What have you got to sell to your constituents for the next four years? the next 10 after that?
F8ck all that's what. A vast and freezing tundra of taxes and authoritarianism.
You idiots. You stupid stupid idiots.
In case you missed it there's a pandemic going on and that is hitting the economy in every high population density western economy around the western world.
No matter what we would face an economic catastrophe.
Come on! You told me yesterday that there would be a Roaring Twenties economic recovery by next summer.
Worth noting that the "Roaring Twenties" was a USA phenomenon. The British economy suffered mass unemployment, deflation and stagnant economic growth through the 1920s.
Which economic historians largely account to the fact that the UK stuck to the Gold Standard and that after that changed the UK economy recovered rapidly.
Thankfully from 1993 onwards the UK hasn't been foolhardy enough to tie its currency to other countries and the attempt to reinstitute a Europe-wide Gold Standard-equivalent Single Currency where currency fluctuations are prevented was blocked in this country.
The UK has the benefit a freely floating currency nowadays. We can and will make the most of it.
The use of edge case anedcotal stories by both politicians and the media drives me mad, when we have easy access to more.data than ever to analyse things.
The world runs on anecdotes and edge cases, whether you like it or not. The death of George Floyd is as important a fact as the past ten years' data showing the risk faced by the average USA POC of being murdered by a policeman. Anyway, whenever a politician or journalist or indeed professional scientist produces a statistic they get told by PB that they've done it all wrong, I can't believe the innumeracy of these people, wibble wibble. So that rules that out. So what primary data are we meant to rely on?
Actually George Floyd is an exact example of the requirement to use data and logic to follow up on an edge case.
Examination of the data surrounding his death leads to hard evidence of
- Massive over use of force by American local police forces - Racial bias in the use of force - Problems in training and recruiting the police
Concentrating on George Floyd might get you a couple of prosecutions. Fixing the wider problem will have a bigger effect.
Immediately Annelise Dodds starts whinging that the government isn't spending enough.
Who could have foreseen that?
Maybe she didn’t see the statement before hand - if she did, she hasn’t read it.
Corbyn and McDonnell used to thank the Chancellor for the advance copy of the speech - then read their own pre-prepared response that could have been written the week before.
I have sympathy with Cyclefree and her piece but the nature of this pandemic has been to devastate the hospitality and travel industry and, while help has been given, it was always going to have constraints with the huge demands from other sectors, not least the health and care sector
With the vaccine on the horizon let us all hope that by mid 2021 these industries will see a sharp uptake in demand and begin their road to recovery
On foreign aid I have no issue with reducing it, but as has been suggested some of the savings should be folded into the vaccine programmes to directly help third world countries with their own vaccinations
On public sector pay freeze I support it purely on the grounds of fairness and expect mp's to lead by example. Additionally I would support abolishing the triple lock thereby freezing our own pension rise next year
On Brexit a deal is really needed, indeed as far as I am concerned any deal, but our relationship with Europe will develop over many years and may eventually lead to 'de facto' membership and at the very least membership of the single market
On Christmas I fail to understand why people just cannot see the safest thing is to treat this Christmas as if we are in lockdown and curtail family gatherings in the greater interest of all of us. No matter the four nations agreeing a convoluted number of rules for this year, my wife and I have already cancelled Christmas day for the 10 of us and will spend it on our own at our on home.
Better safe than sorry
Good post. Re freezing the wages of public sector workers, the government must gain the moral authority to do things like this by also enacting measures which extract a significant contribution to the cost of the pandemic from the relatively affluent. There are many such people in this country and many ways to do it. If the government flunk this aspect it will be a case of "same old Tories" and I predict big trouble. They got away with it last time - making the poor bear much of the pain for the collapse of the financial sector - but I don't think the trick can be repeated. Perhaps Johnson & Co realize this themselves. I hope they do. If so there will be a serious attempt to make "those with the largest shoulders bear the load" in reality rather than as platitudinous soundbite.
Agree - good post.
On foreign aid I am not sure that a reduction to say 0.5% would do that much harm.
There was an interesting session on "Wealth Taxin the light of COVID" in Parliament the other day. One aspect was an attempt to brand IHT and CGT as 'wealth taxes'.
Another was a suggestion that the amount to be raised could be £250-500bn over several years, which is a little loopy - ask Mgr Hollande.
But enough unanimity that reform of things like Stamp Duty to a more continuous setup may be imaginable.
I'd say that IHT and CGT are wealth taxes. Any tax levied on assets rather than revenue fits that bill imo.
Warren started to call her new tax the ultra-millionaire tax instead of a wealth tax. Multi-millionaire would fit better here, but I think differentiating between normal taxes on wealth like IHT and CGT, and taxing the super elite is important to get enough of the middles classes supporting it.
The super elite avoid IHT in particular through trusts, so it is a middle class wealth tax rather than an elite wealth tax.
Yes there's a difference between a tax on wealth and a tax on the wealthY. For example, I'd say an income tax of say 75% on earnings over £1m p/a is not a wealth tax in the first sense but it is in the second. In practice I think you have to be catching people who are relatively affluent but are not rich. The top decile perhaps. Not sure. One would have to look at the numbers. The trouble with just targeting the truly rich is that it doesn't raise enough.
It would if you shook up the treatment of trusts. Credit Suisse have the top 1% owning 24% of the UK.
Really? Remarkable. So what sort of measures could unlock that iyo?
Ask a tax trust specialist! From a maths point of view, annual wealth tax of 1% on the top 1% of asset owners in the UK, would raise about £30-35bn extra per year. You wont get full compliance but dont see why half of that isnt achievable.
It won't be easy but I think something along these lines has become a must-do. These debt and borrowing figures are horrendous. Unless you believe in MMT (modern monetary theory, magic money tree) it is the UK population who must pay and it would be unconscionable if the burden is largely escaped by those best placed to afford it. Wealth Tax, come on down. You're on the show.
Unearned wealth yes let's do it. CGT IHT Tax on investment property. Get rid of loopholes eg trusts.
I await the proposals from Sunak in due course. It's essential that the wealthy make the biggest contribution. Otherwise all we get is one group of workers set against another, e.g. the "teachers still have a job and a good pension so ..." etc etc. This is the politics of misdirection and misplaced envy.
The response to the pandemic has only made the hugely wealthy hugely wealthier.
Bezos 90bn for example.Big tech. Makers of 'green' products like Musk. All through measures enthusiastically supported by the labour government.
Small businesses have been utterly crushed, and if anything the left wants this to go on longer and in greater depth than the right.
So please spare me the crocodile tears about the poor.
On matters Christmas, many New Zealanders have a roast Christmas lunch on June 25th because it's more seasonal than December 25th. Christmas doesn't have to be at the end of December when the shops are crowded - it can be whenever and whatever you want it to be.
Let's have a couple of extra Bank Holidays in 2021 !!
On the Sunak "smoke and mirrors", I look forward to seeing how funding for local Government is impacted into next year. It's all very well making costly pledges to the high-profile politically sensitive areas such as the NHS and schools but there's so much more to the public services than that.
What about social care provision, libraries, youth and all the rest of it? I believe the detail is outlined in the "red" book announcements later and it'll be interesting to see what revised local grant allocation will do for council tax levels especially with a large round of local elections next year.
The use of edge case anedcotal stories by both politicians and the media drives me mad, when we have easy access to more.data than ever to analyse things.
The world runs on anecdotes and edge cases, whether you like it or not. The death of George Floyd is as important a fact as the past ten years' data showing the risk faced by the average USA POC of being murdered by a policeman. Anyway, whenever a politician or journalist or indeed professional scientist produces a statistic they get told by PB that they've done it all wrong, I can't believe the innumeracy of these people, wibble wibble. So that rules that out. So what primary data are we meant to rely on?
Actually George Floyd is an exact example of the requirement to use data and logic to follow up on an edge case.
Examination of the data surrounding his death leads to hard evidence of
- Massive over use of force by American local police forces - Racial bias in the use of force - Problems in training and recruiting the police
Concentrating on George Floyd might get you a couple of prosecutions. Fixing the wider problem will have a bigger effect.
Yes, but all that starts with the single incident. You aren't disagreeing with me.
Meh, this is a charge unfairly levelled only against "the left", when I see it as also prevalent on the right. Take the likes of Casino_Royale, who is always on about British culture, to the extent I've started challenging him(?) about what that actually means, citing examples of how diverse the different cultures of this island seem to me. It seems clear to him that Britishness is a prism through which he sees everything, to the point that I think it interferes with his view of facts. He never responds to those challenges, largely, I think, because he sees them as flippant and shallow. Even that response is evidence of a limpet-like attachment to a particular narrative, based on identity and personal experience. Casino is far from unique in this respect.
I suppose it is common for people to see themselves as coolly objective and everyone else as buffeted by the currents of subjectivity. I was particularly struck by this line in the article: "so, allowing your own personal experience to loom too large leads to a sort of equal and opposite blinkeredness, maybe excusable in 17-year-old students." Well, quite. By lumping several people into a category like that, Goodhart is constructing the psychological framework for diminishing the views that come from their experience. In other words, his own subjectivity is a lens that focuses his attention on identity. We all do it. And speaking as someone in the centre, politically, it's one of the tragic failings of the right that they can see this so clearly in the left -- and it IS there, they aren't imagining it -- but not in their own lives. There is no formal difference between "you don't know what it's like to be stopped and searched five days in a row" and "you don't know what it's like to run a business". There should be no greater or lesser force to the arguments "gay people have every reason not trust the Tories" and "people who believe in Britain have every reason not to trust Labour".
The use of edge case anedcotal stories by both politicians and the media drives me mad, when we have easy access to more.data than ever to analyse things.
The world runs on anecdotes and edge cases, whether you like it or not. The death of George Floyd is as important a fact as the past ten years' data showing the risk faced by the average USA POC of being murdered by a policeman. Anyway, whenever a politician or journalist or indeed professional scientist produces a statistic they get told by PB that they've done it all wrong, I can't believe the innumeracy of these people, wibble wibble. So that rules that out. So what primary data are we meant to rely on?
On PB people call out when data is wrong, as it should be. Its not our fault journalists are innumerate and appear unable to read scientific papers properly.
There is huge amount of posting of links to high quality data led info on here. It is one of the main reasons I still hang about, as I now long since retired from being a professional.gambler (which is how I first found this place).
I remember a time when the government promised an evidence led approch to policy making....I wish that New Labour had stuck to it and that current shambles would embrace it.
Why can't our politicians follow Trudeau's example, "if you are thinking of going to visit family, especially eldrely relatives, DON'T. So much simpler.
Uh oh. Trudeau = far-right trigger
Peculiar isn't it? The British politician he reminds me most of is, erm, David Cameron.
From the pictures I’ve seen of him, the British politician he reminds me most of is Rishi Sunak
Have I got this right? The Chancellor announces an economic emergency which involves high levels of spending and borrowing. The answer - even higher levels of spending and borrowing.
No, he cut overseas aid and introduced a public sector payfreeze and the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks even the former goes too far
As a former teacher I can tell you the situation is simple. When general unemployment is very low the profession can bid pretty good pay deals. The opposite occurs when unemployment rises. In the current situation any teacher unhappy with the terms and conditions of service can look elsewhere for better options if they wish. BTW this basic rule of thumb worked throughout my 33 years under all governments. In terms of the pandemic schools were shut for a good part of the first wave so it is hard to argue too much about risks taken and of course wages were paid in full throughout. Since they went back the safety measues have been pretty stringent - I don't know the data for levels of infection related to doing their job but it certainly has not featured much in the news. I'd say there is a long list of key workers who have toiled throughout who are much more deserving in both the public and private sector. My own personal heroes would be lowly paid supermarket staff - front and centre from day one with massive exposure and generally much less well paid than a teacher.
Re Christmas rules....this advice seems the most sensible of you must see people
According to Prof Noakes, people must dream up creative new options for Christmas That could range from meeting virtually on Zoom, going for a walk, braving the weather for a picnic, or even delaying big gatherings until next summer.
Arranging to meet up for a winter walk seems a very sensible way of catching up with people while minimising risks. Instead i fear it will be all popping round to peoples homes, staying inside for 2-3hrs, sharing the left overs and nibbles...
Plan a big family dinner and gathering for next summer. "Delayed Christmas"
Back in 2002 I celebrated in Christmas in Australia, absolutely brilliant and shows what we miss out in the Northern hemisphere.
I celebrated out here with a bunch of Aussies and Saffas once - barbecue turkey and steak on the beach! They certainly do Christmas differently, do our antipodean cousins.
Have I got this right? The Chancellor announces an economic emergency which involves high levels of spending and borrowing. The answer - even higher levels of spending and borrowing.
No, he cut overseas aid and introduced a public sector payfreeze and the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks even the former goes too far
The way some are reacting you would think he had announced to totally abolish it.
There are specific good works- about £4 billion worth- that won't happen as a result of this decision. Now maybe that's inevitable (though it seems fair to point out that even a post-Covid UK is still a really rich country, certainly compared with the countries that get the aid).
(And before anyone suggests it, the CofE's assets are about £9 billion, generating about £1 billion a year towards running costs. Unless the Church votes to sell itself off over about 2 years, it can't make up the gap.)
Sunlit uplands, I mean all those portaloos in Kent will be good for some parts of the economy.
The firms that help people with the mountains of paperwork which will need to be filled out and which will be introduced on Jan 1st are set to make a killing.
Have I got this right? The Chancellor announces an economic emergency which involves high levels of spending and borrowing. The answer - even higher levels of spending and borrowing.
No, he cut overseas aid and introduced a public sector payfreeze and the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks even the former goes too far
Re Christmas rules....this advice seems the most sensible of you must see people
According to Prof Noakes, people must dream up creative new options for Christmas That could range from meeting virtually on Zoom, going for a walk, braving the weather for a picnic, or even delaying big gatherings until next summer.
Arranging to meet up for a winter walk seems a very sensible way of catching up with people while minimising risks. Instead i fear it will be all popping round to peoples homes, staying inside for 2-3hrs, sharing the left overs and nibbles...
Plan a big family dinner and gathering for next summer. "Delayed Christmas"
Honestly the government should have done this instead and given people a 4 day weekend for it.
Yes I advocated a delayed Christmas bank holiday next summer on here a week or two ago! Makes much more sense especially since Eid, Divali, Passover etc all screwed up too.
Have I got this right? The Chancellor announces an economic emergency which involves high levels of spending and borrowing. The answer - even higher levels of spending and borrowing.
No, he cut overseas aid and introduced a public sector payfreeze and the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks even the former goes too far
The way some are reacting you would think he had announced to totally abolish it.
There are specific good works- about £4 billion worth- that won't happen as a result of this decision. Now maybe that's inevitable (though it seems fair to point out that even a post-Covid UK is still a really rich country, certainly compared with the countries that get the aid).
(And before anyone suggests it, the CofE's assets are about £9 billion, generating about £1 billion a year towards running costs. Unless the Church votes to sell itself off over about 2 years, it can't make up the gap.)
The Church also makes about £1 billion a year in annual revenue, so roughly breakeven
I have sympathy with Cyclefree and her piece but the nature of this pandemic has been to devastate the hospitality and travel industry and, while help has been given, it was always going to have constraints with the huge demands from other sectors, not least the health and care sector
With the vaccine on the horizon let us all hope that by mid 2021 these industries will see a sharp uptake in demand and begin their road to recovery
On foreign aid I have no issue with reducing it, but as has been suggested some of the savings should be folded into the vaccine programmes to directly help third world countries with their own vaccinations
On public sector pay freeze I support it purely on the grounds of fairness and expect mp's to lead by example. Additionally I would support abolishing the triple lock thereby freezing our own pension rise next year
On Brexit a deal is really needed, indeed as far as I am concerned any deal, but our relationship with Europe will develop over many years and may eventually lead to 'de facto' membership and at the very least membership of the single market
On Christmas I fail to understand why people just cannot see the safest thing is to treat this Christmas as if we are in lockdown and curtail family gatherings in the greater interest of all of us. No matter the four nations agreeing a convoluted number of rules for this year, my wife and I have already cancelled Christmas day for the 10 of us and will spend it on our own at our on home.
Better safe than sorry
Good post. Re freezing the wages of public sector workers, the government must gain the moral authority to do things like this by also enacting measures which extract a significant contribution to the cost of the pandemic from the relatively affluent. There are many such people in this country and many ways to do it. If the government flunk this aspect it will be a case of "same old Tories" and I predict big trouble. They got away with it last time - making the poor bear much of the pain for the collapse of the financial sector - but I don't think the trick can be repeated. Perhaps Johnson & Co realize this themselves. I hope they do. If so there will be a serious attempt to make "those with the largest shoulders bear the load" in reality rather than as platitudinous soundbite.
Agree - good post.
On foreign aid I am not sure that a reduction to say 0.5% would do that much harm.
There was an interesting session on "Wealth Taxin the light of COVID" in Parliament the other day. One aspect was an attempt to brand IHT and CGT as 'wealth taxes'.
Another was a suggestion that the amount to be raised could be £250-500bn over several years, which is a little loopy - ask Mgr Hollande.
But enough unanimity that reform of things like Stamp Duty to a more continuous setup may be imaginable.
I'd say that IHT and CGT are wealth taxes. Any tax levied on assets rather than revenue fits that bill imo.
Warren started to call her new tax the ultra-millionaire tax instead of a wealth tax. Multi-millionaire would fit better here, but I think differentiating between normal taxes on wealth like IHT and CGT, and taxing the super elite is important to get enough of the middles classes supporting it.
The super elite avoid IHT in particular through trusts, so it is a middle class wealth tax rather than an elite wealth tax.
Yes there's a difference between a tax on wealth and a tax on the wealthY. For example, I'd say an income tax of say 75% on earnings over £1m p/a is not a wealth tax in the first sense but it is in the second. In practice I think you have to be catching people who are relatively affluent but are not rich. The top decile perhaps. Not sure. One would have to look at the numbers. The trouble with just targeting the truly rich is that it doesn't raise enough.
It would if you shook up the treatment of trusts. Credit Suisse have the top 1% owning 24% of the UK.
Really? Remarkable. So what sort of measures could unlock that iyo?
Ask a tax trust specialist! From a maths point of view, annual wealth tax of 1% on the top 1% of asset owners in the UK, would raise about £30-35bn extra per year. You wont get full compliance but dont see why half of that isnt achievable.
It won't be easy but I think something along these lines has become a must-do. These debt and borrowing figures are horrendous. Unless you believe in MMT (modern monetary theory, magic money tree) it is the UK population who must pay and it would be unconscionable if the burden is largely escaped by those best placed to afford it. Wealth Tax, come on down. You're on the show.
Unearned wealth yes let's do it. CGT IHT Tax on investment property. Get rid of loopholes eg trusts.
I await the proposals from Sunak in due course. It's essential that the wealthy make the biggest contribution. Otherwise all we get is one group of workers set against another, e.g. the "teachers still have a job and a good pension so ..." etc etc. This is the politics of misdirection and misplaced envy.
The response to the pandemic has only made the hugely wealthy hugely wealthier.
Bezos 90bn for example.Big tech. Makers of 'green' products like Musk. All through measures enthusiastically supported by the labour government.
Small businesses have been utterly crushed, and if anything the left wants this to go on longer and in greater depth than the right.
So please spare me the crocodile tears about the poor.
What a vacuous comment. What has the previous Labour government got to do with anything that is happening now?
Have I got this right? The Chancellor announces an economic emergency which involves high levels of spending and borrowing. The answer - even higher levels of spending and borrowing.
No, he cut overseas aid and introduced a public sector payfreeze and the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks even the former goes too far
I wonder if he ever wonders why his churches are empty.
There are still 90 million Anglicans worldwide, more than the population of the UK but you would expect the Church to back overseas aid even if most voters disagree with him on that, after all it is not that unusual a view, Cameron and Blair both opposed the overseas aid cut for instance
Re Christmas rules....this advice seems the most sensible of you must see people
According to Prof Noakes, people must dream up creative new options for Christmas That could range from meeting virtually on Zoom, going for a walk, braving the weather for a picnic, or even delaying big gatherings until next summer.
Arranging to meet up for a winter walk seems a very sensible way of catching up with people while minimising risks. Instead i fear it will be all popping round to peoples homes, staying inside for 2-3hrs, sharing the left overs and nibbles...
Plan a big family dinner and gathering for next summer. "Delayed Christmas"
Honestly the government should have done this instead and given people a 4 day weekend for it.
I think they have. Its called Easter.
There's a reason that the government and others keep insisting that things will get more by normal by Easter and conveniently Easter is a 4 day weekend already.
Sunlit uplands, I mean all those portaloos in Kent will be good for some parts of the economy.
The firms that help people with the mountains of paperwork which will need to be filled out and which will be introduced on Jan 1st are set to make a killing.
Much like the PPI miss-selling firms.
What about the PPE mis-selling firms? Or should that be mis-buying?
The use of edge case anedcotal stories by both politicians and the media drives me mad, when we have easy access to more.data than ever to analyse things.
The world runs on anecdotes and edge cases, whether you like it or not. The death of George Floyd is as important a fact as the past ten years' data showing the risk faced by the average USA POC of being murdered by a policeman. Anyway, whenever a politician or journalist or indeed professional scientist produces a statistic they get told by PB that they've done it all wrong, I can't believe the innumeracy of these people, wibble wibble. So that rules that out. So what primary data are we meant to rely on?
On PB people call out when data is wrong, as it should be. Its not our fault journalists are innumerate and appear unable to read scientific papers properly.
There is huge amount of posting of links to high quality data led info on here. It is one of the main reasons I still hang about, as I now long since retired from being a professional.gambler (which is how I first found this place).
I remember a time when the government promised an evidence led approch to policy making....I wish that New Labour had stuck to it and that current shambles would embrace it.
Blair started off with evidence-based policy making, and ended up with policy-based evidence making.
Have I got this right? The Chancellor announces an economic emergency which involves high levels of spending and borrowing. The answer - even higher levels of spending and borrowing.
No, he cut overseas aid and introduced a public sector payfreeze and the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks even the former goes too far
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
Another item for the Good News section: - the multitude of SARS-CoV-2 mutations since January have not increased transmissibility, in contrast to the mink situation, where a particular mutation seems to have significantly increased transmissibility between mink (but not between humans); and - the systems in place for genome reading and analysis will likely give us sufficient time to adapt vaccines if the virus mutates to confound the oncoming vaccines
Re Christmas rules....this advice seems the most sensible of you must see people
According to Prof Noakes, people must dream up creative new options for Christmas That could range from meeting virtually on Zoom, going for a walk, braving the weather for a picnic, or even delaying big gatherings until next summer.
Arranging to meet up for a winter walk seems a very sensible way of catching up with people while minimising risks. Instead i fear it will be all popping round to peoples homes, staying inside for 2-3hrs, sharing the left overs and nibbles...
Plan a big family dinner and gathering for next summer. "Delayed Christmas"
Honestly the government should have done this instead and given people a 4 day weekend for it.
I think they have. Its called Easter.
There's a reason that the government and others keep insisting that things will get more by normal by Easter and conveniently Easter is a 4 day weekend already.
The use of edge case anedcotal stories by both politicians and the media drives me mad, when we have easy access to more.data than ever to analyse things.
The world runs on anecdotes and edge cases, whether you like it or not. The death of George Floyd is as important a fact as the past ten years' data showing the risk faced by the average USA POC of being murdered by a policeman. Anyway, whenever a politician or journalist or indeed professional scientist produces a statistic they get told by PB that they've done it all wrong, I can't believe the innumeracy of these people, wibble wibble. So that rules that out. So what primary data are we meant to rely on?
Actually George Floyd is an exact example of the requirement to use data and logic to follow up on an edge case.
Examination of the data surrounding his death leads to hard evidence of
- Massive over use of force by American local police forces - Racial bias in the use of force - Problems in training and recruiting the police
Concentrating on George Floyd might get you a couple of prosecutions. Fixing the wider problem will have a bigger effect.
Yes, but all that starts with the single incident. You aren't disagreeing with me.
The problem comes with people who live for the emotional version of the story.
For example - deaths in custody in the UK. Lets reduce them.
A major cause of death is people swallowing packages of drugs that then burst.
There is clear evidence - autopsies, etc. But because of the emotional side of this - victim blaming etc - sensible policy changes are hard to implement.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
It's the *Left* that defies logic and data and seeks to govern by anecdote? (ponders Brexit campaign, Trump's entire record, etc). Well, it's an opinion...
Another item for the Good News section: - the multitude of SARS-CoV-2 mutations since January have not increased transmissibility, in contrast to the mink situation, where a particular mutation seems to have significantly increased transmissibility between mink (but not between humans); and - the systems in place for genome reading and analysis will likely give us sufficient time to adapt vaccines if the virus mutates to confound the oncoming vaccines
Re Christmas rules....this advice seems the most sensible of you must see people
According to Prof Noakes, people must dream up creative new options for Christmas That could range from meeting virtually on Zoom, going for a walk, braving the weather for a picnic, or even delaying big gatherings until next summer.
Arranging to meet up for a winter walk seems a very sensible way of catching up with people while minimising risks. Instead i fear it will be all popping round to peoples homes, staying inside for 2-3hrs, sharing the left overs and nibbles...
Plan a big family dinner and gathering for next summer. "Delayed Christmas"
Honestly the government should have done this instead and given people a 4 day weekend for it.
Yes I advocated a delayed Christmas bank holiday next summer on here a week or two ago! Makes much more sense especially since Eid, Divali, Passover etc all screwed up too.
They’ve already announced a four-day weekend at the beginning of next June, in honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Everyone should be encouraged to use that weekend, to have the Christmas celebrations that couldn’t happen in December.
What have you got to sell to your constituents for the next four years? the next 10 after that?
F8ck all that's what. A vast and freezing tundra of taxes and authoritarianism.
You idiots. You stupid stupid idiots.
In case you missed it there's a pandemic going on and that is hitting the economy in every high population density western economy around the western world.
No matter what we would face an economic catastrophe.
Come on! You told me yesterday that there would be a Roaring Twenties economic recovery by next summer.
Worth noting that the "Roaring Twenties" was a USA phenomenon. The British economy suffered mass unemployment, deflation and stagnant economic growth through the 1920s.
Which economic historians largely account to the fact that the UK stuck to the Gold Standard and that after that changed the UK economy recovered rapidly.
Thankfully from 1993 onwards the UK hasn't been foolhardy enough to tie its currency to other countries and the attempt to reinstitute a Europe-wide Gold Standard-equivalent Single Currency where currency fluctuations are prevented was blocked in this country.
The UK has the benefit a freely floating currency nowadays. We can and will make the most of it.
Yes, winston Churchill was a disaster as CoE.
It wasn't just the Gold Standard in 1925 that changed in 1932, but also the bond haircut and return to import tariff, moving away from a Free Trade policy, which made British industry uncompetitive.
I have sympathy with Cyclefree and her piece but the nature of this pandemic has been to devastate the hospitality and travel industry and, while help has been given, it was always going to have constraints with the huge demands from other sectors, not least the health and care sector
With the vaccine on the horizon let us all hope that by mid 2021 these industries will see a sharp uptake in demand and begin their road to recovery
On foreign aid I have no issue with reducing it, but as has been suggested some of the savings should be folded into the vaccine programmes to directly help third world countries with their own vaccinations
On public sector pay freeze I support it purely on the grounds of fairness and expect mp's to lead by example. Additionally I would support abolishing the triple lock thereby freezing our own pension rise next year
On Brexit a deal is really needed, indeed as far as I am concerned any deal, but our relationship with Europe will develop over many years and may eventually lead to 'de facto' membership and at the very least membership of the single market
On Christmas I fail to understand why people just cannot see the safest thing is to treat this Christmas as if we are in lockdown and curtail family gatherings in the greater interest of all of us. No matter the four nations agreeing a convoluted number of rules for this year, my wife and I have already cancelled Christmas day for the 10 of us and will spend it on our own at our on home.
Better safe than sorry
Good post. Re freezing the wages of public sector workers, the government must gain the moral authority to do things like this by also enacting measures which extract a significant contribution to the cost of the pandemic from the relatively affluent. There are many such people in this country and many ways to do it. If the government flunk this aspect it will be a case of "same old Tories" and I predict big trouble. They got away with it last time - making the poor bear much of the pain for the collapse of the financial sector - but I don't think the trick can be repeated. Perhaps Johnson & Co realize this themselves. I hope they do. If so there will be a serious attempt to make "those with the largest shoulders bear the load" in reality rather than as platitudinous soundbite.
Agree - good post.
On foreign aid I am not sure that a reduction to say 0.5% would do that much harm.
There was an interesting session on "Wealth Taxin the light of COVID" in Parliament the other day. One aspect was an attempt to brand IHT and CGT as 'wealth taxes'.
Another was a suggestion that the amount to be raised could be £250-500bn over several years, which is a little loopy - ask Mgr Hollande.
But enough unanimity that reform of things like Stamp Duty to a more continuous setup may be imaginable.
I'd say that IHT and CGT are wealth taxes. Any tax levied on assets rather than revenue fits that bill imo.
Warren started to call her new tax the ultra-millionaire tax instead of a wealth tax. Multi-millionaire would fit better here, but I think differentiating between normal taxes on wealth like IHT and CGT, and taxing the super elite is important to get enough of the middles classes supporting it.
The super elite avoid IHT in particular through trusts, so it is a middle class wealth tax rather than an elite wealth tax.
Yes there's a difference between a tax on wealth and a tax on the wealthY. For example, I'd say an income tax of say 75% on earnings over £1m p/a is not a wealth tax in the first sense but it is in the second. In practice I think you have to be catching people who are relatively affluent but are not rich. The top decile perhaps. Not sure. One would have to look at the numbers. The trouble with just targeting the truly rich is that it doesn't raise enough.
It would if you shook up the treatment of trusts. Credit Suisse have the top 1% owning 24% of the UK.
Really? Remarkable. So what sort of measures could unlock that iyo?
Ask a tax trust specialist! From a maths point of view, annual wealth tax of 1% on the top 1% of asset owners in the UK, would raise about £30-35bn extra per year. You wont get full compliance but dont see why half of that isnt achievable.
It won't be easy but I think something along these lines has become a must-do. These debt and borrowing figures are horrendous. Unless you believe in MMT (modern monetary theory, magic money tree) it is the UK population who must pay and it would be unconscionable if the burden is largely escaped by those best placed to afford it. Wealth Tax, come on down. You're on the show.
Unearned wealth yes let's do it. CGT IHT Tax on investment property. Get rid of loopholes eg trusts.
I await the proposals from Sunak in due course. It's essential that the wealthy make the biggest contribution. Otherwise all we get is one group of workers set against another, e.g. the "teachers still have a job and a good pension so ..." etc etc. This is the politics of misdirection and misplaced envy.
The response to the pandemic has only made the hugely wealthy hugely wealthier.
Bezos 90bn for example.Big tech. Makers of 'green' products like Musk. All through measures enthusiastically supported by the labour government.
Small businesses have been utterly crushed, and if anything the left wants this to go on longer and in greater depth than the right.
So please spare me the crocodile tears about the poor.
My crocodile tears in that particular post were not for the poor. They were for the teachers. I'd hate the main impact of straitened times to be interworker bickering. I want to see generous state support from now until the vaccine rollout to save businesses and jobs - and then when the economy is on its feet again again a serious attempt to direct it down sustainable green lines and to shift a major part of the burden of paying for this pandemic onto those with the financial means to do so without hardship. This is what I think the Left approach is. And I think it's better than your approach - which is essentially to say you wish that Covid had stayed in the bat.
Sunlit uplands, I mean all those portaloos in Kent will be good for some parts of the economy.
The firms that help people with the mountains of paperwork which will need to be filled out and which will be introduced on Jan 1st are set to make a killing.
Much like the PPI miss-selling firms.
What about the PPE mis-selling firms? Or should that be mis-buying?
I have sympathy with Cyclefree and her piece but the nature of this pandemic has been to devastate the hospitality and travel industry and, while help has been given, it was always going to have constraints with the huge demands from other sectors, not least the health and care sector
With the vaccine on the horizon let us all hope that by mid 2021 these industries will see a sharp uptake in demand and begin their road to recovery
On foreign aid I have no issue with reducing it, but as has been suggested some of the savings should be folded into the vaccine programmes to directly help third world countries with their own vaccinations
On public sector pay freeze I support it purely on the grounds of fairness and expect mp's to lead by example. Additionally I would support abolishing the triple lock thereby freezing our own pension rise next year
On Brexit a deal is really needed, indeed as far as I am concerned any deal, but our relationship with Europe will develop over many years and may eventually lead to 'de facto' membership and at the very least membership of the single market
On Christmas I fail to understand why people just cannot see the safest thing is to treat this Christmas as if we are in lockdown and curtail family gatherings in the greater interest of all of us. No matter the four nations agreeing a convoluted number of rules for this year, my wife and I have already cancelled Christmas day for the 10 of us and will spend it on our own at our on home.
Better safe than sorry
Good post. Re freezing the wages of public sector workers, the government must gain the moral authority to do things like this by also enacting measures which extract a significant contribution to the cost of the pandemic from the relatively affluent. There are many such people in this country and many ways to do it. If the government flunk this aspect it will be a case of "same old Tories" and I predict big trouble. They got away with it last time - making the poor bear much of the pain for the collapse of the financial sector - but I don't think the trick can be repeated. Perhaps Johnson & Co realize this themselves. I hope they do. If so there will be a serious attempt to make "those with the largest shoulders bear the load" in reality rather than as platitudinous soundbite.
Agree - good post.
On foreign aid I am not sure that a reduction to say 0.5% would do that much harm.
There was an interesting session on "Wealth Taxin the light of COVID" in Parliament the other day. One aspect was an attempt to brand IHT and CGT as 'wealth taxes'.
Another was a suggestion that the amount to be raised could be £250-500bn over several years, which is a little loopy - ask Mgr Hollande.
But enough unanimity that reform of things like Stamp Duty to a more continuous setup may be imaginable.
I'd say that IHT and CGT are wealth taxes. Any tax levied on assets rather than revenue fits that bill imo.
Warren started to call her new tax the ultra-millionaire tax instead of a wealth tax. Multi-millionaire would fit better here, but I think differentiating between normal taxes on wealth like IHT and CGT, and taxing the super elite is important to get enough of the middles classes supporting it.
The super elite avoid IHT in particular through trusts, so it is a middle class wealth tax rather than an elite wealth tax.
Yes there's a difference between a tax on wealth and a tax on the wealthY. For example, I'd say an income tax of say 75% on earnings over £1m p/a is not a wealth tax in the first sense but it is in the second. In practice I think you have to be catching people who are relatively affluent but are not rich. The top decile perhaps. Not sure. One would have to look at the numbers. The trouble with just targeting the truly rich is that it doesn't raise enough.
It would if you shook up the treatment of trusts. Credit Suisse have the top 1% owning 24% of the UK.
Really? Remarkable. So what sort of measures could unlock that iyo?
Ask a tax trust specialist! From a maths point of view, annual wealth tax of 1% on the top 1% of asset owners in the UK, would raise about £30-35bn extra per year. You wont get full compliance but dont see why half of that isnt achievable.
It won't be easy but I think something along these lines has become a must-do. These debt and borrowing figures are horrendous. Unless you believe in MMT (modern monetary theory, magic money tree) it is the UK population who must pay and it would be unconscionable if the burden is largely escaped by those best placed to afford it. Wealth Tax, come on down. You're on the show.
As an aside MMT as an economic theory doesn't say public spending is free and unlimited. Most western govts and central banks are influenced by MMT to a significant degree in the post GFC economic climate. No economic theory whether Keynesian or MMT is going to reflect reality particularly accurately across the full range of situations the world can find itself in, some will be more suited to todays economy than others.
When its picked up by politicians MMT is deliberately misinterpreted by both left and right to suit their agendas.
Yes, it's the practice rather than the theory I'm mainly talking about. The theory has useful insights.
Will 1% a year raise more from Trusts?
eg A discretionary trust is aiui taxed at half CGT rate, then 6% of the assets once a decade, and at the original rate of iHT when it was set up on anything taken out of the trust.
I think the Credit Suisse stats are questionable in the definition of "wealth", in a similar way that the Oxfam ones always are - do they, for example, include the £200k or £250k of wealth that we all have in the capitalised value of our State pension?
Re Christmas rules....this advice seems the most sensible of you must see people
According to Prof Noakes, people must dream up creative new options for Christmas That could range from meeting virtually on Zoom, going for a walk, braving the weather for a picnic, or even delaying big gatherings until next summer.
Arranging to meet up for a winter walk seems a very sensible way of catching up with people while minimising risks. Instead i fear it will be all popping round to peoples homes, staying inside for 2-3hrs, sharing the left overs and nibbles...
Plan a big family dinner and gathering for next summer. "Delayed Christmas"
Honestly the government should have done this instead and given people a 4 day weekend for it.
I think they have. Its called Easter.
There's a reason that the government and others keep insisting that things will get more by normal by Easter and conveniently Easter is a 4 day weekend already.
Since when is Easter in the summer?!
Spring then. Same principle.
Easter is in early April 2021. That feels tight for Victory over Covid Day. A lot of the most vulnerable should have been vaccinated, and the end should be in sight, but tagging a bonus day onto the late May holiday might be a better bet. More secure security and probably better weather.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
I am much reminded of a dinner, where a progressive friend got exposed to social/political views of Ghanian and Nigerians of my aquaintance.
The Western world is accelerating faster and faster into a social Singularity - we are becoming increasingly hard to understand to a big chunk of the rest of the world. Many of the values we hold (or barely think of as common place) are quite simply "WTF?!?" to many others.
Re Christmas rules....this advice seems the most sensible of you must see people
According to Prof Noakes, people must dream up creative new options for Christmas That could range from meeting virtually on Zoom, going for a walk, braving the weather for a picnic, or even delaying big gatherings until next summer.
Arranging to meet up for a winter walk seems a very sensible way of catching up with people while minimising risks. Instead i fear it will be all popping round to peoples homes, staying inside for 2-3hrs, sharing the left overs and nibbles...
Plan a big family dinner and gathering for next summer. "Delayed Christmas"
Honestly the government should have done this instead and given people a 4 day weekend for it.
Yes I advocated a delayed Christmas bank holiday next summer on here a week or two ago! Makes much more sense especially since Eid, Divali, Passover etc all screwed up too.
They’ve already announced a four-day weekend at the beginning of next June, in honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Everyone should be encouraged to use that weekend, to have the Christmas celebrations that couldn’t happen in December.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
What have you got to sell to your constituents for the next four years? the next 10 after that?
F8ck all that's what. A vast and freezing tundra of taxes and authoritarianism.
You idiots. You stupid stupid idiots.
In case you missed it there's a pandemic going on and that is hitting the economy in every high population density western economy around the western world.
No matter what we would face an economic catastrophe.
Come on! You told me yesterday that there would be a Roaring Twenties economic recovery by next summer.
Worth noting that the "Roaring Twenties" was a USA phenomenon. The British economy suffered mass unemployment, deflation and stagnant economic growth through the 1920s.
Which economic historians largely account to the fact that the UK stuck to the Gold Standard and that after that changed the UK economy recovered rapidly.
Thankfully from 1993 onwards the UK hasn't been foolhardy enough to tie its currency to other countries and the attempt to reinstitute a Europe-wide Gold Standard-equivalent Single Currency where currency fluctuations are prevented was blocked in this country.
The UK has the benefit a freely floating currency nowadays. We can and will make the most of it.
Yes, winston Churchill was a disaster as CoE.
It wasn't just the Gold Standard in 1925 that changed in 1932, but also the bond haircut and return to import tariff, moving away from a Free Trade policy, which made British industry uncompetitive.
Good thing that nobody is planning to cosplay Churchill by messing around with the UK's trading relations, eh?
The use of edge case anedcotal stories by both politicians and the media drives me mad, when we have easy access to more.data than ever to analyse things.
The world runs on anecdotes and edge cases, whether you like it or not. The death of George Floyd is as important a fact as the past ten years' data showing the risk faced by the average USA POC of being murdered by a policeman. Anyway, whenever a politician or journalist or indeed professional scientist produces a statistic they get told by PB that they've done it all wrong, I can't believe the innumeracy of these people, wibble wibble. So that rules that out. So what primary data are we meant to rely on?
Actually George Floyd is an exact example of the requirement to use data and logic to follow up on an edge case.
Examination of the data surrounding his death leads to hard evidence of
- Massive over use of force by American local police forces - Racial bias in the use of force - Problems in training and recruiting the police
Concentrating on George Floyd might get you a couple of prosecutions. Fixing the wider problem will have a bigger effect.
Yes, but all that starts with the single incident. You aren't disagreeing with me.
The problem comes with people who live for the emotional version of the story.
For example - deaths in custody in the UK. Lets reduce them.
A major cause of death is people swallowing packages of drugs that then burst.
There is clear evidence - autopsies, etc. But because of the emotional side of this - victim blaming etc - sensible policy changes are hard to implement.
Well you only have to look at lots of emotional claims regarding how common it really is that police in the US kill unarmed members of the public. It is actually a very small number and even within those figures it often comes down to an individual was attacking an officer, trying to steal their weapon, or run them over.
Now, when it comes to police killing armed individuals, now that is where there is a huge issue.
Re Christmas rules....this advice seems the most sensible of you must see people
According to Prof Noakes, people must dream up creative new options for Christmas That could range from meeting virtually on Zoom, going for a walk, braving the weather for a picnic, or even delaying big gatherings until next summer.
Arranging to meet up for a winter walk seems a very sensible way of catching up with people while minimising risks. Instead i fear it will be all popping round to peoples homes, staying inside for 2-3hrs, sharing the left overs and nibbles...
Plan a big family dinner and gathering for next summer. "Delayed Christmas"
Honestly the government should have done this instead and given people a 4 day weekend for it.
Yes I advocated a delayed Christmas bank holiday next summer on here a week or two ago! Makes much more sense especially since Eid, Divali, Passover etc all screwed up too.
They’ve already announced a four-day weekend at the beginning of next June, in honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Everyone should be encouraged to use that weekend, to have the Christmas celebrations that couldn’t happen in December.
It's the *Left* that defies logic and data and seeks to govern by anecdote? (ponders Brexit campaign, Trump's entire record, etc). Well, it's an opinion...
Also ponder the "fully costed" Corbyn manifesto, where the "fully costed" was a 3-4 page memo which collapsed within hours.
There are still some out there on twitter claiming he was a social democrat type who wanted to recreate Sweden.
The use of edge case anedcotal stories by both politicians and the media drives me mad, when we have easy access to more.data than ever to analyse things.
The world runs on anecdotes and edge cases, whether you like it or not. The death of George Floyd is as important a fact as the past ten years' data showing the risk faced by the average USA POC of being murdered by a policeman. Anyway, whenever a politician or journalist or indeed professional scientist produces a statistic they get told by PB that they've done it all wrong, I can't believe the innumeracy of these people, wibble wibble. So that rules that out. So what primary data are we meant to rely on?
On PB people call out when data is wrong, as it should be. Its not our fault journalists are innumerate and appear unable to read scientific papers properly.
There is huge amount of posting of links to high quality data led info on here. It is one of the main reasons I still hang about, as I now long since retired from being a professional.gambler (which is how I first found this place).
I remember a time when the government promised an evidence led approch to policy making....I wish that New Labour had stuck to it and that current shambles would embrace it.
The problem with evidence based policy making is that -
a) It leads to the wrong policies. Remember the one about the right thing to do with an obsolete, nationalised, steel mill? b) I can find you an expert who will come up with whatever answer you want. Or don't want.
Re Christmas rules....this advice seems the most sensible of you must see people
According to Prof Noakes, people must dream up creative new options for Christmas That could range from meeting virtually on Zoom, going for a walk, braving the weather for a picnic, or even delaying big gatherings until next summer.
Arranging to meet up for a winter walk seems a very sensible way of catching up with people while minimising risks. Instead i fear it will be all popping round to peoples homes, staying inside for 2-3hrs, sharing the left overs and nibbles...
Plan a big family dinner and gathering for next summer. "Delayed Christmas"
Honestly the government should have done this instead and given people a 4 day weekend for it.
Yes I advocated a delayed Christmas bank holiday next summer on here a week or two ago! Makes much more sense especially since Eid, Divali, Passover etc all screwed up too.
They’ve already announced a four-day weekend at the beginning of next June, in honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
Everyone should be encouraged to use that weekend, to have the Christmas celebrations that couldn’t happen in December.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
The use of edge case anedcotal stories by both politicians and the media drives me mad, when we have easy access to more.data than ever to analyse things.
The world runs on anecdotes and edge cases, whether you like it or not. The death of George Floyd is as important a fact as the past ten years' data showing the risk faced by the average USA POC of being murdered by a policeman. Anyway, whenever a politician or journalist or indeed professional scientist produces a statistic they get told by PB that they've done it all wrong, I can't believe the innumeracy of these people, wibble wibble. So that rules that out. So what primary data are we meant to rely on?
On PB people call out when data is wrong, as it should be. Its not our fault journalists are innumerate and appear unable to read scientific papers properly.
There is huge amount of posting of links to high quality data led info on here. It is one of the main reasons I still hang about, as I now long since retired from being a professional.gambler (which is how I first found this place).
I remember a time when the government promised an evidence led approch to policy making....I wish that New Labour had stuck to it and that current shambles would embrace it.
Blair started off with evidence-based policy making, and ended up with policy-based evidence making.
Apart from Iraq, the policy that I see Blair getting criticised for most on here was opening up to Eastern European immigration without imposing transitional controls. On that occasion the decision was based on evidence, or at least the forecasts of experts. These turned out to be wrong, of course, but it's hard to criticise Blair on this occasion if you think that politicians should be guided by facts and expert opinion.
Another item for the Good News section: - the multitude of SARS-CoV-2 mutations since January have not increased transmissibility, in contrast to the mink situation, where a particular mutation seems to have significantly increased transmissibility between mink (but not between humans); and - the systems in place for genome reading and analysis will likely give us sufficient time to adapt vaccines if the virus mutates to confound the oncoming vaccines
The use of edge case anedcotal stories by both politicians and the media drives me mad, when we have easy access to more.data than ever to analyse things.
The world runs on anecdotes and edge cases, whether you like it or not. The death of George Floyd is as important a fact as the past ten years' data showing the risk faced by the average USA POC of being murdered by a policeman. Anyway, whenever a politician or journalist or indeed professional scientist produces a statistic they get told by PB that they've done it all wrong, I can't believe the innumeracy of these people, wibble wibble. So that rules that out. So what primary data are we meant to rely on?
On PB people call out when data is wrong, as it should be. Its not our fault journalists are innumerate and appear unable to read scientific papers properly.
There is huge amount of posting of links to high quality data led info on here. It is one of the main reasons I still hang about, as I now long since retired from being a professional.gambler (which is how I first found this place).
I remember a time when the government promised an evidence led approch to policy making....I wish that New Labour had stuck to it and that current shambles would embrace it.
Really? It looks increasingly as if all the Yay for 90%, boo for 70% and 62% stuff of yesterday was way premature, for instance. Bloomberg now saying the 90% subsample was ultra skewed, no one in it over 55.
It's the *Left* that defies logic and data and seeks to govern by anecdote? (ponders Brexit campaign, Trump's entire record, etc). Well, it's an opinion...
LOL, even being in the other camp that is hilarious.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
The chart in the report doesn't suggest to me that much is actually happening. I don't know whether they did much more than just averages (means, in fact, which are problematic for looking at differences when the underlying numbers vary so much - in a very diverse area, more likely to vote labour, there's limited scope for large % increases in non-white population), but there are a few Con-trending outliers at the top of the graph that may skew up the measurements.
Also, no consideration of deprivation changes or other measures of SES.
In short, I'm not convinced this isn't just a load of bollocks.
Another item for the Good News section: - the multitude of SARS-CoV-2 mutations since January have not increased transmissibility, in contrast to the mink situation, where a particular mutation seems to have significantly increased transmissibility between mink (but not between humans); and - the systems in place for genome reading and analysis will likely give us sufficient time to adapt vaccines if the virus mutates to confound the oncoming vaccines
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
I`ve fessed up to my wife about the betting and she wants me to spend some of my BF winnings on a hot tub.
But... hot tubs are naff aren`t they? Like personalised number-plates and Simon Cowell?
Thoughts?
Happy wife, happy life.
Jeez. Yet another wife tax then.
Rebate in earache though (channeling 70's comedian for a moment).
My wife (a physician) sent me to the ENT specialist to test my hearing as I often do not hear her. The ENT, reviewing my hearing test results, claimed I had "Male pattern hearing loss". My hearing is impaired in the range of female voices. True story.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
I am much reminded of a dinner, where a progressive friend got exposed to social/political views of Ghanian and Nigerians of my aquaintance.
The Western world is accelerating faster and faster into a social Singularity - we are becoming increasingly hard to understand to a big chunk of the rest of the world. Many of the values we hold (or barely think of as common place) are quite simply "WTF?!?" to many others.
On the contrary, there is evidence that the rest of the world is catching up with progressive values, albeit with some lag.
The trend with age suggests that this is likely to continue.
What have you got to sell to your constituents for the next four years? the next 10 after that?
F8ck all that's what. A vast and freezing tundra of taxes and authoritarianism.
You idiots. You stupid stupid idiots.
In case you missed it there's a pandemic going on and that is hitting the economy in every high population density western economy around the western world.
No matter what we would face an economic catastrophe.
Come on! You told me yesterday that there would be a Roaring Twenties economic recovery by next summer.
Worth noting that the "Roaring Twenties" was a USA phenomenon. The British economy suffered mass unemployment, deflation and stagnant economic growth through the 1920s.
Which economic historians largely account to the fact that the UK stuck to the Gold Standard and that after that changed the UK economy recovered rapidly.
Thankfully from 1993 onwards the UK hasn't been foolhardy enough to tie its currency to other countries and the attempt to reinstitute a Europe-wide Gold Standard-equivalent Single Currency where currency fluctuations are prevented was blocked in this country.
The UK has the benefit a freely floating currency nowadays. We can and will make the most of it.
Yes, winston Churchill was a disaster as CoE.
It wasn't just the Gold Standard in 1925 that changed in 1932, but also the bond haircut and return to import tariff, moving away from a Free Trade policy, which made British industry uncompetitive.
Good thing that nobody is planning to cosplay Churchill by messing around with the UK's trading relations, eh?
Have I got this right? The Chancellor announces an economic emergency which involves high levels of spending and borrowing. The answer - even higher levels of spending and borrowing.
No, he cut overseas aid and introduced a public sector payfreeze and the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks even the former goes too far
The way some are reacting you would think he had announced to totally abolish it.
There are specific good works- about £4 billion worth- that won't happen as a result of this decision. Now maybe that's inevitable (though it seems fair to point out that even a post-Covid UK is still a really rich country, certainly compared with the countries that get the aid).
(And before anyone suggests it, the CofE's assets are about £9 billion, generating about £1 billion a year towards running costs. Unless the Church votes to sell itself off over about 2 years, it can't make up the gap.)
The Church also makes about £1 billion a year in annual revenue, so roughly breakeven
Yes, which broadly is the sensible thing to do- keep the endowment intact, use the income generated to do good things in the church and the world. Really I was pre-empting the "sell everything off and give it to the poor" argument, which gets into a dead end sooner than most people realise.
I have sympathy with Cyclefree and her piece but the nature of this pandemic has been to devastate the hospitality and travel industry and, while help has been given, it was always going to have constraints with the huge demands from other sectors, not least the health and care sector
With the vaccine on the horizon let us all hope that by mid 2021 these industries will see a sharp uptake in demand and begin their road to recovery
On foreign aid I have no issue with reducing it, but as has been suggested some of the savings should be folded into the vaccine programmes to directly help third world countries with their own vaccinations
On public sector pay freeze I support it purely on the grounds of fairness and expect mp's to lead by example. Additionally I would support abolishing the triple lock thereby freezing our own pension rise next year
On Brexit a deal is really needed, indeed as far as I am concerned any deal, but our relationship with Europe will develop over many years and may eventually lead to 'de facto' membership and at the very least membership of the single market
On Christmas I fail to understand why people just cannot see the safest thing is to treat this Christmas as if we are in lockdown and curtail family gatherings in the greater interest of all of us. No matter the four nations agreeing a convoluted number of rules for this year, my wife and I have already cancelled Christmas day for the 10 of us and will spend it on our own at our on home.
Better safe than sorry
Good post. Re freezing the wages of public sector workers, the government must gain the moral authority to do things like this by also enacting measures which extract a significant contribution to the cost of the pandemic from the relatively affluent. There are many such people in this country and many ways to do it. If the government flunk this aspect it will be a case of "same old Tories" and I predict big trouble. They got away with it last time - making the poor bear much of the pain for the collapse of the financial sector - but I don't think the trick can be repeated. Perhaps Johnson & Co realize this themselves. I hope they do. If so there will be a serious attempt to make "those with the largest shoulders bear the load" in reality rather than as platitudinous soundbite.
Agree - good post.
On foreign aid I am not sure that a reduction to say 0.5% would do that much harm.
There was an interesting session on "Wealth Taxin the light of COVID" in Parliament the other day. One aspect was an attempt to brand IHT and CGT as 'wealth taxes'.
Another was a suggestion that the amount to be raised could be £250-500bn over several years, which is a little loopy - ask Mgr Hollande.
But enough unanimity that reform of things like Stamp Duty to a more continuous setup may be imaginable.
I'd say that IHT and CGT are wealth taxes. Any tax levied on assets rather than revenue fits that bill imo.
Warren started to call her new tax the ultra-millionaire tax instead of a wealth tax. Multi-millionaire would fit better here, but I think differentiating between normal taxes on wealth like IHT and CGT, and taxing the super elite is important to get enough of the middles classes supporting it.
The super elite avoid IHT in particular through trusts, so it is a middle class wealth tax rather than an elite wealth tax.
Yes there's a difference between a tax on wealth and a tax on the wealthY. For example, I'd say an income tax of say 75% on earnings over £1m p/a is not a wealth tax in the first sense but it is in the second. In practice I think you have to be catching people who are relatively affluent but are not rich. The top decile perhaps. Not sure. One would have to look at the numbers. The trouble with just targeting the truly rich is that it doesn't raise enough.
It would if you shook up the treatment of trusts. Credit Suisse have the top 1% owning 24% of the UK.
Really? Remarkable. So what sort of measures could unlock that iyo?
Ask a tax trust specialist! From a maths point of view, annual wealth tax of 1% on the top 1% of asset owners in the UK, would raise about £30-35bn extra per year. You wont get full compliance but dont see why half of that isnt achievable.
It won't be easy but I think something along these lines has become a must-do. These debt and borrowing figures are horrendous. Unless you believe in MMT (modern monetary theory, magic money tree) it is the UK population who must pay and it would be unconscionable if the burden is largely escaped by those best placed to afford it. Wealth Tax, come on down. You're on the show.
As an aside MMT as an economic theory doesn't say public spending is free and unlimited. Most western govts and central banks are influenced by MMT to a significant degree in the post GFC economic climate. No economic theory whether Keynesian or MMT is going to reflect reality particularly accurately across the full range of situations the world can find itself in, some will be more suited to todays economy than others.
When its picked up by politicians MMT is deliberately misinterpreted by both left and right to suit their agendas.
Yes, it's the practice rather than the theory I'm mainly talking about. The theory has useful insights.
Will 1% a year raise more from Trusts?
eg A discretionary trust is aiui taxed at half CGT rate, then 6% of the assets once a decade, and at the original rate of iHT when it was set up on anything taken out of the trust.
I think the Credit Suisse stats are questionable in the definition of "wealth", in a similar way that the Oxfam ones always are - do they, for example, include the £200k or £250k of wealth that we all have in the capitalised value of our State pension?
The vibe I'm getting from you is that raising a serious chunk of cash from the wealthy to help pay for the pandemic is in the "too hard" basket and must sadly stay there. Would that be fair?
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
I am much reminded of a dinner, where a progressive friend got exposed to social/political views of Ghanian and Nigerians of my aquaintance.
The Western world is accelerating faster and faster into a social Singularity - we are becoming increasingly hard to understand to a big chunk of the rest of the world. Many of the values we hold (or barely think of as common place) are quite simply "WTF?!?" to many others.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
The chart in the report doesn't suggest to me that much is actually happening. I don't know whether they did much more than just averages (means, in fact, which are problematic for looking at differences when the underlying numbers vary so much - in a very diverse area, more likely to vote labour, there's limited scope for large % increases in non-white population), but there are a few Con-trending outliers at the top of the graph that may skew up the measurements.
Also, no consideration of deprivation changes or other measures of SES.
In short, I'm not convinced this isn't just a load of bollocks.
Basically the study finds that areas which are very white but have seen a recent increase in the non white population eg Barnsley (proportionately a large increase on a small base) swung to the Tories. This is unlikely to have been because the incomers were themselves Tories. Eg in the Barnsley case the swing was much larger than the increase in minorities. Rather it is likely to have been a reaction by the White population ("we're going to turn into Bradford, I don't recognise the place any more, you never hear English spoken in the shops anymore etc etc"). Whereas in Lewisham (where I live) you have an area with a large non white population which is if anything becoming slightly more white and swinging to Labour. Again, not a surprise and is driven by left leaning types like me moving into the area, attracted by its diversity. Another factor I guess is Eastern European immigration - largely non voters but more likely to be displacing Labour voters I would imagine so probably associated with a swing to the Tories. (Eastern Europeans who become citizens are in many ways natural Tories I suspect but Brexit may have pissed them off).
I have sympathy with Cyclefree and her piece but the nature of this pandemic has been to devastate the hospitality and travel industry and, while help has been given, it was always going to have constraints with the huge demands from other sectors, not least the health and care sector
With the vaccine on the horizon let us all hope that by mid 2021 these industries will see a sharp uptake in demand and begin their road to recovery
On foreign aid I have no issue with reducing it, but as has been suggested some of the savings should be folded into the vaccine programmes to directly help third world countries with their own vaccinations
On public sector pay freeze I support it purely on the grounds of fairness and expect mp's to lead by example. Additionally I would support abolishing the triple lock thereby freezing our own pension rise next year
On Brexit a deal is really needed, indeed as far as I am concerned any deal, but our relationship with Europe will develop over many years and may eventually lead to 'de facto' membership and at the very least membership of the single market
On Christmas I fail to understand why people just cannot see the safest thing is to treat this Christmas as if we are in lockdown and curtail family gatherings in the greater interest of all of us. No matter the four nations agreeing a convoluted number of rules for this year, my wife and I have already cancelled Christmas day for the 10 of us and will spend it on our own at our on home.
Better safe than sorry
Good post @Big_G_NorthWales - I agree with all these points but would add one additional item (which I suspect you would support):
Time to end the triple lock for pensions.
I'll be taking my pension before that happens.
Edit: Just kidding, I expect to die at my desk.
I get mine from January 2021, so hopefully a big increase in it so I don't starve. I will be able to gloat on here, that and bumper savings on NI will make up for no pay rises.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
The chart in the report doesn't suggest to me that much is actually happening. I don't know whether they did much more than just averages (means, in fact, which are problematic for looking at differences when the underlying numbers vary so much - in a very diverse area, more likely to vote labour, there's limited scope for large % increases in non-white population), but there are a few Con-trending outliers at the top of the graph that may skew up the measurements.
Also, no consideration of deprivation changes or other measures of SES.
In short, I'm not convinced this isn't just a load of bollocks.
I think the answer is simpler. Ethnic minorities integrate and on average become more similar to white British over the generations. This tends to mean adopting the politics of their native peers. Hence Hindus and Sikhs have trended blue over the years, as well as British West Africans. The poorer and less well educated communities much less so.
No political party has a permanent right to an ethnic groups vote, and class tends to trump race.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
I am much reminded of a dinner, where a progressive friend got exposed to social/political views of Ghanian and Nigerians of my aquaintance.
The Western world is accelerating faster and faster into a social Singularity - we are becoming increasingly hard to understand to a big chunk of the rest of the world. Many of the values we hold (or barely think of as common place) are quite simply "WTF?!?" to many others.
On the contrary, there is evidence that the rest of the world is catching up with progressive values, albeit with some lag.
The trend with age suggests that this is likely to continue.
Huge difference between the West and much of Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia there, 86% of Britons and 85% of Canadians and 82% of Americans and 92% of French under 30 accepting of Homosexuality.
By contrast only 14% of Kenyans and 37% of Indians and 31% of Russians, 34% of Turks and just 9% of Nigerians under 30 accepting of homosexuality.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
I am much reminded of a dinner, where a progressive friend got exposed to social/political views of Ghanian and Nigerians of my aquaintance.
The Western world is accelerating faster and faster into a social Singularity - we are becoming increasingly hard to understand to a big chunk of the rest of the world. Many of the values we hold (or barely think of as common place) are quite simply "WTF?!?" to many others.
So what?
Expecting everyone to be a nice progressive liberal just because progressive liberals are nice is not how the world actually works.
If you want people to be nice progressive liberals, they you will need to stand up for nice progressive liberalism. Advocate it. Educate about it. And there will be push back. Which is to be be expected.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
The chart in the report doesn't suggest to me that much is actually happening. I don't know whether they did much more than just averages (means, in fact, which are problematic for looking at differences when the underlying numbers vary so much - in a very diverse area, more likely to vote labour, there's limited scope for large % increases in non-white population), but there are a few Con-trending outliers at the top of the graph that may skew up the measurements.
Also, no consideration of deprivation changes or other measures of SES.
In short, I'm not convinced this isn't just a load of bollocks.
The biggest swings to the Tories in recent elections have been in white working-class seats like Bolsover, Great Grimsby, Scunthorpe, Cannock Chase, Sedgefield, etc.
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
I am much reminded of a dinner, where a progressive friend got exposed to social/political views of Ghanian and Nigerians of my aquaintance.
The Western world is accelerating faster and faster into a social Singularity - we are becoming increasingly hard to understand to a big chunk of the rest of the world. Many of the values we hold (or barely think of as common place) are quite simply "WTF?!?" to many others.
On the contrary, there is evidence that the rest of the world is catching up with progressive values, albeit with some lag.
The trend with age suggests that this is likely to continue.
Yes, in some countries we may reach the acceptance of being gay that matches, say, the UK in 1920 or so. Yay!
Diverse places get gentrified, become whiter, & vote more for Labour, but this prices the non white British out, and the places they move to start voting more Tory, seems to be the conclusion of this research.. I think?
Comments
https://twitter.com/Frances_Coppola/status/1331590828054228993?s=20
Thankfully from 1993 onwards the UK hasn't been foolhardy enough to tie its currency to other countries and the attempt to reinstitute a Europe-wide Gold Standard-equivalent Single Currency where currency fluctuations are prevented was blocked in this country.
The UK has the benefit a freely floating currency nowadays. We can and will make the most of it.
Examination of the data surrounding his death leads to hard evidence of
- Massive over use of force by American local police forces
- Racial bias in the use of force
- Problems in training and recruiting the police
Concentrating on George Floyd might get you a couple of prosecutions. Fixing the wider problem will have a bigger effect.
Bezos 90bn for example.Big tech. Makers of 'green' products like Musk. All through measures enthusiastically supported by the labour government.
Small businesses have been utterly crushed, and if anything the left wants this to go on longer and in greater depth than the right.
So please spare me the crocodile tears about the poor.
On matters Christmas, many New Zealanders have a roast Christmas lunch on June 25th because it's more seasonal than December 25th. Christmas doesn't have to be at the end of December when the shops are crowded - it can be whenever and whatever you want it to be.
Let's have a couple of extra Bank Holidays in 2021 !!
On the Sunak "smoke and mirrors", I look forward to seeing how funding for local Government is impacted into next year. It's all very well making costly pledges to the high-profile politically sensitive areas such as the NHS and schools but there's so much more to the public services than that.
What about social care provision, libraries, youth and all the rest of it? I believe the detail is outlined in the "red" book announcements later and it'll be interesting to see what revised local grant allocation will do for council tax levels especially with a large round of local elections next year.
I suppose it is common for people to see themselves as coolly objective and everyone else as buffeted by the currents of subjectivity. I was particularly struck by this line in the article:
"so, allowing your own personal experience to loom too large leads to a sort of equal and opposite blinkeredness, maybe excusable in 17-year-old students."
Well, quite. By lumping several people into a category like that, Goodhart is constructing the psychological framework for diminishing the views that come from their experience. In other words, his own subjectivity is a lens that focuses his attention on identity.
We all do it. And speaking as someone in the centre, politically, it's one of the tragic failings of the right that they can see this so clearly in the left -- and it IS there, they aren't imagining it -- but not in their own lives. There is no formal difference between "you don't know what it's like to be stopped and searched five days in a row" and "you don't know what it's like to run a business". There should be no greater or lesser force to the arguments "gay people have every reason not trust the Tories" and "people who believe in Britain have every reason not to trust Labour".
There is huge amount of posting of links to high quality data led info on here. It is one of the main reasons I still hang about, as I now long since retired from being a professional.gambler (which is how I first found this place).
I remember a time when the government promised an evidence led approch to policy making....I wish that New Labour had stuck to it and that current shambles would embrace it.
Europe average 8 per cent plus
US under Trump 4.3
That's a scratch to an economy as dynamic as theirs. We will be f8cked for a decade or more.
Johnson FFS. Do me a favour
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1331598320079351809?s=20
https://twitter.com/jimultimate/status/1331596718882828288?s=20
They're forecast to return to their pre-COVID figures in 2022, same as the UK.
(And before anyone suggests it, the CofE's assets are about £9 billion, generating about £1 billion a year towards running costs. Unless the Church votes to sell itself off over about 2 years, it can't make up the gap.)
Much like the PPI miss-selling firms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Properties_and_finances_of_the_Church_of_England#:~:text=The Church of England has a large endowment of £,their largest source of revenue.
Or should that be mis-buying?
https://twitter.com/politics_co_uk/status/1331529426308390913?s=21
- the multitude of SARS-CoV-2 mutations since January have not increased transmissibility, in contrast to the mink situation, where a particular mutation seems to have significantly increased transmissibility between mink (but not between humans); and
- the systems in place for genome reading and analysis will likely give us sufficient time to adapt vaccines if the virus mutates to confound the oncoming vaccines
https://scitechdaily.com/good-covid-news-none-of-the-sars-cov-2-genetic-mutations-appear-to-increase-transmissibility/
For example - deaths in custody in the UK. Lets reduce them.
A major cause of death is people swallowing packages of drugs that then burst.
There is clear evidence - autopsies, etc. But because of the emotional side of this - victim blaming etc - sensible policy changes are hard to implement.
They could have said we won't cut it, we'll increase it and use the money help vaccinate the poorer countries of the world.
That would buy us so much goodwill around the world and also very much the right thing to do.
#GlobalBritain
https://twitter.com/trevorptweets/status/1331597989324972035?s=21
(ponders Brexit campaign, Trump's entire record, etc).
Well, it's an opinion...
Everyone should be encouraged to use that weekend, to have the Christmas celebrations that couldn’t happen in December.
It wasn't just the Gold Standard in 1925 that changed in 1932, but also the bond haircut and return to import tariff, moving away from a Free Trade policy, which made British industry uncompetitive.
eg A discretionary trust is aiui taxed at half CGT rate, then 6% of the assets once a decade, and at the original rate of iHT when it was set up on anything taken out of the trust.
I think the Credit Suisse stats are questionable in the definition of "wealth", in a similar way that the Oxfam ones always are - do they, for example, include the £200k or £250k of wealth that we all have in the capitalised value of our State pension?
The Western world is accelerating faster and faster into a social Singularity - we are becoming increasingly hard to understand to a big chunk of the rest of the world. Many of the values we hold (or barely think of as common place) are quite simply "WTF?!?" to many others.
We should cut it and use the remaining budget to vaccinate the poorer countries of the world.
Now, when it comes to police killing armed individuals, now that is where there is a huge issue.
Do we want to wait that long?
There are still some out there on twitter claiming he was a social democrat type who wanted to recreate Sweden.
a) It leads to the wrong policies. Remember the one about the right thing to do with an obsolete, nationalised, steel mill?
b) I can find you an expert who will come up with whatever answer you want. Or don't want.
But... hot tubs are naff aren`t they? Like personalised number-plates and Simon Cowell?
Thoughts?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-24/astra-vaccine-s-90-efficacy-in-covid-came-in-younger-population?
Also, no consideration of deprivation changes or other measures of SES.
In short, I'm not convinced this isn't just a load of bollocks.
Let's hope she's not in contact with any other PB wives. [Do they meet on Politicalbettingwidows.com ? ]
Sorry, but if the word spreads it's ConHome for you, matey, for the rest of lockdown.
Great tune btw.
The trend with age suggests that this is likely to continue.
Another factor I guess is Eastern European immigration - largely non voters but more likely to be displacing Labour voters I would imagine so probably associated with a swing to the Tories. (Eastern Europeans who become citizens are in many ways natural Tories I suspect but Brexit may have pissed them off).
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/11/18/where-are-the-worlds-most-expensive-cities
No political party has a permanent right to an ethnic groups vote, and class tends to trump race.
By contrast only 14% of Kenyans and 37% of Indians and 31% of Russians, 34% of Turks and just 9% of Nigerians under 30 accepting of homosexuality.
* even if one of those has morphed into the Giuliani-monster freak show
If you want people to be nice progressive liberals, they you will need to stand up for nice progressive liberalism. Advocate it. Educate about it. And there will be push back. Which is to be be expected.
Though I do really like Sarah Brightman. She really has a voice of an angel.