A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
I believe it is fairly easy to define wealth - anyone with income more than twice one's own.
Whilst all of that is true I think there is going to be much less tolerance of those with excessive wealth flaunting it. Our prima-donna footballers and the likes of Victoria Beckham will really need to tread very carefully.
This is going to be financially painful for most of us and if there remains a sense that it's only the little people who pay tax while the really wealthy stash it off shore then it could well turn ugly. Likewise companies like Amazon that really just leech off the countries they make their profits in need to be reigned in big-time
I am happy to pay my fair to get us out of this mess but if governments around the world continue to allow the big boys to get away with it and they in turn continue to rub our faces in it then there will be political consequences.
Agree with your post but really HMG could tackle Amazon anytime they wished. (Suspect they are not going to rock the boat until CV-19 sttles down a bit though).
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
I do wonder if Tim Martin's comments yesterday about reopening in June were the results of an off the record discussion with government. So I am thinking we will get another three weeks lockdown followed by a bigger liberalisation than expected
Also the PL talks about a June Charlie Rich restart. But I'm not sure about this or about what Martin was up to there. 28 May for some changes, yes, but pubs? I would expect them to be towards the back of the queue, more like Sept. July at the absolute earliest. But it would be great to be wrong about this. I'm gasping.
Wetherspoons are large premises so social distancing will be easier, and he already offers table service ordered through an app. He may also think that with little competition from others not benefiting from those advantages, he can put his prices up. He also owns most of his premises freehold so is not paying much rent and may feel that any income is better than no income. I do wonder however that a recently filled pint glass handled by a bar person might be a risk, after all it goes straight in your mouth.
If the bartender is holding the glass by the rim that goes in your mouth that bartender needs better hygiene.
You're quite right of course, you should hold the glass by the bottom half. Still a bit close for comfort and in the past I have never really paid close attention to how the bar staff are holding the glass. In the future we probably will.
One issue is beer festivals where glasses are reused. At the moment you are allowed to do this as long as the tap doesn't go in the beer. Of course sometimes it does.. I think in future we will all be using those horrible floppy plastic disposable ones
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
Virus:
My understanding is that a vaccine for any coronavirus has never been achieved. I think you are being overly optimistic.
Even if a virus is found, it will likely not be anywhere near 100% effective. Also, administering it to the global population would be problematic to say the least. From the availability and sheer quantity of the "stuff" that makes the virus, to questions about who delivers it, which nations get it first, and which groups of people within each nation gets it first.
Geopolitically, the Chinese, Russians and Americans (at least) will try to buy up availability en masse. Cold or even hot wars could be fought over this.
My premise has always been that a vaccine is not likely to be our salvation. More likely the virus will naturally die out, or some degree of herd immunity will protect us to some extent. Therefore we mustn`t slip into the coma of trashing our economy and freedoms in the hope that a vaccine will rescue us.
We have to learn to live with it.
No vaccine for a human coronavirus has ever been seriously pursued for long enough to get one. We discovered them in the Sixties, and for a long time, only the four that pop up in the suite of 200+ viruses that we call "the common cold" were known to affect us. (As I understand it). Not really worth the effort and cost to develop a vaccine that, if successful, would... still leave us wide open to all the rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, RSVs, etc, of all the other common colds.
We have achieved vaccines against coronaviruses in other animals.
When SARS came along, serious efforts against it started, but work was pulled after it was tamed without a vaccine (in fact, the work towards SARS vaccination was a big head start for covid-19).
Similarly with MERS.
Indeed plus its worth noting that the common cold while unpleasant is something we are quite content to undergo annually unlike the flu or this virus so there's never been a priority to tackle it.
If the common cold had a 1% death toll we would be vaccinating against whatever strains of it that we could.
Just watched an OFAH on UK gold... Del sells Boycie a German girls baby but the deal falls through because the baby’s father was black... wouldn’t get made today, in quite surprised the repeat is shown... the punchline relies on a while couple not wanting a non white baby
Amazing how rapidly attitudes have changed, for the better.
Trust me, the playground jokes about many people overseas which were seen as funny and fine in the 80s would be shocking now, and I include myself in that, ignorant and didn't know better but clearly racist.
There's also the joke in the one about the nuclear shelter about how a corner shop run by a pakistani (although said differently) would still be open after a nuclear war.
On the lockdown, growing up as an only child might have helped me I reckon. It just feels like the long, boring six weeks holidays when I had no one to play with until my Dad came home from work. Listen to music, play on the computer, read a book, daydream about the future... these are ways to pass the time!
Also I lived alone and worked from home for best part of a decade until 2019, so being in lockdown with my girlfriend and baby is more company than I’m used to. Sounds quite sad when I write it down... maybe Southam Observer was right about me! #sad
As a natural loner, I cope well too. Indeed I quite like keeping my own company. It is in part a male thing, I think.
Of course, I am not locked down as much as others.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Your last paragraph perfectly demonstrates why HYUFD is becoming a dinosaur in the party. I expect Boris and Rishi to turn their attention to the just managing with a vigor that IDS would have a nightmare over, and with it a balancing of tax across the board with the key being to help those who have been hit the worst in this crisis
HYUFD is yesterdays conservative.
I hope I speak for a new breed of conservative who seeks compassion and fairness but also looks to champion business and entrepreneurs to create the wealth of tomorrow
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
There is an underlying assumption many aremaking that we will pay off our borrowings for Covid 19. Why would we?
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Don't tell lenders that we intend to never ever ever repay. They could get a bit spooked.
Actually I think investors are wise to the fact that the government will repay its bonds by issuing new bonds, not via taxation. If investors thought the government would stop issuing new bonds and would instead run hundreds of billion pounds surpluses instead I think that would spook them more.
Deficits need to be closed, there can't be massive deficits forever but government borrowing does not need to be repaid in real net terms - it needs interest paying on it in perpetuity. There is a difference between one-off borrowing during a crisis and ongoing structural deficit spending.
I mean the macro profile not the technicalities of rollover and new issue. If we have enormous debt outstanding AND a massive deficit, and our only serious plan for reducing the second and mitigating the explosion in the first is "from the proceeds of growth", this will not fly.
Tax rises. Spending cuts. Printing money. These are the options. Or plan Z default.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer. Still a first world prosperous country. Mine's a pint.
"Boris":
I gather he's fronting up the presser today, explaining R0 to the nation, and his lockdown thinking, and taking questions. If true, this implies I was wrong in my series of posts yesterday where I pretty much called him a skiver. So I take that back. Feel a touch sheepish.
Lockdown:
I urge people not to get their hopes up about an imminent relaxation. I have analyzed the balance of political risk in the decision and it steers very heavily to keeping the current regime in place until R0 is down towards the 0.5 mark - and such is known by SAGE with confidence. A realistic target IMO is 28th May.
I do wonder if Tim Martin's comments yesterday about reopening in June were the results of an off the record discussion with government. So I am thinking we will get another three weeks lockdown followed by a bigger liberalisation than expected
Also the PL talks about a June Charlie Rich restart. But I'm not sure about this or about what Martin was up to there. 28 May for some changes, yes, but pubs? I would expect them to be towards the back of the queue, more like Sept. July at the absolute earliest. But it would be great to be wrong about this. I'm gasping.
Wetherspoons are large premises so social distancing will be easier, and he already offers table service ordered through an app. He may also think that with little competition from others not benefiting from those advantages, he can put his prices up. He also owns most of his premises freehold so is not paying much rent and may feel that any income is better than no income. I do wonder however that a recently filled pint glass handled by a bar person might be a risk, after all it goes straight in your mouth.
If the bartender is holding the glass by the rim that goes in your mouth that bartender needs better hygiene.
He/She is also holding the glass in the way which you handled it, and they've handled many many others like it.
Disposable glasses might be perferable, but then not very green.
hygienically cleaned glasses.
In weatherspoons? Good luck with that.
Although on a serious note, I think hygiene will be even more demanded as a top priority (although it should be already)
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Ironically, one of the immediate growth levers the govt could pull would be to cancel Brexit.
Obviously that is not democratically viable, but it is the most painless measure you can think of.
No need. We have Left the EU. We have flexed our sovereignty by choosing to leave our border wide open instead of restricting them as the EU did. We bang the table saying "no extension" and thats great. We CANNOT diverge from the EU standards and arrangements without a physical border infrastructure to process customs forms and do standards checks, and we absolutely cannot create one in the time available. Regardless of the lunacy of trying to impose those costs / unknowns on businesses already ravaged by this pandemic.
As we have already seen, Brexit chanters have forgotten what Brexit actually means. Johnson took May's deal, gave into the EU, stuck a border down the Irish Sea and proclaimed a Great Victory which chanters were more than happy to celebrate.
We will exit transition. Proclaim our ability to do as we please. State that we have trade deals in early stages of discussion. And then quietly move on. The UK will be the lead engine on the EU train. Completely uncoupled from the EU engine and the coaches behind us. With our Own Driver able to change speed as We Choose. But going along the same track as the EU. At the same speed as the EU. Physically buffered up to the EU. We Broke the Coupling. We unplugged their Controls. Have absolute Freedom. But do the exact same thing. Huzzah!
No walls with friends? There is nowt to stop anyone calling a.mate or mates and going for a stroll. Religious services. Most are Online. Not quite the same, but many,.including mine, are running more than ever.And are far better attended too. Serendipity is what you make it. Those caveats apart a good piece showing how many are suffering. Thank you.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer...
Virus:
My understanding is that a vaccine for any coronavirus has never been achieved. I think you are being overly optimistic.
Even if a virus is found, it will likely not be anywhere near 100% effective. Also, administering it to the global population would be problematic to say the least. From the availability and sheer quantity of the "stuff" that makes the virus, to questions about who delivers it, which nations get it first, and which groups of people within each nation gets it first.
Geopolitically, the Chinese, Russians and Americans (at least) will try to buy up availability en masse. Cold or even hot wars could be fought over this.
My premise has always been that a vaccine is not likely to be our salvation. More likely the virus will naturally die out, or some degree of herd immunity will protect us to some extent. Therefore we mustn`t slip into the coma of trashing our economy and freedoms in the hope that a vaccine will rescue us....
That's not strictly true. A vaccine for the MERS virus, which appeared from early testing to be effective, was produced. It was never taken through clinical trials because the brief epidemic disappeared, and there was no funding for it. A SARS vaccine program was similarly frozen. Along the same lines, we've never had vaccines for the common cold type coronaviruses as there was never a market for them - they are four of them, and they account for only a fraction of common cold infections, so what was the point ?
In contrast, we already have several vaccines to this one which have been given to human volunteers (and well over fifty more in development). The initial antibody responses to the first ones seem encouraging (and at least one vaccine has already been shown to be protective in monkeys).
Having said all that, I don't necessarily disagree with you about the policy choices over what to do in the meantime while we wait for a vaccine. We can't lockdown for a year or more.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
No he is more likely to lose Tory voters in the red wall if he keeps free movement as cutting immigration and delivering Brexit not class envy was the main reason they voted Tory last year
Just watched an OFAH on UK gold... Del sells Boycie a German girls baby but the deal falls through because the baby’s father was black... wouldn’t get made today, in quite surprised the repeat is shown... the punchline relies on a while couple not wanting a non white baby
Amazing how rapidly attitudes have changed, for the better.
Trust me, the playground jokes about many people overseas which were seen as funny and fine in the 80s would be shocking now, and I include myself in that, ignorant and didn't know better but clearly racist.
There's also the joke in the one about the nuclear shelter about how a corner shop run by a pakistani (although said differently) would still be open after a nuclear war.
I don't need to trust you @Slackbladder I was a teenager in the 70s. I cringe to think of some of the things I thought were funny then.
There was a programme on a year or so ago (C4 I think) "It was alright in the 70s". Some of the stuff on there was truly awful - worst part was Mrs P and I could both remember seeing and laughing at the originals. 😳
Ironically, one of the immediate growth levers the govt could pull would be to cancel Brexit.
Obviously that is not democratically viable, but it is the most painless measure you can think of.
No need. We have Left the EU. We have flexed our sovereignty by choosing to leave our border wide open instead of restricting them as the EU did. We bang the table saying "no extension" and thats great. We CANNOT diverge from the EU standards and arrangements without a physical border infrastructure to process customs forms and do standards checks, and we absolutely cannot create one in the time available. Regardless of the lunacy of trying to impose those costs / unknowns on businesses already ravaged by this pandemic.
As we have already seen, Brexit chanters have forgotten what Brexit actually means. Johnson took May's deal, gave into the EU, stuck a border down the Irish Sea and proclaimed a Great Victory which chanters were more than happy to celebrate.
We will exit transition. Proclaim our ability to do as we please. State that we have trade deals in early stages of discussion. And then quietly move on. The UK will be the lead engine on the EU train. Completely uncoupled from the EU engine and the coaches behind us. With our Own Driver able to change speed as We Choose. But going along the same track as the EU. At the same speed as the EU. Physically buffered up to the EU. We Broke the Coupling. We unplugged their Controls. Have absolute Freedom. But do the exact same thing. Huzzah!
"We left our borders open" - the EU closing theirs, was that a whole EU thing or a Schengen thing?
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
There is an underlying assumption many aremaking that we will pay off our borrowings for Covid 19. Why would we?
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Don't tell lenders that we intend to never ever ever repay. They could get a bit spooked.
Actually I think investors are wise to the fact that the government will repay its bonds by issuing new bonds, not via taxation. If investors thought the government would stop issuing new bonds and would instead run hundreds of billion pounds surpluses instead I think that would spook them more.
Deficits need to be closed, there can't be massive deficits forever but government borrowing does not need to be repaid in real net terms - it needs interest paying on it in perpetuity. There is a difference between one-off borrowing during a crisis and ongoing structural deficit spending.
I mean the macro profile not the technicalities of rollover and new issue. If we have enormous debt outstanding AND a massive deficit, and our only serious plan for reducing the second and mitigating the explosion in the first is "from the proceeds of growth", this will not fly.
Tax rises. Spending cuts. Printing money. These are the options. Or plan Z default.
It will fly so long as we tackle the deficit. It is the deficit that matters not the borrowing.
Ironically, one of the immediate growth levers the govt could pull would be to cancel Brexit.
Obviously that is not democratically viable, but it is the most painless measure you can think of.
No need. We have Left the EU. We have flexed our sovereignty by choosing to leave our border wide open instead of restricting them as the EU did. We bang the table saying "no extension" and thats great. We CANNOT diverge from the EU standards and arrangements without a physical border infrastructure to process customs forms and do standards checks, and we absolutely cannot create one in the time available. Regardless of the lunacy of trying to impose those costs / unknowns on businesses already ravaged by this pandemic.
As we have already seen, Brexit chanters have forgotten what Brexit actually means. Johnson took May's deal, gave into the EU, stuck a border down the Irish Sea and proclaimed a Great Victory which chanters were more than happy to celebrate.
We will exit transition. Proclaim our ability to do as we please. State that we have trade deals in early stages of discussion. And then quietly move on. The UK will be the lead engine on the EU train. Completely uncoupled from the EU engine and the coaches behind us. With our Own Driver able to change speed as We Choose. But going along the same track as the EU. At the same speed as the EU. Physically buffered up to the EU. We Broke the Coupling. We unplugged their Controls. Have absolute Freedom. But do the exact same thing. Huzzah!
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
Assets are tough to tax unfortunately. Property, land and cars potentially - but everything else can be stashed under the bed.
Hence why income and consumption get hammered by HMRC.
Everybody could be made to formally declare their assets (like benefit claimants have to). Sure some will try to cheat and hide assets but that would be tax evasion - an imprisonable offence.
Some will bleat about the issues of liquidising assets to pay a 1% pa tax, to which I say, tough - find a way.
It's also a matter of valuation. What are the shares in the family company/self employment or whatever worth is notoriously difficult.
The only way to do it is by how tax are already worked, by self-assessment. In which case the issue wouldn't be 'hiding' the assets, it would arguing over the valuation of them. HMRC don't have the resources to do it any other way (and still wouldn't even with increased funding), and it would be tied up in arguments and tribunals for years and years.
I think the financial consequences of this crash might well be such that old chestnuts like the one you bring up as a reason for doing nothing will simply be swept aside. "But it's too difficult" won't be a good enough excuse this time.
Just watched an OFAH on UK gold... Del sells Boycie a German girls baby but the deal falls through because the baby’s father was black... wouldn’t get made today, in quite surprised the repeat is shown... the punchline relies on a while couple not wanting a non white baby
I remember that episode from first time round. Even then it fell very flat in my view.
They showed the one where Rodney is dating a 40yr old the other day, and one of the gags was when he told Del he had been on the phone to Mickey Pearce after talking sweetly to her, making it seem as though he was gay. Again, the reaction from Del means it wouldn’t be made today. Both were probably realistic at the time though
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
There is an underlying assumption many aremaking that we will pay off our borrowings for Covid 19. Why would we?
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Don't tell lenders that we intend to never ever ever repay. They could get a bit spooked.
Actually I think investors are wise to the fact that the government will repay its bonds by issuing new bonds, not via taxation. If investors thought the government would stop issuing new bonds and would instead run hundreds of billion pounds surpluses instead I think that would spook them more.
Deficits need to be closed, there can't be massive deficits forever but government borrowing does not need to be repaid in real net terms - it needs interest paying on it in perpetuity. There is a difference between one-off borrowing during a crisis and ongoing structural deficit spending.
I mean the macro profile not the technicalities of rollover and new issue. If we have enormous debt outstanding AND a massive deficit, and our only serious plan for reducing the second and mitigating the explosion in the first is "from the proceeds of growth", this will not fly.
Tax rises. Spending cuts. Printing money. These are the options. Or plan Z default.
Or wait for growth. Eventually, you are right, debt and deficit will need to be tackled but right now and for the foreseeable future, there are more important things to worry about.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
Assets are tough to tax unfortunately. Property, land and cars potentially - but everything else can be stashed under the bed.
Hence why income and consumption get hammered by HMRC.
Everybody could be made to formally declare their assets (like benefit claimants have to). Sure some will try to cheat and hide assets but that would be tax evasion - an imprisonable offence.
Some will bleat about the issues of liquidising assets to pay a 1% pa tax, to which I say, tough - find a way.
It's also a matter of valuation. What are the shares in the family company/self employment or whatever worth is notoriously difficult.
The only way to do it is by how tax are already worked, by self-assessment. In which case the issue wouldn't be 'hiding' the assets, it would arguing over the valuation of them. HMRC don't have the resources to do it any other way (and still wouldn't even with increased funding), and it would be tied up in arguments and tribunals for years and years.
I think the financial consequences of this crash might well be such that old chestnuts like the one you bring up as a reason for doing nothing will simply be swept aside. "But it's too difficult" won't be a good enough excuse this time.
That's quite possibly true. Doesn't mean that they aren't factors or issues.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
I believe it is fairly easy to define wealth - anyone with income more than twice one's own.
Whilst all of that is true I think there is going to be much less tolerance of those with excessive wealth flaunting it. Our prima-donna footballers and the likes of Victoria Beckham will really need to tread very carefully.
This is going to be financially painful for most of us and if there remains a sense that it's only the little people who pay tax while the really wealthy stash it off shore then it could well turn ugly. Likewise companies like Amazon that really just leech off the countries they make their profits in need to be reigned in big-time
I am happy to pay my fair to get us out of this mess but if governments around the world continue to allow the big boys to get away with it and they in turn continue to rub our faces in it then there will be political consequences.
One issue where there was an almost universal belly-laugh was at the idea that companies have based themselves in an offshore haven to avoid tax should get Government assistance.
At a micro level, I was in an online chat with a taxi-driver, who said mournfully that he wasn't going to do very well out of the self-employment assistance scheme as he didn't put many of his fares through the books. We all basically said "Serves you right, mate". To be fair he laughed wryly and said "Yeah, what goes around comes around, I suppose..."
On the lockdown, growing up as an only child might have helped me I reckon. It just feels like the long, boring six weeks holidays when I had no one to play with until my Dad came home from work. Listen to music, play on the computer, read a book, daydream about the future... these are ways to pass the time!
Also I lived alone and worked from home for best part of a decade until 2019, so being in lockdown with my girlfriend and baby is more company than I’m used to. Sounds quite sad when I write it down... maybe Southam Observer was right about me! #sad
As a natural loner, I cope well too. Indeed I quite like keeping my own company. It is in part a male thing, I think.
Of course, I am not locked down as much as others.
I, too, have it easy. My partner and I are both relative introverts and don't socialise that much anyway. Both of us are able to continue working much as before, and our jobs are relatively secure.
My 16-year-old lad is still happy as Larry at the cancellation of his GCSEs, having achieved mock results that are certain to get him into the 6th form. It's like an everlasting holiday to him, mostly spent exercising or playing computer games with his pals.
The one who is suffering is my partner's 19-year-old daughter. She's stuck at home instead of uni, her boyfriend has finished with her (not because of lockdown, but that probably didn't help), and she can't go out with her mates and drown her sorrows / look for someone new. I do feel very sorry for her, and hope for her sake that a solution can be found before too long.
Just watched an OFAH on UK gold... Del sells Boycie a German girls baby but the deal falls through because the baby’s father was black... wouldn’t get made today, in quite surprised the repeat is shown... the punchline relies on a while couple not wanting a non white baby
Amazing how rapidly attitudes have changed, for the better.
Trust me, the playground jokes about many people overseas which were seen as funny and fine in the 80s would be shocking now, and I include myself in that, ignorant and didn't know better but clearly racist.
There's also the joke in the one about the nuclear shelter about how a corner shop run by a pakistani (although said differently) would still be open after a nuclear war.
I don't need to trust you @Slackbladder I was a teenager in the 70s. I cringe to think of some of the things I thought were funny then.
There was a programme on a year or so ago (C4 I think) "It was alright in the 70s". Some of the stuff on there was truly awful - worst part was Mrs P and I could both remember seeing and laughing at the originals. 😳
I agree. I can't remember laughing at this stuff at the time, but think I must have done, because I also can't remember being offended.
What is also telling is I can't remember meeting anyone who was homosexual in the 60s or early 70s, which of course is absolute nonsense as I must have done. It must have been really tough on you if you were gay then.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
No he is more likely to lose Tory voters in the red wall if he keeps free movement as cutting immigration and delivering Brexit not class envy was the main reason they voted Tory last year
Covid has changed everything and immigration under a points system will need to be tailored to demand in various sectors and flexible. On Brexit we are likely to no deal at the end of the year and that will be a huge challenge, but we will have cut the cord on tax and state aid rules and that will provide a lot of flexibility to the chancellor
And fair taxes is not class war, the wealthy will have to pay more tax as will others in different ways, and the judgment on Boris (and Rishi) will be on how fairly he does that across the board
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
There is an underlying assumption many aremaking that we will pay off our borrowings for Covid 19. Why would we?
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Don't tell lenders that we intend to never ever ever repay. They could get a bit spooked.
Actually I think investors are wise to the fact that the government will repay its bonds by issuing new bonds, not via taxation. If investors thought the government would stop issuing new bonds and would instead run hundreds of billion pounds surpluses instead I think that would spook them more.
Deficits need to be closed, there can't be massive deficits forever but government borrowing does not need to be repaid in real net terms - it needs interest paying on it in perpetuity. There is a difference between one-off borrowing during a crisis and ongoing structural deficit spending.
I mean the macro profile not the technicalities of rollover and new issue. If we have enormous debt outstanding AND a massive deficit, and our only serious plan for reducing the second and mitigating the explosion in the first is "from the proceeds of growth", this will not fly.
Tax rises. Spending cuts. Printing money. These are the options. Or plan Z default.
Or wait for growth. Eventually, you are right, debt and deficit will need to be tackled but right now and for the foreseeable future, there are more important things to worry about.
Yes - we need the economy to be off the canvas before contemplating any fiscal tightening.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
There is an underlying assumption many aremaking that we will pay off our borrowings for Covid 19. Why would we?
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Don't tell lenders that we intend to never ever ever repay. They could get a bit spooked.
Actually I think investors are wise to the fact that the government will repay its bonds by issuing new bonds, not via taxation. If investors thought the government would stop issuing new bonds and would instead run hundreds of billion pounds surpluses instead I think that would spook them more.
Deficits need to be closed, there can't be massive deficits forever but government borrowing does not need to be repaid in real net terms - it needs interest paying on it in perpetuity. There is a difference between one-off borrowing during a crisis and ongoing structural deficit spending.
I mean the macro profile not the technicalities of rollover and new issue. If we have enormous debt outstanding AND a massive deficit, and our only serious plan for reducing the second and mitigating the explosion in the first is "from the proceeds of growth", this will not fly.
Tax rises. Spending cuts. Printing money. These are the options. Or plan Z default.
Or wait for growth. Eventually, you are right, debt and deficit will need to be tackled but right now and for the foreseeable future, there are more important things to worry about.
Agreed. It would have been wrong to tackle the deficit in 2007/8 but quite right to do start doing so from 2010 onwards. It would have been wrong to repay the borrowing of 2007/8 at that point and it hasn't been repaid.
Right now to use a medical metaphor the economy is on a heart bypass machine as the government pours money around to keep the lifeblood going when the normal heart is locked down. Afterwards we need to get going, recover and if there is a structural deficit after this then in a couple of years start addressing it.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
Boris probably won't. FTFY. Boris is not a wealthy man, at least not by the standards of half his Cabinet. Remember Boris previously floated a mansion tax, which hits wealth, and raising the higher rate income tax threshold which would have benefited high earners like himself, for instance.
Javid aides raised an Ed Miliband style Mansion tax, not Boris, Tory backbenchers were not happy and Javid has now left the Cabinet
The point is Boris was happy until the party wasn't. Anyone relying on the Prime Minister's self-interest on taxation should remember that Boris is not wealthy but has a high income.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
G, you are exceedingly naive, the wealthy do not pay much tax due to avoiding/evading it, you seriously think that will change or your Tory chums will close any of the loopholes/UK tax havens that facilitate it. Time to take of those blue tinted specs, the great unwashed will pay for it as usual, wealthy will not be inconvenienced one bit other than getting wealthier with the rich pickings that will be on offer at bargain basement prices.
Make it simple. Everyone should just pay (say) 30% of their gross income, maybe if you earn over 100k. No allowances, no tax breaks. I bet it's more than the super-rich currently pay. Another way would be to deem a notional income from your net wealth, and levy a tax on the notional income
So people sitting on big assets don't contribute?
No, we derive a notional income from their assets and tax it.
You can't pay tax if you don't have cash. Are you arguing for putting a charge on people's homes or do you plan to force people to sell?
You simply allow people to roll the liability up until the property is sold.
People are already paying Council Tax on their home, why roll up another liability on top on people's homes? Or would you abolish Council Tax?
People are NOT paying council tax on their home. They are paying council tax on their opportunity to reside in the local authority. Renters pay council tax, as well they should.
Council tax is NOT a tax on assets.
Renters don't pay Council tax / rates in Northern Ireland unless it's above a certain value.
Correct. But presumably it just falls through into the rent.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
You seem to be ignoring the fact that we are not living in normal timers. I think you are due a re-boot from Central Office.
Barclays results today, interesting because it's one on the eye for the "casino banking" idiots. Just as the 2008, this one will also be be in the retail sector where loans have been made to people who shouldn't have got them.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
There is an underlying assumption many aremaking that we will pay off our borrowings for Covid 19. Why would we?
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Don't tell lenders that we intend to never ever ever repay. They could get a bit spooked.
Actually I think investors are wise to the fact that the government will repay its bonds by issuing new bonds, not via taxation. If investors thought the government would stop issuing new bonds and would instead run hundreds of billion pounds surpluses instead I think that would spook them more.
Deficits need to be closed, there can't be massive deficits forever but government borrowing does not need to be repaid in real net terms - it needs interest paying on it in perpetuity. There is a difference between one-off borrowing during a crisis and ongoing structural deficit spending.
I mean the macro profile not the technicalities of rollover and new issue. If we have enormous debt outstanding AND a massive deficit, and our only serious plan for reducing the second and mitigating the explosion in the first is "from the proceeds of growth", this will not fly.
Tax rises. Spending cuts. Printing money. These are the options. Or plan Z default.
It will fly so long as we tackle the deficit. It is the deficit that matters not the borrowing.
It's the combo. The lower is debt the less worrying is a high deficit. And vice versa.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
The Conservative Party is not the party of lower taxes. Since Mrs Thatcher, it has been the party of lower income tax and high indirect taxes. Just last year, the then-Chancellor announced a record tax take, which ought to have been a clue.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
They are not inevitable at all. Johnson will just borrow and/or print money. If The Snake doesn't like it then he go and sit next to The Saj in the outer darkness. Johnson has a very large supply of pliable morons that he can slot into No. 11.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
Why?
I cannot imagine how anyone can expect taxes to remain as they are now.
Indeed pensioners triple lock has been great for my wife and I but is wrong and needs to go, over 60's receiving NI relief when working is wrong, also higher rate pension tax relief is unfair and needs to change as do other taxes to create fairness
The country has to raise money and to do it fairly
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
Define wealthy.
Pensioners currently living mortgage free? Families with salaries over 80k? People with more than one property?
All of the above?
Yes, that`s the problem isn`t it. I suspect that BigG meant much more wealthy than the three examples that you cite.
To answer your question
Many mortgage free pensioners are living on their pension and not wealthy
Any family with £100,000 plus are doing very well but may not be wealthy
Anyone owning two homes may well be wealty
But my target are celebrities, footballers and highly paid CEO and others
Trouble is there aren't quite enough celebs, CEOs and footballers to dent the national finances.
If you are serious about this black hole, you will probably need to tax both the comfortable income and the mortgage free pensioner.
I am a mortgage free pensioner, I am paying huge sums to the Govt thro petrol, fuel oil, electricity, council tax and other invented charges by the council for other spurious services (bin collections car park pass etc) then you get stiffed in car parks where the pass does not work (Horsham is hugely expensive) then there's the tax on my pension and my state pension. If I take anything from mySIPP I get taxed too. Then they tax my small dividends , and its only because interest rates are zero that they don't tax my savings. I then pay inordinate amounts of VAT on things I buy. I am drowning in taxes.
What do they give me? Bins emptied and my lane resurfaced every 25yrs.
I think VAT will go up to 25% That's my guess when we start paying off our borrowings for Covid 19
There is an underlying assumption many aremaking that we will pay off our borrowings for Covid 19. Why would we?
There is a difference between an ongoing structural deficit and one-off borrowing. Our borrowing this year will never be repaid. Never. Not next year, not ten years from now, never ever.
We need to get the economy moving again and seek to eliminate/minimise the deficit but we need to do that on a cyclical manner, you don't eliminate the deficit during a recession you do it afterwards.
If anything a tax cut would make more sense than a tax rise.
Don't tell lenders that we intend to never ever ever repay. They could get a bit spooked.
Actually I think investors are wise to the fact that the government will repay its bonds by issuing new bonds, not via taxation. If investors thought the government would stop issuing new bonds and would instead run hundreds of billion pounds surpluses instead I think that would spook them more.
Deficits need to be closed, there can't be massive deficits forever but government borrowing does not need to be repaid in real net terms - it needs interest paying on it in perpetuity. There is a difference between one-off borrowing during a crisis and ongoing structural deficit spending.
I mean the macro profile not the technicalities of rollover and new issue. If we have enormous debt outstanding AND a massive deficit, and our only serious plan for reducing the second and mitigating the explosion in the first is "from the proceeds of growth", this will not fly.
Tax rises. Spending cuts. Printing money. These are the options. Or plan Z default.
It will fly so long as we tackle the deficit. It is the deficit that matters not the borrowing.
It's the combo. The lower is debt the less worrying is a high deficit. And vice versa.
Of course. Which is why we will need to be careful to not have a high deficit long term but it will be easier to close the deficit than it will be to repay our debt!
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
You seem to be ignoring the fact that we are not living in normal timers. I think you are due a re-boot from Central Office.
The Tory coalition at the last general election was built on rich voters in the South with expensive houses and working class Leave voters in the North and Wales and Midlands who wanted to deliver Brexit and cut immigration.
If you were a class war voter who wanted to hammer the rich with higher taxes primarily you were already voting Labour
On the lockdown, growing up as an only child might have helped me I reckon. It just feels like the long, boring six weeks holidays when I had no one to play with until my Dad came home from work. Listen to music, play on the computer, read a book, daydream about the future... these are ways to pass the time!
Also I lived alone and worked from home for best part of a decade until 2019, so being in lockdown with my girlfriend and baby is more company than I’m used to. Sounds quite sad when I write it down... maybe Southam Observer was right about me! #sad
As a natural loner, I cope well too. Indeed I quite like keeping my own company. It is in part a male thing, I think.
Of course, I am not locked down as much as others.
The modern interpretation of the meaning of life seems (seemed?) to be that you have to see everything, go everywhere, meet everyone, and tell the world about it, else you’re just wasting time and will look back with regret. Those people must be suffering stuck indoors.
I never saw it that way, really. I always wanted to be able to be as content on my own with nothing as I was in an expensive place with a crowd, to not let my situation affect me too much. I suppose I thought not having to rely on anything or anyone was a reasonable goal, and although I haven’t achieved that, lockdown isn’t that bad.
Ironically, one of the immediate growth levers the govt could pull would be to cancel Brexit.
Obviously that is not democratically viable, but it is the most painless measure you can think of.
What do you mean "cancel Brexit"? You must mean rejoin the EU.
The government spent the first month of the pandemic throwing away the lever that would have allowed them to cancel Brexit. Boris Johnson even referenced coronavirus in his speech 3 days after our official exit, warning against "panic".
Pretty weird reality we’re now living in, where the Conservatives are going to be the party of the NHS and Labour are going to be the party of sound finances.
John Pilger criticises the government both for causing excess deaths and forcing house arrest, just to ensure he can attack the government whatever the outcome
I somewhat agree. Lockdown is longer and more damaging and will we see more deaths because we didn't lock early enough and effectively enough. Compare us with most countries we would want to be compared with.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
Why?
I cannot imagine how anyone can expect taxes to remain as they are now.
Indeed pensioners triple lock has been great for my wife and I but is wrong and needs to go, over 60's receiving NI relief when working is wrong, also higher rate pension tax relief is unfair and needs to change as do other taxes to create fairness
The country has to raise money and to do it fairly
The country thankfully went into this crisis without a major deficit and with interest payments being just 3% of government expenditure.
If it can come out of this crisis without a major deficit and with interest payments being just 4% of government expenditure (which would represent nearly a trillion pounds of borrowing at comparable levels of QE and interest rates) then we will be fine.
We need to restart the economy and get those who've lost jobs back into work. We don't need taxes killing the economy even more.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
The Conservative Party is not the party of lower taxes. Since Mrs Thatcher, it has been the party of lower income tax and high indirect taxes. Just last year, the then-Chancellor announced a record tax take, which ought to have been a clue.
If there are more wealthy people the tax take will rise, Osborne cut both the top rate of income tax as well as cutting inheritance tax and he also took the lowest earners out of tax. Hammond,Javid and Sunak have not raised taxes at all really even as they have eased off Osborne's austerity
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
Boris probably won't. FTFY. Boris is not a wealthy man, at least not by the standards of half his Cabinet. Remember Boris previously floated a mansion tax, which hits wealth, and raising the higher rate income tax threshold which would have benefited high earners like himself, for instance.
Javid aides raised an Ed Miliband style Mansion tax, not Boris, Tory backbenchers were not happy and Javid has now left the Cabinet
The point is Boris was happy until the party wasn't. Anyone relying on the Prime Minister's self-interest on taxation should remember that Boris is not wealthy but has a high income.
Boris has a net worth of over £1.5 million, he is wealthy enough despite his divorces
Pretty weird reality we’re now living in, where the Conservatives are going to be the party of the NHS and Labour are going to be the party of sound finances.
Where is the evidence of Labour being the party of sound finances?
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
You will have to accept you will have to vote Labour or LD next time if putting taxes up is your main priority.
I think Captain Tom's promotion is a disservice. Captain Tom is how he is known and loved by millions. Naming a new hospital after him would be real recognition.
It reminds of a penguin at Edinburgh Zoo that got adopted by the Norwegian army. It kept being promoted. It ended up as a field marshal or something
The (then) Crown Prince of Thailand promoted his dog to Air Vice Marshall. Or something like that.
You should see who HMG promoted to education secretary. Or who (that's enough, we get the message-ed)
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
The Conservative Party is not the party of lower taxes. Since Mrs Thatcher, it has been the party of lower income tax and high indirect taxes. Just last year, the then-Chancellor announced a record tax take, which ought to have been a clue.
The Conservative Party is the party that understands the Laffer Curve. Lower tax rates can mean record tax takes.
Barclays results today, interesting because it's one on the eye for the "casino banking" idiots. Just as the 2008, this one will also be be in the retail sector where loans have been made to people who shouldn't have got them.
Barclays have gone ultra cautious on new mortgage offers iirc, last I heard you had to have 40% equity to get one from them
John Pilger criticises the government both for causing excess deaths and forcing house arrest, just to ensure he can attack the government whatever the outcome
I somewhat agree. Lockdown is longer and more damaging and will we see more deaths because we didn't lock early enough and effectively enough. Compare us with most countries we would want to be compared with.
Last night Keir Starmer’s new Shadow Immigration Minister, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, along with Diane Abbott, was caught attending a Zoom Conference in which antisemitism within the party was denied without challenge from her, Ken Livingstone was defended and former Labour Councillor Jo Bird claimed some party members had died as a result of disciplinary cases. Also in attendance was Jackie Walker, whom even Corbyn found too antisemitic to remain as a Labour member…
Barclays results today, interesting because it's one on the eye for the "casino banking" idiots. Just as the 2008, this one will also be be in the retail sector where loans have been made to people who shouldn't have got them.
Barclays have gone ultra cautious on new mortgage offers iirc, last I heard you had to have 40% equity to get one from them
Ironically, one of the immediate growth levers the govt could pull would be to cancel Brexit.
Obviously that is not democratically viable, but it is the most painless measure you can think of.
No need. We have Left the EU. We have flexed our sovereignty by choosing to leave our border wide open instead of restricting them as the EU did. We bang the table saying "no extension" and thats great. We CANNOT diverge from the EU standards and arrangements without a physical border infrastructure to process customs forms and do standards checks, and we absolutely cannot create one in the time available. Regardless of the lunacy of trying to impose those costs / unknowns on businesses already ravaged by this pandemic.
As we have already seen, Brexit chanters have forgotten what Brexit actually means. Johnson took May's deal, gave into the EU, stuck a border down the Irish Sea and proclaimed a Great Victory which chanters were more than happy to celebrate.
We will exit transition. Proclaim our ability to do as we please. State that we have trade deals in early stages of discussion. And then quietly move on. The UK will be the lead engine on the EU train. Completely uncoupled from the EU engine and the coaches behind us. With our Own Driver able to change speed as We Choose. But going along the same track as the EU. At the same speed as the EU. Physically buffered up to the EU. We Broke the Coupling. We unplugged their Controls. Have absolute Freedom. But do the exact same thing. Huzzah!
Problem is you're not coupled unless you are coupled, if you see what I mean. Try moving through the carriages on an uncoupled train.
Thing is, Leave didn't have a plan in 2016. The outfit in charge of implementation, Brexiteers to a man and woman, don't have a plan even now. Which is quite remarkable.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
Vat cut?? I would be amazed. Vat increase morelike
I've just bought some hair-clippers because I couldn't stand any longer going without a haircut
I had a number 3 back & sides and number 5 on top just before the lockdown, but yeah, I'll need to do something pretty soon.
I have taught myself to trim my hair with my beard trimmer. I love it.
I have a beard trimmer (which became redundant after one too many Captain Birdseye cracks) so it may come to that, but I wasn't entirely joking about the beauty treatment. My barber waxed my nostrils and did the torching ear hairs thing, also the occasional shave.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
Boris probably won't. FTFY. Boris is not a wealthy man, at least not by the standards of half his Cabinet. Remember Boris previously floated a mansion tax, which hits wealth, and raising the higher rate income tax threshold which would have benefited high earners like himself, for instance.
Javid aides raised an Ed Miliband style Mansion tax, not Boris, Tory backbenchers were not happy and Javid has now left the Cabinet
The point is Boris was happy until the party wasn't. Anyone relying on the Prime Minister's self-interest on taxation should remember that Boris is not wealthy but has a high income.
Boris has a net worth of over £1.5 million, he is wealthy enough despite his divorces
Although I have no knowledge whatsoever about his net worth I would be gobsmacked if it is only £1.5m. If it is he must have been splashing it around like nobody else. I'm only 10 years older, do not have well to do parents and have earned significantly less than him at just about every point in my life and my net worth is significantly more. Maybe I'm just mean!
Can't help but look at that list and think to my self upper middle class first world problems. Most who post here are well off. The people I am friends with are mostly minimum wage workers. A night out for most is going round a friends with a few cans of beer or ordering a takeaway, not a restaurant or pub as its too expensive. Maybe my friends are exceptional but I doubt it in the previous year I think we went to a pub 3 times for peoples birthdays, restaurants never, foreign holidays don't know anyone that has been on one in the last 5 years in my friends circles. Most manage a gig once or twice a year. Sport is on tv for those that like it.
20 years ago yes that list is things they could afford to do and did. Not so much now. Most have also seen their accomodation degrade over that time as cost has forced them to ever downsize. 20 years ago they were renting a house now they are renting a 1 bed flat, a studio appartment, a room in a house.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer...
Virus:
My understanding is that a vaccine for any coronavirus has never been achieved. I think you are being overly optimistic.
Even if a virus is found, it will likely not be anywhere near 100% effective. Also, administering it to the global population would be problematic to say the least. From the availability and sheer quantity of the "stuff" that makes the virus, to questions about who delivers it, which nations get it first, and which groups of people within each nation gets it first.
Geopolitically, the Chinese, Russians and Americans (at least) will try to buy up availability en masse. Cold or even hot wars could be fought over this.
My premise has always been that a vaccine is not likely to be our salvation. More likely the virus will naturally die out, or some degree of herd immunity will protect us to some extent. Therefore we mustn`t slip into the coma of trashing our economy and freedoms in the hope that a vaccine will rescue us....
That's not strictly true. A vaccine for the MERS virus, which appeared from early testing to be effective, was produced. It was never taken through clinical trials because the brief epidemic disappeared, and there was no funding for it. A SARS vaccine program was similarly frozen. Along the same lines, we've never had vaccines for the common cold type coronaviruses as there was never a market for them - they are four of them, and they account for only a fraction of common cold infections, so what was the point ?
In contrast, we already have several vaccines to this one which have been given to human volunteers (and well over fifty more in development). The initial antibody responses to the first ones seem encouraging (and at least one vaccine has already been shown to be protective in monkeys).
Having said all that, I don't necessarily disagree with you about the policy choices over what to do in the meantime while we wait for a vaccine. We can't lockdown for a year or more.
I thought that there were at least two vaccines for animal coronaviruses:
I'd really like someone to ask at the daily conference what the government strategy is though. Wait for a vaccine or gradually acquire 'herd immunity'?
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
Vat cut?? I would be amazed. Vat increase morelike
Why? Do you want people to stop spending? Are we having an overbundance of Aggregate Demand?
John Pilger criticises the government both for causing excess deaths and forcing house arrest, just to ensure he can attack the government whatever the outcome
I somewhat agree. Lockdown is longer and more damaging and will we see more deaths because we didn't lock early enough and effectively enough. Compare us with most countries we would want to be compared with.
Like Sweden maybe?
Sweden is a distraction. No-one in their right mind would want to follow the UK example, and they are not likely to want to follow Sweden either, when there are dozens of countries that have done better than both the UK and Sweden.
So what about us poor people in the country that has done almost the worst of anybody? What lessons could we learn from Sweden? Not to have locked down at all and see an exponentially higher death toll? Having made the initial mistakes wouldn't we want to learn now from the successful examples?
OT Coro-chan making it hard for Libertarians and Greens to get on the ballot in swing states:
Several of the elusive ballot lines are in states that in 2016 were either narrowly won or flipped from red-to-blue. At present, neither the Libertarian Party nor the Green Party has qualified for the ballot in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Iowa or Minnesota. Additionally, the Green Party has not secured a place on the ballot in Arizona, Georgia or Nevada, and the Libertarian Party is missing from Maine.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
You will have to accept you will have to vote Labour or LD next time if putting taxes up is your main priority.
No.
I am voting conservative as I resist your Trump like qualities.
Last night Keir Starmer’s new Shadow Immigration Minister, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, along with Diane Abbott, was caught attending a Zoom Conference in which antisemitism within the party was denied without challenge from her, Ken Livingstone was defended and former Labour Councillor Jo Bird claimed some party members had died as a result of disciplinary cases. Also in attendance was Jackie Walker, whom even Corbyn found too antisemitic to remain as a Labour member…
The first one is hardly a surprise, given that Ribeiro-Addy used to work for the PSC, and is a former associate of Galloway's campaigns, and is a former National Officer of the NUS.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
You will have to accept you will have to vote Labour or LD next time if putting taxes up is your main priority.
No.
I am voting conservative as I resist your Trump like qualities.
HYUFD should set up a Trump-like UKIP-style party if he wants some closed minded nonsense.
The Conservatives have for centuries been a welcoming big tent party and HYUFD has no right to say otherwise.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
Vat cut?? I would be amazed. Vat increase morelike
Government have a tricky issues here. They need to get people into shops and restaurants and pubs when it's safe to do so. Making them even more expensive isn't going to get that done.
Perhaps more like £1.5m in the areas where all the multi-millionaires who lecture multi-millionaires about the importance of not lecturing people live.
Last night Keir Starmer’s new Shadow Immigration Minister, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, along with Diane Abbott, was caught attending a Zoom Conference in which antisemitism within the party was denied without challenge from her, Ken Livingstone was defended and former Labour Councillor Jo Bird claimed some party members had died as a result of disciplinary cases. Also in attendance was Jackie Walker, whom even Corbyn found too antisemitic to remain as a Labour member…
The first one is hardly a surprise, given that Ribeiro-Addy used to work for the PSC, and is a former associate of Galloway's campaigns, and is a former National Officer of the NUS.
Starmer has lots of house-cleaning to do.
Wandering off-topic but this should remind WFH converts that remote conferencing is not secure.
IanB2`s sensible post in response to Cyclefree`s comments last night:
"As throughout most of history, all of those things will be on offer. You simply live with the chance of becoming ill, and your life expectancy takes a bit of a knock. On average."
My point (and my fear) is that if social distancing is observed most of these things won’t be on offer: cafes and pubs won’t be able to operate with people 2 metres apart. Nor will theatres or orchestras or plays. Many museums and historic houses will have closed their doors for good.
It’s not a question of whether I am willing to take the risk - and note that today is my 41st day of lockdown - but that these opportunities will no longer exist.
Chris Whitty said that social distancing was the new normal not for a few weeks but for months and possibly 2 years. Maybe even longer if there is no vaccine. All the providers of these activities will have gone bust long before then. The idea that they can be switched on again, just like that,strikes me as utterly naive.
It's an interesting discussion showing some basic differences in human reactions. One that gets less attention than most is the extent to which we consciously live in the physical world around us. For some of Cyclefree's points (lectures, talks, debates. classes), my instinctive reaction was "But we can do those more easily online". But I think she'd feel that it's a fundamentally less satisfying experience. Similarly, I see colleagues at work all day long in one Teams call after another, and to my mind it's pretty much as good (or not) as if we were sitting round a table. Local Labour Party meetings get far better turnout online than we ever do when we have to trek out to meet in a drafty hall.
I recognise that this is just one kind of attitude, Cyclefree's is another, and we need to avoid arguing that one attitude show that we are superior in some way - it's just a thing. But it's perhaps a consolation that young people in particular are more open to the idea that a life online can be a life fulfilled for a while.
My children really do not like being apart from their friends. It is my youngest’s birthday next week - it is 3 months since I have seen him. I cannot hug him. I don’t know when I will see him again.
He cannot go out with his mates. Playing some computer games is not a substitute, even for someone very much part of the online generation. He does not know when this will end or what his chances of a fulfilling job will be at the end of it. And in the meanwhile, he and his brother are experiencing a level of loneliness they did not expect. There are similar issues with my daughter who is watching her business be destroyed.
And I cannot do anything to help. It is killing me inside. I am coping every day at the micro level but only by ignoring what I fear is the reality - that this will go on much longer than we are assuming and hoping and that we can return to a new normal not that different from the old one with a bit of extra hygiene. I think we are kidding ourselves, which is why last night I wrote what I did.
It may be, scratch that, is overwrought. But it is still real. I do not see much hope at the moment. I would like to be wrong.
Last night Keir Starmer’s new Shadow Immigration Minister, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, along with Diane Abbott, was caught attending a Zoom Conference in which antisemitism within the party was denied without challenge from her, Ken Livingstone was defended and former Labour Councillor Jo Bird claimed some party members had died as a result of disciplinary cases. Also in attendance was Jackie Walker, whom even Corbyn found too antisemitic to remain as a Labour member…
The first one is hardly a surprise, given that Ribeiro-Addy used to work for the PSC, and is a former associate of Galloway's campaigns, and is a former National Officer of the NUS.
Starmer has lots of house-cleaning to do, some of it quite difficult in a party riddled with groups promoting identity politics.
Wandering off-topic but this should remind WFH converts that remote conferencing is not secure.
Yep. Certainly not Zoom.
No one broke into our family sharing of kitten and flower photos, though. Nor of the one with the donkey-gonk in the wildlife park invading the car.
Sentiments beautifully expressed and much sympathy for those feeling this way - but IMO overwrought. A vaccine is near certain in 2021. Virus to be controlled until then by living cautiously. In a matter of a year or so back to normal except a bit poorer...
Virus:
My understanding is that a vaccine for any coronavirus has never been achieved. I think you are being overly optimistic.
Even if a virus is found, it will likely not be anywhere near 100% effective. Also, administering it to the global population would be problematic to say the least. From the availability and sheer quantity of the "stuff" that makes the virus, to questions about who delivers it, which nations get it first, and which groups of people within each nation gets it first.
Geopolitically, the Chinese, Russians and Americans (at least) will try to buy up availability en masse. Cold or even hot wars could be fought over this.
My premise has always been that a vaccine is not likely to be our salvation. More likely the virus will naturally die out, or some degree of herd immunity will protect us to some extent. Therefore we mustn`t slip into the coma of trashing our economy and freedoms in the hope that a vaccine will rescue us....
That's not strictly true. A vaccine for the MERS virus, which appeared from early testing to be effective, was produced. It was never taken through clinical trials because the brief epidemic disappeared, and there was no funding for it. A SARS vaccine program was similarly frozen. Along the same lines, we've never had vaccines for the common cold type coronaviruses as there was never a market for them - they are four of them, and they account for only a fraction of common cold infections, so what was the point ?
In contrast, we already have several vaccines to this one which have been given to human volunteers (and well over fifty more in development). The initial antibody responses to the first ones seem encouraging (and at least one vaccine has already been shown to be protective in monkeys).
Having said all that, I don't necessarily disagree with you about the policy choices over what to do in the meantime while we wait for a vaccine. We can't lockdown for a year or more.
I thought that there were at least two vaccines for animal coronaviruses:
avian infectious bronchitis CoV (IBV) porcine respiratory CoV So it is definitely possible.
I'd really like someone to ask at the daily conference what the government strategy is though. Wait for a vaccine or gradually acquire 'herd immunity'?
Indeed there are (I wasn't counting them). But yes, we know it's possible, and it will be the quickest and least costly way to arrive at 'herd immunity'.
I'd also point out that an effective vaccine is quite likely to provide a stronger and longer lasting antibody response than the infection itself. In some mild cases, the antibody response doesn't appear to be particularly strong - and in some severe cases there seems to be a effect of immune exhaustion (which could conceivably affect immune memory).
It depends whether you measure in real or nominal terms. The UK as well as suffering a major economic collapse in 1920 also had major deflation following it which cushioned the fall. Deflation isn't normally something we expect but could be coming soon if we follow a similar trend.
1920 UK GDP £6,063.0 million 1921 UK GDP £4,799.5 million
In nominal terms it took until WWII to reach the 1920 threshold. While normally only real terms matter, in a deflationary environment nominal terms matter just as much as our debt is in nominal terms - if we have major deflation it will see our interest rates shoot up and in the 1920s over 40% of national expenditure was on interest payments and remained the primary expenditure of the government until WWII was about to break at which point rearmament saw military expenditure overtake it and debt shot up further still.
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
You will have to accept you will have to vote Labour or LD next time if putting taxes up is your main priority.
Didn't Lamont and Clarke put up taxes a fair bit after the early 90s recession? I think they can both be solidly described as conservatives!
Can't help but look at that list and think to my self upper middle class first world problems. Most who post here are well off. The people I am friends with are mostly minimum wage workers. A night out for most is going round a friends with a few cans of beer or ordering a takeaway, not a restaurant or pub as its too expensive. Maybe my friends are exceptional but I doubt it in the previous year I think we went to a pub 3 times for peoples birthdays, restaurants never, foreign holidays don't know anyone that has been on one in the last 5 years in my friends circles. Most manage a gig once or twice a year. Sport is on tv for those that like it.
20 years ago yes that list is things they could afford to do and did. Not so much now. Most have also seen their accomodation degrade over that time as cost has forced them to ever downsize. 20 years ago they were renting a house now they are renting a 1 bed flat, a studio appartment, a room in a house.
Good post. It is people such as these - the bottom quartile in financial terms - who imo must be protected entirely from contributing to the cost of corona in future years. Indeed they should be elevated. All of which means the cost to others - particularly the top quartile - must not be shirked. In the new tradition of national mantras, following yesterday's 'Get Brexit Done' and today's 'Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives' the one for tomorrow, post virus, must be - Can Pay WILL Pay.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
Vat cut?? I would be amazed. Vat increase morelike
Government have a tricky issues here. They need to get people into shops and restaurants and pubs when it's safe to do so. Making them even more expensive isn't going to get that done.
Can't help but look at that list and think to my self upper middle class first world problems. Most who post here are well off. The people I am friends with are mostly minimum wage workers. A night out for most is going round a friends with a few cans of beer or ordering a takeaway, not a restaurant or pub as its too expensive. Maybe my friends are exceptional but I doubt it in the previous year I think we went to a pub 3 times for peoples birthdays, restaurants never, foreign holidays don't know anyone that has been on one in the last 5 years in my friends circles. Most manage a gig once or twice a year. Sport is on tv for those that like it.
20 years ago yes that list is things they could afford to do and did. Not so much now. Most have also seen their accomodation degrade over that time as cost has forced them to ever downsize. 20 years ago they were renting a house now they are renting a 1 bed flat, a studio appartment, a room in a house.
Good post. It is people such as these - the bottom quartile in financial terms - who imo must be protected entirely from contributing to the cost of corona in future years. Indeed they should be elevated. All of which means the cost to others - particularly the top quartile - must not be shirked. In the new tradition of national mantras, following yesterday's 'Get Brexit Done' and today's 'Stay Home Protect the NHS, Save Lives' the one for tomorrow, post virus, must be - Can Pay WILL Pay.
But your kind want to put up taxes so they will have even less
The right policy now (or soon) is to ease lock down in line with a national, scaled up trace and test capability. Let’s see if the govt is in a position to deliver that in May. Omens so early have not been fantastic.
With regards to the economy, we will need to pump it back into life. Personally I would be advising tax cuts, and measures to support investment.
Longer term, the only way to go is asset wealth. 5% of housing wealth, payable on death, would raise a significant amount over time.
The government has committed to spend £lots (and through intransigence / incompetence have actually spent £less) and that will have to be funded somehow. And that was cash through to the end of June. We will need a lot more funding for a lot longer than that. Because "ah fuck it reopen the hospitality sector" won't actually make enough people resume status quo ante. "Stay home save lives" becomes ingrained.
Either the government parachutes cash and incentives to bring the hamsters from their cages to start consuming again, or large swathes of the economy and with it our way of life will close down. Which will cost even more in having to keep people from starving and rioting.
I note with bemusement the pronouncements from HYUFD who seems barely able to see beyond the end of his nose never mind see beyond what he very narrowly believes to be the interests of the Conservative Party. Does he think that the voters who gave Boris his big majority will turn out and vote Tory again if their town is destroyed by mass unemployment, shuttered businesses and rampant crime? "We can't tax the rich Tory voters won't stand for it" is a profoundly stupid read of politics - YOU might not stand for it. Normal punters care for themselves not Tory donors, they WILL stand for it if thats the difference between keeping a job and shops and bars and having uncaring gits close them so that they can keep their wealth.
Higher taxes are far more likely to slow growth and hit the economy and lead to job losses.
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
Higher taxes will be inevitable and you need to accept it
You will have to accept you will have to vote Labour or LD next time if putting taxes up is your main priority.
Didn't Lamont and Clarke put up taxes a fair bit after the early 90s recession? I think they can both be solidly described as conservatives!
Shhh.
HYUFD is in a parallel universe where non-purists aren't in the Conservative Party. He has written off Lamont, Clarke and libertarian Conservatives like Thatcher, Cameron and Johnson as not real Conservatives. The only real Conservatives he knows of are Iain Duncan Smith and Jacob Rees Mogg.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
Vat cut?? I would be amazed. Vat increase morelike
Government have a tricky issues here. They need to get people into shops and restaurants and pubs when it's safe to do so. Making them even more expensive isn't going to get that done.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
A spitfire and hurricane doing a triple pass over Colonel Tom evokes so many memories for me
He and they are an utter inspiration
To think, we could have charged the Duke of Westminster a 0.3% wealth tax and raised just as much for the NHS.
There can be no doubt that the wealthy are going to have to pay much more tax
If you are so desperate to raise tax BigG you may as well join Starmer's Labour Party as he will certainly impose a wealth tax, Boris won't
The Conservatives are happily to jettison a great many principles for power - but the hill they'll die on is making rich people pay a bit more tax. But with Boris... who knows I guess.
Boris does not want to lose marginal seats like Kensington, Esher and Walton or Cheltenham as wealthy Tory voters stay home on election day so he won't
He is far more likely to lose the red wall if he protects the rich
Everyone is going to have to pay more and services are going to get worse all round. This is shaping up to be Britain's worst immiseration in living memory.
Genuine question - why not just print our way out of debt?
It has the added benefit of stealth taxing assets.
That is in practice a policy choice that I expect to be taken. There are consequences of such a decision, however: it is not cost-free.
Its a more logical response to the economy grinding to a halt and needing to kick start it again afterwards than ramping up taxation. When a body suffers cardiac arrest you give it a jolt and epinephrine you don't tax it more.
A temporary VAT cut or other tax cuts should be in the next budget.
Vat cut?? I would be amazed. Vat increase morelike
Government have a tricky issues here. They need to get people into shops and restaurants and pubs when it's safe to do so. Making them even more expensive isn't going to get that done.
I've got an idea. Why don't we tax rich people?
Because they might decide to become less rich in order to avoid paying taxes.
IanB2`s sensible post in response to Cyclefree`s comments last night:
"As throughout most of history, all of those things will be on offer. You simply live with the chance of becoming ill, and your life expectancy takes a bit of a knock. On average."
My point (and my fear) is that if social distancing is observed most of these things won’t be on offer: cafes and pubs won’t be able to operate with people 2 metres apart. Nor will theatres or orchestras or plays. Many museums and historic houses will have closed their doors for good.
It’s not a question of whether I am willing to take the risk - and note that today is my 41st day of lockdown - but that these opportunities will no longer exist.
Chris Whitty said that social distancing was the new normal not for a few weeks but for months and possibly 2 years. Maybe even longer if there is no vaccine. All the providers of these activities will have gone bust long before then. The idea that they can be switched on again, just like that,strikes me as utterly naive.
It's an interesting discussion showing some basic differences in human reactions. One that gets less attention than most is the extent to which we consciously live in the physical world around us. For some of Cyclefree's points (lectures, talks, debates. classes), my instinctive reaction was "But we can do those more easily online". But I think she'd feel that it's a fundamentally less satisfying experience. Similarly, I see colleagues at work all day long in one Teams call after another, and to my mind it's pretty much as good (or not) as if we were sitting round a table. Local Labour Party meetings get far better turnout online than we ever do when we have to trek out to meet in a drafty hall.
I recognise that this is just one kind of attitude, Cyclefree's is another, and we need to avoid arguing that one attitude show that we are superior in some way - it's just a thing. But it's perhaps a consolation that young people in particular are more open to the idea that a life online can be a life fulfilled for a while.
My children really do not like being apart from their friends. It is my youngest’s birthday next week - it is 3 months since I have seen him. I cannot hug him. I don’t know when I will see him again.
He cannot go out with his mates. Playing some computer games is not a substitute, even for someone very much part of the online generation. He does not know when this will end or what his chances of a fulfilling job will be at the end of it. And in the meanwhile, he and his brother are experiencing a level of loneliness they did not expect. There are similar issues with my daughter who is watching her business be destroyed.
And I cannot do anything to help. It is killing me inside. I am coping every day at the micro level but only by ignoring what I fear is the reality - that this will go on much longer than we are assuming and hoping and that we can return to a new normal not that different from the old one with a bit of extra hygiene. I think we are kidding ourselves, which is why last night I wrote what I did.
It may be, scratch that, is overwrought. But it is still real. I do not see much hope at the moment. I would like to be wrong.
I can feel your pain and fully understand it
Lets hope it is not as bleak as it seems
A work colleague and friend of my daughter took his life on tuesday, and everyone in the offices (he worked in another office) are so shocked and upset
Comments
If the common cold had a 1% death toll we would be vaccinating against whatever strains of it that we could.
Still looking for an answer to my question on how much we think the US economy will contract in Q2?
There's also the joke in the one about the nuclear shelter about how a corner shop run by a pakistani (although said differently) would still be open after a nuclear war.
Of course, I am not locked down as much as others.
HYUFD is yesterdays conservative.
I hope I speak for a new breed of conservative who seeks compassion and fairness but also looks to champion business and entrepreneurs to create the wealth of tomorrow
Tax rises. Spending cuts. Printing money. These are the options. Or plan Z default.
Although on a serious note, I think hygiene will be even more demanded as a top priority (although it should be already)
If you want higher taxes then vote Labour, that has always been the case. The Tory Party is the party of lower taxes
As we have already seen, Brexit chanters have forgotten what Brexit actually means. Johnson took May's deal, gave into the EU, stuck a border down the Irish Sea and proclaimed a Great Victory which chanters were more than happy to celebrate.
We will exit transition. Proclaim our ability to do as we please. State that we have trade deals in early stages of discussion. And then quietly move on. The UK will be the lead engine on the EU train. Completely uncoupled from the EU engine and the coaches behind us. With our Own Driver able to change speed as We Choose. But going along the same track as the EU. At the same speed as the EU. Physically buffered up to the EU. We Broke the Coupling. We unplugged their Controls. Have absolute Freedom. But do the exact same thing. Huzzah!
Religious services. Most are Online. Not quite the same, but many,.including mine, are running more than ever.And are far better attended too.
Serendipity is what you make it.
Those caveats apart a good piece showing how many are suffering. Thank you.
NINE weeks ago was my last journey into London Zone 1 - um, in order to trainspot a brand new Class 745 intercity train at Liverpool Street!
A SARS vaccine program was similarly frozen.
Along the same lines, we've never had vaccines for the common cold type coronaviruses as there was never a market for them - they are four of them, and they account for only a fraction of common cold infections, so what was the point ?
In contrast, we already have several vaccines to this one which have been given to human volunteers (and well over fifty more in development). The initial antibody responses to the first ones seem encouraging (and at least one vaccine has already been shown to be protective in monkeys).
Having said all that, I don't necessarily disagree with you about the policy choices over what to do in the meantime while we wait for a vaccine. We can't lockdown for a year or more.
There was a programme on a year or so ago (C4 I think) "It was alright in the 70s". Some of the stuff on there was truly awful - worst part was Mrs P and I could both remember seeing and laughing at the originals. 😳
BBC News - Coronavirus R0: Is this the crucial number?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52473523
At a micro level, I was in an online chat with a taxi-driver, who said mournfully that he wasn't going to do very well out of the self-employment assistance scheme as he didn't put many of his fares through the books. We all basically said "Serves you right, mate". To be fair he laughed wryly and said "Yeah, what goes around comes around, I suppose..."
My 16-year-old lad is still happy as Larry at the cancellation of his GCSEs, having achieved mock results that are certain to get him into the 6th form. It's like an everlasting holiday to him, mostly spent exercising or playing computer games with his pals.
The one who is suffering is my partner's 19-year-old daughter. She's stuck at home instead of uni, her boyfriend has finished with her (not because of lockdown, but that probably didn't help), and she can't go out with her mates and drown her sorrows / look for someone new. I do feel very sorry for her, and hope for her sake that a solution can be found before too long.
What is also telling is I can't remember meeting anyone who was homosexual in the 60s or early 70s, which of course is absolute nonsense as I must have done. It must have been really tough on you if you were gay then.
And fair taxes is not class war, the wealthy will have to pay more tax as will others in different ways, and the judgment on Boris (and Rishi) will be on how fairly he does that across the board
Right now to use a medical metaphor the economy is on a heart bypass machine as the government pours money around to keep the lifeblood going when the normal heart is locked down. Afterwards we need to get going, recover and if there is a structural deficit after this then in a couple of years start addressing it.
But not yet. Not now. And just the deficit.
Indeed pensioners triple lock has been great for my wife and I but is wrong and needs to go, over 60's receiving NI relief when working is wrong, also higher rate pension tax relief is unfair and needs to change as do other taxes to create fairness
The country has to raise money and to do it fairly
If you were a class war voter who wanted to hammer the rich with higher taxes primarily you were already voting Labour
I never saw it that way, really. I always wanted to be able to be as content on my own with nothing as I was in an expensive place with a crowd, to not let my situation affect me too much. I suppose I thought not having to rely on anything or anyone was a reasonable goal, and although I haven’t achieved that, lockdown isn’t that bad.
If it can come out of this crisis without a major deficit and with interest payments being just 4% of government expenditure (which would represent nearly a trillion pounds of borrowing at comparable levels of QE and interest rates) then we will be fine.
We need to restart the economy and get those who've lost jobs back into work. We don't need taxes killing the economy even more.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/1156808/boris-johnson-net-worth-salary
https://www.financialreporter.co.uk/mortgages/barclays-withdraws-almost-all-mortgage-products-above-60-ltv.html
Obviously there'll be people already in the pipeline who will be able to complete a move or remortgage agreed pre the shit hitting the fan.
Last night Keir Starmer’s new Shadow Immigration Minister, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, along with Diane Abbott, was caught attending a Zoom Conference in which antisemitism within the party was denied without challenge from her, Ken Livingstone was defended and former Labour Councillor Jo Bird claimed some party members had died as a result of disciplinary cases. Also in attendance was Jackie Walker, whom even Corbyn found too antisemitic to remain as a Labour member…
https://order-order.com/2020/04/30/shadow-minister-shares-virtual-conference-platform-expelled-antisemitism-jackie-walker/
Thing is, Leave didn't have a plan in 2016. The outfit in charge of implementation, Brexiteers to a man and woman, don't have a plan even now. Which is quite remarkable.
20 years ago yes that list is things they could afford to do and did. Not so much now. Most have also seen their accomodation degrade over that time as cost has forced them to ever downsize. 20 years ago they were renting a house now they are renting a 1 bed flat, a studio appartment, a room in a house.
avian infectious bronchitis CoV (IBV)
porcine respiratory CoV
So it is definitely possible.
I'd really like someone to ask at the daily conference what the government strategy is though. Wait for a vaccine or gradually acquire 'herd immunity'?
Actually that shot reminds me of a certain pop video - features the station as it looked like c. 1984.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3j2NYZ8FKs
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7703309/Boris-Johnsons-five-storey-Grade-II-listed-Islington-home-sells-3-75million.html
ETA averaging prices over different parts of London is a fool's errand.
So what about us poor people in the country that has done almost the worst of anybody? What lessons could we learn from Sweden? Not to have locked down at all and see an exponentially higher death toll? Having made the initial mistakes wouldn't we want to learn now from the successful examples?
I am voting conservative as I resist your Trump like qualities.
Starmer has lots of house-cleaning to do.
The Conservatives have for centuries been a welcoming big tent party and HYUFD has no right to say otherwise.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1266758/tests-in-recovered-patients-in-s-korea-found-false-positives-not-reinfections-experts-say
There was a recession 1920 but it was nothing like that. Also Keynes' policies in the 1930s got the UK growing quite well.
Perhaps more like £1.5m in the areas where all the multi-millionaires who lecture multi-millionaires about the importance of not lecturing people live.
https://youtu.be/xH2IK0CNoms?t=86
It’s not a question of whether I am willing to take the risk - and note that today is my 41st day of lockdown - but that these opportunities will no longer exist.
Chris Whitty said that social distancing was the new normal not for a few weeks but for months and possibly 2 years. Maybe even longer if there is no vaccine. All the providers of these activities will have gone bust long before then. The idea that they can be switched on again, just like that,strikes me as utterly naive. My children really do not like being apart from their friends. It is my youngest’s birthday next week - it is 3 months since I have seen him. I cannot hug him. I don’t know when I will see him again.
He cannot go out with his mates. Playing some computer games is not a substitute, even for someone very much part of the online generation. He does not know when this will end or what his chances of a fulfilling job will be at the end of it. And in the meanwhile, he and his brother are experiencing a level of loneliness they did not expect. There are similar issues with my daughter who is watching her business be destroyed.
And I cannot do anything to help. It is killing me inside. I am coping every day at the micro level but only by ignoring what I fear is the reality - that this will go on much longer than we are assuming and hoping and that we can return to a new normal not that different from the old one with a bit of extra hygiene. I think we are kidding ourselves, which is why last night I wrote what I did.
It may be, scratch that, is overwrought. But it is still real. I do not see much hope at the moment. I would like to be wrong.
No one broke into our family sharing of kitten and flower photos, though. Nor of the one with the donkey-gonk in the wildlife park invading the car.
Offtopic? Us?
But yes, we know it's possible, and it will be the quickest and least costly way to arrive at 'herd immunity'.
I'd also point out that an effective vaccine is quite likely to provide a stronger and longer lasting antibody response than the infection itself.
In some mild cases, the antibody response doesn't appear to be particularly strong - and in some severe cases there seems to be a effect of immune exhaustion (which could conceivably affect immune memory).
1920 UK GDP £6,063.0 million
1921 UK GDP £4,799.5 million
In nominal terms it took until WWII to reach the 1920 threshold. While normally only real terms matter, in a deflationary environment nominal terms matter just as much as our debt is in nominal terms - if we have major deflation it will see our interest rates shoot up and in the 1920s over 40% of national expenditure was on interest payments and remained the primary expenditure of the government until WWII was about to break at which point rearmament saw military expenditure overtake it and debt shot up further still.
HYUFD is in a parallel universe where non-purists aren't in the Conservative Party. He has written off Lamont, Clarke and libertarian Conservatives like Thatcher, Cameron and Johnson as not real Conservatives. The only real Conservatives he knows of are Iain Duncan Smith and Jacob Rees Mogg.
Lets hope it is not as bleak as it seems
A work colleague and friend of my daughter took his life on tuesday, and everyone in the offices (he worked in another office) are so shocked and upset
Mental health is a huge and growing issue