The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
This is the key point which will sink the Tories. We are extending the Boris deal here whilst gaining much easier exports for what we catch. Not great for white fish but they are shouting that they were betrayed in 1973 and 2020...
1 stop all the boats and clear the hotels 2 get the Boriswave to go home 3 reduce migration to under 150k 4 clean up our streets, stop shoplifting, make our cities prettier again 5 make us all just a tiny bit richer
Special Brucie Bonus for untangling council tax, stamp duty and local government fiscal problems.
Doing the latter means implementing an annual % property tax. Would be far, far better economically, but the politics of it makes it really hard to do. You’re going to be putting up taxes on poor old people in their houses they’ve planned to retire in / die in, quite possibly forcing many of them out into smaller properties.
This would be /great/ for the economy! Given how tight housing supply is we absolutely need to redistribute family homes from old couples bouncing around in them to younger families desperate for more space for their children. But making existing householders pay their fair share of tax, in proportion to property value would be a wide ranging disruption & the lowers, mostly older couples in larger houses who are the most likely population to vote, will scream louder than anyone else.
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the Treasury has suggested this policy to every incoming government for decades & promptly been slapped down by a PM who can see exactly what it means electorally. Until we get a population that understands the need for reform it will never happen & I don’t see how we can get there - turkeys don’t vote for Christmas & retired homeowners are not going to vote for a party that doubles their taxes, no matter how economically appropriate that is.
I accept that it is devilishly hard. But we need a pathway there.
There’s a housing theory of everything, and a “local authorities have no tax base and are forced by statutory requirement to bankrupt themselves on care services” theory of everything.
Unlock those, and almost anything becomes possible.
I would start by figuring out how local authorities can create decent amounts of debt for housing and transport expenditure without disturbing the gilt market.
I would move on to how to compensate current homeowners in the shorter-term for sustainable changes in the longer term. (A similar logic applies to the triple lock).
Presuming a property tax would replace council tax the people likely to be squealing hardest are people in London where property prices are eye watering. Remind me of where most politicians/civil servants/media people live again
Take two homes identical except one is in the north and one in london currently both pay about 1800 a year council tax
The london house is worth a million the northern house is worth 250k
Say the property tax is 0.5%
The londoner is now paying 5000 a year The northerner is happy their tax is down to 1250
Except if it's replacing council tax then it should be down to local authorities what percentage to charge.
That said, I don't see why someone in a million pound house shouldn't pay a lot more than someone in a £250k house. The very fact of that price difference means that they're not identical. Location matters.
By identical I obviously meant the amenities the house itself offers, such as number of bedrooms/bathrooms, size etc
Also I have to ask whats the point of bringing it a local property tax if it results basically in everyone still paying the same as they did under council tax? Its a waste of time and energy may as well just keep council tax
There's a lot of difference.
Firstly, a property tax would inevitably be more progressive than CT, even with a flat % rate across the entire range. So, those with big, expensive (relative to local prices) properties would pay a lot more than those in small homes. Take for example my area in Dorset: flats start from c. £100k and at the other end 10% of the houses for sale are over £1m, topping out at one listed at £14.5m. The £100k flat occupant (might be a tenant) currently pays £1667 council tax a year; the owner of the £14.5m house pays 3 times that whereas with a set percentage of say 0.5% the flat owner would pay £500 and the big house owner would pay £72.5k per annum.
Secondly, who pays? The property owner, not the tenant. Yes of course, the property owners will try to recoup it through the rent but the legal obligation would remain with them as owners, and they usually have plenty of assets to go after if they don't pay (unlike tenants).
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
However, here's the clever and astute Wolfgang Munchau pouring a mighty bucket of water over the whole shebang
TLDR: it's not a great deal, nor a terrible deal, it's simply not much at all in the wider scheme
1 stop all the boats and clear the hotels 2 get the Boriswave to go home 3 reduce migration to under 150k 4 clean up our streets, stop shoplifting, make our cities prettier again 5 make us all just a tiny bit richer
Special Brucie Bonus for untangling council tax, stamp duty and local government fiscal problems.
Doing the latter means implementing an annual % property tax. Would be far, far better economically, but the politics of it makes it really hard to do. You’re going to be putting up taxes on poor old people in their houses they’ve planned to retire in / die in, quite possibly forcing many of them out into smaller properties.
This would be /great/ for the economy! Given how tight housing supply is we absolutely need to redistribute family homes from old couples bouncing around in them to younger families desperate for more space for their children. But making existing householders pay their fair share of tax, in proportion to property value would be a wide ranging disruption & the lowers, mostly older couples in larger houses who are the most likely population to vote, will scream louder than anyone else.
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the Treasury has suggested this policy to every incoming government for decades & promptly been slapped down by a PM who can see exactly what it means electorally. Until we get a population that understands the need for reform it will never happen & I don’t see how we can get there - turkeys don’t vote for Christmas & retired homeowners are not going to vote for a party that doubles their taxes, no matter how economically appropriate that is.
I accept that it is devilishly hard. But we need a pathway there.
There’s a housing theory of everything, and a “local authorities have no tax base and are forced by statutory requirement to bankrupt themselves on care services” theory of everything.
Unlock those, and almost anything becomes possible.
I would start by figuring out how local authorities can create decent amounts of debt for housing and transport expenditure without disturbing the gilt market.
I would move on to how to compensate current homeowners in the shorter-term for sustainable changes in the longer term. (A similar logic applies to the triple lock).
Presuming a property tax would replace council tax the people likely to be squealing hardest are people in London where property prices are eye watering. Remind me of where most politicians/civil servants/media people live again
Take two homes identical except one is in the north and one in london currently both pay about 1800 a year council tax
The london house is worth a million the northern house is worth 250k
Say the property tax is 0.5%
The londoner is now paying 5000 a year The northerner is happy their tax is down to 1250
Except if it's replacing council tax then it should be down to local authorities what percentage to charge.
That said, I don't see why someone in a million pound house shouldn't pay a lot more than someone in a £250k house. The very fact of that price difference means that they're not identical. Location matters.
By identical I obviously meant the amenities the house itself offers, such as number of bedrooms/bathrooms, size etc
Also I have to ask whats the point of bringing it a local property tax if it results basically in everyone still paying the same as they did under council tax? Its a waste of time and energy may as well just keep council tax
It wouldn't.
As you note, a £1m would pay four times the amount that a £250k house does. By contrast, at the moment a Band H house only pays three times as much as a Band A despite being a minimum of eight times the value in 1991 (since when the disparity has only grown).
On your earlier note, identical houses in terms of layout, facilities and quality have always varied wildly in price depending on where they are - and, consequently, who can afford to live in them. We can't simply ignore that part of the equation. A 3-bed semi in Ravenscliffe does not have the same desireability as a 3-bed semi in Alwoodley.
But if you made it local someone living in a million pound house in london would still be paying about the same as the 250k house in the north. If you were saying a million pound house in the same northern town was paying 4 times as much as someone in the 250k house in the the same town you would be correct.
A property tax is basically a wealth tax, it has to be national else you are telling people that some peoples wealth deserves less taxing than other peoples wealth.
There would have to be a redistribution mechanism - as there is now - precisely so you don't end up with houses in poorer areas being taxed far more proportionately than in rich ones where they have a far higher wealth base.
However, no, you don't need a national tax rate. Indeed, on the contrary, there *shouldn't* be a national rate. Councils should be responsible, and accountable, for their decisions, including the local rate.
1 stop all the boats and clear the hotels 2 get the Boriswave to go home 3 reduce migration to under 150k 4 clean up our streets, stop shoplifting, make our cities prettier again 5 make us all just a tiny bit richer
Special Brucie Bonus for untangling council tax, stamp duty and local government fiscal problems.
Doing the latter means implementing an annual % property tax. Would be far, far better economically, but the politics of it makes it really hard to do. You’re going to be putting up taxes on poor old people in their houses they’ve planned to retire in / die in, quite possibly forcing many of them out into smaller properties.
This would be /great/ for the economy! Given how tight housing supply is we absolutely need to redistribute family homes from old couples bouncing around in them to younger families desperate for more space for their children. But making existing householders pay their fair share of tax, in proportion to property value would be a wide ranging disruption & the lowers, mostly older couples in larger houses who are the most likely population to vote, will scream louder than anyone else.
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the Treasury has suggested this policy to every incoming government for decades & promptly been slapped down by a PM who can see exactly what it means electorally. Until we get a population that understands the need for reform it will never happen & I don’t see how we can get there - turkeys don’t vote for Christmas & retired homeowners are not going to vote for a party that doubles their taxes, no matter how economically appropriate that is.
I accept that it is devilishly hard. But we need a pathway there.
There’s a housing theory of everything, and a “local authorities have no tax base and are forced by statutory requirement to bankrupt themselves on care services” theory of everything.
Unlock those, and almost anything becomes possible.
I would start by figuring out how local authorities can create decent amounts of debt for housing and transport expenditure without disturbing the gilt market.
I would move on to how to compensate current homeowners in the shorter-term for sustainable changes in the longer term. (A similar logic applies to the triple lock).
Presuming a property tax would replace council tax the people likely to be squealing hardest are people in London where property prices are eye watering. Remind me of where most politicians/civil servants/media people live again
Take two homes identical except one is in the north and one in london currently both pay about 1800 a year council tax
The london house is worth a million the northern house is worth 250k
Say the property tax is 0.5%
The londoner is now paying 5000 a year The northerner is happy their tax is down to 1250
Except if it's replacing council tax then it should be down to local authorities what percentage to charge.
That said, I don't see why someone in a million pound house shouldn't pay a lot more than someone in a £250k house. The very fact of that price difference means that they're not identical. Location matters.
By identical I obviously meant the amenities the house itself offers, such as number of bedrooms/bathrooms, size etc
Also I have to ask whats the point of bringing it a local property tax if it results basically in everyone still paying the same as they did under council tax? Its a waste of time and energy may as well just keep council tax
It wouldn't.
As you note, a £1m would pay four times the amount that a £250k house does. By contrast, at the moment a Band H house only pays three times as much as a Band A despite being a minimum of eight times the value in 1991 (since when the disparity has only grown).
On your earlier note, identical houses in terms of layout, facilities and quality have always varied wildly in price depending on where they are - and, consequently, who can afford to live in them. We can't simply ignore that part of the equation. A 3-bed semi in Ravenscliffe does not have the same desireability as a 3-bed semi in Alwoodley.
But if you made it local someone living in a million pound house in london would still be paying about the same as the 250k house in the north. If you were saying a million pound house in the same northern town was paying 4 times as much as someone in the 250k house in the the same town you would be correct.
A property tax is basically a wealth tax, it has to be national else you are telling people that some peoples wealth deserves less taxing than other peoples wealth.
But the problem is that property wealth is illiquid. So you create a new problem which is that asset rich and cash poor individuals then have problems (I appreciate that they won’t generate much sympathy but this class would include first time buyers in the SE who have saved up to buy a house with a huge mortgage attached, who would then take a hit with unaffordability).
And if house prices go down, so does the tax take - but the cost of providing the services doesn’t. So how do you protect against the shortfall?
It’s why to me the current system is probably the least worst, but it needs updating based on property prices now rather than 1991.
Looks like the Tories are repositioning themselves as the Fish Party.
Extinction strategy? Save Banff and Buchan and rebuild from there.
Not sure that will work either. Remember that although the white fish lobby hate this deal, they *also* hate the Boris deal and are saying so openly now.
(1) Most of it reads like a memorandum of understanding, for the UK and EU to cooperate in a far more practical way than before - but it's pretty thin on detail (2) On SPS it looks like effectively we rejoin the common market on food, plants, animals and fish- and we get consulted on the rules early in the process (aka EFTA-EEA style)
I'd say politically it will be accepted by the bulk of the population, and Remainers will absolutely orgasm over it (as some are on here today) so it's probably a shrewd balance by Starmer.
Yes, for the most part it's not a bad deal.
The fact so many are shouting about it paradoxically suggests to me it's a good deal. Whatever he did, it would never satisfy the Mail, Reform or the ardent pro-Rejoin types.
Let them both shout into the night - no one cares about them any more. Starmer is doing that thing all Prime Ministers should do - act pragmatically in the best interests of the nation.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
(1) Most of it reads like a memorandum of understanding, for the UK and EU to cooperate in a far more practical way than before - but it's pretty thin on detail (2) On SPS it looks like effectively we rejoin the common market on food, plants, animals and fish- and we get consulted on the rules early in the process (aka EFTA-EEA style)
I'd say politically it will be accepted by the bulk of the population, and Remainers will absolutely orgasm over it (as some are on here today) so it's probably a shrewd balance by Starmer.
Do you have a link to the document?
Anyhow it looks like pet passports are coming back, if with a wait, so Mr Dog is very happy.
Got the link through the BBC news feed
Might as well have asked Farage apparently
Reform have done so well because the BBC have Farage and co on speed dial and continually platform them, according to the pink haired, nose ring brigade anyway.
I agree with the overwhelming majority on here - it’s a largely uncontroversial deal - lots of agreeing to agree so we’ll see how that plays out in future. Some of the concessions are positive. There’s nothing earth-shattering in there either way. It’s just a solid incremental step forwards.
1 stop all the boats and clear the hotels 2 get the Boriswave to go home 3 reduce migration to under 150k 4 clean up our streets, stop shoplifting, make our cities prettier again 5 make us all just a tiny bit richer
Special Brucie Bonus for untangling council tax, stamp duty and local government fiscal problems.
Doing the latter means implementing an annual % property tax. Would be far, far better economically, but the politics of it makes it really hard to do. You’re going to be putting up taxes on poor old people in their houses they’ve planned to retire in / die in, quite possibly forcing many of them out into smaller properties.
This would be /great/ for the economy! Given how tight housing supply is we absolutely need to redistribute family homes from old couples bouncing around in them to younger families desperate for more space for their children. But making existing householders pay their fair share of tax, in proportion to property value would be a wide ranging disruption & the lowers, mostly older couples in larger houses who are the most likely population to vote, will scream louder than anyone else.
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the Treasury has suggested this policy to every incoming government for decades & promptly been slapped down by a PM who can see exactly what it means electorally. Until we get a population that understands the need for reform it will never happen & I don’t see how we can get there - turkeys don’t vote for Christmas & retired homeowners are not going to vote for a party that doubles their taxes, no matter how economically appropriate that is.
I accept that it is devilishly hard. But we need a pathway there.
There’s a housing theory of everything, and a “local authorities have no tax base and are forced by statutory requirement to bankrupt themselves on care services” theory of everything.
Unlock those, and almost anything becomes possible.
I would start by figuring out how local authorities can create decent amounts of debt for housing and transport expenditure without disturbing the gilt market.
I would move on to how to compensate current homeowners in the shorter-term for sustainable changes in the longer term. (A similar logic applies to the triple lock).
Presuming a property tax would replace council tax the people likely to be squealing hardest are people in London where property prices are eye watering. Remind me of where most politicians/civil servants/media people live again
Take two homes identical except one is in the north and one in london currently both pay about 1800 a year council tax
The london house is worth a million the northern house is worth 250k
Say the property tax is 0.5%
The londoner is now paying 5000 a year The northerner is happy their tax is down to 1250
Except if it's replacing council tax then it should be down to local authorities what percentage to charge.
That said, I don't see why someone in a million pound house shouldn't pay a lot more than someone in a £250k house. The very fact of that price difference means that they're not identical. Location matters.
It needs to replace both council tax and stamp duty if it’s going to work properly.
You could just replace council tax with a locally set property tax, but then you’d be left with the market distortions stamp duty imposes on us all.
Maybe a universal rate to replace stamp duty with a local top-up rate set by the local council? The Treasury will hate ceding control to local councils, which almost certainly means that would be a good thing.
1 stop all the boats and clear the hotels 2 get the Boriswave to go home 3 reduce migration to under 150k 4 clean up our streets, stop shoplifting, make our cities prettier again 5 make us all just a tiny bit richer
Special Brucie Bonus for untangling council tax, stamp duty and local government fiscal problems.
Doing the latter means implementing an annual % property tax. Would be far, far better economically, but the politics of it makes it really hard to do. You’re going to be putting up taxes on poor old people in their houses they’ve planned to retire in / die in, quite possibly forcing many of them out into smaller properties.
This would be /great/ for the economy! Given how tight housing supply is we absolutely need to redistribute family homes from old couples bouncing around in them to younger families desperate for more space for their children. But making existing householders pay their fair share of tax, in proportion to property value would be a wide ranging disruption & the lowers, mostly older couples in larger houses who are the most likely population to vote, will scream louder than anyone else.
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the Treasury has suggested this policy to every incoming government for decades & promptly been slapped down by a PM who can see exactly what it means electorally. Until we get a population that understands the need for reform it will never happen & I don’t see how we can get there - turkeys don’t vote for Christmas & retired homeowners are not going to vote for a party that doubles their taxes, no matter how economically appropriate that is.
I accept that it is devilishly hard. But we need a pathway there.
There’s a housing theory of everything, and a “local authorities have no tax base and are forced by statutory requirement to bankrupt themselves on care services” theory of everything.
Unlock those, and almost anything becomes possible.
I would start by figuring out how local authorities can create decent amounts of debt for housing and transport expenditure without disturbing the gilt market.
I would move on to how to compensate current homeowners in the shorter-term for sustainable changes in the longer term. (A similar logic applies to the triple lock).
Presuming a property tax would replace council tax the people likely to be squealing hardest are people in London where property prices are eye watering. Remind me of where most politicians/civil servants/media people live again
Take two homes identical except one is in the north and one in london currently both pay about 1800 a year council tax
The london house is worth a million the northern house is worth 250k
Say the property tax is 0.5%
The londoner is now paying 5000 a year The northerner is happy their tax is down to 1250
Except if it's replacing council tax then it should be down to local authorities what percentage to charge.
That said, I don't see why someone in a million pound house shouldn't pay a lot more than someone in a £250k house. The very fact of that price difference means that they're not identical. Location matters.
By identical I obviously meant the amenities the house itself offers, such as number of bedrooms/bathrooms, size etc
Also I have to ask whats the point of bringing it a local property tax if it results basically in everyone still paying the same as they did under council tax? Its a waste of time and energy may as well just keep council tax
There's a lot of difference.
Firstly, a property tax would inevitably be more progressive than CT, even with a flat % rate across the entire range. So, those with big, expensive (relative to local prices) properties would pay a lot more than those in small homes. Take for example my area in Dorset: flats start from c. £100k and at the other end 10% of the houses for sale are over £1m, topping out at one listed at £14.5m. The £100k flat occupant (might be a tenant) currently pays £1667 council tax a year; the owner of the £14.5m house pays 3 times that whereas with a set percentage of say 0.5% the flat owner would pay £500 and the big house owner would pay £72.5k per annum.
Secondly, who pays? The property owner, not the tenant. Yes of course, the property owners will try to recoup it through the rent but the legal obligation would remain with them as owners, and they usually have plenty of assets to go after if they don't pay (unlike tenants).
Which you easily fix under council tax by just adding extra bands on top no need for what is sure to be a costly new system of taxation which will fail to work properly for the first ten years. If all you want to do is get more money from more expensive houses in the same locale it makes much more sense to add 3 or 4 bands on top of what we already do.
You want a genuine wealth tax, its a flat rate on all properties collected centrally
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
Yes, BBC R4 news summary at 2pm was: Starmer's done a deal with the EU. Some fishermen are unhappy. Farage and Badenoch are unhappy. Then Lord Frost featured, being scathing. That was it. Utterly unbalanced.
I'm a Leaver and abhor this craven, useless government , yet I am essentially content with this deal. It is a sensible compromise between two powers that are bound to trade freely, and benefit from doing so
On the face of it, it is not the capitulation I expected from Starmer and his team. They have won real positives in return for a surrender on fishing. Both sides stand to gain
So if they can persuade an enemy like me that this is Not Bad, even Quite Good, then they should be able to persuade Britain. This is on the Labour comms team. Can they do it?
Ultimately this will help in the real world, and a non-insignificant proportion of the public will notice before 2028/9: - People don't like queueing at the "slow lane" at airports. Let's assume it's not ready by this summer, but people will notice in the next couple of years. - Both parents and young people will like the youth mobility scheme. - The food deal means we can export more to Europe again: real world benefit with little cost given our standard are already aligned - ...fishing "sell out" keeps the status quo except our fishermen can now export back into Europe much more easily (so a net improvement even there) - Defence and security pact important given Russia/Ukraine/Trump dynamic, and will benefit our defence companies down the line
Think back to Brexit negotiations: there was much talk of "the four freedoms are indivisible". Well, Starmer has just carved out being (essentially) part of the single market for food, fish, energy and defence, while not conceding on freedom of movement where it matters.
Clearly there's lots of detail to be ironed out, but it's a step in the right direction.
Not really, the UK has become a rule taker on food regulation which I hope a future government will reverse. It's dynamic alignment all over again which the Tories rightly refused and Labour have just given in. Useless
We have? Trump was lobbied hard to impose US rules on the UK. We did not take those rules and said no. In this new SPS deal we have the right to be consulted early about changes to food standards.
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
The Brits don’t eat enough fish . And an SPS deal means UK fisheries can sell more into the EU especially catch that needs to be exported live .
We should change the fact that we don't though.
The minor concern of heavy metals notwithstanding, we don't eat enough fish. 'Five portions of fruit and veg a day' was made up by American fruit and veg growers with no medical basis, so I don't see why 'two portions of fish a week' cannot be a national campaign, with considerably more basis in science.
Almost all healthy eating advice has been made up with little evidence. There is a lot of evidence that eating a varied diet is good for you, and that eating veg and fruit is good, and not too much meat. But precisely HOW MUCH is very hard to determine. And people who run these campaigns like to have a simple message. Its unarguable the the 5 a day message has stuck and much better than simply saying 'eat lots of fruit and veg".
Others that are similar - walking 10,000 steps - no scientific basis for it being 10000. Drinking 2 litres of water a day - utter rubbish - we get fluid from most things we consume and no, coffee does not dehydrate you.
I agree to a point, but what is a 'mixed diet'? And actually, in terms of nutrition per gram, meat is absolutely the King of foods (along with eggs and other animal products), but has been demonised (unfairly in my view) largely because there is more profit in cash crops like soy.
Fruit and veg are fine - they can be good, and rubbish.
There is stuff in fish that we can't easily get elsewhere though, and history tells us that we used to eat a whole lot more of it than we do now.
"Nutrition per gram" is a very subjective category.
And do you include all the animal feed in the denominator?
Why should you? We aren't eating that, so no reason for it to appear.
And if we have net zero production then there's no negative consequences for the animals eating it either. Indeed it can be conducive to a healthy ecosystem.
The BBC commentary on this deal encapsulates one of the reasons the pro-European cause has had such a poor run in recent years.
Opening sentence: “this is undoubtedly a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible”.
I couldn’t disagree more. This has been the repeated failing of politicians on Europe. They fear the Eurosceptics and the Daily Mail, so they play down the positives and understate everything. Which means voters don’t notice or appreciate the good stuff while the silence then leaves the floor for the Mail et al to paint their own pictures. And the understatement just makes them look shifty.
Shout it from the rooftops for once. Take control of the narrative. Does Trump try to make all his new measures seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible? No.
The BBC seems to be turning into GB News with its negative slant . And Chris Mason is just parroting the betrayal narrative with his ridiculous question .
It's a balanced narrative!
Balance negativity for the Government with positivity for Farage/Johnson.
Left to the Tories and Reform they would shut down the BBC .
And yet they continually arse lick Farage .
Yes the ceremonial decapitation of Gary Lineker should cheer up the good and the righteous.
(1) Most of it reads like a memorandum of understanding, for the UK and EU to cooperate in a far more practical way than before - but it's pretty thin on detail (2) On SPS it looks like effectively we rejoin the common market on food, plants, animals and fish- and we get consulted on the rules early in the process (aka EFTA-EEA style)
I'd say politically it will be accepted by the bulk of the population, and Remainers will absolutely orgasm over it (as some are on here today) so it's probably a shrewd balance by Starmer.
Yes, for the most part it's not a bad deal.
The fact so many are shouting about it paradoxically suggests to me it's a good deal. Whatever he did, it would never satisfy the Mail, Reform or the ardent pro-Rejoin types.
Let them both shout into the night - no one cares about them any more. Starmer is doing that thing all Prime Ministers should do - act pragmatically in the best interests of the nation.
Comments
Firstly, a property tax would inevitably be more progressive than CT, even with a flat % rate across the entire range. So, those with big, expensive (relative to local prices) properties would pay a lot more than those in small homes. Take for example my area in Dorset: flats start from c. £100k and at the other end 10% of the houses for sale are over £1m, topping out at one listed at £14.5m. The £100k flat occupant (might be a tenant) currently pays £1667 council tax a year; the owner of the £14.5m house pays 3 times that whereas with a set percentage of say 0.5% the flat owner would pay £500 and the big house owner would pay £72.5k per annum.
Secondly, who pays? The property owner, not the tenant. Yes of course, the property owners will try to recoup it through the rent but the legal obligation would remain with them as owners, and they usually have plenty of assets to go after if they don't pay (unlike tenants).
TLDR: it's not a great deal, nor a terrible deal, it's simply not much at all in the wider scheme
He makes some very sharp points
https://unherd.com/2025/05/starmers-eu-reset-is-a-fairytale/
However, no, you don't need a national tax rate. Indeed, on the contrary, there *shouldn't* be a national rate. Councils should be responsible, and accountable, for their decisions, including the local rate.
And if house prices go down, so does the tax take - but the cost of providing the services doesn’t. So how do you protect against the shortfall?
It’s why to me the current system is probably the least worst, but it needs updating based on property prices now rather than 1991.
Its nearly 5 minutes but cuts through the partisan arguments
https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-labour-reform-starmer-farage-tories-migration-prisons-12593360?postid=9608865#liveblog-body
The fact so many are shouting about it paradoxically suggests to me it's a good deal. Whatever he did, it would never satisfy the Mail, Reform or the ardent pro-Rejoin types.
Let them both shout into the night - no one cares about them any more. Starmer is doing that thing all Prime Ministers should do - act pragmatically in the best interests of the nation.
NEW THREAD
The obvious political point to make from it is, it was shot in the UK. The Mad King would kill it if he could
So of course Kemi says it’s a terrible sellout.
You could just replace council tax with a locally set property tax, but then you’d be left with the market distortions stamp duty imposes on us all.
Maybe a universal rate to replace stamp duty with a local top-up rate set by the local council? The Treasury will hate ceding control to local councils, which almost certainly means that would be a good thing.
You want a genuine wealth tax, its a flat rate on all properties collected centrally
Remember that as things stands we are already aligned with the EU. Both UK and EU are committed to only raising standards so the only debate is how fast those improvements are being made.
And if we have net zero production then there's no negative consequences for the animals eating it either. Indeed it can be conducive to a healthy ecosystem.
"But analysis of satellite imagery shows the buildings highlighted are in a school 150-200 metres away."
You don't need to be a 150 IQ genus to see why that's (at least) a couple of issues...