Some good news for Badenoch but will it move the polls? – politicalbetting.com
Some good news for Badenoch but will it move the polls? – politicalbetting.com
63% of Britons support abolishing stamp duty on the purchase of main homes, as Kemi Badenoch pledged yesterdayOnly 13% are opposedyougov.co.uk/topics/polit…
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Well, that's a good start to the day. People in favour of abolishing tax shock.
Local Government elections are about roads and similar - mind you I don't think many people vote on social care and that's really all a council has money for nowadays.
So the Argentine bailout wasn’t for Argentina as much as it was for a hedge fund friend of Scott Bessent.
Rob Citrone a billionaire hedge fund guy who owns Discovery Capital, purchased Argentine debt and equity in numerous companies closely tied to the country’s overall economy.
He made a bet that the economic policies would revitalize the economy. He was wrong and stood to lose his ass. This was nothing more than Crony Capitalism at the tax payers expense.
https://x.com/PrezLives2022/status/1976326675638960305
At least there’s good evidence for SDLT being a terrible tax for the amount of money it raises.
Taxes aren't a necessary evil to pay for things that we would hate to have to pay for individually. They are a cruel imposition because the government hates us. Every Friday afternoon, Rachel Reeves takes all the tax paid that week home in a Tesco bag for life (a new one every week, mind) and hides it under her bed.
Let's give it to wealthy homeowners instead."
As others have said, unless you say which taxes will rise or which services cut to fund the abolition, the question is pointless.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/letitia-james-criminal-charges-trump-b2842780.html
rcs1000 said:
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You know, I went to a lot of trouble with that comment.
Philistines.
Moral is don't buy cheap towels
If that is the case can I point out it’s something I’ve been saying was going to happen for ages - as the previous excuse was excess admin and the admin is now unavoidable
Goes someway to explaining the different attitudes that people have. I'd suggest my bubble is much larger given the polling in Israel/Palestine.
For betting purposes - the Greens have a very high profile at the moment in my cohort and are generating some momentum.
Important news: The Gentrification of Penge:
An influx of independent coffee shops, cycle clubs and art galleries has changed the face of Penge for good.
Long-time residents were stunned at the start of the year when it was voted one of the top 11 coolest postcodes in Britain.
...
Nothing screams the new Penge more than a series of street artwork next to a McDonald's in the town centre.
...
'It's not posh, never has been posh, so why try and make it posh?
'They're trying to make it look like Brixton - and that is not a good thing.
http://bit.ly/42BZxua (incoming Daily Mail)
I wonder if it's the IHT effect? People are unrealistically optimistic and think they are likely to pay these taxes even though very few of us do.
*I personally think the policy is an excellent one from economic/housing market perspective, though the first order effect is highly regressive
For polling to be interesting it needs to ask public opinion on the big picture, the big taxes, and the big expenditures.
People will always want to reduce or abolish any individual tax which may apply to them. The result is uninteresting.
Stamp duty is indeed a terrible tax, though it has the merit of being reasonably progressive, unlike the abomination of regressive council taxes.
Most people are unaffected by IHT, and for the majority of people the impact of property stamp duty is small.
They need to frame him as unpatriotic for slagging off the UK in America and making us look bad and asking him if he’s criticising US shootings, ICE etc or just attacking the people of the country he hopes to lead.
Whatever our problems are, however much you agree with Reform or not, he needs to be monstered for this habit of doing speeches (no doubt well paid speeches) that talk done the UK to the US - it’s lazy and cheap.
If he wants to lead the UK then he needs to be here talking about what he sees as the problems and solutions.
Every media interview with him should lead with this until he stops.
1) "Penge" is one of the most cherishably ridiculous names for a suburb in the country. Very London. If the opening section to "Sheffield: Sex City" were transposed to London, Penge would definitely feature.
2) "They" - there seems to be a pervasive inference among the complaining classes that "They" are a lot more coordinated and powerful than is actually the case. Who are "they"? I normally infer the local council. Having worked with councils, I am amused by the idea of them as shadowy and powerful cabals.
3) London is the only place in the country where people seem to resent the idea of their suburb improving in any way. "Gentrification" is a pejorative term in London in a way that it really isn't in the rest of the country.
4) Having grown up in the 80s, the idea that anywhere might aspire to be Brixton is interestingly jarring.
That Penge is now the frontline between funky London and unfunky not-London?
Or the settled residents don't like change?
A lot of support from the audience too.
The only social media I am on is facebook. Which in terms of politics seems to assume I am a left wing Europhile. I really don't engage apart from to hide things I strongly disagree with, so I can only assume that's how it packages me as a suburban/metropolitan.
I also get a weirdly large amount of argument about Gary Neville.
JPMorgan requiring biometric data for staff access to new headquarters
New York bank is imposing eye and fingerprint scans amid heightened security concerns at corporate offices
JPMorgan Chase has told staff moving into the US bank’s new multibillion-dollar Manhattan headquarters they must share their biometric data to access the building, overriding a prior plan for voluntary enrolment.
Employees who have started work at its 270 Park Avenue skyscraper since August have received emails saying biometric access is “required”, according to a communication seen by the Financial Times. This allows people to scan their fingerprints or eye instead of ID badges to get through the lobby security gates.
JPMorgan declined to comment. The bank’s headquarters, which cost a reported $3bn, will eventually house about 10,000 employees once it is fully open later this year.
The goal is to make access to the building more secure and convenient. There are exemptions for some employees who can still use their badge to enter the building, though it was not clear who would receive them.
It comes amid heightened security concerns across corporate offices in New York following a deadly shooting at 345 Park Avenue in July, a few blocks up the street from JPMorgan’s offices.
https://www.ft.com/content/d5351d3d-d64f-4a90-a3da-d1ef8e8bea66
Or antisocial.
Stamp duty abolition is popular and think tanks welcome the end of the worst of bad taxes
As far as last night's locals are concerned did we really expect a boost to the conservatives?
I am not convinced it will move the polls much either, but as a conservative I am pleased Badenoch delivered an excellent speech and laid out a multitude of policies that gives the party something to sell in the media and on the doorstep
Stamp duty and Gaza dominated the news leaving Starmer struggling to get any coverage over his trip to India
However, I am not sure that Starmer doesn't have a bigger problem than Badenoch with him losing votes to Reform, Lib Dems and Greens and a choice of moving further to the left and losing to the right or moving right and losing to the left
I am not sure being in the centre is a benefit at present for any party
Cunningly, I won't be affected due to the scheme I use for avoiding for excess income tax*.
*not earning enough.
Yep, nothing bad could ever come of that sort of thing...
Thankfully quite a bit of both his radio and TV work survives. Beginners (are there some on PB?) might start with 'The Blood Donor'.
Well, quite. It again begs the question, given we've had two long periods of Conservative or Conservative-led Government in the last 45 years or so, why Stamp Duty was never abolished by Howe, Lawson, Lamont, Clarke or all the other Conservative Chancellors.
The conclusion is Stamp Duty must fulfill some form of function, possibly as a regulatory mechanism in the housing market preventing prices rising even more and making the goal of home ownership so beloved by Tories as a souce of future voters even more unachievable or it's been a nice little earner (as Mr Daley would have said) for the Treasury.
Given first time purchasers are already free of stamp duty up to the value of £300k, Badenoch's plan, from which she cannot now extricate herself, and which only applies to England and Northern Ireland, is clearly aimed further up the property market. The truth is as prices have risen, more have been caught - the majority of purchases would be in the 5% category but once you get to between £925k and £1.5 million it's 10% so the amount of stamp duty payable on a £920k purchase would be £46k and the amount on a £930k purchase would be £93k if I've done it right.
That brings in an increasing number of property purchases particularly in southern LD held constituencies which I suspect is the prime target for this policy but the stamp duty rate also acts as a barrier on house price inflation.
Fascism is probably the right term here, as the only real underlying ideology is loyalty to the leader.
For those wondering, these systems don’t actually store fingerprints and eye scans, they store an algorithmic code that represents them when presented to the machine. Same as TouchID and FaceID on your phone.
Plus expenses,
Because of a clause in the M&A docs, JPM has to pick up Charlie Javice’s legal bill for defrauding them. She’s run up $115M in bills. Absolutely incredible.
https://x.com/yrechtman/status/1976320602043724015
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/id-cards-for-tennagers-5HjdFCW_2/
Some good news at last. British schoolchildren will be able to get holiday jobs at JP Morgan.
$280 million for lawyers, what's not to love?
On a related theme, AFAIK the LibDems Orange Bookers had the LVT idea for at least 15 years, if not more. An example from 2018. So is CCHQ LibDem Central now?
https://www.libdems.org.uk/news/article/taxing-land-not-investment
So I brought in a potato from home.
Oh wait, they never did. There are no savings, just debt that was passed on.
Moron.
Powerful blasts reported in Kyiv as missiles and drones target energy infrastructure, injuring nine
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/10/russian-attack-kyiv-ukraine-capital-blackouts-sets-high-rise-alight
Ukraine and Russia continue targeting each other's energy infrastructure.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yni9x59ej1c
My comment to try and persuade his audience:
OK. Serious answer. IMO YES we need a pavement parking ban, but that's only 10% of the answer - the rest is a better society. The reasons:
1 - The principle is equality, for pedestrians but also especially for marginalised groups - young, old, disabled, pregnancy / maternity. Equality in public policy for these groups have been a matter of law for many years, and is a statutory duty for all new work. That is notably missing from long term strategic projects planned to cost 10s of million in 15 years time, which then get wired in, unconsidered.
A key part of that is listening to people's experience, rather than us telling them what THEY need. That is what Equality Impact Assessments are about.
2 - We have examples that just work successfully, and we know how to do it. Edinburgh particularly, but also London, Manchester, and bringing ASB parking with Operation SNAP (eg Cheshire). There is a massive upside, and little downside. eg So people have topark on their drives not the footway - big deal ! In other circumstances such as eg Ash's narrow roads, we know how to do adjustments at street design or network level, and it is not difficult.
3 - The main change is to road culture, where not thinking is endemic, as per Ashley's finding for the last X years. I've done some activism on this with Wheels for Wellbeing and it is like conversations at traffic lights; sometimes it is a good educational conversation, and sometimes it is heavy verbal abuse. Disabled people do not complain because most of them cannot escape easily and if they have tried eg knocking on a house door, they may have had verbal abuse or even threats. My worst abuse was from someone who had blocked mobility aid access to an entire hospital by blocking a drop kerb, rather than park in an allocated space 20m further away.
4 - It is about political will and enforcement. After the ULEZ and cycling political culture wars by the last Government, the current one is timid. It needs both a ban, and bringing traffic offences into Op SNAP for enforcement, because the police universally want to slope shoulders on this. The organisational DNA needs to be rewritten.
This Govt will move forward, but will delegate decisions to Local Highways Authorities, which means that the ones that most need to take action (eg Liverpool, Notts) are exactly the ones that will not because the Councils are stuck in the past.
A piccie of one I chatted to recently, and had a really good conversation. The building at the roundabout is a GP surgery. There's plenty of space for carri
ageway parking.
The betting implications for elections will be off the charts (or off the table- what with plenary authority).
Greenlanders will be fearing the worst- unless Trump gets the Peace prize, there will be war. It is beyond parody really.
I would think that you could find quite a few taxes, particularly those considered to be paid by other people, that people would oppose the abolition of.
Penge is though one of those near comedy names like Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Twatt that lives long in the memory, for some reason.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/10/you-wont-believe-what-degrading-practice-the-pope-just-condemned
Businessman 1 provided the sales whilst businessman 2 provided the accounts/admin.
They had a major falling out, businessman 1 sued the bank for paying out cheques that weren't to mandate, bank brought in businessman 2 as a part 20 defendant.
The cheques were for legitimate services and some of them paid businessman 1 and his businesses but crucially most weren't to mandate (any payments over £25,000 needed two signatories and most of them had only one).
The total payments came to around £600,000 but neither side wanted to back down, the legal costs came to over £2 million as the dispute lasted years.
He does deserve some credit for the ceasefire in Israel and Gaza, if it holds, so he has a year to smack Putin’s arse with Tomahawks if he wants that prize.
Now that would make for a lovely family Thanksgiving meal at chez Trump!!!
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rfk-jr-cites-truly-appalling-studies-to-tie-autism-to-circumcision-and/
Next he’s going to announce that his brain is controlled by the worm he got from eating pork.
Sound on is recommended, and the best bit is at the end.
This is the (restored) VHS footage of @HecklerAndKoch Factory testing of the G36 all the way to destruction.
Note that they used 100 Round "double-drum" mags only.
https://x.com/chrisschmitz/status/1976410371264291073
https://www.gov.uk/stamp-duty-land-tax/residential-property-rates