To be absolutely fair, a visionary leader and statesman with the combined talents of William Gladstone, Abraham Lincoln, Robert the Bruce and the Emperor Augustus would struggle to rescue Scottish Unionism. A part-time football referee's pretty much on a hiding to nothing, now isn't he?
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
This prediction is going to go the way of your 'the government will keep us in lockdown forever', isn't it?
We are still in lockdown. What is your guarantee we will be out in June? What is your guarantee there won;t be another lockdown?
I'm a PBer, Jim, not a fortune teller, but June looks fairly certain because all the data shows that the latest wave is ending and the vaccination programme may even be complete by then. The only reason there'd be another lockdown after that is if a new variant defeats all of our vaccines, which looks pretty unlikely at this point.
But no, I won't give you a guarantee, because there's no such thing in life.
To be absolutely fair, a visionary leader and statesman with the combined talents of William Gladstone, Abraham Lincoln, Robert the Bruce and the Emperor Augustus would struggle to rescue Scottish Unionism. A part-time football referee's pretty much on a hiding to nothing, now isn't he?
I came into this discussion thinking that the legacy UK parties were permafucked and the SNP would simply romp to yet another victory.
However, I granted our guest authors the courtesy of reading their piece in full, anyway.
The legacy UK parties are probably* permafucked and the SNP is probably* going to romp to yet another victory.
*By probably I mean certainly, of course. The Conservatives and Labour don't merely have 'a lot of work to do in the next two months' to make significant progress. They need to build, test and commission a mind-control field generator that can successfully reprogram the brains of the entire population. Not even the Chinese have figured out how to make that happen.
You could gave written that about Labour in Scotland 30 years ago
So maybe the SNP only has thirty years left in power? You may very well be right. It depends rather on how long it actually takes them to get independence over the finishing line.
I don't doubt that there are Scots who still feel British but they're a minority and, I think you'll find, a shrinking one at that - something that will be brutally laid bare by the results of this year's census, when I expect that the ratio of British to English/Scottish/Welsh/(Northern) Irish identification will have changed markedly all over the UK since 2011.
The only thing that's holding the Union together now is money. If the average Scottish voter thought that she would be £1 per year better off out than in, she'd be off like a shot.
The most recent poll was 50/50 and independence falling in the polls and this before these hearings
It is no means certain that Scotland will vote for independence
Well, there's a long way to go, and we shall see.
The Achilles' heel of the independence movement is, as I said before, money. If a large part of the Scottish electorate didn't believe that separation would put their taxes up then they'd have voted to go in 2014. And it could yet do for the nationalists again - although quite why the maintenance of a state that's held together mainly by bribery is something that is either morally healthy or to be desired is never adequately explained.
OTOH 'you will be poorer if you do this' was the central theme of David Cameron's campaign to vanquish Brexit, and look what became of him.
You’re somewhat ignoring the 30-40% of Scots who are passionately Unionist. There’s plenty of them. Probably about the same as there are passionate Nats.
This is one reason I believe Indy would be a tragedy - for Scotland. It would make Brexit look like a harmonious decision which brought peace to the nation. Indy would unleash demons, and sow decades of bitterness. Ending a 300 year old union would be emotionally explosive (and economically ruinous)
Scotland is not Ireland in 1921 when the large majority of Catholics had a settled will for secession. Scotland is grievously divided.
If Sturgeon gets her maj and seeks Indy, Boris must be the statesman, which will be hard for him. Even as he refuses a vote he must search for compromise, to save Scots and Brits from many more years of rancour
62% of the Scottish population answered the national identity question in the 2011 census as "Scottish only" and the number will only have moved in one direction in the subsequent decade. I don't believe that there's this vast reservoir of committed unionists. There will certainly be some committed unionists, and another tranche of pragmatic unionists, and a fair number of people who just sort of sit around in the middle as well, but I somehow doubt that there's this ocean of pro-Union sentiment out there in Scotland, any more than there was of pro-EU sentiment in Britain in 2016. It's a niche interest.
As I said, the swing vote in Scotland consists of middle-class waverers who fear that independence will hit them in their bank balances and pension pots. It's why the campaign in 2014 revolved principally around sterling, state pensions and the Barnett formula. Britain is held together by money. There is nothing else left.
HYUFD of this parish has airily dismissed the concerns of nonn-Tory voters. All this has done is handed out rewards to Tory voters and frankly its not a surprise. My old manor of Thornaby-on-Tees has been given £23m - whilst it now having a Tory MP now helps it does need the cash. Suspect that many of the towns on the list are in a similar boat.
Strange how Thornaby got the money yet Billingham didn't? Both towns are in Stockton.
And Billingham is great for Brave new World and a 1960s shopping centre only a fan of the brutulist architecture would like
Did Billingham apply?
Pass - I don't know what the initial selection criteria was for the towns INVITED to apply
I came into this discussion thinking that the legacy UK parties were permafucked and the SNP would simply romp to yet another victory.
However, I granted our guest authors the courtesy of reading their piece in full, anyway.
The legacy UK parties are probably* permafucked and the SNP is probably* going to romp to yet another victory.
*By probably I mean certainly, of course. The Conservatives and Labour don't merely have 'a lot of work to do in the next two months' to make significant progress. They need to build, test and commission a mind-control field generator that can successfully reprogram the brains of the entire population. Not even the Chinese have figured out how to make that happen.
You could gave written that about Labour in Scotland 30 years ago
So maybe the SNP only has thirty years left in power? You may very well be right. It depends rather on how long it actually takes them to get independence over the finishing line.
I don't doubt that there are Scots who still feel British but they're a minority and, I think you'll find, a shrinking one at that - something that will be brutally laid bare by the results of this year's census, when I expect that the ratio of British to English/Scottish/Welsh/(Northern) Irish identification will have changed markedly all over the UK since 2011.
The only thing that's holding the Union together now is money. If the average Scottish voter thought that she would be £1 per year better off out than in, she'd be off like a shot.
The most recent poll was 50/50 and independence falling in the polls and this before these hearings
It is no means certain that Scotland will vote for independence
Well, there's a long way to go, and we shall see.
The Achilles' heel of the independence movement is, as I said before, money. If a large part of the Scottish electorate didn't believe that separation would put their taxes up then they'd have voted to go in 2014. And it could yet do for the nationalists again - although quite why the maintenance of a state that's held together mainly by bribery is something that is either morally healthy or to be desired is never adequately explained.
OTOH 'you will be poorer if you do this' was the central theme of David Cameron's campaign to vanquish Brexit, and look what became of him.
You’re somewhat ignoring the 30-40% of Scots who are passionately Unionist. There’s plenty of them. Probably about the same as there are passionate Nats.
This is one reason I believe Indy would be a tragedy - for Scotland. It would make Brexit look like a harmonious decision which brought peace to the nation. Indy would unleash demons, and sow decades of bitterness. Ending a 300 year old union would be emotionally explosive (and economically ruinous)
Scotland is not Ireland in 1921 when the large majority of Catholics had a settled will for secession. Scotland is grievously divided.
If Sturgeon gets her maj and seeks Indy, Boris must be the statesman, which will be hard for him. Even as he refuses a vote he must search for compromise, to save Scots and Brits from many more years of rancour
62% of the Scottish population answered the national identity question in the 2011 census as "Scottish only" and the number will only have moved in one direction in the subsequent decade. I don't believe that there's this vast reservoir of committed unionists. There will certainly be some committed unionists, and another tranche of pragmatic unionists, and a fair number of people who just sort of sit around in the middle as well, but I somehow doubt that there's this ocean of pro-Union sentiment out there in Scotland, any more than there was of pro-EU sentiment in Britain in 2016. It's a niche interest.
As I said, the swing vote in Scotland consists of middle-class waverers who fear that independence will hit them in their bank balances and pension pots. It's why the campaign in 2014 revolved principally around sterling, state pensions and the Barnett formula. Britain is held together by money. There is nothing else left.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I don't see that they'll have a choice once the rest of the developed world starts picking at the carcass of the UK economy in 2023 when big businesses desert for lower tax countries.
The 25% rate is worse than anything I had imagined. Unless the 100% investment allowance is made permanent then it's going to result in significant job losses, even the OBR have forecast a huge slowdown in business investment in 2023 to a contraction of -1.5%, it will mean job losses in the run up to an election.
It's genuinely rubbish and shows Rishi isn't fit for the office of chancellor.
Our economists and financial modellers have been working on this, the government's plans are what we call a 'Katie Price's boobs.'
A massive figure blown out of all proportion, with no visible means of support, and so fucking artificial.
Yup, it's the same conclusion we've come to as well. I think by the weekend the budget is going to look a lot less good. The corporation tax rise especially should be seized by Labour as jobs and investment killing. I'm honestly shocked the chancellor doesn't have the political foresight to see just how badly job losses are going to play in the run up to 2024.
The other area is business rates where there's basically fuck all in terms of a step change for high street retail having to compete with online.
I agree with this.
The key point is that we're supposed to be differentiating ourselves from the EU right now. This removes one of our areas of differentiation, and sends exactly the wrong message about being open for business.
(From a business perspective, this slightly increases the chance that we add engineering resource in Lisbon rather than London.)
There's not the slightest chance that business won't have to pay for covid. There's actually no other tax. The Sunak solution, unpleasant though it is, is actually sound.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Edit. - the only other examples I can think of offhand are West Bridgford, which is in the Rushcliffe constituency, and Morpeth, which is in Wansbeck.Are there any more?
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
Blimey. If McDonnell had proposed the same measure I think it'd be less than 76% in favour ?
I said last night, and have thought so for years - the public like left wing policies but don’t trust left wingers to be in charge of implementing them.
The perfect storm is left wing policies implemented by people with grave reservations about doing so.
The worst outcome is left wing policies enacted with zeal.
The middle ground is Conservatives maintaining the status quo
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
This prediction is going to go the way of your 'the government will keep us in lockdown forever', isn't it?
We are still in lockdown. What is your guarantee we will be out in June? What is your guarantee there won;t be another lockdown?
I'm a PBer, Jim, not a fortune teller, but June looks fairly certain because all the data shows that the latest wave is ending and the vaccination programme may even be complete by then. The only reason there'd be another lockdown after that is if a new variant defeats all of our vaccines, which looks pretty unlikely at this point.
But no, I won't give you a guarantee, because there's no such thing in life.
On budget day of all days I should think we all remember that, in life, taxes at least are guaranteed.
To be absolutely fair, a visionary leader and statesman with the combined talents of William Gladstone, Abraham Lincoln, Robert the Bruce and the Emperor Augustus would struggle to rescue Scottish Unionism. A part-time football referee's pretty much on a hiding to nothing, now isn't he?
I think Ross got a bit over excited when he heard that Pontins had blacklisted folk with Travellers’ names. He thought his time had come.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
According to your logic, Berlin must still be nothing more than a pile of ruins, and Hiroshima a glassy crater. Because rebuilding after a disaster can never, ever happen.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I don't see that they'll have a choice once the rest of the developed world starts picking at the carcass of the UK economy in 2023 when big businesses desert for lower tax countries.
The 25% rate is worse than anything I had imagined. Unless the 100% investment allowance is made permanent then it's going to result in significant job losses, even the OBR have forecast a huge slowdown in business investment in 2023 to a contraction of -1.5%, it will mean job losses in the run up to an election.
It's genuinely rubbish and shows Rishi isn't fit for the office of chancellor.
Our economists and financial modellers have been working on this, the government's plans are what we call a 'Katie Price's boobs.'
A massive figure blown out of all proportion, with no visible means of support, and so fucking artificial.
Yup, it's the same conclusion we've come to as well. I think by the weekend the budget is going to look a lot less good. The corporation tax rise especially should be seized by Labour as jobs and investment killing. I'm honestly shocked the chancellor doesn't have the political foresight to see just how badly job losses are going to play in the run up to 2024.
The other area is business rates where there's basically fuck all in terms of a step change for high street retail having to compete with online.
I agree with this.
The key point is that we're supposed to be differentiating ourselves from the EU right now. This removes one of our areas of differentiation, and sends exactly the wrong message about being open for business.
(From a business perspective, this slightly increases the chance that we add engineering resource in Lisbon rather than London.)
There's not the slightest chance that business won't have to pay for covid. There's actually no other tax. The Sunak solution, unpleasant though it is, is actually sound.
Everyone will be paying for Covid. But increasing our corporation tax by a fifth, just after France cut theirs, seems like a dumb move.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
One factor that I think is worth bearing in mind is if Sunak's sums are right and the UK has eliminated its deficit in one swoop today then there should be no further tax rises to come.
Other countries that haven't done this yet will have to either raise their taxes or cut spending to fix their deficits at some point so comparing tax rates across countries might be slightly premature.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
The critics are right tho. Hiking Corp tax so drastically is self harming.
Yes, there have to be taxes. But not this.
A tax on property was probably the best way, along with 2-3 points on Corp tax, keeping us symbolically and importantly below most of Europe.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I came into this discussion thinking that the legacy UK parties were permafucked and the SNP would simply romp to yet another victory.
However, I granted our guest authors the courtesy of reading their piece in full, anyway.
The legacy UK parties are probably* permafucked and the SNP is probably* going to romp to yet another victory.
*By probably I mean certainly, of course. The Conservatives and Labour don't merely have 'a lot of work to do in the next two months' to make significant progress. They need to build, test and commission a mind-control field generator that can successfully reprogram the brains of the entire population. Not even the Chinese have figured out how to make that happen.
You could gave written that about Labour in Scotland 30 years ago
So maybe the SNP only has thirty years left in power? You may very well be right. It depends rather on how long it actually takes them to get independence over the finishing line.
I don't doubt that there are Scots who still feel British but they're a minority and, I think you'll find, a shrinking one at that - something that will be brutally laid bare by the results of this year's census, when I expect that the ratio of British to English/Scottish/Welsh/(Northern) Irish identification will have changed markedly all over the UK since 2011.
The only thing that's holding the Union together now is money. If the average Scottish voter thought that she would be £1 per year better off out than in, she'd be off like a shot.
The most recent poll was 50/50 and independence falling in the polls and this before these hearings
It is no means certain that Scotland will vote for independence
Well, there's a long way to go, and we shall see.
The Achilles' heel of the independence movement is, as I said before, money. If a large part of the Scottish electorate didn't believe that separation would put their taxes up then they'd have voted to go in 2014. And it could yet do for the nationalists again - although quite why the maintenance of a state that's held together mainly by bribery is something that is either morally healthy or to be desired is never adequately explained.
OTOH 'you will be poorer if you do this' was the central theme of David Cameron's campaign to vanquish Brexit, and look what became of him.
You’re somewhat ignoring the 30-40% of Scots who are passionately Unionist. There’s plenty of them. Probably about the same as there are passionate Nats.
This is one reason I believe Indy would be a tragedy - for Scotland. It would make Brexit look like a harmonious decision which brought peace to the nation. Indy would unleash demons, and sow decades of bitterness. Ending a 300 year old union would be emotionally explosive (and economically ruinous)
Scotland is not Ireland in 1921 when the large majority of Catholics had a settled will for secession. Scotland is grievously divided.
If Sturgeon gets her maj and seeks Indy, Boris must be the statesman, which will be hard for him. Even as he refuses a vote he must search for compromise, to save Scots and Brits from many more years of rancour
62% of the Scottish population answered the national identity question in the 2011 census as "Scottish only" and the number will only have moved in one direction in the subsequent decade. I don't believe that there's this vast reservoir of committed unionists. There will certainly be some committed unionists, and another tranche of pragmatic unionists, and a fair number of people who just sort of sit around in the middle as well, but I somehow doubt that there's this ocean of pro-Union sentiment out there in Scotland, any more than there was of pro-EU sentiment in Britain in 2016. It's a niche interest.
As I said, the swing vote in Scotland consists of middle-class waverers who fear that independence will hit them in their bank balances and pension pots. It's why the campaign in 2014 revolved principally around sterling, state pensions and the Barnett formula. Britain is held together by money. There is nothing else left.
Sturgeon just has to convince enough that the Brussels money tree will replace London's. (It won't of course but by the time they realise that it will be too late).
I suspect too many of us are thinking of the SNP as a mere political party rather than an African style liberation movement. Corruption and incompetence are irrelevant to the faithful, only the cause matters. Hatred of the Tories (i.e. the English) has become for nationalists a defining characteristic of Scottish identity just as Anglophobia is in Ireland. If independence comes to pass the SNP will continue to blame London for Scotland's problems (probably successfully) for at least 30 years.
I am surprised how sanguine so many others are at the prospect of the break up of the UK. If Lincoln had had the same attitude in 1861 we might still have actual slave traders today rather than just old statues of them.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
The critics are right tho. Hiking Corp tax so drastically is self harming.
Yes, there have to be taxes. But not this.
A tax on property was probably the best way, along with 2-3 points on Corp tax, keeping us symbolically and importantly below most of Europe.
The delay makes me wonder if it'll be slightly unwound when the time comes, effectively a free tax cut.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
I thought that until I heard Ron de Santis. If you have a business, we have your back. IF you want to send your child to school, you can. We are not shutting down. And that was through the winter
We are now in spring and we have the vaccine.
If Johnson opened up tomorrow, he might have saved something. But he is going to continue with this for months. The real damage is being done now. its insanity.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Edit. - the only other examples I can think of offhand are West Bridgford, which is in the Rushcliffe constituency, and Morpeth, which is in Wansbeck.Are there any more?
Isn't it named after Richmondshire, which dates back to Normans I think?
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
The critics are right tho. Hiking Corp tax so drastically is self harming.
Yes, there have to be taxes. But not this.
A tax on property was probably the best way, along with 2-3 points on Corp tax, keeping us symbolically and importantly below most of Europe.
The delay makes me wonder if it'll be slightly unwound when the time comes, effectively a free tax cut.
One factor that I think is worth bearing in mind is if Sunak's sums are right and the UK has eliminated its deficit in one swoop today then there should be no further tax rises to come.
Other countries that haven't done this yet will have to either raise their taxes or cut spending to fix their deficits at some point so comparing tax rates across countries might be slightly premature.
Are we confident they are correct? Doesn't smell right to me. Because, as we all know, the Corporation Tax rises will lead to a huge fall in revenue, won't they?
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
It should be as Brixham is in Torbay borough rather than Totnes borough and so 'Totnes & Brixham' would better describe the constituency than 'Totnes' alone.
One factor that I think is worth bearing in mind is if Sunak's sums are right and the UK has eliminated its deficit in one swoop today then there should be no further tax rises to come.
Other countries that haven't done this yet will have to either raise their taxes or cut spending to fix their deficits at some point so comparing tax rates across countries might be slightly premature.
We are starting from a slightly worse place. Deficits calendar 2020:
US 18.7% UK 16.5% Japan 14.2% Spain 14.1% Italy 12.9% France 10.8% Germany 8.2%
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
You get some rather bland names in some areas, unfortuntely, as even though it is absolutely common for seats to be named after the principal settlement some people surrounding them pitch a fit.
In my area they sought to change a very bland compass point county name constituency (which itself was newly created from one named from a town), to be consistent with the rest of the county, and people went nuts, so they tried a compromise instead.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
I thought that until I heard Ron de Santis. If you have a business, we have your back. IF you want to send your child to school, you can. We are not shutting down. And that was through the winter
We are now in spring and we have the vaccine.
If Johnson opened up tomorrow, he might have saved something. But he is going to continue with this for months. The real damage is being done now. its insanity.
Yes, the United Kingdom will never recover from a few more months of sequential unlocking. Our glorious history ends here
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Edit. - the only other examples I can think of offhand are West Bridgford, which is in the Rushcliffe constituency, and Morpeth, which is in Wansbeck.Are there any more?
Isn't it named after Richmondshire, which dates back to Normans I think?
So by that logic it would be like Derbyshire Dales, or South West Wiltshire.
But as the constituency isn’t coterminous with Richmondshire, containing large parts of Hambleton, why just name it after Richmond?
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
I thought that until I heard Ron de Santis. If you have a business, we have your back. IF you want to send your child to school, you can. We are not shutting down. And that was through the winter
We are now in spring and we have the vaccine.
If Johnson opened up tomorrow, he might have saved something. But he is going to continue with this for months. The real damage is being done now. its insanity.
But that's what the furlough scheme is, support for businesses when they are forced to close? Or are you simultaneously complaining about the lack of support and the magnitude of the support at the same time?
The damage is temporary, there isn't any structural damage like in a war. You are so ridiculously pessimistic on this subject it is unreal.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
The critics are right tho. Hiking Corp tax so drastically is self harming.
Yes, there have to be taxes. But not this.
A tax on property was probably the best way, along with 2-3 points on Corp tax, keeping us symbolically and importantly below most of Europe.
It may be poor economics, poor government as well, but it's excellent politics. Tax Big Business, or Granny's lifetime home (that I'm hoping to get a decent wedge of when she finally snuffs it)?
If your starting point is that The Public Must Get What The Public Wants, it's a no-brainer.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Edit. - the only other examples I can think of offhand are West Bridgford, which is in the Rushcliffe constituency, and Morpeth, which is in Wansbeck.Are there any more?
Isn't it named after Richmondshire, which dates back to Normans I think?
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
The critics are right tho. Hiking Corp tax so drastically is self harming.
Yes, there have to be taxes. But not this.
A tax on property was probably the best way, along with 2-3 points on Corp tax, keeping us symbolically and importantly below most of Europe.
Yes, 22% would be a reasonable level. My fear about such a hike is that it will be self defeating.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I don't see that they'll have a choice once the rest of the developed world starts picking at the carcass of the UK economy in 2023 when big businesses desert for lower tax countries.
The 25% rate is worse than anything I had imagined. Unless the 100% investment allowance is made permanent then it's going to result in significant job losses, even the OBR have forecast a huge slowdown in business investment in 2023 to a contraction of -1.5%, it will mean job losses in the run up to an election.
It's genuinely rubbish and shows Rishi isn't fit for the office of chancellor.
Our economists and financial modellers have been working on this, the government's plans are what we call a 'Katie Price's boobs.'
A massive figure blown out of all proportion, with no visible means of support, and so fucking artificial.
Yup, it's the same conclusion we've come to as well. I think by the weekend the budget is going to look a lot less good. The corporation tax rise especially should be seized by Labour as jobs and investment killing. I'm honestly shocked the chancellor doesn't have the political foresight to see just how badly job losses are going to play in the run up to 2024.
The other area is business rates where there's basically fuck all in terms of a step change for high street retail having to compete with online.
My colleague has compared it to the 2007 budget when Brown abolished the 10p rate, it took everyone a year to realise the brilliant policy was in fact a great steaming turd.
A year? Some of us on pb pointed it out on the day.....
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Edit. - the only other examples I can think of offhand are West Bridgford, which is in the Rushcliffe constituency, and Morpeth, which is in Wansbeck.Are there any more?
One factor that I think is worth bearing in mind is if Sunak's sums are right and the UK has eliminated its deficit in one swoop today then there should be no further tax rises to come.
Other countries that haven't done this yet will have to either raise their taxes or cut spending to fix their deficits at some point so comparing tax rates across countries might be slightly premature.
We are starting from a slightly worse place. Deficits calendar 2020:
US 18.7% UK 16.5% Japan 14.2% Spain 14.1% Italy 12.9% France 10.8% Germany 8.2%
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I wonder what the smallest place in the UK to have its name in a constituency name is?
Blimey. If McDonnell had proposed the same measure I think it'd be less than 76% in favour ?
I said last night, and have thought so for years - the public like left wing policies but don’t trust left wingers to be in charge of implementing them.
The perfect storm is left wing policies implemented by people with grave reservations about doing so.
The worst outcome is left wing policies enacted with zeal.
The middle ground is Conservatives maintaining the status quo
Indeed. Also, much to the consternation of some ex-Tories on here, the Tory vote is now not the same as the one Cameron got, and wants different things. That’s how they bust through his cap.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I wonder what the smallest place in the UK to have its name in a constituency name is?
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I wonder what the smallest place in the UK to have its name in a constituency name is?
Surely it would have to be Radnor?
Edit - and if you’re going to be picky and rule out shires, I imagine Brecon would be a strong contender too.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Edit. - the only other examples I can think of offhand are West Bridgford, which is in the Rushcliffe constituency, and Morpeth, which is in Wansbeck.Are there any more?
Used to be the Westbury seat, containing the county town, Trowbridge. Now the execrebaly dullly named 'South West Wiltshire. Commission wanted to change the seat and call it Trowbridge, but with us being back at 650 seats presumably not so many changes, and even where it'd make sense getting them to change names may be harder.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
I thought that until I heard Ron de Santis. If you have a business, we have your back. IF you want to send your child to school, you can. We are not shutting down. And that was through the winter
We are now in spring and we have the vaccine.
If Johnson opened up tomorrow, he might have saved something. But he is going to continue with this for months. The real damage is being done now. its insanity.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
You get some rather bland names in some areas, unfortuntely, as even though it is absolutely common for seats to be named after the principal settlement some people surrounding them pitch a fit.
In my area they sought to change a very bland compass point county name constituency (which itself was newly created from one named from a town), to be consistent with the rest of the county, and people went nuts, so they tried a compromise instead.
In America, of course, you get Soviet style names like "Maine Congressional District #1"
I came into this discussion thinking that the legacy UK parties were permafucked and the SNP would simply romp to yet another victory.
However, I granted our guest authors the courtesy of reading their piece in full, anyway.
The legacy UK parties are probably* permafucked and the SNP is probably* going to romp to yet another victory.
*By probably I mean certainly, of course. The Conservatives and Labour don't merely have 'a lot of work to do in the next two months' to make significant progress. They need to build, test and commission a mind-control field generator that can successfully reprogram the brains of the entire population. Not even the Chinese have figured out how to make that happen.
You could gave written that about Labour in Scotland 30 years ago
So maybe the SNP only has thirty years left in power? You may very well be right. It depends rather on how long it actually takes them to get independence over the finishing line.
I don't doubt that there are Scots who still feel British but they're a minority and, I think you'll find, a shrinking one at that - something that will be brutally laid bare by the results of this year's census, when I expect that the ratio of British to English/Scottish/Welsh/(Northern) Irish identification will have changed markedly all over the UK since 2011.
The only thing that's holding the Union together now is money. If the average Scottish voter thought that she would be £1 per year better off out than in, she'd be off like a shot.
The most recent poll was 50/50 and independence falling in the polls and this before these hearings
It is no means certain that Scotland will vote for independence
Well, there's a long way to go, and we shall see.
The Achilles' heel of the independence movement is, as I said before, money. If a large part of the Scottish electorate didn't believe that separation would put their taxes up then they'd have voted to go in 2014. And it could yet do for the nationalists again - although quite why the maintenance of a state that's held together mainly by bribery is something that is either morally healthy or to be desired is never adequately explained.
OTOH 'you will be poorer if you do this' was the central theme of David Cameron's campaign to vanquish Brexit, and look what became of him.
You’re somewhat ignoring the 30-40% of Scots who are passionately Unionist. There’s plenty of them. Probably about the same as there are passionate Nats.
This is one reason I believe Indy would be a tragedy - for Scotland. It would make Brexit look like a harmonious decision which brought peace to the nation. Indy would unleash demons, and sow decades of bitterness. Ending a 300 year old union would be emotionally explosive (and economically ruinous)
Scotland is not Ireland in 1921 when the large majority of Catholics had a settled will for secession. Scotland is grievously divided.
If Sturgeon gets her maj and seeks Indy, Boris must be the statesman, which will be hard for him. Even as he refuses a vote he must search for compromise, to save Scots and Brits from many more years of rancour
62% of the Scottish population answered the national identity question in the 2011 census as "Scottish only" and the number will only have moved in one direction in the subsequent decade. I don't believe that there's this vast reservoir of committed unionists. There will certainly be some committed unionists, and another tranche of pragmatic unionists, and a fair number of people who just sort of sit around in the middle as well, but I somehow doubt that there's this ocean of pro-Union sentiment out there in Scotland, any more than there was of pro-EU sentiment in Britain in 2016. It's a niche interest.
As I said, the swing vote in Scotland consists of middle-class waverers who fear that independence will hit them in their bank balances and pension pots. It's why the campaign in 2014 revolved principally around sterling, state pensions and the Barnett formula. Britain is held together by money. There is nothing else left.
Sturgeon just has to convince enough that the Brussels money tree will replace London's. (It won't of course but by the time they realise that it will be too late).
I suspect too many of us are thinking of the SNP as a mere political party rather than an African style liberation movement. Corruption and incompetence are irrelevant to the faithful, only the cause matters. Hatred of the Tories (i.e. the English) has become for nationalists a defining characteristic of Scottish identity just as Anglophobia is in Ireland. If independence comes to pass the SNP will continue to blame London for Scotland's problems (probably successfully) for at least 30 years.
I am surprised how sanguine so many others are at the prospect of the break up of the UK. If Lincoln had had the same attitude in 1861 we might still have actual slave traders today rather than just old statues of them.
The relaxed attitude amazes me as well. Oh, Scottish independence, no problem
Scottish independence would guarantee political chaos for a decade. As we disentangle 300 years of union. More immediately it means instant economic emergency. Sindy Scotland would default immediately, and be plunged into Depression. rUK would follow with an intense recession, or worse. All this as we try to recover from the worst crisis since WW2. With debt over 100%
London might itself default, or be forced to print money like Mugabe
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
I thought that until I heard Ron de Santis. If you have a business, we have your back. IF you want to send your child to school, you can. We are not shutting down. And that was through the winter
We are now in spring and we have the vaccine.
If Johnson opened up tomorrow, he might have saved something. But he is going to continue with this for months. The real damage is being done now. its insanity.
Ron DeSantis - likely GOP nominee in 2024
Agreed: and also a genuinely excellent candidate, who is both acceptable to the Trump base and to more traditional Republicans.
The corporation tax hike won't look so bad when other countries decide to pay their Covid costs that way.
Exactly - the assumption that all of our competitors will fund their recovery without touching business taxes at all is pretty unrealistic.
I think many of our competitors are going to fund their recoveries by continuing to monetize debt.
The economies of some of our competitors either did not shrink as much as ours, or were never closed down as much as ours, or are opening up much faster than ours.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
What’s more most of the businesses would have closed (permanently) anyway unless Contrarian is suggesting that the existence of the novel coronavirus could have been somehow kept secret. People were (and largely still are) crapping themselves. They would have voted with their feet. Not to mention the staggering effects on the economy of so many working age people being off sick from work, with a not insignificant number actually dying.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I wonder what the smallest place in the UK to have its name in a constituency name is?
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I wonder what the smallest place in the UK to have its name in a constituency name is?
Welcome to PB! City of London/Westminster?
That's got to be worth a shout...
I found this site back in 2019 when I was looking for good political blog posts about the parliamentary crisis. I only slowly migrated onto looking at the comments but since then I have come to the conclusion this is one of the best discussion forums I've lurked in. Not just politics, great analysis of all sorts of things going on here.
I've never felt the need to post as someone else has usually made the point or asked the question, and put it better too.
But a vote of thanks from me, and any other lurkers who feel the same way.
Having broken the duck I may post if the mood takes.
I came into this discussion thinking that the legacy UK parties were permafucked and the SNP would simply romp to yet another victory.
However, I granted our guest authors the courtesy of reading their piece in full, anyway.
The legacy UK parties are probably* permafucked and the SNP is probably* going to romp to yet another victory.
*By probably I mean certainly, of course. The Conservatives and Labour don't merely have 'a lot of work to do in the next two months' to make significant progress. They need to build, test and commission a mind-control field generator that can successfully reprogram the brains of the entire population. Not even the Chinese have figured out how to make that happen.
You could gave written that about Labour in Scotland 30 years ago
So maybe the SNP only has thirty years left in power? You may very well be right. It depends rather on how long it actually takes them to get independence over the finishing line.
I don't doubt that there are Scots who still feel British but they're a minority and, I think you'll find, a shrinking one at that - something that will be brutally laid bare by the results of this year's census, when I expect that the ratio of British to English/Scottish/Welsh/(Northern) Irish identification will have changed markedly all over the UK since 2011.
The only thing that's holding the Union together now is money. If the average Scottish voter thought that she would be £1 per year better off out than in, she'd be off like a shot.
The most recent poll was 50/50 and independence falling in the polls and this before these hearings
It is no means certain that Scotland will vote for independence
Well, there's a long way to go, and we shall see.
The Achilles' heel of the independence movement is, as I said before, money. If a large part of the Scottish electorate didn't believe that separation would put their taxes up then they'd have voted to go in 2014. And it could yet do for the nationalists again - although quite why the maintenance of a state that's held together mainly by bribery is something that is either morally healthy or to be desired is never adequately explained.
OTOH 'you will be poorer if you do this' was the central theme of David Cameron's campaign to vanquish Brexit, and look what became of him.
You’re somewhat ignoring the 30-40% of Scots who are passionately Unionist. There’s plenty of them. Probably about the same as there are passionate Nats.
This is one reason I believe Indy would be a tragedy - for Scotland. It would make Brexit look like a harmonious decision which brought peace to the nation. Indy would unleash demons, and sow decades of bitterness. Ending a 300 year old union would be emotionally explosive (and economically ruinous)
Scotland is not Ireland in 1921 when the large majority of Catholics had a settled will for secession. Scotland is grievously divided.
If Sturgeon gets her maj and seeks Indy, Boris must be the statesman, which will be hard for him. Even as he refuses a vote he must search for compromise, to save Scots and Brits from many more years of rancour
62% of the Scottish population answered the national identity question in the 2011 census as "Scottish only" and the number will only have moved in one direction in the subsequent decade. I don't believe that there's this vast reservoir of committed unionists. There will certainly be some committed unionists, and another tranche of pragmatic unionists, and a fair number of people who just sort of sit around in the middle as well, but I somehow doubt that there's this ocean of pro-Union sentiment out there in Scotland, any more than there was of pro-EU sentiment in Britain in 2016. It's a niche interest.
As I said, the swing vote in Scotland consists of middle-class waverers who fear that independence will hit them in their bank balances and pension pots. It's why the campaign in 2014 revolved principally around sterling, state pensions and the Barnett formula. Britain is held together by money. There is nothing else left.
Sturgeon just has to convince enough that the Brussels money tree will replace London's. (It won't of course but by the time they realise that it will be too late).
I suspect too many of us are thinking of the SNP as a mere political party rather than an African style liberation movement. Corruption and incompetence are irrelevant to the faithful, only the cause matters. Hatred of the Tories (i.e. the English) has become for nationalists a defining characteristic of Scottish identity just as Anglophobia is in Ireland. If independence comes to pass the SNP will continue to blame London for Scotland's problems (probably successfully) for at least 30 years.
I am surprised how sanguine so many others are at the prospect of the break up of the UK. If Lincoln had had the same attitude in 1861 we might still have actual slave traders today rather than just old statues of them.
The relaxed attitude amazes me as well. Oh, Scottish independence, no problem
Scottish independence would guarantee political chaos for a decade. As we disentangle 300 years of union. More immediately it means instant economic emergency. Sindy Scotland would default immediately, and be plunged into Depression. rUK would follow with an intense recession, or worse. All this as we try to recover from the worst crisis since WW2. With debt over 100%
London might itself default, or be forced to print money like Mugabe
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
I thought that until I heard Ron de Santis. If you have a business, we have your back. IF you want to send your child to school, you can. We are not shutting down. And that was through the winter
We are now in spring and we have the vaccine.
If Johnson opened up tomorrow, he might have saved something. But he is going to continue with this for months. The real damage is being done now. its insanity.
Ron DeSantis - likely GOP nominee in 2024
Hell I wish we had him. The gonads to defy lockdown through the winter!
He has given us a template for how conservatives should have always handled the pandemic. And it makes our 'conservatives' look like sh8t.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
You get some rather bland names in some areas, unfortuntely, as even though it is absolutely common for seats to be named after the principal settlement some people surrounding them pitch a fit.
In my area they sought to change a very bland compass point county name constituency (which itself was newly created from one named from a town), to be consistent with the rest of the county, and people went nuts, so they tried a compromise instead.
In America, of course, you get Soviet style names like "Maine Congressional District #1"
They just don't know how to do elections right at all. The joys being the Member for The Wreckin, Mole Valley, or Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Scotland seems to have a lot of three named seats), of standing next to a guy with a bin on his head at 3am even when you are PM, of not being able to resign without being appointed Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, of not being able to take up office afterwards, without swearing (even if with fingers crossed) allegiance to a 95 year old figurehead, THAT'S how you do elections.
The corporation tax hike won't look so bad when other countries decide to pay their Covid costs that way.
Exactly - the assumption that all of our competitors will fund their recovery without touching business taxes at all is pretty unrealistic.
I think many of our competitors are going to fund their recoveries by continuing to monetize debt.
The economies of some of our competitors either did not shrink as much as ours, or were never closed down as much as ours, or are opening up much faster than ours.
I’d watch this space in respect of “opening up much faster”.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
I thought that until I heard Ron de Santis. If you have a business, we have your back. IF you want to send your child to school, you can. We are not shutting down. And that was through the winter
We are now in spring and we have the vaccine.
If Johnson opened up tomorrow, he might have saved something. But he is going to continue with this for months. The real damage is being done now. its insanity.
Ron DeSantis - likely GOP nominee in 2024
Hell I wish we had him. The gonads to defy lockdown through the winter!
He has given us a template for how conservatives should have always handled the pandemic. And it makes our 'conservatives' look like sh8t.
Yes, the way US conservatives lost control of all branches of government in the last few months really showed us...
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
The critics are right tho. Hiking Corp tax so drastically is self harming.
Yes, there have to be taxes. But not this.
A tax on property was probably the best way, along with 2-3 points on Corp tax, keeping us symbolically and importantly below most of Europe.
Yes, 22% would be a reasonable level. My fear about such a hike is that it will be self defeating.
How much does an employee pay in income tax and NI ?
Difficult to convince them that 'bosses' should pay a lower rate.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
I thought that until I heard Ron de Santis. If you have a business, we have your back. IF you want to send your child to school, you can. We are not shutting down. And that was through the winter
We are now in spring and we have the vaccine.
If Johnson opened up tomorrow, he might have saved something. But he is going to continue with this for months. The real damage is being done now. its insanity.
Ron DeSantis - likely GOP nominee in 2024
Hell I wish we had him. The gonads to defy lockdown through the winter!
He has given us a template for how conservatives should have always handled the pandemic. And it makes our 'conservatives' look like sh8t.
That's a little misleading, because DeSantis - unlike some other Governors - gave counties and cities wide latitude to set their own Covid rules.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I wonder what the smallest place in the UK to have its name in a constituency name is?
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I wonder what the smallest place in the UK to have its name in a constituency name is?
Welcome to PB! City of London/Westminster?
That's got to be worth a shout...
I found this site back in 2019 when I was looking for good political blog posts about the parliamentary crisis. I only slowly migrated onto looking at the comments but since then I have come to the conclusion this is one of the best discussion forums I've lurked in. Not just politics, great analysis of all sorts of things going on here.
I've never felt the need to post as someone else has usually made the point or asked the question, and put it better too.
But a vote of thanks from me, and any other lurkers who feel the same way.
Having broken the duck I may post if the mood takes.
Welcome. You do that. Badenoch has to be a contender. Never heard of it other than the succinctly named Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. Which is nailed on for least user friendly name.
If you have not yet had a chance to play Hitman 3, then they should. It's a ridiculously good game topping off a genuinely excellent trilogy.
If you look at my video game playing, 90% of it in the last five years has been Civ6 and Hitman.
Sadly, they only accounted for 10% of video game spend.
Mega backlog. I've been working my way through the PS+ collection on PS5. Some really good games in it.
I've been trying to work my way through my Steam collection - I'm still in the As.
(Ash of Gods, a decentish, so far, turn based RPG which in gameplay, art style and story structure is a complete copy of The Banner Saga - which was compelling, so I'm fine with that)
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
The critics are right tho. Hiking Corp tax so drastically is self harming.
Yes, there have to be taxes. But not this.
A tax on property was probably the best way, along with 2-3 points on Corp tax, keeping us symbolically and importantly below most of Europe.
Yes, 22% would be a reasonable level. My fear about such a hike is that it will be self defeating.
How much does an employee pay in income tax and NI ?
Difficult to convince them that 'bosses' should pay a lower rate.
All taxation falls ultimately on individuals. If you are willing to change income tax so that you can reclaim corporation tax paid, then that's one thing, otherwise you're going to be taxing the same profits repeatedly.
I came into this discussion thinking that the legacy UK parties were permafucked and the SNP would simply romp to yet another victory.
However, I granted our guest authors the courtesy of reading their piece in full, anyway.
The legacy UK parties are probably* permafucked and the SNP is probably* going to romp to yet another victory.
*By probably I mean certainly, of course. The Conservatives and Labour don't merely have 'a lot of work to do in the next two months' to make significant progress. They need to build, test and commission a mind-control field generator that can successfully reprogram the brains of the entire population. Not even the Chinese have figured out how to make that happen.
You could gave written that about Labour in Scotland 30 years ago
So maybe the SNP only has thirty years left in power? You may very well be right. It depends rather on how long it actually takes them to get independence over the finishing line.
I don't doubt that there are Scots who still feel British but they're a minority and, I think you'll find, a shrinking one at that - something that will be brutally laid bare by the results of this year's census, when I expect that the ratio of British to English/Scottish/Welsh/(Northern) Irish identification will have changed markedly all over the UK since 2011.
The only thing that's holding the Union together now is money. If the average Scottish voter thought that she would be £1 per year better off out than in, she'd be off like a shot.
The most recent poll was 50/50 and independence falling in the polls and this before these hearings
It is no means certain that Scotland will vote for independence
Well, there's a long way to go, and we shall see.
The Achilles' heel of the independence movement is, as I said before, money. If a large part of the Scottish electorate didn't believe that separation would put their taxes up then they'd have voted to go in 2014. And it could yet do for the nationalists again - although quite why the maintenance of a state that's held together mainly by bribery is something that is either morally healthy or to be desired is never adequately explained.
OTOH 'you will be poorer if you do this' was the central theme of David Cameron's campaign to vanquish Brexit, and look what became of him.
You’re somewhat ignoring the 30-40% of Scots who are passionately Unionist. There’s plenty of them. Probably about the same as there are passionate Nats.
This is one reason I believe Indy would be a tragedy - for Scotland. It would make Brexit look like a harmonious decision which brought peace to the nation. Indy would unleash demons, and sow decades of bitterness. Ending a 300 year old union would be emotionally explosive (and economically ruinous)
Scotland is not Ireland in 1921 when the large majority of Catholics had a settled will for secession. Scotland is grievously divided.
If Sturgeon gets her maj and seeks Indy, Boris must be the statesman, which will be hard for him. Even as he refuses a vote he must search for compromise, to save Scots and Brits from many more years of rancour
62% of the Scottish population answered the national identity question in the 2011 census as "Scottish only" and the number will only have moved in one direction in the subsequent decade. I don't believe that there's this vast reservoir of committed unionists. There will certainly be some committed unionists, and another tranche of pragmatic unionists, and a fair number of people who just sort of sit around in the middle as well, but I somehow doubt that there's this ocean of pro-Union sentiment out there in Scotland, any more than there was of pro-EU sentiment in Britain in 2016. It's a niche interest.
As I said, the swing vote in Scotland consists of middle-class waverers who fear that independence will hit them in their bank balances and pension pots. It's why the campaign in 2014 revolved principally around sterling, state pensions and the Barnett formula. Britain is held together by money. There is nothing else left.
Sturgeon just has to convince enough that the Brussels money tree will replace London's. (It won't of course but by the time they realise that it will be too late).
I suspect too many of us are thinking of the SNP as a mere political party rather than an African style liberation movement. Corruption and incompetence are irrelevant to the faithful, only the cause matters. Hatred of the Tories (i.e. the English) has become for nationalists a defining characteristic of Scottish identity just as Anglophobia is in Ireland. If independence comes to pass the SNP will continue to blame London for Scotland's problems (probably successfully) for at least 30 years.
I am surprised how sanguine so many others are at the prospect of the break up of the UK. If Lincoln had had the same attitude in 1861 we might still have actual slave traders today rather than just old statues of them.
The relaxed attitude amazes me as well. Oh, Scottish independence, no problem
Scottish independence would guarantee political chaos for a decade. As we disentangle 300 years of union. More immediately it means instant economic emergency. Sindy Scotland would default immediately, and be plunged into Depression. rUK would follow with an intense recession, or worse. All this as we try to recover from the worst crisis since WW2. With debt over 100%
London might itself default, or be forced to print money like Mugabe
It is insane
Ridiculous pessimism?
Sadly, realism.
We’ve all seen how painful, expensive and destabilising Brexit has been. And that was a departure from a quasi-union with trading rules 40 years after we joined. Sindy would be Brexit times 100: splitting up a unitary state after 300 years
FWIW I am sure both sides could prosper, eventuality. After 10-20 years. But those years would be GRIM
One factor that I think is worth bearing in mind is if Sunak's sums are right and the UK has eliminated its deficit in one swoop today then there should be no further tax rises to come.
Other countries that haven't done this yet will have to either raise their taxes or cut spending to fix their deficits at some point so comparing tax rates across countries might be slightly premature.
Are we confident they are correct? Doesn't smell right to me. Because, as we all know, the Corporation Tax rises will lead to a huge fall in revenue, won't they?
Well yes that is what a lot of us are saying . . .
I think its a stupid, stupid, stupid tax rise that should be reversed.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I wonder what the smallest place in the UK to have its name in a constituency name is?
Welcome to PB! City of London/Westminster?
That's got to be worth a shout...
I found this site back in 2019 when I was looking for good political blog posts about the parliamentary crisis. I only slowly migrated onto looking at the comments but since then I have come to the conclusion this is one of the best discussion forums I've lurked in. Not just politics, great analysis of all sorts of things going on here.
I've never felt the need to post as someone else has usually made the point or asked the question, and put it better too.
But a vote of thanks from me, and any other lurkers who feel the same way.
Having broken the duck I may post if the mood takes.
Welcome. You do that. Badenoch has to be a contender. Never heard of it other than the succinctly named Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. Which is nailed on for least user friendly name.
I think Radnor must have it, if that is discounted as being really a reference to the old shire of Radnor then Meriden would seem to be the one. Fascinating stuff.
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I wonder what the smallest place in the UK to have its name in a constituency name is?
Welcome to PB! City of London/Westminster?
That's got to be worth a shout...
I found this site back in 2019 when I was looking for good political blog posts about the parliamentary crisis. I only slowly migrated onto looking at the comments but since then I have come to the conclusion this is one of the best discussion forums I've lurked in. Not just politics, great analysis of all sorts of things going on here.
I've never felt the need to post as someone else has usually made the point or asked the question, and put it better too.
But a vote of thanks from me, and any other lurkers who feel the same way.
Having broken the duck I may post if the mood takes.
Welcome. You do that. Badenoch has to be a contender. Never heard of it other than the succinctly named Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. Which is nailed on for least user friendly name.
Badenoch is a district, not a town. District capital was Kingussie.
One factor that I think is worth bearing in mind is if Sunak's sums are right and the UK has eliminated its deficit in one swoop today then there should be no further tax rises to come.
Other countries that haven't done this yet will have to either raise their taxes or cut spending to fix their deficits at some point so comparing tax rates across countries might be slightly premature.
Are we confident they are correct? Doesn't smell right to me. Because, as we all know, the Corporation Tax rises will lead to a huge fall in revenue, won't they?
Well yes that is what a lot of us are saying . . .
I think its a stupid, stupid, stupid tax rise that should be reversed.
I agree. But where does the money come from, then?
Jim Hacker, on being asked for a loan to save Aston Wanderers, was told it would give him a safe seat for life as a local hero.
‘Yes,’ he mused. ‘That might strike the press, too. And the opposition. And the judge.’
Pretty sure the rather silly named Richmond (Yorks) seat is already a safe seat for life.
The message to other red wall towns is:
Vote Tory, get £1 billion.
Not exactly subtle but it may well work given so many of them are now marginal.
(Incidentally, what’s so silly about naming a seat after the main town in it?)
Actually, isn't Northallerton bigger?
Depends on whether you include the Catterick base or not.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Brixham is bigger than Totnes - but not in the constituency name.
And Ponteland is bigger than Hexham. And Prudhoe almost as well.
I wonder what the smallest place in the UK to have its name in a constituency name is?
Welcome to PB! City of London/Westminster?
That's got to be worth a shout...
I found this site back in 2019 when I was looking for good political blog posts about the parliamentary crisis. I only slowly migrated onto looking at the comments but since then I have come to the conclusion this is one of the best discussion forums I've lurked in. Not just politics, great analysis of all sorts of things going on here.
I've never felt the need to post as someone else has usually made the point or asked the question, and put it better too.
But a vote of thanks from me, and any other lurkers who feel the same way.
Having broken the duck I may post if the mood takes.
Welcome. You do that. Badenoch has to be a contender. Never heard of it other than the succinctly named Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. Which is nailed on for least user friendly name.
I think Radnor must have it, if that is discounted as being really a reference to the old shire of Radnor then Meriden would seem to be the one. Fascinating stuff.
Yes, I think that is the only four part name?
Technically the name of the constituency is ‘Brecon and Radnorshire,’ even though it’s always called ‘Brecon and Radnor,’ so I’m thinking @another_richard has got it with Meriden.
One factor that I think is worth bearing in mind is if Sunak's sums are right and the UK has eliminated its deficit in one swoop today then there should be no further tax rises to come.
Other countries that haven't done this yet will have to either raise their taxes or cut spending to fix their deficits at some point so comparing tax rates across countries might be slightly premature.
Are we confident they are correct? Doesn't smell right to me. Because, as we all know, the Corporation Tax rises will lead to a huge fall in revenue, won't they?
Well yes that is what a lot of us are saying . . .
I think its a stupid, stupid, stupid tax rise that should be reversed.
I agree. But where does the money come from, then?
Do you have any great great grandchildren by any chance?
I came into this discussion thinking that the legacy UK parties were permafucked and the SNP would simply romp to yet another victory.
However, I granted our guest authors the courtesy of reading their piece in full, anyway.
The legacy UK parties are probably* permafucked and the SNP is probably* going to romp to yet another victory.
*By probably I mean certainly, of course. The Conservatives and Labour don't merely have 'a lot of work to do in the next two months' to make significant progress. They need to build, test and commission a mind-control field generator that can successfully reprogram the brains of the entire population. Not even the Chinese have figured out how to make that happen.
You could gave written that about Labour in Scotland 30 years ago
So maybe the SNP only has thirty years left in power? You may very well be right. It depends rather on how long it actually takes them to get independence over the finishing line.
I don't doubt that there are Scots who still feel British but they're a minority and, I think you'll find, a shrinking one at that - something that will be brutally laid bare by the results of this year's census, when I expect that the ratio of British to English/Scottish/Welsh/(Northern) Irish identification will have changed markedly all over the UK since 2011.
The only thing that's holding the Union together now is money. If the average Scottish voter thought that she would be £1 per year better off out than in, she'd be off like a shot.
The most recent poll was 50/50 and independence falling in the polls and this before these hearings
It is no means certain that Scotland will vote for independence
Well, there's a long way to go, and we shall see.
The Achilles' heel of the independence movement is, as I said before, money. If a large part of the Scottish electorate didn't believe that separation would put their taxes up then they'd have voted to go in 2014. And it could yet do for the nationalists again - although quite why the maintenance of a state that's held together mainly by bribery is something that is either morally healthy or to be desired is never adequately explained.
OTOH 'you will be poorer if you do this' was the central theme of David Cameron's campaign to vanquish Brexit, and look what became of him.
You’re somewhat ignoring the 30-40% of Scots who are passionately Unionist. There’s plenty of them. Probably about the same as there are passionate Nats.
This is one reason I believe Indy would be a tragedy - for Scotland. It would make Brexit look like a harmonious decision which brought peace to the nation. Indy would unleash demons, and sow decades of bitterness. Ending a 300 year old union would be emotionally explosive (and economically ruinous)
Scotland is not Ireland in 1921 when the large majority of Catholics had a settled will for secession. Scotland is grievously divided.
If Sturgeon gets her maj and seeks Indy, Boris must be the statesman, which will be hard for him. Even as he refuses a vote he must search for compromise, to save Scots and Brits from many more years of rancour
62% of the Scottish population answered the national identity question in the 2011 census as "Scottish only" and the number will only have moved in one direction in the subsequent decade. I don't believe that there's this vast reservoir of committed unionists. There will certainly be some committed unionists, and another tranche of pragmatic unionists, and a fair number of people who just sort of sit around in the middle as well, but I somehow doubt that there's this ocean of pro-Union sentiment out there in Scotland, any more than there was of pro-EU sentiment in Britain in 2016. It's a niche interest.
As I said, the swing vote in Scotland consists of middle-class waverers who fear that independence will hit them in their bank balances and pension pots. It's why the campaign in 2014 revolved principally around sterling, state pensions and the Barnett formula. Britain is held together by money. There is nothing else left.
Sturgeon just has to convince enough that the Brussels money tree will replace London's. (It won't of course but by the time they realise that it will be too late).
I suspect too many of us are thinking of the SNP as a mere political party rather than an African style liberation movement. Corruption and incompetence are irrelevant to the faithful, only the cause matters. Hatred of the Tories (i.e. the English) has become for nationalists a defining characteristic of Scottish identity just as Anglophobia is in Ireland. If independence comes to pass the SNP will continue to blame London for Scotland's problems (probably successfully) for at least 30 years.
I am surprised how sanguine so many others are at the prospect of the break up of the UK. If Lincoln had had the same attitude in 1861 we might still have actual slave traders today rather than just old statues of them.
The relaxed attitude amazes me as well. Oh, Scottish independence, no problem
Scottish independence would guarantee political chaos for a decade. As we disentangle 300 years of union. More immediately it means instant economic emergency. Sindy Scotland would default immediately, and be plunged into Depression. rUK would follow with an intense recession, or worse. All this as we try to recover from the worst crisis since WW2. With debt over 100%
London might itself default, or be forced to print money like Mugabe
It is insane
Ridiculous pessimism?
Sadly, realism.
We’ve all seen how painful, expensive and destabilising Brexit has been. And that was a departure from a quasi-union with trading rules 40 years after we joined. Sindy would be Brexit times 100: splitting up a unitary state after 300 years
FWIW I am sure both sides could prosper, eventuality. After 10-20 years. But those years would be GRIM
What would your pessimistic take on Scottish independence look like?
I came into this discussion thinking that the legacy UK parties were permafucked and the SNP would simply romp to yet another victory.
However, I granted our guest authors the courtesy of reading their piece in full, anyway.
The legacy UK parties are probably* permafucked and the SNP is probably* going to romp to yet another victory.
*By probably I mean certainly, of course. The Conservatives and Labour don't merely have 'a lot of work to do in the next two months' to make significant progress. They need to build, test and commission a mind-control field generator that can successfully reprogram the brains of the entire population. Not even the Chinese have figured out how to make that happen.
You could gave written that about Labour in Scotland 30 years ago
So maybe the SNP only has thirty years left in power? You may very well be right. It depends rather on how long it actually takes them to get independence over the finishing line.
I don't doubt that there are Scots who still feel British but they're a minority and, I think you'll find, a shrinking one at that - something that will be brutally laid bare by the results of this year's census, when I expect that the ratio of British to English/Scottish/Welsh/(Northern) Irish identification will have changed markedly all over the UK since 2011.
The only thing that's holding the Union together now is money. If the average Scottish voter thought that she would be £1 per year better off out than in, she'd be off like a shot.
The most recent poll was 50/50 and independence falling in the polls and this before these hearings
It is no means certain that Scotland will vote for independence
Well, there's a long way to go, and we shall see.
The Achilles' heel of the independence movement is, as I said before, money. If a large part of the Scottish electorate didn't believe that separation would put their taxes up then they'd have voted to go in 2014. And it could yet do for the nationalists again - although quite why the maintenance of a state that's held together mainly by bribery is something that is either morally healthy or to be desired is never adequately explained.
OTOH 'you will be poorer if you do this' was the central theme of David Cameron's campaign to vanquish Brexit, and look what became of him.
You’re somewhat ignoring the 30-40% of Scots who are passionately Unionist. There’s plenty of them. Probably about the same as there are passionate Nats.
This is one reason I believe Indy would be a tragedy - for Scotland. It would make Brexit look like a harmonious decision which brought peace to the nation. Indy would unleash demons, and sow decades of bitterness. Ending a 300 year old union would be emotionally explosive (and economically ruinous)
Scotland is not Ireland in 1921 when the large majority of Catholics had a settled will for secession. Scotland is grievously divided.
If Sturgeon gets her maj and seeks Indy, Boris must be the statesman, which will be hard for him. Even as he refuses a vote he must search for compromise, to save Scots and Brits from many more years of rancour
62% of the Scottish population answered the national identity question in the 2011 census as "Scottish only" and the number will only have moved in one direction in the subsequent decade. I don't believe that there's this vast reservoir of committed unionists. There will certainly be some committed unionists, and another tranche of pragmatic unionists, and a fair number of people who just sort of sit around in the middle as well, but I somehow doubt that there's this ocean of pro-Union sentiment out there in Scotland, any more than there was of pro-EU sentiment in Britain in 2016. It's a niche interest.
As I said, the swing vote in Scotland consists of middle-class waverers who fear that independence will hit them in their bank balances and pension pots. It's why the campaign in 2014 revolved principally around sterling, state pensions and the Barnett formula. Britain is held together by money. There is nothing else left.
Sturgeon just has to convince enough that the Brussels money tree will replace London's. (It won't of course but by the time they realise that it will be too late).
I suspect too many of us are thinking of the SNP as a mere political party rather than an African style liberation movement. Corruption and incompetence are irrelevant to the faithful, only the cause matters. Hatred of the Tories (i.e. the English) has become for nationalists a defining characteristic of Scottish identity just as Anglophobia is in Ireland. If independence comes to pass the SNP will continue to blame London for Scotland's problems (probably successfully) for at least 30 years.
I am surprised how sanguine so many others are at the prospect of the break up of the UK. If Lincoln had had the same attitude in 1861 we might still have actual slave traders today rather than just old statues of them.
The relaxed attitude amazes me as well. Oh, Scottish independence, no problem
Scottish independence would guarantee political chaos for a decade. As we disentangle 300 years of union. More immediately it means instant economic emergency. Sindy Scotland would default immediately, and be plunged into Depression. rUK would follow with an intense recession, or worse. All this as we try to recover from the worst crisis since WW2. With debt over 100%
London might itself default, or be forced to print money like Mugabe
It is insane
Ridiculous pessimism?
Sadly, realism.
We’ve all seen how painful, expensive and destabilising Brexit has been. And that was a departure from a quasi-union with trading rules 40 years after we joined. Sindy would be Brexit times 100: splitting up a unitary state after 300 years
FWIW I am sure both sides could prosper, eventuality. After 10-20 years. But those years would be GRIM
What would your pessimistic take on Scottish independence look like?
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
The critics are right tho. Hiking Corp tax so drastically is self harming.
Yes, there have to be taxes. But not this.
A tax on property was probably the best way, along with 2-3 points on Corp tax, keeping us symbolically and importantly below most of Europe.
Yes, 22% would be a reasonable level. My fear about such a hike is that it will be self defeating.
How much does an employee pay in income tax and NI ?
Difficult to convince them that 'bosses' should pay a lower rate.
All taxation falls ultimately on individuals. If you are willing to change income tax so that you can reclaim corporation tax paid, then that's one thing, otherwise you're going to be taxing the same profits repeatedly.
But which individuals.
"Why should people like me be paying more than people like them ..."
You'll struggle to convince the average voter that 25% corporation tax on profits over 250k is too high when income tax is 40% on earnings over £50k.
Allister Heath reckons the tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced the European politics of decline.
Yep.
WTF else are the Tories going to do? Tell the Red Wall seats (which they need) to get on their bikes and find work.
I'm confused why contrarian isn't happy about the budget. The deficit, which he has been going on about for months now, will be entirely gone in a few years.
I don;t think so.
The economy is not and will not be big enough to support the weight of debt and spending that has been piled on it now and in the future.
It simply won't yield enough revenues, no matter how high taxes are.
The weight of debt? A significant chunk of that is QE, so it isn't really owed to anyone at all. As for spending being pilled on, that's not what the OBR forecasts suggest.
YOu may have noticed that lockdown goes on until June, furlough til October and the government itself does not think the economy will be back up to pre covid speed until summer 2022.
How much extra are we borrowing between now and then on top of the 2.1tn we already owe? and at what rates FFS? US long rates are already rising.
We simply are not going to sustain this. Especially as Johnson had decreed that every pound of spending is sacred. We are going to fall short. Far short.
Relaxation starts before June, doesn't it, and furlough will only be for those companies that are compelled to cease operation. It isn't as if the scheme is going to be utilised by everyone, and then suddenly by no one.
As for sustaining it, no one is suggesting that will happen.
Look what the tories have done to the private sector of Great Britain in the last year. Not covid, the tories. Via enforced closure of business by fiat, something that has never happened in our country.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Any government of any colour would have done the same. You seem to imply they are relishing the opportunity to shut down businesses and keep everyone in their homes. An utterly ridiculous suggestion.
I thought that until I heard Ron de Santis. If you have a business, we have your back. IF you want to send your child to school, you can. We are not shutting down. And that was through the winter
We are now in spring and we have the vaccine.
If Johnson opened up tomorrow, he might have saved something. But he is going to continue with this for months. The real damage is being done now. its insanity.
But that's what the furlough scheme is, support for businesses when they are forced to close? Or are you simultaneously complaining about the lack of support and the magnitude of the support at the same time?
The damage is temporary, there isn't any structural damage like in a war. You are so ridiculously pessimistic on this subject it is unreal.
I think that we will see major structural changes from this pandemic. A lot of businesses will never reopen, and High Streets won't be the same. Internet shopping, WFH and Zoom are all here to stay.
There will be winners and losers, but certainly a highly speeded up decade of change in a year or so.
Weirdly there are a lot more seats beginning with North and South than there are seats which begin with East or West. Something about the way towns or counties can naturally be divided, or coincidental?
I am a fan of the regular complaints around election time of constituency names in cities where there are cardinal directions, but for one, so you get cities without a south. Newcastle seems to have an East, North and Central.
I came into this discussion thinking that the legacy UK parties were permafucked and the SNP would simply romp to yet another victory.
However, I granted our guest authors the courtesy of reading their piece in full, anyway.
The legacy UK parties are probably* permafucked and the SNP is probably* going to romp to yet another victory.
*By probably I mean certainly, of course. The Conservatives and Labour don't merely have 'a lot of work to do in the next two months' to make significant progress. They need to build, test and commission a mind-control field generator that can successfully reprogram the brains of the entire population. Not even the Chinese have figured out how to make that happen.
You could gave written that about Labour in Scotland 30 years ago
So maybe the SNP only has thirty years left in power? You may very well be right. It depends rather on how long it actually takes them to get independence over the finishing line.
I don't doubt that there are Scots who still feel British but they're a minority and, I think you'll find, a shrinking one at that - something that will be brutally laid bare by the results of this year's census, when I expect that the ratio of British to English/Scottish/Welsh/(Northern) Irish identification will have changed markedly all over the UK since 2011.
The only thing that's holding the Union together now is money. If the average Scottish voter thought that she would be £1 per year better off out than in, she'd be off like a shot.
The most recent poll was 50/50 and independence falling in the polls and this before these hearings
It is no means certain that Scotland will vote for independence
Well, there's a long way to go, and we shall see.
The Achilles' heel of the independence movement is, as I said before, money. If a large part of the Scottish electorate didn't believe that separation would put their taxes up then they'd have voted to go in 2014. And it could yet do for the nationalists again - although quite why the maintenance of a state that's held together mainly by bribery is something that is either morally healthy or to be desired is never adequately explained.
OTOH 'you will be poorer if you do this' was the central theme of David Cameron's campaign to vanquish Brexit, and look what became of him.
You’re somewhat ignoring the 30-40% of Scots who are passionately Unionist. There’s plenty of them. Probably about the same as there are passionate Nats.
This is one reason I believe Indy would be a tragedy - for Scotland. It would make Brexit look like a harmonious decision which brought peace to the nation. Indy would unleash demons, and sow decades of bitterness. Ending a 300 year old union would be emotionally explosive (and economically ruinous)
Scotland is not Ireland in 1921 when the large majority of Catholics had a settled will for secession. Scotland is grievously divided.
If Sturgeon gets her maj and seeks Indy, Boris must be the statesman, which will be hard for him. Even as he refuses a vote he must search for compromise, to save Scots and Brits from many more years of rancour
62% of the Scottish population answered the national identity question in the 2011 census as "Scottish only" and the number will only have moved in one direction in the subsequent decade. I don't believe that there's this vast reservoir of committed unionists. There will certainly be some committed unionists, and another tranche of pragmatic unionists, and a fair number of people who just sort of sit around in the middle as well, but I somehow doubt that there's this ocean of pro-Union sentiment out there in Scotland, any more than there was of pro-EU sentiment in Britain in 2016. It's a niche interest.
As I said, the swing vote in Scotland consists of middle-class waverers who fear that independence will hit them in their bank balances and pension pots. It's why the campaign in 2014 revolved principally around sterling, state pensions and the Barnett formula. Britain is held together by money. There is nothing else left.
Sturgeon just has to convince enough that the Brussels money tree will replace London's. (It won't of course but by the time they realise that it will be too late).
I suspect too many of us are thinking of the SNP as a mere political party rather than an African style liberation movement. Corruption and incompetence are irrelevant to the faithful, only the cause matters. Hatred of the Tories (i.e. the English) has become for nationalists a defining characteristic of Scottish identity just as Anglophobia is in Ireland. If independence comes to pass the SNP will continue to blame London for Scotland's problems (probably successfully) for at least 30 years.
I am surprised how sanguine so many others are at the prospect of the break up of the UK. If Lincoln had had the same attitude in 1861 we might still have actual slave traders today rather than just old statues of them.
The relaxed attitude amazes me as well. Oh, Scottish independence, no problem
Scottish independence would guarantee political chaos for a decade. As we disentangle 300 years of union. More immediately it means instant economic emergency. Sindy Scotland would default immediately, and be plunged into Depression. rUK would follow with an intense recession, or worse. All this as we try to recover from the worst crisis since WW2. With debt over 100%
London might itself default, or be forced to print money like Mugabe
It is insane
Worth it if we don't have to listen to the whinging whining Scots any more...
Comments
For some reason it isn't just Richmond (the London seat is Richmond Park, so that shouldn't matter).
But no, I won't give you a guarantee, because there's no such thing in life.
Richmondshire is Richmond, Catterick and the Dales
Now there are plenty of affluent people who live in Richmondshire but few of them work there - they work in Leeds, York, Harrogate or Teesside.
Now Look what you and that idiot Johnson are expecting that private sector to do in the next 18 months.
Its like asking a jet engine you hammered with a sledgehammer to power you into the stratosphere, after you added massive weight to the cargo bay.
It. is.going.to.crash.and.burn.
Says Northallerton - and it looks to be in it on OS maps.
I guess Richmond is more central to the seat.
Although I agree, it would make more sense to call it ‘Richmond and Northallerton.’ There cannot be many county towns anywhere in the UK that don’t have their names in the local constituency.
Edit. - the only other examples I can think of offhand are West Bridgford, which is in the Rushcliffe constituency, and Morpeth, which is in Wansbeck.Are there any more?
The perfect storm is left wing policies implemented by people with grave reservations about doing so.
The worst outcome is left wing policies enacted with zeal.
The middle ground is Conservatives maintaining the status quo
Other countries that haven't done this yet will have to either raise their taxes or cut spending to fix their deficits at some point so comparing tax rates across countries might be slightly premature.
https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1367187418340851724
If you have not yet had a chance to play Hitman 3, then you should. It's a ridiculously good game topping off a genuinely excellent trilogy.
If you look at my video game playing, 90% of it in the last five years has been Civ6 and Hitman.
Yes, there have to be taxes. But not this.
A tax on property was probably the best way, along with 2-3 points on Corp tax, keeping us symbolically and importantly below most of Europe.
I suspect too many of us are thinking of the SNP as a mere political party rather than an African style liberation movement. Corruption and incompetence are irrelevant to the faithful, only the cause matters. Hatred of the Tories (i.e. the English) has become for nationalists a defining characteristic of Scottish identity just as Anglophobia is in Ireland. If independence comes to pass the SNP will continue to blame London for Scotland's problems (probably successfully) for at least 30 years.
I am surprised how sanguine so many others are at the prospect of the break up of the UK. If Lincoln had had the same attitude in 1861 we might still have actual slave traders today rather than just old statues of them.
We are now in spring and we have the vaccine.
If Johnson opened up tomorrow, he might have saved something. But he is going to continue with this for months. The real damage is being done now. its insanity.
Because, as we all know, the Corporation Tax rises will lead to a huge fall in revenue, won't they?
In my area they sought to change a very bland compass point county name constituency (which itself was newly created from one named from a town), to be consistent with the rest of the county, and people went nuts, so they tried a compromise instead.
But as the constituency isn’t coterminous with Richmondshire, containing large parts of Hambleton, why just name it after Richmond?
The damage is temporary, there isn't any structural damage like in a war. You are so ridiculously pessimistic on this subject it is unreal.
If your starting point is that The Public Must Get What The Public Wants, it's a no-brainer.
He's probably got 20 or so.
Edit - and if you’re going to be picky and rule out shires, I imagine Brecon would be a strong contender too.
Scottish independence would guarantee political chaos for a decade. As we disentangle 300 years of union. More immediately it means instant economic emergency. Sindy Scotland would default immediately, and be plunged into Depression. rUK would follow with an intense recession, or worse. All this as we try to recover from the worst crisis since WW2. With debt over 100%
London might itself default, or be forced to print money like Mugabe
It is insane
(Disclaimer: I may be long DeSantis.)
I found this site back in 2019 when I was looking for good political blog posts about the parliamentary crisis. I only slowly migrated onto looking at the comments but since then I have come to the conclusion this is one of the best discussion forums I've lurked in. Not just politics, great analysis of all sorts of things going on here.
I've never felt the need to post as someone else has usually made the point or asked the question, and put it better too.
But a vote of thanks from me, and any other lurkers who feel the same way.
Having broken the duck I may post if the mood takes.
He has given us a template for how conservatives should have always handled the pandemic. And it makes our 'conservatives' look like sh8t.
Difficult to convince them that 'bosses' should pay a lower rate.
https://twitter.com/nickeardleybbc/status/1367198599336112137?s=21
Badenoch has to be a contender.
Never heard of it other than the succinctly named Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
Which is nailed on for least user friendly name.
(Ash of Gods, a decentish, so far, turn based RPG which in gameplay, art style and story structure is a complete copy of The Banner Saga - which was compelling, so I'm fine with that)
We’ve all seen how painful, expensive and destabilising Brexit has been. And that was a departure from a quasi-union with trading rules 40 years after we joined. Sindy would be Brexit times 100: splitting up a unitary state after 300 years
FWIW I am sure both sides could prosper, eventuality. After 10-20 years. But those years would be GRIM
I think its a stupid, stupid, stupid tax rise that should be reversed.
I think Radnor must have it, if that is discounted as being really a reference to the old shire of Radnor then Meriden would seem to be the one. Fascinating stuff.
Yes, I think that is the only four part name?
"Why should people like me be paying more than people like them ..."
You'll struggle to convince the average voter that 25% corporation tax on profits over 250k is too high when income tax is 40% on earnings over £50k.
There will be winners and losers, but certainly a highly speeded up decade of change in a year or so.
I am a fan of the regular complaints around election time of constituency names in cities where there are cardinal directions, but for one, so you get cities without a south. Newcastle seems to have an East, North and Central.