It matches what I have calculated here in the past, the marginal tax on someone on UC paying Tax and NI is 75%. For someone to earn £20 extra requires earning gross £79.50 extra. 🤬
And this is before the government's increase in tax rates just announced. And furthermore its without including Employers NI either.
I've not had a chance as I'm still trying to work out why the paper @Gardenwalker is fixated by uses assumptions that are fundamentally wrong (i.e. west texas crude as a substitute for Brent when the prices are known to no longer correlate due to the shale oil boom of 2017-19).
Fixated?
Yet you are the one sniffing around the assumptions and citing the “shale oil boom” for why the Brexit vote couldn’t possibly - oh no - have generated some inflation for consumers.
I just find it very strange why they don't use the world's go to standard product which is Brent Oil for their oil price assumptions.
The fact they don't screams out to me as dubious and that brings everything else into question.
My other posts also ask why the cost is only 2.9% when currency changes showed a 10% change in my purchasing power while I was working in Europe.
So they simultaneously underestimate and overestimate inflation? Ok.
Where did I say that?
I'm starting to think you are either a windup merchant or have very poor reading comprehension skills.
It matches what I have calculated here in the past, the marginal tax on someone on UC paying Tax and NI is 75%. For someone to earn £20 extra requires earning gross £79.50 extra. 🤬
And this is before the government's increase in tax rates just announced. And furthermore its without including Employers NI either.
I've not had a chance as I'm still trying to work out why the paper @Gardenwalker is fixated by uses assumptions that are fundamentally wrong (i.e. west texas crude as a substitute for Brent when the prices are known to no longer correlate due to the shale oil boom of 2017-19).
Fixated?
Yet you are the one sniffing around the assumptions and citing the “shale oil boom” for why the Brexit vote couldn’t possibly - oh no - have generated some inflation for consumers.
I just find it very strange why they don't use the world's go to standard product which is Brent Oil for their oil price assumptions.
The fact they don't screams out to me as dubious and that brings everything else into question.
My other posts also ask why the cost is only 2.9% when currency changes showed a 10% change in my purchasing power while I was working in Europe.
So they simultaneously underestimate and overestimate inflation? Ok.
Where did I say that?
I'm starting to think you are either a windup merchant or have very poor reading comprehension skills.
It is the implication of the “biases” you claim to have identified.
One of which seems to be based on your personal experience of purchasing power in 2016…
Edit: I see you have edited your last post and are now saying the inflation was “worth it” for low income earners.
Thus demonstrating my typology of Brexit excuses in response to any adverse outcome:
A - the outcome is not true. B - the outcome is someone/thing else’s fault. C - the outcome is actually good.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
It matches what I have calculated here in the past, the marginal tax on someone on UC paying Tax and NI is 75%. For someone to earn £20 extra requires earning gross £79.50 extra. 🤬
And this is before the government's increase in tax rates just announced. And furthermore its without including Employers NI either.
I've not had a chance as I'm still trying to work out why the paper @Gardenwalker is fixated by uses assumptions that are fundamentally wrong (i.e. west texas crude as a substitute for Brent when the prices are known to no longer correlate due to the shale oil boom of 2017-19).
Fixated?
Yet you are the one sniffing around the assumptions and citing the “shale oil boom” for why the Brexit vote couldn’t possibly - oh no - have generated some inflation for consumers.
I just find it very strange why they don't use the world's go to standard product which is Brent Oil for their oil price assumptions.
The fact they don't screams out to me as dubious and that brings everything else into question.
My other posts also ask why the cost is only 2.9% when currency changes showed a 10% change in my purchasing power while I was working in Europe.
So they simultaneously underestimate and overestimate inflation? Ok.
Where did I say that?
I'm starting to think you are either a windup merchant or have very poor reading comprehension skills.
It is the implication of the “biases” you claim to have identified.
One of which seems to be based on your personal experience of purchasing power in 2016…
How can currency exchange rates be personal experience?
Pint of Beer in Germany costs €4.50. take exchange rate in 2015 and 2018 and check how much it costs in sterling.
It matches what I have calculated here in the past, the marginal tax on someone on UC paying Tax and NI is 75%. For someone to earn £20 extra requires earning gross £79.50 extra. 🤬
And this is before the government's increase in tax rates just announced. And furthermore its without including Employers NI either.
I've not had a chance as I'm still trying to work out why the paper @Gardenwalker is fixated by uses assumptions that are fundamentally wrong (i.e. west texas crude as a substitute for Brent when the prices are known to no longer correlate due to the shale oil boom of 2017-19).
Fixated?
Yet you are the one sniffing around the assumptions and citing the “shale oil boom” for why the Brexit vote couldn’t possibly - oh no - have generated some inflation for consumers.
I just find it very strange why they don't use the world's go to standard product which is Brent Oil for their oil price assumptions.
The fact they don't screams out to me as dubious and that brings everything else into question.
My other posts also ask why the cost is only 2.9% when currency changes showed a 10% change in my purchasing power while I was working in Europe.
So they simultaneously underestimate and overestimate inflation? Ok.
Where did I say that?
I'm starting to think you are either a windup merchant or have very poor reading comprehension skills.
It is the implication of the “biases” you claim to have identified.
One of which seems to be based on your personal experience of purchasing power in 2016…
Edit: I see you have edited your last post and are now saying the inflation was “worth it” for low income earners.
Thus demonstrating my typology of Brexit excuses in response to any adverse outcome:
A - the outcome is not true. B - the outcome is someone/thing else’s fault. C - the outcome is actually good.
Again you don't see to be able to read. I suspect doesn't mean that I believe it was worth it.
But if you want my opinion
2.9% seems a remarkably low impact for Brexit over mid 2016 to mid 2018. It also seems so close to the inflation figures at the time that I wonder what is causing the slight difference (which is why I find the oil assumptions so interesting as that is probably the rest of the change).
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just go for depressing - as given that we are supposed to have a benefit system that is fit for purpose they only exist because of market / government failure
My one concern is the unknown question of does the existence of food banks create additional demand for food banks.
FPPT. Canada polling. Voting a week today. Average of last 10 polls, final days 8-11 September. So after the French debate, and straddling the English.
Libs 31.9 (-1.2) Con 31.4 (-2.9) NDP 18.4 (+2.4) PPC 7.7 (+6.1) BQ 6.0 (-1.6) Green 3.6 (-3.0) Changes with last election.
Trudeau is coming with a late run again. Ironically, though, the Tories are getting greater vote efficiency this time, so may come closer in terms of seats. Indeed, it isn't inconceivable they could get fewer votes, but most seats. A complete turnaround. PPC continuing to rise on the back of opposition to vaccines, vaxports, climate policies and gun laws. Amongst other things. Things look much, much better for Justin than a fortnight ago. Still time for it to change. Tories heavily trying to convince PPC folk that they won't win a seat (probably) under FPTP. Logic, mystifyingly, isn't working on them.
Of course our Emma is British. She speaks with the same posh southern English accent as all our tennis players do. Because they are the only type that the LTA promote.
Hardly the LTA's fault - it's a ponsy sport but given by the age the LTA get involved it's far too late for someone to make it from zero to hero, the 'problem' is only rich kids getting to try and be coached due to parental interest and funding, not LTA involvement.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
Yes. How fucking miserable that (a) we reduce people to this and (b) have so weaponised "benefits" that so many people see food bank users are scroungers.
But how fucking marvellous that communities have come together to create them as the ultimate safety net for the people callously thrown through the state safety net.
We need to change the terms used. "Benefits" is an awful descriptor for what is and used to be known as social security. As National Insurance is now the go-to label for politicians, lets rename all support payments to National Insurance. When you work you pay into National Insurance. When you can't work or it doesn't pay the bills National Insurance has your back.
It matches what I have calculated here in the past, the marginal tax on someone on UC paying Tax and NI is 75%. For someone to earn £20 extra requires earning gross £79.50 extra. 🤬
And this is before the government's increase in tax rates just announced. And furthermore its without including Employers NI either.
I've not had a chance as I'm still trying to work out why the paper @Gardenwalker is fixated by uses assumptions that are fundamentally wrong (i.e. west texas crude as a substitute for Brent when the prices are known to no longer correlate due to the shale oil boom of 2017-19).
Fixated?
Yet you are the one sniffing around the assumptions and citing the “shale oil boom” for why the Brexit vote couldn’t possibly - oh no - have generated some inflation for consumers.
I just find it very strange why they don't use the world's go to standard product which is Brent Oil for their oil price assumptions.
The fact they don't screams out to me as dubious and that brings everything else into question.
My other posts also ask why the cost is only 2.9% when currency changes showed a 10% change in my purchasing power while I was working in Europe.
So they simultaneously underestimate and overestimate inflation? Ok.
Where did I say that?
I'm starting to think you are either a windup merchant or have very poor reading comprehension skills.
It is the implication of the “biases” you claim to have identified.
One of which seems to be based on your personal experience of purchasing power in 2016…
Edit: I see you have edited your last post and are now saying the inflation was “worth it” for low income earners.
Thus demonstrating my typology of Brexit excuses in response to any adverse outcome:
A - the outcome is not true. B - the outcome is someone/thing else’s fault. C - the outcome is actually good.
Again you don't see to be able to read. "I suspect a lot of poorly paid..." doesn't mean that I believe it was worth it.
But if you want my opinion
2.9% seems a remarkably low impact for Brexit over mid 2016 to mid 2018. It also seems so close to the inflation figures at the time that I wonder what is causing the slight difference (which is why I find the oil assumptions so interesting as that is probably the rest of the change).
I'm shocked that GMB is trying to stir up controversy.
But she's clearly not Romanian. She was born in Canada and moved to the UK when she was small. A pedant might have it that she is Canadian, but most people would accept that she is British. She grew up here. Romanian doesn't come into it. My mother is Scottish. Does that make me Scottish? Of course not. I grew up in England.
Conservative ministers think you should have a vote in the next independence referendum:
FPPT. Canada polling. Voting a week today. Average of last 10 polls, final days 8-11 September. So after the French debate, and straddling the English.
Libs 31.9 (-1.2) Con 31.4 (-2.9) NDP 18.4 (+2.4) PPC 7.7 (+6.1) BQ 6.0 (-1.6) Green 3.6 (-3.0) Changes with last election.
Trudeau is coming with a late run again. Ironically, though, the Tories are getting greater vote efficiency this time, so may come closer in terms of seats. Indeed, it isn't inconceivable they could get fewer votes, but most seats. A complete turnaround. PPC continuing to rise on the back of opposition to vaccines, vaxports, climate policies and gun laws. Amongst other things. Things look much, much better for Justin than a fortnight ago. Still time for it to change. Tories heavily trying to convince PPC folk that they won't win a seat (probably) under FPTP. Logic, mystifyingly, isn't working on them.
Indeed, ironically the Liberals might win the popular vote this time unlike 2019 as the Conservatives have lost more votes to the PPC than the Liberals have lost to the NDP now.
However it will be neck and neck on seats. The Conservatives look to be doing worse in Alberta than last time (albeit still well ahead) but better in Ontario, with the Liberals doing better in Quebec and the NDP doing well in BC. So it could well be a different pattern in each area, with the Conservatives picking up Liberal seats in Ontario and the Liberals gaining BQ seats in Quebec and the NDP gaining seats from the Conservatives and Liberals in BC. The Liberals may also pick up 1 or 2 seats from the 4 they lost in Alberta last time
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just go for depressing - as given that we are supposed to have a benefit system that is fit for purpose they only exist because of market / government failure
My one concern is the unknown question of does the existence of food banks create additional demand for food banks.
Not convinced.
Mainland European countries - with their allegedly better benefits systems - have similar or more extensive setups of foodbanks
If its "Government Failure", then it is all of them.
I'm shocked that GMB is trying to stir up controversy.
But she's clearly not Romanian. She was born in Canada and moved to the UK when she was small. A pedant might have it that she is Canadian, but most people would accept that she is British. She grew up here. Romanian doesn't come into it. My mother is Scottish. Does that make me Scottish? Of course not. I grew up in England.
Conservative ministers think you should have a vote in the next independence referendum:
I really don't believe Boris is that thick. He could easily end up with a situation where the English vote to get rid of the Scots.
After all the campaign to throw Scotland out of the UK would start with
"They have free Prescriptions, free University education, they get £10000 each extra in government spending compared to someone in England and yet the greedy Scots still don't think it's enough"
The £10,000 there is to cover the fact you can attack the figure but would have to agree that the Scots still get more.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Popcorn time when the post-cognitive dissonance kicks in.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just go for depressing - as given that we are supposed to have a benefit system that is fit for purpose they only exist because of market / government failure
My one concern is the unknown question of does the existence of food banks create additional demand for food banks.
Not convinced.
Mainland European countries - with their allegedly better benefits systems - have similar or more extensive setups of foodbanks
If its "Government Failure", then it is all of them.
I wonder how many of the 256 were oldies dying with but not from covid or finished off by covid a few weeks earlier than they would have been without it.
Roughly 1 in 5,000 people die every week.
We're currently getting about 250,000 positives a week.
If we were to simply pick 250,000 people at random from the population - let's say back in 2019 before covid was with us - 200 of those would die within the next four weeks.
A major caveat to the above is that positives aren't distributed at random throughout the population. Positives are very strongly clustered around those who will not 'die anyway' - i.e. the relatively young. Finger in the air estimate is that the true figure of 'die anyways' is about 20-40 rather than 200. But still.
Maths all off the top of my head - feel free to tell me where I went wrong!
But isn't the most likely place to catch covid a hospital ?
So a sick oldie might have a good chance of being infected.
One of the issues we have is that for some, no-one should die of Covid. I don't know any other disease or condition that this is the case for. I think too many people believe that if we just try really hard we can suppress Covid for good, They are wrong, and have been wrong since Jan 2020. It is now endemic.
I am heartened by the England cases trending down in recent days. I don't think many expected this in the week after the schools went back, especially after what was seen in Scotland. Perhaps Scotland conflated opening up more with the school return?
I wouldn't be surprised if cases stay around 30000 a day all winter wither the mixing but deaths gradually climb towards 500 per day in winter. The question is can people live with that
Why would the deaths climb? And have you missed the decline in England cases?
deaths as a proportion of cases have been rising since late july look at the data. as covis is a respiratory illness i would expect that trend to continue through winter. And remember cases fell to 21000 at one point last month but given all the mixing it is quite likely cases stayvrelatively high
Mr. Dickson, is that different to overseas voters getting a say in General Elections or the EU referendum?
Yes.
How do you identify an overseas voter: ask where they were last registered to vote in the UK, and add them to that register.
How do you identify a “Scot” living in England? Birthplace? Where brought up? Scottish parent or grandparent? Self-identification? Which team do you support? Membership of the Conservative Party or the Orange Lodge? DNA test? We deserve an answer from the Conservatives.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
Williamson is a loyalist so I doubt it, removing Patel would also make her a focal point for rightwing opposition to the government on the backbenches.
The only move I expect is Raab to Justice with Truss becoming Foreign Secretary.
It is possible Gove gets a promotion too though as he is competent whatever other problems he has
Who to Trade?
Keep Truss doing it and bring it within the FCDO.
Has she worked out to use a phone yet?
Who is that in the photo in the photo (if you get what I mean - the photo on the table text to Truss) doing a Tory power stance? I can see it's not Javid, this time, but can't work out whether it's Truss.
its truss doing the power/bleeding piles stand. i shopped it in for bonus lols.
FPPT. Canada polling. Voting a week today. Average of last 10 polls, final days 8-11 September. So after the French debate, and straddling the English.
Libs 31.9 (-1.2) Con 31.4 (-2.9) NDP 18.4 (+2.4) PPC 7.7 (+6.1) BQ 6.0 (-1.6) Green 3.6 (-3.0) Changes with last election.
Trudeau is coming with a late run again. Ironically, though, the Tories are getting greater vote efficiency this time, so may come closer in terms of seats. Indeed, it isn't inconceivable they could get fewer votes, but most seats. A complete turnaround. PPC continuing to rise on the back of opposition to vaccines, vaxports, climate policies and gun laws. Amongst other things. Things look much, much better for Justin than a fortnight ago. Still time for it to change. Tories heavily trying to convince PPC folk that they won't win a seat (probably) under FPTP. Logic, mystifyingly, isn't working on them.
Indeed, ironically the Liberals might win the popular vote this time unlike 2019 as the Conservatives have lost more votes to the PPC than the Liberals have lost to the NDP now.
However it will be neck and neck on seats. The Conservatives look to be doing worse in Alberta than last time (albeit still well ahead) but better in Ontario, with the Liberals doing better in Quebec and the NDP doing well in BC. So it could well be a different pattern in each area, with the Conservatives picking up Liberal seats in Ontario and the Liberals gaining BQ seats in Quebec and the NDP gaining seats from the Conservatives and Liberals in BC. The Liberals may also pick up 1 or 2 seats from the 4 they lost in Alberta last time
Yes. The fall in Alberta, down from 64 % to c 50% will cost them only a few seats, as they are still massively ahead. But it accounts for a >1.5% drop in the national vote share.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just go for depressing - as given that we are supposed to have a benefit system that is fit for purpose they only exist because of market / government failure
My one concern is the unknown question of does the existence of food banks create additional demand for food banks.
A further question might be does their existence and growth give comfort and cover for politicians happy to tolerate our shit benefits system.
Yes, I'm late with this observation, however I couldn't help but notice that while almost every newspaper front page has a big photo of Emma, the FT has gone with Marine Le Pen.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just go for depressing - as given that we are supposed to have a benefit system that is fit for purpose they only exist because of market / government failure
My one concern is the unknown question of does the existence of food banks create additional demand for food banks.
Not convinced.
Mainland European countries - with their allegedly better benefits systems - have similar or more extensive setups of foodbanks
If its "Government Failure", then it is all of them.
FPPT. Canada polling. Voting a week today. Average of last 10 polls, final days 8-11 September. So after the French debate, and straddling the English.
Libs 31.9 (-1.2) Con 31.4 (-2.9) NDP 18.4 (+2.4) PPC 7.7 (+6.1) BQ 6.0 (-1.6) Green 3.6 (-3.0) Changes with last election.
Trudeau is coming with a late run again. Ironically, though, the Tories are getting greater vote efficiency this time, so may come closer in terms of seats. Indeed, it isn't inconceivable they could get fewer votes, but most seats. A complete turnaround. PPC continuing to rise on the back of opposition to vaccines, vaxports, climate policies and gun laws. Amongst other things. Things look much, much better for Justin than a fortnight ago. Still time for it to change. Tories heavily trying to convince PPC folk that they won't win a seat (probably) under FPTP. Logic, mystifyingly, isn't working on them.
Indeed, ironically the Liberals might win the popular vote this time unlike 2019 as the Conservatives have lost more votes to the PPC than the Liberals have lost to the NDP now.
However it will be neck and neck on seats. The Conservatives look to be doing worse in Alberta than last time (albeit still well ahead) but better in Ontario, with the Liberals doing better in Quebec and the NDP doing well in BC. So it could well be a different pattern in each area, with the Conservatives picking up Liberal seats in Ontario and the Liberals gaining BQ seats in Quebec and the NDP gaining seats from the Conservatives and Liberals in BC. The Liberals may also pick up 1 or 2 seats from the 4 they lost in Alberta last time
Yes. The fall in Alberta, down from 64 % to c 50% will cost them only a few seats, as they are still massively ahead. But it accounts for a >1.5% drop in the national vote share.
Indeed, Scheer representing a prairies seat got a bounce in the region which O'Toole seems to have lost, potentially costing him the popular vote as he loses votes to his right to Bernier's PPC.
However O'Toole, representing an Ontario seat seems to have got a bounce in his home region too which benefits the Conservatives in seats as there are lots of Liberal marginal seats there.
It may therefore be that Trudeau needs to gain enough seats from the BQ in Quebec, which is his home region where his seat is, in order to offset losses made to the Conservatives in Ontario
Otto English @Otto_English Seems the crown never went away. All that's changing here is the CE marking or "fill line" on a pint glass. If that's been bothering you for the last 15 years then that's 15 years of wasted life.
The bar for 'Brexit triumph' is set ever lower. Only a matter of time before they're limbo dancing under it.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
Bollocks. People have always had the possibility of falling on hard times - sometimes due to gambling, sometimes due to job losses, sometimes due to drugs, sometimes due to unexpected bills. Sometimes for issues that are their responsibility, sometimes for very bad luck.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
FPPT. Canada polling. Voting a week today. Average of last 10 polls, final days 8-11 September. So after the French debate, and straddling the English.
Libs 31.9 (-1.2) Con 31.4 (-2.9) NDP 18.4 (+2.4) PPC 7.7 (+6.1) BQ 6.0 (-1.6) Green 3.6 (-3.0) Changes with last election.
Trudeau is coming with a late run again. Ironically, though, the Tories are getting greater vote efficiency this time, so may come closer in terms of seats. Indeed, it isn't inconceivable they could get fewer votes, but most seats. A complete turnaround. PPC continuing to rise on the back of opposition to vaccines, vaxports, climate policies and gun laws. Amongst other things. Things look much, much better for Justin than a fortnight ago. Still time for it to change. Tories heavily trying to convince PPC folk that they won't win a seat (probably) under FPTP. Logic, mystifyingly, isn't working on them.
Indeed, ironically the Liberals might win the popular vote this time unlike 2019 as the Conservatives have lost more votes to the PPC than the Liberals have lost to the NDP now.
However it will be neck and neck on seats. The Conservatives look to be doing worse in Alberta than last time (albeit still well ahead) but better in Ontario, with the Liberals doing better in Quebec and the NDP doing well in BC. So it could well be a different pattern in each area, with the Conservatives picking up Liberal seats in Ontario and the Liberals gaining BQ seats in Quebec and the NDP gaining seats from the Conservatives and Liberals in BC. The Liberals may also pick up 1 or 2 seats from the 4 they lost in Alberta last time
Yes. The fall in Alberta, down from 64 % to c 50% will cost them only a few seats, as they are still massively ahead. But it accounts for a >1.5% drop in the national vote share.
Which means that there is possibly a net swing Lib to Con in the rest of the country. NDP also now suffering from inefficiency in BC. Ridings on Vancouver Island will end up piling up big majorities in formerly NDP/Green contests. Elizabeth May will win though. I am assured. And then the Greens will again have the most popular Party leader, rather than the least. If only because they've only one MP left to choose from. (They might sneak 2).
I doubt anyone else realized it had gone either, including Farage and (until a few days ago) the inventor of this wheeze. Throughout the entire Brexit kerfuffle - the return of blue passports, multi-coloured fire extinguishers etc. - I don't recall the symbol on pint glasses being mentioned once.
Of course our Emma is British. She speaks with the same posh southern English accent as all our tennis players do. Because they are the only type that the LTA promote.
I doubt anyone else realized it had gone either, including Farage and (until a few days ago) the inventor of this wheeze. Throughout the entire Brexit kerfuffle - the return of blue passports, multi-coloured fire extinguishers etc. - I don't recall the symbol on pint glasses being mentioned once.
multi-coloured fire extinguishers? I thought they were colour coded for a reason (i.e. pick the appropriate extinguisher for the type / source of fire).
Goodwin will be disappointed by the second round figures.
Is the determination to get ludicrous digs in at Matthew Goodwin for a good reason or just because he is the only centre right moderate academic whose name people can remember?
Williamson is a loyalist so I doubt it, removing Patel would also make her a focal point for rightwing opposition to the government on the backbenches.
The only move I expect is Raab to Justice with Truss becoming Foreign Secretary.
It is possible Gove gets a promotion too though as he is competent whatever other problems he has
Who to Trade?
Keep Truss doing it and bring it within the FCDO.
Has she worked out to use a phone yet?
Who is that in the photo in the photo (if you get what I mean - the photo on the table text to Truss) doing a Tory power stance? I can see it's not Javid, this time, but can't work out whether it's Truss.
To do one ill advised photoshoot could be unfortunate. To do another and feature the photo from the first in the second.... Well, it starts to look a teeny bit careless/odd, doesn't it?
Personally I like to think it is a game amongst Tory MPs, started by George.
They all look bloody stupid standing like that. Less of a power pose and more of "I'm standing like a small child who's forgotten how to walk" pose.
I doubt anyone else realized it had gone either, including Farage and (until a few days ago) the inventor of this wheeze. Throughout the entire Brexit kerfuffle - the return of blue passports, multi-coloured fire extinguishers etc. - I don't recall the symbol on pint glasses being mentioned once.
multi-coloured fire extinguishers? I thought they were colour coded for a reason (i.e. pick the appropriate extinguisher for the type / source of fire).
They used to be an entirely different colour for the specific purpose (red for water, blue for electrical fires), but for some reason the EU directive meant that only a tiny fraction of the extinguisher could be a different colour, they were all standardised to red.
I doubt anyone else realized it had gone either, including Farage and (until a few days ago) the inventor of this wheeze. Throughout the entire Brexit kerfuffle - the return of blue passports, multi-coloured fire extinguishers etc. - I don't recall the symbol on pint glasses being mentioned once.
multi-coloured fire extinguishers? I thought they were colour coded for a reason (i.e. pick the appropriate extinguisher for the type / source of fire).
Yes, but the EU was going to make them all red as that is easier to see in a smoke-filled room.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
Bollocks. People have always had the possibility of falling on hard times - sometimes due to gambling, sometimes due to job losses, sometimes due to drugs, sometimes due to unexpected bills. Sometimes for issues that are their responsibility, sometimes for very bad luck.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
Before that there were pawnbrokers too and doorstep money lending for short term loans both legit and non legit.
I'm shocked that GMB is trying to stir up controversy.
But she's clearly not Romanian. She was born in Canada and moved to the UK when she was small. A pedant might have it that she is Canadian, but most people would accept that she is British. She grew up here. Romanian doesn't come into it. My mother is Scottish. Does that make me Scottish? Of course not. I grew up in England.
Conservative ministers think you should have a vote in the next independence referendum:
I really don't believe Boris is that thick. He could easily end up with a situation where the English vote to get rid of the Scots.
After all the campaign to throw Scotland out of the UK would start with
"They have free Prescriptions, free University education, they get £10000 each extra in government spending compared to someone in England and yet the greedy Scots still don't think it's enough"
The £10,000 there is to cover the fact you can attack the figure but would have to agree that the Scots still get more.
Don't worry, they're only suggesting scottish born people - clearly if they let the people paying for them choose Scotland would be off on their own tout suite
Williamson is a loyalist so I doubt it, removing Patel would also make her a focal point for rightwing opposition to the government on the backbenches.
The only move I expect is Raab to Justice with Truss becoming Foreign Secretary.
It is possible Gove gets a promotion too though as he is competent whatever other problems he has
Who to Trade?
Keep Truss doing it and bring it within the FCDO.
Has she worked out to use a phone yet?
Who is that in the photo in the photo (if you get what I mean - the photo on the table text to Truss) doing a Tory power stance? I can see it's not Javid, this time, but can't work out whether it's Truss.
To do one ill advised photoshoot could be unfortunate. To do another and feature the photo from the first in the second.... Well, it starts to look a teeny bit careless/odd, doesn't it?
Personally I like to think it is a game amongst Tory MPs, started by George.
They all look bloody stupid standing like that. Less of a power pose and more of "I'm standing like a small child who's forgotten how to walk" pose.
They’re all like Prince George in Blackadder 3 about to give a speech.
FPPT. Canada polling. Voting a week today. Average of last 10 polls, final days 8-11 September. So after the French debate, and straddling the English.
Libs 31.9 (-1.2) Con 31.4 (-2.9) NDP 18.4 (+2.4) PPC 7.7 (+6.1) BQ 6.0 (-1.6) Green 3.6 (-3.0) Changes with last election.
Trudeau is coming with a late run again. Ironically, though, the Tories are getting greater vote efficiency this time, so may come closer in terms of seats. Indeed, it isn't inconceivable they could get fewer votes, but most seats. A complete turnaround. PPC continuing to rise on the back of opposition to vaccines, vaxports, climate policies and gun laws. Amongst other things. Things look much, much better for Justin than a fortnight ago. Still time for it to change. Tories heavily trying to convince PPC folk that they won't win a seat (probably) under FPTP. Logic, mystifyingly, isn't working on them.
Indeed, ironically the Liberals might win the popular vote this time unlike 2019 as the Conservatives have lost more votes to the PPC than the Liberals have lost to the NDP now.
However it will be neck and neck on seats. The Conservatives look to be doing worse in Alberta than last time (albeit still well ahead) but better in Ontario, with the Liberals doing better in Quebec and the NDP doing well in BC. So it could well be a different pattern in each area, with the Conservatives picking up Liberal seats in Ontario and the Liberals gaining BQ seats in Quebec and the NDP gaining seats from the Conservatives and Liberals in BC. The Liberals may also pick up 1 or 2 seats from the 4 they lost in Alberta last time
Yes. The fall in Alberta, down from 64 % to c 50% will cost them only a few seats, as they are still massively ahead. But it accounts for a >1.5% drop in the national vote share.
Indeed, Scheer representing a prairies seat got a bounce in the region which O'Toole seems to have lost, potentially costing him the popular vote as he loses votes to his right to Bernier's PPC.
However O'Toole, representing an Ontario seat seems to have got a bounce in his home region too which benefits the Conservatives in seats as there are lots of Liberal marginal seats there.
It may therefore be that Trudeau needs to gain enough seats from the BQ in Quebec, which is his home region where his seat is, in order to offset losses made to the Conservatives in Ontario
There is also the Alberta Provincial government of Jason Kenney. Covid spike right now, by far the worst record in the country. He instinctively doesn't want restrictions, but poor vax rates, partially encouraged by anti-vax sentiment has forced him to. He is naturally sympathetic to PPC policies, but trying to hold to the Federal Tory line for the election. Which includes carbon pricing, which he previously railed against. Therefore a bit all over the place and losing support to his left and right. With the Provincial NDP, somewhat ironically, proclaiming "business needs certainty".
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Good for a header, some good points, but quite a lot of overegging.
1 - Yes. Let's see what happens to investment. 2 - Not sure about any of those. 3 - Partially. We are viewed as one of the best places to start a business. Couple of obvious missing links. 4 - PB has just been discussing hitting self-emmployed harder. 5 - Not convinced on either of those. 6 - Agree on social care setup, and funding it. Also, I suspect, problems with expectations. 7 - Not familiar with the numbers on that.
I think your narrative is much over-done.
Energy prices rising 40%? Evidence? Even after the rises due next month they are still ~20-25% below 2013. Higher prices might give some people the kick in the butt they need to invest in their own properties.
Goodwin will be disappointed by the second round figures.
Is the determination to get ludicrous digs in at Matthew Goodwin for a good reason or just because he is the only centre right moderate academic whose name people can remember?
It's cos he's a right wing academic who constantly wrangles data to support his populist political outlook and deletes his own tweets when subsequent events make him look like a dick.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
Bollocks. People have always had the possibility of falling on hard times - sometimes due to gambling, sometimes due to job losses, sometimes due to drugs, sometimes due to unexpected bills. Sometimes for issues that are their responsibility, sometimes for very bad luck.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
Before that there were pawnbrokers too and doorstep money lending for short term loans both legit and non legit.
Exactly, there could always be people hitting hard times.
The bad thing is that pre-2010 then there were ridiculous regulations preventing food banks from being referred to, meaning people turned to Wonga, or Loan Sharks, or Pawnbrokers or worse.
That people are turning to Food Banks instead of Loan Sharks surely is the most successful element of the Big Society Cameron was elected to create. It should be celebrated to the rafters as an entirely good thing.
Daily politics is going talk about Emma Raducanu and immigration.
But have they suggested her dressed was actually a subtle nod to her Romanian heritage yet, rather than just one of the limited colours in the low end Nike collection she could choose from and thought it looked nice ;-)
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
Bollocks. People have always had the possibility of falling on hard times - sometimes due to gambling, sometimes due to job losses, sometimes due to drugs, sometimes due to unexpected bills. Sometimes for issues that are their responsibility, sometimes for very bad luck.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
I knew you’d say something like that! It’s fine, we just see these things very differently in this regard.
I need to peel myself away from this site, why I bother indulging in pointless, futile discussions with anonymous randoms is beyond me. It’s not like I’ve got the stamina and endurance for it, I lose interest too quickly.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
Bollocks. People have always had the possibility of falling on hard times - sometimes due to gambling, sometimes due to job losses, sometimes due to drugs, sometimes due to unexpected bills. Sometimes for issues that are their responsibility, sometimes for very bad luck.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
I knew you’d say something like that! It’s fine, we just see these things very differently in this regard.
I need to peel myself away from this site, why I bother indulging in pointless, futile discussions with anonymous randoms is beyond me. It’s not like I’ve got the stamina and endurance for it, I lose interest too quickly.
Difficult to do so though.
How is he an anonymous random when he uses his own name in discussions, I don’t always agree with him but in this he has made a point worthy of consideration.
I doubt anyone else realized it had gone either, including Farage and (until a few days ago) the inventor of this wheeze. Throughout the entire Brexit kerfuffle - the return of blue passports, multi-coloured fire extinguishers etc. - I don't recall the symbol on pint glasses being mentioned once.
multi-coloured fire extinguishers? I thought they were colour coded for a reason (i.e. pick the appropriate extinguisher for the type / source of fire).
Yes, but the EU was going to make them all red as that is easier to see in a smoke-filled room.
Correction: they've been all red since 1997 with the colour coding at the top. I suspect the announcement that we'll be returning to full colouration is imminent. O Glorious Day!
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
Bollocks. People have always had the possibility of falling on hard times - sometimes due to gambling, sometimes due to job losses, sometimes due to drugs, sometimes due to unexpected bills. Sometimes for issues that are their responsibility, sometimes for very bad luck.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
I knew you’d say something like that! It’s fine, we just see these things very differently in this regard.
I need to peel myself away from this site, why I bother indulging in pointless, futile discussions with anonymous randoms is beyond me. It’s not like I’ve got the stamina and endurance for it, I lose interest too quickly.
Difficult to do so though.
Probably a better question is?
There is a clear need for food banks to cover scenarios where our benefit system fails - that work is currently done by charities but should the Government support it and if so how best should / could they support it?
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
Bollocks. People have always had the possibility of falling on hard times - sometimes due to gambling, sometimes due to job losses, sometimes due to drugs, sometimes due to unexpected bills. Sometimes for issues that are their responsibility, sometimes for very bad luck.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
I knew you’d say something like that! It’s fine, we just see these things very differently in this regard.
I need to peel myself away from this site, why I bother indulging in pointless, futile discussions with anonymous randoms is beyond me. It’s not like I’ve got the stamina and endurance for it, I lose interest too quickly.
Difficult to do so though.
Fair enough if we see things differently. So you think Wonga is better than charity? I'm very happy to disagree with that.
If there were no issues pre-2010 and food banks had stepped in because they were needed but weren't before that would be bad.
But they were needed before, the difference was that regulations got in the way of helping so people were desperate to turn to companies like Wonga instead.
I do not yearn back for the days of Wonga etc dominating our ads on TV and Radio.
With my friends who weren't born in the UK, if I banged on as much about it as the media and twatterati do, i think i would find myself uninvited pretty quickly.....
Goodwin will be disappointed by the second round figures.
Is the determination to get ludicrous digs in at Matthew Goodwin for a good reason or just because he is the only centre right moderate academic whose name people can remember?
It's cos he's a right wing academic who constantly wrangles data to support his populist political outlook and deletes his own tweets when subsequent events make him look like a dick.
That's fine, but we've also seen people say things like 'Oh look he hasn't commented on X[eg good poll for labour]' when he has, which just looks silly. As with a lot of thing if someone is a dick there's no need to work hard or exaggerate.
Williamson is a loyalist so I doubt it, removing Patel would also make her a focal point for rightwing opposition to the government on the backbenches.
The only move I expect is Raab to Justice with Truss becoming Foreign Secretary.
It is possible Gove gets a promotion too though as he is competent whatever other problems he has
Who to Trade?
Keep Truss doing it and bring it within the FCDO.
Has she worked out to use a phone yet?
Who is that in the photo in the photo (if you get what I mean - the photo on the table text to Truss) doing a Tory power stance? I can see it's not Javid, this time, but can't work out whether it's Truss.
To do one ill advised photoshoot could be unfortunate. To do another and feature the photo from the first in the second.... Well, it starts to look a teeny bit careless/odd, doesn't it?
Personally I like to think it is a game amongst Tory MPs, started by George.
They all look bloody stupid standing like that. Less of a power pose and more of "I'm standing like a small child who's forgotten how to walk" pose.
I've long suspected management consultants, behavioural specialists and coaches who advise on things like pose etc, are just making shit up to see what they can get people to do, no matter how stupid.
Blackadder III ruined power poses forever when Prince George was being coached by actors on how to stand.
Williamson is a loyalist so I doubt it, removing Patel would also make her a focal point for rightwing opposition to the government on the backbenches.
The only move I expect is Raab to Justice with Truss becoming Foreign Secretary.
It is possible Gove gets a promotion too though as he is competent whatever other problems he has
Who to Trade?
Keep Truss doing it and bring it within the FCDO.
Has she worked out to use a phone yet?
Who is that in the photo in the photo (if you get what I mean - the photo on the table text to Truss) doing a Tory power stance? I can see it's not Javid, this time, but can't work out whether it's Truss.
To do one ill advised photoshoot could be unfortunate. To do another and feature the photo from the first in the second.... Well, it starts to look a teeny bit careless/odd, doesn't it?
Personally I like to think it is a game amongst Tory MPs, started by George.
They all look bloody stupid standing like that. Less of a power pose and more of "I'm standing like a small child who's forgotten how to walk" pose.
I've long suspected management consultants, behavioural specialists and coaches who advise on things like pose etc, are just making shit up to see what they can get people to do, no matter how stupid.
Blackadder III ruined power poses forever when Prince George was being coached by actors on how to stand.
Williamson is a loyalist so I doubt it, removing Patel would also make her a focal point for rightwing opposition to the government on the backbenches.
The only move I expect is Raab to Justice with Truss becoming Foreign Secretary.
It is possible Gove gets a promotion too though as he is competent whatever other problems he has
Who to Trade?
Keep Truss doing it and bring it within the FCDO.
Has she worked out to use a phone yet?
Who is that in the photo in the photo (if you get what I mean - the photo on the table text to Truss) doing a Tory power stance? I can see it's not Javid, this time, but can't work out whether it's Truss.
To do one ill advised photoshoot could be unfortunate. To do another and feature the photo from the first in the second.... Well, it starts to look a teeny bit careless/odd, doesn't it?
Personally I like to think it is a game amongst Tory MPs, started by George.
They all look bloody stupid standing like that. Less of a power pose and more of "I'm standing like a small child who's forgotten how to walk" pose.
I've long suspected management consultants, behavioural specialists and coaches who advise on things like pose etc, are just making shit up to see what they can get people to do, no matter how stupid.
Blackadder III ruined power poses forever when Prince George was being coached by actors on how to stand.
Edit: Ah, I see Taz got in their first.
To be fair, Maggie Thatcher's voice coach did a useful job for her.
Whether it had good overall results for the country is, perhaps, a matter for debate.
Goodwin will be disappointed by the second round figures.
Is the determination to get ludicrous digs in at Matthew Goodwin for a good reason or just because he is the only centre right moderate academic whose name people can remember?
For me, it's because I'm disappointed in what he's become. He used to be a serious academic who had a lot of interesting things to say about the direction of travel in British politics, Brexit, and the rise of populism in Europe. His work was thoughtful, interesting, well researched and well evidenced. His personal politics were irrelevant.
But over the last couple of years, he's changed. He's become utterly partisan, in favour of (right-wing) populism in Europe, against wokeness, and intemperately hostile to the 'metropolitan elite'. Now he ignores any evidence that doesn't fit his partisan views, and is hyperbolic about evidence that does. He's not an academic any more; he's a campaigner.
Of course our Emma is British. She speaks with the same posh southern English accent as all our tennis players do. Because they are the only type that the LTA promote.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
Bollocks. People have always had the possibility of falling on hard times - sometimes due to gambling, sometimes due to job losses, sometimes due to drugs, sometimes due to unexpected bills. Sometimes for issues that are their responsibility, sometimes for very bad luck.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
I knew you’d say something like that! It’s fine, we just see these things very differently in this regard.
I need to peel myself away from this site, why I bother indulging in pointless, futile discussions with anonymous randoms is beyond me. It’s not like I’ve got the stamina and endurance for it, I lose interest too quickly.
Difficult to do so though.
How is he an anonymous random when he uses his own name in discussions, I don’t always agree with him but in this he has made a point worthy of consideration.
Well, yes, if you assume his real name is indeed PT. But no reason to suppose it isn't. Didn't mean anonymous random derogatively. Most posters are, me included obvs, and we're all very random.
I'm glad use of payday loans has fallen. If that is because more people are using foodbanks then, yes, foodbanks are doing a Good Thing in that regard.
But it's obscene that there is still a need for either of them. In a world of an abundance of food, food banks should be obsolete. They probably never will be. Because we are a selfish species. That's why we are so successful as a species, and why we're ruining the planet.
Well, that didn't take long. Do Cabinet Ministers talk to each other?
Look at it from their point of view. If you were a member of the current Cabinet, would you want to talk to any of your colleagues or expect to find it a useful thing to do?
Of course our Emma is British. She speaks with the same posh southern English accent as all our tennis players do. Because they are the only type that the LTA promote.
Andy Murray says hello!
And Emma says "bună ziua"?
I guess she left Canada before she picked up the whole "aboot" thing.
Mr. Dickson, is that different to overseas voters getting a say in General Elections or the EU referendum?
Yes.
How do you identify an overseas voter: ask where they were last registered to vote in the UK, and add them to that register.
How do you identify a “Scot” living in England? Birthplace? Where brought up? Scottish parent or grandparent? Self-identification? Which team do you support? Membership of the Conservative Party or the Orange Lodge? DNA test? We deserve an answer from the Conservatives.
Why has that posy been off topiced? It's a huge verification job, with no preexisting register. Quite right to challenge the notion.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
Bollocks. People have always had the possibility of falling on hard times - sometimes due to gambling, sometimes due to job losses, sometimes due to drugs, sometimes due to unexpected bills. Sometimes for issues that are their responsibility, sometimes for very bad luck.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
Before that there were pawnbrokers too and doorstep money lending for short term loans both legit and non legit.
Exactly, there could always be people hitting hard times.
The bad thing is that pre-2010 then there were ridiculous regulations preventing food banks from being referred to, meaning people turned to Wonga, or Loan Sharks, or Pawnbrokers or worse.
That people are turning to Food Banks instead of Loan Sharks surely is the most successful element of the Big Society Cameron was elected to create. It should be celebrated to the rafters as an entirely good thing.
The referrals system is problematic. Get one from your GP or CAB, etc. And how many days/weeks before you can get to see either of them? Or anyone else these days? And limits on number of visits? I prefer my local Independent. Turn up. Get food. We listen. We help if requessted and necessary. We aren't on a mission to save anyone from anything. Least of all themselves.
Well, that didn't take long. Do Cabinet Ministers talk to each other?
i think johnson just wants the pressure off him for a few weeks as they are down in the polls. Given vax passports are being rolled out all over the world its still likeky they will be introduced here
I doubt anyone else realized it had gone either, including Farage and (until a few days ago) the inventor of this wheeze. Throughout the entire Brexit kerfuffle - the return of blue passports, multi-coloured fire extinguishers etc. - I don't recall the symbol on pint glasses being mentioned once.
I do. It was a big thing for eurosceptics about 15 years ago (or whenever it was the crowns disappeared)
That's the whole story of Brexit right there. A series of apparently minor changes, over decades, nibbling away at British character and sovereignty, which slowly built resentment until it exploded.
If you take any individual example, they often sound absurd. Blue passports. Tomatoes in ounces. Hallmarks. A European parliament. Bent bananas. Shut up you stupid gammons.
And yet if you take them all in the round, the cratering of our different-ness through 50 years of Federalism, it is huge. This is one reason why the Brexit debate is so bitter. Neither side begins to understand the other, they have completely different world-views
Mr. Dickson, is that different to overseas voters getting a say in General Elections or the EU referendum?
Yes.
How do you identify an overseas voter: ask where they were last registered to vote in the UK, and add them to that register.
How do you identify a “Scot” living in England? Birthplace? Where brought up? Scottish parent or grandparent? Self-identification? Which team do you support? Membership of the Conservative Party or the Orange Lodge? DNA test? We deserve an answer from the Conservatives.
Why has that posy been off topiced? It's a huge verification job, with no preexisting register. Quite right to challenge the notion.
With my friends who weren't born in the UK, if I banged on as much about it as the media and twatterati do, i think i would find myself uninvited pretty quickly.....
I recently had to fill in a questionnaire about the ethnicity of my children.
Utterly depressing, I was tempted to fill in the box marked other as 'Melting pot of many civilisations and culture.'
Apparently it is essential to capture their ethnicity and the social class of their parents.
So the average household spends £30k on consumer items per year ?
It also boosted wealth creators and led to a drop in the trade deficit.
So I suppose it depends on who you have sympathy with - wealth creators or wealth consumers.
Brexit “boosted wealth creators”.
LOL.
You’ve never met a wealth creator before, have you?
I work in manufacturing.
So yes I have.
Of course you do.
Why would you doubt that ?
I've mentioned it many times over the years and its not an uncommon sector to work in for middle aged blokes in Yorkshire.
Several other PBers work in manufacturing as well.
That's probably why UK productivity is so low - manufacturers spending too much time on PB.
One of the known issues for U.K. productivity is poor management capability compared to OECD peers.
The problem is largely that management is a skill that people are supposed to find lying around in the street or something. Most MBAs don't seem to teach useful skills in actual management. Cutting costs in a way that won't blow back on you until you escape to the next job is a moronic, but common trait.
The Uk has several structural problems:
1) low productivity, which derives from a variety of other issues, including, but not limited to, poor management, low skills, low investment, short term capital management, weak infrastructure. 2) Planning policy combined with very concentrated land ownership which is a major contributor to expensive, low quality housing, often in the wrong place. It is a disadvantage that the UK is, compared to say France, quite densely populated, but the cost differential per Km of high speed rail, for example, should not be of the order of 20x more 3) Financial system offers little to no support to SMEs, and availablity of start up capital from banks is zero. 4) Entrepreneurship is increasingly tied up in red tape and there are several tax and other disincentives to self employment. 5) Personal debt levels is at crisis levels, even small interest rate rises could trigger collapse, Government debt is a real problem. 6) Major issues in health and social care- much discussed here 7) Internationally weak school age education levels- PISA rankings are mediocre, even while elite Universities are generally good.
The problem is that these long term problems have not been addressed for decades and now the combination of Covid and Brexit is set to deliver a serious inflation shock.
BoE is forecasting 4% inflation, Q1/2 but that is based on no rise in food prices and falling Utility bills (but already we are seeing 40% gas and electicity rises being signalled for next month) and that means a £300-400 average hit per household. Meanwhile the Ni increase costs an average of 250, meanwhile Brexit red tape and shortages could see 10-15% food inflation. So we are not looking at 4% but more like 7%. Also note that Bailey is not regarded in the financial markets as a particularly heavyweight figure- too close to the government- and so his policies will not get a clear run. He is being set up to be the fall guy, but it will be too late, by the time he is writing his letters, then there will be a full blown Sterling crisis on us. The BoE need to tighten in line with the Fed and that means that any Covid recovery will be dead by mid year and the Uk could be facing a real return to the 70s: Stagflation.
In the end "its the economy stupid". So Im sure other people here laughed a little when Johnson said he wanted to be in power longer than Thatcher. Well, The political consequences of the inflation/interest shock will be severe and I would be bearing this in mind in any betting over the next 12-18 months.
Excellent, excellent post.
Should be a thread header.
I am not quite as gloomy as you in terms of predictions, but your main points are totally bang-on.
I would add that UC is being cut against this backdrop, too.
I can foresee a large increase in food banks over the next few months especially late October.
It is entertaining and depressing in equal measure when new Tory MPs in red wall areas ignore food banks as if they don't exist and there are no problems for their constituents. And even worse when they pay attention and start claiming credit for them - "there weren't all these food banks under Labour" was one line uttered.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Food banks are simultaneously one of the most wonderful and most depressing things about the past decade in this country.
I would just say wonderful. Its charity and the idea that charity is depressing is absurd.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The idea that there is still a need for charity so people eat properly is absurd and obscene. Charity’s good for raising money for a dog’s home. The fact that we need charities to feed people, clothe people and raise money for hospitals and the like is a sad indictment of how selfish we are as a species and how screwed out priorities are.
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
Bollocks. People have always had the possibility of falling on hard times - sometimes due to gambling, sometimes due to job losses, sometimes due to drugs, sometimes due to unexpected bills. Sometimes for issues that are their responsibility, sometimes for very bad luck.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
I knew you’d say something like that! It’s fine, we just see these things very differently in this regard.
I need to peel myself away from this site, why I bother indulging in pointless, futile discussions with anonymous randoms is beyond me. It’s not like I’ve got the stamina and endurance for it, I lose interest too quickly.
Difficult to do so though.
How is he an anonymous random when he uses his own name in discussions, I don’t always agree with him but in this he has made a point worthy of consideration.
Well, yes, if you assume his real name is indeed PT. But no reason to suppose it isn't. Didn't mean anonymous random derogatively. Most posters are, me included obvs, and we're all very random.
I'm glad use of payday loans has fallen. If that is because more people are using foodbanks then, yes, foodbanks are doing a Good Thing in that regard.
But it's obscene that there is still a need for either of them. In a world of an abundance of food, food banks should be obsolete. They probably never will be. Because we are a selfish species. That's why we are so successful as a species, and why we're ruining the planet.
If someone's boiler fails* and repairing it will take up all their available cash would you rather they turn to a payday lender, or use their money to fix what's wrong using a foodbank for support?
* Which can be replaced with many other expensive problems in cars and other.
We're not a selfish species we're a generous one which is why the support is available. Better that, than no support and get desperate instead.
Mr. Dickson, is that different to overseas voters getting a say in General Elections or the EU referendum?
Yes.
How do you identify an overseas voter: ask where they were last registered to vote in the UK, and add them to that register.
How do you identify a “Scot” living in England? Birthplace? Where brought up? Scottish parent or grandparent? Self-identification? Which team do you support? Membership of the Conservative Party or the Orange Lodge? DNA test? We deserve an answer from the Conservatives.
I don't know, Stuart
And yet, when told "the majority of Scots voted to Remain in the UK" YOU were the one who replied, "not the real Scots, those born in Scotland" - and you gave the data
So clearly you have a concept of REAL Scots, true-born Scots, and it matters to you AND you have the numbers to hand. It's a bit odd for you to complain if the government follows through on your blood and soil logic
Perhaps you should give HMG a call and offer them the facts and figures, to build the electoral register. They might even pay you
I'm in the office today, and it is much busier than it was 3 weeks ago. Still seats available on the train, so numbers not getting back to normal overall yet - if they ever will.
I popped out to Greggs at lunchtime (as you do). Certain posters may be interested to know that there were a number of HTGs from the nearby college out and about.
I'm in the office today, and it is much busier than it was 3 weeks ago. Still seats available on the train, so numbers not getting back to normal overall yet - if they ever will.
I popped out to Greggs at lunchtime (as you do). Certain posters may be interested to know that there were a number of HTGs from the nearby college out and about.
I'm in the office today, and it is much busier than it was 3 weeks ago. Still seats available on the train, so numbers not getting back to normal overall yet - if they ever will.
I popped out to Greggs at lunchtime (as you do). Certain posters may be interested to know that there were a number of HTGs from the nearby college out and about.
HTG ?
Hot Teenage Girls.
An interest of some posters and some senior Royals.
I'm in the office today, and it is much busier than it was 3 weeks ago. Still seats available on the train, so numbers not getting back to normal overall yet - if they ever will.
I popped out to Greggs at lunchtime (as you do). Certain posters may be interested to know that there were a number of HTGs from the nearby college out and about.
HTG ?
Hot Teenage Girls.
An interest of some posters and some senior Royals.
Of course our Emma is British. She speaks with the same posh southern English accent as all our tennis players do. Because they are the only type that the LTA promote.
Andy Murray says hello!
And Emma says "bună ziua"?
I guess she left Canada before she picked up the whole "aboot" thing.
She sounds like a typical South London teenager to me.
Goodwin will be disappointed by the second round figures.
Is the determination to get ludicrous digs in at Matthew Goodwin for a good reason or just because he is the only centre right moderate academic whose name people can remember?
It's cos he's a right wing academic who constantly wrangles data to support his populist political outlook and deletes his own tweets when subsequent events make him look like a dick.
I'd forgotten about the tweet deleting.
For me it has always been the "i am a clear headed rationalist, YOU are letting emotions cloud judgement" schtick, beloved of PB Trump rampers, that annoys.
Of course our Emma is British. She speaks with the same posh southern English accent as all our tennis players do. Because they are the only type that the LTA promote.
Andy Murray says hello!
And Emma says "bună ziua"?
I guess she left Canada before she picked up the whole "aboot" thing.
She sounds like a typical South London teenager to me.
Mr. Walker, knotty. The exchange rate is the same it was 5 years ago. Preceding this, the pound was stronger but that was part of a spike (in December 2008 it was down to 1.04 during the financial crisis trough). There's been a general declining trend from highs of around 1.67 in 2000.
It probably did cause some depreciation but not a staggering amount. Supply chain problems and COVID directly (linked, of course) have been more dramatic.
The exchange rate recovered part of that quickly and was largely stable fron mid 2009 to the referendum. The report calculates £47 Billion additional cost to UK households over the mid 2016-mid 2018 period as a direct result of the immediate depreciation in sterling.
Jeez. What planet does Johnson live on. How on earth can bringing in vaccine passports for venues help if he does it later in the winter "if needed" as he is now saying?
They haven't a f*cking clue what they are doing from one hour to the next.
Comments
I'm starting to think you are either a windup merchant or have very poor reading comprehension skills.
One of which seems to be based on your personal experience of purchasing power in 2016…
Edit: I see you have edited your last post and are now saying the inflation was “worth it” for low income earners.
Thus demonstrating my typology of Brexit excuses in response to any adverse outcome:
A - the outcome is not true.
B - the outcome is someone/thing else’s fault.
C - the outcome is actually good.
Its clearly hard for some commentators to accept just how broken the economy is.
Pint of Beer in Germany costs €4.50. take exchange rate in 2015 and 2018 and check how much it costs in sterling.
But if you want my opinion
2.9% seems a remarkably low impact for Brexit over mid 2016 to mid 2018. It also seems so close to the inflation figures at the time that I wonder what is causing the slight difference (which is why I find the oil assumptions so interesting as that is probably the rest of the change).
My one concern is the unknown question of does the existence of food banks create additional demand for food banks.
Canada polling. Voting a week today. Average of last 10 polls, final days 8-11 September. So after the French debate, and straddling the English.
Libs 31.9 (-1.2)
Con 31.4 (-2.9)
NDP 18.4 (+2.4)
PPC 7.7 (+6.1)
BQ 6.0 (-1.6)
Green 3.6 (-3.0) Changes with last election.
Trudeau is coming with a late run again. Ironically, though, the Tories are getting greater vote efficiency this time, so may come closer in terms of seats. Indeed, it isn't inconceivable they could get fewer votes, but most seats. A complete turnaround.
PPC continuing to rise on the back of opposition to vaccines, vaxports, climate policies and gun laws. Amongst other things.
Things look much, much better for Justin than a fortnight ago.
Still time for it to change.
Tories heavily trying to convince PPC folk that they won't win a seat (probably) under FPTP.
Logic, mystifyingly, isn't working on them.
But how fucking marvellous that communities have come together to create them as the ultimate safety net for the people callously thrown through the state safety net.
We need to change the terms used. "Benefits" is an awful descriptor for what is and used to be known as social security. As National Insurance is now the go-to label for politicians, lets rename all support payments to National Insurance. When you work you pay into National Insurance. When you can't work or it doesn't pay the bills National Insurance has your back.
But if you want my opinion
2.9% seems a remarkably low impact for Brexit over mid 2016 to mid 2018. It also seems so close to the inflation figures at the time that I wonder what is causing the slight difference (which is why I find the oil assumptions so interesting as that is probably the rest of the change).
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/let-scots-in-whole-of-uk-vote-on-independence-boris-johnson-is-urged-8d09pdxcl
Blood and soil Tories. Who’d’ve thunk it?
However it will be neck and neck on seats. The Conservatives look to be doing worse in Alberta than last time (albeit still well ahead) but better in Ontario, with the Liberals doing better in Quebec and the NDP doing well in BC. So it could well be a different pattern in each area, with the Conservatives picking up Liberal seats in Ontario and the Liberals gaining BQ seats in Quebec and the NDP gaining seats from the Conservatives and Liberals in BC. The Liberals may also pick up 1 or 2 seats from the 4 they lost in Alberta last time
Mainland European countries - with their allegedly better benefits systems - have similar or more extensive setups of foodbanks
If its "Government Failure", then it is all of them.
After all the campaign to throw Scotland out of the UK would start with
"They have free Prescriptions, free University education, they get £10000 each extra in government spending compared to someone in England and yet the greedy Scots still don't think it's enough"
The £10,000 there is to cover the fact you can attack the figure but would have to agree that the Scots still get more.
This woman is a professor at Syracuse University
https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1436862130859520001?s=19
Coupled with 'lets do something for ......'
How do you identify an overseas voter: ask where they were last registered to vote in the UK, and add them to that register.
How do you identify a “Scot” living in England? Birthplace? Where brought up? Scottish parent or grandparent? Self-identification? Which team do you support? Membership of the Conservative Party or the Orange Lodge? DNA test? We deserve an answer from the Conservatives.
The idea that nobody ever had issues in the past is a nonsense, the only thing is that the support the food banks offer were never there in the past.
The original isn't much saner, mind (assuming that version is genuine)
https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/08/21/of-all-the-weird-things-in-this-liz-truss-picture-the-framed-dog-photo-is-the-weirdest/
Brexit triumph as crown stamp FINALLY returns to pint glasses after 15 years
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1489841/brexit-news-european-commission-pint-glasses-eu-latest
I genuinely hadn’t realised it had gone.
Draw your own conclusions!
Because good people will contribute again and again and selfish bastards never do.
You won’t agree with any of that, I know.
Not that it’ll ever change.
However O'Toole, representing an Ontario seat seems to have got a bounce in his home region too which benefits the Conservatives in seats as there are lots of Liberal marginal seats there.
It may therefore be that Trudeau needs to gain enough seats from the BQ in Quebec, which is his home region where his seat is, in order to offset losses made to the Conservatives in Ontario
Otto English
@Otto_English
Seems the crown never went away. All that's changing here is the CE marking or "fill line" on a pint glass. If that's been bothering you for the last 15 years then that's 15 years of wasted life.
The bar for 'Brexit triumph' is set ever lower. Only a matter of time before they're limbo dancing under it.
Prior to 2010 one of the most common adverts on TV was for Wonga "payday" loans. So why were people feeling the need to turn to Wonga prior to 2010 and why weren't foodbanks available instead?
The fact that we have charities able to help people if they fall on hard times, instead of Wonga, is an undeniably good thing and shows how far we have come in building a Big Society.
Elizabeth May will win though. I am assured. And then the Greens will again have the most popular Party leader, rather than the least. If only because they've only one MP left to choose from. (They might sneak 2).
Or this on the radio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxdbu8b4ITk
Foodbank use has gone up over the past decade.
Payday loan use has gone down over the past decade.
That should be something we celebrate not feel sad over. It is 100% good with no downside at all.
He is naturally sympathetic to PPC policies, but trying to hold to the Federal Tory line for the election. Which includes carbon pricing, which he previously railed against. Therefore a bit all over the place and losing support to his left and right. With the Provincial NDP, somewhat ironically, proclaiming "business needs certainty".
1 - Yes. Let's see what happens to investment.
2 - Not sure about any of those.
3 - Partially. We are viewed as one of the best places to start a business. Couple of obvious missing links.
4 - PB has just been discussing hitting self-emmployed harder.
5 - Not convinced on either of those.
6 - Agree on social care setup, and funding it. Also, I suspect, problems with expectations.
7 - Not familiar with the numbers on that.
I think your narrative is much over-done.
Energy prices rising 40%? Evidence? Even after the rises due next month they are still ~20-25% below 2013. Higher prices might give some people the kick in the butt they need to invest in their own properties.
The bad thing is that pre-2010 then there were ridiculous regulations preventing food banks from being referred to, meaning people turned to Wonga, or Loan Sharks, or Pawnbrokers or worse.
That people are turning to Food Banks instead of Loan Sharks surely is the most successful element of the Big Society Cameron was elected to create. It should be celebrated to the rafters as an entirely good thing.
And I'm unsure if payday loan use has gone down that much I suspect and would be concerned that may just have moved elsewhere...
I need to peel myself away from this site, why I bother indulging in pointless, futile discussions with anonymous randoms is beyond me. It’s not like I’ve got the stamina and endurance for it, I lose interest too quickly.
Difficult to do so though.
There is a clear need for food banks to cover scenarios where our benefit system fails - that work is currently done by charities but should the Government support it and if so how best should / could they support it?
If there were no issues pre-2010 and food banks had stepped in because they were needed but weren't before that would be bad.
But they were needed before, the difference was that regulations got in the way of helping so people were desperate to turn to companies like Wonga instead.
I do not yearn back for the days of Wonga etc dominating our ads on TV and Radio.
Blackadder III ruined power poses forever when Prince George was being coached by actors on how to stand.
Edit: Ah, I see Taz got in their first.
Whether it had good overall results for the country is, perhaps, a matter for debate.
But over the last couple of years, he's changed. He's become utterly partisan, in favour of (right-wing) populism in Europe, against wokeness, and intemperately hostile to the 'metropolitan elite'. Now he ignores any evidence that doesn't fit his partisan views, and is hyperbolic about evidence that does. He's not an academic any more; he's a campaigner.
Well, that didn't take long. Do Cabinet Ministers talk to each other?
I know they love the title and all, but why take a position in the Cabinet if you are going to be bypassed even on big things.
I'm glad use of payday loans has fallen. If that is because more people are using foodbanks then, yes, foodbanks are doing a Good Thing in that regard.
But it's obscene that there is still a need for either of them. In a world of an abundance of food, food banks should be obsolete. They probably never will be. Because we are a selfish species. That's why we are so successful as a species, and why we're ruining the planet.
And how many days/weeks before you can get to see either of them? Or anyone else these days? And limits on number of visits?
I prefer my local Independent. Turn up. Get food.
We listen. We help if requessted and necessary. We aren't on a mission to save anyone from anything. Least of all themselves.
That's the whole story of Brexit right there. A series of apparently minor changes, over decades, nibbling away at British character and sovereignty, which slowly built resentment until it exploded.
If you take any individual example, they often sound absurd. Blue passports. Tomatoes in ounces. Hallmarks. A European parliament. Bent bananas. Shut up you stupid gammons.
And yet if you take them all in the round, the cratering of our different-ness through 50 years of Federalism, it is huge. This is one reason why the Brexit debate is so bitter. Neither side begins to understand the other, they have completely different world-views
Utterly depressing, I was tempted to fill in the box marked other as 'Melting pot of many civilisations and culture.'
Apparently it is essential to capture their ethnicity and the social class of their parents.
Jeremy Vine eulogising on BBC Radio 2 about Brexit pay rises.
Edit. Although he might be taking the p*** as he is now playing Autobahn by Kraftwerk
If someone's boiler fails* and repairing it will take up all their available cash would you rather they turn to a payday lender, or use their money to fix what's wrong using a foodbank for support?
* Which can be replaced with many other expensive problems in cars and other.
We're not a selfish species we're a generous one which is why the support is available. Better that, than no support and get desperate instead.
And yet, when told "the majority of Scots voted to Remain in the UK" YOU were the one who replied, "not the real Scots, those born in Scotland" - and you gave the data
So clearly you have a concept of REAL Scots, true-born Scots, and it matters to you AND you have the numbers to hand. It's a bit odd for you to complain if the government follows through on your blood and soil logic
Perhaps you should give HMG a call and offer them the facts and figures, to build the electoral register. They might even pay you
I'm in the office today, and it is much busier than it was 3 weeks ago. Still seats available on the train, so numbers not getting back to normal overall yet - if they ever will.
I popped out to Greggs at lunchtime (as you do). Certain posters may be interested to know that there were a number of HTGs from the nearby college out and about.
Unless you are trying to vote, of course.
An interest of some posters and some senior Royals.
Meanwhile in "green" Germany energy produced from coal has risen by 35% in first half of 2021 and is the largest single source
https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article233759872/Stromerzeugung-Kohle-ersetzt-Windkraft-als-wichtigster-Energietraeger.html?source=k325_variationTest_autocurated
For me it has always been the "i am a clear headed rationalist, YOU are letting emotions cloud judgement" schtick, beloved of PB Trump rampers, that annoys.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2cb00158-140e-11ec-8982-e4706e2eecb0?shareToken=32d757f69d1a0bd780bde0fc69513dd9
They haven't a f*cking clue what they are doing from one hour to the next.