And remember there is a new tax when rateable over £500k as that is the "big" businesses.
Hence those ‘small’ businesses being run out of properties in London and the South East where a £500k valuation is commonplace are going to be hit as ‘big’ businesses. It would make more sense to exercise the decision based on turnover, surely?
The government past and present seem to have totally lost understanding of small and medium businesses, instead so often changes are focused on how that will effect mega corp plc. Quite rightly the government have gone after these on turn over as they have become expert at ensuring where profits are declared is carefully controlled.
Your Amazons of this world can absorb higher NI, higher minimum wage, a higher tax on their warehouses through their shear scale, increasing use of robots etc. But in this focus on getting money out of them, turn over taxes on small business have become crippling.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) played down a report in the Spectator magazine that the top brass, led by Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton, the chief of the defence staff, planned to write an extraordinary joint letter to John Healey, the defence secretary, to explain that his defence review published in June cannot be delivered without more cash.
"There is not a letter," an MoD source said, adding that such a communication was not expected to be received either.
However, other sources from within the army, navy and air force confirmed to Sky News there is growing concern among the chiefs about a gap between the promises being made by Sir Keir Starmer's government to fix the UK's hollowed-out armed forces and the reality of the size of the defence budget, which is currently not seen as growing fast enough.
That means either billions of additional pounds must be found more quickly, or ambitions to modernise the armed forces might need to be curbed despite warnings of mounting threats from Russia and China and pressure from Donald Trump on the UK and the rest of Europe to spend more on their own defences...
Someone needs to tell the brass hats that it’s not an “amount of money” problem, it’s a “value for money” problem, and that wartime procurement looks very different to peacetime procurement.
Ajax is going to be unfixable, so let’s not spend hundreds of millions more trying to fix it, just give BAe an order for a few hundred CV90 off the shelf and be done with it.
Whoops, Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome had an accident yesterday, a departing rocket damaged the launch pad. SpaceX now the only launch capability to the ISS until this pad gets fixed.
An accident at Baikonur has effectively deprived Russia of the ability to launch humans into space for the first time in 60 years.
During the launch of the Soyuz MS-28, the service tower collapsed at launch pad 31.
This is the only site from which crewed missions to the ISS can be launched. Footage from the broadcast shows the structure simply caving in.
According to The Insider, the tower was torn off by the exhaust plume of the rocket’s first-stage engine. The cosmonauts were unharmed, but part of the launch complex was destroyed and will require long-term repairs.
Analysts say launches of Soyuz and Progress spacecraft are now delayed indefinitely.
Yes, it looks as though I was very wrong yesterday (my calculations were correct, but I think it was pure coincidence in that particular case that the rise in rateable vale exactly mirrored the increase from withdrawal of rates relief if there had been no rise in rateable value).
It appears that some valuation increases are indeed huge. Couple that with the withdrawal of hospitality rates relief and the increase will be bigger still. A lot of pubs will be utterly screwed.
The valuations can be appealed - but I think the time for a response, which used to be max 3 months, is now 12 months.
Daniel Sugarman @Daniel_Sugarman It’s almost like the West Midlands Police citing of *safety concerns* to ban one club and one club only from bringing its away fans was a complete and utter farce.
Donyell Malen has a cut to the head and two more goals to his name after leading Aston Villa to the verge of automatic qualification for the last 16 of the Europa League against a backdrop of more crowd violence from Young Boys supporters.
Whoops, Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome had an accident yesterday, a departing rocket damaged the launch pad. SpaceX now the only launch capability to the ISS until this pad gets fixed.
An accident at Baikonur has effectively deprived Russia of the ability to launch humans into space for the first time in 60 years.
During the launch of the Soyuz MS-28, the service tower collapsed at launch pad 31.
This is the only site from which crewed missions to the ISS can be launched. Footage from the broadcast shows the structure simply caving in.
According to The Insider, the tower was torn off by the exhaust plume of the rocket’s first-stage engine. The cosmonauts were unharmed, but part of the launch complex was destroyed and will require long-term repairs.
Analysts say launches of Soyuz and Progress spacecraft are now delayed indefinitely.
You mean that the Ukrainians can't now demand that Putin et al be launched into outer space as part of any peace negotiations?
That's something of a disappointment and a real blow to hopes of negotiating peace.
Whoops, Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome had an accident yesterday, a departing rocket damaged the launch pad. SpaceX now the only launch capability to the ISS until this pad gets fixed.
An accident at Baikonur has effectively deprived Russia of the ability to launch humans into space for the first time in 60 years.
During the launch of the Soyuz MS-28, the service tower collapsed at launch pad 31.
This is the only site from which crewed missions to the ISS can be launched. Footage from the broadcast shows the structure simply caving in.
According to The Insider, the tower was torn off by the exhaust plume of the rocket’s first-stage engine. The cosmonauts were unharmed, but part of the launch complex was destroyed and will require long-term repairs.
Analysts say launches of Soyuz and Progress spacecraft are now delayed indefinitely.
You mean that the Ukrainians can't now demand that Putin et al be launched into outer space as part of any peace negotiations?
That's something of a disappointment and a real blow to hopes of negotiating peace.
Forget the OBR leak, a major platform for peer reviewed papers for top international conferences has been found to have a huge exploit by some Chinese academics. People have then scraped all the data of who reviewed which paper, what they said etc (both in China and the West), and on Chinese social media particular "villian" reviewers are being dox'ed.
JRF said the average household would be £850 a year worse off by 2029-30 than when Labour had come to power, with those at the top end of the income scale hit hardest, as Reeves targets them with tax rises.
As I suggested yesterday, so many of the negative changes are backloaded to 2029 that it is hard to believe an election will be called that late - or alternatively that the measures will last through to implementation?
So you are saying that it is smoke and mirrors rather than a real plan? That’s not very responsible fiscal management…
(From our perspective if you rule out late spring 29 doesn’t that push an election to autumn 28)? I can’t see them wanting to do an election in the face of upcoming tax rises so not March 29.
Comments
Your Amazons of this world can absorb higher NI, higher minimum wage, a higher tax on their warehouses through their shear scale, increasing use of robots etc. But in this focus on getting money out of them, turn over taxes on small business have become crippling.
Ajax is going to be unfixable, so let’s not spend hundreds of millions more trying to fix it, just give BAe an order for a few hundred CV90 off the shelf and be done with it.
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1994137928331874718
An accident at Baikonur has effectively deprived Russia of the ability to launch humans into space for the first time in 60 years.
During the launch of the Soyuz MS-28, the service tower collapsed at launch pad 31.
This is the only site from which crewed missions to the ISS can be launched. Footage from the broadcast shows the structure simply caving in.
According to The Insider, the tower was torn off by the exhaust plume of the rocket’s first-stage engine. The cosmonauts were unharmed, but part of the launch complex was destroyed and will require long-term repairs.
Analysts say launches of Soyuz and Progress spacecraft are now delayed indefinitely.
It appears that some valuation increases are indeed huge.
Couple that with the withdrawal of hospitality rates relief and the increase will be bigger still. A lot of pubs will be utterly screwed.
The valuations can be appealed - but I think the time for a response, which used to be max 3 months, is now 12 months.
Daniel Sugarman
@Daniel_Sugarman
It’s almost like the West Midlands Police citing of *safety concerns* to ban one club and one club only from bringing its away fans was a complete and utter farce.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/nov/27/aston-villa-young-boys-europa-league-match-report
Donyell Malen has a cut to the head and two more goals to his name after leading Aston Villa to the verge of automatic qualification for the last 16 of the Europa League against a backdrop of more crowd violence from Young Boys supporters.
That's something of a disappointment and a real blow to hopes of negotiating peace.
Good morning, everyone.
NEW THREAD
(From our perspective if you rule out late spring 29 doesn’t that push an election to autumn 28)? I can’t see them wanting to do an election in the face of upcoming tax rises so not March 29.