Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Fascinated by this woman’s media diet, because I met so many people like her from 2010 to 2015, the first time Labour proposed a mansion tax, yet she claims to have voted Labour all her life until now. Did she just live in seclusion for five years?
It is clear from.everything Reeves has said before and after the budget that she and the truth are unknown to one another. This was a disgraceful budget. She was dancing on a pinhead when trying to square the circle. Looking at her face few will.have taken what she said at face value. The sooner she goes the better
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
"Soon-to-be-axed 7am Manchester-London train will still run – but without passengers Exclusive: Rail regulator pulls Avanti service from timetable from mid-December but it is needed for staff travel"
Fascinated by this woman’s media diet, because I met so many people like her from 2010 to 2015, the first time Labour proposed a mansion tax, yet she claims to have voted Labour all her life until now. Did she just live in seclusion for five years?
It is clear from.everything Reeves has said before and after the budget that she and the truth are unknown to one another. This was a disgraceful budget. She was dancing on a pinhead when trying to square the circle. Looking at her face few will.have taken what she said at face value. The sooner she goes the better
One thing that has happened the past few weeks with the briefing-gate and now being taken up the garden path over the budget, lots of normally quite friendly media were absolutely spitting feathers e.g. Beth Rigby, previously a go to for Labour for a soft soaper.
Starmer and Reeves can dance on a pinhead about well you read wrongly into the precise words we said and we didn't correct you, and we haven't broken our manifesto (but polling shows everybody thinks they did), but they have now radicalised the media against them.
Seems a lifetime ago that Starmer was saying he would do politics differently...be straight talking, only in it for the public service, country above party....
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Along with other polls, it does look as if the combination of schoolracistgate and Russiagate may have peeled a few soft Reformers away from the Farage love-in.
We will have to see what happens after the budget although the massively unpopular 2 child benefit cap removal was first supported by Reform.
But, yes, both seem to have hurt reform. Rightly so.
Is it massively unpopular? I appreciate that more people oppose it than support it, but I don't sense the depth of feeling over it compared with winter fuel payment.
Not convinced the upset about it will extend into next week. So far Labour have got lucky because there isn't an obvious issue to focus outrage on. That could change - fuel duty is certainly an option for that.
Not an issue in Morningside then, I am shocked
I wish I could give you the local intel on Morningside - I don't have the kind of intergenerational wealth required to buy a flat over there. I think the increased landlord tax will be a bigger issue in that ward.
Incidentally, the highest support for getting rid of the limit is in Scotland.
Interesting and indeed the Yougov post budget poll had the highest percentage thinking the Reeves budget was fair also in Scotland, 25% to just 21% UK wide. That suggests Scottish Labour will make some gains from the SNP at Holyrood next year as the Hamilton by election suggested which might be enough for Starmer to survive despite Labour losses to Reform and the Greens in England and to Reform and Plaid in Wales.
Indeed with Reform and Labour gains from the SNP likely a Unionist majority is not impossible at Holyrood for the first time since 2011
Might need to modify that a bit: the 2CL was opposed by the SNP but not Slab (though Slab turned a blind eye when a candidate fought a by election opposing the 2CL).
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but it's a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this, particularly with wages at the lower end rising.
It is clear from.everything Reeves has said before and after the budget that she and the truth are unknown to one another. This was a disgraceful budget. She was dancing on a pinhead when trying to square the circle. Looking at her face few will.have taken what she said at face value. The sooner she goes the better
One thing that has happened the past few weeks with the briefing-gate and now being taken up the garden path over the budget, lots of normally quite friendly media were absolutely spitting feathers e.g. Beth Rigby, previously a go to for Labour for a soft soaper.
Starmer and Reeves can dance on a pinhead about well you read wrongly into the precise words we said and we didn't correct you, and we haven't broken our manifesto (but polling shows everybody thinks they did), but they have now radicalised the media against them.
Seems a lifetime ago that Starmer was saying he would do politics differently...be straight talking, only in it for the public service, country above party....
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but obviously the whole thing is a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this.
The government knew what they were doing. The removal of the business rate subsidy was last years budget, I mentioned it at the time as a ticking time bomb. And they have added a new levy ontop for anything rated more than £500k, which is not just Amazon mega corps. For regular punters, the big increase on supermarkets is only going to do one thing, that £150 discount on energy bills won't touch the side of the food inflation.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
I imagine that correlates pretty well with poverty. So a poorer => fatter feedback loop is probably a thing. May god have mercy on the North East hospital trusts.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
I suspect the trouble Reeves and Labour could be in over the budget will be not much related to the 'misleading'. Being misleading, when bits of a long narrative are examined, feels like par for the course to a cynical public.
The story which will run and run is of a government whose emphasis looks as if its big priority, at the expense of workers, is those on benefits, with a sub text of a priority of raising taxes to fund higher pay in the public sector, and a sub sub text of cushioning pensioners.
Thresholds + salary sacrifice + IHT on small businesses and farms + employers NI.
The DM and Goodwin can run benefits abuse stories every day. They exist. IMHO they are right to scrap the 2 child cap; but the issue of whether too much money is going in benefits in the wrong direction remains.
The dead hand of benefits (legislation) is the problem. Each benefit is legally paid according to the schedules set down in the various acts of Parliament. There will be bending of the rules in *some* cases which is currently measured at between 3%-4%. Also the benefits are paid after a lot of checking / cross checking / visits to a Tribunal so it's not that easy to get the largesse that the media suggests. The basic issue as has been laid out before is the need for a long term review of the legislation, its effects, and how does the nation provide a safety net for those that need help.
There are also a number of cliff edges within benefits legislation such as with Pension Credit and all the extras that come with it. Triple lock, WFA, and Motability all create these edges which allow people to create wedge issues in the media and politics.
But bear in mind, that the current welfare structure was designed over 20 years ago by someone called Ian Duncan Smith. He made a decent fist of it in that it has characteristics of an insurance scheme, but perhaps he needs to be called back to revisit his efforts and improve it.
True, and all good points. However, government and parliament have a unique job no-one else is allowed to do - to legislate, amend, regulate, issue SIs and quantify.
How long do you give any government, new in office in 2024, before the basics of how such things are 'right now' is not the responsibility of the past, but of the present government and parliament?
I suggest roughly this, assuming no black swans: Within two years it is reasonable to expect everything the state undertakes to be responsible for is run competently and well.
Within 3-4 years the legislative framework under which it wants to work should be in place and running; with the public having a clear idea of the direction of travel for the future.
(So the gangs should be smashed and the small boats stopped pretty soon).
Boris's government was corrupt
That's a bold claim, presented as a statement of fact. I assume you have some evidence of this?
'The Fall of Boris Johnson' Sebastian Payne. I think Decrepiter.John knows of 6 more!
Convictions? Charges? Arrests ?
I'm not sure about arrests. I think he handed himself in.
It is mind boggling to read how he ran his government. The lies were endemic. The Owen Patterson affair The Pincher affair his Partying during lockdown. To say he and truth were strangers is a glorious understatement
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Sometimes these businesses do undermine themselves when they make a fuss like this - when people see the owner taking a £1.5 million dividend it's difficult to generate sympathy. That's not to say some small, family-owned/run pubs are not going to get screwed here.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Quick google shows that 'one of my pubs', The George, is a 24-room hotel, with a pub attached. Disingenuous at best.
That's ok then....cos its a small hotel / pub, 300% increase in ratable value is a ok. Hospitality is really struggling post COVID, on top of much higher minimum wage, NI, etc etc etc, this is terrible move from the government if "growth" is your #1 focus.
Fascinated by this woman’s media diet, because I met so many people like her from 2010 to 2015, the first time Labour proposed a mansion tax, yet she claims to have voted Labour all her life until now. Did she just live in seclusion for five years?
For many tribal voters, listening to the policies doesn’t happen. The social psychology of how people can be told things, nod and then be surprised…
Besides, everyone knows that mansion taxes are paid by people richer than me, who live in actual mansions. That owning a big house in Kensington, even North Kensington, now puts you in the top bit of the upper crust probably hasn't occurred to her. Until now.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Chaos at Your Party opening session which leaves to live stream being pulled. Delegates try to move point of order Chair reveals all points of order from the floor are banned and order stewards to remove delegates
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Independent Councillor, James Giles, who chaired Zarah Sultana’s eve of conference rally says he has been banned from entering the conference centre: “This morning I received a message informing me that I am banned from entering the Your Party Conference hall due to a supposed ‘private matter’ involving an ICO investigation.”
Fascinated by this woman’s media diet, because I met so many people like her from 2010 to 2015, the first time Labour proposed a mansion tax, yet she claims to have voted Labour all her life until now. Did she just live in seclusion for five years?
As for "media diet". Reeves explicitly ruled out wealth / mansion taxes in the run up the election, saying in the Guardian (probably the paper of this lady)
"I don’t see the way to prosperity as being through taxation. I want to grow the economy.”
Unfortuanately this lady trusted they were being honest.
I imagine that correlates pretty well with poverty. So a poorer => fatter feedback loop is probably a thing. May god have mercy on the North East hospital trusts.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Quick google shows that 'one of my pubs', The George, is a 24-room hotel, with a pub attached. Disingenuous at best.
That's ok then....cos its a small hotel / pub, 300% increase in ratable value is a ok. Hospitality is really struggling post COVID, on top of much higher minimum wage, NI, etc etc etc, this is terrible move from the government if "growth" is your #1 focus.
He said 'one of my pubs'. That's a lie. It's a hotel. The chap involved is the MD of this: https://longbowvenues.com/ I suspect he's doing pretty well for himself.
Along with other polls, it does look as if the combination of schoolracistgate and Russiagate may have peeled a few soft Reformers away from the Farage love-in.
We will have to see what happens after the budget although the massively unpopular 2 child benefit cap removal was first supported by Reform.
But, yes, both seem to have hurt reform. Rightly so.
Is it massively unpopular? I appreciate that more people oppose it than support it, but I don't sense the depth of feeling over it compared with winter fuel payment.
Not convinced the upset about it will extend into next week. So far Labour have got lucky because there isn't an obvious issue to focus outrage on. That could change - fuel duty is certainly an option for that.
Not an issue in Morningside then, I am shocked
I wish I could give you the local intel on Morningside - I don't have the kind of intergenerational wealth required to buy a flat over there. I think the increased landlord tax will be a bigger issue in that ward.
Incidentally, the highest support for getting rid of the limit is in Scotland.
Interesting and indeed the Yougov post budget poll had the highest percentage thinking the Reeves budget was fair also in Scotland, 25% to just 21% UK wide. That suggests Scottish Labour will make some gains from the SNP at Holyrood next year as the Hamilton by election suggested which might be enough for Starmer to survive despite Labour losses to Reform and the Greens in England and to Reform and Plaid in Wales.
Indeed with Reform and Labour gains from the SNP likely a Unionist majority is not impossible at Holyrood for the first time since 2011
I don’t see a Labour, Reform, Conservative, Lib Dem coalition being likely, though.
If combined they have a majority of MSPs then they could no confidence Swinney. Polls show a swing from SNP since 2021 and unionist tactical votes on the constituency vote could be key
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but obviously the whole thing is a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this.
The government knew what they were doing. The removal of the business rate subsidy was last years budget, I mentioned it at the time as a ticking time bomb. And they have added a new levy ontop for anything rated more than £500k, which is not just Amazon mega corps. For regular punters, the big increase on supermarkets is only going to do one thing, that £150 discount on energy bills won't touch the side of the food inflation.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
The real issue is non-profit related taxation of business.
Independent Councillor, James Giles, who chaired Zarah Sultana’s eve of conference rally says he has been banned from entering the conference centre: “This morning I received a message informing me that I am banned from entering the Your Party Conference hall due to a supposed ‘private matter’ involving an ICO investigation.”
Oh dear. James Giles was interviewed on the radio this morning (R5 I think) as a YP spokesperson. He was very positive about the future of YP. Just a few hours later.....
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Is this the removal of COVID era rates relief?
No, though that adds to the entire sector's problems.
The 2026-27 rates revaluation on top of that hits some businesses exceptionally hard.
There will, of course be rates appeals (which could take a year), and there should be some firm of transitional relief with those suffering big increases.
These are the new figures published on the VOA website. I'm not quite sure of their status (provisional or final) yet.
Interesting fact. Alongside the 3 local council by-elections this week there were 7 town and parish by-elections. So of the 10 in total there were 4 Ref wins, 4 LD, 1 Ind, and 1 No Description. So no Lab or Con. Strange times indeed.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but obviously the whole thing is a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this.
The government knew what they were doing. The removal of the business rate subsidy was last years budget, I mentioned it at the time as a ticking time bomb. And they have added a new levy ontop for anything rated more than £500k, which is not just Amazon mega corps. For regular punters, the big increase on supermarkets is only going to do one thing, that £150 discount on energy bills won't touch the side of the food inflation.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
The real issue is non-profit related taxation of business.
Yeap...i have said this a million times on here. They (and the past government) dont understand so many business sectors so in going after mega corps who are expert at managing where profits are declared by increasing turn over taxes they have absoluely smashed over the head sectors that utilise a large property footprint and require a lot of staffing but where margins arent massive e.g. hospitality, retail,...
All Amazon has done in faces of these taxes, far less humans in the warehouses, more robots. This extra 1% on ratable over £500k, Amazon will find the efficiency, supermarkets will pass on the costs, lots of medium sized business walloped again.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but obviously the whole thing is a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this.
The government knew what they were doing. The removal of the business rate subsidy was last years budget, I mentioned it at the time as a ticking time bomb. And they have added a new levy ontop for anything rated more than £500k, which is not just Amazon mega corps. For regular punters, the big increase on supermarkets is only going to do one thing, that £150 discount on energy bills won't touch the side of the food inflation.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
The real issue is non-profit related taxation of business.
Yeap...i have said this a million times on here. They (and the past government) dont understand so many business sectors so in going after mega corps who are expert at managing where profits are declared by increasing turn over taxes they have absoluely smashed over the head sectors that utilise a large property footprint and require a lot of staffing but where margins arent massive e.g. hospitality, retail,...
All Amazon has done in faces of these taxes, far less humans in the warehouses, more robots.
I agree with that. But there is also an argument that non-profit taxation helps to rid the economy of zombie firms, of which there are far too many in the UK using up valuable land and labour. Increasing the tax burden on successful enterprises wouldn't be so good.
But it shouldn't be beyond the wit of government to find a way to help small businesses while making larger firms pay non-profit taxes. Increasing the NICs employment allowance further would be a good way to do that - disappointed that wasn't implemented in the budget.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Quick google shows that 'one of my pubs', The George, is a 24-room hotel, with a pub attached. Disingenuous at best.
That's ok then....cos its a small hotel / pub, 300% increase in ratable value is a ok. Hospitality is really struggling post COVID, on top of much higher minimum wage, NI, etc etc etc, this is terrible move from the government if "growth" is your #1 focus.
He said 'one of my pubs'. That's a lie. It's a hotel. The chap involved is the MD of this: https://longbowvenues.com/ I suspect he's doing pretty well for himself.
Yes, he can clearly cope. There will be a lot of business which can't.
I suspect the trouble Reeves and Labour could be in over the budget will be not much related to the 'misleading'. Being misleading, when bits of a long narrative are examined, feels like par for the course to a cynical public.
The story which will run and run is of a government whose emphasis looks as if its big priority, at the expense of workers, is those on benefits, with a sub text of a priority of raising taxes to fund higher pay in the public sector, and a sub sub text of cushioning pensioners.
Thresholds + salary sacrifice + IHT on small businesses and farms + employers NI.
The DM and Goodwin can run benefits abuse stories every day. They exist. IMHO they are right to scrap the 2 child cap; but the issue of whether too much money is going in benefits in the wrong direction remains.
The dead hand of benefits (legislation) is the problem. Each benefit is legally paid according to the schedules set down in the various acts of Parliament. There will be bending of the rules in *some* cases which is currently measured at between 3%-4%. Also the benefits are paid after a lot of checking / cross checking / visits to a Tribunal so it's not that easy to get the largesse that the media suggests. The basic issue as has been laid out before is the need for a long term review of the legislation, its effects, and how does the nation provide a safety net for those that need help.
There are also a number of cliff edges within benefits legislation such as with Pension Credit and all the extras that come with it. Triple lock, WFA, and Motability all create these edges which allow people to create wedge issues in the media and politics.
But bear in mind, that the current welfare structure was designed over 20 years ago by someone called Ian Duncan Smith. He made a decent fist of it in that it has characteristics of an insurance scheme, but perhaps he needs to be called back to revisit his efforts and improve it.
True, and all good points. However, government and parliament have a unique job no-one else is allowed to do - to legislate, amend, regulate, issue SIs and quantify.
How long do you give any government, new in office in 2024, before the basics of how such things are 'right now' is not the responsibility of the past, but of the present government and parliament?
I suggest roughly this, assuming no black swans: Within two years it is reasonable to expect everything the state undertakes to be responsible for is run competently and well.
Within 3-4 years the legislative framework under which it wants to work should be in place and running; with the public having a clear idea of the direction of travel for the future.
(So the gangs should be smashed and the small boats stopped pretty soon).
It depends on your benchmarks, Kirk.
Boris's government was corrupt, so you would expect removing it should fix that matter immediately. Truss's was batshit crazy and incompetent, so again dismissal puts that right straight away. The problems we face with the economy and state of public services are however more long term and are the cumulative result of protracted neglect. The last Chancellor to hand over an economy in decent repair was Ken Clarke and scant reward he got for it. Maybe if voters rewarded success more we'd get better government?
Anyway I think it would be unreasonable to expect a new Government to fix the long term problems in a couple of years. Give me a call in three more and I'll let you know how I thought they got on.
But we all love (or at least respect) Ken Clarke now. I don't understand why subsequent Chancellors aren't interested in legacy. You'll be lucky to get 5 years; use that time to generate 20 years of being a legend, book sales, speeches, QT appearances, generally being smug. If you're tolerable enough you could even get a gig doing travel shows for the BBC.
One of the issues is that our political society is seriously messed up. The old model was "decide what you want to do, then try to win an election so you can do it", but that's been overtaken by "decide what you need to say to win an election, then have a rotten time trying to implement it."
It's not totally malign- we want political parties who pay attention to what the public wants. But at some point, that culture overstepped the healthy line, so that politicians can't be honest with us.
Major and Clarke's fate, a landslide defeat after doing a decent enough job, was a terrible warning for a generation. It's why Sunak and Hunt frantically threw unaffordable tax cuts at us in the runup to 2024... only to go down to their own landslide against an objectively weaker opponent.
It's also devastating in local government, a political group that runs a council well/badly is neither rewarded of punished.
My experience is that whether a council is run well or badly is based on the competence of the council management, not the politicians. We are fortunate to have a well run council, and evidence shows it is well run irrespective of which political parties are in power. Our neighbouring council to the south is a shambles, also irrespective of the political makeup of the council.
It's much more subtle than that. Good well run councils, at a staff and councillor level are attractive to work for. A good culture takes a long time to take a hold, and will pass down from one group off officers to another group and the same with councillors. So your experience of a well run one and a neighbouring poorly run one will be more than just about the current management.
A chief executive willing to say no to a domineering council leader is as important as a council leader willing to call out a chief executive and senior management running their own little show.
If you let the management do their thing you end up with an organisation that suits them and the people that work in it and less so the people who use the services.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but obviously the whole thing is a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this.
The government knew what they were doing. The removal of the business rate subsidy was last years budget, I mentioned it at the time as a ticking time bomb. And they have added a new levy ontop for anything rated more than £500k, which is not just Amazon mega corps. For regular punters, the big increase on supermarkets is only going to do one thing, that £150 discount on energy bills won't touch the side of the food inflation.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
The real issue is non-profit related taxation of business.
Yeap...i have said this a million times on here. They (and the past government) dont understand so many business sectors so in going after mega corps who are expert at managing where profits are declared by increasing turn over taxes they have absoluely smashed over the head sectors that utilise a large property footprint and require a lot of staffing but where margins arent massive e.g. hospitality, retail,...
All Amazon has done in faces of these taxes, far less humans in the warehouses, more robots. This extra 1% on ratable over £500k, Amazon will find the efficiency, supermarkets will pass on the costs, lots of medium sized business walloped again.
I’ve had a side project for a while - an online tool to estimate the cost of running “a cafe that does nothing”
This came out of the Brick Lane Cereal cafe thing - most people have no idea of the base cost of running a small business.
So a tool that says, if I want a place that just gives the seated customer a glass of tap water and Wi-Fi, how much does it cost to run per hour of opening.
Do it with a map, linking to commercial property data.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but obviously the whole thing is a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this.
The government knew what they were doing. The removal of the business rate subsidy was last years budget, I mentioned it at the time as a ticking time bomb. And they have added a new levy ontop for anything rated more than £500k, which is not just Amazon mega corps. For regular punters, the big increase on supermarkets is only going to do one thing, that £150 discount on energy bills won't touch the side of the food inflation.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
The real issue is non-profit related taxation of business.
Yeap...i have said this a million times on here. They (and the past government) dont understand so many business sectors so in going after mega corps who are expert at managing where profits are declared by increasing turn over taxes they have absoluely smashed over the head sectors that utilise a large property footprint and require a lot of staffing but where margins arent massive e.g. hospitality, retail,...
All Amazon has done in faces of these taxes, far less humans in the warehouses, more robots. This extra 1% on ratable over £500k, Amazon will find the efficiency, supermarkets will pass on the costs, lots of medium sized business walloped again.
I’ve had a side project for a while - an online tool to estimate the cost of running “a cafe that does nothing”
This came out of the Brick Lane Cereal cafe thing - most people have no idea of the base cost of running a small business.
So a tool that says, if I want a place that just gives the seated customer a glass of tap water and Wi-Fi, how much does it cost to run per hour of opening.
Do it with a map, linking to commercial property data.
An excellent notion. You should maybe link to the VOA website, too ?
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Quick google shows that 'one of my pubs', The George, is a 24-room hotel, with a pub attached. Disingenuous at best.
That's ok then....cos its a small hotel / pub, 300% increase in ratable value is a ok. Hospitality is really struggling post COVID, on top of much higher minimum wage, NI, etc etc etc, this is terrible move from the government if "growth" is your #1 focus.
He said 'one of my pubs'. That's a lie. It's a hotel. The chap involved is the MD of this: https://longbowvenues.com/ I suspect he's doing pretty well for himself.
“This issue should concern every Australian,” Ruddick said in a statement. “This ban is disproportionate and will trespass either directly or indirectly upon the rights of every Australian.
“This ban is a direct assault on young people’s right to freedom of political communication. But it’s worse than that. Come December 10 all kids will be banned, and all the rest of us will have to prove our age and potentially provide ID just to access social media.”
Under the ban, platforms can accept ID as one form of age check, but it must not be the sole method of identification.
Both Meta and Snap Inc have said they will use ID checks as a fallback option in the event that facial age estimation incorrectly estimates an account to be held by someone under 16. Both companies have said they have methods of determining which accounts are likely to be held by children under 16."
I'm not sure I see the problem. Social media is toxic for young people, especially in their formative teenage years. There is a huge amount of evidence of the developmental harm being near-constantly online does, which social media encourages through its algorithms combined with the normal social pressures of teenagehood.
We ban the purchase of alcohol and smoking to a similar age for a similar reason.
Yes but the point is that a consequence of the ban is that over 16s will have to enter identification documents to social media companies. No way I'd do that.
If you’re the sort of person who is concerned about entering identification documents, I’m surprised you would ever want to use social media given how much Facebook etc. gather up and sell data about us.
Only social media I do is here. Wouldn't use Facebook if you paid me.
The fact that Facebook et al can sell our data is indicative of how governments have let their citizens down massively and in most fundamental ways.
I suspect the trouble Reeves and Labour could be in over the budget will be not much related to the 'misleading'. Being misleading, when bits of a long narrative are examined, feels like par for the course to a cynical public.
The story which will run and run is of a government whose emphasis looks as if its big priority, at the expense of workers, is those on benefits, with a sub text of a priority of raising taxes to fund higher pay in the public sector, and a sub sub text of cushioning pensioners.
Thresholds + salary sacrifice + IHT on small businesses and farms + employers NI.
The DM and Goodwin can run benefits abuse stories every day. They exist. IMHO they are right to scrap the 2 child cap; but the issue of whether too much money is going in benefits in the wrong direction remains.
The dead hand of benefits (legislation) is the problem. Each benefit is legally paid according to the schedules set down in the various acts of Parliament. There will be bending of the rules in *some* cases which is currently measured at between 3%-4%. Also the benefits are paid after a lot of checking / cross checking / visits to a Tribunal so it's not that easy to get the largesse that the media suggests. The basic issue as has been laid out before is the need for a long term review of the legislation, its effects, and how does the nation provide a safety net for those that need help.
There are also a number of cliff edges within benefits legislation such as with Pension Credit and all the extras that come with it. Triple lock, WFA, and Motability all create these edges which allow people to create wedge issues in the media and politics.
But bear in mind, that the current welfare structure was designed over 20 years ago by someone called Ian Duncan Smith. He made a decent fist of it in that it has characteristics of an insurance scheme, but perhaps he needs to be called back to revisit his efforts and improve it.
True, and all good points. However, government and parliament have a unique job no-one else is allowed to do - to legislate, amend, regulate, issue SIs and quantify.
How long do you give any government, new in office in 2024, before the basics of how such things are 'right now' is not the responsibility of the past, but of the present government and parliament?
I suggest roughly this, assuming no black swans: Within two years it is reasonable to expect everything the state undertakes to be responsible for is run competently and well.
Within 3-4 years the legislative framework under which it wants to work should be in place and running; with the public having a clear idea of the direction of travel for the future.
(So the gangs should be smashed and the small boats stopped pretty soon).
Boris's government was corrupt
That's a bold claim, presented as a statement of fact. I assume you have some evidence of this?
'The Fall of Boris Johnson' Sebastian Payne. I think Decrepiter.John knows of 6 more!
Convictions? Charges? Arrests ?
Not that I am supporting the claim being made, but I think we can all think of people either personally or in public life who were not convicted, charged or arrested with anything who were corrupt.
Really? Who? I think the nearest we got to corruption in British politics in recent time was to do with expenses getting out of hand. We even had a case of the MP fabricating an £800 printer invoice etc.
These are dealt with, as they should be. But your blanket statement to try and give the impression that politicians are all corrupt is just not true. If you are taking bribes, if you are withholding financial connections to companies that have got contracts etc, all these criminal acts are actively chased by the police.
Independent Councillor, James Giles, who chaired Zarah Sultana’s eve of conference rally says he has been banned from entering the conference centre: “This morning I received a message informing me that I am banned from entering the Your Party Conference hall due to a supposed ‘private matter’ involving an ICO investigation.”
Oh dear. James Giles was interviewed on the radio this morning (R5 I think) as a YP spokesperson. He was very positive about the future of YP. Just a few hours later.....
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
See also: it's terrible that the UK has to import so many people to do low-wage jobs.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
A “reasonable level of taxes” is going a lot of heavy lifting, there.
This kind of thinking is precisely why micro-businesses - 1-2 people - are often not making the jump to large size.
You suddenly get hammered from every side. So you can end up making less money, from a larger business.
True, if you struggle through that to U.K. chain scale you can make good. But there is a huge barrier.
So we have the pattern of a struggling to a few shops (say) - then sell to private equity and run.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
As long as such taxation is not a barrier to entry for new firms, as it too often is.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but obviously the whole thing is a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this.
The government knew what they were doing. The removal of the business rate subsidy was last years budget, I mentioned it at the time as a ticking time bomb. And they have added a new levy ontop for anything rated more than £500k, which is not just Amazon mega corps. For regular punters, the big increase on supermarkets is only going to do one thing, that £150 discount on energy bills won't touch the side of the food inflation.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
The real issue is non-profit related taxation of business.
Yeap...i have said this a million times on here. They (and the past government) dont understand so many business sectors so in going after mega corps who are expert at managing where profits are declared by increasing turn over taxes they have absoluely smashed over the head sectors that utilise a large property footprint and require a lot of staffing but where margins arent massive e.g. hospitality, retail,...
All Amazon has done in faces of these taxes, far less humans in the warehouses, more robots.
I agree with that. But there is also an argument that non-profit taxation helps to rid the economy of zombie firms, of which there are far too many in the UK using up valuable land and labour. Increasing the tax burden on successful enterprises wouldn't be so good.
But it shouldn't be beyond the wit of government to find a way to help small businesses while making larger firms pay non-profit taxes. Increasing the NICs employment allowance further would be a good way to do that - disappointed that wasn't implemented in the budget.
There is some truth to that, however the problem is that many firms struggling to make a profit would if they weren't taxed so heavily and the Exchequer (and Councils etc) are making a lot of taxation (and reduced benefits expenditure etc) from those firms.
Land taxes should be based on the undeveloped value of land, so that people who add value to that get to profit on their added value they are responsible for, while that profit gets taxed via profit taxation
NNDR (rates) is an especially pernicious tax as it is neither based on profit, nor actual land value.
NNDR is based on past turnover. So if you are more successful at generating trade (not a zombie) then your rates go up, even if not making a profit, due to the rates. Rates stay up even if trade dips, or margins are low.
It is like running on a treadmill that automatically gets faster if you are keeping up with it.
Chaos at Your Party opening session which leaves to live stream being pulled. Delegates try to move point of order Chair reveals all points of order from the floor are banned and order stewards to remove delegates
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
Chaos at Your Party opening session which leaves to live stream being pulled. Delegates try to move point of order Chair reveals all points of order from the floor are banned and order stewards to remove delegates
It does all sound like a nostalgia trip to the fun-days of Derek Hatton, Dave Nellist, and riotous Labour conferences. Probably when Jeremy Corbyn was at his happiest. Hope he's enjoying himself.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
Hmm.
What was the coffee like?
It was fine and the scone, jam and cream was good too. But on Black Friday weekend the town was pretty dead.
“This issue should concern every Australian,” Ruddick said in a statement. “This ban is disproportionate and will trespass either directly or indirectly upon the rights of every Australian.
“This ban is a direct assault on young people’s right to freedom of political communication. But it’s worse than that. Come December 10 all kids will be banned, and all the rest of us will have to prove our age and potentially provide ID just to access social media.”
Under the ban, platforms can accept ID as one form of age check, but it must not be the sole method of identification.
Both Meta and Snap Inc have said they will use ID checks as a fallback option in the event that facial age estimation incorrectly estimates an account to be held by someone under 16. Both companies have said they have methods of determining which accounts are likely to be held by children under 16."
I'm not sure I see the problem. Social media is toxic for young people, especially in their formative teenage years. There is a huge amount of evidence of the developmental harm being near-constantly online does, which social media encourages through its algorithms combined with the normal social pressures of teenagehood.
We ban the purchase of alcohol and smoking to a similar age for a similar reason.
Yes but the point is that a consequence of the ban is that over 16s will have to enter identification documents to social media companies. No way I'd do that.
If you’re the sort of person who is concerned about entering identification documents, I’m surprised you would ever want to use social media given how much Facebook etc. gather up and sell data about us.
Only social media I do is here. Wouldn't use Facebook if you paid me.
The fact that Facebook et al can sell our data is indicative of how governments have let their citizens down massively and in most fundamental ways.
So you don’t do social media, and if this under-16 ban came in, nothing would change and you’d still not do social media?
(I agree about governments letting us down on this matter.)
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
The high street problem is that the value of the commercial property on a street is vastly lower than the landlords want it to be. And the business rate setters want it to be.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Hospitality, as is its nature, is one business sector which the public has a lot of engagement with. Hitting landlords and hoteliers is gonna be politically costly.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
Perhaps, say, a tariff on assembled cars entering the country? Foreign suppliers would then input parts which we would then assemble, giving the Dundonians a skillset which they could then use as impetus for their own car firms later down the line. I realise people are going to start quoting Ricardo at me and comparative advantage, but he lived two hundred years ago and we're so hollowed out now we can't fit a missile to a plane and can't build a tracked vehicle without shaking the occupants to death.
Pete Hegseth is in some serious, serious trouble: verbally gave a command to kill 2 survivors from a missile strike on a Venezuelan fishing boat. He doesn't have Trump's protection.
Chaos at Your Party opening session which leaves to live stream being pulled. Delegates try to move point of order Chair reveals all points of order from the floor are banned and order stewards to remove delegates
There was a hilarious post on r/AshHistorians asking why, given how lovely and fluffy Communism is, why all Communist regimes end up as brutal dictatorships.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
I'm not sure somewhere like Dundee is the best example of zombie firms taking up space - this is an example of where there aren't any firms at all. It doesn't prove the hypothesis either way.
Given business premises in Dundee are effectively worthless, the valuation of these properties for NDR purposes (Scots for business rates) should really be zero, or close to it. That system already works quite well. I agree with you that the underlying issue in Dundee is just a complete lack of economic demand - though I do my best to contribute whenever work sends me up there. There is some hope - Dundee was for a time the quickest growing part of the Scottish economy, so there is something there to build on.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
Some sensible reforms could address much of this.
Rates are horrific for hospitality as they escalate based on boosting trade, especially cruel for low margin/high taxation businesses.
But for derelict/run down buildings? Or dodgy firms not reporting sales due to cash in hand fraud? Rates are kept much, much lower.
A thriving business and a derelict dump on the same land should face the same land taxes. That way the owner of the dump either turns it around, or gets rid of it to someone else who can do better with it.
We should be taxing value added through VAT, and profits through profit taxes. Not rates.
Couple with sensible planning reforms that allow people to redevelop land according to what it is zoned for, within standards, without years of planning issues.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but obviously the whole thing is a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this.
The government knew what they were doing. The removal of the business rate subsidy was last years budget, I mentioned it at the time as a ticking time bomb. And they have added a new levy ontop for anything rated more than £500k, which is not just Amazon mega corps. For regular punters, the big increase on supermarkets is only going to do one thing, that £150 discount on energy bills won't touch the side of the food inflation.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
The real issue is non-profit related taxation of business.
Yeap...i have said this a million times on here. They (and the past government) dont understand so many business sectors so in going after mega corps who are expert at managing where profits are declared by increasing turn over taxes they have absoluely smashed over the head sectors that utilise a large property footprint and require a lot of staffing but where margins arent massive e.g. hospitality, retail,...
All Amazon has done in faces of these taxes, far less humans in the warehouses, more robots.
I agree with that. But there is also an argument that non-profit taxation helps to rid the economy of zombie firms, of which there are far too many in the UK using up valuable land and labour. Increasing the tax burden on successful enterprises wouldn't be so good.
But it shouldn't be beyond the wit of government to find a way to help small businesses while making larger firms pay non-profit taxes. Increasing the NICs employment allowance further would be a good way to do that - disappointed that wasn't implemented in the budget.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Quick google shows that 'one of my pubs', The George, is a 24-room hotel, with a pub attached. Disingenuous at best.
That's ok then....cos its a small hotel / pub, 300% increase in ratable value is a ok. Hospitality is really struggling post COVID, on top of much higher minimum wage, NI, etc etc etc, this is terrible move from the government if "growth" is your #1 focus.
He said 'one of my pubs'. That's a lie. It's a hotel. The chap involved is the MD of this: https://longbowvenues.com/ I suspect he's doing pretty well for himself.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Quick google shows that 'one of my pubs', The George, is a 24-room hotel, with a pub attached. Disingenuous at best.
That's ok then....cos its a small hotel / pub, 300% increase in ratable value is a ok. Hospitality is really struggling post COVID, on top of much higher minimum wage, NI, etc etc etc, this is terrible move from the government if "growth" is your #1 focus.
He said 'one of my pubs'. That's a lie. It's a hotel. The chap involved is the MD of this: https://longbowvenues.com/ I suspect he's doing pretty well for himself.
Yes, he can clearly cope. There will be a lot of business which can't.
But should hospitality be bailed out. Or should any subsidy go towards more export oriented endeavours? You'll get the tourism argument but that could be by local subsidy in the areas that directly benefit from it.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but obviously the whole thing is a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this.
The government knew what they were doing. The removal of the business rate subsidy was last years budget, I mentioned it at the time as a ticking time bomb. And they have added a new levy ontop for anything rated more than £500k, which is not just Amazon mega corps. For regular punters, the big increase on supermarkets is only going to do one thing, that £150 discount on energy bills won't touch the side of the food inflation.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
The real issue is non-profit related taxation of business.
I think ... along with "almost certainly" ... "the real issue is" is a phrase of which use should result in an instant thunderbolt from the sky, followed by a small explosion.
I think we have lot and lots and lots of issues, and it's about finding a few small pieces of elephant we can actually eat in the short term. And working over the longer term to change underlying practices / culture / assumptions.
I'd say that what that needs is some sort of honesty in politics and media, and an underlying agreement on some matters over several decades. I think the only place I can see that happening at present is likely to be defence.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
Perhaps, say, a tariff on assembled cars entering the country? Foreign suppliers would then input parts which we would then assemble, giving the Dundonians a skillset which they could then use as impetus for their own car firms later down the line. I realise people are going to start quoting Ricardo at me and comparative advantage, but he lived two hundred years ago and we're so hollowed out now we can't fit a missile to a plane and can't build a tracked vehicle without shaking the occupants to death.
The blunt truth is that free trade was a very, very good thing for us when we were the workshop of the world. Now that manufacturing has moved east its benefits are far less obvious. There may be more output and wealth created overall but it ain't being created here.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but it's a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this, particularly with wages at the lower end rising.
Business rates are a stupid idea - as are all turnover taxes. By far the best way to tax businesses is to tax un-reinvested profits at a fairly steep rate, and nothing else.
Turnover taxes make business growth impossible, because you can't do the stuff required to grow without immediately getting whalloped for taxes - which have to be paid before the investment starts to pay off. This is particularly true of expansion into larger premises.
It doesn't help that the Valuation office is useless, slow and incompetent - I'm still waiting for them to sort out a listing they messed up dividing 4 years ago (there has been a fairly epic saga over this, it needs 30 second on a human's desk to resolve, but getting it onto the human's desk has taken two rates checks, and a challenge, and it's still not solved yet).
The time round, they have put in a 20% uplift to my rateable value, which is going to cost me £6k a year, and means my rateable value is very nearly double my actual rent (in theory if should reflect the rental value).
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
Perhaps, say, a tariff on assembled cars entering the country? Foreign suppliers would then input parts which we would then assemble, giving the Dundonians a skillset which they could then use as impetus for their own car firms later down the line. I realise people are going to start quoting Ricardo at me and comparative advantage, but he lived two hundred years ago and we're so hollowed out now we can't fit a missile to a plane and can't build a tracked vehicle without shaking the occupants to death.
The blunt truth is that free trade was a very, very good thing for us when we were the workshop of the world. Now that manufacturing has moved east its benefits are far less obvious. There may be more output and wealth created overall but it ain't being created here.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
I'm not sure somewhere like Dundee is the best example of zombie firms taking up space - this is an example of where there aren't any firms at all. It doesn't prove the hypothesis either way.
Given business premises in Dundee are effectively worthless, the valuation of these properties for NDR purposes (Scots for business rates) should really be zero, or close to it. That system already works quite well. I agree with you that the underlying issue in Dundee is just a complete lack of economic demand - though I do my best to contribute whenever work sends me up there. There is some hope - Dundee was for a time the quickest growing part of the Scottish economy, so there is something there to build on.
Dundee's recent growth was based around the University and the games industry. The desperate state of the University which has been run with truly staggering incompetence is a major problem for the town. Abertay University still provides good training in games but could really do with more investment. Much of the higher paid work has drifted to Edinburgh. But we just don't make anything anymore.
I can see Republican Congressmen resigning over this. Already said to be a number thinking of doing it. Having their ability to confirm any resolution declarating war effectively taken away won't play well.
"The Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war. Congress has declared war on 11 occasions, including its first declaration of war with Great Britain in 1812. Congress approved its last formal declaration of war during World War II. Since that time it has agreed to resolutions authorizing the use of military force and continues to shape U.S. military policy through appropriations and oversight."
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but it's a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this, particularly with wages at the lower end rising.
Business rates are a stupid idea - as are all turnover taxes. By far the best way to tax businesses is to tax un-reinvested profits at a fairly steep rate, and nothing else.
Turnover taxes make business growth impossible, because you can't do the stuff required to grow without immediately getting whalloped for taxes - which have to be paid before the investment starts to pay off. This is particularly true of expansion into larger premises.
It doesn't help that the Valuation office is useless, slow and incompetent - I'm still waiting for them to sort out a listing they messed up dividing 4 years ago (there has been a fairly epic saga over this, it needs 30 second on a human's desk to resolve, but getting it onto the human's desk has taken two rates checks, and a challenge, and it's still not solved yet).
The time round, they have put in a 20% uplift to my rateable value, which is going to cost me £6k a year, and means my rateable value is very nearly double my actual rent (in theory if should reflect the rental value).
Those are good points (though it's not a turnover tax - it's a property tax effectively).
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but it's a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this, particularly with wages at the lower end rising.
Business rates are a stupid idea - as are all turnover taxes. By far the best way to tax businesses is to tax un-reinvested profits at a fairly steep rate, and nothing else.
Turnover taxes make business growth impossible, because you can't do the stuff required to grow without immediately getting whalloped for taxes - which have to be paid before the investment starts to pay off. This is particularly true of expansion into larger premises.
It doesn't help that the Valuation office is useless, slow and incompetent - I'm still waiting for them to sort out a listing they messed up dividing 4 years ago (there has been a fairly epic saga over this, it needs 30 second on a human's desk to resolve, but getting it onto the human's desk has taken two rates checks, and a challenge, and it's still not solved yet).
The time round, they have put in a 20% uplift to my rateable value, which is going to cost me £6k a year, and means my rateable value is very nearly double my actual rent (in theory if should reflect the rental value).
Those are good points (though it's not a turnover tax - it's a property tax effectively).
The problem is that in-retained profit is gamed by the big business - the classic is the profit going to suppliers (by charging higher prices) who just happen to be part of a related corporate structure.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
The contrast has been made between Britain supporting companies while America let firms go bust but supported their workers with enhanced unemployment benefits. It looks like America got it right but huge government investment is a confounding variable.
I suspect the trouble Reeves and Labour could be in over the budget will be not much related to the 'misleading'. Being misleading, when bits of a long narrative are examined, feels like par for the course to a cynical public.
The story which will run and run is of a government whose emphasis looks as if its big priority, at the expense of workers, is those on benefits, with a sub text of a priority of raising taxes to fund higher pay in the public sector, and a sub sub text of cushioning pensioners.
Thresholds + salary sacrifice + IHT on small businesses and farms + employers NI.
The DM and Goodwin can run benefits abuse stories every day. They exist. IMHO they are right to scrap the 2 child cap; but the issue of whether too much money is going in benefits in the wrong direction remains.
The dead hand of benefits (legislation) is the problem. Each benefit is legally paid according to the schedules set down in the various acts of Parliament. There will be bending of the rules in *some* cases which is currently measured at between 3%-4%. Also the benefits are paid after a lot of checking / cross checking / visits to a Tribunal so it's not that easy to get the largesse that the media suggests. The basic issue as has been laid out before is the need for a long term review of the legislation, its effects, and how does the nation provide a safety net for those that need help.
There are also a number of cliff edges within benefits legislation such as with Pension Credit and all the extras that come with it. Triple lock, WFA, and Motability all create these edges which allow people to create wedge issues in the media and politics.
But bear in mind, that the current welfare structure was designed over 20 years ago by someone called Ian Duncan Smith. He made a decent fist of it in that it has characteristics of an insurance scheme, but perhaps he needs to be called back to revisit his efforts and improve it.
True, and all good points. However, government and parliament have a unique job no-one else is allowed to do - to legislate, amend, regulate, issue SIs and quantify.
How long do you give any government, new in office in 2024, before the basics of how such things are 'right now' is not the responsibility of the past, but of the present government and parliament?
I suggest roughly this, assuming no black swans: Within two years it is reasonable to expect everything the state undertakes to be responsible for is run competently and well.
Within 3-4 years the legislative framework under which it wants to work should be in place and running; with the public having a clear idea of the direction of travel for the future.
(So the gangs should be smashed and the small boats stopped pretty soon).
Boris's government was corrupt
That's a bold claim, presented as a statement of fact. I assume you have some evidence of this?
'The Fall of Boris Johnson' Sebastian Payne. I think Decrepiter.John knows of 6 more!
Convictions? Charges? Arrests ?
Not that I am supporting the claim being made, but I think we can all think of people either personally or in public life who were not convicted, charged or arrested with anything who were corrupt.
Really? Who? I think the nearest we got to corruption in British politics in recent time was to do with expenses getting out of hand. We even had a case of the MP fabricating an £800 printer invoice etc.
These are dealt with, as they should be. But your blanket statement to try and give the impression that politicians are all corrupt is just not true. If you are taking bribes, if you are withholding financial connections to companies that have got contracts etc, all these criminal acts are actively chased by the police.
Firstly I was not limiting my point to politicians but referring to your absurd implication that for there to be corruption there had to be a Conviction, Charges or Arrest. That is patently not true. Plenty of people will get away with corruption simply by not being caught, that particular corruption not being illegal or a case not going ahead
Secondly you make a massive assumption about me. 'You said: But your blanket statement to try and give the impression that politicians are all corrupt is just not true.' As it happens I don't believe most politicians are corrupt. I think most are honest and go into it for the right reasons. I wouldn't help get some elected if I thought otherwise. You jumped to a bizarre conclusion.
Finally, although I don't need to produce examples of politicians who were corrupt and did not get charged arrested or convicted, because that wasn't the point I was making, I do take up your challenge:
I am sure all of us here could produce a list. I will start with cash for questions. I could name 4 (I won't) that were found to be corrupt by parliament, yet weren't Convicted, Charged or Arrested. You can go back to Lloyd George and cash for honours. I doubt anyone thinks that was not corrupt, but it wasn't illegal so again fails your test of Conviction, Charged or Arrested. And there is a whole host in between we could all list out.
And just for the icing on the cake I was a prosecution witness for the CPS is an election fraud case that was dropped through lack of evidence. Being the witness to the fraud I can tell you 'that was one that got away'.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
I'm not sure somewhere like Dundee is the best example of zombie firms taking up space - this is an example of where there aren't any firms at all. It doesn't prove the hypothesis either way.
Given business premises in Dundee are effectively worthless, the valuation of these properties for NDR purposes (Scots for business rates) should really be zero, or close to it. That system already works quite well. I agree with you that the underlying issue in Dundee is just a complete lack of economic demand - though I do my best to contribute whenever work sends me up there. There is some hope - Dundee was for a time the quickest growing part of the Scottish economy, so there is something there to build on.
A hypothesis that should be easy to test or disprove, given that valuation data is public domain.
I looked for a random street in Dundee with both a trading pub and vacant units. Was easy to find one, Nethergate. Others are available.
The Nether Inn on Nethergate (134 Nethergate) has a Rateable Value not of zero as you hypothesised, but instead £117,750. Annual rates bill of £66,882. ~£785 RV / m^2 Nearby 125B Nethergate is vacant/to let. It has a Rateable Value of £11,500. Annual rates bill of £5,727 per year. ~£164 RV / m^2
So the RV of the pub is approximately 500% of the RV of the vacant premises, per m^2.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but it's a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this, particularly with wages at the lower end rising.
Business rates are a stupid idea - as are all turnover taxes. By far the best way to tax businesses is to tax un-reinvested profits at a fairly steep rate, and nothing else.
Turnover taxes make business growth impossible, because you can't do the stuff required to grow without immediately getting whalloped for taxes - which have to be paid before the investment starts to pay off. This is particularly true of expansion into larger premises.
It doesn't help that the Valuation office is useless, slow and incompetent - I'm still waiting for them to sort out a listing they messed up dividing 4 years ago (there has been a fairly epic saga over this, it needs 30 second on a human's desk to resolve, but getting it onto the human's desk has taken two rates checks, and a challenge, and it's still not solved yet).
The time round, they have put in a 20% uplift to my rateable value, which is going to cost me £6k a year, and means my rateable value is very nearly double my actual rent (in theory if should reflect the rental value).
Those are good points (though it's not a turnover tax - it's a property tax effectively).
No, its not, since its not based on land value, it is based on turnover.
Which is why neighbouring businesses can have wildly different rates values per m^2, even on the same street.
It is a horrible, pernicious tax that should be abolished.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but it's a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this, particularly with wages at the lower end rising.
Business rates are a stupid idea - as are all turnover taxes. By far the best way to tax businesses is to tax un-reinvested profits at a fairly steep rate, and nothing else.
Turnover taxes make business growth impossible, because you can't do the stuff required to grow without immediately getting whalloped for taxes - which have to be paid before the investment starts to pay off. This is particularly true of expansion into larger premises.
It doesn't help that the Valuation office is useless, slow and incompetent - I'm still waiting for them to sort out a listing they messed up dividing 4 years ago (there has been a fairly epic saga over this, it needs 30 second on a human's desk to resolve, but getting it onto the human's desk has taken two rates checks, and a challenge, and it's still not solved yet).
The time round, they have put in a 20% uplift to my rateable value, which is going to cost me £6k a year, and means my rateable value is very nearly double my actual rent (in theory if should reflect the rental value).
Those are good points (though it's not a turnover tax - it's a property tax effectively).
The problem is that in-retained profit is gamed by the big business - the classic is the profit going to suppliers (by charging higher prices) who just happen to be part of a related corporate structure.
Just imagine the societal problems these megabrains could solve if they were properly directed.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
I'm not sure somewhere like Dundee is the best example of zombie firms taking up space - this is an example of where there aren't any firms at all. It doesn't prove the hypothesis either way.
Given business premises in Dundee are effectively worthless, the valuation of these properties for NDR purposes (Scots for business rates) should really be zero, or close to it. That system already works quite well. I agree with you that the underlying issue in Dundee is just a complete lack of economic demand - though I do my best to contribute whenever work sends me up there. There is some hope - Dundee was for a time the quickest growing part of the Scottish economy, so there is something there to build on.
A hypothesis that should be easy to test or disprove, given that valuation data is public domain.
I looked for a random street in Dundee with both a trading pub and vacant units. Was easy to find one, Nethergate. Others are available.
The Nether Inn on Nethergate (134 Nethergate) has a Rateable Value not of zero as you hypothesised, but instead £117,750. Annual rates bill of £66,882. ~£785 RV / m^2 Nearby 125B Nethergate is vacant/to let. It has a Rateable Value of £11,500. Annual rates bill of £5,727 per year. ~£164 RV / m^2
So the RV of the pub is approximately 500% of the RV of the vacant premises, per m^2.
That's why I said should. Either Dundee isn't doing quite as badly as David has suggested, or there is something very odd going on with business premises valuation.
Isn't there a phenomenon where balance sheets rely on inflated valuations of commercial property, and a refusal to let them is to disguise the fact they aren't worth anything at all? I wonder if that is what is happening here.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
Some sensible reforms could address much of this.
Rates are horrific for hospitality as they escalate based on boosting trade, especially cruel for low margin/high taxation businesses.
But for derelict/run down buildings? Or dodgy firms not reporting sales due to cash in hand fraud? Rates are kept much, much lower.
A thriving business and a derelict dump on the same land should face the same land taxes. That way the owner of the dump either turns it around, or gets rid of it to someone else who can do better with it.
We should be taxing value added through VAT, and profits through profit taxes. Not rates.
Couple with sensible planning reforms that allow people to redevelop land according to what it is zoned for, within standards, without years of planning issues.
Without going into too much detail we need to reshape our entire tax regime so that we are encouraging manufacturing here, investment here, skills here. Just seeing our businesses as beasts to be milked is a sub optimal approach.
One of the causes of Britain's poor economic performance since the great financial crash has been suggested to be that the economy is carrying large numbers of inefficient unproductive businesses that were subsidised to survive the financial crash, Brexit and Covid, but are poorly-run zombie companies that will never grow.
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
Having just come back from morning coffee from Dundee City centre I am not at all sure about this. The town centre is full of empty and to let units. Some have been empty for nearly a decade. Above them are buildings that used to be student accommodation which has been sitting empty for 20 years+ because of absurd and unrealistic planning conditions. Further out from the centre there are old warehouses and industrial units sitting empty everywhere. The idea that there is a shortage of units or accommodation because of these "zombie" businesses does not stack up. The idea that the poor souls working in the coffee shops, barbers and nail bars are somehow soaking up labour that is stopping new, high skilled businesses developing doesn't work either.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
I'm not sure somewhere like Dundee is the best example of zombie firms taking up space - this is an example of where there aren't any firms at all. It doesn't prove the hypothesis either way.
Given business premises in Dundee are effectively worthless, the valuation of these properties for NDR purposes (Scots for business rates) should really be zero, or close to it. That system already works quite well. I agree with you that the underlying issue in Dundee is just a complete lack of economic demand - though I do my best to contribute whenever work sends me up there. There is some hope - Dundee was for a time the quickest growing part of the Scottish economy, so there is something there to build on.
A hypothesis that should be easy to test or disprove, given that valuation data is public domain.
I looked for a random street in Dundee with both a trading pub and vacant units. Was easy to find one, Nethergate. Others are available.
The Nether Inn on Nethergate (134 Nethergate) has a Rateable Value not of zero as you hypothesised, but instead £117,750. Annual rates bill of £66,882. ~£785 RV / m^2 Nearby 125B Nethergate is vacant/to let. It has a Rateable Value of £11,500. Annual rates bill of £5,727 per year. ~£164 RV / m^2
So the RV of the pub is approximately 500% of the RV of the vacant premises, per m^2.
That's why I said should. Either Dundee isn't doing quite as badly as David has suggested, or there is something very odd going on with the accounting of business premises.
Easy. There's something very odd going on with the accounting of business premises, that's why rates are so horrendous.
NNDR/NDR is a horrible tax as it is not based on land value. It is not a property tax.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but obviously the whole thing is a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this.
The government knew what they were doing. The removal of the business rate subsidy was last years budget, I mentioned it at the time as a ticking time bomb. And they have added a new levy ontop for anything rated more than £500k, which is not just Amazon mega corps. For regular punters, the big increase on supermarkets is only going to do one thing, that £150 discount on energy bills won't touch the side of the food inflation.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
The real issue is non-profit related taxation of business.
Yeap...i have said this a million times on here. They (and the past government) dont understand so many business sectors so in going after mega corps who are expert at managing where profits are declared by increasing turn over taxes they have absoluely smashed over the head sectors that utilise a large property footprint and require a lot of staffing but where margins arent massive e.g. hospitality, retail,...
All Amazon has done in faces of these taxes, far less humans in the warehouses, more robots.
I agree with that. But there is also an argument that non-profit taxation helps to rid the economy of zombie firms, of which there are far too many in the UK using up valuable land and labour. Increasing the tax burden on successful enterprises wouldn't be so good.
But it shouldn't be beyond the wit of government to find a way to help small businesses while making larger firms pay non-profit taxes. Increasing the NICs employment allowance further would be a good way to do that - disappointed that wasn't implemented in the budget.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Quick google shows that 'one of my pubs', The George, is a 24-room hotel, with a pub attached. Disingenuous at best.
That's ok then....cos its a small hotel / pub, 300% increase in ratable value is a ok. Hospitality is really struggling post COVID, on top of much higher minimum wage, NI, etc etc etc, this is terrible move from the government if "growth" is your #1 focus.
He said 'one of my pubs'. That's a lie. It's a hotel. The chap involved is the MD of this: https://longbowvenues.com/ I suspect he's doing pretty well for himself.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Quick google shows that 'one of my pubs', The George, is a 24-room hotel, with a pub attached. Disingenuous at best.
That's ok then....cos its a small hotel / pub, 300% increase in ratable value is a ok. Hospitality is really struggling post COVID, on top of much higher minimum wage, NI, etc etc etc, this is terrible move from the government if "growth" is your #1 focus.
He said 'one of my pubs'. That's a lie. It's a hotel. The chap involved is the MD of this: https://longbowvenues.com/ I suspect he's doing pretty well for himself.
Yes, he can clearly cope. There will be a lot of business which can't.
But should hospitality be bailed out. Or should any subsidy go towards more export oriented endeavours? You'll get the tourism argument but that could be by local subsidy in the areas that directly benefit from it.
Rateable value is supposed to be the annual rental were the business (premises) to be rented out for a year. The economic reality is that neither retail nor hospitality businesses are worth what they were, and therefore the rental you can get for a shop or restaurant on the high street is a lot less than it used to be. It doesn’t seem that the business rate valuations are yet recognising this?
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but it's a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this, particularly with wages at the lower end rising.
Business rates are a stupid idea - as are all turnover taxes. By far the best way to tax businesses is to tax un-reinvested profits at a fairly steep rate, and nothing else.
Turnover taxes make business growth impossible, because you can't do the stuff required to grow without immediately getting whalloped for taxes - which have to be paid before the investment starts to pay off. This is particularly true of expansion into larger premises.
It doesn't help that the Valuation office is useless, slow and incompetent - I'm still waiting for them to sort out a listing they messed up dividing 4 years ago (there has been a fairly epic saga over this, it needs 30 second on a human's desk to resolve, but getting it onto the human's desk has taken two rates checks, and a challenge, and it's still not solved yet).
The time round, they have put in a 20% uplift to my rateable value, which is going to cost me £6k a year, and means my rateable value is very nearly double my actual rent (in theory if should reflect the rental value).
Those are good points (though it's not a turnover tax - it's a property tax effectively).
No, its not, since its not based on land value, it is based on turnover.
Which is why neighbouring businesses can have wildly different rates values per m^2, even on the same street.
It is a horrible, pernicious tax that should be abolished.
Regardless of whether it is based on turnover (I don't think it is BTW) there are far too many exemptions and reliefs. Agricultural land, charities (and charity shops) distorts the marketplace. Like IHT it should be at a much lower rate applied much more widely.
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but it's a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this, particularly with wages at the lower end rising.
Business rates are a stupid idea - as are all turnover taxes. By far the best way to tax businesses is to tax un-reinvested profits at a fairly steep rate, and nothing else.
Turnover taxes make business growth impossible, because you can't do the stuff required to grow without immediately getting whalloped for taxes - which have to be paid before the investment starts to pay off. This is particularly true of expansion into larger premises.
It doesn't help that the Valuation office is useless, slow and incompetent - I'm still waiting for them to sort out a listing they messed up dividing 4 years ago (there has been a fairly epic saga over this, it needs 30 second on a human's desk to resolve, but getting it onto the human's desk has taken two rates checks, and a challenge, and it's still not solved yet).
The time round, they have put in a 20% uplift to my rateable value, which is going to cost me £6k a year, and means my rateable value is very nearly double my actual rent (in theory if should reflect the rental value).
Those are good points (though it's not a turnover tax - it's a property tax effectively).
The problem is that in-retained profit is gamed by the big business - the classic is the profit going to suppliers (by charging higher prices) who just happen to be part of a related corporate structure.
None of which matters for tax purposes so long as someone reports a profit somewhere. Shovel all your profits to suppliers, and they should end up massively profitable - and unless they find a way to invest the cash, boom, corp tax bill incoming.
There's more of an issue when they send all the profits off to a supplier in the Cayman Islands, but there are ways round that if you really want to (if needs be, a different tax regime is more than x% of turnover is paid to suppliers abroad).
How many people have to die for the American oil industry? I cannot believe they will control the whole territory so it'll be hold the oil fields and drone the provinces alla Syria. Then Cuba just before November 2028.
OT. A very good Any Questions. The audience clearly are a long way from forgiving the Tories! Nonetheless a good panel. The Labour woman was very good indeed and the audience .clearly liked her
What was interesting though was what the panel thought of Kemi's personal comments about Rachel. They didn't like it at all. Neither did Daisy Cooper the Lib Dem. Quite life affirming that there are still nice people around and they aren't Tories!
Rateable value on one of my pubs has gone from £49,000 to £205,000. That’s a 318% increase! I thought the government were helping hospitality out on business rates. This is nothing short of another attack on businesses that cannot afford this.
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
This is somewhat manufactured - Labour have actually cut the rates slightly compared with the counterfactual; the reason they are going up so much is because the COVID discount on valuation are coming to an end.
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but it's a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this, particularly with wages at the lower end rising.
Business rates are a stupid idea - as are all turnover taxes. By far the best way to tax businesses is to tax un-reinvested profits at a fairly steep rate, and nothing else.
Turnover taxes make business growth impossible, because you can't do the stuff required to grow without immediately getting whalloped for taxes - which have to be paid before the investment starts to pay off. This is particularly true of expansion into larger premises.
It doesn't help that the Valuation office is useless, slow and incompetent - I'm still waiting for them to sort out a listing they messed up dividing 4 years ago (there has been a fairly epic saga over this, it needs 30 second on a human's desk to resolve, but getting it onto the human's desk has taken two rates checks, and a challenge, and it's still not solved yet).
The time round, they have put in a 20% uplift to my rateable value, which is going to cost me £6k a year, and means my rateable value is very nearly double my actual rent (in theory if should reflect the rental value).
Those are good points (though it's not a turnover tax - it's a property tax effectively).
No, its not, since its not based on land value, it is based on turnover.
Which is why neighbouring businesses can have wildly different rates values per m^2, even on the same street.
It is a horrible, pernicious tax that should be abolished.
That not true - the VOA typically only use profits (not turnover) for large premises such as cinemas etc. Local rents is used for the kind of business you are talking about.
For pubs it takes into account the level of trade, but it still is ultimately based on an estimated rent.
Comments
https://x.com/Rob_Hattersley/status/1994164002193043713?s=20
Twitter is absolutely full of hospitality business owners realising they have been absolutely shafted.
Stephen Bush
@stephenkb.bsky.social
· 2h
Fascinated by this woman’s media diet, because I met so many people like her from 2010 to 2015, the first time Labour proposed a mansion tax, yet she claims to have voted Labour all her life until now. Did she just live in seclusion for five years?
https://bsky.app/profile/stephenkb.bsky.social/post/3m6r6farv2k22
This was a disgraceful budget. She was dancing on a pinhead when trying to square the circle. Looking at her face few will.have taken what she said at face value.
The sooner she goes the better
Starmer and Reeves can dance on a pinhead about well you read wrongly into the precise words we said and we didn't correct you, and we haven't broken our manifesto (but polling shows everybody thinks they did), but they have now radicalised the media against them.
Seems a lifetime ago that Starmer was saying he would do politics differently...be straight talking, only in it for the public service, country above party....
It's a bit mad that the govenrment didn't see this coming though. The obvious thing to do is to retain the COVID discount - but it's a complete mess if you do that because it treats some businesses better than others. FWIW, I think business rates are one of the fairer ways to tax business - encourages efficient use of valuable building space. The issues with the hospitality sector are much deeper than this, particularly with wages at the lower end rising.
Its part of a wider issue on property taxation, but the government isn't really going to do any reform, just more drip drip drip tax.
The BMJ factored for deprivation, there's still correlation.
Perhaps Yougov could have height and weight supplementary questions, as well as income, education, ethnicity etc.
It is mind boggling to read how he ran his government. The lies were endemic. The Owen Patterson affair The Pincher affair his Partying during lockdown. To say he and truth were strangers is a glorious understatement
Sometimes these businesses do undermine themselves when they make a fuss like this - when people see the owner taking a £1.5 million dividend it's difficult to generate sympathy. That's not to say some small, family-owned/run pubs are not going to get screwed here.
lee harpin
@lmharpin
Chaos at Your Party opening session which leaves to live stream being pulled.
Delegates try to move point of order
Chair reveals all points of order from the floor are banned and order stewards to remove delegates
https://x.com/lmharpin/status/1994730111099388261
megan kenyon
@meganekenyon
Independent Councillor, James Giles, who chaired Zarah Sultana’s eve of conference rally says he has been banned from entering the conference centre: “This morning I received a message informing me that I am banned from entering the Your Party Conference hall due to a supposed ‘private matter’ involving an ICO investigation.”
https://x.com/meganekenyon/status/1994745506971467942
"I don’t see the way to prosperity as being through taxation. I want to grow the economy.”
Unfortuanately this lady trusted they were being honest.
Edit: ah I see its more about their propensity to vote reform?
https://longbowvenues.com/
I suspect he's doing pretty well for himself.
The openers playing for the Lions team are Emilio Gay and Tom Haines.
The 2026-27 rates revaluation on top of that hits some businesses exceptionally hard.
There will, of course be rates appeals (which could take a year), and there should be some firm of transitional relief with those suffering big increases.
These are the new figures published on the VOA website. I'm not quite sure of their status (provisional or final) yet.
All Amazon has done in faces of these taxes, far less humans in the warehouses, more robots. This extra 1% on ratable over £500k, Amazon will find the efficiency, supermarkets will pass on the costs, lots of medium sized business walloped again.
That's about £10 per hotel room per night.
But it shouldn't be beyond the wit of government to find a way to help small businesses while making larger firms pay non-profit taxes. Increasing the NICs employment allowance further would be a good way to do that - disappointed that wasn't implemented in the budget.
There will be a lot of business which can't.
A chief executive willing to say no to a domineering council leader is as important as a council leader willing to call out a chief executive and senior management running their own little show.
If you let the management do their thing you end up with an organisation that suits them and the people that work in it and less so the people who use the services.
This came out of the Brick Lane Cereal cafe thing - most people have no idea of the base cost of running a small business.
So a tool that says, if I want a place that just gives the seated customer a glass of tap water and Wi-Fi, how much does it cost to run per hour of opening.
Do it with a map, linking to commercial property data.
https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/1994574509622661424
You should maybe link to the VOA website, too ?
If an increase in business rates has the effect of forcing a few inefficient businesses to close, freeing up premises and market opportunities for new companies with new ideas about how to make a profit where these struggling businesses could not, then that's going to be a good thing.
Not every business will succeed. If a business isn't profitable enough to pay a reasonable level of taxes then what good is it?
The fact that Facebook et al can sell our data is indicative of how governments have let their citizens down massively and in most fundamental ways.
I think the nearest we got to corruption in British politics in recent time was to do with expenses getting out of hand. We even had a case of the MP fabricating an £800 printer invoice etc.
These are dealt with, as they should be. But your blanket statement to try and give the impression that politicians are all corrupt is just not true. If you are taking bribes, if you are withholding financial connections to companies that have got contracts etc, all these criminal acts are actively chased by the police.
This kind of thinking is precisely why micro-businesses - 1-2 people - are often not making the jump to large size.
You suddenly get hammered from every side. So you can end up making less money, from a larger business.
True, if you struggle through that to U.K. chain scale you can make good. But there is a huge barrier.
So we have the pattern of a struggling to a few shops (say) - then sell to private equity and run.
Land taxes should be based on the undeveloped value of land, so that people who add value to that get to profit on their added value they are responsible for, while that profit gets taxed via profit taxation
NNDR (rates) is an especially pernicious tax as it is neither based on profit, nor actual land value.
NNDR is based on past turnover. So if you are more successful at generating trade (not a zombie) then your rates go up, even if not making a profit, due to the rates. Rates stay up even if trade dips, or margins are low.
It is like running on a treadmill that automatically gets faster if you are keeping up with it.
Oh sorry, brewery - piss up couldn't make it.
What is missing is investment. Skills. A working education system. Adequate training. Infrastructure. Opportunity. Hope. We are in a bad, bad place and some more unemployment is not going to make it any better.
What was the coffee like?
(I agree about governments letting us down on this matter.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUSPkYCQh7k
Given business premises in Dundee are effectively worthless, the valuation of these properties for NDR purposes (Scots for business rates) should really be zero, or close to it. That system already works quite well. I agree with you that the underlying issue in Dundee is just a complete lack of economic demand - though I do my best to contribute whenever work sends me up there. There is some hope - Dundee was for a time the quickest growing part of the Scottish economy, so there is something there to build on.
Rates are horrific for hospitality as they escalate based on boosting trade, especially cruel for low margin/high taxation businesses.
But for derelict/run down buildings? Or dodgy firms not reporting sales due to cash in hand fraud? Rates are kept much, much lower.
A thriving business and a derelict dump on the same land should face the same land taxes. That way the owner of the dump either turns it around, or gets rid of it to someone else who can do better with it.
We should be taxing value added through VAT, and profits through profit taxes. Not rates.
Couple with sensible planning reforms that allow people to redevelop land according to what it is zoned for, within standards, without years of planning issues.
I think we have lot and lots and lots of issues, and it's about finding a few small pieces of elephant we can actually eat in the short term. And working over the longer term to change underlying practices / culture / assumptions.
I'd say that what that needs is some sort of honesty in politics and media, and an underlying agreement on some matters over several decades. I think the only place I can see that happening at present is likely to be defence.
All of which is quite depressing.
Turnover taxes make business growth impossible, because you can't do the stuff required to grow without immediately getting whalloped for taxes - which have to be paid before the investment starts to pay off. This is particularly true of expansion into larger premises.
It doesn't help that the Valuation office is useless, slow and incompetent - I'm still waiting for them to sort out a listing they messed up dividing 4 years ago (there has been a fairly epic saga over this, it needs 30 second on a human's desk to resolve, but getting it onto the human's desk has taken two rates checks, and a challenge, and it's still not solved yet).
The time round, they have put in a 20% uplift to my rateable value, which is going to cost me £6k a year, and means my rateable value is very nearly double my actual rent (in theory if should reflect the rental value).
We are nearly 17 months into this parliament.
The closest equivalent budget in the last Conservative stint, just over 22 months after coming to power, was the Omnishambles budget.
"The Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war. Congress has declared war on 11 occasions, including its first declaration of war with Great Britain in 1812. Congress approved its last formal declaration of war during World War II. Since that time it has agreed to resolutions authorizing the use of military force and continues to shape U.S. military policy through appropriations and oversight."
Secondly you make a massive assumption about me. 'You said: But your blanket statement to try and give the impression that politicians are all corrupt is just not true.' As it happens I don't believe most politicians are corrupt. I think most are honest and go into it for the right reasons. I wouldn't help get some elected if I thought otherwise. You jumped to a bizarre conclusion.
Finally, although I don't need to produce examples of politicians who were corrupt and did not get charged arrested or convicted, because that wasn't the point I was making, I do take up your challenge:
I am sure all of us here could produce a list. I will start with cash for questions. I could name 4 (I won't) that were found to be corrupt by parliament, yet weren't Convicted, Charged or Arrested. You can go back to Lloyd George and cash for honours. I doubt anyone thinks that was not corrupt, but it wasn't illegal so again fails your test of Conviction, Charged or Arrested. And there is a whole host in between we could all list out.
And just for the icing on the cake I was a prosecution witness for the CPS is an election fraud case that was dropped through lack of evidence. Being the witness to the fraud I can tell you 'that was one that got away'.
I looked for a random street in Dundee with both a trading pub and vacant units. Was easy to find one, Nethergate. Others are available.
The Nether Inn on Nethergate (134 Nethergate) has a Rateable Value not of zero as you hypothesised, but instead £117,750. Annual rates bill of £66,882. ~£785 RV / m^2
Nearby 125B Nethergate is vacant/to let. It has a Rateable Value of £11,500. Annual rates bill of £5,727 per year. ~£164 RV / m^2
So the RV of the pub is approximately 500% of the RV of the vacant premises, per m^2.
Which is why neighbouring businesses can have wildly different rates values per m^2, even on the same street.
It is a horrible, pernicious tax that should be abolished.
So he has decided to commence military adventures in an South American country with lots of oil.
Isn't there a phenomenon where balance sheets rely on inflated valuations of commercial property, and a refusal to let them is to disguise the fact they aren't worth anything at all? I wonder if that is what is happening here.
NNDR/NDR is a horrible tax as it is not based on land value. It is not a property tax.
There's more of an issue when they send all the profits off to a supplier in the Cayman Islands, but there are ways round that if you really want to (if needs be, a different tax regime is more than x% of turnover is paid to suppliers abroad).
What was interesting though was what the panel thought of Kemi's personal comments about Rachel. They didn't like it at all. Neither did Daisy Cooper the Lib Dem. Quite life affirming that there are still nice people around and they aren't Tories!
For pubs it takes into account the level of trade, but it still is ultimately based on an estimated rent.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-shops-and-high-street-businesses-are-valued-for-business-rates