I know he's a good chancellor of the exchequer, but is he lucky?
Given the number of "career ending" gaffes he has survived, we must conclude yes...
I think the serious point here is that Osborne is a better CotE than Brown but mainly because by any objective measure or assessment, including by Labour MPs and analysts themselves, Brown simply spent too much.
Shockingly so.
Any CotE who followed him really only had to not repeat that error to such an egregious extent and he would be deemed a success.
Of course GO has been spending like a sailor on shore leave but he is also shrinking the size of the state and allowing the private sector room to breath. Hence he will go down, events notwithstanding, as a better, perhaps even a very good CotE.
The left, as exemplified by Don Brind, are completely gobsmacked, arent't they? It doesn't compute. Osborne is a useless toff, who was cutting too far too fast, and whose only interest is helping his rich mates. Cameron is self-evidently a vacuous lightweight. All the economists, or at least the lefty economists, which is much the same thing, were agreed: Osborne was going to wreck the economy, put millions (five million, according to David Blanchflower) on the dole, and destroy growth
And yet the UK is one of the brightest stars in the firmament.
They can't get their head around the concept that, actually, Osborne has judged things pretty damn well. Better, in fact, than almost any other finance minister in the Western world, other perhaps than the US - but the US had a number of advantages which the UK doesn't have, such as shale oil, low dependence on the Eurozone, and the most flexible hire-and-fire labour market in the developed world.
Of course, things might well get worse for the UK. There are indeed ill winds blowing from China, from the commodity sector, from the Eurozone.
I can't help feeling, though, that the very evident hope of Labour supporters like Don that it will all go catastrophically wrong, and that Corbyn and McDonnell, or even Angela Eagle, will be seen as the right people to put it right, is, to put it mildly, wishful thinking.
@BBCNewsnight: "..a war was begun, in England, against Jeremy Corbyn... waged by the media, BBC & by the right wing of the Labour party,” says Tariq Ali.
On balance, things have been getting better rather than worse since 1945, so one of the following must be true: politicians are more likely to make things better rather than worse, or they don't make much better but their negative impact on society is hugely overrated, or they do mess things up constantly but there is some alternate timeline of the world in which perfect politicians refrained from mess-ups, making people hugely better-off than they are now.
Osborne and Brown have much in common- they both exude politics. They live and breathe politics. They are both quite unlikeable and a bit skin crawling. They both are quite ugly specimens without being hideously ugly. They both are sexually quite ambiguous. From a Freudian perspective, I guess someone who is slightly ambiguous about their sexuality, may be quite controlling in other features of their lives that they have some say about, i.e. politics.
They are both highly intelligent.
I think though Osborne is ultimately more human than Gordon who had some very obvious narcissistic tendencies. I think George is less of a narcissist.
On topic I am very surprised that conservatives on here who loathed brown can't see exactly the same traits and danger signs in Osborne. Particularly the awful clientelist housing policies.
Because its not true.
Brown put a greater priority on "is this bad for the Tories?" than on "is this good for Labour?" The same (mutatis mutandis) isn't true for Osborne.
Obviously like all politicians they both place both above "what's good for the country", but that's a different story.
@BBCNewsnight: "..a war was begun, in England, against Jeremy Corbyn... waged by the media, BBC & by the right wing of the Labour party,” says Tariq Ali.
Would this be Tariq "anti-capatlist" Ali, who trying to flog his home for a cool £5 million? How the other half life eh...
@BBCNewsnight: "..a war was begun, in England, against Jeremy Corbyn... waged by the media, BBC & by the right wing of the Labour party,” says Tariq Ali.
He's still going? I remember him as a leftie student activist in the 60s!
The left, as exemplified by Don Brind, are completely gobsmacked, arent't they? It doesn't compute. Osborne is a useless toff, who was cutting too far too fast, and whose only interest is helping his rich mates. Cameron is self-evidently a vacuous lightweight. All the economists, or at least the lefty economists, which is much the same thing, were agreed: Osborne was going to wreck the economy, put millions (five million, according to David Blanchflower) on the dole, and destroy growth
And yet the UK is one of the brightest stars in the firmament.
They can't get their head around the concept that, actually, Osborne has judged things pretty damn well. Better, in fact, than almost any other finance minister in the Western world, other perhaps than the US - but the US had a number of advantages which the UK doesn't have, such as shale oil, low dependence on the Eurozone, and the most flexible hire-and-fire labour market in the developed world.
Of course, things might well get worse for the UK. There are indeed ill winds blowing from China, from the commodity sector, from the Eurozone.
I can't help feeling, though, that the very evident hope of Labour supporters like Don that it will all go catastrophically wrong, and that Corbyn and McDonnell, or even Angela Eagle, will be seen as the right people to put it right, is, to put it mildly, wishful thinking.
The left, as exemplified by Don Brind, are completely gobsmacked, arent't they? It doesn't compute. Osborne is a useless toff, who was cutting too far too fast, and whose only interest is helping his rich mates. Cameron is self-evidently a vacuous lightweight. All the economists, or at least the lefty economists, which is much the same thing, were agreed: Osborne was going to wreck the economy, put millions (five million, according to David Blanchflower) on the dole, and destroy growth
And yet the UK is one of the brightest stars in the firmament.
They can't get their head around the concept that, actually, Osborne has judged things pretty damn well. Better, in fact, than almost any other finance minister in the Western world, other perhaps than the US - but the US had a number of advantages which the UK doesn't have, such as shale oil, low dependence on the Eurozone, and the most flexible hire-and-fire labour market in the developed world.
Of course, things might well get worse for the UK. There are indeed ill winds blowing from China, from the commodity sector, from the Eurozone.
I can't help feeling, though, that the very evident hope of Labour supporters like Don that it will all go catastrophically wrong, and that Corbyn and McDonnell, or even Angela Eagle, will be seen as the right people to put it right, is, to put it mildly, wishful thinking.
I know he's a good chancellor of the exchequer, but is he lucky?
Given the number of "career ending" gaffes he has survived, we must conclude yes...
I think the serious point here is that Osborne is a better CotE than Brown but mainly because by any objective measure or assessment, including by Labour MPs and analysts themselves, Brown simply spent too much.
Shockingly so.
Any CotE who followed him really only had to not repeat that error to such an egregious extent and he would be deemed a success.
Of course GO has been spending like a sailor on shore leave but he is also shrinking the size of the state and allowing the private sector room to breath. Hence he will go down, events notwithstanding, as a better, perhaps even a very good CotE.
You could have said the same about Brown in 2003. As the Premiership came closer, and the hubris grew, fiscal policy loosened. Osborne's ex adviser in the FT today warning of the moral hazard facing the Conservative party. Lord keep me prudent - but not when the top job is in touching distance.
I was musing earlier about how lucky Osborne had been with the OBR shaking the magic money tree and finding those extra billions before the Autumn Statement and how it played in to his hands with regard to meeting his surplus target by 2020. It highlighted the dangers of setting arbitrary financial and timing targets which have no particular justification.
What would have been the consequences had the OBR's recalibration been the other way? Presumably, savage cuts on an unprecedented scale - and for what purpose...to meet a vain man's phoney target.
Labour leader has given character references several times in support of violent criminals
Jeremy Corbyn was accused by a judge of trying to make a violent criminal “sound like a peace campaigner” in one of a series of court interventions unearthed by The Daily Telegraph.
In 2008 Mr Corbyn attended Wood Green Crown Court in north London to provide a character reference for Salah, then aged 21, who already had convictions for handling stolen goods and numerous breaches of Asbos and court orders.
Salah was part of a 13-strong gang called the “Camden Boyz” that had left 21-year-old student Mohammed Nur for dead in a car park after a savage beating in 2005. The 13 gang members were jailed for a total of 62 years for the attack, which prompted the murder of an 18-year-old in a revenge attack.
@BBCNewsnight: "..a war was begun, in England, against Jeremy Corbyn... waged by the media, BBC & by the right wing of the Labour party,” says Tariq Ali.
What would have been the consequences had the OBR's recalibration been the other way? Presumably, savage cuts on an unprecedented scale - and for what purpose...to meet a vain man's phoney target.
It was the other way in 2012/13. Osborne kept his nerve, and didn't introduce new cuts.
@corbynjokes: A Putinist, a Baathist, a Stalinist and an anti-semite walked into a bar and the barman said "the Stop The War Christmas party is upstairs"
Osborne hasn't been a great Chancellor, but he hasn't been a terrible one either. I'd give him a C or C-. Yes, the trade figures are frightening and fiscal policy may have been too tight in 2011 and 2012. And he has failed completely to address the numerous supply-side problems in the British economy, in particular in housing and aspects of the tax system. But on the other hand, we have reasonably robust growth, and the shrinking of the finance and oil sectors created formidable headwinds for the economy. Of course much of this relative success was due to us not being in the Euro, and whoever was responsible for that, it wasn't Osborne.
Clearly his true passion is not economics but playing political games. He's hardly alone in that in the Commons, but he's not actually that good at it - his wheezes backfire as often as they wrongfoot Labour.
By the way, most jobs above a certain level need some kind of qualification. Why don't we insist that Chancellors have at least some kind of graduate level qualification in economics? It is a necessity for the most junior economist in the Treasury, but for some reason not for its leader.
@BBCNewsnight: "..a war was begun, in England, against Jeremy Corbyn... waged by the media, BBC & by the right wing of the Labour party,” says Tariq Ali.
@BBCNewsnight: "..a war was begun, in England, against Jeremy Corbyn... waged by the media, BBC & by the right wing of the Labour party,” says Tariq Ali.
Labour leader has given character references several times in support of violent criminals
Jeremy Corbyn was accused by a judge of trying to make a violent criminal “sound like a peace campaigner” in one of a series of court interventions unearthed by The Daily Telegraph.
In 2008 Mr Corbyn attended Wood Green Crown Court in north London to provide a character reference for Salah, then aged 21, who already had convictions for handling stolen goods and numerous breaches of Asbos and court orders.
Salah was part of a 13-strong gang called the “Camden Boyz” that had left 21-year-old student Mohammed Nur for dead in a car park after a savage beating in 2005. The 13 gang members were jailed for a total of 62 years for the attack, which prompted the murder of an 18-year-old in a revenge attack.
The oil crunch is quite something with it now at just over £26/barrel.
Oil prices have dropped by about 25% in the last few weeks but petrol prices have decreased by only around 10%.
Yesterday the Telegraph had a very good article on this very point. Aside from other matters, cost of refining, retailers mark up, distribution etc., one must remember that fuel duty is charged at a fixed rate (about 57p a litre from memory) and then the Treasury wacks on another 20% in VAT (yes VAT is charged on the duty, taxing a tax). So the price fall we see at the pumps is always going to be less in percentage terms than the fall in the price of crude.
Most of the money we hand over when we fill up the car goes to HMG.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
Question: is there a plan for local income tax rates (I know there can't be at the moment), or is it all one national rate? If so, won't that make local government even less independent and more reliant on the handout from the centre? Or is that the plan?
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
I know that central government supports local government expenditure by grant but the break between council income from council tax and central government funding is really immaterial to my question. If council tax is abolished it has to be replaced unless there are cuts, which seem to be anathema up there. From what you say you expect all local government expenditure in future to be funded exclusively by grant from Holyrood, which you expect will in turn fund it by a Scottish income tax. Am I interpreting your post accurately?
I live in London and council taxes here are a significant part of local government revenues.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
Question: is there a plan for local income tax rates (I know there can't be at the moment), or is it all one national rate? If so, won't that make local government even less independent and more reliant on the handout from the centre? Or is that the plan?
Localism is retarded.
End Localism, Centralise government and let local authorities make restricted choices. If the SNP can get most of the NIMBYim out of the Localist noise they will be doing well.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
I know that central government supports local government expenditure by grant but the break between council income from council tax and central government funding is really immaterial to my question. If council tax is abolished it has to be replaced unless there are cuts, which seem to be anathema up there. From what you say you expect all local government expenditure in future to be funded exclusively by grant from Holyrood, which you expect will in turn fund it by a Scottish income tax. Am I interpreting your post accurately?
I live in London and council taxes here are a significant part of local government revenues.
They will be adding 1% to Income Tax, which will benefit pretty much everyone. A few people will pay a small increment but the big beneficiaries will be low income home owners.
It is one of the most exceptionally smart moves since replacing Stamp Duty.
As with Stamp Duty, it is likely that Osborne will copy Swinney's innovation.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
I know that central government supports local government expenditure by grant but the break between council income from council tax and central government funding is really immaterial to my question. If council tax is abolished it has to be replaced unless there are cuts, which seem to be anathema up there. From what you say you expect all local government expenditure in future to be funded exclusively by grant from Holyrood, which you expect will in turn fund it by a Scottish income tax. Am I interpreting your post accurately?
I live in London and council taxes here are a significant part of local government revenues.
They will be adding 1% to Income Tax, which will benefit pretty much everyone. A few people will pay a small increment but the big beneficiaries will be low income home owners.
It is one of the most exceptionally smart moves since replacing Stamp Duty.
As with Stamp Duty, it is likely that Osborne will copy Swinney's innovation.
Hmm 1% income tax additional vs scrapped council tax would benefit me personally.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
I know that central government supports local government expenditure by grant but the break between council income from council tax and central government funding is really immaterial to my question. If council tax is abolished it has to be replaced unless there are cuts, which seem to be anathema up there. From what you say you expect all local government expenditure in future to be funded exclusively by grant from Holyrood, which you expect will in turn fund it by a Scottish income tax. Am I interpreting your post accurately?
I live in London and council taxes here are a significant part of local government revenues.
They will be adding 1% to Income Tax, which will benefit pretty much everyone. A few people will pay a small increment but the big beneficiaries will be low income home owners.
It is one of the most exceptionally smart moves since replacing Stamp Duty.
As with Stamp Duty, it is likely that Osborne will copy Swinney's innovation.
Hmm 1% income tax additional vs scrapped council tax would benefit me personally.
Is that really the revenue neutral rate ?
It's progressive. The Mediam income of £25k pays another £150 per person and saves about £1200 per household. While the top income pays far more. It's a very clever way to increase top rate tax. I think its an absolute winner.
But it's also probably not going to be a disincentive. I don't see the motivation for people on 200k+ to move away from Scotland.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
Question: is there a plan for local income tax rates (I know there can't be at the moment), or is it all one national rate? If so, won't that make local government even less independent and more reliant on the handout from the centre? Or is that the plan?
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
Question: is there a plan for local income tax rates (I know there can't be at the moment), or is it all one national rate? If so, won't that make local government even less independent and more reliant on the handout from the centre? Or is that the plan?
No-one benefits from Localism.
Not even democracy?
Localism rewards a turnout of 30% of the electorate. Is that democratic? At least national elections see more than half the electorate voting.
Localism is truly awful and the worst way to ruin public expenditure second only to Westminster.
It's progressive. The Mediam income of £25k pays another £150 per person and saves about £1200 per household. While the top income pays far more. It's a very clever way to increase top rate tax. I think its an absolute winner.
But it's also probably not going to be a disincentive. I don't see the motivation for people on 200k+ to move away from Scotland.
It would benefit me too hugely because with council tax property values being set nationally and valuations in London being high, I pay a lot of council tax and I can manage my income. There are plenty of others who are in my position in spades and then some. It's a complex issue which will impact differently in different locations and with different people within those locations. Also tax avoidance (which is legal) largely plays with income tax on a personal taxation level. The "advantage" of a bricks and mortar tax is that it's hard to evade. It's very complex, much too complex for me at this hour so I'm to my bed. Good night.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
Question: is there a plan for local income tax rates (I know there can't be at the moment), or is it all one national rate? If so, won't that make local government even less independent and more reliant on the handout from the centre? Or is that the plan?
No-one benefits from Localism.
Not even democracy?
Localism rewards a turnout of 30% of the electorate. Is that democratic?
Yes.
If people choose not to vote - thats their choice.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
Question: is there a plan for local income tax rates (I know there can't be at the moment), or is it all one national rate? If so, won't that make local government even less independent and more reliant on the handout from the centre? Or is that the plan?
No-one benefits from Localism.
Not even democracy?
Localism rewards a turnout of 30% of the electorate. Is that democratic?
Yes.
If people choose not to vote - thats their choice.
You want to remove that choice.
A bit ironic from those who want independence from a larger Union.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
Question: is there a plan for local income tax rates (I know there can't be at the moment), or is it all one national rate? If so, won't that make local government even less independent and more reliant on the handout from the centre? Or is that the plan?
No-one benefits from Localism.
Not even democracy?
Localism rewards a turnout of 30% of the electorate. Is that democratic?
Yes.
If people choose not to vote - thats their choice.
You want to remove that choice.
People will make their choice in 5 months. And it will be a majority choice. Localim has no function until it attracts half the electorate which it clearly cant.
And in the meantime those tiny numbers will try to block windmills and prevent housebuilding. Localism does NOTHING positive. All it does is destroy as NIMBYs command.
It's hard to explain how good abolishing Council Tax is for me, for the SNP, for Scotland and for the Middle Class.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
This is an innocent question prompted by your post. Does council tax work differently up there? Is it not exclusively council income to pay for council expenditure? If so, where will lost income be recovered?
Council Tax is pretty much unrelated to council expenditure throughout the UK, the bulk of Council money comes from central government. It is a tax focused on lower income homeowners which reaches into the middle class. Abolishing it is a fantastic move.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
Question: is there a plan for local income tax rates (I know there can't be at the moment), or is it all one national rate? If so, won't that make local government even less independent and more reliant on the handout from the centre? Or is that the plan?
No-one benefits from Localism.
Not even democracy?
Localism rewards a turnout of 30% of the electorate. Is that democratic?
Yes.
If people choose not to vote - thats their choice.
You want to remove that choice.
A bit ironic from those who want independence from a larger Union.
Yes. One wonders if Dair would be so keen if Labour were in power.....
Of course centralisation is an unqualified success in Scotland - just look at Police Scotland.....
Comments
Shockingly so.
Any CotE who followed him really only had to not repeat that error to such an egregious extent and he would be deemed a success.
Of course GO has been spending like a sailor on shore leave but he is also shrinking the size of the state and allowing the private sector room to breath. Hence he will go down, events notwithstanding, as a better, perhaps even a very good CotE.
And yet the UK is one of the brightest stars in the firmament.
They can't get their head around the concept that, actually, Osborne has judged things pretty damn well. Better, in fact, than almost any other finance minister in the Western world, other perhaps than the US - but the US had a number of advantages which the UK doesn't have, such as shale oil, low dependence on the Eurozone, and the most flexible hire-and-fire labour market in the developed world.
Of course, things might well get worse for the UK. There are indeed ill winds blowing from China, from the commodity sector, from the Eurozone.
I can't help feeling, though, that the very evident hope of Labour supporters like Don that it will all go catastrophically wrong, and that Corbyn and McDonnell, or even Angela Eagle, will be seen as the right people to put it right, is, to put it mildly, wishful thinking.
Obviously like all politicians they both place both above "what's good for the country", but that's a different story.
Tight oil, not shale oil.
[Pedantry off]
[After all, if we can't be pedantic here, where can we be pedantic?]
What would have been the consequences had the OBR's recalibration been the other way? Presumably, savage cuts on an unprecedented scale - and for what purpose...to meet a vain man's phoney target.
Jeremy Corbyn was accused by a judge of trying to make a violent criminal “sound like a peace campaigner” in one of a series of court interventions unearthed by The Daily Telegraph.
In 2008 Mr Corbyn attended Wood Green Crown Court in north London to provide a character reference for Salah, then aged 21, who already had convictions for handling stolen goods and numerous breaches of Asbos and court orders.
Salah was part of a 13-strong gang called the “Camden Boyz” that had left 21-year-old student Mohammed Nur for dead in a car park after a savage beating in 2005. The 13 gang members were jailed for a total of 62 years for the attack, which prompted the murder of an 18-year-old in a revenge attack.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/12046798/Jeremy-Corbyn-criticised-by-judge-for-making-violent-criminals-sound-like-peace-campaigners.html
Seems like Jahadi Jez is more than willing to provide references for all sorts of scum, not just Granny robbing Jahadi supporting scum.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/dec/05/uk-economic-growth-forecasts-obr-autumn-statement
Clearly his true passion is not economics but playing political games. He's hardly alone in that in the Commons, but he's not actually that good at it - his wheezes backfire as often as they wrongfoot Labour.
By the way, most jobs above a certain level need some kind of qualification. Why don't we insist that Chancellors have at least some kind of graduate level qualification in economics? It is a necessity for the most junior economist in the Treasury, but for some reason not for its leader.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/107516
Most of the money we hand over when we fill up the car goes to HMG.
It is on of the most ridiculous taxes there is, this will be a shove past 60% permanently for the Party of Scotland.
To give you an idea.
In 1995 I bought a home in Glasgow for £28000. The council tax burden in that year was over £1000.
Folding it into Income Tax (as surely must be the plan) is an fantastic idea which will benefit the vast majority of Scotland.
'Seems like Jahadi Jez is more than willing to provide references for all sorts of scum, not just Granny robbing Jahadi supporting scum.'
Yes any scum will do for Jez.
I live in London and council taxes here are a significant part of local government revenues.
End Localism, Centralise government and let local authorities make restricted choices. If the SNP can get most of the NIMBYim out of the Localist noise they will be doing well.
No-one benefits from Localism.
It is one of the most exceptionally smart moves since replacing Stamp Duty.
As with Stamp Duty, it is likely that Osborne will copy Swinney's innovation.
Is that really the revenue neutral rate ?
But it's also probably not going to be a disincentive. I don't see the motivation for people on 200k+ to move away from Scotland.
Localism is truly awful and the worst way to ruin public expenditure second only to Westminster.
Dair -
It's progressive. The Mediam income of £25k pays another £150 per person and saves about £1200 per household. While the top income pays far more. It's a very clever way to increase top rate tax. I think its an absolute winner.
But it's also probably not going to be a disincentive. I don't see the motivation for people on 200k+ to move away from Scotland.
It would benefit me too hugely because with council tax property values being set nationally and valuations in London being high, I pay a lot of council tax and I can manage my income. There are plenty of others who are in my position in spades and then some. It's a complex issue which will impact differently in different locations and with different people within those locations. Also tax avoidance (which is legal) largely plays with income tax on a personal taxation level. The "advantage" of a bricks and mortar tax is that it's hard to evade. It's very complex, much too complex for me at this hour so I'm to my bed. Good night.
If people choose not to vote - thats their choice.
You want to remove that choice.
And in the meantime those tiny numbers will try to block windmills and prevent housebuilding. Localism does NOTHING positive. All it does is destroy as NIMBYs command.
The whole point is that Zac Goldsmith is not bluffing.
Of course centralisation is an unqualified success in Scotland - just look at Police Scotland.....