Close your eyes and imagine that Corbyn actually won.
It's looking like the election to lose.
Reminds me so much of 1992, for obvious reasons, except that this crisis is likely to be 1000x worse.
No election is a good election to lose. Remember Labour congratulating themselves that 2010 was a good election to lose and that they’d be back very soon. 1992, led to Blair not Smith. Even in 1997 many Conservatives thought they’d be back soon.
I shudder to think what would be happening if Corbyn and Milne were in charge of the virus response in this country.
Sounds like he’s serious about fiscal rules - not going to go above a 3% deficit throughout this parliament and to ensure headline debt is falling again by the end.
Any borrowing numbers or claims he says today are relatively meaningless.
Forthcoming budgets post-virus may be different.
True but the mood music is “I am not another Gordon Brown.”
He’s not going to be irresponsible with the public finances.
He's hardly going to come out and say that he's a grasshopper rather than an ant. Doesn't mean that he's telling the truth.
Gordon Brown was endlessly going on about prudence. A successor chancellor who has opened up the spigot is going to try to look responsible, even as he raids the earnings of future generations.
You're being rather optimistic here, Alastair. How do you know there will be "future generations"?
Well, there are moments when an asteroid strike seems like it would be a blessed release, but I can't believe we'd be that lucky.
Close your eyes and imagine that Corbyn actually won.
It's looking like the election to lose.
Reminds me so much of 1992, for obvious reasons, except that this crisis is likely to be 1000x worse.
No election is a good election to lose. Remember Labour congratulating themselves that 2010 was a good election to lose and that they’d be back very soon. 1992, led to Blair not Smith. Even in 1997 many Conservatives thought they’d be back soon.
The 'kinder, gentler' lot were banging on about a 'soft landing' in late 2010, early 2011. How's that worked out for you?
I heard a bit about NI threshold being uplifted but nothing about Income Tax.
It was already announced in the October statement that income tax thresholds are being frozen for 2020/21. This of course is payback for the big increase last year.
Sanders has won North Dakota with the grand total of 7,682 votes. It sort of sums up his problems in a way. Doing well in the wrong places.
But also his interest as a candidate. He does well in places like Utah and North Dakota because he's a nineteenth century-style, religious-inspired American populist, not the sort of radical socialist many Americans believe him to be.
I heard a bit about NI threshold being uplifted but nothing about Income Tax.
It was already announced in the October statement that income tax thresholds are being frozen for 2020/21. This of course is payback for the big increase last year.
Am I right in thinking there was not much in the budget to help people on zero-hours contracts who find they lose much of their income because of the Covid-19?
If the chancellor thinks people will be happy with simply not going to work and receiving statutory sick-pay then he’s deluded. It’s nowt.
People should be guaranteed their full salary.
Paid for by whom ?
Afaik every company Ive worked for or managed has paid staff off sick in full for several weeks. I can see there needs to be a cut off point at which employers would struggle to pay full pay but it should be more like a month rather than 4 days. So employers for a month, then a mix of state and employer for another month, then state takes over with closer to a G20 average level of state sick pay would be my suggestion.
I’ve worked for companies who have paid zero sick pay and immediately go onto SSP.
Generally this is one of the main differences between "professional" jobs and "non-professional" ones. Suspect it's far more common than most PBers realise.
I've had to live on SSP before and it isn't pleasant. These days I work for myself, so don't even get that! Won't someone think of the self-employed?!
If the chancellor thinks people will be happy with simply not going to work and receiving statutory sick-pay then he’s deluded. It’s nowt.
People should be guaranteed their full salary.
I thought he said he'd reimburse the cost to employers if their employees couldn't work for 14 days - so the way is open for employers to pay full pay and claim back from HMG.
Well that would be positive.
I was wrong/the Guardian transcription was inexact. The detail from the Treasury is that it's Statutory Sick Pay only. And they've not increased the rate as they have in Ireland. It's derisory.
Judging by the many media types who are surprised at how much the government is spending, it does seem that the scale of the coronavirus problem still hasn't really sunk in.
Am I right in thinking there was not much in the budget to help people on zero-hours contracts who find they lose much of their income because of the Covid-19?
I think they get to claim Universal Credit without a waiting period. Not sure.
Am I right in thinking there was not much in the budget to help people on zero-hours contracts who find they lose much of their income because of the Covid-19?
Efforts to make it easier to claim for Universal Credit and get immediate funding without having to go to the Jobcentre.
Judging by the many media types who are surprised at how much the government is spending, it does seem that the scale of the coronavirus problem still hasn't really sunk in.
What gives you that idea...I mean sending a journalist to the home of somebody with it, to try and get a comment....
The Dow is doing better than the FTSE. Not great, Rishi.
Why do you think that the stock market is any sort of indicator of the quality of a budget? FTSE100 companies get the majority of their earnings from overseas anyway. A UK budget is small beans at best compared to Covid-19.
Hard to get a win - win here.
Trump is pilloried for supporting the DOW over all else, such as Corona Virus, and that is reported as bad.
I really hope the egg-heads don't decide that because the past 2-3 days the increases haven't been a total run-away that it will be another week of keep calm and wash your hands.
If the chancellor thinks people will be happy with simply not going to work and receiving statutory sick-pay then he’s deluded. It’s nowt.
People should be guaranteed their full salary.
Paid for by whom ?
Afaik every company Ive worked for or managed has paid staff off sick in full for several weeks. I can see there needs to be a cut off point at which employers would struggle to pay full pay but it should be more like a month rather than 4 days. So employers for a month, then a mix of state and employer for another month, then state takes over with closer to a G20 average level of state sick pay would be my suggestion.
I’ve worked for companies who have paid zero sick pay and immediately go onto SSP.
Generally this is one of the main differences between "professional" jobs and "non-professional" ones. Suspect it's far more common than most PBers realise.
I've had to live on SSP before and it isn't pleasant. These days I work for myself, so don't even get that! Won't someone think of the self-employed?!
If you're self-employed then how much National Insurance do you pay?
Given approximately 20% of an employees wages can go on National Insurance (when you combine Employers and Employees NI) even if the self-employed take a few weeks off they're surely still better off by not being employees?
I see Spain has issued advice against domestic and international travel - expected to become compulsory within the next fortnight. I suspect Semana Santa is about to be pretty well cancelled. Huge hit to tourism but may help limit the spread to the Costas so I am most relieved.
After that budget, what do the Tories stand for and believe in? It does seem as if the left - if not Labour - has won the economic argument completely.
After that budget, what do the Tories stand for and believe in? It does seem as if the left - if not Labour - has won the economic argument completely.
So I assume all the wailing about austerity will now end?
I see Spain has issued advice against domestic and international travel - expected to become compulsory within the next fortnight. I suspect Semana Santa is about to be pretty well cancelled. Huge hit to tourism but may help limit the spread to the Costas so I am most relieved.
Thinking of setting up the costa home guard to turn the madrillaneans back at the edge of town.
After that budget, what do the Tories stand for and believe in? It does seem as if the left - if not Labour - has won the economic argument completely.
It’s funny, you see the language used by critics of trans rights and it is eerily similar to that which was used by critics of gay rights a few decades ago.
Won’t someone please think of the children.
Looks completely different to me, depending upon what you mean by "trans rights"?
If you mean people like women's rights activists including some notable names on this site the arguments look nothing like "please think of the children"
The "trans people in women's changing rooms" chat is identical to "why Lesbians shouldn't be allowed in women's changing rooms" chat back in the day.
It's word for word.
That 'lesbians shouldn't be allowed in women's changing rooms' is a straw man if ever there was one. I never heard anyone express such an argument. Why? because lesbians are indistiguishable biologically from other women for a start.
Trans people have penises in many cases, right?
He is talking through a hole in his arse, just utter crap
Last year the family of a lesbian had to sue to stop her being excluded at school
Yes but it is against the law and will be as rare as rocking horse shit , just allowing anybody with bollocks to say they are a woman and be able to roam anywhere is not acceptable. SNP clique running that show should be sacked including the half witted government minister pushing it.
So the Tories said Labour would spunk money up the wall, Labour responded by saying they'd push austerity too much, the Tories then spunk money up the wall, and Labour double-down by saying they're not spunking enough money up the wall?
I see Spain has issued advice against domestic and international travel - expected to become compulsory within the next fortnight. I suspect Semana Santa is about to be pretty well cancelled. Huge hit to tourism but may help limit the spread to the Costas so I am most relieved.
Thinking of setting up the costa home guard to turn the madrillaneans back at the edge of town.
There's basically only 5/6 ways into Mojacar from the motorway - I fully expect those could be blcoked off by Guardia soon.
After that budget, what do the Tories stand for and believe in? It does seem as if the left - if not Labour - has won the economic argument completely.
No Labour would have spent the money on creating public sector non jobs and increasing benefits.
You need to look beyond a Sky News level of analysis of “how much did he spend”
After that budget, what do the Tories stand for and believe in? It does seem as if the left - if not Labour - has won the economic argument completely.
So I assume all the wailing about austerity will now end?
Thought not.
The Tories have admitted they were wrong. They've wasted 10 years.
I see Spain has issued advice against domestic and international travel - expected to become compulsory within the next fortnight. I suspect Semana Santa is about to be pretty well cancelled. Huge hit to tourism but may help limit the spread to the Costas so I am most relieved.
If you do not mind could you explain Spains advice against domestic and international travel as I have not yet cancelled our trip to Vancouver in May, but will do and UK government advice will be key to our insurance
After that budget, what do the Tories stand for and believe in? It does seem as if the left - if not Labour - has won the economic argument completely.
So I assume all the wailing about austerity will now end?
Thought not.
The Tories have admitted they were wrong. They've wasted 10 years.
No they have not!
What part of the economic cycle do you not comprehend?
My bad, that is the biggest increase in a day for the UK.
Not good.
If our doubling of new cases time has increased from six to nine days, then that is not bad news.
The number of tests each day fluctuates a lot, though, which makes it hard to be sure whether the trend is reliable - see the spreadsheet I've just posted.
After that budget, what do the Tories stand for and believe in? It does seem as if the left - if not Labour - has won the economic argument completely.
So I assume all the wailing about austerity will now end?
Thought not.
The Tories have admitted they were wrong. They've wasted 10 years.
No they have not!
What part of the economic cycle do you not comprehend?
I see Spain has issued advice against domestic and international travel - expected to become compulsory within the next fortnight. I suspect Semana Santa is about to be pretty well cancelled. Huge hit to tourism but may help limit the spread to the Costas so I am most relieved.
If you do not mind could you explain Spains advice against domestic and international travel as I have not yet cancelled our trip to Vancouver in May, but will do and UK government advice will be key to our insurance
Sanchez is advising against any travel within Spain from affected areas or from outside countries affected by coronavirus. The expectation seems to be that quite soon the advice will become compulsory. Easter normally involves a lot internal and external movement to religious centres and the Costas. It seems likely that this year that could all be stopped. Spain has more cases in the centre and north but it's a huge country and apart from Barcelona much of the east and south coast as well as Galicia in the NW have very few cases. Curtailing big movements could potentially keep it that way.
I pity the next Labour leader. How can he or she possibly compete with that? Outgunning the Tories on spending is now literally impossible. Will we see the bizarre spectacle of Labour fighting the next GE on a ticket of being the economically drier party? That would be a big risk for them, but I can't see where else they can go.
This government is going to leave a poisonous legacy
The ONLY legacy of this government will be its handling, or non handling, of coronavirus, and all that ensues therefrom.
Surely that has sunk in by now? This is likely going to dwarf everything. It is a medical version of the GFC, but probably more serious.
Politically, perhaps. Financially, and economically, you are obviously wrong.
We shall see. You do understand the coronavirus has massive financial and economic implications, as well as political and medical?
I fail to see a likely event which could match it, for its across-the-board impact on British life, in all aspects - barring a very serious war.
Fine but we are setting up the late 2020s for austerity: the sequel.
Maybe sooner than that. Its cyclical, we should run a surplus before we enter a recession.
Thankfully austerity part one meant we entered this downturn with a current budget surplus even if not an actual budget surplus which is commendable considering what Brown bequeathed.
Am I right in thinking there was not much in the budget to help people on zero-hours contracts who find they lose much of their income because of the Covid-19?
Not unless they get sick, no. If they are sick they will get much faster access to benefits. They are likely to benefit indirectly from some of the small business helplines. For larger businesses I suspect that the BoE steps this morning will matter more.
If the chancellor thinks people will be happy with simply not going to work and receiving statutory sick-pay then he’s deluded. It’s nowt.
People should be guaranteed their full salary.
Paid for by whom ?
Afaik every company Ive worked for or managed has paid staff off sick in full for several weeks. I can see there needs to be a cut off point at which employers would struggle to pay full pay but it should be more like a month rather than 4 days. So employers for a month, then a mix of state and employer for another month, then state takes over with closer to a G20 average level of state sick pay would be my suggestion.
I’ve worked for companies who have paid zero sick pay and immediately go onto SSP.
Generally this is one of the main differences between "professional" jobs and "non-professional" ones. Suspect it's far more common than most PBers realise.
I've had to live on SSP before and it isn't pleasant. These days I work for myself, so don't even get that! Won't someone think of the self-employed?!
If you're self-employed then how much National Insurance do you pay?
Given approximately 20% of an employees wages can go on National Insurance (when you combine Employers and Employees NI) even if the self-employed take a few weeks off they're surely still better off by not being employees?
For myself I can't complain - not sure the direct comparison is all that useful since many self-employed people (including myself) would be on quite a different pay rate in regular employment anyway. Besides which, before going self-employed I made sure I had savings and investments that I could live on if things didn't work out. My comment was partly intended in humour, as the emoji was intended to convey...
But putting a more serious hat on, the point of this emergency SSP rule was to introduce an additional measure to stop infected people turning up to work when they should be staying at home. And regardless of any built-in advantages you might deem them to enjoy, I can't see that a corresponding additional measure has been brought in for gig economy or self-employed workers. I suspect it wouldn't be an easy job to, actually, nor is it immediately obvious to me that such an intervention would be cost-effective. It's an interesting discrepancy though and I can see why some zero-hours or self-employed people might feel they're getting second-rate treatment here.
So the Tories said Labour would spunk money up the wall, Labour responded by saying they'd push austerity too much, the Tories then spunk money up the wall, and Labour double-down by saying they're not spunking enough money up the wall?
Is there anything left for Labour to do?
Continue self-isolating themselves from the voters....
My bad, that is the biggest increase in a day for the UK.
Not good.
In a week, we will be at 1000s of cases.
But will have tested a lot.
The longer we can push back the peak the better.
It's an interesting anthropological study reading your unthoughtful posts daily.
A few days back you were banging on in your usual nasty little way about "people being bored of the Shanghai Sniffle, they should get out and enjoy themselves".
Now it's about moving the peak back.
I wonder what you are like in real life – surely not as unthinking and reactionary as you present on here?
Do you really care at this point, professionally speaking?
On a public website, of course I still care. And actually I find this stuff interesting in its own right.
Fair enough. I had this picture of you gaily putting papers in the bin and deciding which of the 6 staplers you have accumulated you should take home.
That image is not so far from the truth. Though over 28 years I've accumulated far odder things than staplers. I've got a CD by an artist called Joe and I have absolutely no idea where that came from.
24 working days left. Not that I'm counting or anything.
Big jump in % of tests coming back positive over the last couple of days. Not encouraging.
Yes, it is clearly spreading, albeit so far at a relatively modest rate. That's not unexpected, of course. I suspect that those suggesting that Matt Hancock's 7pm statement will include more recommended (or even mandatory) restrictions are right. Coordinating these with today's budget measures to offer more assistance makes good sense, to be fair.
Comments
Anyway I have stopped listening to him as he is just boring
Less delighted by the Stonehenge tunnel going ahead.
Obviously may be many years until pay day.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/a-consultation-on-the-reform-to-retail-prices-index-rpi-methodology
At least he isn’t as shouty today
https://twitter.com/Yascha_Mounk/status/1237731864233807872
I've had to live on SSP before and it isn't pleasant. These days I work for myself, so don't even get that! Won't someone think of the self-employed?!
https://mobile.twitter.com/hmtreasury/status/1237722228357283842
https://twitter.com/jeremychrysler/status/1237737122909564930?s=20
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1237740175582801921?s=20
Trump is pilloried for supporting the DOW over all else, such as Corona Virus, and that is reported as bad.
He ends with:
https://twitter.com/Yascha_Mounk/status/1237736028615606274
Given approximately 20% of an employees wages can go on National Insurance (when you combine Employers and Employees NI) even if the self-employed take a few weeks off they're surely still better off by not being employees?
https://twitter.com/stvnews/status/1237739427876790273?s=21
But he has made a huge mark
Not saying we should be complacent, it is clear there is now widespread community transmission in the UK.
Thought not.
The longer we can push back the peak the better.
Is there anything left for Labour to do?
Deficit has been falling from 2010 to 2019 so we can now have borrowing go up this year.
Its the economic cycle.
You need to look beyond a Sky News level of analysis of “how much did he spend”
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eTKeK9vRxgw0KhvKxPCaDrfaHnxQP-n9TsLzsEymviY/htmlview?sle=true
Idiots still in cabinet...
https://twitter.com/dinah_ditch/status/1237728180980592640
What part of the economic cycle do you not comprehend?
Borrowing not going up anything like as much as everybody thinks.
Not encouraging.
Thankfully austerity part one meant we entered this downturn with a current budget surplus even if not an actual budget surplus which is commendable considering what Brown bequeathed.
For myself I can't complain - not sure the direct comparison is all that useful since many self-employed people (including myself) would be on quite a different pay rate in regular employment anyway. Besides which, before going self-employed I made sure I had savings and investments that I could live on if things didn't work out. My comment was partly intended in humour, as the emoji was intended to convey...
But putting a more serious hat on, the point of this emergency SSP rule was to introduce an additional measure to stop infected people turning up to work when they should be staying at home. And regardless of any built-in advantages you might deem them to enjoy, I can't see that a corresponding additional measure has been brought in for gig economy or self-employed workers. I suspect it wouldn't be an easy job to, actually, nor is it immediately obvious to me that such an intervention would be cost-effective. It's an interesting discrepancy though and I can see why some zero-hours or self-employed people might feel they're getting second-rate treatment here.
"You now have deficits of 3%, 2%"
Wow.
A few days back you were banging on in your usual nasty little way about "people being bored of the Shanghai Sniffle, they should get out and enjoy themselves".
Now it's about moving the peak back.
I wonder what you are like in real life – surely not as unthinking and reactionary as you present on here?
24 working days left. Not that I'm counting or anything.