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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Maybe next time the Tories will have to emulate the GE2015 EdS

The Chancellor, Philip Hammond, has been in full defensive mode as he has sought to fight off the criticism that his National Insurance changes for the self-employed are in breach of a GE2015 Conservative manifesto pledge.
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It's probably not even as bad as the Pasty tax.
Do we really want to give Mrs May Henry VIII powers?
Sic semper tyrannis.
That some airbrushing of omnishambles budgets...There were I, II, lost count... Osborne did more post budget u-turns than Eric pickles has had greggs for lunch.
This is £240 / yr at most is it not ?
Tuition fees from zero to effectively up to around £84k over a lifetime in the last 20 years.
https://twitter.com/ReutersJamie/status/839781081964490757
The key point I do agree with is this idea – that has been allowed to fester – that welfare should be a 'pay in, get out' regime. That's simply bonkers. My household income is very high compared to the average and, therefore, I pay a lot of tax, compared to the average. Do I think I should get all that back in services? No. Clearly I pay that as a mixture of a safety net and a general view that all civilised nations have a floor beneath which no citizen should be allowed to fall. Tax and welfare is a cost of running a country and an economy, not some sort of Christmas Savings Club run by HMRC.
Otherwise it is a great idea to set manifesto commitments in stone.
No it won't.
1) A self employed person earning £30k.
2) An employed (Private sector) person earning £30k.
3) An employed (Public sector) person earning £30k.
If it is justified and necessary the breach should be maintained, and the price will be people pointing out that breach next time - but every party can also point to breaches of manifesto promises, because a certain amount is unavoidable, so its not a huge concern unless they get into the habit of breaching for no good reason - or their own incompetence is the reason - otherwise no party should produce a manifesto, if breaking a pledge means we can trust none of it.
The Edstone was stupid for many reasons of course - the vacuous phrasing, the gimmicky nature of the stunt - but also because the idea a commitment should be set in stone so firmly is stupid, it is inflexible. Parties need to stick to their promises or else justify why they cannot, and we should judge them on how well they justify any broken promises, not merely on whether they did break a promise, because it might be for a good reason. If it is, we can be more confident they won't break the next lot of promises without a good reason.
Nevertheless, it seems the case that the base independent support is up a few points. And we don't know if the No voters will all turnout to the same degree they did last time (though hopefully so). The numbers are with Yes, I fear.
A Scotland within the UK remains at 49-51 forever pretty much.
But, we have Corbyn and clowns in charge, so it wont happen...
March: £2,818.17 - NI: £227.49
April: £2,818.17 - NI: £257.54
1) The government is inept in checking what it had promised in the last manifesto. It's almost as if it doesn't feel that the manifesto has anything to do with it.
2) Brexit has transformed the political terrain. It feels quaint to be talking about tax and spend.
3) If the government can't get this policy through, it's a reminder that its small majority didn't become numerically much larger just because the opposition got more inept. Theresa May would still do well to find a way of engineering an early election, if she can.
But the similarity is with the broken election pledge. A new factor is it may strain relationships between the executive and backbenches, and even the party in the country. May was supposed to be their friend, unlike the ponceyboots (am I saying it right?) Cameroons, who were seen as interlopers to be tolerated while they were winning, like Tony Blair and New Labour. This upsets that narrative.
My feeling going into the vote was that a high turnout was good for yes but a very high turnout would be good for No.
Given the SNP got 50% on 72% turnout on the general election and Yes got 45% on 85% and the Yes to SNP vote was highly correlated I suppose you could make some assumptions.
https://twitter.com/Brosner85/status/839812767435505664
People who couldn't yet vote.
Hammond needs to stand firm, or he WILL pay the price.
Unsurprisingly, although as you'd expect the unions were indignant about it, it was so obviously not an unfair change that the indignation didn't get much publicity, and it would be hard to argue that it was a breach of the manifesto pledge.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne-national-insurance-wage-cuts-a6956731.html
Meanwhile Janet Dailey is on the warpath about the digital tax changes and quarterly inputs.
Some of the backbench fuss seems to be coming from hardline Brexiteers, who might be using it as a means of weakening the most senior softer-Brexit member of the government.
OGH, you are TSE and I claim a reduced PB membership fee.
:-)
ie The change comes in from April 2018 - tax and NI for 2018/19 will be payable in two instalments - in January 2019 and July 2019 - based on estimated income (ie prior year) - and it's then adjusted to correct figure in January 2020.
Are there any markets up on next Chancellor right now?
How many omnishambles budgets did boy George manage to engineer?
Likewise, regarding the polling for independence - good on them. The SNP would have to front up to some pretty harsh realities (which no doubt will also be blamed on Westminster.
Winning an overall majority unexpectedly failed to disarm some of their own booby traps...
https://twitter.com/stevewebb1/status/839816522264625152