I was having real trouble working out how the figures added up yesterday. The yield seemed to be far more than 1.25p would generate. The answer is that there is a further 1.25p increase in the Employers NI as well. As someone who is self employed I only pay this levy once so my tax bill just went up by about £1200. I will also have to pay a small amount of Employer NI for my wife.
But I think that this is worth it (assuming Scotland gives equivalent cover). I do not see how else the awful sequelae of Covid can be dealt with in the short term and the costs of anything like civilised social care can be provided in the longer term. These are both going to be expensive and it will take some time for tax revenues generally to get back to anything like "normal" post pandemic.
I also think that asking people to pay the first £86k of their care costs over their lifetime is enough. If they were in hospital receiving expensive treatments for a difficult medical condition they would of course pay nothing. Dementia is a lottery and there should be a limit to the extent to which the unlucky fork out. This level is high enough that most will never reach it. The elderly with resources will be paying their "hotel" bills in addition.
I think that the government has been brave to finally seize this nettle. Several other governments both before and since Dilnot looked at this and backed off. I commend Boris for his courage.
In Scotland social care has been "free" but it has also been incredibly underfunded and scarce. Many needs have simply not been met, not just for the elderly but for the disabled as well. Yesterday, on the back of this, Sturgeon promised another £800m for Social Care. I was not immediately clear if this was over a Parliament or annual, I think the latter, but it should ensure that Social Care is more of a practical reality and less of a theoretical right. We shall see. The Scottish government is rather an old hand at announcing expenditure that never actually gets spent.
But he hasn't fixed social care. The money is going overwhelmingly to the NHS. We have 100k care vacancies and the council coffers are still overdrawn before we recruit those. The total number of staff needed rises with our demographics. They all need to be paid a lot more, not just out of fairness but practically to compete for staff with labour shortages across many sectors. Social care will get a lot worse, not better, over the next decade if this is the solution.
The money will go to fund extra NHS spending over the next 18 months and then go to Social Care. I agree that wages in the SC sector need to improve but they are a consequence of the penny pinching we have had in that sector to date. This will not go away but it will be eased by these additional resources.
You don't really believe that do you? The much more likely scenario is that the NHS comes begging for more money and social care sits unresolved so this 1.25% quickly rises to 5%.
There will be continuing upward pressure on NHS spending, that it absolutely so. But there is a particular crisis right now that needs to be addressed and this does that.
I thought your point, with which I have some sympathy, is that this additional income should be coming from capital taxes as well as income taxes. I completely agree that the burden of taxes on income is excessive and taxes on capital are far too light. The massive gains people make on their homes tax free is distorting inter generational wealth and opportunity too. But this is a different argument from whether this money is needed. It clearly is.
A point made by quite a few people is that if this really was a one-off Covid related cost, the normal thing is to incur the debt and pay it off over years.
I think there is a perceived need for a big political gesture, which I suspect is driven by the prospect of an utterly grim NHS winter coming up. The government wants to get ahead of that curve.
In fiscal terms this has almost nothing to do with social care and not much to do with the general NHS. It is a general tax increase that is nominally hypothecated to spending that is seen as desirable, but which essentially is happening (or in the case of social care, not happening) anyway.
The best take, I think. This isn't in essence a Social Care or an NHS story. It's deficit reduction packaged in the way judged best politically. The Treasury needs more funds because Covid has messed up the public finances. NI works best politically as the source of the funds. And Health & Social Care works best politically as their earmarked destination.
Agreed. This is what I have been saying. You cannot spend £400bn with more to come AND have reduced tax revenues and do nothing about it. It would be just irresponsible.
You were saying well done the government for solving social care or at least trying to ("commend Boris for his courage". Kinabalu is saying the government are not even trying to solve social care, merely make it look as if they are trying.
I'd imagine you might have more success changing his mind about Boris' muscly physique than agreeing this is courageous.
Although in the face of Philip's forceful and eloquent arguments on this matter - the Johnson physique - I ended up caving and agreeing that the man is indeed something of a Vin Diesel.
As I have said before those of us with similar impressive bodies have always known it.
On the remain march there was a Boris lookalike (and May one as well) and I took pictures. Several people thought it was me. What was most shocking is it was a caricature of Boris (completely dishevelled, looking a bit drunk) and holding a Tory placard, so a triple insult.
My daughter did her LFT on Monday and got her result on Tuesday lunch time, roughly 24 hours later. We all got tested yesterday afternoon and will presumably get our results today. I think that is pretty good but because my daughter was symptomless she had been a lot of places in the 4 days before her test. She got a T&T form to complete about that this morning. It is going to take a bit of time.
With a self administered LFT you get the result immediately.
Yes, my son did those when he was at school and I have used them a few times when asked to before going to certain events. But for a State administered system which is integrated with T&T I thought that was pretty good. Still hoping for the all clear naturally.
This is surely a (swift turnaround) PCT test? If it is LFT, even if you send off the sample to T&T, you'd still see the test result before you send it off (or do you go somewhere, they swab and whip it away without letting you see the LFT result? I can't see the point in that).
Robert Goodwill, conservative mp, in conversation with Adam Boulton said someone earning £20,000 will pay an extra £130 but a top television presenter earning £400,000 will pay £4500
Tony Blair wouldn't be presenting a plan for social care and he won three elections.
He would just be doing a much better job than Starmer of destroying the Government. "Tax wealth not workers" would be a good start
Hasn't a persons wealth been created through working, or are we just going to tax the equity in someone's house
Isn't a person's wages also being created through working?
Certainly more than just the artificial inflation of assets because of objecting to more of those assets being created.
Why should we tax earned wages more than unearned ones?
Well as you know I have always been in favour of CGT on residential homes, but we won't go there today as, as far as I can remember, I got slaughtered on that one, and from memory I think you were amongst those beating me up.
I was having real trouble working out how the figures added up yesterday. The yield seemed to be far more than 1.25p would generate. The answer is that there is a further 1.25p increase in the Employers NI as well. As someone who is self employed I only pay this levy once so my tax bill just went up by about £1200. I will also have to pay a small amount of Employer NI for my wife.
But I think that this is worth it (assuming Scotland gives equivalent cover). I do not see how else the awful sequelae of Covid can be dealt with in the short term and the costs of anything like civilised social care can be provided in the longer term. These are both going to be expensive and it will take some time for tax revenues generally to get back to anything like "normal" post pandemic.
I also think that asking people to pay the first £86k of their care costs over their lifetime is enough. If they were in hospital receiving expensive treatments for a difficult medical condition they would of course pay nothing. Dementia is a lottery and there should be a limit to the extent to which the unlucky fork out. This level is high enough that most will never reach it. The elderly with resources will be paying their "hotel" bills in addition.
I think that the government has been brave to finally seize this nettle. Several other governments both before and since Dilnot looked at this and backed off. I commend Boris for his courage.
In Scotland social care has been "free" but it has also been incredibly underfunded and scarce. Many needs have simply not been met, not just for the elderly but for the disabled as well. Yesterday, on the back of this, Sturgeon promised another £800m for Social Care. I was not immediately clear if this was over a Parliament or annual, I think the latter, but it should ensure that Social Care is more of a practical reality and less of a theoretical right. We shall see. The Scottish government is rather an old hand at announcing expenditure that never actually gets spent.
But he hasn't fixed social care. The money is going overwhelmingly to the NHS. We have 100k care vacancies and the council coffers are still overdrawn before we recruit those. The total number of staff needed rises with our demographics. They all need to be paid a lot more, not just out of fairness but practically to compete for staff with labour shortages across many sectors. Social care will get a lot worse, not better, over the next decade if this is the solution.
The money will go to fund extra NHS spending over the next 18 months and then go to Social Care. I agree that wages in the SC sector need to improve but they are a consequence of the penny pinching we have had in that sector to date. This will not go away but it will be eased by these additional resources.
You don't really believe that do you? The much more likely scenario is that the NHS comes begging for more money and social care sits unresolved so this 1.25% quickly rises to 5%.
There will be continuing upward pressure on NHS spending, that it absolutely so. But there is a particular crisis right now that needs to be addressed and this does that.
I thought your point, with which I have some sympathy, is that this additional income should be coming from capital taxes as well as income taxes. I completely agree that the burden of taxes on income is excessive and taxes on capital are far too light. The massive gains people make on their homes tax free is distorting inter generational wealth and opportunity too. But this is a different argument from whether this money is needed. It clearly is.
A point made by quite a few people is that if this really was a one-off Covid related cost, the normal thing is to incur the debt and pay it off over years.
I think there is a perceived need for a big political gesture, which I suspect is driven by the prospect of an utterly grim NHS winter coming up. The government wants to get ahead of that curve.
In fiscal terms this has almost nothing to do with social care and not much to do with the general NHS. It is a general tax increase that is nominally hypothecated to spending that is seen as desirable, but which essentially is happening (or in the case of social care, not happening) anyway.
The best take, I think. This isn't in essence a Social Care or an NHS story. It's deficit reduction packaged in the way judged best politically. The Treasury needs more funds because Covid has messed up the public finances. NI works best politically as the source of the funds. And Health & Social Care works best politically as their earmarked destination.
Agreed. This is what I have been saying. You cannot spend £400bn with more to come AND have reduced tax revenues and do nothing about it. It would be just irresponsible.
You were saying well done the government for solving social care or at least trying to ("commend Boris for his courage". Kinabalu is saying the government are not even trying to solve social care, merely make it look as if they are trying.
I'd imagine you might have more success changing his mind about Boris' muscly physique than agreeing this is courageous.
I do think that this additional tax will be an important and essential income flow for the government whose finances are under appalling pressure. I also think that he was right to acknowledge the important part that Social care plays on those pressures, not just because it gives dignity to the disabled and the elderly but because indirectly it will reduce pressure currently being applied to the NHS.
I commend him for his honesty in acknowledging the problem and being brave enough to accept that higher taxes are an essential component of the solution. Whether this is enough to resolve SC remains to be seen but it is far more than any other government of any stripe has done.
Not at all, it merely brings real terms spending per person in care back to 2010 levels by 2025, yet care staff wages will need to be higher with less migration, so real terms care per person will be lower than under the last Labour government.
That would be the government which left office with a £250bn deficit without a pandemic and refused to have a public spending review before the election because they wanted to pretend that cuts were not necessary? Give me a break.
Remarkable to see the conversion of some on here to wealth taxes. Fantastic to see. Wish I could bottle whatever led to this change of heart.
Please don't bottle it, it is 15 years of the young getting shafted by the state!
Right, but why now?
As you say, this has been going on for ages, the left have been making this point for ages, so what is causing the conversion? Is it going to be more widespread?
My pessimistic hunch is that for most people these tax changes are sufficiently small/complicated that they won't notice too much. But I hope I'm wrong, and this is the start of the way back for a Labour govt (with the Lib Dems if they are interested) that will shift the balance of taxation from workers towards the wealthy.
Watching the Lib Dems campaign in Surrey, on increasing taxation on property wealth would be, err, interesting. Maybe even ‘brave’, as Sir Humphrey might have said.
Mansion tax was their proposal in 2010 and they did okay then.
Except that, following a decade of excessive property inflation, a ‘mansion’ is now a 3-bed semi.
Only in parts of the country. Where I live a 3 bed semi is less than 200K. Around £160K
My original comment was about Surrey. Yes, there are huge regional imbalances.
Yes, Surrey that’s true, there is plenty of affordable property just not where people want to live.
Someone posted yesterday the average price In Guildford is £550K.
We have had over two decades of concentrating the wealth and jobs in London and the south east. Levelling up is a great idea but this govt cannot deliver it.
Some two bed houses in Surrey are 400 - 450k. Ludicrous
My daughter did her LFT on Monday and got her result on Tuesday lunch time, roughly 24 hours later. We all got tested yesterday afternoon and will presumably get our results today. I think that is pretty good but because my daughter was symptomless she had been a lot of places in the 4 days before her test. She got a T&T form to complete about that this morning. It is going to take a bit of time.
With a self administered LFT you get the result immediately.
Yes, my son did those when he was at school and I have used them a few times when asked to before going to certain events. But for a State administered system which is integrated with T&T I thought that was pretty good. Still hoping for the all clear naturally.
This is surely a (swift turnaround) PCT test? If it is LFT, even if you send off the sample to T&T, you'd still see the test result before you send it off (or do you go somewhere, they swab and whip it away without letting you see the LFT result? I can't see the point in that).
You're right it was. Actually undertaking it was very similar to the LFT test which is why I got confused. (Either that or I do have Covid and my brain is already fuzzy).
Tony Blair wouldn't be presenting a plan for social care and he won three elections.
He would just be doing a much better job than Starmer of destroying the Government. "Tax wealth not workers" would be a good start
Hasn't a persons wealth been created through working, or are we just going to tax the equity in someone's house
We've lived in this house 20 years; worth now, according t'internet, substantially more than we paid for it. Some small improvements, but nothing to justify that.
We have lived in our home since 1975 and it is very much the family home
If we have to go into care we will pay our care costs as required by the Welsh government though as I said earlier today the irony is if you have a terminal diagnosis your nursing home will be paid by the Welsh NHS but if you have dementia then you have to pay virtually everything yourself
Anyone with over 10 million ought to be able to easily generate 1% in income etc too - so they wouldn't even be worse off on an annual basis with this either.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Jeremy Cliffe @JeremyCliffe · 22h - CDU/CSU falls to 19%, its lowest poll result of all time - Laschet relaunch showing no signs of success - SPD and Greens creeping towards two-party majority territory
The latest poll has the SPD and Greens on 41.5% combined, well short of a majority.
They would still likely need the FDP who are on 12.5% too
Apart from Saxony where the AfD lead, the latest INSA also has the SPD ahead in every state in Germany north of Bavaria which the CSU will still win, with Baden Wurttemberg the only state the CDU still lead in https://twitter.com/JeremyCliffe/status/1435230013314506752?s=20
The CDU could still lose to the Greens in BaWü but we'll see.
The probability now is that there will be a SPD-Green-FDP coalition depending on how the FDP behave but the SPD is likely to use the threat of a SPD-Green-Linke alliance to get the FDP to play ball in negotiations.
An SPD led grand coalition can't be completely ruled out if there's a majority for it although the CDU/CSU is likely to lose so badly that they go into opposition.
We haven't had a national poll in BaWü in two years according to Wahlrecht. Are we basing this off crossbreaks?
Just my knowledge of German politics TBH. BaWü was the strongest state for the CDU in 2013 and 2nd strongest state for them in 2017 but there is a lot of split voting between state elections and federal elections so a lot of CDU voters are already receptive to the Greens. We also know that the Greens are very strong in Freiburg and Stuttgart and it's suburbs so if the CDU is less than 4/5% ahead of the Greens nationally the Greens could very narrowly carry BaWü.
Basically the old Kingdom of Protestant Prussia will vote overwhelmingly SPD.
However the more conservative and rural and Catholic historically old Kingdom of Bavaria and Grand Duchy of Baden and Kingdom of Wurttemberg and principality of Hohenzollern will still vote CSU or likely CDU in BaWu
I actually meant the other way around. I think it's optimistic (from their perspective) to say that the Union are favourites in BaWu.
We know they are only holding on to Bayern on a much reduced vote share and that is the CSU half of the draw.
Either way in BaWu though it will still be the Union's second based state performance after Bavaria.
It will surely then lead to a shift in the Union after its defeat under Laschet, Merkel's heir apparent, away from the dominance of the Northern CDU branch under Merkel back towards the more conservative southern branch of the CDU and CSU which has been a minority in the Union since the CSU's Stoiber was Union candidate in 2002 and almost beat Schroder.
Even if they did not get their man in as chancellor candidate therefore, the CSU are likely to see Soder play a bigger role in the Union in opposition.
Tony Blair wouldn't be presenting a plan for social care and he won three elections.
He would just be doing a much better job than Starmer of destroying the Government. "Tax wealth not workers" would be a good start
Hasn't a persons wealth been created through working, or are we just going to tax the equity in someone's house
We've lived in this house 20 years; worth now, according t'internet, substantially more than we paid for it. Some small improvements, but nothing to justify that.
And that's a chunky part of why the UK is in the state it's in. Under both Thatcher and Blair, a lot of wealth has ended up in house prices. After all, it's easier than working for a living.
That creates all sorts of problems, but dealing with it is almost certainly incompatible with being re-elected.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Jamie Oliver is one of my heroes, I have no doubt his heart has always been in the right place and he works jolly hard.
The discrepancy between what I ate at school (and it was a private school) and what these kids were eating is absolutely extraordinary. We had proper balanced meals every day, sports every day, which you had to do.
I don't know what it's like now but for me it is clear that such a discrepancy is not acceptable. We should be doing much more for state school kids
It's almost as if we have had a pandemic, isn't it?
A pandemic that had an almost 100% survival rate for the young seeing tax rises, which we locked the nation down to save the vulnerable elderly who are not seeing their taxes on pensions go up in line with the tax on wages.
Its rather sick but it seems economically @contrarian might have had a point if this is the way we're going to go. If we hadn't locked down the nation, if we had just let the virus take its course naturally, then the number of people requiring pensions and care homes would have come down, the number of workers wouldn't as much, and the people obsessing over their inheritance may have had it by now.
Personally I still think that would have been the wrong thing to do, but if all of the paying for the pandemic is going to fall on those who sacrificed rather than were saved from it then maybe it wouldn't have been?
It's not Philip. They will pay the first £86k if they have the resources to do so. They will pay their accommodation in addition. What we have here is more money going into SC, not just for the elderly but also for the disabled and rather modest safety nets for those who are particularly unlucky.
At the moment you get SC if you can afford it or if you are peculiarly lucky on a post code lottery. That needs to change and that needs money.
No, we don't. We have a pledge that SC will get some of this money "one day". You're being taken for a ride.
Could be different in Scotland, to be fair.
A major review undergoing in Scotland (was initiated some time ago), but I have not been keeping up.
Robert Goodwill, conservative mp, in conversation with Adam Boulton said someone earning £20,000 will pay an extra £130 but a top television presenter earning £400,000 will pay £4500
Regardless of if the policy is good or bad, I think that is why the journalists were so angry and screaming UNFAIR at the press conference yesterday.
Reminds me when Hammond proposed changing NI contributions on those earning via service companies, the screeching was deafening, all under the guise it was going to hit gig economy workers, when actually ones being hit hard would include media types who have a nice sideline in freelance gigs put through service companies.
I take it that the NHS money off the bus is gone and forgotten?
£18.2m a year promised. £10.4bn actually available (net EU contribution). £7bn being paid to the EU this year so c. £3bn of actual cash. New tax hike raises £12bn, so we're still £3bn short.
A lot of people cited money for the NHS as the reason they supported Brexit. That money simply doesn't exist. Which is how we have the Brexit bus cash AND a big tax increase and still not enough cash so that NHS services get worse.
As the Covid bill is cited as the excuse for the tax rise then I assume a lot more than the promised £18bn is needed - add the £12bn tax take on top perhaps? So we need £30bn and its maybe getting half that.
So you are saying the government should have increased taxes by another £15bn? Wow.
I said that? My point was that you praised the clown car for fixing things. They categorically have not. You will pay more taxes for things to get worse.
Tony Blair wouldn't be presenting a plan for social care and he won three elections.
He would just be doing a much better job than Starmer of destroying the Government. "Tax wealth not workers" would be a good start
Hasn't a persons wealth been created through working, or are we just going to tax the equity in someone's house
We've lived in this house 20 years; worth now, according t'internet, substantially more than we paid for it. Some small improvements, but nothing to justify that.
We have lived in our home since 1975 and it is very much the family home
If we have to go into care we will pay our care costs as required by the Welsh government though as I said earlier today the irony is if you have a terminal diagnosis your nursing home will be paid by the Welsh NHS but if you have dementia then you have to pay virtually everything yourself
Which was what happened to my in-laws in Lancashire. Neither had a 'terminal diagnosis' but both needed intensive 24 hour care. We had to fight hard to get some of their care paid for. And the home we sold was the one they'd bought 20 years before as part of their retirement planning.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Jamie Oliver is one of my heroes, I have no doubt his heart has always been in the right place and he works jolly hard.
The discrepancy between what I ate at school (and it was a private school) and what these kids were eating is absolutely extraordinary. We had proper balanced meals every day, sports every day, which you had to do.
I don't know what it's like now but for me it is clear that such a discrepancy is not acceptable. We should be doing much more for state school kids
On exercise: last year my little un's school started taking part in the Daily Mile: https://thedailymile.co.uk/
Seems like a good idea. Outside school, Junior Parkrun is cool.
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
I take it that the NHS money off the bus is gone and forgotten?
£18.2m a year promised. £10.4bn actually available (net EU contribution). £7bn being paid to the EU this year so c. £3bn of actual cash. New tax hike raises £12bn, so we're still £3bn short.
A lot of people cited money for the NHS as the reason they supported Brexit. That money simply doesn't exist. Which is how we have the Brexit bus cash AND a big tax increase and still not enough cash so that NHS services get worse.
As the Covid bill is cited as the excuse for the tax rise then I assume a lot more than the promised £18bn is needed - add the £12bn tax take on top perhaps? So we need £30bn and its maybe getting half that.
NHS Funding has increased way more than £350m a week even without COVID.
Rightho. Which is why there were widespread waiting list increases and front line funding crises before Covid. Because of all the extra money.
If the cash doesn't reach the front line then were has it gone? Is the answer to the return of endless interminable wait times in pain to be "we've invested way more than £350m a week"?
I take it that the NHS money off the bus is gone and forgotten?
£18.2m a year promised. £10.4bn actually available (net EU contribution). £7bn being paid to the EU this year so c. £3bn of actual cash. New tax hike raises £12bn, so we're still £3bn short.
A lot of people cited money for the NHS as the reason they supported Brexit. That money simply doesn't exist. Which is how we have the Brexit bus cash AND a big tax increase and still not enough cash so that NHS services get worse.
As the Covid bill is cited as the excuse for the tax rise then I assume a lot more than the promised £18bn is needed - add the £12bn tax take on top perhaps? So we need £30bn and its maybe getting half that.
So you are saying the government should have increased taxes by another £15bn? Wow.
I said that? My point was that you praised the clown car for fixing things. They categorically have not. You will pay more taxes for things to get worse.
Your argument, AIUI, is that Boris has not fixed things because that would cost £30bn and Boris is only chucking £15bn at it.
The proposition that "only" £15bn will make things worse than they would otherwise be is one I am having problems with.
Good news. Energy storage is going to be big business in the coming decade. It’s also a brilliantly efficient way of recycling old electric car batteries, which is why Tesla are getting involved in it.
Tesla uses newly manufacture batteries in their Megapacks.
At the moment - there isn't a big enough number of old Tesla batteries to use for such purposes, yet.
As I foresaw a while back, the ability to scale from a single container up, and the reduced planning issues is making containerised battery storage very attractive.
It is - but there's no reason to assume that future battery storage won't be newly manufactured, too. The cars being built now are expected to have lifetimes of a decade or more. By the time they get scrapped, battery tech will have moved on significantly, with in terms of cost and capacity, and it might just be more economic fully to recycle the old stuff.
A battery with 70-80% capacity left may well be retired from automotive use - but would be useful for storage vs the probable cost of new one in a few years.
Except it won't be a few years, but a decade or more. And it's not just a matter of putting them in a box - would require fairly extensive testing, plus the same costs of system integration for new batteries.
I'm sure some will be used in this way, but I doubt it will be more than a fraction of the total market.
It depends on the monitoring systems built into the packs - Tesla packs can give a pretty detailed readout of the state of the pack down to the cell level. So it would be quite easy to assess them for re-use.
I was having real trouble working out how the figures added up yesterday. The yield seemed to be far more than 1.25p would generate. The answer is that there is a further 1.25p increase in the Employers NI as well. As someone who is self employed I only pay this levy once so my tax bill just went up by about £1200. I will also have to pay a small amount of Employer NI for my wife.
But I think that this is worth it (assuming Scotland gives equivalent cover). I do not see how else the awful sequelae of Covid can be dealt with in the short term and the costs of anything like civilised social care can be provided in the longer term. These are both going to be expensive and it will take some time for tax revenues generally to get back to anything like "normal" post pandemic.
I also think that asking people to pay the first £86k of their care costs over their lifetime is enough. If they were in hospital receiving expensive treatments for a difficult medical condition they would of course pay nothing. Dementia is a lottery and there should be a limit to the extent to which the unlucky fork out. This level is high enough that most will never reach it. The elderly with resources will be paying their "hotel" bills in addition.
I think that the government has been brave to finally seize this nettle. Several other governments both before and since Dilnot looked at this and backed off. I commend Boris for his courage.
In Scotland social care has been "free" but it has also been incredibly underfunded and scarce. Many needs have simply not been met, not just for the elderly but for the disabled as well. Yesterday, on the back of this, Sturgeon promised another £800m for Social Care. I was not immediately clear if this was over a Parliament or annual, I think the latter, but it should ensure that Social Care is more of a practical reality and less of a theoretical right. We shall see. The Scottish government is rather an old hand at announcing expenditure that never actually gets spent.
But he hasn't fixed social care. The money is going overwhelmingly to the NHS. We have 100k care vacancies and the council coffers are still overdrawn before we recruit those. The total number of staff needed rises with our demographics. They all need to be paid a lot more, not just out of fairness but practically to compete for staff with labour shortages across many sectors. Social care will get a lot worse, not better, over the next decade if this is the solution.
The money will go to fund extra NHS spending over the next 18 months and then go to Social Care. I agree that wages in the SC sector need to improve but they are a consequence of the penny pinching we have had in that sector to date. This will not go away but it will be eased by these additional resources.
You don't really believe that do you? The much more likely scenario is that the NHS comes begging for more money and social care sits unresolved so this 1.25% quickly rises to 5%.
There will be continuing upward pressure on NHS spending, that it absolutely so. But there is a particular crisis right now that needs to be addressed and this does that.
I thought your point, with which I have some sympathy, is that this additional income should be coming from capital taxes as well as income taxes. I completely agree that the burden of taxes on income is excessive and taxes on capital are far too light. The massive gains people make on their homes tax free is distorting inter generational wealth and opportunity too. But this is a different argument from whether this money is needed. It clearly is.
A point made by quite a few people is that if this really was a one-off Covid related cost, the normal thing is to incur the debt and pay it off over years.
I think there is a perceived need for a big political gesture, which I suspect is driven by the prospect of an utterly grim NHS winter coming up. The government wants to get ahead of that curve.
In fiscal terms this has almost nothing to do with social care and not much to do with the general NHS. It is a general tax increase that is nominally hypothecated to spending that is seen as desirable, but which essentially is happening (or in the case of social care, not happening) anyway.
The best take, I think. This isn't in essence a Social Care or an NHS story. It's deficit reduction packaged in the way judged best politically. The Treasury needs more funds because Covid has messed up the public finances. NI works best politically as the source of the funds. And Health & Social Care works best politically as their earmarked destination.
Agreed. This is what I have been saying. You cannot spend £400bn with more to come AND have reduced tax revenues and do nothing about it. It would be just irresponsible.
You were saying well done the government for solving social care or at least trying to ("commend Boris for his courage". Kinabalu is saying the government are not even trying to solve social care, merely make it look as if they are trying.
I'd imagine you might have more success changing his mind about Boris' muscly physique than agreeing this is courageous.
I do think that this additional tax will be an important and essential income flow for the government whose finances are under appalling pressure. I also think that he was right to acknowledge the important part that Social care plays on those pressures, not just because it gives dignity to the disabled and the elderly but because indirectly it will reduce pressure currently being applied to the NHS.
I commend him for his honesty in acknowledging the problem and being brave enough to accept that higher taxes are an essential component of the solution. Whether this is enough to resolve SC remains to be seen but it is far more than any other government of any stripe has done.
Cobblers. Where has the Brexit money gone for the NHS? What has been announced is only enough to make services "get worse before they get better" (Javid's direct quote) and literally nothing for social care.
We are already massively up on the £350m a week that was on the bus. And, because of the pandemic, we are going even further. Given your politics I am surprised that you have a problem with this.
So £350m a week is an utterly insignificant amount compared to the cost of running the NHS. And yet many people believed that their Brexit vote would significantly benefit the NHS. Poor sods.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Jamie Oliver is one of my heroes, I have no doubt his heart has always been in the right place
Crikey. That's not what many of his employees or former employees say about him.
You should read up the facts behind the business debacles. All very unsavoury (pun intended).
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
Yep - which, of course, is one reason why all those calling for detailed, costed Labour policies so far ahead of a general election are wrong.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
I take it that the NHS money off the bus is gone and forgotten?
£18.2m a year promised. £10.4bn actually available (net EU contribution). £7bn being paid to the EU this year so c. £3bn of actual cash. New tax hike raises £12bn, so we're still £3bn short.
A lot of people cited money for the NHS as the reason they supported Brexit. That money simply doesn't exist. Which is how we have the Brexit bus cash AND a big tax increase and still not enough cash so that NHS services get worse.
As the Covid bill is cited as the excuse for the tax rise then I assume a lot more than the promised £18bn is needed - add the £12bn tax take on top perhaps? So we need £30bn and its maybe getting half that.
NHS Funding has increased way more than £350m a week even without COVID.
Rightho. Which is why there were widespread waiting list increases and front line funding crises before Covid. Because of all the extra money.
If the cash doesn't reach the front line then were has it gone? Is the answer to the return of endless interminable wait times in pain to be "we've invested way more than £350m a week"?
Like I said earlier, because much of the money is misspent on overtime and outsourcing rather than real capacity increases for the long term.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Jamie Oliver is one of my heroes, I have no doubt his heart has always been in the right place
Crikey. That's not what many of his employees or former employees say about him.
You should read up the facts behind the business debacles. All very unsavoury (pun intended).
Actually a relative does work for him and says good things
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
I think Oliver's heart has always been in the right place - but he's obviously not good at running businesses. He seems extremely ashamed of how that went - and that is the right response.
I still have no doubt his heart is in the right place.
I have a question. I know nothing about investments, dividends etc. so it may be a stupid one. Excuse my ignorance.
I have a bit of money invested in the stock market - transferred from NS&I ISAs a while back because interest rates were so low. It's managed for me. All of it is wrapped up in stocks and shares ISAs as far as I am aware. So my understanding is I don't pay any tax on the income, and this new 1.25% tax on dividends won't apply to ISA-wrapped stocks and shares. Have I got this right? And if so, won't this apply to most 'ordinary' people - the only people who will be hit by the 1.25% tax hike on dividends are those who have invested more money than can be wrapped up in the annual ISA allowance?
I take it that the NHS money off the bus is gone and forgotten?
£18.2m a year promised. £10.4bn actually available (net EU contribution). £7bn being paid to the EU this year so c. £3bn of actual cash. New tax hike raises £12bn, so we're still £3bn short.
A lot of people cited money for the NHS as the reason they supported Brexit. That money simply doesn't exist. Which is how we have the Brexit bus cash AND a big tax increase and still not enough cash so that NHS services get worse.
As the Covid bill is cited as the excuse for the tax rise then I assume a lot more than the promised £18bn is needed - add the £12bn tax take on top perhaps? So we need £30bn and its maybe getting half that.
NHS Funding has increased way more than £350m a week even without COVID.
Rightho. Which is why there were widespread waiting list increases and front line funding crises before Covid. Because of all the extra money.
If the cash doesn't reach the front line then where has it gone? Is the answer to the return of endless interminable wait times in pain to be "we've invested way more than £350m a week"?
The NHS has issues. They'd be worse without the >> £350 million a week given to the NHS since the Brexit vote.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
I think Oliver's heart has always been in the right place - but he's obviously not good at running businesses. He seems extremely ashamed of how that went - and that is the right response.
I still have no doubt his heart is in the right place.
AFAIK, he doesn't actually run any of his businesses, he isn't capable of doing that, it is / was his brother in law.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
* if that is too radical, an egg or two with no toast or other carbs.
Hear, hear. Good to hear you say that. I've long been of the view that for me, a degenerate glutton, not having breakfast (because the morning is the ONLY time I don't want food - at all other times the fridge and bread bin both wink at me) is the right way to be.
The system needs the right amount and balance of nutrients, it matters not one jot what time of the day it is consumed.
I have a question. I know nothing about investments, dividends etc. so it may be a stupid one. Excuse my ignorance.
I have a bit of money invested in the stock market - transferred from NS&I ISAs a while back because interest rates were so low. It's managed for me. All of it is wrapped up in stocks and shares ISAs as far as I am aware. So my understanding is I don't pay any tax on the income, and this new 1.25% tax on dividends won't apply to ISA-wrapped stocks and shares. Have I got this right? And if so, won't this apply to most 'ordinary' people - the only people who will be hit by the 1.25% tax hike on dividends are those who have invested more money than can be wrapped up in the annual ISA allowance?
Yes, dividends from ISAs are untaxed. It will hit dividend income outside ISA, in particular in small companies where dividends are used by owners instead of pay, thereby legally avoiding NI. I understand that is the reason for the change.
I have a question. I know nothing about investments, dividends etc. so it may be a stupid one. Excuse my ignorance.
I have a bit of money invested in the stock market - transferred from NS&I ISAs a while back because interest rates were so low. It's managed for me. All of it is wrapped up in stocks and shares ISAs as far as I am aware. So my understanding is I don't pay any tax on the income, and this new 1.25% tax on dividends won't apply to ISA-wrapped stocks and shares. Have I got this right? And if so, won't this apply to most 'ordinary' people - the only people who will be hit by the 1.25% tax hike on dividends are those who have invested more money than can be wrapped up in the annual ISA allowance?
Broadly yes, but also those investing in smaller non listed companies that can't be put into an ISA including the self employed.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
Yep - which, of course, is one reason why all those calling for detailed, costed Labour policies so far ahead of a general election are wrong.
Yes, quite so. And for the record, those who watched Starmer's response to the statement yesterday will have heard him make it clear that rather than the NI rise on workers the extra money needed should be sought from those "with the broadest shoulders" (quote), so he's set out a clear principle. The detail can wait.
Jeremy Cliffe @JeremyCliffe · 22h - CDU/CSU falls to 19%, its lowest poll result of all time - Laschet relaunch showing no signs of success - SPD and Greens creeping towards two-party majority territory
The latest poll has the SPD and Greens on 41.5% combined, well short of a majority.
They would still likely need the FDP who are on 12.5% too
Apart from Saxony where the AfD lead, the latest INSA also has the SPD ahead in every state in Germany north of Bavaria which the CSU will still win, with Baden Wurttemberg the only state the CDU still lead in https://twitter.com/JeremyCliffe/status/1435230013314506752?s=20
The CDU could still lose to the Greens in BaWü but we'll see.
The probability now is that there will be a SPD-Green-FDP coalition depending on how the FDP behave but the SPD is likely to use the threat of a SPD-Green-Linke alliance to get the FDP to play ball in negotiations.
An SPD led grand coalition can't be completely ruled out if there's a majority for it although the CDU/CSU is likely to lose so badly that they go into opposition.
We haven't had a national poll in BaWü in two years according to Wahlrecht. Are we basing this off crossbreaks?
Just my knowledge of German politics TBH. BaWü was the strongest state for the CDU in 2013 and 2nd strongest state for them in 2017 but there is a lot of split voting between state elections and federal elections so a lot of CDU voters are already receptive to the Greens. We also know that the Greens are very strong in Freiburg and Stuttgart and it's suburbs so if the CDU is less than 4/5% ahead of the Greens nationally the Greens could very narrowly carry BaWü.
Basically the old Kingdom of Protestant Prussia will vote overwhelmingly SPD.
However the more conservative and rural and Catholic historically old Kingdom of Bavaria and Grand Duchy of Baden and Kingdom of Wurttemberg and principality of Hohenzollern will still vote CSU or likely CDU in BaWu
I actually meant the other way around. I think it's optimistic (from their perspective) to say that the Union are favourites in BaWu.
We know they are only holding on to Bayern on a much reduced vote share and that is the CSU half of the draw.
Either way in BaWu though it will still be the Union's second based state performance after Bavaria.
It will surely then lead to a shift in the Union after its defeat under Laschet, Merkel's heir apparent, away from the dominance of the Northern CDU branch under Merkel back towards the more conservative southern branch of the CDU and CSU which has been a minority in the Union since the CSU's Stoiber was Union candidate in 2002 and almost beat Schroder.
Even if they did not get their man in as chancellor candidate therefore, the CSU are likely to see Soder play a bigger role in the Union in opposition.
It's also quite possible that the CDU/CSU could disintegrate in opposition at least in the short term . Even ignoring Laschet's incompetence the CDU strongly overperformed in East Germany and the major cities due to the centrism of Merkel and now all that is unwinding. Laschet is probably heading straight out the door but Spahn, Merz et al will be jostling for position and Söder will want to lie low in Bavaria while he bides his time.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
* if that is too radical, an egg or two with no toast or other carbs.
Hear, hear. Good to hear you say that. I've long been of the view that for me, a degenerate glutton, not having breakfast (because the morning is the ONLY time I don't want food - at all other times the fridge and bread bin both wink at me) is the right way to be.
The system needs the right amount and balance of nutrients, it matters not one jot what time of the day it is consumed.
I agree with the author that the performance of the current 'Conservative' government is abysmal in so many areas. But look at the alternatives. When one looks at Starmer, Sturgeon or the MP for Kingston whose name I've forgotten it's no wonder the Conservatives still lead in the polls.
Can Matthew Goodwin just join the Tory Party now? He's not even trying to be objective anymore, every post is saying how good BoJo is
Is anyone saying how good Starmer is?
I know 2 posters on here who praised him yesterday
I'm not sure you're really qualified to discuss what Labour should do, bearing in mind you went from Corbyn to BoJo.
You're the kind of person frankly I am glad is out of Labour.
Simple transfer, we get BJO, you or the LDs get PT
So a party of no principles or ideology whatsoever then, thanks for confirming
Not a classically liberal and small state Tory Party now no but then that was often the case for the Tories pre Thatcher.
Boris is the least Thatcherite Tory leader since Macmillan, indeed he is basically a Brexity Heseltine as he himself has said and supportive of the big state when he thinks it is needed as on health
I was in Labour before Corbyn and I am in Labour after Corbyn, it is becoming clear that a certain sector were not really in Labour for Labour values but instead for the Corbyn fandom
I have a question. I know nothing about investments, dividends etc. so it may be a stupid one. Excuse my ignorance.
I have a bit of money invested in the stock market - transferred from NS&I ISAs a while back because interest rates were so low. It's managed for me. All of it is wrapped up in stocks and shares ISAs as far as I am aware. So my understanding is I don't pay any tax on the income, and this new 1.25% tax on dividends won't apply to ISA-wrapped stocks and shares. Have I got this right? And if so, won't this apply to most 'ordinary' people - the only people who will be hit by the 1.25% tax hike on dividends are those who have invested more money than can be wrapped up in the annual ISA allowance?
Yes, dividends from ISAs are untaxed. It will hit dividend income outside ISA, in particular in small companies where dividends are used by owners instead of pay, thereby legally avoiding NI. I understand that is the reason for the change.
Thanks for that. Strikes me as quite reasonable to tax dividends used as pay a bit more.
I take it that the NHS money off the bus is gone and forgotten?
£18.2m a year promised. £10.4bn actually available (net EU contribution). £7bn being paid to the EU this year so c. £3bn of actual cash. New tax hike raises £12bn, so we're still £3bn short.
A lot of people cited money for the NHS as the reason they supported Brexit. That money simply doesn't exist. Which is how we have the Brexit bus cash AND a big tax increase and still not enough cash so that NHS services get worse.
As the Covid bill is cited as the excuse for the tax rise then I assume a lot more than the promised £18bn is needed - add the £12bn tax take on top perhaps? So we need £30bn and its maybe getting half that.
So you are saying the government should have increased taxes by another £15bn? Wow.
I said that? My point was that you praised the clown car for fixing things. They categorically have not. You will pay more taxes for things to get worse.
Your argument, AIUI, is that Boris has not fixed things because that would cost £30bn and Boris is only chucking £15bn at it.
The proposition that "only" £15bn will make things worse than they would otherwise be is one I am having problems with.
I am directly quoting the English SofS for Health at yesterdays presser. Despite the money which will be thrown at waiting lists "things will get worse before they get better".
If it needs £30bn to clear the backlog then £15bn is insufficient. They are not fixing the NHS funding crisis and not even tacking how to fund the social care crisis - the cash announced again is insufficient and as it would need to be cut from the NHS budget will never arrive. And you are praising it.
I go back to my other point. Allegedly the bus money has been paid and more. So despite us having just £3bn saved from the EU it is claimed NHS spending pre-pandemic went up by £20bn. Borrowed cash? And despite this cash waiting times were already extending significantly pre-pandemic with very real cuts at the front line widely reported.
At the very least there is something grossly inefficient with the marketised NHS which absorbs this borrowed £20bn and delivers worse service. So a further £12bn is also likely just to be absorbed.
Which is why Javid advised waiting lists will get worse.
I was having real trouble working out how the figures added up yesterday. The yield seemed to be far more than 1.25p would generate. The answer is that there is a further 1.25p increase in the Employers NI as well. As someone who is self employed I only pay this levy once so my tax bill just went up by about £1200. I will also have to pay a small amount of Employer NI for my wife.
But I think that this is worth it (assuming Scotland gives equivalent cover). I do not see how else the awful sequelae of Covid can be dealt with in the short term and the costs of anything like civilised social care can be provided in the longer term. These are both going to be expensive and it will take some time for tax revenues generally to get back to anything like "normal" post pandemic.
I also think that asking people to pay the first £86k of their care costs over their lifetime is enough. If they were in hospital receiving expensive treatments for a difficult medical condition they would of course pay nothing. Dementia is a lottery and there should be a limit to the extent to which the unlucky fork out. This level is high enough that most will never reach it. The elderly with resources will be paying their "hotel" bills in addition.
I think that the government has been brave to finally seize this nettle. Several other governments both before and since Dilnot looked at this and backed off. I commend Boris for his courage.
In Scotland social care has been "free" but it has also been incredibly underfunded and scarce. Many needs have simply not been met, not just for the elderly but for the disabled as well. Yesterday, on the back of this, Sturgeon promised another £800m for Social Care. I was not immediately clear if this was over a Parliament or annual, I think the latter, but it should ensure that Social Care is more of a practical reality and less of a theoretical right. We shall see. The Scottish government is rather an old hand at announcing expenditure that never actually gets spent.
But he hasn't fixed social care. The money is going overwhelmingly to the NHS. We have 100k care vacancies and the council coffers are still overdrawn before we recruit those. The total number of staff needed rises with our demographics. They all need to be paid a lot more, not just out of fairness but practically to compete for staff with labour shortages across many sectors. Social care will get a lot worse, not better, over the next decade if this is the solution.
The money will go to fund extra NHS spending over the next 18 months and then go to Social Care. I agree that wages in the SC sector need to improve but they are a consequence of the penny pinching we have had in that sector to date. This will not go away but it will be eased by these additional resources.
You don't really believe that do you? The much more likely scenario is that the NHS comes begging for more money and social care sits unresolved so this 1.25% quickly rises to 5%.
There will be continuing upward pressure on NHS spending, that it absolutely so. But there is a particular crisis right now that needs to be addressed and this does that.
I thought your point, with which I have some sympathy, is that this additional income should be coming from capital taxes as well as income taxes. I completely agree that the burden of taxes on income is excessive and taxes on capital are far too light. The massive gains people make on their homes tax free is distorting inter generational wealth and opportunity too. But this is a different argument from whether this money is needed. It clearly is.
A point made by quite a few people is that if this really was a one-off Covid related cost, the normal thing is to incur the debt and pay it off over years.
I think there is a perceived need for a big political gesture, which I suspect is driven by the prospect of an utterly grim NHS winter coming up. The government wants to get ahead of that curve.
In fiscal terms this has almost nothing to do with social care and not much to do with the general NHS. It is a general tax increase that is nominally hypothecated to spending that is seen as desirable, but which essentially is happening (or in the case of social care, not happening) anyway.
The best take, I think. This isn't in essence a Social Care or an NHS story. It's deficit reduction packaged in the way judged best politically. The Treasury needs more funds because Covid has messed up the public finances. NI works best politically as the source of the funds. And Health & Social Care works best politically as their earmarked destination.
Agreed. This is what I have been saying. You cannot spend £400bn with more to come AND have reduced tax revenues and do nothing about it. It would be just irresponsible.
You were saying well done the government for solving social care or at least trying to ("commend Boris for his courage". Kinabalu is saying the government are not even trying to solve social care, merely make it look as if they are trying.
I'd imagine you might have more success changing his mind about Boris' muscly physique than agreeing this is courageous.
I do think that this additional tax will be an important and essential income flow for the government whose finances are under appalling pressure. I also think that he was right to acknowledge the important part that Social care plays on those pressures, not just because it gives dignity to the disabled and the elderly but because indirectly it will reduce pressure currently being applied to the NHS.
I commend him for his honesty in acknowledging the problem and being brave enough to accept that higher taxes are an essential component of the solution. Whether this is enough to resolve SC remains to be seen but it is far more than any other government of any stripe has done.
Cobblers. Where has the Brexit money gone for the NHS? What has been announced is only enough to make services "get worse before they get better" (Javid's direct quote) and literally nothing for social care.
We are already massively up on the £350m a week that was on the bus. And, because of the pandemic, we are going even further. Given your politics I am surprised that you have a problem with this.
So £350m a week is an utterly insignificant amount compared to the cost of running the NHS. And yet many people believed that their Brexit vote would significantly benefit the NHS. Poor sods.
No, just that it was better spent on that than the ambitions of UDVL. Do try to keep up.
I was in Labour before Corbyn and I am in Labour after Corbyn, it is becoming clear that a certain sector were not really in Labour for Labour values but instead for the Corbyn fandom
Hm. Given that you have said you'd rather Labour didn't win a clear majority, but governed in coalition with the Lib Dems, your "Labour purity" credentials aren't very strong!
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Jamie Oliver is one of my heroes, I have no doubt his heart has always been in the right place and he works jolly hard.
The discrepancy between what I ate at school (and it was a private school) and what these kids were eating is absolutely extraordinary. We had proper balanced meals every day, sports every day, which you had to do.
I don't know what it's like now but for me it is clear that such a discrepancy is not acceptable. We should be doing much more for state school kids
On exercise: last year my little un's school started taking part in the Daily Mile: https://thedailymile.co.uk/
Seems like a good idea. Outside school, Junior Parkrun is cool.
Whilst the Junior Parkruns are good they do tend to be attended primarily by those who don't really need the exercise, i.e. fairly sporty families anyway. Kids need to do far more cardio vascular type exercise where they can't avoid it - at school.
My 8yo son at his school sports day this year wanted to do the long distance event. His 12yo sister is a county level long distance runner and he has been inspired by her. When she was at the same school the "long distance" event was 400m in Y3/4 and 600m in Y5/6 which she, rightly, thought wasn't properly long distance. This year the "long distance" for Y3 was 200m. I questioned the Head of PE in the school why this was and he said they had to be inclusive of all abilities. It worries me if 400m is considered too far for children to run!
I know some schools are better than others but the Daily Mile is a good start. I think all primary school kids should be doing it every day. I know for many schools it isn't really a mile. Doesn't matter whether they run or walk it - the exercise in itself is what they need. Unfortunately some kids needs this regular exercise as they get none at home. I know one local family where both parents, particularly the mother, and 2 children are obese. They do no exercise and the kids were obese when they arrived in Reception. It is kids like that who really need the school to enforce the exercise.
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
Yep - which, of course, is one reason why all those calling for detailed, costed Labour policies so far ahead of a general election are wrong.
Yes, quite so. And for the record, those who watched Starmer's response to the statement yesterday will have heard him make it clear that rather than the NI rise on workers the extra money needed should be sought from those "with the broadest shoulders" (quote), so he's set out a clear principle. The detail can wait.
I was in Labour before Corbyn and I am in Labour after Corbyn, it is becoming clear that a certain sector were not really in Labour for Labour values but instead for the Corbyn fandom
Hm. Given that you have said you'd rather Labour didn't win a clear majority, but governed in coalition with the Lib Dems, your "Labour purity" credentials aren't very strong!
I said a Labour/Lib Dem coalition would be more likely to produce PR and that is why I support such an outcome. For me PR is the one thing that I am deeply worried Labour will not implement.
I would always like a Labour-led Government of course. And if I was able to be convinced a Labour majority would produce PR I would then support that.
I think your point is misunderstanding the basis on which I made mine, Al.
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
Yep - which, of course, is one reason why all those calling for detailed, costed Labour policies so far ahead of a general election are wrong.
Yes, quite so. And for the record, those who watched Starmer's response to the statement yesterday will have heard him make it clear that rather than the NI rise on workers the extra money needed should be sought from those "with the broadest shoulders" (quote), so he's set out a clear principle. The detail can wait.
Hasn't a persons wealth been created through working, or are we just going to tax the equity in someone's house
A good deal of wealth is inherited - it'd be interesting to know how much (including increasing value of inherited assets). This can be presented either as "enabling people to look after their families" or "perpetuating the class system". What it isn't is "created through working".
I favour the Swiss approach of a modest annual tax - quite apart from the social justice it encourages people sitting on large asset values to put them to productive use. A relative of my father's owned a castle with a large estate - he didn't actually know how large, as he left that detail to the estate manager, but a substantial area was apparently unused. Concentrating landowning minds on whether one actually needs all the land one owns might be quite helpful.
I take it that the NHS money off the bus is gone and forgotten?
£18.2m a year promised. £10.4bn actually available (net EU contribution). £7bn being paid to the EU this year so c. £3bn of actual cash. New tax hike raises £12bn, so we're still £3bn short.
A lot of people cited money for the NHS as the reason they supported Brexit. That money simply doesn't exist. Which is how we have the Brexit bus cash AND a big tax increase and still not enough cash so that NHS services get worse.
As the Covid bill is cited as the excuse for the tax rise then I assume a lot more than the promised £18bn is needed - add the £12bn tax take on top perhaps? So we need £30bn and its maybe getting half that.
NHS Funding has increased way more than £350m a week even without COVID.
Rightho. Which is why there were widespread waiting list increases and front line funding crises before Covid. Because of all the extra money.
If the cash doesn't reach the front line then were has it gone? Is the answer to the return of endless interminable wait times in pain to be "we've invested way more than £350m a week"?
We didn't Brexit before Covid, so it wasn't there at that point of course.
If we hadn't had all that trollollolling in Parliament, we might have left sooner and had the money available to reduce the waiting lists quicker .
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
Yep - which, of course, is one reason why all those calling for detailed, costed Labour policies so far ahead of a general election are wrong.
Yes, quite so. And for the record, those who watched Starmer's response to the statement yesterday will have heard him make it clear that rather than the NI rise on workers the extra money needed should be sought from those "with the broadest shoulders" (quote), so he's set out a clear principle. The detail can wait.
Perceptive para in the New Statesman analysis of the announcements yesterday, which relates to Philip's column:
"Politically speaking, Johnson is surely right to believe that mounting NHS waiting times (which were constantly getting longer before the pandemic and are significantly worse now) are a bigger problem for the government today than the social care crisis. But that’s the biggest reason to be dubious about claims that the money for fixing social care is going to come from yesterday’s tax hike: at no point in British political history has money from the NHS been taken back out of it and redirected to elsewhere in the British state, and it seems unlikely, to put it mildly, that we are going to start in three years’ time. So the money for social care will have to come from somewhere else, whether it’s more borrowing, taxes elsewhere, or, the most likely alternative in my view, a big I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-income-tax increase to the health and social care levy."
I take it that the NHS money off the bus is gone and forgotten?
£18.2m a year promised. £10.4bn actually available (net EU contribution). £7bn being paid to the EU this year so c. £3bn of actual cash. New tax hike raises £12bn, so we're still £3bn short.
A lot of people cited money for the NHS as the reason they supported Brexit. That money simply doesn't exist. Which is how we have the Brexit bus cash AND a big tax increase and still not enough cash so that NHS services get worse.
As the Covid bill is cited as the excuse for the tax rise then I assume a lot more than the promised £18bn is needed - add the £12bn tax take on top perhaps? So we need £30bn and its maybe getting half that.
So you are saying the government should have increased taxes by another £15bn? Wow.
I said that? My point was that you praised the clown car for fixing things. They categorically have not. You will pay more taxes for things to get worse.
Your argument, AIUI, is that Boris has not fixed things because that would cost £30bn and Boris is only chucking £15bn at it.
The proposition that "only" £15bn will make things worse than they would otherwise be is one I am having problems with.
I am directly quoting the English SofS for Health at yesterdays presser. Despite the money which will be thrown at waiting lists "things will get worse before they get better".
If it needs £30bn to clear the backlog then £15bn is insufficient. They are not fixing the NHS funding crisis and not even tacking how to fund the social care crisis - the cash announced again is insufficient and as it would need to be cut from the NHS budget will never arrive. And you are praising it.
I go back to my other point. Allegedly the bus money has been paid and more. So despite us having just £3bn saved from the EU it is claimed NHS spending pre-pandemic went up by £20bn. Borrowed cash? And despite this cash waiting times were already extending significantly pre-pandemic with very real cuts at the front line widely reported.
At the very least there is something grossly inefficient with the marketised NHS which absorbs this borrowed £20bn and delivers worse service. So a further £12bn is also likely just to be absorbed.
Which is why Javid advised waiting lists will get worse.
As Zahawi pointed out yesterday at the peak in January there were over 34k people in the UK receiving in hospital care and over 4m have received medical care to date. In Scotland at least numbers are currently going through the roof and may well include my family. England are very likely to follow as the schools return with millions of unvaccinated kids. Do you really find it surprising that the Health Secretary says that things are going to get worse before they get better? I mean, really?
What you are doing today is opposing for the sake of opposing. You should give credit for what has been done and then make the case that even more needs to be done. But no, no credit for Boris no matter what. I wonder why that is?
Hasn't a persons wealth been created through working, or are we just going to tax the equity in someone's house
A good deal of wealth is inherited - it'd be interesting to know how much (including increasing value of inherited assets). This can be presented either as "enabling people to look after their families" or "perpetuating the class system". What it isn't is "created through working".
I favour the Swiss approach of a modest annual tax - quite apart from the social justice it encourages people sitting on large asset values to put them to productive use. A relative of my father's owned a castle with a large estate - he didn't actually know how large, as he left that detail to the estate manager, but a substantial area was apparently unused. Concentrating landowning minds on whether one actually needs all the land one owns might be quite helpful.
The Swiss Wealth Tax has distinctives:
1 - The very wide asset base taxed. 2 - It is the only one that raises significant amounts of money.
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
Yep - which, of course, is one reason why all those calling for detailed, costed Labour policies so far ahead of a general election are wrong.
Yes, quite so. And for the record, those who watched Starmer's response to the statement yesterday will have heard him make it clear that rather than the NI rise on workers the extra money needed should be sought from those "with the broadest shoulders" (quote), so he's set out a clear principle. The detail can wait.
Tony Blair wouldn't be presenting a plan for social care and he won three elections.
He would just be doing a much better job than Starmer of destroying the Government. "Tax wealth not workers" would be a good start
Hasn't a persons wealth been created through working, or are we just going to tax the equity in someone's house
Most property owning pensioners' wealth in the south east and London probably hasn't been created through work.
So Social Care funding should be based on the housing market. What happens when it collapses?
Did I say we had to tax wealth ? My reply was to the first of your points but you've invented a rebuttal for something I never said. Income tax would be my preferred method of funding this, and income tax to be more widely applied in place of all the NI nonsense.
I was having real trouble working out how the figures added up yesterday. The yield seemed to be far more than 1.25p would generate. The answer is that there is a further 1.25p increase in the Employers NI as well. As someone who is self employed I only pay this levy once so my tax bill just went up by about £1200. I will also have to pay a small amount of Employer NI for my wife.
But I think that this is worth it (assuming Scotland gives equivalent cover). I do not see how else the awful sequelae of Covid can be dealt with in the short term and the costs of anything like civilised social care can be provided in the longer term. These are both going to be expensive and it will take some time for tax revenues generally to get back to anything like "normal" post pandemic.
I also think that asking people to pay the first £86k of their care costs over their lifetime is enough. If they were in hospital receiving expensive treatments for a difficult medical condition they would of course pay nothing. Dementia is a lottery and there should be a limit to the extent to which the unlucky fork out. This level is high enough that most will never reach it. The elderly with resources will be paying their "hotel" bills in addition.
I think that the government has been brave to finally seize this nettle. Several other governments both before and since Dilnot looked at this and backed off. I commend Boris for his courage.
In Scotland social care has been "free" but it has also been incredibly underfunded and scarce. Many needs have simply not been met, not just for the elderly but for the disabled as well. Yesterday, on the back of this, Sturgeon promised another £800m for Social Care. I was not immediately clear if this was over a Parliament or annual, I think the latter, but it should ensure that Social Care is more of a practical reality and less of a theoretical right. We shall see. The Scottish government is rather an old hand at announcing expenditure that never actually gets spent.
But he hasn't fixed social care. The money is going overwhelmingly to the NHS. We have 100k care vacancies and the council coffers are still overdrawn before we recruit those. The total number of staff needed rises with our demographics. They all need to be paid a lot more, not just out of fairness but practically to compete for staff with labour shortages across many sectors. Social care will get a lot worse, not better, over the next decade if this is the solution.
The money will go to fund extra NHS spending over the next 18 months and then go to Social Care. I agree that wages in the SC sector need to improve but they are a consequence of the penny pinching we have had in that sector to date. This will not go away but it will be eased by these additional resources.
You don't really believe that do you? The much more likely scenario is that the NHS comes begging for more money and social care sits unresolved so this 1.25% quickly rises to 5%.
There will be continuing upward pressure on NHS spending, that it absolutely so. But there is a particular crisis right now that needs to be addressed and this does that.
I thought your point, with which I have some sympathy, is that this additional income should be coming from capital taxes as well as income taxes. I completely agree that the burden of taxes on income is excessive and taxes on capital are far too light. The massive gains people make on their homes tax free is distorting inter generational wealth and opportunity too. But this is a different argument from whether this money is needed. It clearly is.
A point made by quite a few people is that if this really was a one-off Covid related cost, the normal thing is to incur the debt and pay it off over years.
I think there is a perceived need for a big political gesture, which I suspect is driven by the prospect of an utterly grim NHS winter coming up. The government wants to get ahead of that curve.
In fiscal terms this has almost nothing to do with social care and not much to do with the general NHS. It is a general tax increase that is nominally hypothecated to spending that is seen as desirable, but which essentially is happening (or in the case of social care, not happening) anyway.
The best take, I think. This isn't in essence a Social Care or an NHS story. It's deficit reduction packaged in the way judged best politically. The Treasury needs more funds because Covid has messed up the public finances. NI works best politically as the source of the funds. And Health & Social Care works best politically as their earmarked destination.
Agreed. This is what I have been saying. You cannot spend £400bn with more to come AND have reduced tax revenues and do nothing about it. It would be just irresponsible.
You were saying well done the government for solving social care or at least trying to ("commend Boris for his courage". Kinabalu is saying the government are not even trying to solve social care, merely make it look as if they are trying.
I'd imagine you might have more success changing his mind about Boris' muscly physique than agreeing this is courageous.
Although in the face of Philip's forceful and eloquent arguments on this matter - the Johnson physique - I ended up caving and agreeing that the man is indeed something of a Vin Diesel.
And let's be honest, Labour isn't going to win a majority anyway
I don't see why not. The next election is a few years out, and Starmer *might* be able to create a consensus within the party that's also popular with the GBP.
On current performance it's doubtful, but it is possible.
I think the mistake some Labourites make is to think that Boris' and the government's mistakes will lead them to power. Those mistakes will help, but Labour needs a professional approach to policy and the media that they just don't have at the moment. Until they do, a victory is going to be very difficult.
It's almost as if we have had a pandemic, isn't it?
The problem is that the state is turning the pandemic healthcare spending into a permanent feature. There's not going to be any cycle down in spending once it's over. We need to have a very serious discussion in this country about life lengthening treatment for older people. The NHS is resource limited and taxpayers don't have an unlimited pool of money to throw at it. Should the NHS be offering people over 80 life lengthening treatment?
What do you mean by life lengthening? If they are in pain from cancer or whatever they need palliative care. I want people to die with dignity and in comfort, not neglected because they have reached a particular age and had their lot.
There will be an argument around the edges but there are horrific unmet medical needs in this country right now from those who wait years to get very patchy support for their psychiatric conditions, to those who wait in pain for hip and knee replacements to those who can no longer find an NHS dentist. We do need to have your discussion but I am not completely sure you will like the answer.
No my question doesn't revolve around palliative care which is making someone comfortable for their last few days/weeks. I fully accept that people should die with dignity and this also includes assisted suicide. My question is about life lengthening care, should someone over 80 or 85 or whatever age we define as appropriate receive life lengthening care. In your example, should an 84 year old with cancer get very, very expensive cancer treatment which will cause misery and extend their life by some number of months with very low expected life quality for those months?
The NHS seems to think it's mission has become to not let anyone die, ever. Whether that's COVID or other diseases and it's become an unhealthy obsession that life expectancy can only ever go up at any cost. Life quality for working age people is going to go down when this tax comes in because disposable income will be hit and pay rises will be lower than expected.
The NHS needs to do a lot less but do it better. Chasing life expectancy gains is a no win situation for us all and we do need to have a grown up conversation about what we expect from the NHS and at what level the taxpayer decides that ultimately, people die and having the NHS soak up an ever increasing amount of national income to prevent that is not desirable.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
I take it that the NHS money off the bus is gone and forgotten?
£18.2m a year promised. £10.4bn actually available (net EU contribution). £7bn being paid to the EU this year so c. £3bn of actual cash. New tax hike raises £12bn, so we're still £3bn short.
A lot of people cited money for the NHS as the reason they supported Brexit. That money simply doesn't exist. Which is how we have the Brexit bus cash AND a big tax increase and still not enough cash so that NHS services get worse.
As the Covid bill is cited as the excuse for the tax rise then I assume a lot more than the promised £18bn is needed - add the £12bn tax take on top perhaps? So we need £30bn and its maybe getting half that.
So you are saying the government should have increased taxes by another £15bn? Wow.
I said that? My point was that you praised the clown car for fixing things. They categorically have not. You will pay more taxes for things to get worse.
Your argument, AIUI, is that Boris has not fixed things because that would cost £30bn and Boris is only chucking £15bn at it.
The proposition that "only" £15bn will make things worse than they would otherwise be is one I am having problems with.
I am directly quoting the English SofS for Health at yesterdays presser. Despite the money which will be thrown at waiting lists "things will get worse before they get better".
If it needs £30bn to clear the backlog then £15bn is insufficient. They are not fixing the NHS funding crisis and not even tacking how to fund the social care crisis - the cash announced again is insufficient and as it would need to be cut from the NHS budget will never arrive. And you are praising it.
I go back to my other point. Allegedly the bus money has been paid and more. So despite us having just £3bn saved from the EU it is claimed NHS spending pre-pandemic went up by £20bn. Borrowed cash? And despite this cash waiting times were already extending significantly pre-pandemic with very real cuts at the front line widely reported.
At the very least there is something grossly inefficient with the marketised NHS which absorbs this borrowed £20bn and delivers worse service. So a further £12bn is also likely just to be absorbed.
Which is why Javid advised waiting lists will get worse.
As Zahawi pointed out yesterday at the peak in January there were over 34k people in the UK receiving in hospital care and over 4m have received medical care to date. In Scotland at least numbers are currently going through the roof and may well include my family. England are very likely to follow as the schools return with millions of unvaccinated kids. Do you really find it surprising that the Health Secretary says that things are going to get worse before they get better? I mean, really?
What you are doing today is opposing for the sake of opposing. You should give credit for what has been done and then make the case that even more needs to be done. But no, no credit for Boris no matter what. I wonder why that is?
When the government does something worth praising I praise it. I told Sunak to his face that the government's financial support for business was literally the only thing that saved businesses like the one I was then working for.
Hasn't a persons wealth been created through working, or are we just going to tax the equity in someone's house
A good deal of wealth is inherited - it'd be interesting to know how much (including increasing value of inherited assets). This can be presented either as "enabling people to look after their families" or "perpetuating the class system". What it isn't is "created through working".
I favour the Swiss approach of a modest annual tax - quite apart from the social justice it encourages people sitting on large asset values to put them to productive use. A relative of my father's owned a castle with a large estate - he didn't actually know how large, as he left that detail to the estate manager, but a substantial area was apparently unused. Concentrating landowning minds on whether one actually needs all the land one owns might be quite helpful.
There is no shortage of land in the UK. You can buy agricultural land at a few thousand pounds an acre.
I was in Labour before Corbyn and I am in Labour after Corbyn, it is becoming clear that a certain sector were not really in Labour for Labour values but instead for the Corbyn fandom
Hm. Given that you have said you'd rather Labour didn't win a clear majority, but governed in coalition with the Lib Dems, your "Labour purity" credentials aren't very strong!
I said a Labour/Lib Dem coalition would be more likely to produce PR and that is why I support such an outcome. For me PR is the one thing that I am deeply worried Labour will not implement.
I would always like a Labour-led Government of course. And if I was able to be convinced a Labour majority would produce PR I would then support that.
I think your point is misunderstanding the basis on which I made mine, Al.
If there was PR both the Tories and Labour would split.
The Corbynite wing of Labour would split off and the Redwood wing of the Tories would split off too as they could win seats they cannot under FPTP and most governments would be a combination of Starmer Labour and the LDs or Cameron Tories and the LDs
Hasn't a persons wealth been created through working, or are we just going to tax the equity in someone's house
A good deal of wealth is inherited - it'd be interesting to know how much (including increasing value of inherited assets). This can be presented either as "enabling people to look after their families" or "perpetuating the class system". What it isn't is "created through working".
I favour the Swiss approach of a modest annual tax - quite apart from the social justice it encourages people sitting on large asset values to put them to productive use. A relative of my father's owned a castle with a large estate - he didn't actually know how large, as he left that detail to the estate manager, but a substantial area was apparently unused. Concentrating landowning minds on whether one actually needs all the land one owns might be quite helpful.
Switzerland has a wealth tax unlike us but it also has no inheritance tax unlike us
I was in Labour before Corbyn and I am in Labour after Corbyn, it is becoming clear that a certain sector were not really in Labour for Labour values but instead for the Corbyn fandom
Hm. Given that you have said you'd rather Labour didn't win a clear majority, but governed in coalition with the Lib Dems, your "Labour purity" credentials aren't very strong!
I said a Labour/Lib Dem coalition would be more likely to produce PR and that is why I support such an outcome. For me PR is the one thing that I am deeply worried Labour will not implement.
I would always like a Labour-led Government of course. And if I was able to be convinced a Labour majority would produce PR I would then support that.
I think your point is misunderstanding the basis on which I made mine, Al.
If there was PR both the Tories and Labour would split.
The Corbynite wing of Labour would split off and the Redwood wing of the Tories would split off too as they could win seats they cannot under FPTP and most governments would be a combination of Starmer Labour and the LDs or Cameron Tories and the LDs
Good frankly because then we could have an actual Labour Party that believes in genuine social democracy and the loons who believe in radical socialism can go away.
I consider myself very much traditional Labour left.
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
Yep - which, of course, is one reason why all those calling for detailed, costed Labour policies so far ahead of a general election are wrong.
Yes, quite so. And for the record, those who watched Starmer's response to the statement yesterday will have heard him make it clear that rather than the NI rise on workers the extra money needed should be sought from those "with the broadest shoulders" (quote), so he's set out a clear principle. The detail can wait.
Indeed - he was very clear.
He needs a better slogan.
Would you prefer "fuck the rich"?
"Tax wealth, not workers"
I am not sure that will be as popular as you think.
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
* if that is too radical, an egg or two with no toast or other carbs.
Hear, hear. Good to hear you say that. I've long been of the view that for me, a degenerate glutton, not having breakfast (because the morning is the ONLY time I don't want food - at all other times the fridge and bread bin both wink at me) is the right way to be.
The system needs the right amount and balance of nutrients, it matters not one jot what time of the day it is consumed.
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
Yep - which, of course, is one reason why all those calling for detailed, costed Labour policies so far ahead of a general election are wrong.
Yes, quite so. And for the record, those who watched Starmer's response to the statement yesterday will have heard him make it clear that rather than the NI rise on workers the extra money needed should be sought from those "with the broadest shoulders" (quote), so he's set out a clear principle. The detail can wait.
Indeed - he was very clear.
He needs a better slogan.
Would you prefer "fuck the rich"?
"Tax wealth, not workers"
Yes, I was only (feebly) joking. And I accept your PR argument.
Good news. Energy storage is going to be big business in the coming decade. It’s also a brilliantly efficient way of recycling old electric car batteries, which is why Tesla are getting involved in it.
Tesla uses newly manufacture batteries in their Megapacks.
At the moment - there isn't a big enough number of old Tesla batteries to use for such purposes, yet.
As I foresaw a while back, the ability to scale from a single container up, and the reduced planning issues is making containerised battery storage very attractive.
It is - but there's no reason to assume that future battery storage won't be newly manufactured, too. The cars being built now are expected to have lifetimes of a decade or more. By the time they get scrapped, battery tech will have moved on significantly, with in terms of cost and capacity, and it might just be more economic fully to recycle the old stuff.
A battery with 70-80% capacity left may well be retired from automotive use - but would be useful for storage vs the probable cost of new one in a few years.
Except it won't be a few years, but a decade or more. And it's not just a matter of putting them in a box - would require fairly extensive testing, plus the same costs of system integration for new batteries.
I'm sure some will be used in this way, but I doubt it will be more than a fraction of the total market.
It depends on the monitoring systems built into the packs - Tesla packs can give a pretty detailed readout of the state of the pack down to the cell level. So it would be quite easy to assess them for re-use.
the tesla automotive bms is built into the penthouse of the battery pack and cant manage individual cells as it has no way of identifying them. there is only a separate ic conditioner on each 6s group.
it can tell how fucked or not the pack is but not which individual cells are dead
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
Yep - which, of course, is one reason why all those calling for detailed, costed Labour policies so far ahead of a general election are wrong.
Yes, quite so. And for the record, those who watched Starmer's response to the statement yesterday will have heard him make it clear that rather than the NI rise on workers the extra money needed should be sought from those "with the broadest shoulders" (quote), so he's set out a clear principle. The detail can wait.
Indeed - he was very clear.
He needs a better slogan.
Would you prefer "fuck the rich"?
"Tax wealth, not workers"
I am not sure that will be as popular as you think.
It's just that is what BJO was praising Andy Burnham for saying and he's apparently the man who is going to win Labour a majority despite being no more popular than Starmer. Oh well, what would a man who flipped from Corbyn to Starmer know anyway?
Let's be honest, it's a populist supporter flipping from populist to populist. That is and never has been why I supported Labour
What's going to be an extra cherry on top of the bullshit is that in the run up to 2024 the Tory party will be looking to win back it's low tax credentials and the state finances will likely be close to a current budget surplus. The Tories are going to run on a manifesto commitment to lower income tax rates to 19% and 39%. It's very clear to me now what they're doing, a net transfer of tax burden from working people (not Tories) to non-working people (Tories). It's absolutely disgusting.
What they will be able to say in 2024 is that Labour would tax you even more heavily. And that will almost certainly be true. SKS may be opportunistically opposing these tax increases but his central critique (so far as it can be ascertained) is that the government is not doing enough, not too much.
Labour will say that we all now agree taxes must go up, but they will be asking the people the Tories refuse to ask to pay more. Starmer made that pretty clear in his response to Johnson yesterday.
Might be prudent to wait until Rishi's budget in October where further tax rises may well be announced
Yep - which, of course, is one reason why all those calling for detailed, costed Labour policies so far ahead of a general election are wrong.
Yes, quite so. And for the record, those who watched Starmer's response to the statement yesterday will have heard him make it clear that rather than the NI rise on workers the extra money needed should be sought from those "with the broadest shoulders" (quote), so he's set out a clear principle. The detail can wait.
Indeed - he was very clear.
He needs a better slogan.
Would you prefer "fuck the rich"?
"Tax wealth, not workers"
Yes, I was only (feebly) joking. And I accept your PR argument.
You've always been decent Al, thanks for your understanding
I'm watching Jamie's School Dinners, the programme from years ago about Jamie Oliver and school food.
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
Having said that we were having a laugh about a tweet yesterday. Jamie had been going on about the importance of healthy breakfasts and asked someone where they went for breakfast. The reply was "I am not telling you because you would try to get it shut down!"
Probably the best breakfast is none, or just a black coffee*. That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a myth promoted by cereal manufacturers.
Comments
Certainly more than just the artificial inflation of assets because of objecting to more of those assets being created.
Why should we tax earned wages more than unearned ones?
On the remain march there was a Boris lookalike (and May one as well) and I took pictures. Several people thought it was me. What was most shocking is it was a caricature of Boris (completely dishevelled, looking a bit drunk) and holding a Tory placard, so a triple insult.
Robert Goodwill, conservative mp, in conversation with Adam Boulton said someone earning £20,000 will pay an extra £130 but a top television presenter earning £400,000 will pay £4500
https://www.wealthandpolicy.com/wp/WealthTaxFinalReport_FAQ.pdf
It is genuinely disgraceful what we were serving our children at school! And under a Labour Government too!!!! Shocking
If we have to go into care we will pay our care costs as required by the Welsh government though as I said earlier today the irony is if you have a terminal diagnosis your nursing home will be paid by the Welsh NHS but if you have dementia then you have to pay virtually everything yourself
It will surely then lead to a shift in the Union after its defeat under Laschet, Merkel's heir apparent, away from the dominance of the Northern CDU branch under Merkel back towards the more conservative southern branch of the CDU and CSU which has been a minority in the Union since the CSU's Stoiber was Union candidate in 2002 and almost beat Schroder.
Even if they did not get their man in as chancellor candidate therefore, the CSU are likely to see Soder play a bigger role in the Union in opposition.
Under both Thatcher and Blair, a lot of wealth has ended up in house prices. After all, it's easier than working for a living.
That creates all sorts of problems, but dealing with it is almost certainly incompatible with being re-elected.
http://neverseconds.blogspot.com
The discrepancy between what I ate at school (and it was a private school) and what these kids were eating is absolutely extraordinary. We had proper balanced meals every day, sports every day, which you had to do.
I don't know what it's like now but for me it is clear that such a discrepancy is not acceptable. We should be doing much more for state school kids
Reminds me when Hammond proposed changing NI contributions on those earning via service companies, the screeching was deafening, all under the guise it was going to hit gig economy workers, when actually ones being hit hard would include media types who have a nice sideline in freelance gigs put through service companies.
And the home we sold was the one they'd bought 20 years before as part of their retirement planning.
I know 2 posters on here who praised him yesterday
Ballooning house prices don't even do that.
https://thedailymile.co.uk/
Seems like a good idea. Outside school, Junior Parkrun is cool.
If the cash doesn't reach the front line then were has it gone? Is the answer to the return of endless interminable wait times in pain to be "we've invested way more than £350m a week"?
The proposition that "only" £15bn will make things worse than they would otherwise be is one I am having problems with.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/28/breakfast-health-america-kellog-food-lifestyle
* if that is too radical, an egg or two with no toast or other carbs.
You should read up the facts behind the business debacles. All very unsavoury (pun intended).
I still have no doubt his heart is in the right place.
I have a bit of money invested in the stock market - transferred from NS&I ISAs a while back because interest rates were so low. It's managed for me. All of it is wrapped up in stocks and shares ISAs as far as I am aware. So my understanding is I don't pay any tax on the income, and this new 1.25% tax on dividends won't apply to ISA-wrapped stocks and shares. Have I got this right? And if so, won't this apply to most 'ordinary' people - the only people who will be hit by the 1.25% tax hike on dividends are those who have invested more money than can be wrapped up in the annual ISA allowance?
But as we doctors say "an apple a day is bad for business"
You're the kind of person frankly I am glad is out of Labour.
The system needs the right amount and balance of nutrients, it matters not one jot what time of the day it is consumed.
Boris is the least Thatcherite Tory leader since Macmillan, indeed he is basically a Brexity Heseltine as he himself has said and supportive of the big state when he thinks it is needed as on health
Apple is a multi-billion pound company.
Doctors are recommending apples.
We can join the dots.
😉
If it needs £30bn to clear the backlog then £15bn is insufficient. They are not fixing the NHS funding crisis and not even tacking how to fund the social care crisis - the cash announced again is insufficient and as it would need to be cut from the NHS budget will never arrive. And you are praising it.
I go back to my other point. Allegedly the bus money has been paid and more. So despite us having just £3bn saved from the EU it is claimed NHS spending pre-pandemic went up by £20bn. Borrowed cash? And despite this cash waiting times were already extending significantly pre-pandemic with very real cuts at the front line widely reported.
At the very least there is something grossly inefficient with the marketised NHS which absorbs this borrowed £20bn and delivers worse service. So a further £12bn is also likely just to be absorbed.
Which is why Javid advised waiting lists will get worse.
My 8yo son at his school sports day this year wanted to do the long distance event. His 12yo sister is a county level long distance runner and he has been inspired by her. When she was at the same school the "long distance" event was 400m in Y3/4 and 600m in Y5/6 which she, rightly, thought wasn't properly long distance. This year the "long distance" for Y3 was 200m. I questioned the Head of PE in the school why this was and he said they had to be inclusive of all abilities. It worries me if 400m is considered too far for children to run!
I know some schools are better than others but the Daily Mile is a good start. I think all primary school kids should be doing it every day. I know for many schools it isn't really a mile. Doesn't matter whether they run or walk it - the exercise in itself is what they need. Unfortunately some kids needs this regular exercise as they get none at home. I know one local family where both parents, particularly the mother, and 2 children are obese. They do no exercise and the kids were obese when they arrived in Reception. It is kids like that who really need the school to enforce the exercise.
I would always like a Labour-led Government of course. And if I was able to be convinced a Labour majority would produce PR I would then support that.
I think your point is misunderstanding the basis on which I made mine, Al.
I favour the Swiss approach of a modest annual tax - quite apart from the social justice it encourages people sitting on large asset values to put them to productive use. A relative of my father's owned a castle with a large estate - he didn't actually know how large, as he left that detail to the estate manager, but a substantial area was apparently unused. Concentrating landowning minds on whether one actually needs all the land one owns might be quite helpful.
If we hadn't had all that trollollolling in Parliament, we might have left sooner and had the money available to reduce the waiting lists quicker
"Politically speaking, Johnson is surely right to believe that mounting NHS waiting times (which were constantly getting longer before the pandemic and are significantly worse now) are a bigger problem for the government today than the social care crisis. But that’s the biggest reason to be dubious about claims that the money for fixing social care is going to come from yesterday’s tax hike: at no point in British political history has money from the NHS been taken back out of it and redirected to elsewhere in the British state, and it seems unlikely, to put it mildly, that we are going to start in three years’ time. So the money for social care will have to come from somewhere else, whether it’s more borrowing, taxes elsewhere, or, the most likely alternative in my view, a big I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-income-tax increase to the health and social care levy."
What you are doing today is opposing for the sake of opposing. You should give credit for what has been done and then make the case that even more needs to be done. But no, no credit for Boris no matter what. I wonder why that is?
Matty boy has done his best to big up BoJo but even the working class aren't really on board with the idea...
1 - The very wide asset base taxed.
2 - It is the only one that raises significant amounts of money.
My reply was to the first of your points but you've invented a rebuttal for something I never said. Income tax would be my preferred method of funding this, and income tax to be more widely applied in place of all the NI nonsense.
On current performance it's doubtful, but it is possible.
I think the mistake some Labourites make is to think that Boris' and the government's mistakes will lead them to power. Those mistakes will help, but Labour needs a professional approach to policy and the media that they just don't have at the moment. Until they do, a victory is going to be very difficult.
The NHS seems to think it's mission has become to not let anyone die, ever. Whether that's COVID or other diseases and it's become an unhealthy obsession that life expectancy can only ever go up at any cost. Life quality for working age people is going to go down when this tax comes in because disposable income will be hit and pay rises will be lower than expected.
The NHS needs to do a lot less but do it better. Chasing life expectancy gains is a no win situation for us all and we do need to have a grown up conversation about what we expect from the NHS and at what level the taxpayer decides that ultimately, people die and having the NHS soak up an ever increasing amount of national income to prevent that is not desirable.
That reminds me I have a kipper in the freezer. Goodoh.
I can't praise this because it is shit.
The Corbynite wing of Labour would split off and the Redwood wing of the Tories would split off too as they could win seats they cannot under FPTP and most governments would be a combination of Starmer Labour and the LDs or Cameron Tories and the LDs
I consider myself very much traditional Labour left.
it can tell how fucked or not the pack is but not which individual cells are dead
Let's be honest, it's a populist supporter flipping from populist to populist. That is and never has been why I supported Labour
When he has no alternative he is prepared to discuss.