On reflection there were 2 different discussions going on last night and the venn diagram showed them barely touching.
On the one side there was Corbyn eager to have the State spending more on just about anything really, even nuclear weapons. Happy to claim that this could all be paid for by an increase in CT (why does no one ever point out that reducing CT has increased the yield and reversing it may well have the opposite effect) and the top 5%. Really a fantasy land but not unattractive as there are a lot of things we would and should spend more money on if we had it.
On the other there was May struggling to make the books credible (balance is still fading into the distance). Stuck with the reality of government she cannot promise more money for education despite the per capita spend falling, she cannot promise more police, she needs substantially more tax to pay for proper Social Care, she needs to keep going with cuts such as means testing the WFA and she needs to do all this in the context of Brexit with the uncertainty that is undoubtedly creating.
The question for the country is do we want the fantasy or the reality? I am not completely confident what the answer is. The reality looks pretty uninviting.
Hopefully we will eat our bran flakes rather than the bowl of sugar.
I thought JC was good last night. Certainly much improved on where he was when he started out. That suit they bought him helps.
But it's hard to get past his top team and his advisers.
Seamus Milne - Communist Andrew Murray - Stalinist John McDonnell - Insurrectionist Diane Abbott - !! Andrew Fisher - Entryist Katy Clark - Stop the War campaigner
I'm not using these labels as political insults. Aside from Abbott, they'd be proud of them.
If 18-24 turnout is within 10% of 65-74 turnout I'll do an Ashdown and eat my hat.
18-24 turnout may not be that high, but I think it will be much higher than 43% (2015). It may well beat the 64% achieved in the EU referendum. Tuition fees and maintenance grants are a very important issue in many families.
Even the 50%+ who don't go to university?
Not so much for them, but going to university will look more attractive for some people when grants are available and they won't have to be in huge debt when they leave.
Reintroducing grants for fees and maintenance would be a major poke in the eye for the banks but it may be difficult for the Trident group in Labour to scupper.
The current university loan system is effect one where the student signs up to a graduate tax. The government "loan" has zero implications on personal debt as considered by commercial lenders for housing etc.
When I graduated in the 80s I had had a grant, yes, but I paid income tax on everything over about £2k (cf today's 10), at a starting rate of 25% (cf today's 10%), and there were no in-work benefits.
The loan repayments graduates make today leave them net no worse off than I was, so far as I can see. If they are significantly worse off, the loan gets scratched anyway.
Of course they are indisputably worse off in the quality of their degree. When we had O Levels fewer than 50% of us sat them. When it became a target for 50% to go to university this necessarily meant that people who in the past could not have passed an O Level were being given degrees. These would presumably have to be of sub-O-Level quality which anecdotally does appear to be the case.
Danny565's predictions for the GE from last night seem very credible to me.
My model came out with almost identical figures based on entirely rational reported polling swings in different regions.
Yet it makes no sense when you hear of Labour MP's panicking, box pops in north and Midlands, locals, Copeland by election etc
I'm going to trust my gut rather than my model. Tory maj of 100+
As well as Copeland there was Stoke, where a flawed candidate swept home comfortably, in a WWC pro Brexit seat. The Nuclear factor must be a large part of the difference, so may not generalise well.
Danny565's figures look plausible to me, though I tip the Con majority a little higher at 76.
The Tories came third by about 78 votes despite fielding a 21 year old...
Stoke central goes Tory in 10 days time....
By elections operate under different dynamics. Copeland might well go red.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
Nor would free movement and paying 100 billion euros to the EU if that is the price of any deal
Euros 100 billion is small change compared to the damage a "no deal" Brexit would cause. The reality, of course, is that no deal is a deal: the worst possible one that could be achieved,
So lets say you pay the 100 billion.
Then a year later the EU demands another 100 billion - do you pay that ?
And if you do what happens if a year after that the EU demands yet another 100 billion ?
Is there a point at which you say no ?
In practice Brexit is going to be expensive for us. That's because, surprise, we actually want to influence the world. The main effect of Brexit is a big loss of influence for the UK. To get other parties interested in doing things that benefit us we need to offer something they wouldn't otherwise get. We can get a degree of influence by paying for it.
The negotiations, which will go on far beyond 2019 incidentally, should not just be about the amount, but what we get in return.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
It would mean WTO terms, wouldn't it? Or, to quote the PM herself, 'the consequences would be dire.'
It would mean WTO terms on trade. It would mean paralysis and chaos on anything else where the ECJ currently has ultimate jurisdiction.
When you think of what No Deal would mean in practice, the only Bad Deal a sane government could walk away from would include some kind of military occupation by the EU.
There will almost certainly be a deal. But if you walk into a car showroom announcing that you're definitely going to buy a car you're hardly going to get the salesman bending over backwards to make you a good offer. The PMs job is to do the best for the country. I'm not particularly impressed with TM right now but her line on no deal better than a bad deal is exactly the position to take at this point IMO. Especially as she is trying (sort of) to win an election.
If you really need a car and cannot function without one, you have to get one. What you have over the salesman is that he does not know whether that is the case or not. We do not have that advantage over the EU. They know everything we do.
Conservatives now again switched by the bookies to showing as favourites to gain Perth and North Perthshire from Pete Wishart, the SNP MP since 2001.
Are the Tories really going to overturn the 10K SNP majority in the teeth of the SNP manifesto having been switched to Perth (after Manchester) followed by a mass canvas by the many members attending the launch?
I don't think Wishart is going to lose all of his majority no matter what may happen elsewhere..
Banff & Buchan will see the biggest Tory swing I think.
I think 2010 vote shares will be instructive here as to where they might gain. Argyll and Bute looks an option, as does NE Fife if the Libs collapse further.
NE Fife will be one of the few Lib Dem successes of the evening.
Not so sure. Three way marginal.
The Lib Dem vote in Scotland is tremendously efficient, and actually went up in many places in 2015. The highlands and islands of Scotland are the true liberal heartlands (Just got overwhelmed by SNP in 2015)
The key point for this election being she didn't claim them as she was a remainer. She's clean of leave tactics and can position herself as regretfully but diligently implementing the will of the people.
Theresa May and Boris Johnson took their respective stances on Brexit as a tactic to become Prime Minister.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
Nor would free movement and paying 100 billion euros to the EU if that is the price of any deal
Euros 100 billion is small change compared to the damage a "no deal" Brexit would cause. The reality, of course, is that no deal is a deal: the worst possible one that could be achieved,
So lets say you pay the 100 billion.
Then a year later the EU demands another 100 billion - do you pay that ?
And if you do what happens if a year after that the EU demands yet another 100 billion ?
Is there a point at which you say no ?
In practice Brexit is going to be expensive for us. That's because, surprise, we actually want to influence the world. The main effect of Brexit is a big loss of influence for the UK. To get other parties interested in doing things that benefit us we need to offer something they wouldn't otherwise get. We can get a degree of influence by paying for it.
The negotiations, which will go on far beyond 2019 incidentally, should not just be about the amount, but what we get in return.
I really suspect that British influence in the world has been exaggerated by politicians who like to posture about it.
The EU took our money but ignored us while the USA was happy for British lives and money to be spent in their interest.
Finally we had Cameron thinking we could become an 'aid superpower' if we showered more of our largesse in the third world.
Personally I'd rather be richer and safer and do without the attempts to influence the world.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
Nor would free movement and paying 100 billion euros to the EU if that is the price of any deal
Euros 100 billion is small change compared to the damage a "no deal" Brexit would cause. The reality, of course, is that no deal is a deal: the worst possible one that could be achieved,
Whilst I don't understand the implications of no deal, I voted remain due to the uncertainty of that, surely you can envision a situation where no deal is better than something. When we say no deal we do mean trading as per WTO tariffs, so there is a degree of certainty to that part.
I listened to mishal Hussain on today this morning and she was under the misapprehension that common intelligence sharing in Europe had to have something better for EU countries. She was advised by the security expert that it wouldn't make a difference, and that countries outside EU participate. You would think senior BBC journalists would be better briefed.
It's not just about tariffs. No deal brings to an end any agreement, cooperation or collaboration where the ECJ currently has jurisdiction. That effects travel, intellectual property, security, regulatory clearance for medicines and so on.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
It would mean WTO terms, wouldn't it? Or, to quote the PM herself, 'the consequences would be dire.'
It would mean WTO terms on trade. It would mean paralysis and chaos on anything else where the ECJ currently has ultimate jurisdiction.
When you think of what No Deal would mean in practice, the only Bad Deal a sane government could walk away from would include some kind of military occupation by the EU.
There will almost certainly be a deal. But if you walk into a car showroom announcing that you're definitely going to buy a car you're hardly going to get the salesman bending over backwards to make you a good offer. The PMs job is to do the best for the country. I'm not particularly impressed with TM right now but her line on no deal better than a bad deal is exactly the position to take at this point IMO. Especially as she is trying (sort of) to win an election.
The car showroom analogy doesn't apply here because walking away from a car deal just leaves you at the status quo. The point of Brexit negotiations is to retain as much as possible of the bits of the status quo you like. Walking away leaves you with nothing at all. So, yes, you go into the negotiations determined to get the best deal you can, but by definition the best deal is less than what you already have.
There does seem to be a minor flaw in the Tory rhetoric today
Tezza "Corbyn can't get a good Brexit deal"
But he can easily get no deal. Anybody can get no deal. You said that would be better than a bad deal.
Tezza "Ummmm"
Corbyn isn't going to get no deal though. He's already said he will give them what they want, and has said he can't even guarantee leaving. His stance will be here is the terrible deal we we were offered, it would be better to stay in so we'll have another vote and the public can decide. Bad deal where we are worse off or stay. Then if we vote leave again he will say it wasn't his choice to sufferf financially. Getting a good deal, and signing FTAs with numerous states entrenches capitalism so I don't think he'd be interested in that.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
It would mean WTO terms, wouldn't it? Or, to quote the PM herself, 'the consequences would be dire.'
It would mean WTO terms on trade. It would mean paralysis and chaos on anything else where the ECJ currently has ultimate jurisdiction.
When you think of what No Deal would mean in practice, the only Bad Deal a sane government could walk away from would include some kind of military occupation by the EU.
There will almost certainly be a deal. But if you walk into a car showroom announcing that you're definitely going to buy a car you're hardly going to get the salesman bending over backwards to make you a good offer. The PMs job is to do the best for the country. I'm not particularly impressed with TM right now but her line on no deal better than a bad deal is exactly the position to take at this point IMO. Especially as she is trying (sort of) to win an election.
If you really need a car and cannot function without one, you have to get one. What you have over the salesman is that he does not know whether that is the case or not. We do not have that advantage over the EU. They know everything we do.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
Nor would free movement and paying 100 billion euros to the EU if that is the price of any deal
Euros 100 billion is small change compared to the damage a "no deal" Brexit would cause. The reality, of course, is that no deal is a deal: the worst possible one that could be achieved,
So lets say you pay the 100 billion.
Then a year later the EU demands another 100 billion - do you pay that ?
And if you do what happens if a year after that the EU demands yet another 100 billion ?
Is there a point at which you say no ?
If you have done the deal it cannot be renegotiated.
Electorally not significant in most places, but not a nice statistic fir labour to face.
It helps in Finchley, which otherwise could be v close due to the high remaineriness. Might help in a couple of other London marginals too - but definitely Finchley.
Importantly though how did British Jews vote when Labour was lead by that nice Jewish boy last time round ?
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
It would mean WTO terms, wouldn't it? Or, to quote the PM herself, 'the consequences would be dire.'
It would mean WTO terms on trade. It would mean paralysis and chaos on anything else where the ECJ currently has ultimate jurisdiction.
When you think of what No Deal would mean in practice, the only Bad Deal a sane government could walk away from would include some kind of military occupation by the EU.
There will almost certainly be a deal. But if you walk into a car showroom announcing that you're definitely going to buy a car you're hardly going to get the salesman bending over backwards to make you a good offer. The PMs job is to do the best for the country. I'm not particularly impressed with TM right now but her line on no deal better than a bad deal is exactly the position to take at this point IMO. Especially as she is trying (sort of) to win an election.
Yeah, but to extend your metaphor, Tessy is definitely 'buying the car' i.e. leaving the EU, as she says repeatedly.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
Nor would free movement and paying 100 billion euros to the EU if that is the price of any deal
Euros 100 billion is small change compared to the damage a "no deal" Brexit would cause. The reality, of course, is that no deal is a deal: the worst possible one that could be achieved,
So lets say you pay the 100 billion.
Then a year later the EU demands another 100 billion - do you pay that ?
And if you do what happens if a year after that the EU demands yet another 100 billion ?
Is there a point at which you say no ?
If you have done the deal it cannot be renegotiated.
There does seem to be a minor flaw in the Tory rhetoric today
Tezza "Corbyn can't get a good Brexit deal"
But he can easily get no deal. Anybody can get no deal. You said that would be better than a bad deal.
Tezza "Ummmm"
Corbyn isn't going to get no deal though. He's already said he will give them what they want, and has said he can't even guarantee leaving. His stance will be here is the terrible deal we we were offered, it would be better to stay in so we'll have another vote and the public can decide. Bad deal where we are worse off or stay. Then if we vote leave again he will say it wasn't his choice to sufferf financially. Getting a good deal, and signing FTAs with numerous states entrenches capitalism so I don't think he'd be interested in that.
Labour are offering parliament a meaningful vote on the final deal. I am unclear from the manifesto what would happen if parliament said no.
An interesting difference to the voting patterns of American Jews.
Do we know what the change is compared with 2015 ?
Ahead of the 2015 general election, 18 per cent of the community pledged support for Labour under Ed Miliband’s leadership. Asked this week, 14 per cent of British Jews said they had gone ahead and voted for the party two years ago, with the Tories receiving 67 per cent of the community’s votes.
F1: not backing this myself, but interesting Vettel and Hamilton are both around 2.3-2.5 on Betfair to win in Canada. Not certain, but highly probable one of them will get it.
Bottas might be the chap to bet on, but the 7.4 back has a gulf between it and the 15.5 lay. if you could get 15 as a back, that'd probably decline over time and be hedgeable.
Also, intrigued to see who the track favours. First part is twisty which should help Ferrari (someone on Twitter I know slightly, who knows his beans, thinks Mercedes will be better there) and the latter two straights will be great for the Silver Arrows.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
It would mean WTO terms, wouldn't it? Or, to quote the PM herself, 'the consequences would be dire.'
It would mean WTO terms on trade. It would mean paralysis and chaos on anything else where the ECJ currently has ultimate jurisdiction.
When you think of what No Deal would mean in practice, the only Bad Deal a sane government could walk away from would include some kind of military occupation by the EU.
There will almost certainly be a deal. But if you walk into a car showroom announcing that you're definitely going to buy a car you're hardly going to get the salesman bending over backwards to make you a good offer. The PMs job is to do the best for the country. I'm not particularly impressed with TM right now but her line on no deal better than a bad deal is exactly the position to take at this point IMO. Especially as she is trying (sort of) to win an election.
Yeah, but to extend your metaphor, Tessy is definitely 'buying the car' i.e. leaving the EU, as she says repeatedly.
Buying the car means buying the car.
Hmm. Is there any way she could steal the car somehow?
There does seem to be a minor flaw in the Tory rhetoric today
Tezza "Corbyn can't get a good Brexit deal"
But he can easily get no deal. Anybody can get no deal. You said that would be better than a bad deal.
Tezza "Ummmm"
Corbyn isn't going to get no deal though. He's already said he will give them what they want, and has said he can't even guarantee leaving. His stance will be here is the terrible deal we we were offered, it would be better to stay in so we'll have another vote and the public can decide. Bad deal where we are worse off or stay. Then if we vote leave again he will say it wasn't his choice to sufferf financially. Getting a good deal, and signing FTAs with numerous states entrenches capitalism so I don't think he'd be interested in that.
Labour are offering parliament a meaningful vote on the final deal. I am unclear from the manifesto what would happen if parliament said no.
How does a “meaningful” vote differ from a “meaningless” one in this context?
There does seem to be a minor flaw in the Tory rhetoric today
Tezza "Corbyn can't get a good Brexit deal"
But he can easily get no deal. Anybody can get no deal. You said that would be better than a bad deal.
Tezza "Ummmm"
Corbyn isn't going to get no deal though. He's already said he will give them what they want, and has said he can't even guarantee leaving. His stance will be here is the terrible deal we we were offered, it would be better to stay in so we'll have another vote and the public can decide. Bad deal where we are worse off or stay. Then if we vote leave again he will say it wasn't his choice to sufferf financially. Getting a good deal, and signing FTAs with numerous states entrenches capitalism so I don't think he'd be interested in that.
Labour are offering parliament a meaningful vote on the final deal. I am unclear from the manifesto what would happen if parliament said no.
How does a “meaningful” vote differ from a “meaningless” one in this context?
There will be a deal with the EU and we will have to pay a considerable sum to honour our commitments. That was always going to be the case.
The crux will be the size of the sum. The EU will want it to be bigger than it legally or reasonably needs to be because they a) want other EU states to fear leaving and b) kick the can of renegotiating EU budgets as far down the road as possible.
The EU is not looking forward to telling the likes of Poland that they are getting less money in the future, or, alternatively, asking Germany to pay more.
We need to negotiate strongly, because the EU are champions of the universe at kicking the can miles down the road (see Greece).
I wonder if unlike 2015 the austerity is catching up with the Conservatives be it school funding effecting most voter's kids including GCSE & A Level choices , departing teachers, crises in maternity units and stories of exhausted nurses and medics doing long hours , decrease in local policing, the true impact of social care crisis on the middle aged kids, and the massive loans and help kids need for uni. Its getting cumulative I think and could be cutting through to female and younger voters.
What austerity is that ?
During the last decade governments have borrowed and spent over a trillion quid and Britain has had deficits in both trade and tourism every single month.
It would be refreshing if the people who want more government spending on W and on X and on Y and on Z would, just once, suggest how to create some more wealth to pay for it.
I find it depressing that it is so commonly accepted that austerity is some sort of lifestyle choice rather than an economic necessity.
At some time the financial mentality of this country changed from spending what we have and earn to spending what we think we deserve.
Yes, that happened in 1945 when we blew Marshall Plan aid on having an army and dream of empire we couldn't afford.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
It would mean WTO terms, wouldn't it? Or, to quote the PM herself, 'the consequences would be dire.'
It would mean WTO terms on trade. It would mean paralysis and chaos on anything else where the ECJ currently has ultimate jurisdiction.
When you think of what No Deal would mean in practice, the only Bad Deal a sane government could walk away from would include some kind of military occupation by the EU.
There will almost certainly be a deal. But if you walk into a car showroom announcing that you're definitely going to buy a car you're hardly going to get the salesman bending over backwards to make you a good offer. The PMs job is to do the best for the country. I'm not particularly impressed with TM right now but her line on no deal better than a bad deal is exactly the position to take at this point IMO. Especially as she is trying (sort of) to win an election.
If you really need a car and cannot function without one, you have to get one. What you have over the salesman is that he does not know whether that is the case or not. We do not have that advantage over the EU. They know everything we do.
If I was told a car cost £100bn I'd get the bus.
THis is my point - at some point in the car analogy it will be more cost effective to go by bus, go but taxi, or even by helicopter. Admittedly the EU positioning documents are equally stupid as our we will walk away with no deal. But my worry is that EU will deliberately financially impede themselves as they think it will impoverish us.
There does seem to be a minor flaw in the Tory rhetoric today
Tezza "Corbyn can't get a good Brexit deal"
But he can easily get no deal. Anybody can get no deal. You said that would be better than a bad deal.
Tezza "Ummmm"
Corbyn isn't going to get no deal though. He's already said he will give them what they want, and has said he can't even guarantee leaving. His stance will be here is the terrible deal we we were offered, it would be better to stay in so we'll have another vote and the public can decide. Bad deal where we are worse off or stay. Then if we vote leave again he will say it wasn't his choice to sufferf financially. Getting a good deal, and signing FTAs with numerous states entrenches capitalism so I don't think he'd be interested in that.
It's not going to happen, but Corbyn's negotiating strategy is much better than May's. Every negotiator should have a BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement). Our BATNA isn't to walk away - that's the EU's BATNA - it's to stay put until we get what we want and not be forced to agree something that is much worse than what we already have. It would have been better to have followed that strategy BEFORE triggering Article 50, of course. The problem is that Theresa May is more concerned to negotiate with the headbangers in her party and the right wing press than negotiate with the EU.
A bit of History: The Land Tax was introduced in 1698 to replace the very arbitary Hearth Tax. It was never a tax on land and was originally conceived as an Income Tax but as familiarity with the tax increased it became easier to avoid. Therefore it soon progressed into a system of township quotas - Sedbergh paid £178 2s 4d. It had many flaws, the most obvious being its inability to cope with variations in wealth between townships. Thus Manchester paid no more quota in 1798 when the tax was made permanent and eventually exonerated than it had in 1698. Within townships it was fairer than the other rating systems if there were regular revaluations.
The Land Tax was a major contributor to the financial stability of the first 80 yrs of the 18th C. Most of the problems with some form of Land Value Tax given before were encountered by the Land Tax. Was it a good system - no it was fucking stupid ! If it was charged at 4s in the £ then by 1798 it was payable at 3.5d in the £ in Sedbergh, 2d in Garsdale and 4d in Dent. I'm not sure about Manchester but it would probably be about .25d in the £ because of the development.
Could it work - yes provided you have some brutal form of self valuation as they do in France - with no appeals.
Who would gain / lose ? The original owner on the day of imposition and his successors in law.
Public Lands - exempt obviously !
Benefits - we get a rake off when property is developed. But with Community Investment Levy we do that already.
Disbenefits - people disinvest in property ( perhaps ) to go for hidden investments, or investments in Jamaica and the Americas in the 18th C.
I suspect it contributed into the building up of vast estates in the 18th C as larger owners had the liquidity to make the biannual payments.
Supposedly Catholics paid double after 1715 - not totally convinced that was enforced.
There does seem to be a minor flaw in the Tory rhetoric today
Tezza "Corbyn can't get a good Brexit deal"
But he can easily get no deal. Anybody can get no deal. You said that would be better than a bad deal.
Tezza "Ummmm"
Corbyn isn't going to get no deal though. He's already said he will give them what they want, and has said he can't even guarantee leaving. His stance will be here is the terrible deal we we were offered, it would be better to stay in so we'll have another vote and the public can decide. Bad deal where we are worse off or stay. Then if we vote leave again he will say it wasn't his choice to sufferf financially. Getting a good deal, and signing FTAs with numerous states entrenches capitalism so I don't think he'd be interested in that.
Labour are offering parliament a meaningful vote on the final deal. I am unclear from the manifesto what would happen if parliament said no.
Well that would fit, if Labour come into power then they would have enough to block, some would abstain, if the deal was very bad I.e. Included free movement for massive costs you could see some on the right opposing on the basis that it doesn't do enough.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
It would mean WTO terms, wouldn't it? Or, to quote the PM herself, 'the consequences would be dire.'
It would mean WTO terms on trade. It would mean paralysis and chaos on anything else where the ECJ currently has ultimate jurisdiction.
When you think of what No Deal would mean in practice, the only Bad Deal a sane government could walk away from would include some kind of military occupation by the EU.
There will almost certainly be a deal. But if you walk into a car showroom announcing that you're definitely going to buy a car you're hardly going to get the salesman bending over backwards to make you a good offer. The PMs job is to do the best for the country. I'm not particularly impressed with TM right now but her line on no deal better than a bad deal is exactly the position to take at this point IMO. Especially as she is trying (sort of) to win an election.
Yeah, but to extend your metaphor, Tessy is definitely 'buying the car' i.e. leaving the EU, as she says repeatedly.
Buying the car means buying the car.
Hmm. Is there any way she could steal the car somehow?
Maybe cover it in logos and drive it round a track 70 times every other Sunday?
Doesn't change the fact that any annual tax you put on property owners will land on the back of tenants not property owners. By definition the have nots of our society.
Stamp duty is a constructive transaction tax levied at up to 5 or 600 per cent. If you move sideways from a £1 million flat in Highgate to a £1 million house in Edgware (neither of which are lavish levels of housing in London), the transaction costs are going to be £20k or so, but the tax on top will be over twice that. At £1.5 million even more so it will be 4x the transaction cost. This is assuming sideways movement with no new money added, extracted or otherwise painlessly available to be handed over.
The tax on changing your house is thus similar to what is levied on cigarettes and far higher than what is levied on drink and petrol. Presumably we are not meant to do it.
A remarkable further farce is that if you buy a £15 million oligarch property in London, the stamp duty will be over £1.7 million. If instead you buy ten £1.5 million properties, the stamp duty, even including the 3% second property penalty on nine of them, will be half a million less. Someone buying these as a store of value has every incentive to buy 10 flats to be left empty rather than one.
If you convert stamp duty into an annual tax, you are effectively turning everybody into a leaseholder. You would never really own your home because the government might tax you out of it.
I don't know what the solution is but it is clear that this problem is having a profound effect on the urban landscape. When it costs £100k to move sideways, a lot of people spend that on a hideous extension instead, with Golders Green as a result.
No deal is better than a bad deal is like saying no government is better than a bad government. It's arrant nonsense but nonsense that seems to get the approval of the public. She has an election to win, so she will say anything to get elected, just as her opponents do. We should hope she will ignore it when she is safely re-elected. I am worried though.
What would 'no deal’ mean? As I understand it it would mean, in the short-term anyway, tariffs on much, if not all of that whuch buy we buy and, more importnatly, on all of that which we sell. O a more mundane level it would also mean that airline passengers in the ‘BA situation’ would not be entitled to compensation, and that roaming charges in the EU would return. Neither wold be popular!
Nor would free movement and paying 100 billion euros to the EU if that is the price of any deal
Euros 100 billion is small change compared to the damage a "no deal" Brexit would cause. The reality, of course, is that no deal is a deal: the worst possible one that could be achieved,
So lets say you pay the 100 billion.
Then a year later the EU demands another 100 billion - do you pay that ?
And if you do what happens if a year after that the EU demands yet another 100 billion ?
Is there a point at which you say no ?
If you have done the deal it cannot be renegotiated.
I wonder if unlike 2015 the austerity is catching up with the Conservatives be it school funding effecting most voter's kids including GCSE & A Level choices , departing teachers, crises in maternity units and stories of exhausted nurses and medics doing long hours , decrease in local policing, the true impact of social care crisis on the middle aged kids, and the massive loans and help kids need for uni. Its getting cumulative I think and could be cutting through to female and younger voters.
What austerity is that ?
During the last decade governments have borrowed and spent over a trillion quid and Britain has had deficits in both trade and tourism every single month.
It would be refreshing if the people who want more government spending on W and on X and on Y and on Z would, just once, suggest how to create some more wealth to pay for it.
I wonder if you ever talk to mums, nurses, school heads , teachers, doctors, paramedics, police officers, carers, middle aged couples with needy elderly parents selling their homes , uni. students and their struggling parents on middling incomes; OK, of course govt. has to balance the books but relative to Sweden, Finland,Norway, Denmark , Holland, Belgium, France , Austria and Germany our spend on these matters is often lower than our progressive centre left/centre right neighbours. The UK is in a crisis on the domestic front.
Doesn't change the fact that any annual tax you put on property owners will land on the back of tenants not property owners. By definition the have nots of our society.
Stamp duty is a constructive transaction tax levied at up to 5 or 600 per cent. If you move sideways from a £1 million flat in Highgate to a £1 million house in Edgware (neither of which are lavish levels of housing in London), the transaction costs are going to be £20k or so, but the tax on top will be over twice that. At £1.5 million even more so it will be 4x the transaction cost. This is assuming sideways movement with no new money added, extracted or otherwise painlessly available to be handed over.
The tax on changing your house is thus similar to what is levied on cigarettes and far higher than what is levied on drink and petrol. Presumably we are not meant to do it.
A remarkable further farce is that if you buy a £15 million oligarch property in London, the stamp duty will be over £1.7 million. If instead you buy ten £1.5 million properties, the stamp duty, even including the 3% second property penalty on nine of them, will be half a million less. Someone buying these as a store of value has every incentive to buy 10 flats to be left empty rather than one.
If you convert stamp duty into an annual tax, you are effectively turning everybody into a leaseholder. You would never really own your home because the government might tax you out of it.
I don't know what the solution is but it is clear that this problem is having a profound effect on the urban landscape. When it costs £100k to move sideways, a lot of people spend that on a hideous extension instead, with Golders Green as a result.
Very good points - but I read most of them to be reasons why replacing stamp duty with some alternative more regular property tax would be a good idea.
Sporting Index have reduced their spread on Labour Seats to five points by upping the sell price by a point. I know this may appear trivial to some but it will please my old friend and near namesake, Peter from Putney, who is always ranting about the excessive breadth of the spreads generally, and particularly in relation to politics markets.
It also suggests Sporting are anxious to encourage the sellers.
If anybody spots any similar contractions on GE spread markets, can they kindly let us all know?
I wonder if unlike 2015 the austerity is catching up with the Conservatives be it school funding effecting most voter's kids including GCSE & A Level choices , departing teachers, crises in maternity units and stories of exhausted nurses and medics doing long hours , decrease in local policing, the true impact of social care crisis on the middle aged kids, and the massive loans and help kids need for uni. Its getting cumulative I think and could be cutting through to female and younger voters.
What austerity is that ?
During the last decade governments have borrowed and spent over a trillion quid and Britain has had deficits in both trade and tourism every single month.
It would be refreshing if the people who want more government spending on W and on X and on Y and on Z would, just once, suggest how to create some more wealth to pay for it.
I wonder if you ever talk to mums, nurses, school heads , teachers, doctors, paramedics, police officers, carers, middle aged couples with needy elderly parents selling their homes , uni. students and their struggling parents on middling incomes; OK, of course govt. has to balance the books but relative to Sweden, Finland,Norway, Denmark , Holland, Belgium, France , Austria and Germany our spend on these matters is often lower than our progressive centre left/centre right neighbours. The UK is in a crisis on the domestic front.
Except the government hasn't balanced the books - instead it has borrowed and spent over a trillion quid more in the last decade on those same public services these people are moaning about.
And the UK as a whole continues to have month after month a trade deficit and a tourism deficit.
If you want more money spending on public services then:
1) Create more wealth 2) Spend less on imported consumer tat and foreign holidays
But the first requires hard work and the second requires people to live within their means.
And people don't want to do either of those - its so much easier to whine about non-existent austerity and to demand that the government spends more borrowed money.
I wonder if unlike 2015 the austerity is catching up with the Conservatives be it school funding effecting most voter's kids including GCSE & A Level choices , departing teachers, crises in maternity units and stories of exhausted nurses and medics doing long hours , decrease in local policing, the true impact of social care crisis on the middle aged kids, and the massive loans and help kids need for uni. Its getting cumulative I think and could be cutting through to female and younger voters.
What austerity is that ?
During the last decade governments have borrowed and spent over a trillion quid and Britain has had deficits in both trade and tourism every single month.
It would be refreshing if the people who want more government spending on W and on X and on Y and on Z would, just once, suggest how to create some more wealth to pay for it.
I find it depressing that it is so commonly accepted that austerity is some sort of lifestyle choice rather than an economic necessity.
At some time the financial mentality of this country changed from spending what we have and earn to spending what we think we deserve.
Yes, that happened in 1945 when we blew Marshall Plan aid on having an army and dream of empire we couldn't afford.
Plus an unfunded welfare state.
This book is very good on the mistakes of that era:
I wonder if unlike 2015 the austerity is catching up with the Conservatives be it school funding effecting most voter's kids including GCSE & A Level choices , departing teachers, crises in maternity units and stories of exhausted nurses and medics doing long hours , decrease in local policing, the true impact of social care crisis on the middle aged kids, and the massive loans and help kids need for uni. Its getting cumulative I think and could be cutting through to female and younger voters.
What austerity is that ?
During the last decade governments have borrowed and spent over a trillion quid and Britain has had deficits in both trade and tourism every single month.
It would be refreshing if the people who want more government spending on W and on X and on Y and on Z would, just once, suggest how to create some more wealth to pay for it.
I wonder if you ever talk to mums, nurses, school heads , teachers, doctors, paramedics, police officers, carers, middle aged couples with needy elderly parents selling their homes , uni. students and their struggling parents on middling incomes; OK, of course govt. has to balance the books but relative to Sweden, Finland,Norway, Denmark , Holland, Belgium, France , Austria and Germany our spend on these matters is often lower than our progressive centre left/centre right neighbours. The UK is in a crisis on the domestic front.
"OK, of course govt. has to balance the books but.."
The UK runs permanent budget deficits..
We could solve all our obesity issues overnight by going back to rationing. We could solve our finances overnight by going back to real austerity.
It has been done before. "Labour chancellor Sir Stafford Cripps introduced an austerity budget including a wage freeze. He told the TUC congress, "There is only a certain sized cake. If a lot of people want a larger slice they can only get it by taking it from others."
It was unpopular then and politically impossible now. We all need the latest mobile/car/clothes /holiday. When you wrote "but"" I could see a litany or reasons why not...which duly came..
Any one who has any common sense knows that deferring unpopular (and usually inevitable) decisions usually means a bigger disaster. See Greece.
Both main political parties are lying on this as voters don't want to know reality.
Bit of a disconnect. Council tax is a land value tax. All this is is a big rise in Council Tax.
No it's not council tax is a land occupation tax as it's paid by the occupier not the owner.
Eh ?
In my case that's the same person. But surely Labour should tax the OWNERS - this stinks to high heaven if it is on the occupiers ! More taxes for generation rent - is this right ?
If it's a proper Land Value Tax it should be on the owners, not the occupiers, because it's a tax on the potential fully exploited value of the land. ie you would pay the same tax on an undeveloped piece of land as on one with houses built on it, assuming the first has planning permission. The benefit claimed for LVT is that unlike other taxes its incentives are beneficial, not perverse. By contrast income tax discourages employment; rates discourage development.
How do you stop landlords passing it on to their tenants through increased rent?
It causes more owners of land with planning allocation or consent to build out, increasing the supply of housing, and meaning if landlords try and pass an excessive proportion of the tax on to tenants, the tenants can choose instead to rent from a landlord who doesn't, basically.
The 'cost recovery' theory of the rental market doesn't hold up. It requires that, at the moment, landlords are keeping prices lower than the market could bear because they don't think it would be 'fair on tenants' to maximise their profits.
Does that really sound likely? How many landlords have "passed on" the reduction in interest rates to their tenants over the last decade?
Comments
But it's hard to get past his top team and his advisers.
Seamus Milne - Communist
Andrew Murray - Stalinist
John McDonnell - Insurrectionist
Diane Abbott - !!
Andrew Fisher - Entryist
Katy Clark - Stop the War campaigner
I'm not using these labels as political insults. Aside from Abbott, they'd be proud of them.
The loan repayments graduates make today leave them net no worse off than I was, so far as I can see. If they are significantly worse off, the loan gets scratched anyway.
Of course they are indisputably worse off in the quality of their degree. When we had O Levels fewer than 50% of us sat them. When it became a target for 50% to go to university this necessarily meant that people who in the past could not have passed an O Level were being given degrees. These would presumably have to be of sub-O-Level quality which anecdotally does appear to be the case.
The negotiations, which will go on far beyond 2019 incidentally, should not just be about the amount, but what we get in return.
Tezza "Corbyn can't get a good Brexit deal"
But he can easily get no deal. Anybody can get no deal. You said that would be better than a bad deal.
Tezza "Ummmm"
Con 77%
Lab 13%
LD 7%
Others 2%
(This is a poll of British Jews)
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/labour-support-just-13-per-cent-among-uk-jews-1.439325
The EU took our money but ignored us while the USA was happy for British lives and money to be spent in their interest.
Finally we had Cameron thinking we could become an 'aid superpower' if we showered more of our largesse in the third world.
Personally I'd rather be richer and safer and do without the attempts to influence the world.
Do we know what the change is compared with 2015 ?
Anyway, any ETA on ICM?
Importantly though how did British Jews vote when Labour was lead by that nice Jewish boy last time round
Buying the car means buying the car.
When did the big change happen ?
Bottas might be the chap to bet on, but the 7.4 back has a gulf between it and the 15.5 lay. if you could get 15 as a back, that'd probably decline over time and be hedgeable.
Also, intrigued to see who the track favours. First part is twisty which should help Ferrari (someone on Twitter I know slightly, who knows his beans, thinks Mercedes will be better there) and the latter two straights will be great for the Silver Arrows.
The crux will be the size of the sum. The EU will want it to be bigger than it legally or reasonably needs to be because they a) want other EU states to fear leaving and b) kick the can of renegotiating EU budgets as far down the road as possible.
The EU is not looking forward to telling the likes of Poland that they are getting less money in the future, or, alternatively, asking Germany to pay more.
We need to negotiate strongly, because the EU are champions of the universe at kicking the can miles down the road (see Greece).
The Land Tax was a major contributor to the financial stability of the first 80 yrs of the 18th C. Most of the problems with some form of Land Value Tax given before were encountered by the Land Tax. Was it a good system - no it was fucking stupid ! If it was charged at 4s in the £ then by 1798 it was payable at 3.5d in the £ in Sedbergh, 2d in Garsdale and 4d in Dent. I'm not sure about Manchester but it would probably be about .25d in the £ because of the development.
Could it work - yes provided you have some brutal form of self valuation as they do in France - with no appeals.
Who would gain / lose ? The original owner on the day of imposition and his successors in law.
Public Lands - exempt obviously !
Benefits - we get a rake off when property is developed. But with Community Investment Levy we do that already.
Disbenefits - people disinvest in property ( perhaps ) to go for hidden investments, or investments in Jamaica and the Americas in the 18th C.
I suspect it contributed into the building up of vast estates in the 18th C as larger owners had the liquidity to make the biannual payments.
Supposedly Catholics paid double after 1715 - not totally convinced that was enforced.
NEW THREAD
Mr Dancer could blog on its progress.
This is a great metaphor that just keeps giving.
Stamp duty is a constructive transaction tax levied at up to 5 or 600 per cent. If you move sideways from a £1 million flat in Highgate to a £1 million house in Edgware (neither of which are lavish levels of housing in London), the transaction costs are going to be £20k or so, but the tax on top will be over twice that. At £1.5 million even more so it will be 4x the transaction cost. This is assuming sideways movement with no new money added, extracted or otherwise painlessly available to be handed over.
The tax on changing your house is thus similar to what is levied on cigarettes and far higher than what is levied on drink and petrol. Presumably we are not meant to do it.
A remarkable further farce is that if you buy a £15 million oligarch property in London, the stamp duty will be over £1.7 million. If instead you buy ten £1.5 million properties, the stamp duty, even including the 3% second property penalty on nine of them, will be half a million less. Someone buying these as a store of value has every incentive to buy 10 flats to be left empty rather than one.
If you convert stamp duty into an annual tax, you are effectively turning everybody into a leaseholder. You would never really own your home because the government might tax you out of it.
I don't know what the solution is but it is clear that this problem is having a profound effect on the urban landscape. When it costs £100k to move sideways, a lot of people spend that on a hideous extension instead, with Golders Green as a result.
It also suggests Sporting are anxious to encourage the sellers.
If anybody spots any similar contractions on GE spread markets, can they kindly let us all know?
Thanks.
And the UK as a whole continues to have month after month a trade deficit and a tourism deficit.
If you want more money spending on public services then:
1) Create more wealth
2) Spend less on imported consumer tat and foreign holidays
But the first requires hard work and the second requires people to live within their means.
And people don't want to do either of those - its so much easier to whine about non-existent austerity and to demand that the government spends more borrowed money.
This book is very good on the mistakes of that era:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Victory-British-Realities-1945-50/dp/0333480457/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1496146458&sr=8-2&keywords=the+lost+victory
The UK runs permanent budget deficits..
We could solve all our obesity issues overnight by going back to rationing.
We could solve our finances overnight by going back to real austerity.
It has been done before.
"Labour chancellor Sir Stafford Cripps introduced an austerity budget including a wage freeze. He told the TUC congress, "There is only a certain sized cake. If a lot of people want a larger slice they can only get it by taking it from others."
Unemployment rose from 400,000 to 1.75 million. Britain was dependent on a £1.1 billion US loan. To combat absenteeism, sport was banned during the week."
http://socialistreview.org.uk/315/austerity-britain-1945-1951
It was unpopular then and politically impossible now. We all need the latest mobile/car/clothes /holiday.
When you wrote "but"" I could see a litany or reasons why not...which duly came..
Any one who has any common sense knows that deferring unpopular (and usually inevitable) decisions usually means a bigger disaster. See Greece.
Both main political parties are lying on this as voters don't want to know reality.
The 'cost recovery' theory of the rental market doesn't hold up. It requires that, at the moment, landlords are keeping prices lower than the market could bear because they don't think it would be 'fair on tenants' to maximise their profits.
Does that really sound likely? How many landlords have "passed on" the reduction in interest rates to their tenants over the last decade?