Mr. Eagles, the Government should drop that. And its sugar tax nonsense. This sort of mindless, foolish meddling is what Labour's for. The Conservatives shouldn't be ramping up the nanny state. May's an interfering authoritarian, a useful idiot for puritans.
I have never grasped the fury about the sugar tax. If we accept taxes on alcohol and tobacco then why not on sugary drinks? The only question is why the tax shouldn’t be extended to other sweets. Sugar literally kills people.
Is there really fury? Most people probably don't know or particularly care.
What there is, I suspect, is a very powerful drinks industry that doesn't like the tax... and is happy to fund surrogate organizations/lobbyists to argue that it won't work/won't reduce sugary drinks consumption/won't solve obesity on its own etc. etc.
I must admit that I have heard and seen absolutely no anger at the sugar tax. I tend to agree it probably won't do.much to reduce consumption since the alternatives are frankly awful. But I certainly don't see anyone taking to the streets or even getting mildly peeved about it
Taxes need to be raised somewhere.
And while water is free people have an alternative.
Mr. Pubgoer, can't trust the peasants to decide what food to buy for themselves without the oversight of a bureaucrat from London to tax the 'wrong' choices.
Go a month without sugar if you like. But I'd get your will written first.
Cigarettes contain carcinogens. They're addictive and give you cancer, as well as causing emphysema and other conditions. Alcohol is also addictive, and its effects (reducing inhibitions and motor control) can cause problems for both the individual and for others (drink driving victims being the prime example). It can also cause liver problems.
Without sugar, you die. It's the fuel we use to live. Poor people spend a higher proportion of their income on food. Increase food prices and your disproportionately harm the poor. Of course, you get to complain about food bank use rising too.
We don’t need to add sugar to our diet in the way you suggest. As sugar is in everything we can get all we need from eating fresh produce. I drink sugary drinks from time to time, but there is nothing wrong with taxing them. It makes perfect sense. Obesity is a massive killer.
For once we are in agreement - my mother read 'Pure White and Deadly' when I was young and strove mightily to remove added sugar from our diets...
On topic Nicky Morgan will make a great Home Secretary.
We need someone at the Home Office who looks at evidence based policies not headline pleasing policies.
Her tenure at Education shows this.
Like the truly great Tories such as Gove, Cameron, and Thatcher, Morgan saw that grammar schools screw poor children which is why she continued Gove’s excellent academy process.
Regretfully she didn’t go full Thatcher and close a lot of grammar schools.
Did Thatcher close a single grammar school ?
I always thought that it was local councils which did so.
She did.
Going further back, how many grammar schools were turned into comprehensives under Edward Heath's government, when a certain Margaret Thatcher was education secretary? Answer: lots.
Indeed, Mrs Thatcher (as she then was) is understood to have signed away more grammar schools between 1970 and 1974 than any other education secretary before or since.
When Thatcher was PM there were more pupils in grammar schools by 1990 when she left office than in 1979 when she arrived, she was also a prominent supporter of Brady's pro Grammar School Association.
Even Cameron refused to close grammar schools despite not committing to open any more, indeed he once attended a grammar school prize giving. A majority of Tory voters want new grammars and a plurality if voters as a whole. Only Labour voters want to have an entirely comprehensive system and end selection completely (though of course they would attack private schools too by ending their charitable status etc)
This says there were fewer pupils in grammar schools in 1990 than in 1979
Though there were admittedly slightly fewer grammar schools the rate of decline slowed rapidly under Thatcher. Major and Cameron saw the biggest rise in grammar school pupils now up to 5.2% from 4.5% in 1979.
Though on this as on much else again you have more in common with LD than Tory voters
By the time Thatcher got REALLY into power there wasn’t nearly as much secondary education that needed reorganising.
True. It had already been pretty much wrecked by then. All that was needed wad to oversee the steady decline.
Mr. Pubgoer, can't trust the peasants to decide what food to buy for themselves without the oversight of a bureaucrat from London to tax the 'wrong' choices.
But taxing it is the Conservative way. The authoritarian Nanny State way would be to ban it. This way people still get to choose to live as they wish but have to accept the financial consequences of their choices and make a contribution to the cost of their care when they end up with type 2 diabetes.
We should extend this legalise and tax policy to a few more things like drugs and prostitution.
Go a month without sugar if you like. But I'd get your will written first.
Cigarettes contain carcinogens. They're addictive and give you cancer, as well as causing emphysema and other conditions. Alcohol is also addictive, and its effects (reducing inhibitions and motor control) can cause problems for both the individual and for others (drink driving victims being the prime example). It can also cause liver problems.
Without sugar, you die. It's the fuel we use to live. Poor people spend a higher proportion of their income on food. Increase food prices and your disproportionately harm the poor. Of course, you get to complain about food bank use rising too.
Strawman argument from you.
People survived without refined sugars for most of human history - and some 800,000 years of human prehistory.
Ms. Anazina, there's such a thing as free will. Jacking up food prices on products deemed sinful by the puritans is gouging tax revenue from shoppers because they have the temerity to make a choice that isn't approved of by the state.
Mr. L, put a little bit on Bradley.
Mr. Eagles, glad Saunders is on her way out. That is a shocking headline.
Mr. rkrkrk, income tax was meant to be temporary, to finance war with France (incidentally, the Bank of England was established for much the same reason). This sugar tax will be broadened, the scope ever increasing to increase prices and lighten the voters' collective wallet. It's not about health, it's about wealth, and puritanical self-righteousness.
As an aside, I'm mildly that I, arguably the skinniest of PBers, am seemingly the only one defending the right of the people to enjoy the food they like without the sin tax.
As an aside, I'm mildly that I, arguably the skinniest of PBers, am seemingly the only one defending the right of the people to enjoy the food they like without the sin tax.
Genuine question - what do you feel is the best way to raise money for the state ?
On topic Nicky Morgan will make a great Home Secretary.
We need someone at the Home Office who looks at evidence based policies not headline pleasing policies.
Her tenure at Education shows this.
Like the truly great Tories such as Gove, Cameron, and Thatcher, Morgan saw that grammar schools screw poor children which is why she continued Gove’s excellent academy process.
Regretfully she didn’t go full Thatcher and close a lot of grammar schools.
Did Thatcher close a single grammar school ?
I always thought that it was local councils which did so.
She did.
Going further back, how many grammar schools were turned into comprehensives under Edward Heath's government, when a certain Margaret Thatcher was education secretary? Answer: lots.
Indeed, Mrs Thatcher (as she then was) is understood to have signed away more grammar schools between 1970 and 1974 than any other education secretary before or since.
When Thatcher was PM there were more pupils in grammar schools by 1990 when she left office than in 1979 d attack private schools too by ending their charitable status etc)
This says there were fewer pupils in grammar schools in 1990 than in 1979
Believe me, clouding the issue with facts in the face of HYUFD spin is the definition of a wasted life. Recall his contention that “west London is mainly Tory” which was simply and immediately disproven by looking at a widely available parliamentary map. He will never admit he is wrong.
No it wasn't as I showed you repeatedly and yes my point stands
Seeing that geography is clearly not your strong point, west London is the bit on the middle left of this map.
Ms. Anazina, there's such a thing as free will. Jacking up food prices on products deemed sinful by the puritans is gouging tax revenue from shoppers because they have the temerity to make a choice that isn't approved of by the state.
Mr. L, put a little bit on Bradley.
Mr. Eagles, glad Saunders is on her way out. That is a shocking headline.
Mr. rkrkrk, income tax was meant to be temporary, to finance war with France (incidentally, the Bank of England was established for much the same reason). This sugar tax will be broadened, the scope ever increasing to increase prices and lighten the voters' collective wallet. It's not about health, it's about wealth, and puritanical self-righteousness.
As an aside, I'm mildly that I, arguably the skinniest of PBers, am seemingly the only one defending the right of the people to enjoy the food they like without the sin tax.
Taxes have to raised in some way for God’s sake. Nobody is banning sugary drinks, but as one whose grandmother saw her retirement ruined by Type 2 diabetes (she owned and ran a sweet shop) I hope the tax might have some impact in reducing ignorant attitudes about sugar, such as yours. Supplementing our diet with sugar is dangerous to our health.
P.S. boasting about your own physique is rather unbecoming - your own physiology is immaterial. Obesity is a major problem. Sugar kills.
Ms. Anazina, there's such a thing as free will. Jacking up food prices on products deemed sinful by the puritans is gouging tax revenue from shoppers because they have the temerity to make a choice that isn't approved of by the state.
Mr. L, put a little bit on Bradley.
Mr. Eagles, glad Saunders is on her way out. That is a shocking headline.
Mr. rkrkrk, income tax was meant to be temporary, to finance war with France (incidentally, the Bank of England was established for much the same reason). This sugar tax will be broadened, the scope ever increasing to increase prices and lighten the voters' collective wallet. It's not about health, it's about wealth, and puritanical self-righteousness.
As an aside, I'm mildly that I, arguably the skinniest of PBers, am seemingly the only one defending the right of the people to enjoy the food they like without the sin tax.
I am strongly in favour of reducing tax take. But personally within the framework of reducing the size if the State I would much rather see harmful behaviours taxed and beneficial ones - like work or investment promoted with a lower tax burden.
Thought for the day - every time someone argues against a tax, or for a spending commitment that isn't in place, they should put forward the alternative tax they'd raise, or spending they'd cut.
Mr. Pulpstar, nothing wrong with the general approach of income tax, NI (there is an argument to band those two together), and VAT.
I agree with Mr. Tyndall on prostitution, and perhaps drugs too. That would represent a liberal move, and increase the safety of the public by regulating such practices. That would decrease the risks and increase the detection of trafficking sex slaves, and reduce the particularly harmful impurities in drugs (not suggesting a total free for all, and there would need to be trials).
This would increase public freedom, and safety, and bring in taxes. We'd also have the entertainment of discovering whether the Chancellor at the time felt that VAT ought, or not, be applied to the services of prostitutes.
[For those wondering, I'd avail myself of neither service, were they to become legalised. I am a pure and virtuous fellow (as all morris dancers are), but, unlike many, feel no need to impose my own morality upon the world via legislation and taxation].
I recall Yudkin on TV in the 1960s arguing persuasively against sugar.
It’s all part of the now highly contested “low fat” drive - which saw food manufactures take out “bad” fat (which we’d been eating for hundreds of thousands of years) and replace the calories with refined sugars - which had been in our diet for little over a hundred - and proudly boast stuff was “low fat”.
Guido reporting an interesting angle on the Rudd story, suggesting that she discovered a whole pile of operational targets in the immigration service that she didn’t know about.
In other words she had no idea what was going on in her own department, so decided she had to falll on her sword.
JRM has, apparently, just tipped Nicky Morgan for the post.
Personally I think she’s the least likely candidate; the only people allowed to criticise a female’s dress sense to their face are the fathers of teenage girls. And that rarely ends well!
Go a month without sugar if you like. But I'd get your will written first.
Cigarettes contain carcinogens. They're addictive and give you cancer, as well as causing emphysema and other conditions. Alcohol is also addictive, and its effects (reducing inhibitions and motor control) can cause problems for both the individual and for others (drink driving victims being the prime example). It can also cause liver problems.
Without sugar, you die. It's the fuel we use to live. Poor people spend a higher proportion of their income on food. Increase food prices and your disproportionately harm the poor. Of course, you get to complain about food bank use rising too.
I hadn't noticed previously that you were a fan of the Scottish governments alcohol minimum price policy, but welcome aboard in any case.
Mr. Pulpstar, nothing wrong with the general approach of income tax, NI (there is an argument to band those two together), and VAT.
I agree with Mr. Tyndall on prostitution, and perhaps drugs too. That would represent a liberal move, and increase the safety of the public by regulating such practices. That would decrease the risks and increase the detection of trafficking sex slaves, and reduce the particularly harmful impurities in drugs (not suggesting a total free for all, and there would need to be trials).
This would increase public freedom, and safety, and bring in taxes. We'd also have the entertainment of discovering whether the Chancellor at the time felt that VAT ought, or not, be applied to the services of prostitutes.
[For those wondering, I'd avail myself of neither service, were they to become legalised. I am a pure and virtuous fellow (as all morris dancers are), but, unlike many, feel no need to impose my own morality upon the world via legislation and taxation].
So you're arguing for the taxation of income (Income tax), general spending (VAT), work (NI) and sex but not sugar ?
Thought for the day - every time someone argues against a tax, or for a spending commitment that isn't in place, they should put forward the alternative tax they'd raise, or spending they'd cut.
That will never wash.
The whole world knows that hundreds of trillions can simply be pulled out of Mr Corbyn's backside. :-D . And there is a certain 'Professor' of Political Economy who will likely confirm it 'As An Economist', then abuse anyone who demurs.
Guido reporting an interesting angle on the Rudd story, suggesting that she discovered a whole pile of operational targets in the immigration service that she didn’t know about.
In other words she had no idea what was going on in her own department, so decided she had to falll on her sword.
Go a month without sugar if you like. But I'd get your will written first.
Cigarettes contain carcinogens. They're addictive and give you cancer, as well as causing emphysema and other conditions. Alcohol is also addictive, and its effects (reducing inhibitions and motor control) can cause problems for both the individual and for others (drink driving victims being the prime example). It can also cause liver problems.
Without sugar, you die. It's the fuel we use to live. Poor people spend a higher proportion of their income on food. Increase food prices and your disproportionately harm the poor. Of course, you get to complain about food bank use rising too.
Refined fructose in significant quantities is really a long acting poison.
Ms. Anazina, someone disagreeing with you doesn't mean they're ignorant.
I forget if it's hypertropic or hyperplastic obesity, but a major problem is when parents overfeed their children, leading to an increase to adipocytes (fat cells). This change, occurring in childhood, is permanent, effectively increasing the base level of 'fatness' that individual then carries into adulthood.
Informing parents about this and explaining the simple but significant results of excessive food intake would be a good thing. Hammering people with taxes is not. People have the right to make informed choices with which you, or I, disagree. Punitive taxation is foolish.
Just look at it mathematically. Suppose behaviour does change. Then the sugar tax brings in no money, and whatever it was used for goes unfunded. So, other taxes rise or the sugar tax is broadened. That's why behaviour-changing [as designed] taxation is dumb, unless used for something that can go unfunded (additional debt reduction would be an example).
The tax system ought not be used to impose puritanical morality upon the people. Taxes are there to fund vital services, not punish those whose decisions are frowned upon by the political class.
Mr. Pulpstar, nothing wrong with the general approach of income tax, NI (there is an argument to band those two together), and VAT.
I agree with Mr. Tyndall on prostitution, and perhaps drugs too. That would represent a liberal move, and increase the safety of the public by regulating such practices. That would decrease the risks and increase the detection of trafficking sex slaves, and reduce the particularly harmful impurities in drugs (not suggesting a total free for all, and there would need to be trials).
This would increase public freedom, and safety, and bring in taxes. We'd also have the entertainment of discovering whether the Chancellor at the time felt that VAT ought, or not, be applied to the services of prostitutes.
[For those wondering, I'd avail myself of neither service, were they to become legalised. I am a pure and virtuous fellow (as all morris dancers are), but, unlike many, feel no need to impose my own morality upon the world via legislation and taxation].
It's nothing to do with morality. It is all to do with cost. I am considerably overweight and frankly I am embarrassed at how much I am potentially costing the country through my life choices. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that if I argue for personal liberty and slashing the size of the State then I should be prepared to pay for my own failings and take responsibility for the costs to my fellow taxpayers.
I recall Yudkin on TV in the 1960s arguing persuasively against sugar.
It’s all part of the now highly contested “low fat” drive - which saw food manufactures take out “bad” fat (which we’d been eating for hundreds of thousands of years) and replace the calories with refined sugars - which had been in our diet for little over a hundred - and proudly boast stuff was “low fat”.
NIcky Morgan would appear an excellent choice if you had never seen her on tv or heard her on radio- she’s weaker than Saudi wine and wetter than a halibut’s socks.
Karen Bradley -- 3/1 second-favourite -- seems unlikely unless James Brokenshire is sufficiently recovered from his cancer operation to return to Stormont. Otherwise it means Northern Ireland will have had three Secretaries of State this year.
Mr. Divvie, I oppose the SNP's silly minimum pricing policy. You tinker.
Mr. Pulpstar, those who work on the sugar are taxed, the sale of the sugar is taxed by VAT, I see no reason to tax it again.
For the record, I would probably argue against VAT on sexy time.
Mr. B, yeah, I've heard that fruit juices can be worse than the 'evil' of coke etc.
Edited extra bit: Morris Dancer = Gandalf, standing firm against the balrog of high taxation
Edited extra bit 2 (for Ms. Anazina, meant to add above but ran out of time): incidentally, I wasn't bragging. I've always been varying shades of underweight (sometimes unhealthily so) and struggled to gain it. My weight's declined again recently, for reasons beyond me...
Sainsbury and Asda confirm merger plans. Now all they need is the CMA's approval which given how supine they have become will surely be forthcoming.
It will bugger competition in the grocery trade even further, but that's life (or a large dividend, I suppose).
I can't see it ending well though. I think they'll have trouble integrating two such behemoths and end up losing market share hand over fist - probably, ironically, to Tesco, which will make matters still worse.
I find it astonishing that the CMA would even contemplate agreeing to this. The concentration of the grocery industry and consequential squeezing of suppliers, particularly farmers, was already an issue, despite incomers such as Aldi and Lidl. But would they have announced this without already having a hint that it might be ok?
I also think there is a complete lack of commercial logic in this merger. Sainsbury shoppers wouldn't be seen dead in Asda. They are aimed at different segments of the market and I really don't see how you satisfy both. Tescos and M&S are both likely to gain.
Normally you get these kind of really stupid, financially driven mergers as the market reaches the frothing point before a slump. Its a slightly worrying sign that the long period of growth since 2008 might be coming to an end.
Yes, it’s very difficult to see the CMA nodding this through, there’s going to be extensive lobbying by suppliers and the NFU against further consolidation in the grocery market.
The two companies employ 360k people between them so there’s the potential for a lot of job losses at head offices, and through consolidation of stores and warehouses.
Newspapers speculating that as CMA allowed Tesco-Booker tie-up, then their view of market has changed.
Tesco and Booker aren’t really direct competitors, in the same way as Asda and Sainsbury’s clearly are.
Tesco and Booker worse for competition though. Gives Tesco control over distribution to the independents
We are in danger of being in furious agreement! I like your posts when they are not about the sun shining out of Tessa May’s backside.
The low fat industry is one of the biggest and most dangerous dietary cons in history. Fat doesn’t make you fat. Refined sugar makes you fat. Fat doesn’t kill you. Refined sugar kills you.
Morris - why tax work, spliffs and shagging but not sugar? What a bizarre idea.
Karen Bradley -- 3/1 second-favourite -- seems unlikely unless James Brokenshire is sufficiently recovered from his cancer operation to return to Stormont. Otherwise it means Northern Ireland will have had three Secretaries of State this year.
And much good they have done. Needs a serious banger of heads there.
In the Netherlands, prostitution does constitute a taxable supply for VAT purposes, but one which falls to be taxed as art and artistic performances (6%) and not at the general rate (19%). That would actually create quite a favourable situation for landlords and other suppliers.
Karen Bradley -- 3/1 second-favourite -- seems unlikely unless James Brokenshire is sufficiently recovered from his cancer operation to return to Stormont. Otherwise it means Northern Ireland will have had three Secretaries of State this year.
And much good they have done. Needs a serious banger of heads there.
Difficult to bang the head of someone who has you by the balls.
Guido reporting an interesting angle on the Rudd story, suggesting that she discovered a whole pile of operational targets in the immigration service that she didn’t know about.
In other words she had no idea what was going on in her own department, so decided she had to falll on her sword.
There seems no notion of a "handover" when it comes to Government jobs. Person A leaves and Person B, who may never have set foot in the Department or had any significant dealings with it, has to come in and run it from scratch relying (presumably) on the senior civil servants in post to maintain continuity.
If you had a Department where the senior civil servants were by-passed in favour of SPADs and these "advisers" go with Person A, then Person B and the senior civil servants are left with virtually no idea or no record of what was decided, by whom and when.
The worry for me would be the news that Walmart will get 41% of the new entity.
the claims being made are ludicrous
no store closures no job losses but £500million of savings
Indeed so Alan. That is myth making of the lowest order.
Sainsburys would be better overhauling its stocking policy and rethinking its lines to appeal to its middle class customer base - still too much garbage in there.
Counterfactual: Is there an upside to these potential store closures?
We have essentially full employment, and business units (at least round here) are like gold dust especially for businesses wanting to go from 3 or 4 founders to 10 or 20 employees in the first job creation phase. If efficiency goes up (!) and people can move to higher value jobs could that be a better way?
Just moved a business to a 6500sqft unit, and it took about 18 months and two dozen potentials to find something suitable, then another 6-9 months to get change of use. This is on a 40 year old warehouse type unit that has been basically empty for 12-15 years.
There are plenty with Planning, but they do not get built due to full business rates on empty units over the threshold. Had people offering to build me a unit for use in a year's time if I signed up to a 10 year lease in advance.
This is the East Midlands. Here Planning and Economic Development do not seem to talk to each other ... had the planner making assumptions about our business which were inserted into the decision notice without consulting anyone, least of all us.
Quite like the sound of 100 "Sainsbury Business Parks".
Karen Bradley -- 3/1 second-favourite -- seems unlikely unless James Brokenshire is sufficiently recovered from his cancer operation to return to Stormont. Otherwise it means Northern Ireland will have had three Secretaries of State this year.
And much good they have done. Needs a serious banger of heads there.
Difficult to bang the head of someone who has you by the balls.
Karen Bradley is in to 3/1 now so someone is backing her.
I'm staying out, been a proper betting mess for me
I've backed Javid for next PM at 40-1 (annoyed I didn't take the 66-1 a few days ago), so I hope he gets Home Sec (provided he doesn't screw it up too!).
Mr. Tyndall, then change your behaviour. Eat less, eat better, exercise more. Why should the whole nation's taxation change because of your own circumstance? [I do hope you remain in good health, incidentally].
Mr. Flashman (deceased), agree entirely on Morgan.
Ms. Anazina, if prostitution (or drugs) were legalised that would mean the service and products would simply fall under existing taxation on work and sales.
The worry for me would be the news that Walmart will get 41% of the new entity.
the claims being made are ludicrous
no store closures no job losses but £500million of savings
Indeed so Alan. That is myth making of the lowest order.
Sainsburys would be better overhauling its stocking policy and rethinking its lines to appeal to its middle class customer base - still too much garbage in there.
Counterfactual: Is there an upside to these potential store closures?
We have essentially full employment, and business units (at least round here) are like gold dust especially for businesses wanting to go from 3 or 4 founders to 10 or 20 employees in the first job creation phase. If efficiency goes up (!) and people can move to higher value jobs could that be a better way?
Just moved a business to a 6500sqft unit, and it took about 18 months and two dozen potentials to find something suitable, then another 6-9 months to get change of use. This is on a 40 year old warehouse type unit that has been basically empty for 12-15 years.
There are plenty with Planning, but they do not get built due to full business rates on empty units over the threshold. Had people offering to build me a unit for use in a year's time if I signed up to a 10 year lease in advance.
This is the East Midlands.
It's no job losses IN STORES that's the claim (I suspect the CMA will enforce some around the edges though).
The worry for me would be the news that Walmart will get 41% of the new entity.
the claims being made are ludicrous
no store closures no job losses but £500million of savings
Indeed so Alan. That is myth making of the lowest order.
Sainsburys would be better overhauling its stocking policy and rethinking its lines to appeal to its middle class customer base - still too much garbage in there.
Counterfactual: Is there an upside to these potential store closures?
We have essentially full employment, and business units (at least round here) are like gold dust especially for businesses wanting to go from 3 or 4 founders to 10 or 20 employees in the first job creation phase. If efficiency goes up (!) and people can move to higher value jobs could that be a better way?
Just moved a business to a 6500sqft unit, and it took about 18 months and two dozen potentials to find something suitable, then another 6-9 months to get change of use. This is on a 40 year old warehouse type unit that has been basically empty for 12-15 years.
There are plenty with Planning, but they do not get built due to full business rates on empty units over the threshold. Had people offering to build me a unit for use in a year's time if I signed up to a 10 year lease in advance.
This is the East Midlands.
It's no job losses IN STORES that's the claim (I suspect the CMA will enforce some around the edges though).
Karen Bradley is in to 3/1 now so someone is backing her.
I'm staying out, been a proper betting mess for me
I've backed Javid for next PM at 40-1 (annoyed I didn't take the 66-1 a few days ago), so I hope he gets Home Sec (provided he doesn't screw it up too!).
Thought for the day - every time someone argues against a tax, or for a spending commitment that isn't in place, they should put forward the alternative tax they'd raise, or spending they'd cut.
That will never wash.
The whole world knows that hundreds of trillions can simply be pulled out of Mr Corbyn's backside. :-D . And there is a certain 'Professor' of Political Economy who will likely confirm it 'As An Economist', then abuse anyone who demurs.
The worry for me would be the news that Walmart will get 41% of the new entity.
the claims being made are ludicrous
no store closures no job losses but £500million of savings
Indeed so Alan. That is myth making of the lowest order.
Sainsburys would be better overhauling its stocking policy and rethinking its lines to appeal to its middle class customer base - still too much garbage in there.
Counterfactual: Is there an upside to these potential store closures?
We have essentially full employment, and business units (at least round here) are like gold dust especially for businesses wanting to go from 3 or 4 founders to 10 or 20 employees in the first job creation phase. If efficiency goes up (!) and people can move to higher value jobs could that be a better way?
Just moved a business to a 6500sqft unit, and it took about 18 months and two dozen potentials to find something suitable, then another 6-9 months to get change of use. This is on a 40 year old warehouse type unit that has been basically empty for 12-15 years.
There are plenty with Planning, but they do not get built due to full business rates on empty units over the threshold. Had people offering to build me a unit for use in a year's time if I signed up to a 10 year lease in advance.
This is the East Midlands.
It's no job losses IN STORES that's the claim (I suspect the CMA will enforce some around the edges though).
Back office overhaul no doubt.
Back office jobs are still jobs.
What I mean is the claims aren't completely contradictory. You can keep stores open and make "savings" (or redundancies as they would see them)
Karen Bradley is in to 3/1 now so someone is backing her.
I'm staying out, been a proper betting mess for me
I've backed Javid for next PM at 40-1 (annoyed I didn't take the 66-1 a few days ago), so I hope he gets Home Sec (provided he doesn't screw it up too!).
Mogg will end up PM at this rate given my book :[
JRM's position as favourite in the Next PM market baffles me. Can anyone sketch out a credible sequence of events that leads to JRM as PM?
Mr. Pulpstar, nothing wrong with the general approach of income tax, NI (there is an argument to band those two together), and VAT.
I agree with Mr. Tyndall on prostitution, and perhaps drugs too. That would represent a liberal move, and increase the safety of the public by regulating such practices. That would decrease the risks and increase the detection of trafficking sex slaves, and reduce the particularly harmful impurities in drugs (not suggesting a total free for all, and there would need to be trials).
This would increase public freedom, and safety, and bring in taxes. We'd also have the entertainment of discovering whether the Chancellor at the time felt that VAT ought, or not, be applied to the services of prostitutes.
[For those wondering, I'd avail myself of neither service, were they to become legalised. I am a pure and virtuous fellow (as all morris dancers are), but, unlike many, feel no need to impose my own morality upon the world via legislation and taxation].
It's nothing to do with morality. It is all to do with cost. I am considerably overweight and frankly I am embarrassed at how much I am potentially costing the country through my life choices. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that if I argue for personal liberty and slashing the size of the State then I should be prepared to pay for my own failings and take responsibility for the costs to my fellow taxpayers.
Haha. I always had you down as a lean and hungry Cassius.
I hate to agree with the likes of Tyndall and Carlotta, but it’s pretty obvious now that refined sugars etc is a massive problem.
Discouraging their consumption via taxation is eminently sensible. In any case, the free will we exercise in our dietary consumption is in many ways simply a function of childhood habit and our surroundings.
F1: mildly peeved that Red Bull had a double DNF (it did improve my result on the day, though). Without all their failures, 50% so far, my backing of them for the Constructors' would be eminently hedgeable right now.
Guido reporting an interesting angle on the Rudd story, suggesting that she discovered a whole pile of operational targets in the immigration service that she didn’t know about.
In other words she had no idea what was going on in her own department, so decided she had to falll on her sword.
Possibly some of that, but also a large dose of a return to the political graveyard of a department that does its own thing no matter who are the ministers notionally in charge this week.
Were it not for the internet porn legislation (perhaps a Minister of State could pilot it through the Commons?) I would have thought Damian Green would make a good choice. Loyal to May, a Remainer and formerly an Immigration Minister so someone who, I assume, has some knowledge of the issues.
But we are also in danger of forgetting the other side of the Home Office - the police/security aspect which can be - and often is - even more important than the immigration side (or have we forgotten Salisbury so soon?). Indeed, it is possible that one reason Rudd was not on top of the immigration issues is that she has been consumed with security issues these last few weeks.
So picking the right person to fill the immigration side of the role may not be the right choice for the security side. Just because the latter does not generate the same number of "look at me, hard done by by bureaucrats" stories (save when there is a terrorist attack - and we had 4 serious ones last year and one this year + Salisbury, don't forget) does not make it less important to all of us.
Maybe the department should be split in two: one dealing with security issues and one dealing immigration, which is a big enough topic on its own, given Brexit etc.
Or we need stronger Ministers of State who effectively become mini-CEO's of their own areas and are more public in dealing with them.
Or, fat chance, we need to be a bit more realistic about our expectations of Cabinet Ministers.
Incidentally, while I think the way the Windrush affair has been handled has been beyond inept I find the argument that a policy aimed at illegal immigrants necessarily involves legal migrants and therefore must not be allowed to be stupid. All policies affect those who act legally as well as illegally: taxpayers who pay their tax in full can be subject to tax inspections which, as anyone who has been through one will know, is not a pleasant experience.
There were two real problems with the policy: (1) that it reversed the burden of proof between the state and the individual in a way that made it virtually impossible for those here legally to prove it; and (2) no thought was given, whether because of incompetence or malice, as to how those here legally would be able to show this, a particularly bad fault for what was, in effect, a piece of retrospective legislation (which is usually a bad idea in principle). It would have been far better to say that everyone over a certain age would be presumed to be a legal migrant, absent some evidence to the contrary to be provided by the government and/or widen the sort of proof that a person needed to give.
That way the focus could be on those who really are illegal migrants and on the people smugglers who aid them.
Housing and Home in one tweet. No chance of confusion there.
What would the source be? Presumably the PM and a couple of others discuss it then the PM reaches for the phone. What is the intermediate stage where there might be a leak?
Guido reporting an interesting angle on the Rudd story, suggesting that she discovered a whole pile of operational targets in the immigration service that she didn’t know about.
In other words she had no idea what was going on in her own department, so decided she had to falll on her sword.
Housing and Home in one tweet. No chance of confusion there.
What would the source be? Presumably the PM and a couple of others discuss it then the PM reaches for the phone. What is the intermediate stage where there might be a leak?
Is TSE briefing?
It would be a very profitable move for many here (I don't have a horse in the race)
Karen Bradley is in to 3/1 now so someone is backing her.
I'm staying out, been a proper betting mess for me
I've backed Javid for next PM at 40-1 (annoyed I didn't take the 66-1 a few days ago), so I hope he gets Home Sec (provided he doesn't screw it up too!).
What exactly are Javid's credentials to be Home Sec. apart from one which I will not expand upon ?
On the big issue of the day, I couldn't care less about taxing sugar. They can tax it at 1000%. I never eat the stuff and generally hate sweet things. Refined sugar is probably much worse for you than fat. And, anyway, you get quite enough natural sugar by eating fruit.
But am completely opposed to legalising or taxing prostitution. That just normalises and makes acceptable the abuse of women. If prostitution is viewed as legal and, therefore, as somehow acceptable, well then, why shouldn't a girl renting a room be expected to bestow her favours on the landlord?
Re the recent knife murders in London, someone (maybe Cressida Dick) said that those middle class drug users might want to think about the consequences of their habit, making the link between the latter and the realities of the drugs trade. Well, the same might be said about those who use prostitutes and like to think that prostitutes are "empowered women" and the realities of people trafficking, multiple rapes, drug use, abuse of under-age girls, violence to prevent them escaping etc.
Just look at it mathematically. Suppose behaviour does change. Then the sugar tax brings in no money, and whatever it was used for goes unfunded. So, other taxes rise or the sugar tax is broadened. That's why behaviour-changing [as designed] taxation is dumb, unless used for something that can go unfunded (additional debt reduction would be an example).
If behaviour changes and people stop havingsugary drinks - that's a good thing! The NHS saves money on obesity/dental care.
If behaviour doesn't change, then we raise money, which could theoretically be used to fund the NHS - that's also a good thing!
Karen Bradley is in to 3/1 now so someone is backing her.
I'm staying out, been a proper betting mess for me
I've backed Javid for next PM at 40-1 (annoyed I didn't take the 66-1 a few days ago), so I hope he gets Home Sec (provided he doesn't screw it up too!).
What exactly are Javid's credentials to be Home Sec. apart from one which I will not expand upon ?
What are anyone's credentials to be Minister, frankly?
PR is all these days. Your cynical assumption that the appearance of those arguing about immigrants is what matters is probably correct.
On the big issue of the day, I couldn't care less about taxing sugar. They can tax it at 1000%. I never eat the stuff and generally hate sweet things. Refined sugar is probably much worse for you than fat. And, anyway, you get quite enough natural sugar by eating fruit.
But am completely opposed to legalising or taxing prostitution. That just normalises and makes acceptable the abuse of women. If prostitution is viewed as legal and, therefore, as somehow acceptable, well then, why shouldn't a girl renting a room be expected to bestow her favours on the landlord?
Re the recent knife murders in London, someone (maybe Cressida Dick) said that those middle class drug users might want to think about the consequences of their habit, making the link between the latter and the realities of the drugs trade. Well, the same might be said about those who use prostitutes and like to think that prostitutes are "empowered women" and the realities of people trafficking, multiple rapes, drug use, abuse of under-age girls, violence to prevent them escaping etc.
The counter argument is that prostitution is like Prohibition: the fact that it's illegal is exactly why it is criminal gangs who control it.
Shares in Sajid have certainly quietly but steadily risen since his personal referendum debacle. He had been promoted too far, too soon, but has now become a solid performer.
Hah, and within seconds of that post, he becomes Home Sec!
Go a month without sugar if you like. But I'd get your will written first.
Cigarettes contain carcinogens. They're addictive and give you cancer, as well as causing emphysema and other conditions. Alcohol is also addictive, and its effects (reducing inhibitions and motor control) can cause problems for both the individual and for others (drink driving victims being the prime example). It can also cause liver problems.
Without sugar, you die. It's the fuel we use to live. Poor people spend a higher proportion of their income on food. Increase food prices and your disproportionately harm the poor. Of course, you get to complain about food bank use rising too.
The tax is designed so that very sugary drinks become more expensive. No one is going to die if they stop drinking coca cola. The tax has already pushed several drinks manufacturers to lower the sugar content of their drinks. That in itself is a win.
No that is a loss, lots of drinks ruined by being reformulated with carcinogens like aspartame, acesulfame, & sucralose. Unfortunately all those artificial sweetners have horrible aftertastes, maybe the drinks manufacturers will get their act together and make stuff that tastes "right" after reformulation, but that chances are low. Reformulated 7-up with stevia no longer tastes sweet, sprite when the debased that with stevia gained a bitter aftertaste that meant I avoid it. Coke zero for change is surprisingly close to the real thing, but still has the plastic aftertaste.
Which is the real problem with artficial sweetners they all have nasty aftertastes and either need combining or real sugar to hide them. I'll stick to stuff with real sugar.
Miss Cyclefree, whilst not personally in favour (and I use the term broadly to include chaps being involved too), we know prostitution occurs, and always will occur. Regulation would at least allow risk to be diminished, trafficking to be more easily detected and thereby increase safety for those involved.
I'm open to alternative suggestions to improve the situation.
On drugs, I'd add the situation in Mexico, which is killing huge numbers of people.
Karen Bradley is in to 3/1 now so someone is backing her.
I'm staying out, been a proper betting mess for me
I've backed Javid for next PM at 40-1 (annoyed I didn't take the 66-1 a few days ago), so I hope he gets Home Sec (provided he doesn't screw it up too!).
Mogg will end up PM at this rate given my book :[
JRM's position as favourite in the Next PM market baffles me. Can anyone sketch out a credible sequence of events that leads to JRM as PM?
Nuclear war when JRM happens to be visiting a nuclear bunker making him the sole survivor of the political classes, combined with a cunning virus from Russia that wipes out everyone else with an IQ of more than 120 combined with.....nope.
NB in all the excitement, Michael Gove has just gone past Boris Johnson on Betfair as second favourite for next Conservative leader. Time will tell whether that was a spasm based around him hypothetically becoming next Home Secretary.
Comments
And while water is free people have an alternative.
People survived without refined sugars for most of human history - and some 800,000 years of human prehistory.
Mr. L, put a little bit on Bradley.
Mr. Eagles, glad Saunders is on her way out. That is a shocking headline.
Mr. rkrkrk, income tax was meant to be temporary, to finance war with France (incidentally, the Bank of England was established for much the same reason). This sugar tax will be broadened, the scope ever increasing to increase prices and lighten the voters' collective wallet. It's not about health, it's about wealth, and puritanical self-righteousness.
As an aside, I'm mildly that I, arguably the skinniest of PBers, am seemingly the only one defending the right of the people to enjoy the food they like without the sin tax.
P.S. boasting about your own physique is rather unbecoming - your own physiology is immaterial. Obesity is a major problem. Sugar kills.
Do you believe Scotland should become an independent nation outside the United Kingdom?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Case not proven....
I agree with Mr. Tyndall on prostitution, and perhaps drugs too. That would represent a liberal move, and increase the safety of the public by regulating such practices. That would decrease the risks and increase the detection of trafficking sex slaves, and reduce the particularly harmful impurities in drugs (not suggesting a total free for all, and there would need to be trials).
This would increase public freedom, and safety, and bring in taxes. We'd also have the entertainment of discovering whether the Chancellor at the time felt that VAT ought, or not, be applied to the services of prostitutes.
[For those wondering, I'd avail myself of neither service, were they to become legalised. I am a pure and virtuous fellow (as all morris dancers are), but, unlike many, feel no need to impose my own morality upon the world via legislation and taxation].
In other words she had no idea what was going on in her own department, so decided she had to falll on her sword.
https://order-order.com/2018/04/30/rudd-audit-revealed-missed-operational-targets/
Personally I think she’s the least likely candidate; the only people allowed to criticise a female’s dress sense to their face are the fathers of teenage girls.
And that rarely ends well!
The whole world knows that hundreds of trillions can simply be pulled out of Mr Corbyn's backside. :-D . And there is a certain 'Professor' of Political Economy who will likely confirm it 'As An Economist', then abuse anyone who demurs.
I forget if it's hypertropic or hyperplastic obesity, but a major problem is when parents overfeed their children, leading to an increase to adipocytes (fat cells). This change, occurring in childhood, is permanent, effectively increasing the base level of 'fatness' that individual then carries into adulthood.
Informing parents about this and explaining the simple but significant results of excessive food intake would be a good thing. Hammering people with taxes is not. People have the right to make informed choices with which you, or I, disagree. Punitive taxation is foolish.
Just look at it mathematically. Suppose behaviour does change. Then the sugar tax brings in no money, and whatever it was used for goes unfunded. So, other taxes rise or the sugar tax is broadened. That's why behaviour-changing [as designed] taxation is dumb, unless used for something that can go unfunded (additional debt reduction would be an example).
The tax system ought not be used to impose puritanical morality upon the people. Taxes are there to fund vital services, not punish those whose decisions are frowned upon by the political class.
Amber Rudd to the Home office at 7/1 IIRC
Mr. Pulpstar, those who work on the sugar are taxed, the sale of the sugar is taxed by VAT, I see no reason to tax it again.
For the record, I would probably argue against VAT on sexy time.
Mr. B, yeah, I've heard that fruit juices can be worse than the 'evil' of coke etc.
Edited extra bit: Morris Dancer = Gandalf, standing firm against the balrog of high taxation
Edited extra bit 2 (for Ms. Anazina, meant to add above but ran out of time): incidentally, I wasn't bragging. I've always been varying shades of underweight (sometimes unhealthily so) and struggled to gain it. My weight's declined again recently, for reasons beyond me...
We are in danger of being in furious agreement! I like your posts when they are not about the sun shining out of Tessa May’s backside.
The low fat industry is one of the biggest and most dangerous dietary cons in history. Fat doesn’t make you fat. Refined sugar makes you fat. Fat doesn’t kill you. Refined sugar kills you.
Morris - why tax work, spliffs and shagging but not sugar? What a bizarre idea.
If you had a Department where the senior civil servants were by-passed in favour of SPADs and these "advisers" go with Person A, then Person B and the senior civil servants are left with virtually no idea or no record of what was decided, by whom and when.
Frightening.
We have essentially full employment, and business units (at least round here) are like gold dust especially for businesses wanting to go from 3 or 4 founders to 10 or 20 employees in the first job creation phase. If efficiency goes up (!) and people can move to higher value jobs could that be a better way?
Just moved a business to a 6500sqft unit, and it took about 18 months and two dozen potentials to find something suitable, then another 6-9 months to get change of use. This is on a 40 year old warehouse type unit that has been basically empty for 12-15 years.
There are plenty with Planning, but they do not get built due to full business rates on empty units over the threshold. Had people offering to build me a unit for use in a year's time if I signed up to a 10 year lease in advance.
This is the East Midlands. Here Planning and Economic Development do not seem to talk to each other ... had the planner making assumptions about our business which were inserted into the decision notice without consulting anyone, least of all us.
Quite like the sound of 100 "Sainsbury Business Parks".
Mr. Flashman (deceased), agree entirely on Morgan.
Ms. Anazina, if prostitution (or drugs) were legalised that would mean the service and products would simply fall under existing taxation on work and sales.
Back office overhaul no doubt.
You are ignorant on this issue.
Your OP suggested that we need to supplement our diet with refined sugar. That is ignorance.
Regarding changing behaviour, if people reduce their sugar intake we also reduce healthcare costs.
Well I got the Amber bet wrong!
It is ironic that the Guardian's scalp is one of the most liberal of recent Home Secs.
I didn't have you as one to take holidays to the mid-Antarctic
I hate to agree with the likes of Tyndall and Carlotta, but it’s pretty obvious now that refined sugars etc is a massive problem.
Discouraging their consumption via taxation is eminently sensible. In any case, the free will we exercise in our dietary consumption is in many ways simply a function of childhood habit and our surroundings.
Were it not for the internet porn legislation (perhaps a Minister of State could pilot it through the Commons?) I would have thought Damian Green would make a good choice. Loyal to May, a Remainer and formerly an Immigration Minister so someone who, I assume, has some knowledge of the issues.
But we are also in danger of forgetting the other side of the Home Office - the police/security aspect which can be - and often is - even more important than the immigration side (or have we forgotten Salisbury so soon?). Indeed, it is possible that one reason Rudd was not on top of the immigration issues is that she has been consumed with security issues these last few weeks.
So picking the right person to fill the immigration side of the role may not be the right choice for the security side. Just because the latter does not generate the same number of "look at me, hard done by by bureaucrats" stories (save when there is a terrorist attack - and we had 4 serious ones last year and one this year + Salisbury, don't forget) does not make it less important to all of us.
Maybe the department should be split in two: one dealing with security issues and one dealing immigration, which is a big enough topic on its own, given Brexit etc.
Or we need stronger Ministers of State who effectively become mini-CEO's of their own areas and are more public in dealing with them.
Or, fat chance, we need to be a bit more realistic about our expectations of Cabinet Ministers.
Incidentally, while I think the way the Windrush affair has been handled has been beyond inept I find the argument that a policy aimed at illegal immigrants necessarily involves legal migrants and therefore must not be allowed to be stupid. All policies affect those who act legally as well as illegally: taxpayers who pay their tax in full can be subject to tax inspections which, as anyone who has been through one will know, is not a pleasant experience.
There were two real problems with the policy: (1) that it reversed the burden of proof between the state and the individual in a way that made it virtually impossible for those here legally to prove it; and (2) no thought was given, whether because of incompetence or malice, as to how those here legally would be able to show this, a particularly bad fault for what was, in effect, a piece of retrospective legislation (which is usually a bad idea in principle). It would have been far better to say that everyone over a certain age would be presumed to be a legal migrant, absent some evidence to the contrary to be provided by the government and/or widen the sort of proof that a person needed to give.
That way the focus could be on those who really are illegal migrants and on the people smugglers who aid them.
What would the source be? Presumably the PM and a couple of others discuss it then the PM reaches for the phone. What is the intermediate stage where there might be a leak?
It would be a very profitable move for many here (I don't have a horse in the race)
https://twitter.com/Barristerblog/status/990856056975908864
But am completely opposed to legalising or taxing prostitution. That just normalises and makes acceptable the abuse of women. If prostitution is viewed as legal and, therefore, as somehow acceptable, well then, why shouldn't a girl renting a room be expected to bestow her favours on the landlord?
Re the recent knife murders in London, someone (maybe Cressida Dick) said that those middle class drug users might want to think about the consequences of their habit, making the link between the latter and the realities of the drugs trade. Well, the same might be said about those who use prostitutes and like to think that prostitutes are "empowered women" and the realities of people trafficking, multiple rapes, drug use, abuse of under-age girls, violence to prevent them escaping etc.
If behaviour doesn't change, then we raise money, which could theoretically be used to fund the NHS - that's also a good thing!
Pigovian taxes are a win-win.
PR is all these days. Your cynical assumption that the appearance of those arguing about immigrants is what matters is probably correct.
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/990881041765289984?s=20
Hah, and within seconds of that post, he becomes Home Sec!
Which is the real problem with artficial sweetners they all have nasty aftertastes and either need combining or real sugar to hide them. I'll stick to stuff with real sugar.
I'm open to alternative suggestions to improve the situation.
On drugs, I'd add the situation in Mexico, which is killing huge numbers of people.
I've taken a bit of profit by laying at 19.
On a related note of dampening Tory stereotypes, May should come out against the Asda Sainsbury's merger.
That’s two 33/1 bets/tips I’ve won in just over 12 hours
I’m Tipster of the Year.
Home Sec will be the test of the man. I am happy about it in prospect but we shall see
Is he doing the briefing Amber set up?
I got on Javid as next leader at 60, the other day.