies, especially.
Who is missing from that list? The Spectator has an article this week chiding the LibDems for their lack of seriousness in the week Ed Davey released a charity single.
... voters who switched to the Lib Dems ‘will now want to see that their decision has gone towards electing a serious set of politicians, not a circus.’
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ed-davey-needs-to-grow-up/ (£££)
What Starmer will benefit from if the bill passes in to law will be in keeping a promise made to Esther Rantzen, facilitating a free vote to honour that promise and being seen as a PM who will oversee generational change on an emotive topic.
The uniquivocal backing of The Daily Express paradoxically does him no harm either
Believing Thatcherism is the answer to a very different nation and economy is as delusional as Corbynism. The solutions have to change to meet the national and international situation. We are not in the eighties any more.
As @MoonRabbit says in the header, neither party had serious deliverable plans inthe election, and we saw how inept Trusses plans were previously. We need to understand that we cannot borrow our way to prosperity. We have to pay more tax, get less from the state and work longer to balance the books.
Cutting benefits like the WFP was an essential step, and Badenoch funked it. She should have stuck to her previous position of supporting its abolition.
I don't think the country adequately understands what needs doing, and I blame our politicians. They know the real position, just fear that telling the truth is the end of their careers.
The same goes for EV charging points, though I believe there's already voluntary movement in that direction from some of the providers.
So Osborne simply cut the benefits, much to IDS' annoyance.
To give a personal example. I was made redundant in 2012, pre-UC. I got contributary JSA, but I would have had to apply for other benefits separately. Actually I didn't apply, because I knew my redundancy and PILON took me over the savings threshold for the other benefits.
This is what drives the discontent in "left behind" towns and cities, the feeling of civic decline, but it is being driven by forces not easy to reverse. I did a lot of my Chrismas shopping online taking advantage of Black Friday. It is very tough on the High St retailers.
This was the second reading. It still has committee stage and third reading and the HoL.
Not a done deal at all imho. 55 majority could possibly melt away if a lot of them mainly voted to continue the debate into committee stage when detail thrashed out. Maybe not as 55 is pretty high - as Rentoul has posted.
But, I am not so sure we are there yet. Those of us who want change are going to face an onslaught now I think via the media from those who don't e.g. religious leaders, non-progressives like Kruger and so on. There'll be a stream of dire warnings about granny being forced to top herself by bad family etc etc.
The freeze on tax thresholds was extended, that IS a tax rise. On both income tax and NI. With the NI cut being fully funded by that tax rise so earned incomes are protected while unearned ones pay the tax rise but get no benefit from the cut.
Reeves could repeat that if she chose. No rise in the rate of tax necessary.
Where is our model to follow? Not Denmark, with a small population benefiting from the huge success of a couple of large multinationals. Not Ireland, with a small population benefiting from US transfer pricing planning. Not Norway with its oil and gas and hydro, nor Australia with its mining or the US with its oil and gas, vast internal market and somewhat younger demographics.
Germany’s model is struggling, as is Sweden’s. France is finding its way through similar challenges to ours and doesn’t hold many clues for us, except that we should maybe have invested more in nuclear decades ago. The Netherlands is a possible model for South East England but it doesn’t help us see the future for our post industrial regions.
Newcastle 2.10 - Benson
Newbury 2.25 - Our Champ
Newbury 3.00 - Victtorino
Newcastle 3.20 - Blackjack Magic
It’s all happening today. ☺️
This is the situation in quite a few towns now. The uni is the big employer and the anchor for the local economy.
The unis are going into the shitter at the moment with financial issues and some towns could lose their institution or see it massively curtailed.
There's huge trouble coming down the tracks for Labour on this one and absolutely no sign the government has woken up to this crisis.
I chatted to a couple of locals on the adjacent footbridge (clear of water and open). One said to me: "I wouldn't mind, but it's not our rain causing the flooding."
Which led me to think, not say: "Blooming immigrant water, causing flooding" or "We want local rain, for local people!"
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/1130/1483874-general-election-tracker/
(Having said that, it's an interesting point where the Mail and the Express have taken different paths.)
Too many Universities have treated students, both domestic and foreign, as a cash crop to be exploited. And leveraged themselves into debt too.
I've mentioned before but where my wife works many of her colleagues are "students" who work for minimum wage while their mobile phone is set to one side with a lecture going on to which they're paying zero attention to.
For people to be paying universities a fee in order to get a visa, let's not pretend it's to get a degree, in order to work for minimum wage, so employers don't have to pay higher than minimum wage to fill vacancies is obscene and exploitative.
I suspect FF and FG probably do have just about enough votes to carry on.
I'm on GUSTAVIAN each way in the 3.20 at High Gosforth Park.
2 hours at IKEA, then in to the cinema to watch a film with our daughter. All in all 5 hours 10 minutes. £45.
Being had by car parks or restricted roads (of which there are many around us) is a bit like tripping and dropping the milk carton on the floor, or arriving at the station as the train’s just pulling away. That moment of “oh bugger” then the resigned acceptance you’ll have to do something about it.
Incumbents winning. The poor old Greens appear to have suffered.