NEW with @PickardJE: Johnson government will renew emergency coronavirus legislation for another six months, signalling that restrictions may need to be introduced this winter.
Tory MPs are unhappy and expect a significant rebellion (more than 30)...
@Mark_J_Harper says it should expire: "We are going to have to learn to live with this virus, and retaining sweeping powers of detention in the Coronavirus Act is not consistent with this. What justification can there be for extending these measures?"
Lets see where you are when your schools go back - the current prolonged spike that won't drop back to baseline can go surging off again. Lets see where we all are when the latest variant tears through us again. Lets see where we are when the "perhaps we need a booster for pensioners" becomes another emergency get needles in 40m arms.
Things are a lot better than they were a year ago. We won't face the same winter crisis as last winter. But the idea that it is over is wishful thinking. We all wish it was over. But it isn't.
You're right lets see where we are.
And if where we are is in a position where restrictions are to be brought back in, lets have that debated in Parliament and a new Act passed if need be.
The government should be stripped of its powers to rule by diktat without reference to Parliament.
Another UU could be another foreign policy or security fiasco; the type of situation which the Johnson ministry has recently and vividly demonstrated their incompetence. Possible scenarios:
Falklands 2.0. If occupied, they are much, much harder to retake now than in the 80s due to a much smaller RN, what ships and systems there have a greater logistical footprint and there are 2,600/1,600m runways at MPA.
Russian shittery in the Baltics. Would NATO (ie the US) do anything? If not what does Johnson do?
Chinese takeover of Taiwan. This is a racing certainty by 2030 and probably doesn't shift many votes but would further expose 'Global Britain' as the hollow marketing statement it is.
Domestic terrorism spectacular. This could be bad if it's perpetrated by somebody from among the throng that the Pritster has conspicuously failed to stop crossing the Channel.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
This is really a variant of trickle down economics. It is a policy that encourages stable families. Retirees pass down wealth to the next generation.
The next generation can build up wealth by adopting tax efficient strategies, the most obvious one being to become self employed or a company director as soon as possible in your career. Buy a house with a windfall from your parents.
The other element of this policy is to support people getting in to the system, eg by building more homes, making them affordable, and creating incentives to buy them with little capital outlay.
And the same thing can basically be done over and over again.
Working age people will not actually rebel against this in large numbers against the conservative party, because they see that they can basically benefit from the system. Many do, I see this over and over again. And it puts labour in the difficult position of having to propose benefit cuts if they are going to reduce national insurance for working age people, which of course they won't do.
I am not saying that this is a good system in any way, but it has sound political logic behind it. The tories also know that, following the dementia tax issues, there basically is no alternative for them.
Sometimes life is unfair. Do you really think that electing a labour government would work in your interest?
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
It's a myth that income tax rates are 0/20/40/45 for most people.
Once you include NI the current tax rates are (roughly):
For employed earners under 65: 0/32/42/47 For self-employed under 65: 0/29/42/47 For unearned income, or for those over 65: 0/20/40/45
For the employed you should also include Employers NI too, since salary negotiations take Employers NI into account too.
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
0/20/48/55 would be ideal tax rates for retirement incomes. Taxed at source so no escaping it either. My dad is going to have income of over £80k per year in retirement, he literally doesn't know what to do with it beyond giving it away to me and my sister and his grandkids.
Yes quite. But I thought you were against tax rises Max?
The fiscal pressure on the government is now acute. Yesterday we had the NHS saying that they need an extra £10bn, keeping the uplift in UC is another £6bn and schools are needing an extra £2-3bn to get back to 2010 after inflation. Meantime, although not quite as bad as feared, the revenue side has not yet recovered and there is the issue of the funding of Social Care. So far Rishi has been very popular: competent, proactive and happy to dosh out the money. He now faces a genuinely difficult budget and some really hard decisions which are unlikely to be popular with anyone.
For me, we will have a much better idea of how this government is going to fare once we have heard the budget and seen the reaction of the inevitably disappointed.
When is the budget? Did it get pushed back to 2022?
Looks like this is still unknown. I thought it was going to be Q4 this year. But as the article mentions we have seen the Budget moved several times recently so moving it to Q1 ie March seems distinctly possible.
What is more than possible is that there will be lots of tax raising unpleasantness if the government is serious about balancing the books
"Unpleasantness" is not something Johnson wants to have to deal with. The hard decisions will get kicked down the road past the next GE.
A lot of Covid costs are unique and 1 off. there will be some structural deficits that still need to be fixed but we don't need to repay absolutely everything spent on Covid.
Absolutely agree. But the structural deficits are going to be very big as @DavidL pointed out:
"Yesterday we had the NHS saying that they need an extra £10bn, keeping the uplift in UC is another £6bn and schools are needing an extra £2-3bn to get back to 2010 after inflation. Meantime... there is the issue of the funding of Social Care. "
Uplift in UC has gone. There was one way of keeping it and @Philip_Thompson pointed out the flaw in doing that yesterday.
Schools aren't going to see extra money and the NHS aren't going to get all that extra £10bn.
It isn't like this is tied - that working age people will pay more taxes to pay for the old. They can - and probably will - cut everyone AND make working people more taxes.
Partly because the Tories have trashed the economy*, partly because they want to ideologically. A tax on not commuting into the office to spend money on Pret is coming.
*yes Covid. But as the global financial crash was spun - successfully - as Labour trashing the economy then we may as well get started with reciprocity.
Labour did trash the economy then.
If years after the Covid the UK still has a budget deficit well over £100bn per annum then yes that'd be comparable to Labour.
Do you want a bet on that happening? I am willing to bet £50 at evens that despite Covid being more serious than the financial crisis, that the budget deficit will be a smaller percentage of GDP in 2024 than it was in 2010. Do you agree to that bet?
I don't bet. Certainly not on your straw men.
It was your straw man, I was just challenging you to defend it with a bet.
Fair play if you don't though, its not for everyone. I can respect that.
But I expect your straw man will be proven wrong. The UK in 2024 won't be like the UK in 2010, because the Tories haven't messed up the economy like Labour did.
In the 00s there was a mass hosing of money into infrastructure and services to repair the damage of the 80s and 90s. You can argue about the merits of whether that money should have been spent or not, but it was spent on something worthwhile. Note that at the time your party was pledged to match every pound of spend. So don't give me this "Labour deficit" when the Tories proposed to spend the same AND give tax cuts on top.
What are we hosing money on now? It isn't infrastructure (with the exception of HS2). It isn't better health care or education - both are sliding backwards. Its exactly the kind of spending that the right would howl in anguish about had they not been expelled from the Tory party by Worzel for the crime of having a brain.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
@ydoethur intervened and we got some cricketer instead but he’s been held up in quarantine
Aren't some of these things unknown unknowns? Okay, Cummings starting a new party (yes or no?) could be classed as a known unknown but then you could have said the same for a virus coming along (yes or no?) had we done this just after the last election.
I think the big known unknown is "what do the public finances look like in 2022?"
Surely by definition any risk we can name is not an unknown unknown?
Okay, can you think of something that's happened in politics that was completely unimaginable before it happened?
John Prescott's affair is the only thing that comes to mind.
Aren't some of these things unknown unknowns? Okay, Cummings starting a new party (yes or no?) could be classed as a known unknown but then you could have said the same for a virus coming along (yes or no?) had we done this just after the last election.
I think the big known unknown is "what do the public finances look like in 2022?"
Surely by definition any risk we can name is not an unknown unknown?
Okay, can you think of something that's happened in politics that was completely unimaginable before it happened?
John Prescott's affair is the only thing that comes to mind.
John Major & Edwina Curry?
Donald Trump becoming POTUS?
Not in politics but: the nature of the 9/11 attack?
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
It's a myth that income tax rates are 0/20/40/45 for most people.
Once you include NI the current tax rates are (roughly):
For employed earners under 65: 0/32/42/47 For self-employed under 65: 0/29/42/47 For unearned income, or for those over 65: 0/20/40/45
For the employed you should also include Employers NI too, since salary negotiations take Employers NI into account too.
This in Stephen Bush#'s morning email from the Staggers, anent the social care proposals:
"That [rise in the limit], of course, means that many more people will come into contact with the state social care system, which would, in my view, have the happy side-benefit of increasing the quality of provision from its present state. But in the short term it might be fraught for the government, as part of the reason why England’s social care system has been neglected for so long is so few people come into contact with it. That period of adjustment might well be politically painful for Downing Street.
There’s another interesting policy angle here: whisper it, but these proposals don’t look all that different from Theresa May’s, which of course proved so politically explosive back in 2017."
How does Greater demand on state social care improve the quality of provision.
Greater demand will result in a continual attempt to reduce costs that are already uneconomic in whole heaps of the country - for instance Cornwall are still trying to avoid paying for travel time between social care calls.
The sharp-elbowed middle class offspring of middle class pensioners will kick up a fuss about standards of provision.
When it is just the forelock-tugging classes relying on the state, this doesn't happen.
And those sharp elbowed people will be told to f*** off back to private care providers - as this is all you can get.
Public Sector Social care is already on it's last legs - there really is zero chance of any middle class pensioners fixing things in the way you hope - as the only solution will be to raise yet more money from tax (think 2-3% on NI rather than 1%) to pay for the gold plated demands of those sharp elbowed middle class pensioners.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
LOL 'cheap houses'. I started out paying 15% interest on my first mortgage. I had to work * hard to get that house and then move up another much larger one which I had fully paid off by age 40.
I don't want to go down a generational divide but it strikes me that too many of the younger generation want to whinge rather than work for it.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
This is really a variant of trickle down economics. It is a policy that encourages stable families. Retirees pass down wealth to the next generation.
The next generation can build up wealth by adopting tax efficient strategies, the most obvious one being to become self employed or a company director as soon as possible in your career. Buy a house with a windfall from your parents.
The other element of this policy is to support people getting in to the system, eg by building more homes, making them affordable, and creating incentives to buy them with little capital outlay.
And the same thing can basically be done over and over again.
Working age people will not actually rebel against this in large numbers against the conservative party, because they see that they can basically benefit from the system. Many do, I see this over and over again. And it puts labour in the difficult position of having to propose benefit cuts if they are going to reduce national insurance for working age people, which of course they won't do.
I am not saying that this is a good system in any way, but it has sound political logic behind it. The tories also know that, following the dementia tax issues, there basically is no alternative for them.
Sometimes life is unfair. Do you really think that electing a labour government would work in your interest?
Re your last question. Do you only ever vote to get a government that is in your own interest? I don't.
Because it will screw millennials who have managed to get on the housing ladder but with low equity, like myself. The likelihood of wages keeping up is laughable to me.
Except the people fretting about inflation are typically fretting about wage inflation.
Wage inflation would be good for you and bad for those with savings and not earnings.
Who frets about Wage inflation? It's inflation where wages don't increase that is the real issue?
Almost every day we've got people on here saying its troubling if HGV drivers etc get pay rises.
That isn't wage inflation, that's paying people the current market rate for their skill set.
NEW with @PickardJE: Johnson government will renew emergency coronavirus legislation for another six months, signalling that restrictions may need to be introduced this winter.
Tory MPs are unhappy and expect a significant rebellion (more than 30)...
@Mark_J_Harper says it should expire: "We are going to have to learn to live with this virus, and retaining sweeping powers of detention in the Coronavirus Act is not consistent with this. What justification can there be for extending these measures?"
Lets see where you are when your schools go back - the current prolonged spike that won't drop back to baseline can go surging off again. Lets see where we all are when the latest variant tears through us again. Lets see where we are when the "perhaps we need a booster for pensioners" becomes another emergency get needles in 40m arms.
Things are a lot better than they were a year ago. We won't face the same winter crisis as last winter. But the idea that it is over is wishful thinking. We all wish it was over. But it isn't.
You're right lets see where we are.
And if where we are is in a position where restrictions are to be brought back in, lets have that debated in Parliament and a new Act passed if need be.
The government should be stripped of its powers to rule by diktat without reference to Parliament.
I wholeheartedly agree. Emergency powers that need to be rolled into a 3rd calendar year are no longer emergency powers.
Aren't some of these things unknown unknowns? Okay, Cummings starting a new party (yes or no?) could be classed as a known unknown but then you could have said the same for a virus coming along (yes or no?) had we done this just after the last election.
I think the big known unknown is "what do the public finances look like in 2022?"
Surely by definition any risk we can name is not an unknown unknown?
Okay, can you think of something that's happened in politics that was completely unimaginable before it happened?
John Prescott's affair is the only thing that comes to mind.
John Major & Edwina Curry?
Donald Trump becoming POTUS?
Not in politics but: the nature of the 9/11 attack?
I loved Rumsfeld's "unknowns" speech - succinct, elegant, insightful. People whose brain is wired opposite to mine hate it for all the opposite reasons. Yes Rummy was a warmongering lunatic whose Project for the New American Century delivered its US Reichstag fire, but the unknowns speech is one thing he got right.
Anyway, as I can't see that clearly to the end of this year never mind the end of 2023, who knows where we will be. I would like to think that punters realise they can see Boris's Johnson rather than his elegant suit of laddism, but they show no signs of waking up from the despair squid ink as yet.
What would be tragic is if the decaying GB goes further down the current American path where lies become partisan truth. We used to debate on facts and disagree on policy, but these days even self-evident truths get discarded because of partisan stupidity. America is transforming into Gilead, England doesn't have to follow suit.
Nothing wrong with the speech in itself - it was the context: a completely dishonest assessment of the likelihood of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for war.
And Rumsfeld as much as anyone is responsible for the Afghan debacle because of that.
Indeed - I have just described him as a "warmongering lunatic". But the knowns bit was perfect. For those unfamiliar:
Known knowns: things we know we know Unknown knowns: things we don't know we know Knowns unknowns: things we know we don't know Unknown unknowns: things we don't know we don't know
I always though unknown known was the most intriguing category
Aren't some of these things unknown unknowns? Okay, Cummings starting a new party (yes or no?) could be classed as a known unknown but then you could have said the same for a virus coming along (yes or no?) had we done this just after the last election.
I think the big known unknown is "what do the public finances look like in 2022?"
Surely by definition any risk we can name is not an unknown unknown?
Okay, can you think of something that's happened in politics that was completely unimaginable before it happened?
John Prescott's affair is the only thing that comes to mind.
Aren't some of these things unknown unknowns? Okay, Cummings starting a new party (yes or no?) could be classed as a known unknown but then you could have said the same for a virus coming along (yes or no?) had we done this just after the last election.
I think the big known unknown is "what do the public finances look like in 2022?"
Surely by definition any risk we can name is not an unknown unknown?
Okay, can you think of something that's happened in politics that was completely unimaginable before it happened?
John Prescott's affair is the only thing that comes to mind.
John Major & Edwina Curry?
Donald Trump becoming POTUS?
Not in politics but: the nature of the 9/11 attack?
In what way was the 9/11 attack completely unimaginable before it happened? As National Security Adviser Condi Rice had ti sheepishly tell the 9/11 committee they *explicitly* knew the risk of such an attack before it happened.
Perhaps one day we will find out what really happened in the build up to and on the day of 9/11. Planes hit the WTC. How, why, and what caused the towers to collapse is still something of a fairy story when you read the official report.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
This is really a variant of trickle down economics. It is a policy that encourages stable families. Retirees pass down wealth to the next generation.
The next generation can build up wealth by adopting tax efficient strategies, the most obvious one being to become self employed or a company director as soon as possible in your career. Buy a house with a windfall from your parents.
The other element of this policy is to support people getting in to the system, eg by building more homes, making them affordable, and creating incentives to buy them with little capital outlay.
And the same thing can basically be done over and over again.
Working age people will not actually rebel against this in large numbers against the conservative party, because they see that they can basically benefit from the system. Many do, I see this over and over again. And it puts labour in the difficult position of having to propose benefit cuts if they are going to reduce national insurance for working age people, which of course they won't do.
I am not saying that this is a good system in any way, but it has sound political logic behind it. The tories also know that, following the dementia tax issues, there basically is no alternative for them.
Sometimes life is unfair. Do you really think that electing a labour government would work in your interest?
Re your last question. Do you only ever vote to get a government that is in your own interest? I don't.
'Interest' goes beyond financial considerations. On a financial level, I have always benefitted personally from conservative party policies, but until very recently would not contemplate voting for them due to the fact that they pursue other policies that I disagree with, to the point where they are not in my interest.
In MaxPB's case a labour led government or a rainbow coalition would probably mean more severe tax rises on working age people in order to spend money on a load of things he hates; for instance by subsidising woke degree courses, and many other things like that.
'The UK government’s vast security operation to manage the immediate aftermath of the death of the Queen include official social media blackouts and a ban on retweets.
The secret documents, codenamed Operation London Bridge and seen by Politico, reveal the scale of the plans for the funeral and government anxieties about whether the UK has the resources to execute them.
The social media strategy plays a prominent role, including plans to change the royal family’s website to a black holding page with a short statement confirming the Queen’s death, while the gov.uk website and all governmental social media pages will display a black banner. Non-urgent content will not be published and retweets will be banned unless cleared by the government’s head of communications. [...]
The plans for Operation London Bridge and Operation Spring Tide, which sets out how Charles will accede to the throne, contain granular detail such as the potential for public anger if Downing Street cannot lower its flags to half-mast within 10 minutes of the announcement since there is no “flag officer”.
The documents also showed concerns from the Foreign Office over how to arrange entry for significant numbers of tourists, from the Home Office on how to handle potential terror alerts, and from the Department for Transport on overcrowding in the capital.'
Because it will screw millennials who have managed to get on the housing ladder but with low equity, like myself. The likelihood of wages keeping up is laughable to me.
Except the people fretting about inflation are typically fretting about wage inflation.
Wage inflation would be good for you and bad for those with savings and not earnings.
And those on fixed earnings; those in weaker wage bargaining positions; emplyers etc. Point is inflation has unequal effects across the economy, and very high inflation causes large damage to those on the wrong end of it which is impossible for many to mitigate.
The fiscal pressure on the government is now acute. Yesterday we had the NHS saying that they need an extra £10bn, keeping the uplift in UC is another £6bn and schools are needing an extra £2-3bn to get back to 2010 after inflation. Meantime, although not quite as bad as feared, the revenue side has not yet recovered and there is the issue of the funding of Social Care. So far Rishi has been very popular: competent, proactive and happy to dosh out the money. He now faces a genuinely difficult budget and some really hard decisions which are unlikely to be popular with anyone.
For me, we will have a much better idea of how this government is going to fare once we have heard the budget and seen the reaction of the inevitably disappointed.
When is the budget? Did it get pushed back to 2022?
Looks like this is still unknown. I thought it was going to be Q4 this year. But as the article mentions we have seen the Budget moved several times recently so moving it to Q1 ie March seems distinctly possible.
What is more than possible is that there will be lots of tax raising unpleasantness if the government is serious about balancing the books
"Unpleasantness" is not something Johnson wants to have to deal with. The hard decisions will get kicked down the road past the next GE.
A lot of Covid costs are unique and 1 off. there will be some structural deficits that still need to be fixed but we don't need to repay absolutely everything spent on Covid.
Absolutely agree. But the structural deficits are going to be very big as @DavidL pointed out:
"Yesterday we had the NHS saying that they need an extra £10bn, keeping the uplift in UC is another £6bn and schools are needing an extra £2-3bn to get back to 2010 after inflation. Meantime... there is the issue of the funding of Social Care. "
Uplift in UC has gone. There was one way of keeping it and @Philip_Thompson pointed out the flaw in doing that yesterday.
Schools aren't going to see extra money and the NHS aren't going to get all that extra £10bn.
It isn't like this is tied - that working age people will pay more taxes to pay for the old. They can - and probably will - cut everyone AND make working people more taxes.
Partly because the Tories have trashed the economy*, partly because they want to ideologically. A tax on not commuting into the office to spend money on Pret is coming.
*yes Covid. But as the global financial crash was spun - successfully - as Labour trashing the economy then we may as well get started with reciprocity.
Labour did trash the economy then.
If years after the Covid the UK still has a budget deficit well over £100bn per annum then yes that'd be comparable to Labour.
Do you want a bet on that happening? I am willing to bet £50 at evens that despite Covid being more serious than the financial crisis, that the budget deficit will be a smaller percentage of GDP in 2024 than it was in 2010. Do you agree to that bet?
Surely 2022, two years after the start of the crisis, is the appropriate comparitor to 2010?
Either way, I expect the UK's 2022 deficit to be smaller than 2010 too. Again, despite Covid being a much bigger threat to both the economy and society in general.
Because Labour screwed up which is why a toxic mammoth structural deficit was still there even after the financial crisis was over.
Like Rochdale, I don't bet either. But feel free to give me a big "I told you so!" if you turn out to be right. (I don't think you will.)
'The UK government’s vast security operation to manage the immediate aftermath of the death of the Queen include official social media blackouts and a ban on retweets.
The secret documents, codenamed Operation London Bridge and seen by Politico, reveal the scale of the plans for the funeral and government anxieties about whether the UK has the resources to execute them.
The social media strategy plays a prominent role, including plans to change the royal family’s website to a black holding page with a short statement confirming the Queen’s death, while the gov.uk website and all governmental social media pages will display a black banner. Non-urgent content will not be published and retweets will be banned unless cleared by the government’s head of communications. [...]
The plans for Operation London Bridge and Operation Spring Tide, which sets out how Charles will accede to the throne, contain granular detail such as the potential for public anger if Downing Street cannot lower its flags to half-mast within 10 minutes of the announcement since there is no “flag officer”.
The documents also showed concerns from the Foreign Office over how to arrange entry for significant numbers of tourists, from the Home Office on how to handle potential terror alerts, and from the Department for Transport on overcrowding in the capital.'
More here (which confirms the social media accounts involved are government ones)
'The Department for Transport has raised concerns that the number of people who may want to travel to London could cause major problems for the transport network, and lead to overcrowding in the capital.
In a striking assessment of the scenes that could unfold, one memo warns of a worst-case scenario in which London literally becomes “full” for the first time ever as potentially hundreds of thousands of people try to make their way there — with accommodation, roads, public transport, food, policing, healthcare and basic services stretched to breaking point. Concerns have also been raised about a shortage of stewards for crowd control purposes.'
The fiscal pressure on the government is now acute. Yesterday we had the NHS saying that they need an extra £10bn, keeping the uplift in UC is another £6bn and schools are needing an extra £2-3bn to get back to 2010 after inflation. Meantime, although not quite as bad as feared, the revenue side has not yet recovered and there is the issue of the funding of Social Care. So far Rishi has been very popular: competent, proactive and happy to dosh out the money. He now faces a genuinely difficult budget and some really hard decisions which are unlikely to be popular with anyone.
For me, we will have a much better idea of how this government is going to fare once we have heard the budget and seen the reaction of the inevitably disappointed.
When is the budget? Did it get pushed back to 2022?
Looks like this is still unknown. I thought it was going to be Q4 this year. But as the article mentions we have seen the Budget moved several times recently so moving it to Q1 ie March seems distinctly possible.
What is more than possible is that there will be lots of tax raising unpleasantness if the government is serious about balancing the books
"Unpleasantness" is not something Johnson wants to have to deal with. The hard decisions will get kicked down the road past the next GE.
A lot of Covid costs are unique and 1 off. there will be some structural deficits that still need to be fixed but we don't need to repay absolutely everything spent on Covid.
Absolutely agree. But the structural deficits are going to be very big as @DavidL pointed out:
"Yesterday we had the NHS saying that they need an extra £10bn, keeping the uplift in UC is another £6bn and schools are needing an extra £2-3bn to get back to 2010 after inflation. Meantime... there is the issue of the funding of Social Care. "
Uplift in UC has gone. There was one way of keeping it and @Philip_Thompson pointed out the flaw in doing that yesterday.
Schools aren't going to see extra money and the NHS aren't going to get all that extra £10bn.
It isn't like this is tied - that working age people will pay more taxes to pay for the old. They can - and probably will - cut everyone AND make working people more taxes.
Partly because the Tories have trashed the economy*, partly because they want to ideologically. A tax on not commuting into the office to spend money on Pret is coming.
*yes Covid. But as the global financial crash was spun - successfully - as Labour trashing the economy then we may as well get started with reciprocity.
Labour did trash the economy then.
If years after the Covid the UK still has a budget deficit well over £100bn per annum then yes that'd be comparable to Labour.
Do you want a bet on that happening? I am willing to bet £50 at evens that despite Covid being more serious than the financial crisis, that the budget deficit will be a smaller percentage of GDP in 2024 than it was in 2010. Do you agree to that bet?
Surely 2022, two years after the start of the crisis, is the appropriate comparitor to 2010?
Either way, I expect the UK's 2022 deficit to be smaller than 2010 too. Again, despite Covid being a much bigger threat to both the economy and society in general.
Because Labour screwed up which is why a toxic mammoth structural deficit was still there even after the financial crisis was over.
Like Rochdale, I don't bet either. But feel free to give me a big "I told you so!" if you turn out to be right. (I don't think you will.)
We can have a non-cash gentleman's "I told you so!" bet then. 😉
You can feel free to tell me "I told you so!" if I'm wrong.
'The UK government’s vast security operation to manage the immediate aftermath of the death of the Queen include official social media blackouts and a ban on retweets.
The secret documents, codenamed Operation London Bridge and seen by Politico, reveal the scale of the plans for the funeral and government anxieties about whether the UK has the resources to execute them.
The social media strategy plays a prominent role, including plans to change the royal family’s website to a black holding page with a short statement confirming the Queen’s death, while the gov.uk website and all governmental social media pages will display a black banner. Non-urgent content will not be published and retweets will be banned unless cleared by the government’s head of communications. [...]
The plans for Operation London Bridge and Operation Spring Tide, which sets out how Charles will accede to the throne, contain granular detail such as the potential for public anger if Downing Street cannot lower its flags to half-mast within 10 minutes of the announcement since there is no “flag officer”.
The documents also showed concerns from the Foreign Office over how to arrange entry for significant numbers of tourists, from the Home Office on how to handle potential terror alerts, and from the Department for Transport on overcrowding in the capital.'
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
This is really a variant of trickle down economics. It is a policy that encourages stable families. Retirees pass down wealth to the next generation.
The next generation can build up wealth by adopting tax efficient strategies, the most obvious one being to become self employed or a company director as soon as possible in your career. Buy a house with a windfall from your parents.
The other element of this policy is to support people getting in to the system, eg by building more homes, making them affordable, and creating incentives to buy them with little capital outlay.
And the same thing can basically be done over and over again.
Working age people will not actually rebel against this in large numbers against the conservative party, because they see that they can basically benefit from the system. Many do, I see this over and over again. And it puts labour in the difficult position of having to propose benefit cuts if they are going to reduce national insurance for working age people, which of course they won't do.
I am not saying that this is a good system in any way, but it has sound political logic behind it. The tories also know that, following the dementia tax issues, there basically is no alternative for them.
Sometimes life is unfair. Do you really think that electing a labour government would work in your interest?
Re your last question. Do you only ever vote to get a government that is in your own interest? I don't.
Good for you. I don't either. But I'm afraid most do. Ideology gets a bad rap.
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
'The UK government’s vast security operation to manage the immediate aftermath of the death of the Queen include official social media blackouts and a ban on retweets.
The secret documents, codenamed Operation London Bridge and seen by Politico, reveal the scale of the plans for the funeral and government anxieties about whether the UK has the resources to execute them.
The social media strategy plays a prominent role, including plans to change the royal family’s website to a black holding page with a short statement confirming the Queen’s death, while the gov.uk website and all governmental social media pages will display a black banner. Non-urgent content will not be published and retweets will be banned unless cleared by the government’s head of communications. [...]
The plans for Operation London Bridge and Operation Spring Tide, which sets out how Charles will accede to the throne, contain granular detail such as the potential for public anger if Downing Street cannot lower its flags to half-mast within 10 minutes of the announcement since there is no “flag officer”.
The documents also showed concerns from the Foreign Office over how to arrange entry for significant numbers of tourists, from the Home Office on how to handle potential terror alerts, and from the Department for Transport on overcrowding in the capital.'
More here (which confirms the social media accounts involved are government ones)
'The Department for Transport has raised concerns that the number of people who may want to travel to London could cause major problems for the transport network, and lead to overcrowding in the capital.
In a striking assessment of the scenes that could unfold, one memo warns of a worst-case scenario in which London literally becomes “full” for the first time ever as potentially hundreds of thousands of people try to make their way there — with accommodation, roads, public transport, food, policing, healthcare and basic services stretched to breaking point. Concerns have also been raised about a shortage of stewards for crowd control purposes.'
Charles III's (or George VII's) coronation could cause problems too. IIRC much public transport in (Central at least) London was stopped when our present Queen was crowned.
Good article. I don't think Boris needs to worry about being loathed by people who go to dinner parties. I'm not sure anyone in real life has been to a dinner party since about 1989.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
This is really a variant of trickle down economics. It is a policy that encourages stable families. Retirees pass down wealth to the next generation.
The next generation can build up wealth by adopting tax efficient strategies, the most obvious one being to become self employed or a company director as soon as possible in your career. Buy a house with a windfall from your parents.
The other element of this policy is to support people getting in to the system, eg by building more homes, making them affordable, and creating incentives to buy them with little capital outlay.
And the same thing can basically be done over and over again.
Working age people will not actually rebel against this in large numbers against the conservative party, because they see that they can basically benefit from the system. Many do, I see this over and over again. And it puts labour in the difficult position of having to propose benefit cuts if they are going to reduce national insurance for working age people, which of course they won't do.
I am not saying that this is a good system in any way, but it has sound political logic behind it. The tories also know that, following the dementia tax issues, there basically is no alternative for them.
Sometimes life is unfair. Do you really think that electing a labour government would work in your interest?
Re your last question. Do you only ever vote to get a government that is in your own interest? I don't.
I vote fo a govt that I think is in my own interest, that of the wider community and the nation.
This in Stephen Bush#'s morning email from the Staggers, anent the social care proposals:
"That [rise in the limit], of course, means that many more people will come into contact with the state social care system, which would, in my view, have the happy side-benefit of increasing the quality of provision from its present state. But in the short term it might be fraught for the government, as part of the reason why England’s social care system has been neglected for so long is so few people come into contact with it. That period of adjustment might well be politically painful for Downing Street.
There’s another interesting policy angle here: whisper it, but these proposals don’t look all that different from Theresa May’s, which of course proved so politically explosive back in 2017."
How does Greater demand on state social care improve the quality of provision.
Greater demand will result in a continual attempt to reduce costs that are already uneconomic in whole heaps of the country - for instance Cornwall are still trying to avoid paying for travel time between social care calls.
The sharp-elbowed middle class offspring of middle class pensioners will kick up a fuss about standards of provision.
When it is just the forelock-tugging classes relying on the state, this doesn't happen.
And those sharp elbowed people will be told to f*** off back to private care providers - as this is all you can get.
Public Sector Social care is already on it's last legs - there really is zero chance of any middle class pensioners fixing things in the way you hope - as the only solution will be to raise yet more money from tax (think 2-3% on NI rather than 1%) to pay for the gold plated demands of those sharp elbowed middle class pensioners.
This in Stephen Bush#'s morning email from the Staggers, anent the social care proposals:
"That [rise in the limit], of course, means that many more people will come into contact with the state social care system, which would, in my view, have the happy side-benefit of increasing the quality of provision from its present state. But in the short term it might be fraught for the government, as part of the reason why England’s social care system has been neglected for so long is so few people come into contact with it. That period of adjustment might well be politically painful for Downing Street.
There’s another interesting policy angle here: whisper it, but these proposals don’t look all that different from Theresa May’s, which of course proved so politically explosive back in 2017."
How does Greater demand on state social care improve the quality of provision.
Greater demand will result in a continual attempt to reduce costs that are already uneconomic in whole heaps of the country - for instance Cornwall are still trying to avoid paying for travel time between social care calls.
The sharp-elbowed middle class offspring of middle class pensioners will kick up a fuss about standards of provision.
When it is just the forelock-tugging classes relying on the state, this doesn't happen.
And those sharp elbowed people will be told to f*** off back to private care providers - as this is all you can get.
Public Sector Social care is already on it's last legs - there really is zero chance of any middle class pensioners fixing things in the way you hope - as the only solution will be to raise yet more money from tax (think 2-3% on NI rather than 1%) to pay for the gold plated demands of those sharp elbowed middle class pensioners.
Enjoyable header, with a few quirky suggestions if I may say so (e.g. Cummings launch a new party - not a chance of that taking off).
Perversely, I think Johnson's best hope for the next GE will be if Covid rumbles on. That might allow him to kick the hard tax decisions further down the road past a GE 2023/24 and ho could go to the polls as a Pandemic-war-leader with a 'Keep Buggering On' pitch.
Quite. A Cummings launched party would make Alba look like it had achieved a landslide.
I like Alba! I am hopeful that it will help split the SNP vote for our council elections next May. (spoiler alert - it won't...)
Do you seriously expect the next Scottish local elections to be another SNP landslide because #Freedom
Freedom-inclined Scots are hardly going to peruse the council ballot paper and go “Oh, this time I think I’ll vote for one of the anti-freedom parties.”
"Australia Traded Away Too Much Liberty How long can a democracy maintain emergency restrictions and still call itself a free country? By Conor Friedersdorf"
"Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”"
It's a fascinating question, to which I don't know the answer.
Imagine that there was no Covid vaccine. But normal life could return 85% of the time: no masks, no social distancing, etc.
Here's the thing: when a case is discovered everything is locked down perhaps for weeks at a time. And it's a complete lockdown - no leaving the house for exercise, no going to the store, no traveling to a friend's or another city. You are - for one week every couple of months - a prisoner.
But the rest of the time you're free.
Which is better? Endless petty restrictions, or draconian but temporary ones?
Fortunately, vaccines have offered us a way out. But if you were in Oz, and vaccine availability was ... modest ..., which would you choose?
There are plenty of vaccines available in Oz. Just no one wants to take CSL/AZ
AstraZeneca has an horrific reputation out there in the world. Their board must seriously regret ever getting involved with Oxford University. It is not as though vaccines was one of their core competencies, and now the brand has taken a hit.
And entirely driven by politics. It’s a seriously good vaccine
Political risks are present for all companies. Bit negligent to ignore them.
I want to see the social care reforms brought in. People need to have certainty and we can all start planning around that.
I would also like to see more of the burden shifted onto at the very least, high income pensioners, if not wealthy pensioners.
HOWEVER the second part can happen next year. The year after. The last thing I want to see is a conceptual question of how we manage social care costs defeated by a practical question of exactly where that burden should lie. We adjust the overall burden of taxation every year in the budget.
This in Stephen Bush#'s morning email from the Staggers, anent the social care proposals:
"That [rise in the limit], of course, means that many more people will come into contact with the state social care system, which would, in my view, have the happy side-benefit of increasing the quality of provision from its present state. But in the short term it might be fraught for the government, as part of the reason why England’s social care system has been neglected for so long is so few people come into contact with it. That period of adjustment might well be politically painful for Downing Street.
There’s another interesting policy angle here: whisper it, but these proposals don’t look all that different from Theresa May’s, which of course proved so politically explosive back in 2017."
How does Greater demand on state social care improve the quality of provision.
Greater demand will result in a continual attempt to reduce costs that are already uneconomic in whole heaps of the country - for instance Cornwall are still trying to avoid paying for travel time between social care calls.
The sharp-elbowed middle class offspring of middle class pensioners will kick up a fuss about standards of provision.
When it is just the forelock-tugging classes relying on the state, this doesn't happen.
And those sharp elbowed people will be told to f*** off back to private care providers - as this is all you can get.
Public Sector Social care is already on it's last legs - there really is zero chance of any middle class pensioners fixing things in the way you hope - as the only solution will be to raise yet more money from tax (think 2-3% on NI rather than 1%) to pay for the gold plated demands of those sharp elbowed middle class pensioners.
There's a story that Javid wanted 2% on NI.
Public Sector Social care is currently woefully underfunded - and if you think the situation with Lorry Drivers is bad, you've seen nothing yet.
I suspect 2% wouldn't actually be enough to fix the problem as payments need to be increased by 25% or so just to keep things ticking over - see my example from Cornwall below where the council is trying to avoid paying for travel time because they don't have the cash to do so (even though they are legally let alone morally supposed to).
Aren't some of these things unknown unknowns? Okay, Cummings starting a new party (yes or no?) could be classed as a known unknown but then you could have said the same for a virus coming along (yes or no?) had we done this just after the last election.
I think the big known unknown is "what do the public finances look like in 2022?"
Surely by definition any risk we can name is not an unknown unknown?
Okay, can you think of something that's happened in politics that was completely unimaginable before it happened?
John Prescott's affair is the only thing that comes to mind.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
This is really a variant of trickle down economics. It is a policy that encourages stable families. Retirees pass down wealth to the next generation.
The next generation can build up wealth by adopting tax efficient strategies, the most obvious one being to become self employed or a company director as soon as possible in your career. Buy a house with a windfall from your parents.
The other element of this policy is to support people getting in to the system, eg by building more homes, making them affordable, and creating incentives to buy them with little capital outlay.
And the same thing can basically be done over and over again.
Working age people will not actually rebel against this in large numbers against the conservative party, because they see that they can basically benefit from the system. Many do, I see this over and over again. And it puts labour in the difficult position of having to propose benefit cuts if they are going to reduce national insurance for working age people, which of course they won't do.
I am not saying that this is a good system in any way, but it has sound political logic behind it. The tories also know that, following the dementia tax issues, there basically is no alternative for them.
Sometimes life is unfair. Do you really think that electing a labour government would work in your interest?
Re your last question. Do you only ever vote to get a government that is in your own interest? I don't.
I vote fo a govt that I think is in my own interest, that of the wider community and the nation.
That's impossible - you can't vote for all three of those items, at best you prioritise them as your self interest may not that of the wider community in the short let alone longer term and pick the party that best matches your priorities.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
LOL 'cheap houses'. I started out paying 15% interest on my first mortgage. I had to work * hard to get that house and then move up another much larger one which I had fully paid off by age 40.
I don't want to go down a generational divide but it strikes me that too many of the younger generation want to whinge rather than work for it.
👍
The chart below shows another issue. If you have a 15% mortgage but the house price is a low multiple of your salary then it is much easier to repay. Right now the average house price is over 8x the average salary. For most of the 20th Century it was below 5x.
I'm sure you did work hard to pay off your mortgage but I suspect the deposit required was much lower along with the total amount to repay (compared to average salary).
If interest rates do go up at some point then there will be a very large number of people who will no longer be able to afford their mortgage payments. For the last 15 years everyone has been used to very low interest rates. Personally, I have 17 years left on my mortgage but I am trying to overpay in order to be able to pay it off in about 7 years time when I am 50.
Good article. I don't think Boris needs to worry about being loathed by people who go to dinner parties. I'm not sure anyone in real life has been to a dinner party since about 1989.
Actually, the most hilarious aspect to his recent behaviour was that ever since OGH and TSE "volunteered" him a Democrat Donkey avatar in the run-up to November's US election, he couldn't be arsed to change it!
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
If this Government had at any time actually fixed the fiscal mess that Brown created we wouldn't be in our current circumstances.
The reality is that the Government since 2010 has merely pretend to fix the issues while in reality hoping people didn't notice how half baked their solutions were.
Good article. I don't think Boris needs to worry about being loathed by people who go to dinner parties. I'm not sure anyone in real life has been to a dinner party since about 1989.
Wrong. I went to one last Saturday. But not massively wrong since it was indeed the first time since 1989. And not much had changed. House prices, school fees, holidays, the impossibility of Labour ever winning another election.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
But they supported the policies after that - the deficit spending you are so agitated about. This didn't stop in 2007, far from it. Cuts came from 2009 onwards, back in 2007 when Osbrown was speaking the bubble was inflated to crazy proportions, and George wanted to inflate it even harder to pay both for every pound of deficit spending and give people a tax cut.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
This is really a variant of trickle down economics. It is a policy that encourages stable families. Retirees pass down wealth to the next generation.
The next generation can build up wealth by adopting tax efficient strategies, the most obvious one being to become self employed or a company director as soon as possible in your career. Buy a house with a windfall from your parents.
The other element of this policy is to support people getting in to the system, eg by building more homes, making them affordable, and creating incentives to buy them with little capital outlay.
And the same thing can basically be done over and over again.
Working age people will not actually rebel against this in large numbers against the conservative party, because they see that they can basically benefit from the system. Many do, I see this over and over again. And it puts labour in the difficult position of having to propose benefit cuts if they are going to reduce national insurance for working age people, which of course they won't do.
I am not saying that this is a good system in any way, but it has sound political logic behind it. The tories also know that, following the dementia tax issues, there basically is no alternative for them.
Sometimes life is unfair. Do you really think that electing a labour government would work in your interest?
Re your last question. Do you only ever vote to get a government that is in your own interest? I don't.
A Labour government that worked in my financial interest would be an utter disgrace.
NEW with @PickardJE: Johnson government will renew emergency coronavirus legislation for another six months, signalling that restrictions may need to be introduced this winter.
Tory MPs are unhappy and expect a significant rebellion (more than 30)...
@Mark_J_Harper says it should expire: "We are going to have to learn to live with this virus, and retaining sweeping powers of detention in the Coronavirus Act is not consistent with this. What justification can there be for extending these measures?"
Lets see where you are when your schools go back - the current prolonged spike that won't drop back to baseline can go surging off again. Lets see where we all are when the latest variant tears through us again. Lets see where we are when the "perhaps we need a booster for pensioners" becomes another emergency get needles in 40m arms.
Things are a lot better than they were a year ago. We won't face the same winter crisis as last winter. But the idea that it is over is wishful thinking. We all wish it was over. But it isn't.
You're right lets see where we are.
And if where we are is in a position where restrictions are to be brought back in, lets have that debated in Parliament and a new Act passed if need be.
The government should be stripped of its powers to rule by diktat without reference to Parliament.
I wholeheartedly agree. Emergency powers that need to be rolled into a 3rd calendar year are no longer emergency powers.
Our dismal failure of an Opposition will just nod it through though.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
My wife and daughter are Mamma Mia addicts. I’ve been forced to watch both films umpteen times, and I think our daughter saw the musical about twenty times when she lived in London.
I have been battered into submission. I think even I am starting to fancy Colin Firth a bit. Stockholm syndrome.
This in Stephen Bush#'s morning email from the Staggers, anent the social care proposals:
"That [rise in the limit], of course, means that many more people will come into contact with the state social care system, which would, in my view, have the happy side-benefit of increasing the quality of provision from its present state. But in the short term it might be fraught for the government, as part of the reason why England’s social care system has been neglected for so long is so few people come into contact with it. That period of adjustment might well be politically painful for Downing Street.
There’s another interesting policy angle here: whisper it, but these proposals don’t look all that different from Theresa May’s, which of course proved so politically explosive back in 2017."
How does Greater demand on state social care improve the quality of provision.
Greater demand will result in a continual attempt to reduce costs that are already uneconomic in whole heaps of the country - for instance Cornwall are still trying to avoid paying for travel time between social care calls.
The sharp-elbowed middle class offspring of middle class pensioners will kick up a fuss about standards of provision.
When it is just the forelock-tugging classes relying on the state, this doesn't happen.
And those sharp elbowed people will be told to f*** off back to private care providers - as this is all you can get.
Public Sector Social care is already on it's last legs - there really is zero chance of any middle class pensioners fixing things in the way you hope - as the only solution will be to raise yet more money from tax (think 2-3% on NI rather than 1%) to pay for the gold plated demands of those sharp elbowed middle class pensioners.
There's a story that Javid wanted 2% on NI.
Public Sector Social care is currently woefully underfunded - and if you think the situation with Lorry Drivers is bad, you've seen nothing yet.
I suspect 2% wouldn't actually be enough to fix the problem as payments need to be increased by 25% or so just to keep things ticking over - see my example from Cornwall below where the council is trying to avoid paying for travel time because they don't have the cash to do so (even though they are legally let alone morally supposed to).
It is a source of wonder that our economy is so broken that we are spending ever greater amounts and yet have literally no money for basic services. As you say, councils are broke having had most of their government grants withdrawn, yet the government has no money either. It claims.
You do have to ask into whose pockets is this flowing.
Actually, the most hilarious aspect to his recent behaviour was that ever since OGH and TSE "volunteered" him a Democrat Donkey avatar in the run-up to November's US election, he couldn't be arsed to change it!
Enjoyable header, with a few quirky suggestions if I may say so (e.g. Cummings launch a new party - not a chance of that taking off).
Perversely, I think Johnson's best hope for the next GE will be if Covid rumbles on. That might allow him to kick the hard tax decisions further down the road past a GE 2023/24 and ho could go to the polls as a Pandemic-war-leader with a 'Keep Buggering On' pitch.
Quite. A Cummings launched party would make Alba look like it had achieved a landslide.
I like Alba! I am hopeful that it will help split the SNP vote for our council elections next May. (spoiler alert - it won't...)
Do you seriously expect the next Scottish local elections to be another SNP landslide because #Freedom
Freedom-inclined Scots are hardly going to peruse the council ballot paper and go “Oh, this time I think I’ll vote for one of the anti-freedom parties.”
That rather depends what is meant by freedom. Braveheart or day-to-day freedom to go about life unhindered by the state, because if it is the latter, any beef will be with the Scottish Government. I'm not sure how the blame game will play out between the SNP and their new Green partners.
Actually, the most hilarious aspect to his recent behaviour was that ever since OGH and TSE "volunteered" him a Democrat Donkey avatar in the run-up to November's US election, he couldn't be arsed to change it!
"vote tactically for the Democrats as the best way to keep our beloved Republican party in power" said no-one in American politics.
He is chair of Epping Tory Association and implores people to vote tactically against Tory candidates. Perhaps someone should volunteer him a Labour Rose when he is readmitted.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
Actually, the most hilarious aspect to his recent behaviour was that ever since OGH and TSE "volunteered" him a Democrat Donkey avatar in the run-up to November's US election, he couldn't be arsed to change it!
I thought it was because he’s an ass.
On the subject of avatars, Stuart, why do you have a picture of Richard Leonard?
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
This in Stephen Bush#'s morning email from the Staggers, anent the social care proposals:
"That [rise in the limit], of course, means that many more people will come into contact with the state social care system, which would, in my view, have the happy side-benefit of increasing the quality of provision from its present state. But in the short term it might be fraught for the government, as part of the reason why England’s social care system has been neglected for so long is so few people come into contact with it. That period of adjustment might well be politically painful for Downing Street.
There’s another interesting policy angle here: whisper it, but these proposals don’t look all that different from Theresa May’s, which of course proved so politically explosive back in 2017."
How does Greater demand on state social care improve the quality of provision.
Greater demand will result in a continual attempt to reduce costs that are already uneconomic in whole heaps of the country - for instance Cornwall are still trying to avoid paying for travel time between social care calls.
The sharp-elbowed middle class offspring of middle class pensioners will kick up a fuss about standards of provision.
When it is just the forelock-tugging classes relying on the state, this doesn't happen.
And those sharp elbowed people will be told to f*** off back to private care providers - as this is all you can get.
Public Sector Social care is already on it's last legs - there really is zero chance of any middle class pensioners fixing things in the way you hope - as the only solution will be to raise yet more money from tax (think 2-3% on NI rather than 1%) to pay for the gold plated demands of those sharp elbowed middle class pensioners.
There's a story that Javid wanted 2% on NI.
Public Sector Social care is currently woefully underfunded - and if you think the situation with Lorry Drivers is bad, you've seen nothing yet.
I suspect 2% wouldn't actually be enough to fix the problem as payments need to be increased by 25% or so just to keep things ticking over - see my example from Cornwall below where the council is trying to avoid paying for travel time because they don't have the cash to do so (even though they are legally let alone morally supposed to).
It is a source of wonder that our economy is so broken that we are spending ever greater amounts and yet have literally no money for basic services. As you say, councils are broke having had most of their government grants withdrawn, yet the government has no money either. It claims.
You do have to ask into whose pockets is this flowing.
Shall we just say that a lot of social workers spent from 2018-20 using dodgy loan schemes in an attempt to keep their income at 2017 levels.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
I respect your personal taste but...
I used to think ABBA were totally naff back in the day. But now when I hear their old songs I can't help singing along. They are very well crafted pop songs.
They may be well crafted, but I detest every single one of them.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
My wife and daughter are Mamma Mia addicts. I’ve been forced to watch both films umpteen times, and I think our daughter saw the musical about twenty times when she lived in London.
I have been battered into submission. I think even I am starting to fancy Colin Firth a bit. Stockholm syndrome.
That really made me laugh.
I'm starting to think this site is made up of a bunch of woosies.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
Sooner you are gone the better, don't hit your arse on the door on the way out. Not much of a brain drain , you are kidding yourself. Jog on and get the bags packed.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
Sooner you are gone the better, don't hit your arse on the door on the way out. Not much of a brain drain , you are kidding yourself. Jog on and get the bags packed.
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
If this Government had at any time actually fixed the fiscal mess that Brown created we wouldn't be in our current circumstances.
The reality is that the Government since 2010 has merely pretend to fix the issues while in reality hoping people didn't notice how half baked their solutions were.
The big picture is what it's always been- some people can get something for nothing in the short term, but we can't all get something for nothing indefinitely. And if it looks like we are, that's because we haven't looked hard enough for the person getting the unpleasant end of the stick.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
Why don’t you tell us what you REALLY feel about this proposal?
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
Sooner you are gone the better, don't hit your arse on the door on the way out. Not much of a brain drain , you are kidding yourself. Jog on and get the bags packed.
I get it when people say they want to leave the country because they disagree with the way it is going. I did, and am very happy in Scotland knowing that large chunks of the madness in England no longer affects me...
Actually, the most hilarious aspect to his recent behaviour was that ever since OGH and TSE "volunteered" him a Democrat Donkey avatar in the run-up to November's US election, he couldn't be arsed to change it!
I thought it was because he’s an ass.
On the subject of avatars, Stuart, why do you have a picture of Richard Leonard?
He’s my favourite politician.
I used to have Iain Gray.
I’m also a huge fan of Jackie Baillie, Johann Lamont, Jim Murphy, Wee Dougie and his big sister, Kez and the whole comic cavalcade of crackpot characters.
I’m still a bit worried about Anas, but he’s slowly drifting into my favourites list too. You’ll know he’s arrived when his avatar gets an outing.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
Sooner you are gone the better, don't hit your arse on the door on the way out. Not much of a brain drain , you are kidding yourself. Jog on and get the bags packed.
Ayrshire’s answer to Dorothy Parker opines once more.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
You thick clown, they were not cheap when people bought them and interest rates were penal. You are a greedy selfish arsehole.
A lot of unpleasant comments about pensioners on here today. @MaxPB's father on an £80k pa pension is hardly typical of most pensioners.
Just raise income tax to pay for social care. Everyone who pays income tax pays it.
A brave government would merge tax and NI.
That's a tax on working - to protect the wealth of those with wealth. It once again targets the wrong thing and the wrong group of people (albeit not quite as badly as it does when done via NI).
The only solution (and it's one we've need for a long time) is a tax on wealth via say a land value tax.
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
philistine
A Malcolm post I can wholeheartedly agree with. Yes solidarity restored 😄
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
If this Government had at any time actually fixed the fiscal mess that Brown created we wouldn't be in our current circumstances.
The reality is that the Government since 2010 has merely pretend to fix the issues while in reality hoping people didn't notice how half baked their solutions were.
The government did fix the fiscal mess that Brown created which is why we have come into this recession without the structural deficit that Brown had.
It's also why I expect we will come out of this recession without the structural deficit Brown bequeathed the Tories.
My wife and daughter are Mamma Mia addicts. I’ve been forced to watch both films umpteen times, and I think our daughter saw the musical about twenty times when she lived in London.
I have been battered into submission. I think even I am starting to fancy Colin Firth a bit. Stockholm syndrome.
I like ABBA (I think their new songs are great) but I thought Mamma Mia was cringemakingly terrible!
Other than the girl who plays Meryl Streeps daughter everyone else in it was tone deaf... A musical where hardly anyone can sing??? Maybe I was missing the point but....
So we give vaccines to Oz rather than, say, sub-saharan Africa.
Pfizer.
Exactly: they chances of Pfizer being wasted in Africa (as a consequence of the storage requirements) are at least 10x that of AZ.
Better to give the more robust vaccines to Africa, rather than the more delicate ones.
40% of our initial vaccine donations go to Australia.
It's not a "donation" - its a swap - they get ours now, we get theirs later.
Even worse let's play swapsies with those nice other developed nations.
Which under developed nation would you prefer to play swapsies with? Or would you rather we give Pfizer doses to countries that couldn't practically distribute them?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the UK deal doubles the number of Pfizer doses available in September. Throughout the month, Australia will receive more than 9 million doses of Pfizer alongside 1 million Moderna doses and continued AstraZeneca supply.
“From Downing Street to Down Under we are doubling down on the Pfizer doses available to us,” he said. “The plane’s on the tarmac now, it will be leaving tomorrow and those [Pfizer] doses will be coming over the course of the next few weeks.”
Britain’s high commissioner to Australia, Vicki Treadell, says it’s a privilege to be able to support Australians by helping to accelerate the vaccine rollout down under.
I fail to see why its "worse" that we do that in Topping's eyes. Its an entirely logical thing to do, which we considered doing with Israel earlier in the pandemic but the other way around.
We send them Pfizer doses we have now, but don't need now, before they expire.
They send us Pfizer doses later on, when we need them, for boosters.
Our current doses we're sending could potentially have expired before we get on with boosting.
Purely logical and sensible thing to do.
Wait:
I thought we were getting Kylie.
ABBA it seems will have to do.
Now we are getting on to a serious subject. I don't get ABBA. I think they are rubbish. I detest every song.
philistine
A Malcolm post I can wholeheartedly agree with. Yes solidarity restored 😄
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
0/20/48/55 would be ideal tax rates for retirement incomes. Taxed at source so no escaping it either. My dad is going to have income of over £80k per year in retirement, he literally doesn't know what to do with it beyond giving it away to me and my sister and his grandkids.
Yes quite. But I thought you were against tax rises Max?
The guy is deranged , he is only against rises for himself. Dripping with money yet whining and whinging about a few extra quid in tax for poor people. Vomit inducing.
So how does Boris plan differ from May’s Dementia Tax? The 60K cap rather than 100K? What does that mean in practice when 60K needs to be found for care from your means tested assets before the tax rise, 2p says Javid, steps in and helps?
The salient point probably isn’t the tax rise but how a cap works? The original report said 50k, Later May said 100K, the smaller figure helps those in care, the larger the government coffers?
These details trailed to the press don’t seem to be supported/defended by anyone posting here.
They did this weeks ago, to luke warm response, and delayed it. How many times can they keep doing that?
I've already tonight seen a number of tweets that point out that because it's on NI not income tax this is another generational tax grab where younger people are being expected to pay for older people.
That is going to hurt Boris as much as the dementia tax hurt May.
The only solution to this problem was to kick it into the long ish grass via a Royal commission with the end result to be reported on and implemented at the beginning of the next Parliament after the next General Election.
Maybe they still will kick it into the long grass. But doesn’t the do nothing towards what was long time promised option still come with political damage?
Less damaging than 1% on National insurance paid by young people to fund a cap on the amount of money wealthy pensioners need to pay for their own care.
You are banging on that point of view, I don’t want to push a point of view I may not even subscribe to myself or actually disagree with you, but 1, those paying as they earn on progressive tax does has it merits as well as argument the retired done the same throughout their working lives, and 2, with a cap there are losers that end of the equation too, you concede, especially the higher it’s set at?
No the retired didn't do the same in their working lives. If they did, we wouldn't be increasing the tax rate.
This is a new tax, to fund a new benefit, that was never paid for in anyone's working lives. So it should apply to all.
The old actually paid higher tax rates throughout much of their working lives?
Anyway, that’s not my point, tax’s going up seems to be the only thing exercises PB hive mind with this proposal, but you are missing the point how the old are stung by the cap. Those needing care are Means Tested? If they have 60K in assets ie a house, they don’t get any of this money from the tax rise till they have spent that first?
Actually, the most hilarious aspect to his recent behaviour was that ever since OGH and TSE "volunteered" him a Democrat Donkey avatar in the run-up to November's US election, he couldn't be arsed to change it!
I thought it was because he’s an ass.
On the subject of avatars, Stuart, why do you have a picture of Richard Leonard?
Full marks for getting the ID correct, particularly (presumably) from south of the Border.
A lot of unpleasant comments about pensioners on here today. @MaxPB's father on an £80k pa pension is hardly typical of most pensioners.
Just raise income tax to pay for social care. Everyone who pays income tax pays it.
A brave government would merge tax and NI.
Spot on @Cyclefree. Good to see you posting - hope you are well.
And yet - my understanding is that the 65+ demographic is by some way the wealthiest, following the combined effects of being in the right place at the right time for being able to buy housing when it was cheap, free university education for those who had it, and having final salary pensions. Not all of that demographic, of course, but huge numbers are hugely moee wealthy than their younger counterparts will ever be. A tax on the poorer demographic to pay for the richer seems a tad unfair.
No odds to me personally, mind: I'm an only child with no cousins so things that are a benefit to the old and super-old are a benefit to me eventutally. But that doesn't seem any reason by itself to support this plan.
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
If this Government had at any time actually fixed the fiscal mess that Brown created we wouldn't be in our current circumstances.
The reality is that the Government since 2010 has merely pretend to fix the issues while in reality hoping people didn't notice how half baked their solutions were.
The government did fix the fiscal mess that Brown created which is why we have come into this recession without the structural deficit that Brown had.
It's also why I expect we will come out of this recession without the structural deficit Brown bequeathed the Tories.
but it didn't. Central Government did well but at the cost of Local Governments who lost whole heaps of funding but were expected to keep Adult Social Care going.
Which is why a lot of councils pull every trick going to keep those costs as low as possible and it's one reason why Social care changes are going to way more expensive and complex than people on here expect.
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
I like that idea
Workers on low fixed incomes will not be affected , bring in higher tax rates for the richly paid workers
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
You thick clown, they were not cheap when people bought them and interest rates were penal. You are a greedy selfish arsehole.
Interest rates may be penal again if inflation hits and cannot be controlled by means other than interest rates.
Equally houses weren't cheap, banks just couldn't lend the insane multiples (4.5x joint income) they now can. Back in the 70s you had to wait your turn for the mortgage and it was 3x first income + 1x second if you were lucky.
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
But they supported the policies after that - the deficit spending you are so agitated about. This didn't stop in 2007, far from it. Cuts came from 2009 onwards, back in 2007 when Osbrown was speaking the bubble was inflated to crazy proportions, and George wanted to inflate it even harder to pay both for every pound of deficit spending and give people a tax cut.
He wanted spending to go up by less than the rate of growth, which is quite appropriate given the mess Brown had created.
There wasn't any growth though. Too late, the bell tolled and Browns mess he was already warning us about became apparent.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
LOL 'cheap houses'. I started out paying 15% interest on my first mortgage. I had to work * hard to get that house and then move up another much larger one which I had fully paid off by age 40.
I don't want to go down a generational divide but it strikes me that too many of the younger generation want to whinge rather than work for it.
👍
The chart below shows another issue. If you have a 15% mortgage but the house price is a low multiple of your salary then it is much easier to repay. Right now the average house price is over 8x the average salary. For most of the 20th Century it was below 5x.
I'm sure you did work hard to pay off your mortgage but I suspect the deposit required was much lower along with the total amount to repay (compared to average salary).
If interest rates do go up at some point then there will be a very large number of people who will no longer be able to afford their mortgage payments. For the last 15 years everyone has been used to very low interest rates. Personally, I have 17 years left on my mortgage but I am trying to overpay in order to be able to pay it off in about 7 years time when I am 50.
That's a very good point, full marks.
I too remember the high rates on my first mortgage but when Mrs C and I bought together we were soon able to start overpaying to get the capital down and the thing paid off early. And THEN interest rates collapsed. But I wasn't (and am not) complaining.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
Why don’t you tell us what you REALLY feel about this proposal?
He might like to explain why the UK state pension is the lowest in the developed world but very rich people still get higher-rate tax relief towards a private pension.
With the triple lock, the state pension slowly returns towards its pre-Thatcher level. That's all.
Don't attack pensioners on £9,000 per year. Tell us why rich people pay a lower marginal income tax and NI rate (47%) than middle-income individuals but get a higher rate of pension tax relief.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
It's something @rcs1000 has pointed out before- if the dominant voice in elections is the retired, democracy tends to force decisions that aren't in the national interest, because the priority stops being producers.
And whilst the UK isn't as far gone as Italy or Japan, it's not in a good place.
It's also pretty galling that the generation that backed tax cuts over less stingy pensions and social care for their parents and grandparents (the popular policy from Thatcher to Blair) are carping now.
I just find the whole "we paid our share" argument complete bullshit. Being retired doesn't magically make someone immune to tax rises. Especially those with rentier assets or very high pension income.
You cannot be as thick as you make out. Pensioners with incomes over 12K pay the same tax rates as you do and have paid tax for 30 or 40 years more than you to boot.
Won't ever vote Tory again if they introduce a tax on working age people to pay for old age care. Fuck that noise. The old wankers need to have their freebies cut, the triple lock scrapped and NI paid on pension income before working age people are hit, yet again. The Tory party is nothing more than a vote buying exercise for old c***s who want everything for free.
It's the kind of shit that makes people my age want to leave the country. A proper brain drain tax.
I would just like to gently point out that the 'old c***s' have worked hard all their lives for their pensions and paid their fair share of taxes. No to NI on pension income.
I agre with you on triple lock, state pension should be uplifted by CPI only.
Fair share, don't make me laugh. You al got cheap houses, grants to go to university, inexpensive public transport, transferable tax allowances and a while bunch of other stuff people my age have has snatched away from us to pay ever more of the nation income to your generation. You didn't save enough and now we're all paying the price, whether it's young people pissing their money away in rent or people of working age having to pay more tax.
I'll vote for any party that shits on retirees. Even Labour. It's time that you all started paying your way. Tax the shit out of rental income as well. 110% levy on rental income profits, NI on pension income, defined benefit pension income surcharge, higher income tax rates for wealthy pensioners earning £50k+, scrap the triple lock, scrap the free bus pass, scrap free prescriptions.
No new tax rises for working age people. Full fucking stop.
You thick clown, they were not cheap when people bought them and interest rates were penal. You are a greedy selfish arsehole.
There’s a good point in this rabid invective. Younger people who feel so hard done by at high property prices and tuition fees forget that back then interest rates were far higher than they are now. Punitively high as Malcolm says. Universities back then had a fraction of the people who go now and working people, like myself, had to pay their fees.
What this Max bloke ignores is retirees, of which I am many years from being one, when they were working paid for retirees. They worked and paid and now get their reward. It’s not screwing anyone over.
I have some sympathy with pensioners, many of whom have low, fixed incomes.
But they're an increasing proportion of the population and it isn't right for costs to be heaped on a relatively shrinking working age population. I'm not saying whack all pensioners with taxes or the like, but the proposed NI rise is dumb.
And if 8% goes through as the pension rise, that's indefensible in the current circumstances.
Pensioners with low, fixed incomes won't be affected.
I'd bring in higher income tax rates for the over 65s. Instead of 0/20/40/45 they would be 0/22.5/42.5/47.5 (for example).
0/20/48/55 would be ideal tax rates for retirement incomes. Taxed at source so no escaping it either. My dad is going to have income of over £80k per year in retirement, he literally doesn't know what to do with it beyond giving it away to me and my sister and his grandkids.
Yes quite. But I thought you were against tax rises Max?
On working age people.
What next gulags for pensioners and all their assets confiscated so you can get a few extra weekends away.
Comments
And if where we are is in a position where restrictions are to be brought back in, lets have that debated in Parliament and a new Act passed if need be.
The government should be stripped of its powers to rule by diktat without reference to Parliament.
Falklands 2.0. If occupied, they are much, much harder to retake now than in the 80s due to a much smaller RN, what ships and systems there have a greater logistical footprint and there are 2,600/1,600m runways at MPA.
Russian shittery in the Baltics. Would NATO (ie the US) do anything? If not what does Johnson do?
Chinese takeover of Taiwan. This is a racing certainty by 2030 and probably doesn't shift many votes but would further expose 'Global Britain' as the hollow marketing statement it is.
Domestic terrorism spectacular. This could be bad if it's perpetrated by somebody from among the throng that the Pritster has conspicuously failed to stop crossing the Channel.
The next generation can build up wealth by adopting tax efficient strategies, the most obvious one being to become self employed or a company director as soon as possible in your career. Buy a house with a windfall from your parents.
The other element of this policy is to support people getting in to the system, eg by building more homes, making them affordable, and creating incentives to buy them with little capital outlay.
And the same thing can basically be done over and over again.
Working age people will not actually rebel against this in large numbers against the conservative party, because they see that they can basically benefit from the system. Many do, I see this over and over again. And it puts labour in the difficult position of having to propose benefit cuts if they are going to reduce national insurance for working age people, which of course they won't do.
I am not saying that this is a good system in any way, but it has sound political logic behind it. The tories also know that, following the dementia tax issues, there basically is no alternative for them.
Sometimes life is unfair. Do you really think that electing a labour government would work in your interest?
What are we hosing money on now? It isn't infrastructure (with the exception of HS2). It isn't better health care or education - both are sliding backwards. Its exactly the kind of spending that the right would howl in anguish about had they not been expelled from the Tory party by Worzel for the crime of having a brain.
Donald Trump becoming POTUS?
Not in politics but: the nature of the 9/11 attack?
Public Sector Social care is already on it's last legs - there really is zero chance of any middle class pensioners fixing things in the way you hope - as the only solution will be to raise yet more money from tax (think 2-3% on NI rather than 1%) to pay for the gold plated demands of those sharp elbowed middle class pensioners.
I don't want to go down a generational divide but it strikes me that too many of the younger generation want to whinge rather than work for it.
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9/11 surely is in the sphere of politics. It utterly transformed politics and transformed politics for decades to come.
Perhaps one day we will find out what really happened in the build up to and on the day of 9/11. Planes hit the WTC. How, why, and what caused the towers to collapse is still something of a fairy story when you read the official report.
In MaxPB's case a labour led government or a rainbow coalition would probably mean more severe tax rises on working age people in order to spend money on a load of things he hates; for instance by subsidising woke degree courses, and many other things like that.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/03/security-operation-for-queens-death-includes-social-media-blackouts
'The UK government’s vast security operation to manage the immediate aftermath of the death of the Queen include official social media blackouts and a ban on retweets.
The secret documents, codenamed Operation London Bridge and seen by Politico, reveal the scale of the plans for the funeral and government anxieties about whether the UK has the resources to execute them.
The social media strategy plays a prominent role, including plans to change the royal family’s website to a black holding page with a short statement confirming the Queen’s death, while the gov.uk website and all governmental social media pages will display a black banner. Non-urgent content will not be published and retweets will be banned unless cleared by the government’s head of communications. [...]
The plans for Operation London Bridge and Operation Spring Tide, which sets out how Charles will accede to the throne, contain granular detail such as the potential for public anger if Downing Street cannot lower its flags to half-mast within 10 minutes of the announcement since there is no “flag officer”.
The documents also showed concerns from the Foreign Office over how to arrange entry for significant numbers of tourists, from the Home Office on how to handle potential terror alerts, and from the Department for Transport on overcrowding in the capital.'
Point is inflation has unequal effects across the economy, and very high inflation causes large damage to those on the wrong end of it which is impossible for many to mitigate.
https://www.politico.eu/article/queen-elizabeth-death-plan-britain-operation-london-bridge/
'The Department for Transport has raised concerns that the number of people who may want to travel to London could cause major problems for the transport network, and lead to overcrowding in the capital.
In a striking assessment of the scenes that could unfold, one memo warns of a worst-case scenario in which London literally becomes “full” for the first time ever as potentially hundreds of thousands of people try to make their way there — with accommodation, roads, public transport, food, policing, healthcare and basic services stretched to breaking point. Concerns have also been raised about a shortage of stewards for crowd control purposes.'
You can feel free to tell me "I told you so!" if I'm wrong.
You could paraphrase Palpatine: Everything has proceeded as I have foreseen... mwahahaha!
Or go Shakespearian: Verily, events hath transpired in accordance with mine words.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/sep/03/conservatives.uk
'George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said that the 2% increases in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11 would still allow for lower taxes, as the economy was expected to grow faster than public spending.'
"There will be real increases in spending on public services," Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"When the government moves on to your territory, driven by the fiscal mess they have created, we should be happy to say, 'These are sensible spending plans, plans that we will adopt in government,'" he said.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The economy was in a mess after the GFC and deficit spending. But as Osborne had tied himself to the same mast it is quite funny watching Tories trying to pretend that their party was against such things. They were not.
National insurance will be increased in order to fund social care reforms, it has been reported. Net support for this, by age group:
18-24 year olds: +14
25-49 year olds: +11
50-64 year olds: +40
65+ year olds: +71
All Britons: +32
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1433719113168392192?s=20
Wonder if they will do a few Fun Boy Three tracks too.
The Tories opposed at the time the creation of the fiscal mess Brown had created. There was a fiscal mess, as referred to, before the GFC. The financial crisis just meant it was too late to clean up Brown's mess via constraining spending growth to only moderate amounts.
I don't think Boris needs to worry about being loathed by people who go to dinner parties. I'm not sure anyone in real life has been to a dinner party since about 1989.
I would also like to see more of the burden shifted onto at the very least, high income pensioners, if not wealthy pensioners.
HOWEVER the second part can happen next year. The year after. The last thing I want to see is a conceptual question of how we manage social care costs defeated by a practical question of exactly where that burden should lie. We adjust the overall burden of taxation every year in the budget.
I suspect 2% wouldn't actually be enough to fix the problem as payments need to be increased by 25% or so just to keep things ticking over - see my example from Cornwall below where the council is trying to avoid paying for travel time because they don't have the cash to do so (even though they are legally let alone morally supposed to).
I'm sure you did work hard to pay off your mortgage but I suspect the deposit required was much lower along with the total amount to repay (compared to average salary).
If interest rates do go up at some point then there will be a very large number of people who will no longer be able to afford their mortgage payments. For the last 15 years everyone has been used to very low interest rates. Personally, I have 17 years left on my mortgage but I am trying to overpay in order to be able to pay it off in about 7 years time when I am 50.
Actually, the most hilarious aspect to his recent behaviour was that ever since OGH and TSE "volunteered" him a Democrat Donkey avatar in the run-up to November's US election, he couldn't be arsed to change it!
The reality is that the Government since 2010 has merely pretend to fix the issues while in reality hoping people didn't notice how half baked their solutions were.
And with regard to Mamma Mia the film, I was forced to watch it and almost had a fatal attack of cringe.
The idea of going to the musical just fills me with dread.
I have been battered into submission. I think even I am starting to fancy Colin Firth a bit. Stockholm syndrome.
You do have to ask into whose pockets is this flowing.
Or go for The Princess Bride. It's inconceivable they won't like it.
He is chair of Epping Tory Association and implores people to vote tactically against Tory candidates. Perhaps someone should volunteer him a Labour Rose when he is readmitted.
I'm starting to think this site is made up of a bunch of woosies.
He'll be mobilizing tanks to Bedford as we speak...
Just raise income tax to pay for social care. Everyone who pays income tax pays it.
A brave government would merge tax and NI.
I used to have Iain Gray.
I’m also a huge fan of Jackie Baillie, Johann Lamont, Jim Murphy, Wee Dougie and his big sister, Kez and the whole comic cavalcade of crackpot characters.
I’m still a bit worried about Anas, but he’s slowly drifting into my favourites list too. You’ll know he’s arrived when his avatar gets an outing.
The only solution (and it's one we've need for a long time) is a tax on wealth via say a land value tax.
It's also why I expect we will come out of this recession without the structural deficit Brown bequeathed the Tories.
Other than the girl who plays Meryl Streeps daughter everyone else in it was tone deaf... A musical where hardly anyone can sing??? Maybe I was missing the point but....
Anyway, that’s not my point, tax’s going up seems to be the only thing exercises PB hive mind with this proposal, but you are missing the point how the old are stung by the cap. Those needing care are Means Tested? If they have 60K in assets ie a house, they don’t get any of this money from the tax rise till they have spent that first?
No odds to me personally, mind: I'm an only child with no cousins so things that are a benefit to the old and super-old are a benefit to me eventutally. But that doesn't seem any reason by itself to support this plan.
- foreign aid
- Northern Ireland subsidies
- farming subsidies
- etc, etc.
But I'm afraid Sunak's only instinct is to tax and spend.
Which is why a lot of councils pull every trick going to keep those costs as low as possible and it's one reason why Social care changes are going to way more expensive and complex than people on here expect.
Equally houses weren't cheap, banks just couldn't lend the insane multiples (4.5x joint income) they now can. Back in the 70s you had to wait your turn for the mortgage and it was 3x first income + 1x second if you were lucky.
There wasn't any growth though. Too late, the bell tolled and Browns mess he was already warning us about became apparent.
I too remember the high rates on my first mortgage but when Mrs C and I bought together we were soon able to start overpaying to get the capital down and the thing paid off early. And THEN interest rates collapsed. But I wasn't (and am not) complaining.
With the triple lock, the state pension slowly returns towards its pre-Thatcher level. That's all.
Don't attack pensioners on £9,000 per year. Tell us why rich people pay a lower marginal income tax and NI rate (47%) than middle-income individuals but get a higher rate of pension tax relief.
There’s a good point in this rabid invective. Younger people who feel so hard done by at high property prices and tuition fees forget that back then interest rates were far higher than they are now. Punitively high as Malcolm says. Universities back then had a fraction of the people who go now and working people, like myself, had to pay their fees.
What this Max bloke ignores is retirees, of which I am many years from being one, when they were working paid for retirees. They worked and paid and now get their reward. It’s not screwing anyone over.