Are we really going to have 4 more years of people finding recordings of every speech JC has made on the Middle East and pointing out that the content, as well as the panel and the audience is anti-Semitic? Surely even Labour cannot go on like this. It's embarrassing.
There are diminishing returns on unearthing the old fool's judosceptical ramblings. Nobody is surprised anymore and very few give a fuck about it.
I think we passed that point a little while ago to be honest. Anyone who has not recognised anti-Semitism by now is never going to.
Agreed. The costs to Labour are (1) opportunity cost and morale; and (2) if something is found, more recently, which links Corbyn to some outrage now which goes beyond what we already know. Unlikely. But who can say.
A good, and reported, Conference for the LD’s could upset the applecart.
LDs (like any other proposed ‘centrist’ party) need to decide primarily what they are *for*, why we should positively vote for them rather than another party. We know they’re against Brexit, but that will be a minority persuit come the next election.
Which was, basically, what I wrote.
Where’s the ghost of Charles Kennedy?
They need to find something eye-catching in policy terms and then get everyone talking about it. One example might to to implement the Portuguese drugs policy, another might be a variant of ‘1p for education’, maybe on social care.
Above all economic competence (note this is on a comparative as opposed to absolute scale). The argument would be that we have fixed the deficit but we still have a debt mountain to address. Don't let Labour go mad yet again.
Potential problems are that we are now somewhat overdue a recession and there may be some short term disruption from Brexit (although I am betting the vast majority will not even notice). Labour may get their act together but that seems a more remote possibility.
Secondly, recognition of the need to prioritise the additional money then coming available. For me the priorities are Social Care, housing, the NHS, student debt, defence in roughly that order. I see no room at all for tax cuts but that does not mean that the burden cannot be switched about a bit by, for example, requiring pensioners to pay NI and a post mortem capital based tax to help to pay for Social Care.
Thirdly, consolidating the outcome of Brexit. What do we actually want to do with these newly acquired powers? So far Gove seems the only one who is even attempting to address that question. There is quite a lot of work to be done here. Also, once things have calmed down a bit, are there areas we would want to cooperate more closely with the EU?
The key to success will be credible leadership that ideally can reach groups beyond the party's usual support. For me that should mean Sajid Javid as PM and Gove as Chancellor.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
These are statements of fact, and should not be controversial. It's not "exaggeration". Leaving an integrated economic system inevitably creates trade barriers. Maybe it's justified for other reasons but you can hardly claim prioritization of the economy. Disintegration by definition is the consequence of no longer being integrated. Fewer taxable workers and less taxable business activity means less money to spend on welfare.
If May gets a Deal with the EU based on Chequers Deal terms it is possible she could lead the Tories through to the general election given Boris is the likely alternative.
However if we end up with No Deal Brexit or in effect a permanent transition period it is difficult to see how Boris can be stopped becoming Tory leader and PM before the next general election
Which is, in itself, May's big negotiating weapon to use against Brussels. Do you want to deal with Boris - or with me?
Boris is playing a role in the final Brexit outcome - whether wittingly or not.
Yes, Boris is now the likely alternative to May and May can say to Brussels if they will not compromise with her they really will get No Deal Brexit with Boris
And if Brexit is a disaster, or even moderately painful, Boris will get blamed.
Depends who you ask, for most Leavers as long as Brexit regains sovereignty and reduces immigration it will be a triumph, it is BINO or No Brexit that would be a disaster
Of course it's always an option. And it would remain an option were the top rate 50%, or 60%, or 83%, or 98% - though such rates would not necessarily raise more money.
There can always be a case made for increasing government spend, particularly when hard cases are cited (which are often as much down to process as spending). That doesn't mean that the government should do it, nor that it shouldn't. it's a judgement, moral and political call in each case.
The funding crisis in the provision of adult social care and the care of vulnerable children is real and is crippling efficient well-run Conservative councils. I think these Councils need to be adequately funded so we aren't seeing other Services run down to fill the gap.
However, all I hear from the right-wing media is or are the usual siren calls that Hammond has "room" to cut taxes. In other words, all the hard graft reducing the deficit is going to be thrown away in another splurge of consumption and tax cutting. The other option, to pay down the debt and support local Councils, might not be as popular with the right but it's for me the correct thing to do.
Why should a Conservative local councillor have to defend closing a library or reducing fire cover or cutting back on youth services or reducing Police numbers and budgets when we can all have a tax cut instead?
I'd be very disappointed if the hard work done in closing the deficit were to be given away in tax cuts (which are politically of little value: people bank the cut, which is small at the margins anyway, and carry on).
I agree it would be much more sensibly, both morally and politically, to increase spending on social care and the NHS at, say, CPI+2% through to 2022.
How about reducing the personal allowance to £9000, and putting in a rate of -5% to that point ? It'd be a little extra to part time care workers and so forth that'd head back into the economy ?
That would mean an increase on taxes on those in the £9k+ bracket, and bringing everyone below that level into quite a complex tax system (on top of benefit forms they may have to complete). I'm not sure either would be a good thing. For low earners, I'd rather work through the benefits system rather than dragging them into direct taxes as well.
I'd rather freeze the tax allowances and let fiscal drag do its thing. Given a free hand, I'd cut employees' NI by 2% and stick 2% on Income Tax at all levels but that'd be politically unacceptable.
How about just cutting NI by 2% but increasing its applicability to be “lifelong” and leaving income tax alone?
I’d use some of the Government surplus to cut or moderate taxes, not just pour into the public spending pot.
Above all economic competence (note this is on a comparative as opposed to absolute scale). The argument would be that we have fixed the deficit but we still have a debt mountain to address. Don't let Labour go mad yet again.
Potential problems are that we are now somewhat overdue a recession and there may be some short term disruption from Brexit (although I am betting the vast majority will not even notice). Labour may get their act together but that seems a more remote possibility.
Secondly, recognition of the need to prioritise the additional money then coming available. For me the priorities are Social Care, housing, the NHS, student debt, defence in roughly that order. I see no room at all for tax cuts but that does not mean that the burden cannot be switched about a bit by, for example, requiring pensioners to pay NI and a post mortem capital based tax to help to pay for Social Care.
Thirdly, consolidating the outcome of Brexit. What do we actually want to do with these newly acquired powers? So far Gove seems the only one who is even attempting to address that question. There is quite a lot of work to be done here. Also, once things have calmed down a bit, are there areas we would want to cooperate more closely with the EU?
The key to success will be credible leadership that ideally can reach groups beyond the party's usual support. For me that should mean Sajid Javid as PM and Gove as Chancellor.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
I think Theresa May has the unique combination of political talents required to deliver both.
Even on current rules being a private landlord is no fun, particularly when you have (as I do) a problematic tenant.
Property companies seem to be far better placed.
Yup, rental management seems like something that would be better done by maybe half-a-dozen ferociously-competing property rental companies. Firstly they'd pool the risk instead of having a bunch of individuals who do fine for years then suddenly get screwed by bad tenants, and secondly they'd have an incentive to do a good job to preserve their reputations, especially when the tenant moved out, at which point individual landlords have basically no incentive to be nice to them.
My letting agent let the tenant move out and hand them the keys at their office. With the result that my furnished property has now become pretty much unfurnished.
My view is that May genuinely doesn’t want to go in 2019.
She doesn’t want to be solely defined by Brexit (no laughing at the back there). She wants to follow through on the domestic platform she set out in July 2016.
I think she wants to use 2019-2021 to seal the final Brexit arrangement, yes, but also help the strivers in the provinces and regions.
It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what she’s actually fighting with Hammond about.
I don’t think she’s that stupid. She is self-aware enough to know that for good or ill (ill, actually) her legacy is Brexit.
You do draw attention to an important point though. Now that the Conservatives have completely trashed their brand on the altar of Brexit, what kind of prospectus will they put to the people at the next election? “Subject to Brexit” kills their credibility on every front that they have previously fought, whether protecting civic institutions that they have trashed though Brexit, being the party of business that through Brexit they have announced “fuck business” or looking after strivers who will be floundering because of Brexit. They look completely bereft.
If the Conservatives have 'completely trashed their credibility on the altar of Brexit' why are they still polling higher than they got at any general election from 1997 to 2010?
Jeremy Corbyn
Labour's problem is that if they change leader to someone more voter friendly, Chukka for example, the Momentum crowd will revolt, splitting the party.
There is zero evidence that Chukka is more voter-friendly than Corbyn.
The Meeksian constituency that Chukka appeals to is very, very tiny.
Flawed though Corbyn may be, he is not as flawed as Owen Smith or Liz Kendall or Andy Burnham or Yvette Corbyn, all of whom he easily beat in leadership elections because they failed to articulate any credible vision for the Labour Party.
It doesn’t include Meeks.
Labour’s next leader needs to be able to articulate the social aspects of the moral crusade without Jeremy Corbyn’s foreign policy baggage. Lisa Nandy or Angela Rayner would be good choices.
Leading Epping Council would be an overpromotion for Lisa Nandy and Angela Rayner, let alone leading the country
That’s a bit harsh on the hardworking councillors of Epping.
Of course it's always an option. And it would remain an option were the top rate 50%, or 60%, or 83%, or 98% - though such rates would not necessarily raise more money.
There can always be a case made for increasing government spend, particularly when hard cases are cited (which are often as much down to process as spending). That doesn't mean that the government should do it, nor that it shouldn't. it's a judgement, moral and political call in each case.
The funding crisis in the provision of adult social care and the care of vulnerable children is real and is crippling efficient well-run Conservative councils. I think these Councils need to be adequately funded so we aren't seeing other Services run down to fill the gap.
However, all I hear from the right-wing media is or are the usual siren calls that Hammond has "room" to cut taxes. In other words, all the hard graft reducing the deficit is going to be thrown away in another splurge of consumption and tax cutting. The other option, to pay down the debt and support local Councils, might not be as popular with the right but it's for me the correct thing to do.
Why should a Conservative local councillor have to defend closing a library or reducing fire cover or cutting back on youth services or reducing Police numbers and budgets when we can all have a tax cut instead?
I'd be very disappointed if the hard work done in closing the deficit were to be given away in tax cuts (which are politically of little value: people bank the cut, which is small at the margins anyway, and carry on).
I agree it would be much more sensibly, both morally and politically, to increase spending on social care and the NHS at, say, CPI+2% through to 2022.
Bit wet, David. Conservatives believe in responsibility and a smaller state.
I’d like a balance from the proceeds of growth: both extra public spending and tax cuts, which is how it should be.
Tax cuts return more economic activity to the private sector, and help make it more competitive and productive.
My view is that May genuinely doesn’t want to go in 2019.
She doesn’t want to be solely defined by Brexit (no laughing at the back there). She wants to follow through on the domestic platform she set out in July 2016.
I think she wants to use 2019-2021 to seal the final Brexit arrangement, yes, but also help the strivers in the provinces and regions.
It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what she’s actually fighting with Hammond about.
I don’t think she’s that stupid. She is self-aware enough to know that for good or ill (ill, actually) her legacy is Brexit.
You do draw attention to an important point though. Now that the Conservatives have completely trashed their brand on the altar of Brexit, what kind of prospectus will they put to the people at the next election? “Subject to Brexit” kills their credibility on every front that they have previously fought, whether protecting civic institutions that they have trashed though Brexit, being the party of business that through Brexit they have announced “fuck business” or looking after strivers who will be floundering because of Brexit. They look completely bereft.
If the Conservatives have 'completely trashed their credibility on the altar of Brexit' why are they still polling higher than they got at any general election from 1997 to 2010?
Jeremy Corbyn
Labour's problem is that if they change leader to someone more voter friendly, Chukka for example, the Momentum crowd will revolt, splitting the party.
There is zero evidence that Chukka is more voter-friendly than Corbyn.
The Meeksian constituency that Chukka appeals to is very, very tiny.
Flawed though Corbyn may be, he is not as flawed as Owen Smith or Liz Kendall or Andy Burnham or Yvette Corbyn, all of whom he easily beat in leadership elections because they failed to articulate any credible vision for the Labour Party.
It doesn’t include Meeks.
Labour’s next leader needs to be able to articulate the social aspects of the moral crusade without Jeremy Corbyn’s foreign policy baggage. Lisa Nandy or Angela Rayner would be good choices.
Or Stella Creasey. She was quite good last night on Newsnight.
PS It’s Corbyn’s “baggage” about British citizens that bothers me.
Stella was good last night, as was Layla Moran.
A good article by her as chief comment piece in The Sun today also:
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
The ludicrous mortgage affordability rules were put in place in part to stop the disasters of 2008. If you loosen them you risk repeating previous property boom and bust (and bank boom and bust) mistakes. The rules may well need looking at again but they weren’t put in place to screw over the young but to bring some sanity to our housing market and to curb the tendency of banks to invest in housing rather than, say, more productive areas of the economy.
Something definitely needs doing about the rental sector.
The road to bell is paved with good intentions. They have screwed over the young - an entire generation. There was nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages. The current situation has left the Millennials paying off the mortgages of Gen X.
Why does it seem that people dismiss the results of actual elections in favour of interpretations of opinion polls or their own view?
In 2015 the party offering a referendum to change the status quo won a majority having previously led a coalition
The 2016 referendum result was to leave the EU
Corbyn has twice won elections to be Labour leader, and then achieved the highest share of the vote since Blair in 2001
Yet the narrative here seems to be, no one wanted to have a referendum, delivering the result of the referendum is a cross to bear, and Labour would do better with someone other than Corbyn!
Even on current rules being a private landlord is no fun, particularly when you have (as I do) a problematic tenant.
Property companies seem to be far better placed.
Yup, rental management seems like something that would be better done by maybe half-a-dozen ferociously-competing property rental companies. Firstly they'd pool the risk instead of having a bunch of individuals who do fine for years then suddenly get screwed by bad tenants, and secondly they'd have an incentive to do a good job to preserve their reputations, especially when the tenant moved out, at which point individual landlords have basically no incentive to be nice to them.
I can’t wait to sell up and stop being a landlord. It’s a constant headache. I am only one out of sheer necessity.
It’s far from the one way bet it felt like it was perhaps 15 years ago, and perhaps never was.
Are we really going to have 4 more years of people finding recordings of every speech JC has made on the Middle East and pointing out that the content, as well as the panel and the audience is anti-Semitic? Surely even Labour cannot go on like this. It's embarrassing.
There are diminishing returns on unearthing the old fool's judosceptical ramblings. Nobody is surprised anymore and very few give a fuck about it.
I think we passed that point a little while ago to be honest. Anyone who has not recognised anti-Semitism by now is never going to.
Agreed. The costs to Labour are (1) opportunity cost and morale; and (2) if something is found, more recently, which links Corbyn to some outrage now which goes beyond what we already know. Unlikely. But who can say.
A good, and reported, Conference for the LD’s could upset the applecart.
There are certainly centre-left voters to court, that hear of Corbyn's close attachment to anti-semites - and throw up a little bit of sick in their mouth. They might hate Tories - but anti-semites at the heart of Government? Nope.
Trouble is, LibDems have no policies and no presence in politics in 2018. They need some tub-thumpers.
The economic liberals seem to have abandoned the Lib Dems to the social liberals. So Lib Dem policies are now leaning to attract Labour voters in the north rather than Conservative voters in the south. However, the Lib Dems best chances of winning more parliamentary seats are in the south.
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
Mortgage affordability was always more about protecting vulnerable bank's balance sheets than anything else. The larger deposits was supposed to insulate the poor dears from another crash. I agree that the consequences have been extremely negative.
My daughter has just bought her first flat. She did so with the help of the taxpayer who effectively matched the money she had built up in an ISA which went towards her deposit. It did help her buy, whether it was a great use of taxpayers money is harder to say. I don't see how this had any effect on the price because the seller would have had no knowledge at all.
More complex schemes by which the government effectively underwrote mortgages are inherently more problematic. But I do think that fewer houses would have been built without this support to the market. Whether the houses built will prove to be good investments only time will tell but I agree they look very small.
720S, which by all standards is a big step up from the older models and beats anything else in its class down the strip and round the track.
It's definitely fast as fuck in a straight line (probably the fastest production car over 1,320 feet) but it's but the 911 GT2, Huracan Perfomante, Aventador SVJ, etc. monster it on the track. (10+ seconds round the 'ring).
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
Mortgage affordability was always more about protecting vulnerable bank's balance sheets than anything else. The larger deposits was supposed to insulate the poor dears from another crash. I agree that the consequences have been extremely negative.
My daughter has just bought her first flat. She did so with the help of the taxpayer who effectively matched the money she had built up in an ISA which went towards her deposit. It did help her buy, whether it was a great use of taxpayers money is harder to say. I don't see how this had any effect on the price because the seller would have had no knowledge at all.
More complex schemes by which the government effectively underwrote mortgages are inherently more problematic. But I do think that fewer houses would have been built without this support to the market. Whether the houses built will prove to be good investments only time will tell but I agree they look very small.
The way markets arrive at prices doesn't require sellers to know the individual circumstances of each buyer
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
The ludicrous mortgage affordability rules were put in place in part to stop the disasters of 2008. If you loosen them you risk repeating previous property boom and bust (and bank boom and bust) mistakes. The rules may well need looking at again but they weren’t put in place to screw over the young but to bring some sanity to our housing market and to curb the tendency of banks to invest in housing rather than, say, more productive areas of the economy.
Something definitely needs doing about the rental sector.
The road to bell is paved with good intentions. They have screwed over the young - an entire generation. There was nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages. The current situation has left the Millennials paying off the mortgages of Gen X.
100% mortgages are a bad idea. You end up with prices driven ever higher, and a subsequent bust. The boom that priced people out of the market took place from 1996 to 2007, when prices rose by 320%. Outside London, prices haven't much moved since then.
365,000 people became first time buyers last year, and the number will likely be higher this year. The market is correcting itself.
Are we really going to have 4 more years of people finding recordings of every speech JC has made on the Middle East and pointing out that the content, as well as the panel and the audience is anti-Semitic? Surely even Labour cannot go on like this. It's embarrassing.
There are diminishing returns on unearthing the old fool's judosceptical ramblings. Nobody is surprised anymore and very few give a fuck about it.
I think we passed that point a little while ago to be honest. Anyone who has not recognised anti-Semitism by now is never going to.
Agreed. The costs to Labour are (1) opportunity cost and morale; and (2) if something is found, more recently, which links Corbyn to some outrage now which goes beyond what we already know. Unlikely. But who can say.
A good, and reported, Conference for the LD’s could upset the applecart.
There are certainly centre-left voters to court, that hear of Corbyn's close attachment to anti-semites - and throw up a little bit of sick in their mouth. They might hate Tories - but anti-semites at the heart of Government? Nope.
Trouble is, LibDems have no policies and no presence in politics in 2018. They need some tub-thumpers.
The economic liberals seem to have abandoned the Lib Dems to the social liberals. So Lib Dem policies are now leaning to attract Labour voters in the north rather than Conservative voters in the south. However, the Lib Dems best chances of winning more parliamentary seats are in the south.
Not really true, in the recent Opinium ideologies poll the only UK wide voters with a net positive view of Libertarianism were the LDs.
Most of the sandal wearers have defected to Corbyn Labour
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
The ludicrous mortgage affordability rules were put in place in part to stop the disasters of 2008. If you loosen them you risk repeating previous property boom and bust (and bank boom and bust) mistakes. The rules may well need looking at again but they weren’t put in place to screw over the young but to bring some sanity to our housing market and to curb the tendency of banks to invest in housing rather than, say, more productive areas of the economy.
Something definitely needs doing about the rental sector.
The road to bell is paved with good intentions. They have screwed over the young - an entire generation. There was nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages. The current situation has left the Millennials paying off the mortgages of Gen X.
Disagree. Everything wrong with 100% mortgages. Leaves both borrowers and lenders vulnerable. I have lived through 3 house price booms as an adult and seen friends overstretch themselves and end up in negative equity. A bad idea to repeat this.
What is wrong is that saving is so unrewarding, rents are far too high and incomes too low/ uncertain, esp with zero hours contracts. Plus student debt.
Address those and saving for a deposit is much less difficult.
Why does it seem that people dismiss the results of actual elections in favour of interpretations of opinion polls or their own view?
In 2015 the party offering a referendum to change the status quo won a majority having previously led a coalition
The 2016 referendum result was to leave the EU
Corbyn has twice won elections to be Labour leader, and then achieved the highest share of the vote since Blair in 2001
Yet the narrative here seems to be, no one wanted to have a referendum, delivering the result of the referendum is a cross to bear, and Labour would do better with someone other than Corbyn!
This site has a higher proportion of Remainers and centrist liberals than the national average that is why
Not really. The spread of Twitter has allowed any number of people to rant who in the past just shouted at the TV, giving the impression that everyone is ranting. But actually they're not, and although Cyclefree tells us not to attach such weight to politeness, I really value the fact that neither May nor Corbyn abuse anyone and are perfectly capable of talking to people who they share zero values with. I've seen them both talking amicably to people far on the other side.
In Broxtowe, one of the longest cross-party friendships was between one of Dennis Skinner's brothers, Gordon, a man who made Dennis look right-wing, and a senior Tory councillor. They went on walking holidays together, and when Gordon died, the councillor came to his funeral and sat beside me: we sang The Red Flag in his honour. When I mildly teased him about it he said fiercely that of course he was glad to sing it for Gordon. I would have liked to go to the councillor's funeral (which was some years later, when I was abroad) and sing Land of Hope and Glory to return the favour.
At local politics level there can be more friendship across parties than within the same party.
We have had considerable antagonism between the District Council leader and the County Council leader, both in the same party.
I certainly have a closer relationship with a member of the Green Party than with any of my Labour colleagues!
My view is that May genuinely doesn’t want to go in 2019.
She doesn’t want to be solely defined by Brexit (no laughing at the back there). She wants to follow through on the domestic platform she set out in July 2016.
I think she wants to use 2019-2021 to seal the final Brexit arrangement, yes, but also help the strivers in the provinces and regions.
It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what she’s actually fighting with Hammond about.
I don’t think she’s that stupid. She is self-aware enough to know that for good or ill (ill, actually) her legacy is Brexit.
You do draw attention to an important point though. Now that the Conservatives have completely trashed their brand on the altar of Brexit, what kind of prospectus will they put to the people at the next election? “Subject to Brexit” kills their credibility on every front that they have previously fought, whether protecting civic institutions that they have trashed though Brexit, being the party of business that through Brexit they have announced “fuck business” or looking after strivers who will be floundering because of Brexit. They look completely bereft.
If the Conservatives have 'completely trashed their credibility on the altar of Brexit' why are they still polling higher than they got at any general election from 1997 to 2010?
Jeremy Corbyn
Labour's problem is that if they change leader to someone more voter friendly, Chukka for example, the Momentum crowd will revolt, splitting the party.
There is zero evidence that Chukka is more voter-friendly than Corbyn.
The Meeksian constituency that Chukka appeals to is very, very tiny.
Flawed though Corbyn may be, he is not as flawed as Owen Smith or Liz Kendall or Andy Burnham or Yvette Corbyn, all of whom he easily beat in leadership elections because they failed to articulate any credible vision for the Labour Party.
It doesn’t include Meeks.
Labour’s next leader needs to be able to articulate the social aspects of the moral crusade without Jeremy Corbyn’s foreign policy baggage. Lisa Nandy or Angela Rayner would be good choices.
Leading Epping Council would be an overpromotion for Lisa Nandy and Angela Rayner, let alone leading the country
That’s a bit harsh on the hardworking councillors of Epping.
Solving the housing problem is simple: build more of them in the areas people want to live.
As it happens, despite much sound and fury about the subject, this belatedly seems to be sorting itself out. No doubt all the parties at the next election will have policies designed to deal with a problem that no longer matters very much.
My view is that May genuinely doesn’t want to go in 2019.
She doesn’t want to be solely defined by Brexit (no laughing at the back there). She wants to follow through on the domestic platform she set out in July 2016.
I think she wants to use 2019-2021 to seal the final Brexit arrangement, yes, but also help the strivers in the provinces and regions.
It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what she’s actually fighting with Hammond about.
I don’t think she’s that stupid. She is self-aware enough to know that for good or ill (ill, actually) her legacy is Brexit.
You do draw attention to an important point though. Now that the Conservatives have completely trashed their brand on the altar of Brexit, what kind of prospectus will they put to the people at the next election? “Subject to Brexit” kills their credibility on every front that they have previously fought, whether protecting civic institutions that they have trashed though Brexit, being the party of business that through Brexit they have announced “fuck business” or looking after strivers who will be floundering because of Brexit. They look completely bereft.
If the Conservatives have 'completely trashed their credibility on the altar of Brexit' why are they still polling higher than they got at any general election from 1997 to 2010?
1) Brexit hasn’t finished yet and some people support them while they’re doing the job. 2) Others support them out of antipathy to Jeremy Corbyn.
When Brexit is seen as over, group one will want new reasons to stay on board. The Conservatives offer none at present and Brexit deprives them of the means of credibly offering the traditional ones. They are also incredibly vulnerable if the Labour leader changes.
Brexit should keep group one on board for at least one election.
Group two depends whether Corbyn stays in charge, or someone like him.
I think it's probable the Conservatives will poll 40% + in 2022.
Above all economic competence (note this is on a comparative as opposed to absolute scale). The argument would be that we have fixed the deficit but we still have a debt mountain to address. Don't let Labour go mad yet again.
Potential problems are that we are now somewhat overdue a recession and there may be some short term disruption from Brexit (although I am betting the vast majority will not even notice). Labour may get their act together but that seems a more remote possibility.
Secondly, recognition of the need to prioritise the additional money then coming available. For me the priorities are Social Care, housing, the NHS, student debt, defence in roughly that order. I see no room at all for tax cuts but that does not mean that the burden cannot be switched about a bit by, for example, requiring pensioners to pay NI and a post mortem capital based tax to help to pay for Social Care.
Thirdly, consolidating the outcome of Brexit. What do we actually want to do with these newly acquired powers? So far Gove seems the only one who is even attempting to address that question. There is quite a lot of work to be done here. Also, once things have calmed down a bit, are there areas we would want to cooperate more closely with the EU?
The key to success will be credible leadership that ideally can reach groups beyond the party's usual support. For me that should mean Sajid Javid as PM and Gove as Chancellor.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
Mortgage affordability was always more about protecting vulnerable bank's balance sheets than anything else. The larger deposits was supposed to insulate the poor dears from another crash. I agree that the consequences have been extremely negative.
My daughter has just bought her first flat. She did so with the help of the taxpayer who effectively matched the money she had built up in an ISA which went towards her deposit. It did help her buy, whether it was a great use of taxpayers money is harder to say. I don't see how this had any effect on the price because the seller would have had no knowledge at all.
More complex schemes by which the government effectively underwrote mortgages are inherently more problematic. But I do think that fewer houses would have been built without this support to the market. Whether the houses built will prove to be good investments only time will tell but I agree they look very small.
The government scheme increased demand for the flat which thus kept the price higher than it would otherwise have been.
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
The ludicrous mortgage affordability rules were put in place in part to stop the disasters of 2008. If you loosen them you risk repeating previous property boom and bust (and bank boom and bust) mistakes. The rules may well need looking at again but they weren’t put in place to screw over the young but to bring some sanity to our housing market and to curb the tendency of banks to invest in housing rather than, say, more productive areas of the economy.
Something definitely needs doing about the rental sector.
The road to bell is paved with good intentions. They have screwed over the young - an entire generation. There was nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages. The current situation has left the Millennials paying off the mortgages of Gen X.
I actually think there's a case for going the other way and having more restrictions on what people can borrow.
As the article above pointed out, increased ability to borrow pushes up prices, as well as having other undesirable macro effects like exacerbating the impact of property cycles.
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
Mortgage affordability was always more about protecting vulnerable bank's balance sheets than anything else. The larger deposits was supposed to insulate the poor dears from another crash. I agree that the consequences have been extremely negative.
My daughter has just bought her first flat. She did so with the help of the taxpayer who effectively matched the money she had built up in an ISA which went towards her deposit. It did help her buy, whether it was a great use of taxpayers money is harder to say. I don't see how this had any effect on the price because the seller would have had no knowledge at all.
More complex schemes by which the government effectively underwrote mortgages are inherently more problematic. But I do think that fewer houses would have been built without this support to the market. Whether the houses built will prove to be good investments only time will tell but I agree they look very small.
The government scheme increased demand for the flat which thus kept the price higher than it would otherwise have been.
Not much sign of that in Dundee tbh. She got the flat for less than valuation. Our property market is pretty flat to edging down. It may be different in those hot spots you English like so much. I think these schemes have perhaps run their course and should be wound down in the budget.
Solving the housing problem is simple: build more of them in the areas people want to live.
As it happens, despite much sound and fury about the subject, this belatedly seems to be sorting itself out. No doubt all the parties at the next election will have policies designed to deal with a problem that no longer matters very much.
The flip side is also needed - we need to make other parts of the country where there are cheaper houses more attractive to live in, with jobs, regeneration etc.
Solving the housing problem is simple: build more of them in the areas people want to live.
As it happens, despite much sound and fury about the subject, this belatedly seems to be sorting itself out. No doubt all the parties at the next election will have policies designed to deal with a problem that no longer matters very much.
!
For my children it matters very much indeed. One child has left London to make their life elsewhere and housing was a key driver of that decision. And the other is still living at home (and saving hard) despite working precisely because living elsewhere would pretty much wipe out the financial advantages of working
They feel - and are - screwed over by the measures that we have had to take to sort out the previous mess, however necessary they were.
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
The ludicrous mortgage affordability rules were put in place in part to stop the disasters of 2008. If you loosen them you risk repeating previous property boom and bust (and bank boom and bust) mistakes. The rules may well need looking at again but they weren’t put in place to screw over the young but to bring some sanity to our housing market and to curb the tendency of banks to invest in housing rather than, say, more productive areas of the economy.
Something definitely needs doing about the rental sector.
The road to bell is paved with good intentions. They have screwed over the young - an entire generation. There was nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages. The current situation has left the Millennials paying off the mortgages of Gen X.
I actually think there's a case for going the other way and having more restrictions on what people can borrow.
As the article above pointed out, increased ability to borrow pushes up prices, as well as having other undesirable macro effects like exacerbating the impact of property cycles.
We should not be relying on the unending growth of unsecured consumer debt to drive economic growth. That was a great weakness in Osbornomics.
Even on current rules being a private landlord is no fun, particularly when you have (as I do) a problematic tenant.
Property companies seem to be far better placed.
Yup, rental management seems like something that would be better done by maybe half-a-dozen ferociously-competing property rental companies. Firstly they'd pool the risk instead of having a bunch of individuals who do fine for years then suddenly get screwed by bad tenants, and secondly they'd have an incentive to do a good job to preserve their reputations, especially when the tenant moved out, at which point individual landlords have basically no incentive to be nice to them.
My letting agent let the tenant move out and hand them the keys at their office. With the result that my furnished property has now become pretty much unfurnished.
Another reason why the company that manages the property should be the company that owns the property...
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
Mortgage affordability was always more about protecting vulnerable bank's balance sheets than anything else. The larger deposits was supposed to insulate the poor dears from another crash. I agree that the consequences have been extremely negative.
My daughter has just bought her first flat. She did so with the help of the taxpayer who effectively matched the money she had built up in an ISA which went towards her deposit. It did help her buy, whether it was a great use of taxpayers money is harder to say. I don't see how this had any effect on the price because the seller would have had no knowledge at all.
More complex schemes by which the government effectively underwrote mortgages are inherently more problematic. But I do think that fewer houses would have been built without this support to the market. Whether the houses built will prove to be good investments only time will tell but I agree they look very small.
The government scheme increased demand for the flat which thus kept the price higher than it would otherwise have been.
Not much sign of that in Dundee tbh. She got the flat for less than valuation. Our property market is pretty flat to edging down. It may be different in those hot spots you English like so much. I think these schemes have perhaps run their course and should be wound down in the budget.
The key to success will be credible leadership that ideally can reach groups beyond the party's usual support. For me that should mean Sajid Javid as PM and Gove as Chancellor.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
At the moment, accepting any kind of co-operation with EU bodies which we are no longer formally part of seems to be treated as betrayal by a large enough part of the Conservative party to prevent such a deal being adopted - are you expecting a deal that’s compatible with their current position, or the ultras to accept something on the Chequers-BINO spectrum? I think it’s difficult to predict either of those outcomes with any confidence.
720S, which by all standards is a big step up from the older models and beats anything else in its class down the strip and round the track.
It's definitely fast as fuck in a straight line (probably the fastest production car over 1,320 feet) but it's but the 911 GT2, Huracan Perfomante, Aventador SVJ, etc. monster it on the track. (10+ seconds round the 'ring).
For a 2wd car I still don’t understand how it runs 9s over the quarter.
None of those you mentioned are really in its class, they’re all track specials rather than regular production models. The 720S could be a daily, that your wife would be happy to travel in to a nice hotel for the weekend. It wasn’t set up primarily to go around the ‘Ring.
Off topic, if Aston Martin does float, I’d give it no more than 36 months before its bought out and swept up by one of the big international car conglomerates.
The key to success will be credible leadership that ideally can reach groups beyond the party's usual support. For me that should mean Sajid Javid as PM and Gove as Chancellor.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
At the moment, accepting any kind of co-operation with EU bodies which we are no longer formally part of seems to be treated as betrayal by a large enough part of the Conservative party to prevent such a deal being adopted - are you expecting a deal that’s compatible with their current position, or the ultras to accept something on the Chequers-BINO spectrum? I think it’s difficult to predict either of those outcomes with any confidence.
I’m expecting a deal. I’m expecting that it will be furiously denounced by many of the posters on this thread who think the country will be moving on from Brexit after next March.
720S, which by all standards is a big step up from the older models and beats anything else in its class down the strip and round the track.
It's definitely fast as fuck in a straight line (probably the fastest production car over 1,320 feet) but it's but the 911 GT2, Huracan Perfomante, Aventador SVJ, etc. monster it on the track. (10+ seconds round the 'ring).
Above all economic competence (note this is on a comparative as opposed to absolute scale). The argument would be that we have fixed the deficit but we still have a debt mountain to address. Don't let Labour go mad yet again.
Potential problems are that we are now somewhat overdue a recession and there may be some short term disruption from Brexit (although I am betting the vast majority will not even notice). Labour may get their act together but that seems a more remote possibility.
Secondly, recognition of the need to prioritise the additional money then coming available. For me the priorities are Social Care, housing, the NHS, student debt, defence in roughly that order. I see no room at all for tax cuts but that does not mean that the burden cannot be switched about a bit by, for example, requiring pensioners to pay NI and a post mortem capital based tax to help to pay for Social Care.
Thirdly, consolidating the outcome of Brexit. What do we actually want to do with these newly acquired powers? So far Gove seems the only one who is even attempting to address that question. There is quite a lot of work to be done here. Also, once things have calmed down a bit, are there areas we would want to cooperate more closely with the EU?
The key to success will be credible leadership that ideally can reach groups beyond the party's usual support. For me that should mean Sajid Javid as PM and Gove as Chancellor.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
These are statements of fact, and should not be controversial. It's not "exaggeration". Leaving an integrated economic system inevitably creates trade barriers. Maybe it's justified for other reasons but you can hardly claim prioritization of the economy. Disintegration by definition is the consequence of no longer being integrated. Fewer taxable workers and less taxable business activity means less money to spend on welfare.
It's amazing how people confuse facts with their opinions or forecasts.
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
The ludicrous mortgage affordability rules were put in place in part to stop the disasters of 2008. If you loosen them you risk repeating previous property boom and bust (and bank boom and bust) mistakes. The rules may well need looking at again but they weren’t put in place to screw over the young but to bring some sanity to our housing market and to curb the tendency of banks to invest in housing rather than, say, more productive areas of the economy.
Something definitely needs doing about the rental sector.
The road to bell is paved with good intentions. They have screwed over the young - an entire generation. There was nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages. The current situation has left the Millennials paying off the mortgages of Gen X.
I actually think there's a case for going the other way and having more restrictions on what people can borrow.
As the article above pointed out, increased ability to borrow pushes up prices, as well as having other undesirable macro effects like exacerbating the impact of property cycles.
We should not be relying on the unending growth of unsecured consumer debt to drive economic growth. That was a great weakness in Osbornomics.
Yes I think that's right. We need a new model which encourages productive lending, but we need to get away from consumer debt.
The key to success will be credible leadership that ideally can reach groups beyond the party's usual support. For me that should mean Sajid Javid as PM and Gove as Chancellor.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
At the moment, accepting any kind of co-operation with EU bodies which we are no longer formally part of seems to be treated as betrayal by a large enough part of the Conservative party to prevent such a deal being adopted - are you expecting a deal that’s compatible with their current position, or the ultras to accept something on the Chequers-BINO spectrum? I think it’s difficult to predict either of those outcomes with any confidence.
I’m expecting a deal. I’m expecting that it will be furiously denounced by many of the posters on this thread who think the country will be moving on from Brexit after next March.
Presumably that answers the question of the Tory offer in 2022: replace May with a true believer, insist that an overly-close relationship with the EU is the cause of all Britain’s ills, and pledge that if re-elected they will pursue True Brexit.
These are statements of fact, and should not be controversial. It's not "exaggeration". Leaving an integrated economic system inevitably creates trade barriers. Maybe it's justified for other reasons but you can hardly claim prioritization of the economy. Disintegration by definition is the consequence of no longer being integrated. Fewer taxable workers and less taxable business activity means less money to spend on welfare.
It's amazing how people confuse facts with their opinions or forecasts.
If you drive a lorry load of boulders to a riverbank and then empty it in the river, it's a fact that you will create barriers to the flow of water, but different people may have different forecasts about what will happen next.
The key to success will be credible leadership that ideally can reach groups beyond the party's usual support. For me that should mean Sajid Javid as PM and Gove as Chancellor.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
At the moment, accepting any kind of co-operation with EU bodies which we are no longer formally part of seems to be treated as betrayal by a large enough part of the Conservative party to prevent such a deal being adopted - are you expecting a deal that’s compatible with their current position, or the ultras to accept something on the Chequers-BINO spectrum? I think it’s difficult to predict either of those outcomes with any confidence.
I’m expecting a deal. I’m expecting that it will be furiously denounced by many of the posters on this thread who think the country will be moving on from Brexit after next March.
I’m less optimistic than you. I will be mightily relieved if there is a deal. Brexit and its consequences ie our future relationship with the EU will continue to be the defining issue in British politics for some time to come. We will be banging on about Europe long after next March.
These are statements of fact, and should not be controversial. It's not "exaggeration". Leaving an integrated economic system inevitably creates trade barriers. Maybe it's justified for other reasons but you can hardly claim prioritization of the economy. Disintegration by definition is the consequence of no longer being integrated. Fewer taxable workers and less taxable business activity means less money to spend on welfare.
It's amazing how people confuse facts with their opinions or forecasts.
If you drive a lorry load of boulders to a riverbank and then empty it in the river, it's a fact that you will create barriers to the flow of water, but different people may have different forecasts about what will happen next.
Scotland has re introduced beavers to do just exactly this. Apparently it creates huge benefits for the society around it.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
At the moment, accepting any kind of co-operation with EU bodies which we are no longer formally part of seems to be treated as betrayal by a large enough part of the Conservative party to prevent such a deal being adopted - are you expecting a deal that’s compatible with their current position, or the ultras to accept something on the Chequers-BINO spectrum? I think it’s difficult to predict either of those outcomes with any confidence.
I’m expecting a deal. I’m expecting that it will be furiously denounced by many of the posters on this thread who think the country will be moving on from Brexit after next March.
I’m less optimistic than you. I will be mightily relieved if there is a deal. Brexit and its consequences ie our future relationship with the EU will continue to be the defining issue in British politics for some time to come. We will be banging on about Europe long after next March.
What joy .......
Well obviously we’ll still be banging on about Europe long after next March: the negotiation of the long term deal hasn’t even started. But I didn’t want to disabuse naïve innocents.
There’s a strong impetus on both sides to do a deal. In the end I expect the EU will flex a little but there are more concessions to come on the British side. Northern Ireland may well be the bitterest pill to swallow.
I see no reason at all why Rabbis should be afforded special status. Many of them are extremely politically motivated.
No-one should be afforded special status just because. But shooting the messenger rather than listening to the message is a stupid policy if you genuinely want to deal with the issues.
Those who criticised newspapers and Leavers for attacking judges or Gina Miller or Ivan Rogers who brought unwelcome messages and not listening to what they said are not best placed to justify Labour doing exactly what they criticised Brexiteers for doing.
I think Mr Meeks has a word to describe such people.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
At the moment, accepting any kind of co-operation with EU bodies which we are no longer formally part of seems to be treated as betrayal by a large enough part of the Conservative party to prevent such a deal being adopted - are you expecting a deal that’s compatible with their current position, or the ultras to accept something on the Chequers-BINO spectrum? I think it’s difficult to predict either of those outcomes with any confidence.
I’m expecting a deal. I’m expecting that it will be furiously denounced by many of the posters on this thread who think the country will be moving on from Brexit after next March.
I’m less optimistic than you. I will be mightily relieved if there is a deal. Brexit and its consequences ie our future relationship with the EU will continue to be the defining issue in British politics for some time to come. We will be banging on about Europe long after next March.
What joy .......
Well obviously we’ll still be banging on about Europe long after next March: the negotiation of the long term deal hasn’t even started. But I didn’t want to disabuse naïve innocents.
There’s a strong impetus on both sides to do a deal. In the end I expect the EU will flex a little but there are more concessions to come on the British side. Northern Ireland may well be the bitterest pill to swallow.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
At the moment, accepting any kind of co-operation with EU bodies which we are no longer formally part of seems to be treated as betrayal by a large enough part of the Conservative party to prevent such a deal being adopted - are you expecting a deal that’s compatible with their current position, or the ultras to accept something on the Chequers-BINO spectrum? I think it’s difficult to predict either of those outcomes with any confidence.
I’m expecting a deal. I’m expecting that it will be furiously denounced by many of the posters on this thread who think the country will be moving on from Brexit after next March.
I’m less optimistic than you. I will be mightily relieved if there is a deal. Brexit and its consequences ie our future relationship with the EU will continue to be the defining issue in British politics for some time to come. We will be banging on about Europe long after next March.
What joy .......
Well obviously we’ll still be banging on about Europe long after next March: the negotiation of the long term deal hasn’t even started. But I didn’t want to disabuse naïve innocents.
There’s a strong impetus on both sides to do a deal. In the end I expect the EU will flex a little but there are more concessions to come on the British side. Northern Ireland may well be the bitterest pill to swallow.
Ironic that a measure designed to put the European question to bed has achieved precisely the opposite.
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Above all economic competence (note this is on a comparative as opposed to absolute scale). The argument would be that we have fixed the deficit but we still have a debt mountain to address. Don't let Labour go mad yet again.
Potential problems are that we are now somewhat overdue a recession and there may be some short term disruption from Brexit (although I am betting the vast majority will not even notice). Labour may get their act together but that seems a more remote possibility.
Secondly, recognition of the need to prioritise the additional money then coming available. For me the priorities are Social Care, housing, the NHS, student debt, defence in roughly that order. I see no room at all for tax cuts but that does not mean that the burden cannot be switched about a bit by, for example, requiring pensioners to pay NI and a post mortem capital based tax to help to pay for Social Care.
Thirdly, consolidating the outcome of Brexit. What do we actually want to do with these newly acquired powers? So far Gove seems the only one who is even attempting to address that question. There is quite a lot of work to be done here. Also, once things have calmed down a bit, are there areas we would want to cooperate more closely with the EU?
The key to success will be credible leadership that ideally can reach groups beyond the party's usual support. For me that should mean Sajid Javid as PM and Gove as Chancellor.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
These are statements of fact, and should not be controversial. It's not "exaggeration". Leaving an integrated economic system inevitably creates trade barriers. Maybe it's justified for other reasons but you can hardly claim prioritization of the economy. Disintegration by definition is the consequence of no longer being integrated. Fewer taxable workers and less taxable business activity means less money to spend on welfare.
It's amazing how people confuse facts with their opinions or forecasts.
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Could I say please I think this would make a very interesting Guest Post and I for one would like to read this. I hope OGH/TSE give you an opportunity to do a Guest Post on this.
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Could I say please I think this would make a very interesting Guest Post and I for one would like to read this. I hope OGH/TSE give you an opportunity to do a Guest Post on this.
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
I hope they do - that would be an interesting read.
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Could I say please I think this would make a very interesting Guest Post and I for one would like to read this. I hope OGH/TSE give you an opportunity to do a Guest Post on this.
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Please write such a thread.
I’ll be happy to publish it.
My near three week stint as Editor of PB begins in a few hours, so I’ll welcome any guest threads.
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
The ludicrous mortgage affordability rules were put in place in part to stop the disasters of 2008. If you loosen them you risk repeating previous property boom and bust (and bank boom and bust) mistakes. The rules may well need looking at again but they weren’t put in place to screw over the young but to bring some sanity to our housing market and to curb the tendency of banks to invest in housing rather than, say, more productive areas of the economy.
Something definitely needs doing about the rental sector.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. They have screwed over the young - an entire generation. There was nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages. The current situation has left the Millennials paying off the mortgages of Gen X.
SNIP
There is risk in all things, but the greatest risk of all – that we maroon an entire generation on sky high rents, paying off the second and third properties of the Baby Boom and Gen X – is apparently so acceptable to many that we have embraced it as the new normal.
I say again, there is nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages, if you are sustainably employed and can afford the payments. I bought my first flat in London in 2007 with an 100% home loan. I now have an equity stake of ~£300,000 in a four-bedroomed Edwardian home in a nice London suburb while my Millennial colleagues are paying more a month in rent for a shared flat, paying off the mortgage of someone else.
The Baby Boomers and older Gen X have a real blind spot to this – it's a catastrophe.
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Please write such a thread.
I’ll be happy to publish it.
My near three week stint as Editor of PB begins in a few hours, so I’ll welcome any guest threads.
Ironic that a measure designed to put the European question to bed has achieved precisely the opposite.
Still, think of the PB threads to come ........
Yes and no. While this has ensured the European question is on the agenda for some time to come it is putting to bed the British element of the European question. We are belatedly answering a question that should have been asked at the time of Maastricht ... if we're not going to be in the ECU inner circle of Europe then what is our role and relationship with Europe? That can has been kicked for a quarter of a century and now we are trying to address in a couple of years that which has been delayed that whole time.
However once we have an answer I do feel it will by and large put the question to bed. There will be further integrations within Europe that is inevitable. Either a disintegration or more likely a single state for Europe is almost inevitable, the current position is too instable to do otherwise. We won't be a part of such future discussions. We will have settled upon our semi-detatched (or fully detatched) status.
I don't think there will be a great deal of impetus or desire to re-open "the British question" in the future.
The caveat for that is if we get a decent deal now. If the EU forces us into a terrible Versailles-style humiliating settlement then that will not last. The can will have been kicked and it will erupt later..
The key to success will be credible leadership that ideally can reach groups beyond the party's usual support. For me that should mean Sajid Javid as PM and Gove as Chancellor.
Brexit will cut across all of those "offers". It's hard for those promoting disruption, trade barriers, ideology over economics to present themselves as safe pairs of hands on the economy. Secondly,the tax take will be reduced as companies offshore and fewer economic migrants come in, so less money to spend and difficult choices on how to cut and not boost welfare. Thirdly dealing with the with the disintegration that is the consequence of Brexit will be all consuming. It won't be consolidation.
We shall see. I think you are exaggerating any Brexit effects by at least an order of magnitude.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
At the moment, accepting any kind of co-operation with EU bodies which we are no longer formally part of seems to be treated as betrayal by a large enough part of the Conservative party to prevent such a deal being adopted - are you expecting a deal that’s compatible with their current position, or the ultras to accept something on the Chequers-BINO spectrum? I think it’s difficult to predict either of those outcomes with any confidence.
I expect something closer to Chequers. And I think that Parliament will accept it.
These are statements of fact, and should not be controversial. It's not "exaggeration". Leaving an integrated economic system inevitably creates trade barriers. Maybe it's justified for other reasons but you can hardly claim prioritization of the economy. Disintegration by definition is the consequence of no longer being integrated. Fewer taxable workers and less taxable business activity means less money to spend on welfare.
It's amazing how people confuse facts with their opinions or forecasts.
If you drive a lorry load of boulders to a riverbank and then empty it in the river, it's a fact that you will create barriers to the flow of water, but different people may have different forecasts about what will happen next.
Scotland has re introduced beavers to do just exactly this. Apparently it creates huge benefits for the society around it.
I see no reason at all why Rabbis should be afforded special status. Many of them are extremely politically motivated.
No-one should be afforded special status just because. But shooting the messenger rather than listening to the message is a stupid policy if you genuinely want to deal with the issues.
Those who criticised newspapers and Leavers for attacking judges or Gina Miller or Ivan Rogers who brought unwelcome messages and not listening to what they said are not best placed to justify Labour doing exactly what they criticised Brexiteers for doing.
I think Mr Meeks has a word to describe such people.
All the rabbis run collections for Israel in Synagogue at all the major Jewish holidays. That 68 should object to Corbyn's support for the Palestinians should at least be put into some sort of context. I've no idea whether Corbyn is antisemitic or not but for the vast majority of the Rabbinate Israel is completely integral to what being Jewish is all about. Corbyn is being asked to do something that is impossible and the criticism of him is being carried along on that wave of ignorance.
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Please write such a thread.
I’ll be happy to publish it.
My near three week stint as Editor of PB begins in a few hours, so I’ll welcome any guest threads.
Help2Buy is the economics of the madhouse – a demand-side measure when the problem is with the (lack of) supply. It was never destined to end well.
I think economics 101 explains that if you improve demand then the supply will increase, subject to absolute shortages. At the time it was introduced there was a real shortage of mortgages which meant that the supply of buyers was artificially low. At the moment private construction is doing well so it has worked to some extent. Whether it has a long term future is another matter.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
Mortgage affordability was always more about protecting vulnerable bank's balance sheets than anything else. The larger deposits was supposed to insulate the poor dears from another crash. I agree that the consequences have been extremely negative.
My daughter has just bought her first flat. She did so with the help of the taxpayer who effectively matched the money she had built up in an ISA which went towards her deposit. It did help her buy, whether it was a great use of taxpayers money is harder to say. I don't see how this had any effect on the price because the seller would have had no knowledge at all.
More complex schemes by which the government effectively underwrote mortgages are inherently more problematic. But I do think that fewer houses would have been built without this support to the market. Whether the houses built will prove to be good investments only time will tell but I agree they look very small.
The government scheme increased demand for the flat which thus kept the price higher than it would otherwise have been.
Not if it permitted it to be sold rather than rented out. If the young lady who bought the flat would not have been able to afford it without Help2Buy then she would have been forced to rent which would have just meant one more renter, one more letter and more demand increasing the price of rentals. Which means more profit to be made from buying to let, which ultimately increases the number of buy to let landlords looking to enter or stay in the market.
Either way the young lady would have needed somewhere to live so the demand would have been there either way - but more demand for purchases rather than rentals is a good thing!
Surely it must be every right thinking persons job to block Boris from becoming PM.
Depends on who the alternative is. In a Fox v Boris contest.....
(admittedly, that would require some very weird voting by the MPs!)
You know, my not-too-interested-in-politics-but-generally-a-good-judge-of-how-things-are-going-to-go cousin mentioned Fox as a serious candidate for next PM.
Makes me remember how all in the bubble we are....
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
At the moment, accepting any kind of co-operation with EU bodies which we are no longer formally part of seems to be treated as betrayal by a large enough part of the Conservative party to prevent such a deal being adopted - are you expecting a deal that’s compatible with their current position, or the ultras to accept something on the Chequers-BINO spectrum? I think it’s difficult to predict either of those outcomes with any confidence.
I’m expecting a deal. I’m expecting that it will be furiously denounced by many of the posters on this thread who think the country will be moving on from Brexit after next March.
I’m less optimistic than you. I will be mightily relieved if there is a deal. Brexit and its consequences ie our future relationship with the EU will continue to be the defining issue in British politics for some time to come. We will be banging on about Europe long after next March.
What joy .......
Well obviously we’ll still be banging on about Europe long after next March: the negotiation of the long term deal hasn’t even started. But I didn’t want to disabuse naïve innocents.
There’s a strong impetus on both sides to do a deal. In the end I expect the EU will flex a little but there are more concessions to come on the British side. Northern Ireland may well be the bitterest pill to swallow.
Ironic that a measure designed to put the European question to bed has achieved precisely the opposite.
Still, think of the PB threads to come ........
You're just trying to prove you're not Jewish, aren't you?
Surely it must be every right thinking persons job to block Boris from becoming PM.
Depends on who the alternative is. In a Fox v Boris contest.....
(admittedly, that would require some very weird voting by the MPs!)
You know, my not-too-interested-in-politics-but-generally-a-good-judge-of-how-things-are-going-to-go cousin mentioned Fox as a serious candidate for next PM.
Makes me remember how all in the bubble we are....
Colour me suprirsed. What has Fox done to impress anyone? Ever?
Mortgage affordability was always more about protecting vulnerable bank's balance sheets than anything else. The larger deposits was supposed to insulate the poor dears from another crash. I agree that the consequences have been extremely negative.
My daughter has just bought her first flat. She did so with the help of the taxpayer who effectively matched the money she had built up in an ISA which went towards her deposit. It did help her buy, whether it was a great use of taxpayers money is harder to say. I don't see how this had any effect on the price because the seller would have had no knowledge at all.
More complex schemes by which the government effectively underwrote mortgages are inherently more problematic. But I do think that fewer houses would have been built without this support to the market. Whether the houses built will prove to be good investments only time will tell but I agree they look very small.
The government scheme increased demand for the flat which thus kept the price higher than it would otherwise have been.
Not if it permitted it to be sold rather than rented out. If the young lady who bought the flat would not have been able to afford it without Help2Buy then she would have been forced to rent which would have just meant one more renter, one more letter and more demand increasing the price of rentals. Which means more profit to be made from buying to let, which ultimately increases the number of buy to let landlords looking to enter or stay in the market.
Either way the young lady would have needed somewhere to live so the demand would have been there either way - but more demand for purchases rather than rentals is a good thing!
That's no lady, that's my daughter!
Edit, and actually she had a council flat before this so she has freed up a Council house by the purchase.
720S, which by all standards is a big step up from the older models and beats anything else in its class down the strip and round the track.
It's definitely fast as fuck in a straight line (probably the fastest production car over 1,320 feet) but it's but the 911 GT2, Huracan Perfomante, Aventador SVJ, etc. monster it on the track. (10+ seconds round the 'ring).
For a 2wd car I still don’t understand how it runs 9s over the quarter.
None of those you mentioned are really in its class, they’re all track specials rather than regular production models. The 720S could be a daily, that your wife would be happy to travel in to a nice hotel for the weekend. It wasn’t set up primarily to go around the ‘Ring.
Anyway, back to Pistonheads PB.
The reason the 720 is so good in the 1/4 mile is that the marketing dept had the final say over the gear ratios and it runs a stupidly long 4th gear so it wins QM tests by eliminating a shift. The press cars are always on P Zero Corsas too which no sane person would have on their own car.
You're right they are not optimised for the track. I do at least 10 trackdays/year and if a McL is present it's a toss up to see if it overheats before it roasts its brakes or vice versa. The only one I have ever seen that was able to put down hot laps consistently was a P1.
Surely it must be every right thinking persons job to block Boris from becoming PM.
Depends on who the alternative is. In a Fox v Boris contest.....
(admittedly, that would require some very weird voting by the MPs!)
You know, my not-too-interested-in-politics-but-generally-a-good-judge-of-how-things-are-going-to-go cousin mentioned Fox as a serious candidate for next PM.
Makes me remember how all in the bubble we are....
Surely it must be every right thinking persons job to block Boris from becoming PM.
Depends on who the alternative is. In a Fox v Boris contest.....
(admittedly, that would require some very weird voting by the MPs!)
You know, my not-too-interested-in-politics-but-generally-a-good-judge-of-how-things-are-going-to-go cousin mentioned Fox as a serious candidate for next PM.
Makes me remember how all in the bubble we are....
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Please write such a thread.
I’ll be happy to publish it.
My near three week stint as Editor of PB begins in a few hours, so I’ll welcome any guest threads.
It's normaly fairly uneventful when Mike's away iirc
Surely it must be every right thinking persons job to block Boris from becoming PM.
Depends on who the alternative is. In a Fox v Boris contest.....
(admittedly, that would require some very weird voting by the MPs!)
You know, my not-too-interested-in-politics-but-generally-a-good-judge-of-how-things-are-going-to-go cousin mentioned Fox as a serious candidate for next PM.
Makes me remember how all in the bubble we are....
Has they forgotten that Fox is a disgraced national security risk?
Not what you need when you’re trying to focus a general election campaign on Jeremy Corbyn being a risk to the safety of the country.
Mortgage affordability was always more about protecting vulnerable bank's balance sheets than anything else. The larger deposits was supposed to insulate the poor dears from another crash. I agree that the consequences have been extremely negative.
My daughter has just bought her first flat. She did so with the help of the taxpayer who effectively matched the money she had built up in an ISA which went towards her deposit. It did help her buy, whether it was a great use of taxpayers money is harder to say. I don't see how this had any effect on the price because the seller would have had no knowledge at all.
More complex schemes by which the government effectively underwrote mortgages are inherently more problematic. But I do think that fewer houses would have been built without this support to the market. Whether the houses built will prove to be good investments only time will tell but I agree they look very small.
The government scheme increased demand for the flat which thus kept the price higher than it would otherwise have been.
Not if it permitted it to be sold rather than rented out. If the young lady who bought the flat would not have been able to afford it without Help2Buy then she would have been forced to rent which would have just meant one more renter, one more letter and more demand increasing the price of rentals. Which means more profit to be made from buying to let, which ultimately increases the number of buy to let landlords looking to enter or stay in the market.
Either way the young lady would have needed somewhere to live so the demand would have been there either way - but more demand for purchases rather than rentals is a good thing!
That's no lady, that's my daughter!
Edit, and actually she had a council flat before this so she has freed up a Council house by the purchase.
There we go. So the policy has worked as intended, that's one less ladydaughter/family living in a Council House, one less household renting instead of owning. There are issues with affordability but Help2Buy isn't what's causing them.
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Please write such a thread.
I’ll be happy to publish it.
My near three week stint as Editor of PB begins in a few hours, so I’ll welcome any guest threads.
It's normaly fairly uneventful when Mike's away iirc
Yup.
On Monday I’ll be spending most of the day in a London champagne bar with an old Oxonian who read PPE.
I appreciate your kind words. If I leave, my friends, my comrades all leave, then what becomes of the movement? We stay. We fight. We win.
You obviously have great loyalty to the Labour Party. If there were a break away led by Ummuna, Benn, Cooper and Starmer and possibly joined by Kahn or Burnham would you be tempted or would you still want to stay put? Would Watson being a part of this be a plus or a minus?
If you were tempted what would that break away party want to stand for (other than presumably remaining in the EU)? Are you aware of any kind of platform that might be circling?
I won't be joining a breakaway no matter how noble the cause may seem to its creators. If the party split wholly in two then yes I am on the Watson side of the divide as opposed to the Corbyn side.
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Please write such a thread.
I’ll be happy to publish it.
My near three week stint as Editor of PB begins in a few hours, so I’ll welcome any guest threads.
It's normaly fairly uneventful when Mike's away iirc
Indeed
*quietly reviews the market for departing leaders*
I see no reason at all why Rabbis should be afforded special status. Many of them are extremely politically motivated.
No-one should be afforded special status just because. But shooting the messenger rather than listening to the message is a stupid policy if you genuinely want to deal with the issues.
Those who criticised newspapers and Leavers for attacking judges or Gina Miller or Ivan Rogers who brought unwelcome messages and not listening to what they said are not best placed to justify Labour doing exactly what they criticised Brexiteers for doing.
I think Mr Meeks has a word to describe such people.
All the rabbis run collections for Israel in Synagogue at all the major Jewish holidays. That 68 should object to Corbyn's support for the Palestinians should at least be put into some sort of context. I've no idea whether Corbyn is antisemitic or not but for the vast majority of the Rabbinate Israel is completely integral to what being Jewish is all about. Corbyn is being asked to do something that is impossible and the criticism of him is being carried along on that wave of ignorance.
At my church we are regularly asked to put money in collections for groups abroad, including Palestinian Christians. That says nothing about the political views of either the priests or their congregations. Rabbis have doubtless been raising money for Israel when the majority of British Jews voted Labour.
Corbyn is being asked not to be anti-semitic not to stop supporting the Palestinian cause. It is possible to do the latter without being anti-semitic. There is nothing impossible about it. See, for instance, Daniel Barenboim who with his orchestra of Jews and Palestinians has probably done more to bring about reconciliation than anything Corbyn has ever done.
As a secondary issue he is also being asked to listen (note: listen not agree with) to those on the other side of the issue and to visit Israel, to which he has been invited by the Israeli government. Nothing impossible about that either. Indeed, a man of peace (as he regularly proclaims himself to be) who will speak to anyone (as he also regularly reminds us) in the pursuit of peace would have done this already and would be anxious to do it now, to show how wrong his critics are.
There is nothing impossible about what he is being asked to do. It is the will which is lacking.
720S, which by all standards is a big step up from the older models and beats anything else in its class down the strip and round the track.
It's definitely fast as fuck in a straight line (probably the fastest production car over 1,320 feet) but it's but the 911 GT2, Huracan Perfomante, Aventador SVJ, etc. monster it on the track. (10+ seconds round the 'ring).
For a 2wd car I still don’t understand how it runs 9s over the quarter.
None of those you mentioned are really in its class, they’re all track specials rather than regular production models. The 720S could be a daily, that your wife would be happy to travel in to a nice hotel for the weekend. It wasn’t set up primarily to go around the ‘Ring.
The supply of buyers could have been fixed by the government doing something about the ludicrous mortgage affordability rules which has condemned an entire Millennial generation to spend more on rent than Generation X are paying on their mortgages. Help2Buy is, was and will forever be an unmitigated disaster, pushing up the price of naff new-build mouseholes while my generation pays less for Edwardian homes.
The ludicrous mortgage affordability rules were put in place in part to stop the disasters of 2008. If you loosen them you risk repeating previous property boom and bust (and bank boom and bust) mistakes. The rules may well need looking at again but they weren’t put in place to screw over the young but to bring some sanity to our housing market and to curb the tendency of banks to invest in housing rather than, say, more productive areas of the economy.
Something definitely needs doing about the rental sector.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. They have screwed over the young - an entire generation. There was nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages. The current situation has left the Millennials paying off the mortgages of Gen X.
SNIP
There is risk in all things, but the greatest risk of all – that we maroon an entire generation on sky high rents, paying off the second and third properties of the Baby Boom and Gen X – is apparently so acceptable to many that we have embraced it as the new normal.
I say again, there is nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages, if you are sustainably employed and can afford the payments. I bought my first flat in London in 2007 with an 100% home loan. I now have an equity stake of ~£300,000 in a four-bedroomed Edwardian home in a nice London suburb while my Millennial colleagues are paying more a month in rent for a shared flat, paying off the mortgage of someone else.
The Baby Boomers and older Gen X have a real blind spot to this – it's a catastrophe.
I don’t have a blind spot. I do have 40 years experience of what the property market can do and 100% mortgages are not the answer. Your equity is caused by inflation. House price inflation is not a good thing even though house prices going up is seen by estate agents and owners as wonderful. That just shows how distorted our view of what buying a house should be about has become.
Other measures are needed. The blind spot is in failing to understand this and taking these measures, in part because those with equity (like you) will suffer.
If you're looking at the time frame up to the next election, there's a fairly binary choice between political humiliation and economic damage.
Nope. There will, on a fairly high probability, be a deal. Some will scream that deal amounts to a betrayal of Brexit. You, Alastair and up to 10 others (not all in London in fairness) will still be lamenting our departure from the EU. The vast majority will breath a sigh of relief and move on.
At the moment, accepting any kind of co-operation with EU bodies which we are no longer formally part of seems to be treated as betrayal by a large enough part of the Conservative party to prevent such a deal being adopted - are you expecting a deal that’s compatible with their current position, or the ultras to accept something on the Chequers-BINO spectrum? I think it’s difficult to predict either of those outcomes with any confidence.
I’m expecting a deal. I’m expecting that it will be furiously denounced by many of the posters on this thread who think the country will be moving on from Brexit after next March.
I’m less optimistic than you. I will be mightily relieved if there is a deal. Brexit and its consequences ie our future relationship with the EU will continue to be the defining issue in British politics for some time to come. We will be banging on about Europe long after next March.
What joy .......
Well obviously we’ll still be banging on about Europe long after next March: the negotiation of the long term deal hasn’t even started. But I didn’t want to disabuse naïve innocents.
There’s a strong impetus on both sides to do a deal. In the end I expect the EU will flex a little but there are more concessions to come on the British side. Northern Ireland may well be the bitterest pill to swallow.
Ironic that a measure designed to put the European question to bed has achieved precisely the opposite.
Still, think of the PB threads to come ........
You're just trying to prove you're not Jewish, aren't you?
If it all goes tits up I might be trying to prove I am Jewish so that I have somewhere to move to .......
Comments
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/08/graham-stringer-becomes-third-labour-leaver-mp-face-deselection
I’d use some of the Government surplus to cut or moderate taxes, not just pour into the public spending pot.
I’d like a balance from the proceeds of growth: both extra public spending and tax cuts, which is how it should be.
Tax cuts return more economic activity to the private sector, and help make it more competitive and productive.
A good article by her as chief comment piece in The Sun today also:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7122204/opinion-stella-creasy-loan-sharks/
Much more of what the country needs than picking sides in Palestine/Israel.
In 2015 the party offering a referendum to change the status quo won a majority having previously led a coalition
The 2016 referendum result was to leave the EU
Corbyn has twice won elections to be Labour leader, and then achieved the highest share of the vote since Blair in 2001
Yet the narrative here seems to be, no one wanted to have a referendum, delivering the result of the referendum is a cross to bear, and Labour would do better with someone other than Corbyn!
It’s far from the one way bet it felt like it was perhaps 15 years ago, and perhaps never was.
My daughter has just bought her first flat. She did so with the help of the taxpayer who effectively matched the money she had built up in an ISA which went towards her deposit. It did help her buy, whether it was a great use of taxpayers money is harder to say. I don't see how this had any effect on the price because the seller would have had no knowledge at all.
More complex schemes by which the government effectively underwrote mortgages are inherently more problematic. But I do think that fewer houses would have been built without this support to the market. Whether the houses built will prove to be good investments only time will tell but I agree they look very small.
365,000 people became first time buyers last year, and the number will likely be higher this year. The market is correcting itself.
Most of the sandal wearers have defected to Corbyn Labour
What is wrong is that saving is so unrewarding, rents are far too high and incomes too low/ uncertain, esp with zero hours contracts. Plus student debt.
Address those and saving for a deposit is much less difficult.
As it happens, despite much sound and fury about the subject, this belatedly seems to be sorting itself out. No doubt all the parties at the next election will have policies designed to deal with a problem that no longer matters very much.
Group two depends whether Corbyn stays in charge, or someone like him.
I think it's probable the Conservatives will poll 40% + in 2022.
As the article above pointed out, increased ability to borrow pushes up prices, as well as having other undesirable macro effects like exacerbating the impact of property cycles.
BlackKklansman
These are the real Anti Semites that devaluing the phrase lets off
For my children it matters very much indeed. One child has left London to make their life elsewhere and housing was a key driver of that decision. And the other is still living at home (and saving hard) despite working precisely because living elsewhere would pretty much wipe out the financial advantages of working
They feel - and are - screwed over by the measures that we have had to take to sort out the previous mess, however necessary they were.
https://twitter.com/bbcdouglasf/status/1034692352462544896?s=21
Let us all glory in the British housing market...
None of those you mentioned are really in its class, they’re all track specials rather than regular production models. The 720S could be a daily, that your wife would be happy to travel in to a nice hotel for the weekend. It wasn’t set up primarily to go around the ‘Ring.
Anyway, back to
PistonheadsPB.We need a new model which encourages productive lending, but we need to get away from consumer debt.
Bye
What joy .......
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-42153937
There’s a strong impetus on both sides to do a deal. In the end I expect the EU will flex a little but there are more concessions to come on the British side. Northern Ireland may well be the bitterest pill to swallow.
Those who criticised newspapers and Leavers for attacking judges or Gina Miller or Ivan Rogers who brought unwelcome messages and not listening to what they said are not best placed to justify Labour doing exactly what they criticised Brexiteers for doing.
I think Mr Meeks has a word to describe such people.
Still, think of the PB threads to come ........
I could write you a broader "what if" on the scenarios: a complete split, a PLP split, a splinter group sp.it, or no split. But OGH / TSE would need to give me a guest post..
Surely it must be every right thinking persons job to block Boris from becoming PM.
I’ll be happy to publish it.
My near three week stint as Editor of PB begins in a few hours, so I’ll welcome any guest threads.
I say again, there is nothing inherently wrong with 100% mortgages, if you are sustainably employed and can afford the payments. I bought my first flat in London in 2007 with an 100% home loan. I now have an equity stake of ~£300,000 in a four-bedroomed Edwardian home in a nice London suburb while my Millennial colleagues are paying more a month in rent for a shared flat, paying off the mortgage of someone else.
The Baby Boomers and older Gen X have a real blind spot to this – it's a catastrophe.
(edit: no pressure
However once we have an answer I do feel it will by and large put the question to bed. There will be further integrations within Europe that is inevitable. Either a disintegration or more likely a single state for Europe is almost inevitable, the current position is too instable to do otherwise. We won't be a part of such future discussions. We will have settled upon our semi-detatched (or fully detatched) status.
I don't think there will be a great deal of impetus or desire to re-open "the British question" in the future.
The caveat for that is if we get a decent deal now. If the EU forces us into a terrible Versailles-style humiliating settlement then that will not last. The can will have been kicked and it will erupt later..
(admittedly, that would require some very weird voting by the MPs!)
Boris is odd, lazy and unpredictable. He's not consistently awful.
"My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters."
Either way the young lady would have needed somewhere to live so the demand would have been there either way - but more demand for purchases rather than rentals is a good thing!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45342721
Makes me remember how all in the bubble we are....
Edit, and actually she had a council flat before this so she has freed up a Council house by the purchase.
You're right they are not optimised for the track. I do at least 10 trackdays/year and if a McL is present it's a toss up to see if it overheats before it roasts its brakes or vice versa. The only one I have ever seen that was able to put down hot laps consistently was a P1.
There can be no other explanation!
Not what you need when you’re trying to focus a general election campaign on Jeremy Corbyn being a risk to the safety of the country.
On Monday I’ll be spending most of the day in a London champagne bar with an old Oxonian who read PPE.
That’s how confident it’ll be a quiet stint.
*quietly reviews the market for departing leaders*
Corbyn is being asked not to be anti-semitic not to stop supporting the Palestinian cause. It is possible to do the latter without being anti-semitic. There is nothing impossible about it. See, for instance, Daniel Barenboim who with his orchestra of Jews and Palestinians has probably done more to bring about reconciliation than anything Corbyn has ever done.
As a secondary issue he is also being asked to listen (note: listen not agree with) to those on the other side of the issue and to visit Israel, to which he has been invited by the Israeli government. Nothing impossible about that either. Indeed, a man of peace (as he regularly proclaims himself to be) who will speak to anyone (as he also regularly reminds us) in the pursuit of peace would have done this already and would be anxious to do it now, to show how wrong his critics are.
There is nothing impossible about what he is being asked to do. It is the will which is lacking.
By a mass group, perhaps. An individual challenging him politically is going to end up in jail or the morgue.
Other measures are needed. The blind spot is in failing to understand this and taking these measures, in part because those with equity (like you) will suffer.