The court of appeal ruled on Tuesday that Northamptonshire police were in contempt and had been “willfully disobedient” for repeatedly failing to obey rulings to hand over video to a woman who complained she had been wrongly arrested by three officers.
Nadine Buzzard-Quashie was arrested by Northamptonshire police in September 2021, triggering a four-year saga.
…
The judgment said: “Her account of her arrest … was that she was physically assaulted by the officers who arrested her, she was physically thrown to the ground and had her face pushed into stinging nettles.”
She wanted video footage of her arrest, including from police body-worn cameras, which the force did not provide.
She complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office which made an order that all video should be handed over, which the force ignored, then a county court judge made another order, which the force failed to obey again.
The force told courts it did not have any more video to hand over, then reversed its position at a hearing in October. The court of appeal judgment said: “This means that all the statements made to the court on behalf of the police force prior to mid-October 2025 were false.”
On Tuesday three appeal court judges issued a blistering and unanimous ruling.
Lady Justice Asplin, Lord Justice Coulson, and Lord Justice Fraser said “misleading and untrue statements … have been made to the court on behalf of the chief constable, both to the county court … and also to the court of appeal in relation to the application for permission to appeal and the appeal itself. To list every single statement made on behalf of the chief constable that has proved to be inaccurate over this lengthy period would lengthen this judgment considerably.”
I am shocked by this, I am sure Cyclefree will be too when she reads this story.
It’s pretty unusual for the CC to be found guilty of contempt, no?
Presumably the man himself is now going to have to show up at the court of appeal, to explain his force’s behaviour in the case?
As is always the case - it’s the coverup that gets them in the end and is always way worse than the initial incident
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Are you listening, Kemi? Mel?
You think either of them would stop the triple lock, increase ICT, introduce a wealth tax, and a UK FATCA? That would truly be the world turned upside down.
The court of appeal ruled on Tuesday that Northamptonshire police were in contempt and had been “willfully disobedient” for repeatedly failing to obey rulings to hand over video to a woman who complained she had been wrongly arrested by three officers.
Nadine Buzzard-Quashie was arrested by Northamptonshire police in September 2021, triggering a four-year saga.
…
The judgment said: “Her account of her arrest … was that she was physically assaulted by the officers who arrested her, she was physically thrown to the ground and had her face pushed into stinging nettles.”
She wanted video footage of her arrest, including from police body-worn cameras, which the force did not provide.
She complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office which made an order that all video should be handed over, which the force ignored, then a county court judge made another order, which the force failed to obey again.
The force told courts it did not have any more video to hand over, then reversed its position at a hearing in October. The court of appeal judgment said: “This means that all the statements made to the court on behalf of the police force prior to mid-October 2025 were false.”
On Tuesday three appeal court judges issued a blistering and unanimous ruling.
Lady Justice Asplin, Lord Justice Coulson, and Lord Justice Fraser said “misleading and untrue statements … have been made to the court on behalf of the chief constable, both to the county court … and also to the court of appeal in relation to the application for permission to appeal and the appeal itself. To list every single statement made on behalf of the chief constable that has proved to be inaccurate over this lengthy period would lengthen this judgment considerably.”
I am shocked by this, I am sure Cyclefree will be too when she reads this story.
It’s pretty unusual for the CC to be found guilty of contempt, no?
Presumably the man himself is now going to have to show up at the court of appeal, to explain his force’s behaviour in the case?
My friend’s sister is suing GMP over an unreasonable strip search and other issues, guess what, all the video footage from the officers at the arrest and at the police station was either not working or deleted.
Several videos online of plastic patriots in Worcester putting up Temu flags with cable ties on lampposts. Abusive to old guy whose land is millimetres from one lamppost. And patronising to a woman.
Entertainingly the plastic patriot starts talking about how taking their flag down would be "theft". No luv, you're putting it up illegally. Taking it down is not "theft".
And of course the patriot is cable tying the flag to the lamppost upside down. Because of course he is.
Flags up in Derbyshire notably in Lee Anderson's constituency but in Amber Valley too and said flags soon looking bedraggled with a drop or two of rain. Far more impressive were the poppies on lamp posts in Belper, Matlock and other towns.
You talk to the locals and many of them are clearly worried about "the migrants" yet where they are they never see one. They ought to try a few days in East Ham if they want to see a more cosmopolitan Britain.
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
I am not in the BMA, and don't support this strike. I don't think that there will be a big walkout as the enthusiasm seems to have faded.
Streeting is generally failing because of his arrogance. He doesn't listen to people and is convinced of his own brilliance.
Probably better than Starmer, but could well prove to be a Truss like figure. Tories love Thatcher cosplay in leadership contenders, Labour loves Blair cosplay, but both need to realise that times have changed. Theres no "putting the band back together".
But what's the alternative? Either Labour finds a leader in a relatively short time or the civilised vote fractures and Farage wins with maybe 25% of the vote
I think Labour needs a new Leader, just not Streeting.
Losing Rayner was a big blow to Labour. They need her back, and Louise Haigh.
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
Blimey, we'll have an announcement about tidal barrages next.
I notice the small reactor announcement has pissed off the US ambassador, which is a plus in my book.
Why was the ambassador irked?
"The decision to opt for small modular reactors at Wylfa was criticised by the US ambassador Warren Stephens, who said he was "extremely disappointed" by the decision. He had been urging ministers to commit to a large-scale plant, with US firm Westinghouse having reportedly presented plans to build a new gigawatt station at the site."
Trumpism has consequences. Other countries do not want to rely on the whims of a Mad King.
Thank goodness the Eye of Trump is focussed on..er..other matters otherwise the UK would no doubt have huge tarrifs lumped on in retaliation for this terrible slight.
This email is interesting. It looks like Epstein was advising Russia on how to manipulate and control Trump.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Are you listening, Kemi? Mel?
You think either of them would stop the triple lock, increase ICT, introduce a wealth tax, and a UK FATCA? That would truly be the world turned upside down.
It is probably what it takes to be on top of the problem. Something has to give.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
Yes but the UK does not do what the US does - and I agree with Ben we should in this instance. Anyone with British citizenship who wants to keep it should, subject to the relevant double taxation agreements, pay UK tax on their earnings wherever they accrue them in the world.
If you work in a place where you pay broadly the same tax as the UK then you are not liable for further UK tax on those earnings. (the current double taxation taxation rules)
If you work somewhere where you pay more tax than the UK (as I did for 15 years in Norway) then unfortunately you just have to suck it up. You don't get a rebate in the UK on foreign tax paid.
But if you work somewhere where you pay less tax than in the UK then you are liable to pay the difference to the British exchequer.
That should be the price of retaining British citzenship.
Also we should pay the same overall tax (and NI) on all income irrespective of its source. What matters is how much you earn, not how you earned it. If I earn £1000 fro shares I should pay the same amount to the exchequer as I would if I earned £1000 from PAYE
The court of appeal ruled on Tuesday that Northamptonshire police were in contempt and had been “willfully disobedient” for repeatedly failing to obey rulings to hand over video to a woman who complained she had been wrongly arrested by three officers.
Nadine Buzzard-Quashie was arrested by Northamptonshire police in September 2021, triggering a four-year saga.
…
The judgment said: “Her account of her arrest … was that she was physically assaulted by the officers who arrested her, she was physically thrown to the ground and had her face pushed into stinging nettles.”
She wanted video footage of her arrest, including from police body-worn cameras, which the force did not provide.
She complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office which made an order that all video should be handed over, which the force ignored, then a county court judge made another order, which the force failed to obey again.
The force told courts it did not have any more video to hand over, then reversed its position at a hearing in October. The court of appeal judgment said: “This means that all the statements made to the court on behalf of the police force prior to mid-October 2025 were false.”
On Tuesday three appeal court judges issued a blistering and unanimous ruling.
Lady Justice Asplin, Lord Justice Coulson, and Lord Justice Fraser said “misleading and untrue statements … have been made to the court on behalf of the chief constable, both to the county court … and also to the court of appeal in relation to the application for permission to appeal and the appeal itself. To list every single statement made on behalf of the chief constable that has proved to be inaccurate over this lengthy period would lengthen this judgment considerably.”
I am shocked by this, I am sure Cyclefree will be too when she reads this story.
It’s pretty unusual for the CC to be found guilty of contempt, no?
Presumably the man himself is now going to have to show up at the court of appeal, to explain his force’s behaviour in the case?
Frankly he should be advised to bring an overnight bag.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
Possibly not, but it would reduce the spending pressure on the UK in the future for things like the State Pension and NHS if they revoke citizenship as a result.
And you'd have plenty of expats in despotic countries like Saudi who would retain UK citizenship because they need a country to flee to if things go south.
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
I am not in the BMA, and don't support this strike. I don't think that there will be a big walkout as the enthusiasm seems to have faded.
Streeting is generally failing because of his arrogance. He doesn't listen to people and is convinced of his own brilliance.
Probably better than Starmer, but could well prove to be a Truss like figure. Tories love Thatcher cosplay in leadership contenders, Labour loves Blair cosplay, but both need to realise that times have changed. Theres no "putting the band back together".
But what's the alternative? Either Labour finds a leader in a relatively short time or the civilised vote fractures and Farage wins with maybe 25% of the vote
I think Labour needs a new Leader, just not Streeting.
Losing Rayner was a big blow to Labour. They need her back, and Louise Haigh.
Two crooks to lead Labour after they made (quite rightly) a big deal out of Boris behaviour.....Its A Bold Strategy Cotton, Lets See If It Pays Off For Em.
Blimey, we'll have an announcement about tidal barrages next.
I notice the small reactor announcement has pissed off the US ambassador, which is a plus in my book.
Why was the ambassador irked?
"The decision to opt for small modular reactors at Wylfa was criticised by the US ambassador Warren Stephens, who said he was "extremely disappointed" by the decision. He had been urging ministers to commit to a large-scale plant, with US firm Westinghouse having reportedly presented plans to build a new gigawatt station at the site."
Trumpism has consequences. Other countries do not want to rely on the whims of a Mad King.
Thank goodness the Eye of Trump is focussed on..er..other matters otherwise the UK would no doubt have huge tarrifs lumped on in retaliation for this terrible slight.
This email is interesting. It looks like Epstein was advising Russia on how to manipulate and control Trump.
Several videos online of plastic patriots in Worcester putting up Temu flags with cable ties on lampposts. Abusive to old guy whose land is millimetres from one lamppost. And patronising to a woman.
Entertainingly the plastic patriot starts talking about how taking their flag down would be "theft". No luv, you're putting it up illegally. Taking it down is not "theft".
And of course the patriot is cable tying the flag to the lamppost upside down. Because of course he is.
Flags up in Derbyshire notably in Lee Anderson's constituency but in Amber Valley too and said flags soon looking bedraggled with a drop or two of rain. Far more impressive were the poppies on lamp posts in Belper, Matlock and other towns.
You talk to the locals and many of them are clearly worried about "the migrants" yet where they are they never see one. They ought to try a few days in East Ham if they want to see a more cosmopolitan Britain.
Saw some St George's flags on Preston Road just south of Aspen Way the other day, near Poplar Marina.
Several videos online of plastic patriots in Worcester putting up Temu flags with cable ties on lampposts. Abusive to old guy whose land is millimetres from one lamppost. And patronising to a woman.
Entertainingly the plastic patriot starts talking about how taking their flag down would be "theft". No luv, you're putting it up illegally. Taking it down is not "theft".
And of course the patriot is cable tying the flag to the lamppost upside down. Because of course he is.
I havevno objection to people flying a flag on their own land but maybe we should reverse that last 'theft' claim and say that anyone putting up flags without authority on public property is littering. Exceptions for time limited events like street parties/celebrations where it is cleared away afterwards.
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
Thanks for that. It was interesting and he's articulate but it wasn't the same piece as quoted in the Guardian where he gave the doctors both barrels. Reading the comments below were interesting. Hopefully more reflective of Sky viewers than the medical profession who might one day be treating us!
It was the relevant speech, and he does refer to the BMA and strike in the speech. Perhaps the press release drafted beforehand was a little more pointed than the actual wording he used to their faces?
Anyhow, I am off to the park with my birthday boy…eight today, he’s actually a senior dog now, and catching up with me fast.
It's actually for three SMRs. The idea is that it's a pilot for refining the manufacturing techniques for making the things on something like an assembly line.
And it does mean that it's likely to be producing power in the next decade rather than the one after.
Amusing that the nimbys are already out opposing it as "unproven technology", which is complete bollocks. What's unproven are the economics of the whole idea.
Yes the first two or three are going to be prototypes, after which they should be able to make them (relatively) quickly on a production line and ship them to site - in contrast to a more regular nuclear design which is all built on site.
There’s also huge export potential to the first company getting their production line up and running, the three companies competing so far are in UK, US, and China.
The Americans are struggling to find a buyer for the prototypes, which is going to have to be a state or federal government because of the risk, and the West has no interest in the Chinese one and vice-versa.
If we can beat the Americans to mass production, there’s a huge first-mover advantage in the commercial market.
Chinese conventional nuclear building is already a lot closer to "production line" than anything we yet do.
Their nuclear plants are now built to a standard pattern, often with three or four next to each other on a site - and they're building a lot of them (29 under construction). That, and the absence of anything like our decades long planning nightmares, will make them rather cheaper to build.
The economics of SMRs - and their export potential - are still pretty unclear.
There was some other good news our of China recently. It looks as if their CO2 targets are going to be met earlier than thought. As well as nuclear they are building vast amounts of other renewables.
A Supreme Court judgment for the Scottish criminal bar, including DavidL to ponder. I am sure he already is. I would be interested to know what he thinks!
Has there ever been an example before this week that a Downing Street comms team was so bad that they briefed against their own Prime Minister leading to his defenestration when defenestration wasn't even in the tea leaves before they intervened?
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
The US version is 10% with a $130,000 personal allowance, it’s not simply the usual federal income and CG taxes applied to those overseas.
Americans in the sandpit still regularly ask for bonuses to be paid in cash, to avoid Uncle Sam.
To be fair, if the UK introduced 10% above £100k to Brits living abroad, I wouldn’t object.
Blimey, we'll have an announcement about tidal barrages next.
I notice the small reactor announcement has pissed off the US ambassador, which is a plus in my book.
Why was the ambassador irked?
"The decision to opt for small modular reactors at Wylfa was criticised by the US ambassador Warren Stephens, who said he was "extremely disappointed" by the decision. He had been urging ministers to commit to a large-scale plant, with US firm Westinghouse having reportedly presented plans to build a new gigawatt station at the site."
Trumpism has consequences. Other countries do not want to rely on the whims of a Mad King.
Thank goodness the Eye of Trump is focussed on..er..other matters otherwise the UK would no doubt have huge tarrifs lumped on in retaliation for this terrible slight.
This email is interesting. It looks like Epstein was advising Russia on how to manipulate and control Trump.
Apart from the not entirely surprising revelation of how horrible the personalities involved were, I'm amazed at how indiscreet folk were in their emails, especially Epstein.
Something for Trump's cv, even Epstein thought Donald was the worst, 'not a decent cell in his body'.
Blimey, we'll have an announcement about tidal barrages next.
I notice the small reactor announcement has pissed off the US ambassador, which is a plus in my book.
Why was the ambassador irked?
"The decision to opt for small modular reactors at Wylfa was criticised by the US ambassador Warren Stephens, who said he was "extremely disappointed" by the decision. He had been urging ministers to commit to a large-scale plant, with US firm Westinghouse having reportedly presented plans to build a new gigawatt station at the site."
Trumpism has consequences. Other countries do not want to rely on the whims of a Mad King.
Thank goodness the Eye of Trump is focussed on..er..other matters otherwise the UK would no doubt have huge tarrifs lumped on in retaliation for this terrible slight.
This email is interesting. It looks like Epstein was advising Russia on how to manipulate and control Trump.
Apart from the not entirely surprising revelation of how horrible the personalities involved were, I'm amazed at how indiscreet folk were in their emails, especially Epstein.
Something for Trump's cv, even Epstein thought Donald was the worst, 'not a decent cell in his body'.
It amazing how many extremely high profile people were still happy to regularly engage with Epstein years after he was exposed as a paedo, and via emails...which everybody should treat as not being secure at all.
Months back I identified Streeting as Labour's Liz Truss...
Labour's Truss would be if SKS goes and the members pick somebody from the ideological Left who makes them feel good but is clueless and incompetent. Streeting, like him or not, doesn't fit the bill.
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
Thanks for that. It was interesting and he's articulate but it wasn't the same piece as quoted in the Guardian where he gave the doctors both barrels. Reading the comments below were interesting. Hopefully more reflective of Sky viewers than the medical profession who might one day be treating us!
It was the relevant speech, and he does refer to the BMA and strike in the speech. Perhaps the press release drafted beforehand was a little more pointed than the actual wording he used to their faces?
Anyhow, I am off to the park with my birthday boy…eight today, he’s actually a senior dog now, and catching up with me fast.
He'd have preferred those candles on a commensurately sized cake!
Has there ever been an example before this week that a Downing Street comms team was so bad that they briefed against their own Prime Minister leading to his defenestration when defenestration wasn't even in the tea leaves before they intervened?
Those who advised Rishi to go and do an ITV interview by leaving D-Day event early and leave Starmer to talk to world leaders during a general election campaign has to be up there.
Several videos online of plastic patriots in Worcester putting up Temu flags with cable ties on lampposts. Abusive to old guy whose land is millimetres from one lamppost. And patronising to a woman.
Entertainingly the plastic patriot starts talking about how taking their flag down would be "theft". No luv, you're putting it up illegally. Taking it down is not "theft".
And of course the patriot is cable tying the flag to the lamppost upside down. Because of course he is.
Flags up in Derbyshire notably in Lee Anderson's constituency but in Amber Valley too and said flags soon looking bedraggled with a drop or two of rain. Far more impressive were the poppies on lamp posts in Belper, Matlock and other towns.
You talk to the locals and many of them are clearly worried about "the migrants" yet where they are they never see one. They ought to try a few days in East Ham if they want to see a more cosmopolitan Britain.
The former MP having to wear a stab vest there is hardly an endorsement of the place.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
As I have stated on many occasions any such UK FATCA should allow expats to offset the local taxes they pay against their UK tax obligation.
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
This lot are just as egregious as the Tories were. The Tories got beasted by the voters for it.
Labour appear to have looked across the Dispatch Box for 14 years - and learned nothing. Their current polling flatters them.
Genuine question - is constant stream of minor scandals just a function of Labour actually having standards, opening themselves up for investigation? And therefore providing lots of material for the press?
I think you'd be forgiven for assuming that this stuff was going on to at least the same extent under the Conservatives, just that they were better a suppressing/ignoring it.
An astute post. It's just too easy to put politicians into impossible positions.
Interviewer. Would you like to be Prime Minister?
Wes; I've got a big enough job as it is.
Interviewer; Didn't you say in 2022 you'd like to be Prime Minister?
Wes; I'm very happy as I am at the moment
Interviwer; So you don't have any ambition to be Prime Minister and if asked you wouldn't put yourself forward?
............It's impossible.. I think Labour politicians have comported themselves pretty well considering they are functioning in a such a hostile space with an unprecedented number of right wing media oitlets out to get them
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
I am not in the BMA, and don't support this strike. I don't think that there will be a big walkout as the enthusiasm seems to have faded.
Streeting is generally failing because of his arrogance. He doesn't listen to people and is convinced of his own brilliance.
Probably better than Starmer, but could well prove to be a Truss like figure. Tories love Thatcher cosplay in leadership contenders, Labour loves Blair cosplay, but both need to realise that times have changed. Theres no "putting the band back together".
But what's the alternative? Either Labour finds a leader in a relatively short time or the civilised vote fractures and Farage wins with maybe 25% of the vote
I think Labour needs a new Leader, just not Streeting.
Losing Rayner was a big blow to Labour. They need her back, and Louise Haigh.
Two crooks to lead Labour after they made (quite rightly) a big deal out of Boris behaviour.....Its A Bold Strategy Cotton, Lets See If It Pays Off For Em.
You post Telegraph article after Telegraph article highlighting government ineptitude, potential government ineptitude, perceived by the Telegraph government ineptitude and made up by the Telegraph government ineptitude. And fair play to you, but I draw the line at equalising Hague and Rayner's indiscretions to what Johnson was party to. You even hint at a tacit defence of Johnson.
Months back I identified Streeting as Labour's Liz Truss...
Labour's Truss would be if SKS goes and the members pick somebody from the ideological Left who makes them feel good but is clueless and incompetent. Streeting, like him or not, doesn't fit the bill.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
A Supreme Court judgment for the Scottish criminal bar, including DavidL to ponder. I am sure he already is. I would be interested to know what he thinks!
I am still on holiday but I spent most of yesterday morning reading and thinking about this. I have a lot of thoughts but they are probably not for a public forum.
I will indulge myself with one. Things have come to a pretty pass when it takes Lord Reed in the Supreme Court to point out that the fact that a couple had consensual sex in the morning is relevant (and admissible) to whether one of them was raped by the other the night before.
We had some chat on here yesterday about why our judges are respected. This judgment is long, very long, but there is the same clarity of thought and reasoning in it that we saw in the trans case. Lord Reed is about to retire. His ability to explain complicated things reasonably, clearly and straightforwardly will be sadly missed.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
For balance, and from a tax perspective, the UK's deficit is only about 5% of GDP. Our tax burden is 38%, so clearing the deficit would require an increase to about 42% - still significantly lower than France, Denmark, Austria, Italy, Sweden etc etc.
It's not an insurmountable problem at all - and clearing it to 0% isn't necessary anyway. I'd match Germany at about 3% and and a tax burden of 40%.
WRT to two child cap, I have no views about the generality of how the state should help fund families with children - there are lots of possible approaches.
But it seems to me, middle class but living for decades in a WWC factory and agriculture based community, there is something just repugnant about saying to a particular group - mostly SFAICS not well off - that there will be a particular targeted financial discrimination against you and your children.
Without wanting to be sentimental, children are just too precious to play fiscal politics with. There may be a few people who want to have 17 children in order to pay their drink and drugs bills but that is not a good reason for discriminating against ordinary people with ordinary wishes about families while increasing child poverty.
The court of appeal ruled on Tuesday that Northamptonshire police were in contempt and had been “willfully disobedient” for repeatedly failing to obey rulings to hand over video to a woman who complained she had been wrongly arrested by three officers.
Nadine Buzzard-Quashie was arrested by Northamptonshire police in September 2021, triggering a four-year saga.
…
The judgment said: “Her account of her arrest … was that she was physically assaulted by the officers who arrested her, she was physically thrown to the ground and had her face pushed into stinging nettles.”
She wanted video footage of her arrest, including from police body-worn cameras, which the force did not provide.
She complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office which made an order that all video should be handed over, which the force ignored, then a county court judge made another order, which the force failed to obey again.
The force told courts it did not have any more video to hand over, then reversed its position at a hearing in October. The court of appeal judgment said: “This means that all the statements made to the court on behalf of the police force prior to mid-October 2025 were false.”
On Tuesday three appeal court judges issued a blistering and unanimous ruling.
Lady Justice Asplin, Lord Justice Coulson, and Lord Justice Fraser said “misleading and untrue statements … have been made to the court on behalf of the chief constable, both to the county court … and also to the court of appeal in relation to the application for permission to appeal and the appeal itself. To list every single statement made on behalf of the chief constable that has proved to be inaccurate over this lengthy period would lengthen this judgment considerably.”
I am shocked by this, I am sure Cyclefree will be too when she reads this story.
It’s pretty unusual for the CC to be found guilty of contempt, no?
Presumably the man himself is now going to have to show up at the court of appeal, to explain his force’s behaviour in the case?
My friend’s sister is suing GMP over an unreasonable strip search and other issues, guess what, all the video footage from the officers at the arrest and at the police station was either not working or deleted.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
Except if you reduce peoples salaries you also reduce the amount of tax they pay to the government which means an increase in the deficit...
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
This lot are just as egregious as the Tories were. The Tories got beasted by the voters for it.
Labour appear to have looked across the Dispatch Box for 14 years - and learned nothing. Their current polling flatters them.
Genuine question - is constant stream of minor scandals just a function of Labour actually having standards, opening themselves up for investigation? And therefore providing lots of material for the press?
I think you'd be forgiven for assuming that this stuff was going on to at least the same extent under the Conservatives, just that they were better a suppressing/ignoring it.
An astute post. It's just too easy to put politicians into impossible positions.
Interviewer. Would you like to be Prime Minister?
Wes; I've got a big enough job as it is.
Interviewer; Didn't you say in 2022 you'd like to be Prime Minister?
Wes; I'm very happy as I am at the moment
Interviwer; So you don't have any ambition to be Prime Minister and if asked you wouldn't put yourself forward?
............It's impossible.. I think Labour politicians have comported themselves pretty well considering they are functioning in a such a hostile space with an unprecedented number of right wing media oitlets out to get them
Labour are experiencing the same 'hostility' as the conservatives under Johnson and Truss, not least because they are inept with a leader and COE at Truss levels and are spinnng out of control with no idea of how to address the country's problems other than spend and tax
Has there ever been an example before this week that a Downing Street comms team was so bad that they briefed against their own Prime Minister leading to his defenestration when defenestration wasn't even in the tea leaves before they intervened?
Politicians of all parties need to recognise that they are being “advised “ by people who have no experience of the real world, just university and SPAD jobs. The politicians themselves, of course are tending more and more to come from that same background. We need politicians to have spent at least 5 years working in industry, commerce, or for other human beings. Then they may understand their voters’ problems better.
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
I am not in the BMA, and don't support this strike. I don't think that there will be a big walkout as the enthusiasm seems to have faded.
Streeting is generally failing because of his arrogance. He doesn't listen to people and is convinced of his own brilliance.
Probably better than Starmer, but could well prove to be a Truss like figure. Tories love Thatcher cosplay in leadership contenders, Labour loves Blair cosplay, but both need to realise that times have changed. Theres no "putting the band back together".
But what's the alternative? Either Labour finds a leader in a relatively short time or the civilised vote fractures and Farage wins with maybe 25% of the vote
I think Labour needs a new Leader, just not Streeting.
Losing Rayner was a big blow to Labour. They need her back, and Louise Haigh.
Rayner was as useless as the rest of them in terms of delivery. She was supposed to get us building again, remember.
Months back I identified Streeting as Labour's Liz Truss...
Labour's Truss would be if SKS goes and the members pick somebody from the ideological Left who makes them feel good but is clueless and incompetent. Streeting, like him or not, doesn't fit the bill.
There's always Ed Milliband...
Now you're talking. If the goal is apoplexy at the TeleMail - and there are worse goals let's face it - that's the way to go. After all these years, fully a decade after we missed the chance, we can finally have "chaos with Ed Miliband".
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
I suspect the basic economics argument against this (ignoring the politics for a moment) is that there is a high chance of the move resulting in economic depression, in which people retrench, placing large chunks of the economy on hold in a sock under the bed, massively reducing discretionary spending, with a cycle of lower tax take from NIC, IT (these two are built into the scheme) and VAT, and thus fail to balance the books. This is then reinforced as prices keep being lowered to attract custom, which custom responds to by deferring expenditure in the expectation of lower prices still.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
I am not in the BMA, and don't support this strike. I don't think that there will be a big walkout as the enthusiasm seems to have faded.
Streeting is generally failing because of his arrogance. He doesn't listen to people and is convinced of his own brilliance.
Probably better than Starmer, but could well prove to be a Truss like figure. Tories love Thatcher cosplay in leadership contenders, Labour loves Blair cosplay, but both need to realise that times have changed. Theres no "putting the band back together".
But what's the alternative? Either Labour finds a leader in a relatively short time or the civilised vote fractures and Farage wins with maybe 25% of the vote
I think Labour needs a new Leader, just not Streeting.
Losing Rayner was a big blow to Labour. They need her back, and Louise Haigh.
Rayner was as useless as the rest of them in terms of delivery. She was supposed to get us building again, remember.
And limited in comms/messaging to core Labour/ex Labour voters. Didn't cut through with floating centrists at all.
So she was well suited as Deputy PM or a party chair type cheerleader role, but not the top job.
A Supreme Court judgment for the Scottish criminal bar, including DavidL to ponder. I am sure he already is. I would be interested to know what he thinks!
I am still on holiday but I spent most of yesterday morning reading and thinking about this. I have a lot of thoughts but they are probably not for a public forum.
I will indulge myself with one. Things have come to a pretty pass when it takes Lord Reed in the Supreme Court to point out that the fact that a couple had consensual sex in the morning is relevant (and admissible) to whether one of them was raped by the other the night before.
We had some chat on here yesterday about why our judges are respected. This judgment is long, very long, but there is the same clarity of thought and reasoning in it that we saw in the trans case. Lord Reed is about to retire. His ability to explain complicated things reasonably, clearly and straightforwardly will be sadly missed.
Thanks. I think the SC involving itself with Scottish criminal law is a fairly rare thing. I hope they got it right.
Has there ever been an example before this week that a Downing Street comms team was so bad that they briefed against their own Prime Minister leading to his defenestration when defenestration wasn't even in the tea leaves before they intervened?
Shall we see if it does actually lead to his defenestration before judging that question?
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
As I have stated on many occasions any such UK FATCA should allow expats to offset the local taxes they pay against their UK tax obligation.
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
Sandpit's idea of 10% makes more sense - after all they're not going to be using services while ex pat - and has the benefit of being far more likely to be paid.
WRT to two child cap, I have no views about the generality of how the state should help fund families with children - there are lots of possible approaches.
But it seems to me, middle class but living for decades in a WWC factory and agriculture based community, there is something just repugnant about saying to a particular group - mostly SFAICS not well off - that there will be a particular targeted financial discrimination against you and your children.
Without wanting to be sentimental, children are just too precious to play fiscal politics with. There may be a few people who want to have 17 children in order to pay their drink and drugs bills but that is not a good reason for discriminating against ordinary people with ordinary wishes about families while increasing child poverty.
A relatively straightforward reform would be to increase it to a 3 child cap.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
As I have stated on many occasions any such UK FATCA should allow expats to offset the local taxes they pay against their UK tax obligation.
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
Sandpit's idea of 10% makes more sense - after all they're not going to be using services while ex pat - and has the benefit of being far more likely to be paid.
I think even 5% would be fine, the concept of making some contribution, in exchange for maintaining your privileges, is the key for me.
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
I am not in the BMA, and don't support this strike. I don't think that there will be a big walkout as the enthusiasm seems to have faded.
Streeting is generally failing because of his arrogance. He doesn't listen to people and is convinced of his own brilliance.
Probably better than Starmer, but could well prove to be a Truss like figure. Tories love Thatcher cosplay in leadership contenders, Labour loves Blair cosplay, but both need to realise that times have changed. Theres no "putting the band back together".
But what's the alternative? Either Labour finds a leader in a relatively short time or the civilised vote fractures and Farage wins with maybe 25% of the vote
I think Labour needs a new Leader, just not Streeting.
Losing Rayner was a big blow to Labour. They need her back, and Louise Haigh.
Rayner was as useless as the rest of them in terms of delivery. She was supposed to get us building again, remember.
And limited in comms/messaging to core Labour/ex Labour voters. Didn't cut through with floating centrists at all.
So she was well suited as Deputy PM or a party chair type cheerleader role, but not the top job.
PM Rayner is as ludicrous an idea as PM Prescott would have been
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
As I have stated on many occasions any such UK FATCA should allow expats to offset the local taxes they pay against their UK tax obligation.
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
Sandpit's idea of 10% makes more sense - after all they're not going to be using services while ex pat - and has the benefit of being far more likely to be paid.
Tie it to passport and drivers license renewal. Do that for student loans as well.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
As I have stated on many occasions any such UK FATCA should allow expats to offset the local taxes they pay against their UK tax obligation.
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
Sandpit's idea of 10% makes more sense - after all they're not going to be using services while ex pat - and has the benefit of being far more likely to be paid.
Tie it to passport and drivers license renewal. Do that for student loans as well.
The amount of non-payment of student loans from people moving abroad has long needed tackling.
A Supreme Court judgment for the Scottish criminal bar, including DavidL to ponder. I am sure he already is. I would be interested to know what he thinks!
I am still on holiday but I spent most of yesterday morning reading and thinking about this. I have a lot of thoughts but they are probably not for a public forum.
I will indulge myself with one. Things have come to a pretty pass when it takes Lord Reed in the Supreme Court to point out that the fact that a couple had consensual sex in the morning is relevant (and admissible) to whether one of them was raped by the other the night before.
We had some chat on here yesterday about why our judges are respected. This judgment is long, very long, but there is the same clarity of thought and reasoning in it that we saw in the trans case. Lord Reed is about to retire. His ability to explain complicated things reasonably, clearly and straightforwardly will be sadly missed.
Thanks. I think the SC involving itself with Scottish criminal law is a fairly rare thing. I hope they got it right.
The SC only has jurisdiction in relation to criminal matters where it involves a breach for the HRA. The question they had to ask themselves in this case was not whether they agreed or disagreed with the positions taken by domestic courts but whether or not this prevented the accused having a fair trial in terms of Article 6 of ECHR. They concluded that in the 2 appeals before them it did not but they then observed that several recent decisions might have that effect in other circumstances. It is going to take time for the implications of that to work its way through. Interesting times.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
As I have stated on many occasions any such UK FATCA should allow expats to offset the local taxes they pay against their UK tax obligation.
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
Sandpit's idea of 10% makes more sense - after all they're not going to be using services while ex pat - and has the benefit of being far more likely to be paid.
Are expats in Dubai required to take out health insurance?
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
It is.
But as everyone else has pointed out, the UK has minimal ability to do anything about that in isolation. Which is pretty well our current international situation.
An HMO - Reform Councillor controversy in Oldham. A nuanced one with more than one angle, and for me it has some shades of Lee Anderson's fake "Migrant Hotel" from 2024 that was actually NHS Nurses on holiday together.
Cooke, who was crowned world freestyle football champion in 2017, has built up a property empire, including dozens of HMOs across the country. She claims that many of her HMOs provide shelter for women escaping domestic violence and sexual abuse.
However, one of her HMO properties in Oldham has recently been targeted by vandals. The front door and window of the property have twice been defaced with the words 'No HMO' scrawled in grey paint. ... Over the past two years, the businesswoman says she has provided accommodation for nearly a thousand 'vulnerable women' in her HMOs.
She said: "We had vulnerable people ready to move in, women who needed to escape dangerous situations .. The first incident was reported on September 4, about a week before Reform UK councillor for Oldham, Lewis Quigg, made a post about the property on Facebook.
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
I am not in the BMA, and don't support this strike. I don't think that there will be a big walkout as the enthusiasm seems to have faded.
Streeting is generally failing because of his arrogance. He doesn't listen to people and is convinced of his own brilliance.
Probably better than Starmer, but could well prove to be a Truss like figure. Tories love Thatcher cosplay in leadership contenders, Labour loves Blair cosplay, but both need to realise that times have changed. Theres no "putting the band back together".
But what's the alternative? Either Labour finds a leader in a relatively short time or the civilised vote fractures and Farage wins with maybe 25% of the vote
I think Labour needs a new Leader, just not Streeting.
Losing Rayner was a big blow to Labour. They need her back, and Louise Haigh.
Rayner was as useless as the rest of them in terms of delivery. She was supposed to get us building again, remember.
And limited in comms/messaging to core Labour/ex Labour voters. Didn't cut through with floating centrists at all.
So she was well suited as Deputy PM or a party chair type cheerleader role, but not the top job.
PM Rayner is as ludicrous an idea as PM Prescott would have been
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
The challenge with the "Musk just got $1tn that would pay for x" is that he hasn't just been given $1tn. The deal - and I think its absurd - gives him $1tn in options in 10 years if the company achieves multiple laughably large targets. In which case his trillion is dwarfed by the revenue generated and I assume the share price.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
As I have stated on many occasions any such UK FATCA should allow expats to offset the local taxes they pay against their UK tax obligation.
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
Sandpit's idea of 10% makes more sense - after all they're not going to be using services while ex pat - and has the benefit of being far more likely to be paid.
How is it not going to be paid? This is tax we are talking about, failure to pay can result in fines, seized assets and or a prison sentence. So if you don't pay you risk having assets seized, prison upon your return to the UK, extradition in some instances, or perpetual exile.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
As I have stated on many occasions any such UK FATCA should allow expats to offset the local taxes they pay against their UK tax obligation.
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
Sandpit's idea of 10% makes more sense - after all they're not going to be using services while ex pat - and has the benefit of being far more likely to be paid.
Tie it to passport and drivers license renewal. Do that for student loans as well.
Student loans is a big driver of people leaving temporarily. If you live abroad for a few years, avoiding student loans and paying little tax, you can save a hefty house deposit that simply wouldn’t be possible otherwise
You can also spend it on fancy brunches in five-star hotels, partying non-stop every weekend, and save nothing, which also happens quite a bit!
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
I am not in the BMA, and don't support this strike. I don't think that there will be a big walkout as the enthusiasm seems to have faded.
Streeting is generally failing because of his arrogance. He doesn't listen to people and is convinced of his own brilliance.
Probably better than Starmer, but could well prove to be a Truss like figure. Tories love Thatcher cosplay in leadership contenders, Labour loves Blair cosplay, but both need to realise that times have changed. Theres no "putting the band back together".
But what's the alternative? Either Labour finds a leader in a relatively short time or the civilised vote fractures and Farage wins with maybe 25% of the vote
I think Labour needs a new Leader, just not Streeting.
Losing Rayner was a big blow to Labour. They need her back, and Louise Haigh.
Rayner was as useless as the rest of them in terms of delivery. She was supposed to get us building again, remember.
And limited in comms/messaging to core Labour/ex Labour voters. Didn't cut through with floating centrists at all.
So she was well suited as Deputy PM or a party chair type cheerleader role, but not the top job.
PM Rayner is as ludicrous an idea as PM Prescott would have been
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Are you listening, Kemi? Mel?
9) always gets turned into a childish fight between “Bonfire of regulations” vs “You want Grenfell to happen again”
The truth is that the current system doesn’t work. Grenfell would have had the extra paperwork added and would still have burned. We have new built blocks of flats being demolished before occupation - massive remedial works being required is not uncommon.
What we need is results based regulation. What do we want? Ask for that in the regulations. More importantly, we need an emphasis on enforcement and physical checks.
For example - a friend was on the board for his block. When the block was discovered to be structurally deficient, he further discovered that no concrete tests were done. This is a 19th test - you pour a sample in a box, set it at a specified temperature and then test it mechanically.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
It is.
But as everyone else has pointed out, the UK has minimal ability to do anything about that in isolation. Which is pretty well our current international situation.
Maybe we could club together with our nearest neighbours to allow coordinated action. Sort of like a union of different countries working together. I think if we could out something with countries like Germany, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Italy, we'd be able to do quite a lot together.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
As I have stated on many occasions any such UK FATCA should allow expats to offset the local taxes they pay against their UK tax obligation.
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
Sandpit's idea of 10% makes more sense - after all they're not going to be using services while ex pat - and has the benefit of being far more likely to be paid.
Are expats in Dubai required to take out health insurance?
Employers are required to provide it to expats. It’s a similar system to the US, but without all the fcukery that goes on there. Mine costs around £350/month for a pretty good international package. It would even cover me for private in the UK.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
There is a problem with your plan: economic output contracts hugely and with it tax receipts.
We need more money to circulate. A few people are doing very well, the majority are struggling, a minority are really struggling. Your decimation of budgets and salaries mostly affects the people at the bottom who thus have even less to spend and contracting the economy further.
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
It is.
But as everyone else has pointed out, the UK has minimal ability to do anything about that in isolation. Which is pretty well our current international situation.
I don't accept we have minimal ability (unless you are referring to the govt and the various oppositions of course). We can't fully solve things but we can make change both locally and with a view to kick starting broader international changes.
Yes we may lose some of the very wealthy, but the UK would remain an extremely attractive place for the global elite regardless of a little more tax. This will be especially so with the US becoming ever more "complicated".
After this on the doctors strike I think he deserves to be favourite. Hard hitting but fair. In fact excellent in every way (its about half way down the page)
I am not in the BMA, and don't support this strike. I don't think that there will be a big walkout as the enthusiasm seems to have faded.
Streeting is generally failing because of his arrogance. He doesn't listen to people and is convinced of his own brilliance.
Probably better than Starmer, but could well prove to be a Truss like figure. Tories love Thatcher cosplay in leadership contenders, Labour loves Blair cosplay, but both need to realise that times have changed. Theres no "putting the band back together".
But what's the alternative? Either Labour finds a leader in a relatively short time or the civilised vote fractures and Farage wins with maybe 25% of the vote
I think Labour needs a new Leader, just not Streeting.
Losing Rayner was a big blow to Labour. They need her back, and Louise Haigh.
Rayner was as useless as the rest of them in terms of delivery. She was supposed to get us building again, remember.
And limited in comms/messaging to core Labour/ex Labour voters. Didn't cut through with floating centrists at all.
So she was well suited as Deputy PM or a party chair type cheerleader role, but not the top job.
PM Rayner is as ludicrous an idea as PM Prescott would have been
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
There is a problem with your plan: economic output contracts hugely and with it tax receipts.
We need more money to circulate. A few people are doing very well, the majority are struggling, a minority are really struggling. Your decimation of budgets and salaries mostly affects the people at the bottom who thus have even less to spend and contracting the economy further.
Morning, P.B.
Yes, see Cameron and Osborne's unbalanced cuts of 2010-2014, until they realised that they were brewing up a not only social but also economic disaster, and then subsequently changed course again. But by then some of the seeds of Brexit were already planted.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
It is.
But as everyone else has pointed out, the UK has minimal ability to do anything about that in isolation. Which is pretty well our current international situation.
Maybe we could club together with our nearest neighbours to allow coordinated action. Sort of like a union of different countries working together. I think if we could out something with countries like Germany, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Italy, we'd be able to do quite a lot together.
Indeed. Note also the number of economists opining this morning that Brexit continues to depress our economy.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Are you listening, Kemi? Mel?
9) always gets turned into a childish fight between “Bonfire of regulations” vs “You want Grenfell to happen again”
The truth is that the current system doesn’t work. Grenfell would have had the extra paperwork added and would still have burned. We have new built blocks of flats being demolished before occupation - massive remedial works being required is not uncommon.
What we need is results based regulation. What do we want? Ask for that in the regulations. More importantly, we need an emphasis on enforcement and physical checks.
For example - a friend was on the board for his block. When the block was discovered to be structurally deficient, he further discovered that no concrete tests were done. This is a 19th test - you pour a sample in a box, set it at a specified temperature and then test it mechanically.
Grenfell shows two things: a lack of regulations and companies / councils not giving a rat fuck if it is safe.
We can regulate all we like, but if there are amoral people in charge then we have a problem. The profit motive is a good one, but it can't be profit today don't worry about tomorrow. Same with councils where the rules demand a balanced budget today even if that costs more tomorrow, and nobody has really cared about people for decades...
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Re your No. 7, even the US allows their nationals to factor in what they are paying in taxes in the country they are living in so there are allowances and credits and there are double taxation agreements.
What, in your opinion is “their appropriate share of taxes”?
Are you suggesting that the UK would just tax people at the UK rate wherever they are living and paying tax? Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use just because the UK can’t manage its spending properly?
So if they do introduce taxation on UK citizens abroad it’s not remotely going to raise the sort of sums you think.
As I have stated on many occasions any such UK FATCA should allow expats to offset the local taxes they pay against their UK tax obligation.
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
Sandpit's idea of 10% makes more sense - after all they're not going to be using services while ex pat - and has the benefit of being far more likely to be paid.
How is it not going to be paid? This is tax we are talking about, failure to pay can result in fines, seized assets and or a prison sentence. So if you don't pay you risk having assets seized, prison upon your return to the UK, extradition in some instances, or perpetual exile.
The court of appeal ruled on Tuesday that Northamptonshire police were in contempt and had been “willfully disobedient” for repeatedly failing to obey rulings to hand over video to a woman who complained she had been wrongly arrested by three officers.
Nadine Buzzard-Quashie was arrested by Northamptonshire police in September 2021, triggering a four-year saga.
…
The judgment said: “Her account of her arrest … was that she was physically assaulted by the officers who arrested her, she was physically thrown to the ground and had her face pushed into stinging nettles.”
She wanted video footage of her arrest, including from police body-worn cameras, which the force did not provide.
She complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office which made an order that all video should be handed over, which the force ignored, then a county court judge made another order, which the force failed to obey again.
The force told courts it did not have any more video to hand over, then reversed its position at a hearing in October. The court of appeal judgment said: “This means that all the statements made to the court on behalf of the police force prior to mid-October 2025 were false.”
On Tuesday three appeal court judges issued a blistering and unanimous ruling.
Lady Justice Asplin, Lord Justice Coulson, and Lord Justice Fraser said “misleading and untrue statements … have been made to the court on behalf of the chief constable, both to the county court … and also to the court of appeal in relation to the application for permission to appeal and the appeal itself. To list every single statement made on behalf of the chief constable that has proved to be inaccurate over this lengthy period would lengthen this judgment considerably.”
I am shocked by this, I am sure Cyclefree will be too when she reads this story.
The police have a long history of refusing to destroy such material, even after multiple court cases.
There was a big one, a while back, where they refused to destroy DNA samples from innocent people.
The courts told them to do it. The police refused. Not appeal, but outright refused.
Trump declaring "MAGA is what I say it is" has not gone down well.
Was he always this bad and we just didn't see it? I mean I knew he wasn't going to be as conservative as I would like but I never imagined he would be ANTI AMERICAN like this. .. https://x.com/ConservativeG99/status/1988539668145848442
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
The challenge with the "Musk just got $1tn that would pay for x" is that he hasn't just been given $1tn. The deal - and I think its absurd - gives him $1tn in options in 10 years if the company achieves multiple laughably large targets. In which case his trillion is dwarfed by the revenue generated and I assume the share price.
Yes I realise. But it is still absurd. In the old days if you wanted to take a 25% share of the companies growth, you would own 25% of the companies shares. Now you sell your shares to middle men holding money on behalf of retail clients, then still demand that you get your 25% of future growth. It is cakeism for Musk, commission for the middle men and a long con on the retail investors.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
For balance, and from a tax perspective, the UK's deficit is only about 5% of GDP. Our tax burden is 38%, so clearing the deficit would require an increase to about 42% - still significantly lower than France, Denmark, Austria, Italy, Sweden etc etc.
It's not an insurmountable problem at all - and clearing it to 0% isn't necessary anyway. I'd match Germany at about 3% and and a tax burden of 40%.
To put it into perspective the USA is forecasting a budget deficit of $1.74 trillion this year. October was $219 billion deficit. I note that the PB Trumpists seem to think this fine and a formula for growth, while Reeves deficit is a massive drag on the economy. I calculate that US deficit to be roughly equivalent to £260 billion for the UK adjusting for population. Just short of $1 trillion of that deficit is interest on $36 trillion in US national debt.
Deficit spending pumps money into the economy, a sort of temporary sugar rush of growth, which is very much Trump's objective. He doesn't care about the long term. The corollory of this is that fixing the deficit by either tax increases or spending cuts does hit growth in the short term. I would argue that it is the foundation for a sound economy in the long term, but its a hard political sell with an election 42 months away.
From the narrow political perspective the government should keep a substantial deficit, keep the plates spinning, and scorch the earth for the next government, just as it was done to them by Hunt and Sunak.
Several videos online of plastic patriots in Worcester putting up Temu flags with cable ties on lampposts. Abusive to old guy whose land is millimetres from one lamppost. And patronising to a woman.
Entertainingly the plastic patriot starts talking about how taking their flag down would be "theft". No luv, you're putting it up illegally. Taking it down is not "theft".
And of course the patriot is cable tying the flag to the lamppost upside down. Because of course he is.
Flags up in Derbyshire notably in Lee Anderson's constituency but in Amber Valley too and said flags soon looking bedraggled with a drop or two of rain. Far more impressive were the poppies on lamp posts in Belper, Matlock and other towns.
You talk to the locals and many of them are clearly worried about "the migrants" yet where they are they never see one. They ought to try a few days in East Ham if they want to see a more cosmopolitan Britain.
Lee Anderson's constituency is not in Derbyshire .
Though there are certainly flags here- looking bedraggled, as I have pointed out. Have you just misjudged where the border is? IMO most of them are drive-bys.
Matlock is perhaps to Bolsover/Ripley as Southwell is to Ashfield. I would say Newark, but on xenophobia there is the Jenrick factor.
Out of interest, which communities were the flags in?
We don't seem to have the local hardcore activists afaics, though there are pockets and clubs. But the Extreme Right political tradition here is perhaps harder edged on the Derbyshire side - eg Heanor had an association with the band Skrewdriver , and Old Denby has been known to host BNP national jamborees.
Trump declaring "MAGA is what I say it is" has not gone down well.
Was he always this bad and we just didn't see it? I mean I knew he wasn't going to be as conservative as I would like but I never imagined he would be ANTI AMERICAN like this. .. https://x.com/ConservativeG99/status/1988539668145848442
Trump actually pretty sane and sensible there re the South Korean workers arrested.
The court of appeal ruled on Tuesday that Northamptonshire police were in contempt and had been “willfully disobedient” for repeatedly failing to obey rulings to hand over video to a woman who complained she had been wrongly arrested by three officers.
Nadine Buzzard-Quashie was arrested by Northamptonshire police in September 2021, triggering a four-year saga.
…
The judgment said: “Her account of her arrest … was that she was physically assaulted by the officers who arrested her, she was physically thrown to the ground and had her face pushed into stinging nettles.”
She wanted video footage of her arrest, including from police body-worn cameras, which the force did not provide.
She complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office which made an order that all video should be handed over, which the force ignored, then a county court judge made another order, which the force failed to obey again.
The force told courts it did not have any more video to hand over, then reversed its position at a hearing in October. The court of appeal judgment said: “This means that all the statements made to the court on behalf of the police force prior to mid-October 2025 were false.”
On Tuesday three appeal court judges issued a blistering and unanimous ruling.
Lady Justice Asplin, Lord Justice Coulson, and Lord Justice Fraser said “misleading and untrue statements … have been made to the court on behalf of the chief constable, both to the county court … and also to the court of appeal in relation to the application for permission to appeal and the appeal itself. To list every single statement made on behalf of the chief constable that has proved to be inaccurate over this lengthy period would lengthen this judgment considerably.”
I am shocked by this, I am sure Cyclefree will be too when she reads this story.
It’s pretty unusual for the CC to be found guilty of contempt, no?
Presumably the man himself is now going to have to show up at the court of appeal, to explain his force’s behaviour in the case?
My friend’s sister is suing GMP over an unreasonable strip search and other issues, guess what, all the video footage from the officers at the arrest and at the police station was either not working or deleted.
What were the odds?
When they shot DeMendes, the CCTV for the specific area of the incident was broken. All the rest was fine.
I have the charge list, I think
1) Loitering with intent to use a pedestrian crossing. 2) Smelling of foreign food 3) Urinating in a public convenience 4) Coughing without due care and attention 5) Looking at me in a funny way 6) Walking on the cracks in the pavement 7) Walking in a loud shirt in a built-up area, during the hours of darkness 8) Walking around with an offensive husband
"Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia remained open to a political and diplomatic settlement, but in the meantime would continue its war against Ukraine.
“ …the Ukrainian side should know that sooner or later it will have to negotiate, but from a much worse position. The position of the Kyiv regime will deteriorate day by day,” he said."
DAYS SINCE A RUSSIAN REFINERY DIDN'T BURN DOWN - 0
The "much worse position" is that of the Russians, Dmitry. How much worse has it got in the last 90 days? Very much.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
The challenge with the "Musk just got $1tn that would pay for x" is that he hasn't just been given $1tn. The deal - and I think its absurd - gives him $1tn in options in 10 years if the company achieves multiple laughably large targets. In which case his trillion is dwarfed by the revenue generated and I assume the share price.
Yes I realise. But it is still absurd. In the old days if you wanted to take a 25% share of the companies growth, you would own 25% of the companies shares. Now you sell your shares to middle men holding money on behalf of retail clients, then still demand that you get your 25% of future growth. It is cakeism for Musk, commission for the middle men and a long con on the retail investors.
Only if you can sufficiently convince the shareholders that you're absolutely essential to the company's prospects.
And it's not exactly a typical case; Tesla's capitalisation is required to reach $8.5 trillion for the payout, so it's 15, not 25%; the chances of his succeeding in this are fairly slim anyway.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
It is.
But as everyone else has pointed out, the UK has minimal ability to do anything about that in isolation. Which is pretty well our current international situation.
Maybe we could club together with our nearest neighbours to allow coordinated action. Sort of like a union of different countries working together. I think if we could out something with countries like Germany, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Italy, we'd be able to do quite a lot together.
The future implications with regard to the ability of countries to work together to solve global issues were, for me, the worst aspect of Brexit. At a stoke, Brexit and its ramifications made it substantially less likely that mankind would be capable of effectively mitigating climate change.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
It is.
But as everyone else has pointed out, the UK has minimal ability to do anything about that in isolation. Which is pretty well our current international situation.
Maybe we could club together with our nearest neighbours to allow coordinated action. Sort of like a union of different countries working together. I think if we could out something with countries like Germany, France, the Netherlands, Poland and Italy, we'd be able to do quite a lot together.
The future implications with regard to the ability of countries to work together to solve global issues were, for me, the worst aspect of Brexit. At a stoke, Brexit and its ramifications made it substantially less likely that mankind would be capable of effectively mitigating climate change.
Brexit is the rounding error on the rounding error compared to Trump's impact on working together on climate change.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap 2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers 3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations 4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in) 5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country 6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change 7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere 8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures 9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving 10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England 11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export
Blimey, I agree with most of that!
Except:
7) I would have some sort way of increasing taxes on the wealthy, maybe through land or property tax. Let's also make sure UK citizens pay their appropriate share of taxes wherever they live. Sure, if they love their country so much less than money, they can give up their UK citizenship.
8) Roll NI into ICT to increase the tax take there rather than just up ICT. Or up ICT and reduce NI as has been mooted.
I'd also add:
12) Tighten the criteria for PIP, especially around mental health (as opposed to mental disabilities like learning difficulties) - use some of the money saved to invest in mental health care services.
The rest is spot on imo.
Are you listening, Kemi? Mel?
9) always gets turned into a childish fight between “Bonfire of regulations” vs “You want Grenfell to happen again”
The truth is that the current system doesn’t work. Grenfell would have had the extra paperwork added and would still have burned. We have new built blocks of flats being demolished before occupation - massive remedial works being required is not uncommon.
What we need is results based regulation. What do we want? Ask for that in the regulations. More importantly, we need an emphasis on enforcement and physical checks.
For example - a friend was on the board for his block. When the block was discovered to be structurally deficient, he further discovered that no concrete tests were done. This is a 19th test - you pour a sample in a box, set it at a specified temperature and then test it mechanically.
Grenfell shows two things: a lack of regulations and companies / councils not giving a rat fuck if it is safe.
We can regulate all we like, but if there are amoral people in charge then we have a problem. The profit motive is a good one, but it can't be profit today don't worry about tomorrow. Same with councils where the rules demand a balanced budget today even if that costs more tomorrow, and nobody has really cared about people for decades...
In God We Trust. All Others Bring Evidence.
The Victorians worked that out. See the invention of building inspectors, pubic health inspectors etc etc.
What happens is that bad drives out the good. Especially with the high cost of meeting regulations. Those who cheat can make a profit. Those who don't, often can't.
So builders employing illegal staff, cutting corners, poor materials, skimping on foundations etc etc "win" over the honest ones.
Years back, under Blair, my relative in construction went as far as talking to people in government. Areas of London were impossible to run a legit building business in, because of the cash-in-hand crooks. The official word was - "It's good for the economy".
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
For balance, and from a tax perspective, the UK's deficit is only about 5% of GDP. Our tax burden is 38%, so clearing the deficit would require an increase to about 42% - still significantly lower than France, Denmark, Austria, Italy, Sweden etc etc.
It's not an insurmountable problem at all - and clearing it to 0% isn't necessary anyway. I'd match Germany at about 3% and and a tax burden of 40%.
To put it into perspective the USA is forecasting a budget deficit of $1.74 trillion this year. October was $219 billion deficit. I note that the PB Trumpists seem to think this fine and a formula for growth, while Reeves deficit is a massive drag on the economy. I calculate that US deficit to be roughly equivalent to £260 billion for the UK adjusting for population. Just short of $1 trillion of that deficit is interest on $36 trillion in US national debt.
Deficit spending pumps money into the economy, a sort of temporary sugar rush of growth, which is very much Trump's objective. He doesn't care about the long term. The corollory of this is that fixing the deficit by either tax increases or spending cuts does hit growth in the short term. I would argue that it is the foundation for a sound economy in the long term, but its a hard political sell with an election 42 months away.
From the narrow political perspective the government should keep a substantial deficit, keep the plates spinning, and scorch the earth for the next government, just as it was done to them by Hunt and Sunak.
It's a pattern established in US politics ever since Reagan. The GOP borrows massively, and waits until the Democrats are back in power before demanding fiscal rectitude.
Child Benefits should be linked to x number of years of previous full-time employment. Perhaps 5 to 10 years per child, split between both parents.
Child benefit is not a reward for parents, as you seem to envisage it. It is to stop children growing up in poverty.
Also most people including children wind up on benefits unintentionally, often because of life events like redundancy, sickness or family breakdown, and for a phase of life rather than permenantly. Benefits are generally a safety net, not a hammock.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
How about a 1% tax on the estimated £13tn wealth in this country. That comes to, oh, £130bn.
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
Funding target for all the worlds developing countries combined to cover climate change impacts: $1.3tn Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
It is.
But as everyone else has pointed out, the UK has minimal ability to do anything about that in isolation. Which is pretty well our current international situation.
I don't accept we have minimal ability (unless you are referring to the govt and the various oppositions of course). We can't fully solve things but we can make change both locally and with a view to kick starting broader international changes.
Yes we may lose some of the very wealthy, but the UK would remain an extremely attractive place for the global elite regardless of a little more tax. This will be especially so with the US becoming ever more "complicated".
If you're talking about the super rich, then yes we do have minimal ability to make much of a difference on our own.
There's still a very difficult economic picture and there's still an army of backbench Labour MPs who think their job is to fling money at people to make themselves feel better, rather than manage the public finances.
Still, the reputation of Sunak and Hunt is only improving each day this nonsense continues. We'll see (eventually) if Starmer and Reeves can get a grip.
My suspicion is it'll go something like this: taxes rise on the evil private sector, more money flung at the virtuous public sector, the economy is harmed so tax receipts don't match expectations, meaning more steps are needed at the next Budget which then harms the economy more, rinse and repeat.
Hopefully I'll be wrong.
What then (to use your terminology) is the alternative?
I presume you'd like to see taxes cut and spending cut - I suspect spending will be cut in the Budget but presumably you want to see some serious reductions? I presume it'll be the services people actually depend on which will bear the brunt rather than, let's say, defence which is sacrosanct.
Which services and whose benefits would you cut? Would you cut pensions (or just those in the public sector)?
As always, those advocating spending cuts are usually unaffected by any such cuts and it's not unreasonable of those who will be affected to ask why they should take the pain.
I've been thinking about this a bit recently.
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see. But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
For balance, and from a tax perspective, the UK's deficit is only about 5% of GDP. Our tax burden is 38%, so clearing the deficit would require an increase to about 42% - still significantly lower than France, Denmark, Austria, Italy, Sweden etc etc.
It's not an insurmountable problem at all - and clearing it to 0% isn't necessary anyway. I'd match Germany at about 3% and and a tax burden of 40%.
To put it into perspective the USA is forecasting a budget deficit of $1.74 trillion this year. October was $219 billion deficit. I note that the PB Trumpists seem to think this fine and a formula for growth, while Reeves deficit is a massive drag on the economy. I calculate that US deficit to be roughly equivalent to £260 billion for the UK adjusting for population. Just short of $1 trillion of that deficit is interest on $36 trillion in US national debt.
Deficit spending pumps money into the economy, a sort of temporary sugar rush of growth, which is very much Trump's objective. He doesn't care about the long term. The corollory of this is that fixing the deficit by either tax increases or spending cuts does hit growth in the short term. I would argue that it is the foundation for a sound economy in the long term, but its a hard political sell with an election 42 months away.
From the narrow political perspective the government should keep a substantial deficit, keep the plates spinning, and scorch the earth for the next government, just as it was done to them by Hunt and Sunak.
It's a pattern established in US politics ever since Reagan. The GOP borrows massively, and waits until the Democrats are back in power before demanding fiscal rectitude.
Comments
What were the odds?
You talk to the locals and many of them are clearly worried about "the migrants" yet where they are they never see one. They ought to try a few days in East Ham if they want to see a more cosmopolitan Britain.
Losing Rayner was a big blow to Labour. They need her back, and Louise Haigh.
If you work in a place where you pay broadly the same tax as the UK then you are not liable for further UK tax on those earnings. (the current double taxation taxation rules)
If you work somewhere where you pay more tax than the UK (as I did for 15 years in Norway) then unfortunately you just have to suck it up. You don't get a rebate in the UK on foreign tax paid.
But if you work somewhere where you pay less tax than in the UK then you are liable to pay the difference to the British exchequer.
That should be the price of retaining British citzenship.
Also we should pay the same overall tax (and NI) on all income irrespective of its source. What matters is how much you earn, not how you earned it. If I earn £1000 fro shares I should pay the same amount to the exchequer as I would if I earned £1000 from PAYE
And you'd have plenty of expats in despotic countries like Saudi who would retain UK citizenship because they need a country to flee to if things go south.
Either way it's good for the country's finances.
Anyhow, I am off to the park with my birthday boy…eight today, he’s actually a senior dog now, and catching up with me fast.
https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/suspects-have-rights-too?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=79530&post_id=178689785&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1mnpci&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2023_0107_0123_judgment_e1f6f46776.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Americans in the sandpit still regularly ask for bonuses to be paid in cash, to avoid Uncle Sam.
To be fair, if the UK introduced 10% above £100k to Brits living abroad, I wouldn’t object.
If it’s 20% above £10k and 40% above £50k though…
Something for Trump's cv, even Epstein thought Donald was the worst, 'not a decent cell in his body'.
https://x.com/ergoking/status/1988891868214513857?s=20
An 'appropriate share' is the same share they would be paying on their income, wealth and capital gains as they would be paying if they lived and worked in the UK.
"Why would people keep uk citizenship if they have to pay tax for services they do not remotely use..."? Well, if they love money so much more than their country, I'd say they can just f*ck-off to whatever other country they fancy / will have them. But... they should not expect to be able to own property in the UK without paying a surcharge for the privilege (that I would charge all foreign owners of UK property); and don't expect to come back here once they get too old, ill, lonely, etc. in whatever country they have fled to.
It may not raise that much, partly because it may discourage people from seeking to avoid tax by fleeing abroad, but fairness is very important. The country doesn't raise a vast amount of tax from me in the great scheme of things, but it's important don't you think that I pay the same taxes as you and everyone else?
Total managed expendature is currently ~£1250bn.
The deficit is ~£130bn. In round numbers, that's ~10%.
If you made me the CofE I think I would go for a big bang reset. 10% off everything. 10% reduction in wages for every single person who directly or indirectly works for the government. 10% cut to every kind of benefit including pensions. 10% cut to the health budget.
Oh, and 10% cut in the minimum wage too.
It would be a painful "rip the plaster off" solution. The unions would go nuts, the government would be shockingly unpopular, there would be court cases as far as the eye could see.
But - once the dust had settled, we'd have the books balanced, the bond markets would be out of the driving seat, once out of our current doom loop I suspect economic growth would bounce back surprisingly well. By cutting government wages, and benefits you take a lot of pressure off private sectors wages too. You'd knock the bubble out of the housing market, and you'd kill inflation stone dead.
If I did it on day 1 of a 5 year administration and held my nerve, I think by year 5 it would be starting to pay off, and I'd stand a better chance of re-election than Starmer, Reeves and co (who will still be stuck in their tax rasing, economy destroying doomloop if they somehow get that far).
Interviewer. Would you like to be Prime Minister?
Wes; I've got a big enough job as it is.
Interviewer; Didn't you say in 2022 you'd like to be Prime Minister?
Wes; I'm very happy as I am at the moment
Interviwer; So you don't have any ambition to be Prime Minister and if asked you wouldn't put yourself forward?
............It's impossible.. I think Labour politicians have comported themselves pretty well considering they are functioning in a such a hostile space with an unprecedented number of right wing media oitlets out to get them
Better still make it progressive. 1% on the first £500k, 1% on the next £1.5m, and whatever percent required to net £130bn on the wealth over £2m.
Alongside a commitment not to borrow.
Logic: we've not been paying our way for many years and we continue not to pay our way. Time for a reckoning.
I will indulge myself with one. Things have come to a pretty pass when it takes Lord Reed in the Supreme Court to point out that the fact that a couple had consensual sex in the morning is relevant (and admissible) to whether one of them was raped by the other the night before.
We had some chat on here yesterday about why our judges are respected. This judgment is long, very long, but there is the same clarity of thought and reasoning in it that we saw in the trans case. Lord Reed is about to retire. His ability to explain complicated things reasonably, clearly and straightforwardly will be sadly missed.
https://x.com/Elad_Si/status/1988331931990421608?s=20
It's not an insurmountable problem at all - and clearing it to 0% isn't necessary anyway. I'd match Germany at about 3% and and a tax burden of 40%.
But it seems to me, middle class but living for decades in a WWC factory and agriculture based community, there is something just repugnant about saying to a particular group - mostly SFAICS not well off - that there will be a particular targeted financial discrimination against you and your children.
Without wanting to be sentimental, children are just too precious to play fiscal politics with. There may be a few people who want to have 17 children in order to pay their drink and drugs bills but that is not a good reason for discriminating against ordinary people with ordinary wishes about families while increasing child poverty.
Economics is never that simple.
Elon Musk pay deal: $1tn
It is an absurdity that we are so timid in challenging the broligarchs and somehow think this is healthy. It is not typical of the capitalism we grew up with either. The disparity between CEO, middle managers and min wage workers is far bigger than it should be and than it used to be. When the market is inefficient as it is in exec pay, tax is a partial solution.
She was supposed to get us building again, remember.
https://x.com/SeminariumPeru/status/1988693257749200917?s=20
So she was well suited as Deputy PM or a party chair type cheerleader role, but not the top job.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/nov/13/volodymyr-zelenskyy-ukraine-russia-corruption-brussels-news-updates-europe-live
I wonder if Abramovich every paid what he said he would?
But as everyone else has pointed out, the UK has minimal ability to do anything about that in isolation.
Which is pretty well our current international situation.
An HMO - Reform Councillor controversy in Oldham. A nuanced one with more than one angle, and for me it has some shades of Lee Anderson's fake "Migrant Hotel" from 2024 that was actually NHS Nurses on holiday together.
Cooke, who was crowned world freestyle football champion in 2017, has built up a property empire, including dozens of HMOs across the country. She claims that many of her HMOs provide shelter for women escaping domestic violence and sexual abuse.
However, one of her HMO properties in Oldham has recently been targeted by vandals. The front door and window of the property have twice been defaced with the words 'No HMO' scrawled in grey paint.
...
Over the past two years, the businesswoman says she has provided accommodation for nearly a thousand 'vulnerable women' in her HMOs.
She said: "We had vulnerable people ready to move in, women who needed to escape dangerous situations
..
The first incident was reported on September 4, about a week before Reform UK councillor for Oldham, Lewis Quigg, made a post about the property on Facebook.
Further vandalism was spotted just over a month later when the house was again targeted and a van parked outside was also damaged.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/vandals-target-property-amid-owners-32857158.amp
You can also spend it on fancy brunches in five-star hotels, partying non-stop every weekend, and save nothing, which also happens quite a bit!
The truth is that the current system doesn’t work. Grenfell would have had the extra paperwork added and would still have burned. We have new built blocks of flats being demolished before occupation - massive remedial works being required is not uncommon.
What we need is results based regulation. What do we want? Ask for that in the regulations. More importantly, we need an emphasis on enforcement and physical checks.
For example - a friend was on the board for his block. When the block was discovered to be structurally deficient, he further discovered that no concrete tests were done. This is a 19th test - you pour a sample in a box, set it at a specified temperature and then test it mechanically.
We need more money to circulate. A few people are doing very well, the majority are struggling, a minority are really struggling. Your decimation of budgets and salaries mostly affects the people at the bottom who thus have even less to spend and contracting the economy further.
Alex Dugin?
Yes we may lose some of the very wealthy, but the UK would remain an extremely attractive place for the global elite regardless of a little more tax. This will be especially so with the US becoming ever more "complicated".
Yes, see Cameron and Osborne's unbalanced cuts of 2010-2014, until they realised that they were brewing up a not only social but also economic disaster, and then subsequently changed course again. But by then some of the seeds of Brexit were already planted.
Note also the number of economists opining this morning that Brexit continues to depress our economy.
We can regulate all we like, but if there are amoral people in charge then we have a problem. The profit motive is a good one, but it can't be profit today don't worry about tomorrow. Same with councils where the rules demand a balanced budget today even if that costs more tomorrow, and nobody has really cared about people for decades...
There was a big one, a while back, where they refused to destroy DNA samples from innocent people.
The courts told them to do it. The police refused. Not appeal, but outright refused.
Trump declaring "MAGA is what I say it is" has not gone down well.
Was he always this bad and we just didn't see it? I mean I knew he wasn't going to be as conservative as I would like but I never imagined he would be ANTI AMERICAN like this. ..
https://x.com/ConservativeG99/status/1988539668145848442
Deficit spending pumps money into the economy, a sort of temporary sugar rush of growth, which is very much Trump's objective. He doesn't care about the long term. The corollory of this is that fixing the deficit by either tax increases or spending cuts does hit growth in the short term. I would argue that it is the foundation for a sound economy in the long term, but its a hard political sell with an election 42 months away.
From the narrow political perspective the government should keep a substantial deficit, keep the plates spinning, and scorch the earth for the next government, just as it was done to them by Hunt and Sunak.
Though there are certainly flags here- looking bedraggled, as I have pointed out. Have you just misjudged where the border is? IMO most of them are drive-bys.
Matlock is perhaps to Bolsover/Ripley as Southwell is to Ashfield. I would say Newark, but on xenophobia there is the Jenrick factor.
Out of interest, which communities were the flags in?
We don't seem to have the local hardcore activists afaics, though there are pockets and clubs. But the Extreme Right political tradition here is perhaps harder edged on the Derbyshire side - eg Heanor had an association with the band Skrewdriver , and Old Denby has been known to host BNP national jamborees.
I have the charge list, I think
1) Loitering with intent to use a pedestrian crossing.
2) Smelling of foreign food
3) Urinating in a public convenience
4) Coughing without due care and attention
5) Looking at me in a funny way
6) Walking on the cracks in the pavement
7) Walking in a loud shirt in a built-up area, during the hours of darkness
8) Walking around with an offensive husband
“ …the Ukrainian side should know that sooner or later it will have to negotiate, but from a much worse position. The position of the Kyiv regime will deteriorate day by day,” he said."
DAYS SINCE A RUSSIAN REFINERY DIDN'T BURN DOWN - 0
The "much worse position" is that of the Russians, Dmitry. How much worse has it got in the last 90 days? Very much.
And it's not exactly a typical case; Tesla's capitalisation is required to reach $8.5 trillion for the payout, so it's 15, not 25%; the chances of his succeeding in this are fairly slim anyway.
(I do not own any Tesla shares.)
The Victorians worked that out. See the invention of building inspectors, pubic health inspectors etc etc.
What happens is that bad drives out the good. Especially with the high cost of meeting regulations. Those who cheat can make a profit. Those who don't, often can't.
So builders employing illegal staff, cutting corners, poor materials, skimping on foundations etc etc "win" over the honest ones.
Years back, under Blair, my relative in construction went as far as talking to people in government. Areas of London were impossible to run a legit building business in, because of the cash-in-hand crooks. The official word was - "It's good for the economy".