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The flaw in Liz’s reliance on tax cuts – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited August 2022 in General
imageThe flaw in Liz’s reliance on tax cuts – politicalbetting.com

Over the past week the big debate in the Tory leadership contest has been on the best way of helping families in the face of the huge energy price increases that are due in the autumn.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • vikvik Posts: 157
    The underlying implication is that the government has "free money" to give to the non-taxpaying 40%. Except that it doesn't. Any payments to the 40% will come through higher taxes on the hardworking & taxpaying 60%.

    So, why is that fair? Why should the government take more money from taxpayers & give it as handouts to the rest?

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,084
    And because there are externalities that sensibly should be collectively funded, just like we take money from you to pay for people to educate children even if you don’t have any.

    Aside from being morally wrong, there is clear and significant detriment, both social and economic, to everyone if we had a society where millions become destitute.
  • Betfair next prime minister
    1.11 Liz Truss 90%
    9.6 Rishi Sunak 10%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.11 Liz Truss 90%
    9.8 Rishi Sunak 10%
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Sunak is no longer campaigning for this leadership vacancy. He’s campaigning for the next one.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    edited August 2022

    Sunak is no longer campaigning for this leadership vacancy. He’s campaigning for the next one.

    He wants to replace Starmer as Leader of the Opposition?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    vik said:

    The underlying implication is that the government has "free money" to give to the non-taxpaying 40%. Except that it doesn't. Any payments to the 40% will come through higher taxes on the hardworking & taxpaying 60%.

    So, why is that fair? Why should the government take more money from taxpayers & give it as handouts to the rest?

    To bribe them just enough not to kill the 60% and eat their children
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    But, SKS told a pack of untruths to the members to win the Labour leadership.

    I am repeatedly assured by SKS supporters that it was "clever politics". OGH has even purred over how astute SKS was.

    I expect Liz is telling a pack of untruths to the members to win the Tory leadership.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,789
    Sunak is like a mixture of Kamala Harris and Alan Partridge in this clip.

    https://twitter.com/alexofbrown/status/1557084983428370432
  • DynamoDynamo Posts: 651
    I hope it's not wishful thinking, but unless something big changes might the Tory party possibly be in real trouble as 2022 wears on? To summarise: its market for the moment has to be the retired or at least late-middle aged gammonians, most of whom would repeal the "woke" Race Relations Act that their hero spoke against in 1968 if ever they got the chance, perhaps shortly after banning the metric system because it's "foreign". This part of the population is so separate from the "red wall" and from almost everyone else in the country too that they must be making brand managers feel faint. They're lucky there's not an election on.

    On the other side of the coin, both they and the government machine are doing well with the "cost of living crisis" buzzphrase. What that tells many audiences is "don't support strikes".

    But THAT orientation is itself a "wall" that might, just possibly might, crumble. Why? Because if your living standards are falling through the floor to an extent that neither you nor your parents have ever before witnessed, then you've got to do something about it in cooperation with your neighbours, your workmates (if any), your family members, and with people who are in the same position as you in other areas, other workplaces, and other families, otherwise you are completely f***ed. The catch is that you need to have spiritedness (which requires that you switch your f***ing smartphone off - not a single oppositional movement has ever been mainly composed of continuing heroin addicts), and you also need enough energy left in your body before your bodyweight plummets too far owing to lack of food (which requires that you don't hang about).

    Will the "something big" happen that the Tory party needs? It might. It's easy to read the proliferation of Ukrainian flags on British flagpoles as an alternative to full-scale British entry into the war. That is kinda true, but only for the time being. There are parts of the population who are itching for war. This is clear for example in messages posted here about destroying Russia as if it were a rebellion in a British colony, and in the belief that if "Putin" isn't stopped he'll soon be threatening the mouth of the Thames - a case of making up reasons for stuff while believing them. We are talking about irrational xenophobes who don't care if Birmingham or Glasgow get nuked so long as the Azov Regiment triumphantly retakes the lost lands of the Donbas (and even the Crimea) and Russian cities get nuked faster than British ones.

    Then there is the weakening of many minds since the start of the coronavirus carnival in March 2020. For example, can people who locked themselves up in their houses for months except when taking weekly trips to the supermarket, when legally speaking they weren't required to, recover whatever level of independence of thought they once had? That might be a difficult ask. Many probably can't even remember before smartphones.

  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Dynamo said:

    I hope it's not wishful thinking, but unless something big changes might the Tory party possibly be in real trouble as 2022 wears on? To summarise: its market for the moment has to be the retired or at least late-middle aged gammonians, most of whom would repeal the "woke" Race Relations Act that their hero spoke against in 1968 if ever they got the chance, perhaps shortly after banning the metric system because it's "foreign". This part of the population is so separate from the "red wall" and from almost everyone else in the country too that they must be making brand managers feel faint. They're lucky there's not an election on.

    On the other side of the coin, both they and the government machine are doing well with the "cost of living crisis" buzzphrase. What that tells many audiences is "don't support strikes".

    But THAT orientation is itself a "wall" that might, just possibly might, crumble. Why? Because if your living standards are falling through the floor to an extent that neither you nor your parents have ever before witnessed, then you've got to do something about it in cooperation with your neighbours, your workmates (if any), your family members, and with people who are in the same position as you in other areas, other workplaces, and other families, otherwise you are completely f***ed. The catch is that you need to have spiritedness (which requires that you switch your f***ing smartphone off - not a single oppositional movement has ever been mainly composed of continuing heroin addicts), and you also need enough energy left in your body before your bodyweight plummets too far owing to lack of food (which requires that you don't hang about).

    Will the "something big" happen that the Tory party needs? It might. It's easy to read the proliferation of Ukrainian flags on British flagpoles as an alternative to full-scale British entry into the war. That is kinda true, but only for the time being. There are parts of the population who are itching for war. This is clear for example in messages posted here about destroying Russia as if it were a rebellion in a British colony, and in the belief that if "Putin" isn't stopped he'll soon be threatening the mouth of the Thames - a case of making up reasons for stuff while believing them. We are talking about irrational xenophobes who don't care if Birmingham or Glasgow get nuked so long as the Azov Regiment triumphantly retakes the lost lands of the Donbas (and even the Crimea) and Russian cities get nuked faster than British ones.

    Then there is the weakening of many minds since the start of the coronavirus carnival in March 2020. For example, can people who locked themselves up in their houses for months except when taking weekly trips to the supermarket, when legally speaking they weren't required to, recover whatever level of independence of thought they once had? That might be a difficult ask. Many probably can't even remember before smartphones.

    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    "The big problem for her is that fewer than 60% of UK adults pay income tax so the other 40% won’t get any help."

    Touchingly naive to think her policy is intended to help people rather than win an election.

  • But, SKS told a pack of untruths to the members to win the Labour leadership.

    I am repeatedly assured by SKS supporters that it was "clever politics". OGH has even purred over how astute SKS was.

    I expect Liz is telling a pack of untruths to the members to win the Tory leadership.

    I think Starmer is clever enough to know that he had to lie to the hard left
    I think Mistress Truss has been bound by the power of the hard right.

    The key evidence - during this campaign she has doubled down on not providing "handouts" to let people pay their energy bills. Instead "tax cuts" would do the job. Last night she described any form of help as "Gordon Brown economics".

    That would be a far bigger thing to reverse than Starmer. And she will need to do so almost immediately upon taking office. I just can't see it.

    No. She doesn't care. She has shown no sign in her time in office that she cares. She has comprehensively dismissed both the concept and the details of giving anyone any help. So she won't. Better that poor people freeze to death this winter, to encourage others to work harder.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    The flaw in Liz’s reliance on tax cuts
    - Over the past week the big debate in the Tory leadership contest has been on the best way of helping families in the face of the huge energy price increases that are due in the autumn.


    It is only a “flaw” if you assume that the objective of her “plan” (does it deserve such a label?) is to help families.

    I do not consider that to be her objective.

    Her objective is to bribe well-off people into voting Tory.

    The flaw in her “plan” is that it is not the well-off who she needs to win a Con Maj. What her plan may be effective in doing instead is preventing a Canada-style Con extinction event.

    Voting intention by social grade

    AB
    Lab 44%
    Con 28%
    LD 15%
    Grn 4%
    Ref 2%

    C1
    Lab 49%
    Con 22%
    LD 12%
    Grn 5%
    Ref 3%

    C2
    Lab 42%
    Con 34%
    Ref 8%
    LD 8%
    Grn 3%

    DE
    Con 36%
    Lab 33%
    LD 11%
    Ref 4%
    Grn 4%

    (Savanta ComRes; 2,272; 22-24 July)

    The only demographic where the Conservatives are in the lead is DE, and these are the people who need help the most and the Truss plan will help the least.
  • DavidL said:

    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.

    I suspect Truss does realise that, and the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required.

    It is entirely appropriate though for the priority to be reversing the tax hikes. Having people keeping more of their own income they're working for is not a "flaw" and if people aren't working then they have the option of working. We keep being told there's a labour shortage afterall.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    ydoethur said:

    Dynamo said:

    I hope it's not wishful thinking, but unless something big changes might the Tory party possibly be in real trouble as 2022 wears on? To summarise: its market for the moment has to be the retired or at least late-middle aged gammonians, most of whom would repeal the "woke" Race Relations Act that their hero spoke against in 1968 if ever they got the chance, perhaps shortly after banning the metric system because it's "foreign". This part of the population is so separate from the "red wall" and from almost everyone else in the country too that they must be making brand managers feel faint. They're lucky there's not an election on.

    On the other side of the coin, both they and the government machine are doing well with the "cost of living crisis" buzzphrase. What that tells many audiences is "don't support strikes".

    But THAT orientation is itself a "wall" that might, just possibly might, crumble. Why? Because if your living standards are falling through the floor to an extent that neither you nor your parents have ever before witnessed, then you've got to do something about it in cooperation with your neighbours, your workmates (if any), your family members, and with people who are in the same position as you in other areas, other workplaces, and other families, otherwise you are completely f***ed. The catch is that you need to have spiritedness (which requires that you switch your f***ing smartphone off - not a single oppositional movement has ever been mainly composed of continuing heroin addicts), and you also need enough energy left in your body before your bodyweight plummets too far owing to lack of food (which requires that you don't hang about).

    Will the "something big" happen that the Tory party needs? It might. It's easy to read the proliferation of Ukrainian flags on British flagpoles as an alternative to full-scale British entry into the war. That is kinda true, but only for the time being. There are parts of the population who are itching for war. This is clear for example in messages posted here about destroying Russia as if it were a rebellion in a British colony, and in the belief that if "Putin" isn't stopped he'll soon be threatening the mouth of the Thames - a case of making up reasons for stuff while believing them. We are talking about irrational xenophobes who don't care if Birmingham or Glasgow get nuked so long as the Azov Regiment triumphantly retakes the lost lands of the Donbas (and even the Crimea) and Russian cities get nuked faster than British ones.

    Then there is the weakening of many minds since the start of the coronavirus carnival in March 2020. For example, can people who locked themselves up in their houses for months except when taking weekly trips to the supermarket, when legally speaking they weren't required to, recover whatever level of independence of thought they once had? That might be a difficult ask. Many probably can't even remember before smartphones.

    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.
    That's you up against the wall when the revolution comes, comrade.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited August 2022
    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Dynamo said:

    I hope it's not wishful thinking, but unless something big changes might the Tory party possibly be in real trouble as 2022 wears on? To summarise: its market for the moment has to be the retired or at least late-middle aged gammonians, most of whom would repeal the "woke" Race Relations Act that their hero spoke against in 1968 if ever they got the chance, perhaps shortly after banning the metric system because it's "foreign". This part of the population is so separate from the "red wall" and from almost everyone else in the country too that they must be making brand managers feel faint. They're lucky there's not an election on.

    On the other side of the coin, both they and the government machine are doing well with the "cost of living crisis" buzzphrase. What that tells many audiences is "don't support strikes".

    But THAT orientation is itself a "wall" that might, just possibly might, crumble. Why? Because if your living standards are falling through the floor to an extent that neither you nor your parents have ever before witnessed, then you've got to do something about it in cooperation with your neighbours, your workmates (if any), your family members, and with people who are in the same position as you in other areas, other workplaces, and other families, otherwise you are completely f***ed. The catch is that you need to have spiritedness (which requires that you switch your f***ing smartphone off - not a single oppositional movement has ever been mainly composed of continuing heroin addicts), and you also need enough energy left in your body before your bodyweight plummets too far owing to lack of food (which requires that you don't hang about).

    Will the "something big" happen that the Tory party needs? It might. It's easy to read the proliferation of Ukrainian flags on British flagpoles as an alternative to full-scale British entry into the war. That is kinda true, but only for the time being. There are parts of the population who are itching for war. This is clear for example in messages posted here about destroying Russia as if it were a rebellion in a British colony, and in the belief that if "Putin" isn't stopped he'll soon be threatening the mouth of the Thames - a case of making up reasons for stuff while believing them. We are talking about irrational xenophobes who don't care if Birmingham or Glasgow get nuked so long as the Azov Regiment triumphantly retakes the lost lands of the Donbas (and even the Crimea) and Russian cities get nuked faster than British ones.

    Then there is the weakening of many minds since the start of the coronavirus carnival in March 2020. For example, can people who locked themselves up in their houses for months except when taking weekly trips to the supermarket, when legally speaking they weren't required to, recover whatever level of independence of thought they once had? That might be a difficult ask. Many probably can't even remember before smartphones.

    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.
    That's you up against the wall when the revolution comes, comrade.
    Tovarisch, on their own account the Russian army is so fucking stupid they sink their own ships and blow up their own airfields. If they put me against the wall I am confident I would suffer the fate of Michael Palin.
  • DavidL said:

    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.

    I suspect Truss does realise that, and the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required.

    It is entirely appropriate though for the priority to be reversing the tax hikes. Having people keeping more of their own income they're working for is not a "flaw" and if people aren't working then they have the option of working. We keep being told there's a labour shortage afterall.
    Question - do yo understand the difference in cash value between the tax hikes being reversed and the rate bills are going up?

    You support cutting taxes as a principle. Which is fine as a principle. In practice it will do Fuck All to help the people who will freeze this winter. And that is why principles matter little in a crisis which demands you do the (to you) unthinkable.

    Mistress Truss will stand upright and resolute in those critical early weeks. Listening to the demented old tossers that make up much of the Tory membership and the pledges she made to them. Doing literally nothing at all as the country sinks beneath unpayable bills.

    Not sure that destroying the Tory party as an electoral force for another generation fits your principles. But it is what you are going to get if you apply them.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    Dynamo said:

    I hope it's not wishful thinking, but unless something big changes might the Tory party possibly be in real trouble as 2022 wears on? To summarise: its market for the moment has to be the retired or at least late-middle aged gammonians, most of whom would repeal the "woke" Race Relations Act that their hero spoke against in 1968 if ever they got the chance, perhaps shortly after banning the metric system because it's "foreign". This part of the population is so separate from the "red wall" and from almost everyone else in the country too that they must be making brand managers feel faint. They're lucky there's not an election on.

    On the other side of the coin, both they and the government machine are doing well with the "cost of living crisis" buzzphrase. What that tells many audiences is "don't support strikes".

    But THAT orientation is itself a "wall" that might, just possibly might, crumble. Why? Because if your living standards are falling through the floor to an extent that neither you nor your parents have ever before witnessed, then you've got to do something about it in cooperation with your neighbours, your workmates (if any), your family members, and with people who are in the same position as you in other areas, other workplaces, and other families, otherwise you are completely f***ed. The catch is that you need to have spiritedness (which requires that you switch your f***ing smartphone off - not a single oppositional movement has ever been mainly composed of continuing heroin addicts), and you also need enough energy left in your body before your bodyweight plummets too far owing to lack of food (which requires that you don't hang about).

    Will the "something big" happen that the Tory party needs? It might. It's easy to read the proliferation of Ukrainian flags on British flagpoles as an alternative to full-scale British entry into the war. That is kinda true, but only for the time being. There are parts of the population who are itching for war. This is clear for example in messages posted here about destroying Russia as if it were a rebellion in a British colony, and in the belief that if "Putin" isn't stopped he'll soon be threatening the mouth of the Thames - a case of making up reasons for stuff while believing them. We are talking about irrational xenophobes who don't care if Birmingham or Glasgow get nuked so long as the Azov Regiment triumphantly retakes the lost lands of the Donbas (and even the Crimea) and Russian cities get nuked faster than British ones.

    Then there is the weakening of many minds since the start of the coronavirus carnival in March 2020. For example, can people who locked themselves up in their houses for months except when taking weekly trips to the supermarket, when legally speaking they weren't required to, recover whatever level of independence of
    thought they once had? That might be a difficult ask. Many probably can't even remember before smartphones.

    You ok hun?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Sunak is no longer campaigning for this leadership vacancy. He’s campaigning for the next one.

    He wants to replace Starmer as Leader of the Opposition?
    Two different contests.

    Who becomes next Conservative Party leader is determined by members of that party.

    Who becomes next Her Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition is determined by the electorate.

    Funnily enough, the current FAV for both posts is the same person: Liz Truss.
  • DavidL said:

    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.

    I suspect Truss does realise that, and the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required.

    It is entirely appropriate though for the priority to be reversing the tax hikes. Having people keeping more of their own income they're working for is not a "flaw" and if people aren't working then they have the option of working. We keep being told there's a labour shortage afterall.
    Question - do yo understand the difference in cash value between the tax hikes being reversed and the rate bills are going up?

    You support cutting taxes as a principle. Which is fine as a principle. In practice it will do Fuck All to help the people who will freeze this winter. And that is why principles matter little in a crisis which demands you do the (to you) unthinkable.

    Mistress Truss will stand upright and resolute in those critical early weeks. Listening to the demented old tossers that make up much of the Tory membership and the pledges she made to them. Doing literally nothing at all as the country sinks beneath unpayable bills.

    Not sure that destroying the Tory party as an electoral force for another generation fits your principles. But it is what you are going to get if you apply them.
    Reversing the tax hikes will help people.

    Stopping the state from taking as much of the money people are working for lets them use the extra to pay their bills.
    Stopping the state from adding on taxes onto energy makes bills cheaper.

    Two distinct ways to help. I'm sure more will be done to offer support where it is needed, as I said the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required and Truss would be no different in that. The moment the leadership election campaign ends her focus will be on winning a General Election not continuing to fight the election that's already won.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    For @ydoethur

    Confessions of a former Government adviser

    From 2010-2013 I was a policy adviser to Michael Gove when he was Secretary of State for Education. This was a civil service role. I wasn’t a political SPAD…

    So this is a post of what, in retrospect, I did wrong.

    https://samf.substack.com/p/confessions-of-a-former-government?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf
  • DavidL said:

    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.

    I suspect Truss does realise that, and the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required.

    It is entirely appropriate though for the priority to be reversing the tax hikes. Having people keeping more of their own income they're working for is not a "flaw" and if people aren't working then they have the option of working. We keep being told there's a labour shortage afterall.
    Question - do yo understand the difference in cash value between the tax hikes being reversed and the rate bills are going up?

    You support cutting taxes as a principle. Which is fine as a principle. In practice it will do Fuck All to help the people who will freeze this winter. And that is why principles matter little in a crisis which demands you do the (to you) unthinkable.

    Mistress Truss will stand upright and resolute in those critical early weeks. Listening to the demented old tossers that make up much of the Tory membership and the pledges she made to them. Doing literally nothing at all as the country sinks beneath unpayable bills.

    Not sure that destroying the Tory party as an electoral force for another generation fits your principles. But it is what you are going to get if you apply them.
    Reversing the tax hikes will help people.

    Stopping the state from taking as much of the money people are working for lets them use the extra to pay their bills.
    Stopping the state from adding on taxes onto energy makes bills cheaper.

    Two distinct ways to help. I'm sure more will be done to offer support where it is needed, as I said the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required and Truss would be no different in that. The moment the leadership election campaign ends her focus will be on winning a General Election not continuing to fight the election that's already won.
    Thats a "no" then.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Dynamo said:

    I hope it's not wishful thinking, but unless something big changes might the Tory party possibly be in real trouble as 2022 wears on? To summarise: its market for the moment has to be the retired or at least late-middle aged gammonians, most of whom would repeal the "woke" Race Relations Act that their hero spoke against in 1968 if ever they got the chance, perhaps shortly after banning the metric system because it's "foreign". This part of the population is so separate from the "red wall" and from almost everyone else in the country too that they must be making brand managers feel faint. They're lucky there's not an election on.

    On the other side of the coin, both they and the government machine are doing well with the "cost of living crisis" buzzphrase. What that tells many audiences is "don't support strikes".

    But THAT orientation is itself a "wall" that might, just possibly might, crumble. Why? Because if your living standards are falling through the floor to an extent that neither you nor your parents have ever before witnessed, then you've got to do something about it in cooperation with your neighbours, your workmates (if any), your family members, and with people who are in the same position as you in other areas, other workplaces, and other families, otherwise you are completely f***ed. The catch is that you need to have spiritedness (which requires that you switch your f***ing smartphone off - not a single oppositional movement has ever been mainly composed of continuing heroin addicts), and you also need enough energy left in your body before your bodyweight plummets too far owing to lack of food (which requires that you don't hang about).

    Will the "something big" happen that the Tory party needs? It might. It's easy to read the proliferation of Ukrainian flags on British flagpoles as an alternative to full-scale British entry into the war. That is kinda true, but only for the time being. There are parts of the population who are itching for war. This is clear for example in messages posted here about destroying Russia as if it were a rebellion in a British colony, and in the belief that if "Putin" isn't stopped he'll soon be threatening the mouth of the Thames - a case of making up reasons for stuff while believing them. We are talking about irrational xenophobes who don't care if Birmingham or Glasgow get nuked so long as the Azov Regiment triumphantly retakes the lost lands of the Donbas (and even the Crimea) and Russian cities get nuked faster than British ones.

    Then there is the weakening of many minds since the start of the coronavirus carnival in March 2020. For example, can people who locked themselves up in their houses for months except when taking weekly trips to the supermarket, when legally speaking they weren't required to, recover whatever level of independence of thought they once had? That might be a difficult ask. Many probably can't even remember before smartphones.

    What device did you type that on?

    Blown your cover, tovarisch.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    So passé, but man, I had to share

    Wordle 417 1/6

    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    FPT - it is simply not true to say that the UK gets most of its uranium from Russia; it gets it from Australia under a 1979 agreement, which, incidentally, has over a quarter of the world's supply.

    It tends to arrive in the UK as UO3 and then Springfields processes it into reactor fuel.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    For @ydoethur

    Confessions of a former Government adviser

    From 2010-2013 I was a policy adviser to Michael Gove when he was Secretary of State for Education. This was a civil service role. I wasn’t a political SPAD…

    So this is a post of what, in retrospect, I did wrong.

    https://samf.substack.com/p/confessions-of-a-former-government?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf

    Interesting, but far too long. 'Everything' is one word and would have covered it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    FPT - it is simply not true to say that the UK gets most of its uranium from Russia; it gets it from Australia under a 1979 agreement, which, incidentally, has over a quarter of the world's supply.

    It tends to arrive in the UK as UO3 and then Springfields processes it into reactor fuel.

    Why does a mountaineering group process nuclear fuel?
  • DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.

    I suspect Truss does realise that, and the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required.

    It is entirely appropriate though for the priority to be reversing the tax hikes. Having people keeping more of their own income they're working for is not a "flaw" and if people aren't working then they have the option of working. We keep being told there's a labour shortage afterall.
    Public services need to be paid for. Taxes are a necessary part of a civilised society. I think everyone agrees on that. What there can be disagreement on is what taxes, what rates and who pays them? The NI increases were wrong, not because they increased the tax burden but because they unfairly increased the tax burden on the working population at the expense of the retired who are the main users of both social care and the NHS it was supposedly funding. We need to broaden the net on tax contributions and this will almost certainly involve more capital taxes. I don't hear Truss (or indeed Sunak) talking much about that.
    You're not going to hear either Truss or Sunak talking about that either. But we can agree that the NI increases were wrong, and therefore I stand by that reversing them is right. If that means that money is required via alternative taxes - as I've said all governments make other decisions and no prospective leader is ever going to write an entire budget during a leadership election campaign.

    But at the least reversing the NI tax hike is a step in the right direction. If there are to be tax hikes, then allowing the NI hike to stand will simply set that up as a ratchet to be turned ever higher to pay for the NHS and Social Care while allowing those not paying NI to evade their responsibilities to your civilised society all together.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    I thought it was Sunak who was talking most about cutting income tax, as part of what I assume is his long-term plan to cut the basic rate of income tax to zero, while inflation brings the higher rate threshold down to the level of median earnings, and NI is increased to fill the resulting hole in funding for the NHS.

    Also, the 60% figure would be more impressive if it referred to households, rather than individuals. My wife hasn't paid any income tax for some years because she's either been a PhD student or struggling with a debilitating chronic condition. However, I do pay income tax, and so she is part of a household that pays income tax.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rcs1000 said:

    DavidL said:

    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.

    ydoethur said:

    Dynamo said:

    I hope it's not wishful thinking, but unless something big changes might the Tory party possibly be in real trouble as 2022 wears on? To summarise: its market for the moment has to be the retired or at least late-middle aged gammonians, most of whom would repeal the "woke" Race Relations Act that their hero spoke against in 1968 if ever they got the chance, perhaps shortly after banning the metric system because it's "foreign". This part of the population is so separate from the "red wall" and from almost everyone else in the country too that they must be making brand managers feel faint. They're lucky there's not an election on.

    On the other side of the coin, both they and the government machine are doing well with the "cost of living crisis" buzzphrase. What that tells many audiences is "don't support strikes".

    But THAT orientation is itself a "wall" that might, just possibly might, crumble. Why? Because if your living standards are falling through the floor to an extent that neither you nor your parents have ever before witnessed, then you've got to do something about it in cooperation with your neighbours, your workmates (if any), your family members, and with people who are in the same position as you in other areas, other workplaces, and other families, otherwise you are completely f***ed. The catch is that you need to have spiritedness (which requires that you switch your f***ing smartphone off - not a single oppositional movement has ever been mainly composed of continuing heroin addicts), and you also need enough energy left in your body before your bodyweight plummets too far owing to lack of food (which requires that you don't hang about).

    Will the "something big" happen that the Tory party needs? It might. It's easy to read the proliferation of Ukrainian flags on British flagpoles as an alternative to full-scale British entry into the war. That is kinda true, but only for the time being. There are parts of the population who are itching for war. This is clear for example in messages posted here about destroying Russia as if it were a rebellion in a British colony, and in the belief that if "Putin" isn't stopped he'll soon be threatening the mouth of the Thames - a case of making up reasons for stuff while believing them. We are talking about irrational xenophobes who don't care if Birmingham or Glasgow get nuked so long as the Azov Regiment triumphantly retakes the lost lands of the Donbas (and even the Crimea) and Russian cities get nuked faster than British ones.

    Then there is the weakening of many minds since the start of the coronavirus carnival in March 2020. For example, can people who locked themselves up in their houses for months except when taking weekly trips to the supermarket, when legally speaking they weren't required to, recover whatever level of independence of thought they once had? That might be a difficult ask. Many probably can't even remember before smartphones.

    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.
    I love the way he lures you in with the idea the post might actually be about the Conservative Party, before veering off and hitting all the key talking points about the Azov Regiment.
    Azov is 100% my fault I think, someone said about the Amnesty hoo-ha that UKr can do no wrong in PB’S eyes and I said that is wrong, nobody thinks there's any excuse for the AR. You can imagine the top level case conference in Trollograd at which this was adopted as the new attack line.
  • This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    ydoethur said:

    FPT - it is simply not true to say that the UK gets most of its uranium from Russia; it gets it from Australia under a 1979 agreement, which, incidentally, has over a quarter of the world's supply.

    It tends to arrive in the UK as UO3 and then Springfields processes it into reactor fuel.

    Why does a mountaineering group process nuclear fuel?
    I thought that they were a supermarket. Special BOGOF on uranium rods in aisle 3.
  • I'm never watching Under Siege again, if there were a cancel culture, Seagal would be gone.

    Steven Seagal, the Hollywood action film star, has been pictured at a Russian-controlled prison camp where at least 50 Ukrainian inmates were killed last month.

    The actor, a vocal supporter of President Putin, was seen inspecting Olenivka detention centre in images shared on the Telegram messaging service.

    The prison was the site of a mysterious explosion on July 29 which killed scores of Ukrainian inmates, including fighters who had surrendered to Russian forces in May at the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.

    The Ukrainian government has accused Moscow of carrying out a massacre of the inmates, while the UN has begun to attempt to set up a fact-finding mission to investigate the origins of the atrocity.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hollywood-star-steven-seagal-visits-site-of-massacre-of-ukrainians-pv5sx9fh3
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    FPT - it is simply not true to say that the UK gets most of its uranium from Russia; it gets it from Australia under a 1979 agreement, which, incidentally, has over a quarter of the world's supply.

    It tends to arrive in the UK as UO3 and then Springfields processes it into reactor fuel.

    EDF's UK annual report has uranium purchases by country and Russia is only slightly behind Australia. I think it's a legacy of the HEU trade the US brokered almost thirty years ago.
  • MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,281
    edited August 2022
    Minnesota District 1:

    Special Election yesterday:
    Rep 51.1
    Dem 46.9

    Result in 2020:
    Rep 48.6
    Dem 45.5

    So Rep lead yesterday 4.2 vs 3.1 in 2020.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited August 2022
    ydoethur said:


    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.

    Someone’s been drowning their sorrows, at the Ukranians bombing air bases in Crimea.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089
    edited August 2022
    Truss has said other obviously stupid things in this campaign (regional pay was the obvious one) but has backtracked on those with commendable speed. If not with commendable grace.

    On this one- tax cuts but no handouts- she has repeatedly stuck to her guns. Despite the really obvious hole alluded to in the header.

    What's going on?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    As I think John Rentoul sort of pointed out last night, in less PB terms, This only helps the 60% who pay tax is not a bug, it's a feature.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Professor John Curtice is generally held in high regard on this board. Does the rule hold today?

    The next Tory leader "won't keep the Union safe" by following Boris Johnson's blunt refusal to allow an IndyRef2, the country's top pollster has said.

    Professor John Curtice claimed whoever enters Downing Street next month would be better off trying to persuade Scots of the benefits of remaining in the UK.

    “My own view is that if Unionists have any sense, they will get involved. Whatever happens, whether we have a referendum or not, Nicola Sturgeon is going to spend the next 12 months trying to increase the level of support for independence.

    “If you want to make the Union safe, by far and away the best thing to do, is to actually make the case for the Union and persuade people.

    “The reason the Union is in trouble is because, at the moment, only half the people in Scotland want to stay inside it.

    "If you can change that fundamental, the Union will be safe. But so long as you don't change that, it won't be.

    "I would submit that the attempt in the last two years to simply argue about process has not got the Unionists anywhere."


    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-wont-keep-union-27686398

    “… if Unionists have any sense…” The man is a comedian.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    MikeL said:

    Minnesota District 1:

    Special Election yesterday:
    Rep 50.2
    Dem 47.7

    (one small County still to report - so Rep lead likely to grow tiny bit more, but not much)

    Result in 2020:
    Rep 48.6
    Dem 45.5

    So Rep lead yesterday 2.5 (will rise tiny bit) vs 3.1 in 2020

    Looks like pretty good result for Dems.

    Ms Omar narrowly (by just 2 percentage points) held off a primary challenge in Minnesota.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:


    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.

    Someone’s been drowning their sorrows, at the Ukranians bombing air bases in Crimea.
    Russia have apparently claimed that it was their fault, that they accidentally blew up an ammunition dump.

    I'm not 100% sure that's a better narrative for them, if I'm honest, but then I thought that over their claims about the Moskva too.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Truss has said other obviously stupid things in this campaign (regional pay was the obvious one) but has backtracked on those with commendable speed. If not with commendable grace.

    On this one- tax cuts but no handouts- she has repeatedly stuck to her guns. Despite the really obvious hole alluded to in the header.

    What's going on?

    As Rentoul (thanks Ish) points out: it is not a bug but a feature.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    FPT - it is simply not true to say that the UK gets most of its uranium from Russia; it gets it from Australia under a 1979 agreement, which, incidentally, has over a quarter of the world's supply.

    It tends to arrive in the UK as UO3 and then Springfields processes it into reactor fuel.

    Why does a mountaineering group process nuclear fuel?
    I thought that they were a supermarket. Special BOGOF on uranium rods in aisle 3.
    You'll have to check with Smithers but I thought it was a purely peaceful installation.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    I am afraid that Martin Lewis is being completely unrealistic here. How can the government pay everyone's increase in their heating bills? It is completely and utterly unsustainable. What needs to be done is to protect the vulnerable. The rest of us will just have to pay more for our fuel until the price comes down again. Sunak's plans for the first increase was frankly terrible policy and should not be repeated or augmented.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    Truss has said other obviously stupid things in this campaign (regional pay was the obvious one) but has backtracked on those with commendable speed. If not with commendable grace.

    On this one- tax cuts but no handouts- she has repeatedly stuck to her guns. Despite the really obvious hole alluded to in the header.

    What's going on?

    Pretty simple. The more Truss talks about tax cuts the more she reminds Tory members that Sunak was the Conservative Chancellor, the Conservative Chancellor (!), who increased taxes to their highest level for more than seventy years.

    It's by far Sunak's weakest point and hammering away at it is what any opponent of his in a Tory leadership contest would do.
  • This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    The positive thing about ML is that he stands above politics and just calls it how the numbers are. That means on some things he could be seen as supportive of the government (he is *very* pro-student loans as most students never pay them back) and on other things very anti.

    On this issue the numbers are clear. The proposed tax cut represents a mere fraction of the bill increases, and don't go to the people who can't pay them.

    Anyone supporting "we won't do handouts, instead we will cut taxes and that will fix things" knows it is a lie. Unless they are Steve Clarke levels of stupid. Real world punters aren't stupid. They can add. Tory lies won't heat their homes this winter.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    ydoethur said:

    FPT - it is simply not true to say that the UK gets most of its uranium from Russia; it gets it from Australia under a 1979 agreement, which, incidentally, has over a quarter of the world's supply.

    It tends to arrive in the UK as UO3 and then Springfields processes it into reactor fuel.

    Why does a mountaineering group process nuclear fuel?
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfields
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    ydoethur said:

    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:


    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.

    Someone’s been drowning their sorrows, at the Ukranians bombing air bases in Crimea.
    Russia have apparently claimed that it was their fault, that they accidentally blew up an ammunition dump.

    I'm not 100% sure that's a better narrative for them, if I'm honest, but then I thought that over their claims about the Moskva too.
    Ah yes, much better to say you had an accident, than to admit that you’re totally now totally out-ranged by the defenders, and no Russian ammo dump nor military base in Ukraine (including Crimea) is safe from attack any more.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,168
    vik said:

    The underlying implication is that the government has "free money" to give to the non-taxpaying 40%. Except that it doesn't. Any payments to the 40% will come through higher taxes on the hardworking & taxpaying 60%.

    So, why is that fair? Why should the government take more money from taxpayers & give it as handouts to the rest?

    The ~40% don’t pay income tax, but that doesn’t mean they’re not taxpayers. Almost everyone pays VAT. People may be paying council tax, fuel duty, etc.

  • MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,281
    rcs1000 said:

    MikeL said:

    Minnesota District 1:

    Special Election yesterday:
    Rep 50.2
    Dem 47.7

    (one small County still to report - so Rep lead likely to grow tiny bit more, but not much)

    Result in 2020:
    Rep 48.6
    Dem 45.5

    So Rep lead yesterday 2.5 (will rise tiny bit) vs 3.1 in 2020

    Looks like pretty good result for Dems.

    Ms Omar narrowly (by just 2 percentage points) held off a primary challenge in Minnesota.
    Note - my original post has now been edited - final County came in and moved it more than I thought. Apologies.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:


    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.

    Someone’s been drowning their sorrows, at the Ukranians bombing air bases in Crimea.
    Russia have apparently claimed that it was their fault, that they accidentally blew up an ammunition dump.

    I'm not 100% sure that's a better narrative for them, if I'm honest, but then I thought that over their claims about the Moskva too.
    Ah yes, much better to say you had an accident, than to admit that you’re totally now totally out-ranged by the defenders, and no Russian ammo dump nor military base in Ukraine (including Crimea) is safe from attack any more.
    But if you have lots of accidents, nowhere at all is safe...
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited August 2022

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    The positive thing about ML is that he stands above politics and just calls it how the numbers are. That means on some things he could be seen as supportive of the government (he is *very* pro-student loans as most students never pay them back) and on other things very anti.

    On this issue the numbers are clear. The proposed tax cut represents a mere fraction of the bill increases, and don't go to the people who can't pay them.

    Anyone supporting "we won't do handouts, instead we will cut taxes and that will fix things" knows it is a lie. Unless they are Steve Clarke levels of stupid. Real world punters aren't stupid. They can add. Tory lies won't heat their homes this winter.
    Why don't those who are not working have a look for some work if they're struggling to pay their bills?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    He's also a phenomenally effective campaigner.

    I've heard he's a bit arrogant in private, but I'll let that pass for the good works he does.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    ydoethur said:

    FPT - it is simply not true to say that the UK gets most of its uranium from Russia; it gets it from Australia under a 1979 agreement, which, incidentally, has over a quarter of the world's supply.

    It tends to arrive in the UK as UO3 and then Springfields processes it into reactor fuel.

    Why does a mountaineering group process nuclear fuel?
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfields
    Interesting, thanks. Never heard of them!
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    Professor John Curtice is generally held in high regard on this board. Does the rule hold today?

    The next Tory leader "won't keep the Union safe" by following Boris Johnson's blunt refusal to allow an IndyRef2, the country's top pollster has said.

    Professor John Curtice claimed whoever enters Downing Street next month would be better off trying to persuade Scots of the benefits of remaining in the UK.

    “My own view is that if Unionists have any sense, they will get involved. Whatever happens, whether we have a referendum or not, Nicola Sturgeon is going to spend the next 12 months trying to increase the level of support for independence.

    “If you want to make the Union safe, by far and away the best thing to do, is to actually make the case for the Union and persuade people.

    “The reason the Union is in trouble is because, at the moment, only half the people in Scotland want to stay inside it.

    "If you can change that fundamental, the Union will be safe. But so long as you don't change that, it won't be.

    "I would submit that the attempt in the last two years to simply argue about process has not got the Unionists anywhere."


    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-wont-keep-union-27686398

    “… if Unionists have any sense…” The man is a comedian.

    I agree with him. The government needs to run a positive case for the Union consistently. Help for those struggling with heating bills is as good a place as any to start.
  • Truss has said other obviously stupid things in this campaign (regional pay was the obvious one) but has backtracked on those with commendable speed. If not with commendable grace.

    On this one- tax cuts but no handouts- she has repeatedly stuck to her guns. Despite the really obvious hole alluded to in the header.

    What's going on?

    She has persuaded herself that Brexit has been a mega success and that new trade deals have transformed Britain. Despite her personal involvement with said trade deals which clearly do not.

    So she is a simpleton who believes spun lies like they are truth. Clever politicians lie - but aren't supposed to believe their lies, that is for the voters. Mistress Truss though, not smart enough.

    So I suspect she is doubling down again and again because she genuinely believes that a pittance in tax cuts to the wealthy will help poor and middle income people pay energy bill increases many many times greater.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.

    I suspect Truss does realise that, and the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required.

    It is entirely appropriate though for the priority to be reversing the tax hikes. Having people keeping more of their own income they're working for is not a "flaw" and if people aren't working then they have the option of working. We keep being told there's a labour shortage afterall.
    Public services need to be paid for. Taxes are a necessary part of a civilised society. I think everyone agrees on that. What there can be disagreement on is what taxes, what rates and who pays them? The NI increases were wrong, not because they increased the tax burden but because they unfairly increased the tax burden on the working population at the expense of the retired who are the main users of both social care and the NHS it was supposedly funding. We need to broaden the net on tax contributions and this will almost certainly involve more capital taxes. I don't hear Truss (or indeed Sunak) talking much about that.
    You're not going to hear either Truss or Sunak talking about that either. But we can agree that the NI increases were wrong, and therefore I stand by that reversing them is right. If that means that money is required via alternative taxes - as I've said all governments make other decisions and no prospective leader is ever going to write an entire budget during a leadership election campaign.

    But at the least reversing the NI tax hike is a step in the right direction. If there are to be tax hikes, then allowing the NI hike to stand will simply set that up as a ratchet to be turned ever higher to pay for the NHS and Social Care while allowing those not paying NI to evade their responsibilities to your civilised society all together.
    Exactly. It's a huge Trojan Horse.

    Don't want to put up NI or Income Tax ?

    Fine. Put up the "health and social care levy".
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    ydoethur said:

    FPT - it is simply not true to say that the UK gets most of its uranium from Russia; it gets it from Australia under a 1979 agreement, which, incidentally, has over a quarter of the world's supply.

    It tends to arrive in the UK as UO3 and then Springfields processes it into reactor fuel.

    Why does a mountaineering group process nuclear fuel?
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfields
    IIRC Springfields is due to be shut down soon (wasn't it due for the end of this year?), and I'm not sure what UK plans are on the back of that.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    The vast majority of Tory members and Tory voters are in that 60%
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    The positive thing about ML is that he stands above politics and just calls it how the numbers are. That means on some things he could be seen as supportive of the government (he is *very* pro-student loans as most students never pay them back) and on other things very anti.

    On this issue the numbers are clear. The proposed tax cut represents a mere fraction of the bill increases, and don't go to the people who can't pay them.

    Anyone supporting "we won't do handouts, instead we will cut taxes and that will fix things" knows it is a lie. Unless they are Steve Clarke levels of stupid. Real world punters aren't stupid. They can add. Tory lies won't heat their homes this winter.
    He has been banging this civil unrest drum all year, and it is really outside his field (which is quite narrow, he committed a tremendous blooper over pensions and annuities a bit ago). We didn't riot in the winter of discontent or the 3 day week. Not sure if the rule is no riots in the cold or no riots over fuel. And of course it's not helpful with the Don't pay your gas bill lot being able to take it up and run with it which I doubt is his plan.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited August 2022

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.

    I suspect Truss does realise that, and the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required.

    It is entirely appropriate though for the priority to be reversing the tax hikes. Having people keeping more of their own income they're working for is not a "flaw" and if people aren't working then they have the option of working. We keep being told there's a labour shortage afterall.
    Public services need to be paid for. Taxes are a necessary part of a civilised society. I think everyone agrees on that. What there can be disagreement on is what taxes, what rates and who pays them? The NI increases were wrong, not because they increased the tax burden but because they unfairly increased the tax burden on the working population at the expense of the retired who are the main users of both social care and the NHS it was supposedly funding. We need to broaden the net on tax contributions and this will almost certainly involve more capital taxes. I don't hear Truss (or indeed Sunak) talking much about that.
    You're not going to hear either Truss or Sunak talking about that either. But we can agree that the NI increases were wrong, and therefore I stand by that reversing them is right. If that means that money is required via alternative taxes - as I've said all governments make other decisions and no prospective leader is ever going to write an entire budget during a leadership election campaign.

    But at the least reversing the NI tax hike is a step in the right direction. If there are to be tax hikes, then allowing the NI hike to stand will simply set that up as a ratchet to be turned ever higher to pay for the NHS and Social Care while allowing those not paying NI to evade their responsibilities to your civilised society all together.
    Exactly. It's a huge Trojan Horse.

    Don't want to put up NI or Income Tax ?

    Fine. Put up the "health and social care levy".
    Even worse, want to get credit for cutting Income Tax?

    Put up the "health and social care levy" by more.

    If that levy is allowed to stand, it will end up dominating our taxation. If the only thing Truss winning achieves is killing that levy off, then that alone would make her election worthwhile.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    The flaw in Liz’s reliance on tax cuts
    - Over the past week the big debate in the Tory leadership contest has been on the best way of helping families in the face of the huge energy price increases that are due in the autumn.


    It is only a “flaw” if you assume that the objective of her “plan” (does it deserve such a label?) is to help families.

    I do not consider that to be her objective.

    Her objective is to bribe well-off people into voting Tory.

    The flaw in her “plan” is that it is not the well-off who she needs to win a Con Maj. What her plan may be effective in doing instead is preventing a Canada-style Con extinction event.

    Voting intention by social grade

    AB
    Lab 44%
    Con 28%
    LD 15%
    Grn 4%
    Ref 2%

    C1
    Lab 49%
    Con 22%
    LD 12%
    Grn 5%
    Ref 3%

    C2
    Lab 42%
    Con 34%
    Ref 8%
    LD 8%
    Grn 3%

    DE
    Con 36%
    Lab 33%
    LD 11%
    Ref 4%
    Grn 4%

    (Savanta ComRes; 2,272; 22-24 July)

    The only demographic where the Conservatives are in the lead is DE, and these are the people who need help the most and the Truss plan will help the least.

    I find that poll dubious, even in 2019 Labour got its highest voteshare with DEs
  • OMG LOL.


  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.

    I suspect Truss does realise that, and the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required.

    It is entirely appropriate though for the priority to be reversing the tax hikes. Having people keeping more of their own income they're working for is not a "flaw" and if people aren't working then they have the option of working. We keep being told there's a labour shortage afterall.
    Public services need to be paid for. Taxes are a necessary part of a civilised society. I think everyone agrees on that. What there can be disagreement on is what taxes, what rates and who pays them? The NI increases were wrong, not because they increased the tax burden but because they unfairly increased the tax burden on the working population at the expense of the retired who are the main users of both social care and the NHS it was supposedly funding. We need to broaden the net on tax contributions and this will almost certainly involve more capital taxes. I don't hear Truss (or indeed Sunak) talking much about that.
    You're not going to hear either Truss or Sunak talking about that either. But we can agree that the NI increases were wrong, and therefore I stand by that reversing them is right. If that means that money is required via alternative taxes - as I've said all governments make other decisions and no prospective leader is ever going to write an entire budget during a leadership election campaign.

    But at the least reversing the NI tax hike is a step in the right direction. If there are to be tax hikes, then allowing the NI hike to stand will simply set that up as a ratchet to be turned ever higher to pay for the NHS and Social Care while allowing those not paying NI to evade their responsibilities to your civilised society all together.
    Exactly. It's a huge Trojan Horse.

    Don't want to put up NI or Income Tax ?

    Fine. Put up the "health and social care levy".
    Yep, that was the wrong way to do it. Yet another tax that can be raised by governments saying they won’t raise income taxes.

    There was a brief mention of UBI on here yesterday, one of those things that works well in theory but is very difficult in practice. The single most difficult thing about it in practice, is that the setting of the rate becomes a political football at election time. It would have to be set by an external committee, in the same way as interest rates, in order to depoliticise it - but which politicians are going to do that?
  • DynamoDynamo Posts: 651
    A civilian asks: if you've got ~30 warplanes and lots of explosives at an airbase, is there a reason that you'd normally put the planes so near the explosives that they'll be destroyed if the explosives go up in an accident (or after an enemy strike), rather than e.g. a mile away at another part of the base?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    The flaw in Liz’s reliance on tax cuts
    - Over the past week the big debate in the Tory leadership contest has been on the best way of helping families in the face of the huge energy price increases that are due in the autumn.


    It is only a “flaw” if you assume that the objective of her “plan” (does it deserve such a label?) is to help families.

    I do not consider that to be her objective.

    Her objective is to bribe well-off people into voting Tory.

    The flaw in her “plan” is that it is not the well-off who she needs to win a Con Maj. What her plan may be effective in doing instead is preventing a Canada-style Con extinction event.

    Voting intention by social grade

    AB
    Lab 44%
    Con 28%
    LD 15%
    Grn 4%
    Ref 2%

    C1
    Lab 49%
    Con 22%
    LD 12%
    Grn 5%
    Ref 3%

    C2
    Lab 42%
    Con 34%
    Ref 8%
    LD 8%
    Grn 3%

    DE
    Con 36%
    Lab 33%
    LD 11%
    Ref 4%
    Grn 4%

    (Savanta ComRes; 2,272; 22-24 July)

    The only demographic where the Conservatives are in the lead is DE, and these are the people who need help the most and the Truss plan will help the least.

    The level of Lab lead in the ABC1 age is truly remarkable, but I draw the opposite conclusion. This is where the Cons need to regain voters.

    I think though that the Truss/Sunak social agenda repels far more than a financial bung attracts.
  • DavidL said:

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    I am afraid that Martin Lewis is being completely unrealistic here. How can the government pay everyone's increase in their heating bills? It is completely and utterly unsustainable. What needs to be done is to protect the vulnerable. The rest of us will just have to pay more for our fuel until the price comes down again. Sunak's plans for the first increase was frankly terrible policy and should not be repeated or augmented.
    True, in which case tax cuts are worse than useless. The nature of tax cuts is to help those who have more, more.

    Rough ballpark for what has to happen is that the bottom third will need a lot, if not complete help with this. That means the £1000 support going up to close to £2500. We're talking people who don't have £2500 spare. That's not happing by tax cuts.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    edited August 2022

    Professor John Curtice is generally held in high regard on this board. Does the rule hold today?

    The next Tory leader "won't keep the Union safe" by following Boris Johnson's blunt refusal to allow an IndyRef2, the country's top pollster has said.

    Professor John Curtice claimed whoever enters Downing Street next month would be better off trying to persuade Scots of the benefits of remaining in the UK.

    “My own view is that if Unionists have any sense, they will get involved. Whatever happens, whether we have a referendum or not, Nicola Sturgeon is going to spend the next 12 months trying to increase the level of support for independence.

    “If you want to make the Union safe, by far and away the best thing to do, is to actually make the case for the Union and persuade people.

    “The reason the Union is in trouble is because, at the moment, only half the people in Scotland want to stay inside it.

    "If you can change that fundamental, the Union will be safe. But so long as you don't change that, it won't be.

    "I would submit that the attempt in the last two years to simply argue about process has not got the Unionists anywhere."


    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-wont-keep-union-27686398

    “… if Unionists have any sense…” The man is a comedian.

    What a ludicrous argument. A Tory government which grants an indyref2 before a generation is up has at best a 50% chance of winning it and keeping the Union together. A Tory government which refuses indyref2 has a 100% chance of keeping the Union together as Union matters are reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998.

    The Tories also would not and should not ever need SNP support to form a government unlike Labour. As long as the Tories are largest party even in a hung parliament they can try and stay in government and refuse an indyref2 and leave it to Starmer to u turn and do a deal with the nationalists for No 10 if Labour fails to get most seats
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    Dynamo said:

    A civilian asks: if you've got ~30 warplanes and lots of explosives at an airbase, is there a reason that you'd normally put the planes so near the explosives that they'll be destroyed if the explosives go up in an accident (or after an enemy strike), rather than e.g. a mile away at another part of the base?

    The obvious answer is stupidity and complacency.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Dynamo said:

    A civilian asks: if you've got ~30 warplanes and lots of explosives at an airbase, is there a reason that you'd normally put the planes so near the explosives that they'll be destroyed if the explosives go up in an accident (or after an enemy strike), rather than e.g. a mile away at another part of the base?

    Ah, so you think it was a Ukrainian strike rather than an accident.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Dynamo said:

    A civilian asks: if you've got ~30 warplanes and lots of explosives at an airbase, is there a reason that you'd normally put the planes so near the explosives that they'll be destroyed if the explosives go up in an accident (or after an enemy strike), rather than e.g. a mile away at another part of the base?

    Westerners put the ammo dumps in a remote corner of an airfield, far away from valuable things like planes and crew quarters.

    It’s only the Russians, that are so stupid as to keep ammo stores and planes close together.
  • This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    The positive thing about ML is that he stands above politics and just calls it how the numbers are. That means on some things he could be seen as supportive of the government (he is *very* pro-student loans as most students never pay them back) and on other things very anti.

    On this issue the numbers are clear. The proposed tax cut represents a mere fraction of the bill increases, and don't go to the people who can't pay them.

    Anyone supporting "we won't do handouts, instead we will cut taxes and that will fix things" knows it is a lie. Unless they are Steve Clarke levels of stupid. Real world punters aren't stupid. They can add. Tory lies won't heat their homes this winter.
    Why don't those who are not working have a look for some work if they're struggling to pay their bills?
    The classic hard right Tory response. Made all the more cretinous because most of the people in this mess *are working*.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    ydoethur said:

    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:


    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.

    Someone’s been drowning their sorrows, at the Ukranians bombing air bases in Crimea.
    Russia have apparently claimed that it was their fault, that they accidentally blew up an ammunition dump.

    I'm not 100% sure that's a better narrative for them, if I'm honest, but then I thought that over their claims about the Moskva too.
    It seems on this occasion Ukraine agrees with them: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/russia-ukraine-war-kyiv-denies-responsibility-for-crimea-air-base-attack/ar-AA10uI0V?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d82d2142fb1e4fa49e4bff59c2307566

    All very odd.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    rcs1000 said:

    ydoethur said:

    FPT - it is simply not true to say that the UK gets most of its uranium from Russia; it gets it from Australia under a 1979 agreement, which, incidentally, has over a quarter of the world's supply.

    It tends to arrive in the UK as UO3 and then Springfields processes it into reactor fuel.

    Why does a mountaineering group process nuclear fuel?
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfields
    IIRC Springfields is due to be shut down soon (wasn't it due for the end of this year?), and I'm not sure what UK plans are on the back of that.
    Yes, next year - the need for fuel has rapidly diminished with the AGR decommissioning and now of HPB too.

    But, a fuel processing facility will be needed for the new stations coming online in the 2030s. As usual, this is HMG foot dragging.
  • DavidL said:

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    I am afraid that Martin Lewis is being completely unrealistic here. How can the government pay everyone's increase in their heating bills? It is completely and utterly unsustainable. What needs to be done is to protect the vulnerable. The rest of us will just have to pay more for our fuel until the price comes down again. Sunak's plans for the first increase was frankly terrible policy and should not be repeated or augmented.
    True, in which case tax cuts are worse than useless. The nature of tax cuts is to help those who have more, more.

    Rough ballpark for what has to happen is that the bottom third will need a lot, if not complete help with this. That means the £1000 support going up to close to £2500. We're talking people who don't have £2500 spare. That's not happing by tax cuts.
    Alternatively reducing taxation encourages those who don't have much to be able to work to get more, so paying their bills and having more afterwards.

    Ratcheting up taxes on those who are working for a living in order to further swell the welfare state isn't the only option.
  • This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    The positive thing about ML is that he stands above politics and just calls it how the numbers are. That means on some things he could be seen as supportive of the government (he is *very* pro-student loans as most students never pay them back) and on other things very anti.

    On this issue the numbers are clear. The proposed tax cut represents a mere fraction of the bill increases, and don't go to the people who can't pay them.

    Anyone supporting "we won't do handouts, instead we will cut taxes and that will fix things" knows it is a lie. Unless they are Steve Clarke levels of stupid. Real world punters aren't stupid. They can add. Tory lies won't heat their homes this winter.
    Why don't those who are not working have a look for some work if they're struggling to pay their bills?
    The classic hard right Tory response. Made all the more cretinous because most of the people in this mess *are working*.
    If they're working full time then a cut in NI will reduce their taxation, as well as a cut in energy taxes reducing their bills. 👍
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Dynamo said:

    I hope it's not wishful thinking, but unless something big changes might the Tory party possibly be in real trouble as 2022 wears on? To summarise: its market for the moment has to be the retired or at least late-middle aged gammonians, most of whom would repeal the "woke" Race Relations Act that their hero spoke against in 1968 if ever they got the chance, perhaps shortly after banning the metric system because it's "foreign". This part of the population is so separate from the "red wall" and from almost everyone else in the country too that they must be making brand managers feel faint. They're lucky there's not an election on.

    On the other side of the coin, both they and the government machine are doing well with the "cost of living crisis" buzzphrase. What that tells many audiences is "don't support strikes".

    But THAT orientation is itself a "wall" that might, just possibly might, crumble. Why? Because if your living standards are falling through the floor to an extent that neither you nor your parents have ever before witnessed, then you've got to do something about it in cooperation with your neighbours, your workmates (if any), your family members, and with people who are in the same position as you in other areas, other workplaces, and other families, otherwise you are completely f***ed. The catch is that you need to have spiritedness (which requires that you switch your f***ing smartphone off - not a single oppositional movement has ever been mainly composed of continuing heroin addicts), and you also need enough energy left in your body before your bodyweight plummets too far owing to lack of food (which requires that you don't hang about).

    Will the "something big" happen that the Tory party needs? It might. It's easy to read the proliferation of Ukrainian flags on British flagpoles as an alternative to full-scale British entry into the war. That is kinda true, but only for the time being. There are parts of the population who are itching for war. This is clear for example in messages posted here about destroying Russia as if it were a rebellion in a British colony, and in the belief that if "Putin" isn't stopped he'll soon be threatening the mouth of the Thames - a case of making up reasons for stuff while believing them. We are talking about irrational xenophobes who don't care if Birmingham or Glasgow get nuked so long as the Azov Regiment triumphantly retakes the lost lands of the Donbas (and even the Crimea) and Russian cities get nuked faster than British ones.

    Then there is the weakening of many minds since the start of the coronavirus carnival in March 2020. For example, can people who locked themselves up in their houses for months except when taking weekly trips to the supermarket, when legally speaking they weren't required to, recover whatever level of independence of thought they once had? That might be a difficult ask. Many probably can't even remember before smartphones.

    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.
    That's you up against the wall when the revolution comes, comrade.
    If it is my revolution…. {giggles like a loony}

    “Have you considered joining the space program?”
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:


    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.

    Someone’s been drowning their sorrows, at the Ukranians bombing air bases in Crimea.
    Russia have apparently claimed that it was their fault, that they accidentally blew up an ammunition dump.

    I'm not 100% sure that's a better narrative for them, if I'm honest, but then I thought that over their claims about the Moskva too.
    It seems on this occasion Ukraine agrees with them: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/russia-ukraine-war-kyiv-denies-responsibility-for-crimea-air-base-attack/ar-AA10uI0V?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d82d2142fb1e4fa49e4bff59c2307566

    All very odd.
    Even if the Ukrainians did carry it out, they have reasons to deny it:

    1) If it was a saboteur team, to give them a chance to escape;
    2) If they were testing an indigenous rocket or drone - which they must be as AFAICS NATO have not provided them with weaponry that can operate this far from their forces - to try and keep any others for the element of surprise.

    But it's still not great for the Russians. 'Sneak attack on airfield that may not be repeated' would be unfortunate but bearable. 'Our forces are so incompetent that in the middle of a war they keep blowing themselves up' is to put it mildly not a great look.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Dynamo said:

    A civilian asks: if you've got ~30 warplanes and lots of explosives at an airbase, is there a reason that you'd normally put the planes so near the explosives that they'll be destroyed if the explosives go up in an accident (or after an enemy strike), rather than e.g. a mile away at another part of the base?

    Yes, if you were vastly over confident about your safety and valued swift re-arm, refuel and repair over having all you panes blown up in a single strike.

    It is the classic airbase problem.

    Spread planes out and it makes it slower to turn them around and harder to guard.

    Group them together and they are easier to bomb.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited August 2022

    DavidL said:

    ydoethur said:

    Dynamo said:

    I hope it's not wishful thinking, but unless something big changes might the Tory party possibly be in real trouble as 2022 wears on? To summarise: its market for the moment has to be the retired or at least late-middle aged gammonians, most of whom would repeal the "woke" Race Relations Act that their hero spoke against in 1968 if ever they got the chance, perhaps shortly after banning the metric system because it's "foreign". This part of the population is so separate from the "red wall" and from almost everyone else in the country too that they must be making brand managers feel faint. They're lucky there's not an election on.

    On the other side of the coin, both they and the government machine are doing well with the "cost of living crisis" buzzphrase. What that tells many audiences is "don't support strikes".

    But THAT orientation is itself a "wall" that might, just possibly might, crumble. Why? Because if your living standards are falling through the floor to an extent that neither you nor your parents have ever before witnessed, then you've got to do something about it in cooperation with your neighbours, your workmates (if any), your family members, and with people who are in the same position as you in other areas, other workplaces, and other families, otherwise you are completely f***ed. The catch is that you need to have spiritedness (which requires that you switch your f***ing smartphone off - not a single oppositional movement has ever been mainly composed of continuing heroin addicts), and you also need enough energy left in your body before your bodyweight plummets too far owing to lack of food (which requires that you don't hang about).

    Will the "something big" happen that the Tory party needs? It might. It's easy to read the proliferation of Ukrainian flags on British flagpoles as an alternative to full-scale British entry into the war. That is kinda true, but only for the time being. There are parts of the population who are itching for war. This is clear for example in messages posted here about destroying Russia as if it were a rebellion in a British colony, and in the belief that if "Putin" isn't stopped he'll soon be threatening the mouth of the Thames - a case of making up reasons for stuff while believing them. We are talking about irrational xenophobes who don't care if Birmingham or Glasgow get nuked so long as the Azov Regiment triumphantly retakes the lost lands of the Donbas (and even the Crimea) and Russian cities get nuked faster than British ones.

    Then there is the weakening of many minds since the start of the coronavirus carnival in March 2020. For example, can people who locked themselves up in their houses for months except when taking weekly trips to the supermarket, when legally speaking they weren't required to, recover whatever level of independence of thought they once had? That might be a difficult ask. Many probably can't even remember before smartphones.

    Somebody’s either started very early or gone on an all-nighter.
    That's you up against the wall when the revolution comes, comrade.
    If it is my revolution…. {giggles like a loony}

    “Have you considered joining the space program?”
    No. You're putting the whole of the DfE on it, remember? I don't want to spend any time with those useless drunken prats.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    DavidL said:

    Professor John Curtice is generally held in high regard on this board. Does the rule hold today?

    The next Tory leader "won't keep the Union safe" by following Boris Johnson's blunt refusal to allow an IndyRef2, the country's top pollster has said.

    Professor John Curtice claimed whoever enters Downing Street next month would be better off trying to persuade Scots of the benefits of remaining in the UK.

    “My own view is that if Unionists have any sense, they will get involved. Whatever happens, whether we have a referendum or not, Nicola Sturgeon is going to spend the next 12 months trying to increase the level of support for independence.

    “If you want to make the Union safe, by far and away the best thing to do, is to actually make the case for the Union and persuade people.

    “The reason the Union is in trouble is because, at the moment, only half the people in Scotland want to stay inside it.

    "If you can change that fundamental, the Union will be safe. But so long as you don't change that, it won't be.

    "I would submit that the attempt in the last two years to simply argue about process has not got the Unionists anywhere."


    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-wont-keep-union-27686398

    “… if Unionists have any sense…” The man is a comedian.

    I agree with him. The government needs to run a positive case for the Union consistently. Help for those struggling with heating bills is as good a place as any to start.
    Just remind folk how terrible indy would have been.


  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    HYUFD said:

    Professor John Curtice is generally held in high regard on this board. Does the rule hold today?

    The next Tory leader "won't keep the Union safe" by following Boris Johnson's blunt refusal to allow an IndyRef2, the country's top pollster has said.

    Professor John Curtice claimed whoever enters Downing Street next month would be better off trying to persuade Scots of the benefits of remaining in the UK.

    “My own view is that if Unionists have any sense, they will get involved. Whatever happens, whether we have a referendum or not, Nicola Sturgeon is going to spend the next 12 months trying to increase the level of support for independence.

    “If you want to make the Union safe, by far and away the best thing to do, is to actually make the case for the Union and persuade people.

    “The reason the Union is in trouble is because, at the moment, only half the people in Scotland want to stay inside it.

    "If you can change that fundamental, the Union will be safe. But so long as you don't change that, it won't be.

    "I would submit that the attempt in the last two years to simply argue about process has not got the Unionists anywhere."


    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-wont-keep-union-27686398

    “… if Unionists have any sense…” The man is a comedian.

    What a ludicrous argument. A Tory government which grants an indyref2 before a generation is up has at best a 50% chance of winning it and keeping the Union together. A Tory government which refuses indyref2 has a 100% chance of keeping the Union together as Union matters are reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998.

    The Tories also would not and should not ever need SNP support to form a government unlike Labour. As long as the Tories are largest party even in a hung parliament they can try and stay in government and refuse an indyref2 and leave it to Starmer to u turn and do a deal with the nationalists for No 10 if Labour fails to get most seats
    Away and play with your train set, if you can't think of something new to say.
  • DavidL said:

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    I am afraid that Martin Lewis is being completely unrealistic here. How can the government pay everyone's increase in their heating bills? It is completely and utterly unsustainable. What needs to be done is to protect the vulnerable. The rest of us will just have to pay more for our fuel until the price comes down again. Sunak's plans for the first increase was frankly terrible policy and should not be repeated or augmented.
    True, in which case tax cuts are worse than useless. The nature of tax cuts is to help those who have more, more.

    Rough ballpark for what has to happen is that the bottom third will need a lot, if not complete help with this. That means the £1000 support going up to close to £2500. We're talking people who don't have £2500 spare. That's not happing by tax cuts.
    Alternatively reducing taxation encourages those who don't have much to be able to work to get more, so paying their bills and having more afterwards.

    Ratcheting up taxes on those who are working for a living in order to further swell the welfare state isn't the only option.
    The tragedy is that so much of the welfare bill is the state subsidising the profits of Asda etc. Companies refused to pay decent wages, so faced with millions working and still living in penury Gordon Brown came up with Working Tax Credits.

    I support a "what works" approach to most things, but despite working short term this hasn't worked long term. The right approach would have been to offer companies corporation tax cuts if they pay appropriate wages. Instead, CTax has collapsed down to 19% with companies not required to do anything in return for it.

    So there is no way back now. Companies won't pay a living wage because why should they. Government has no leverage any more other than demonise working people as "claiming benefits". No, that would be their employers.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,168

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    The positive thing about ML is that he stands above politics and just calls it how the numbers are. That means on some things he could be seen as supportive of the government (he is *very* pro-student loans as most students never pay them back) and on other things very anti.

    On this issue the numbers are clear. The proposed tax cut represents a mere fraction of the bill increases, and don't go to the people who can't pay them.

    Anyone supporting "we won't do handouts, instead we will cut taxes and that will fix things" knows it is a lie. Unless they are Steve Clarke levels of stupid. Real world punters aren't stupid. They can add. Tory lies won't heat their homes this winter.
    Why don't those who are not working have a look for some work if they're struggling to pay their bills?
    Presumably because a large proportion of those not working are children, retired, unable to work due to ill health or disability, homemakers/busy with childcare, or in full-time education. Others will be looking for work, but be unsuccessful in securing any, perhaps because they lack the requisite skills or are in the wrong part of the country.

    Meanwhile, plenty of those in work are still going to struggle to pay their bills.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    Sandpit said:

    Dynamo said:

    A civilian asks: if you've got ~30 warplanes and lots of explosives at an airbase, is there a reason that you'd normally put the planes so near the explosives that they'll be destroyed if the explosives go up in an accident (or after an enemy strike), rather than e.g. a mile away at another part of the base?

    Westerners put the ammo dumps in a remote corner of an airfield, far away from valuable things like planes and crew quarters.

    It’s only the Russians, that are so stupid as to keep ammo stores and planes close together.
    To be fair, the history of the USSR (the entity that Putin adores) has a strong history of ammunition disasters.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severomorsk_Disaster

    Perhaps his faithful lackeys are just re-creating the USSR for him with great accuracy?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited August 2022
    Here is a question.

    If, instead of adopting Ed Miliband's silly idea of a price cap, the government had ordered all power companies to start fitting free solar panels to those houses that had suitable roofs, how much better off would we all be now (if at all)?
  • boulayboulay Posts: 3,773

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    The positive thing about ML is that he stands above politics and just calls it how the numbers are. That means on some things he could be seen as supportive of the government (he is *very* pro-student loans as most students never pay them back) and on other things very anti.

    On this issue the numbers are clear. The proposed tax cut represents a mere fraction of the bill increases, and don't go to the people who can't pay them.

    Anyone supporting "we won't do handouts, instead we will cut taxes and that will fix things" knows it is a lie. Unless they are Steve Clarke levels of stupid. Real world punters aren't stupid. They can add. Tory lies won't heat their homes this winter.
    Why don't those who are not working have a
    look for some work if they're struggling to pay their bills?
    It’s not really that simple is it - whilst there are clearly people who don’t work for laziness reasons there are other reasons (I am no bleeding heart lefty btw).

    There are people who’ve been brought up in a culture of benefits and don’t have the skills - mental, emotional, educational, technical or social to get their heads in the game and even start looking for work.

    There are people who would like work but are hamstrung by issues such as not having the money in the first place until their first pay check to pay for the transport, clothing, child care etc so trapped.

    There are those who will suffer where it costs them to go to work and any extra income will have a knock-on effect to their benefits leaving them back at square one.

    All these issues absolutely need fixing and there needs to be a big shift in benefits and work culture.

    The thing is, now is too late.

    It’s too late to rip up and solve these problems to save what’s going to hit over the next six months to a year with fuel poverty, food inflation etc. it’s effectively an emergency every bit as much as covid was.

    So when team Tryss accuse Sunak of being like Gordon Brown it’s bollocks. They know full well that this is a unique situation at the end of a crazy few years where traditional Tory attitudes to tax and spend have been impossible and so emergency measures have to over-ride ideology for now.

    Absolutely in a years time start working on a long term plan to lower taxes, fix benefits, make work pay - all things Sunak has said he wants to do but it will not save people from terrible hardship coming up and the first duty of a government, whether Tory or Labour, is to protect the citizens.

    We shouldn’t have been starting from this place but we are here and so need to do what is necessary then fix the fundamental underlying problems when it’s clear.

  • I come from a time when the vast majority of dwellings had no central heating and no hot water on tap unless you were lucky enough to have a storage tank with an immersion heater. Generally hot water for washing-up came from a kettle. In the winter there was frost on the inside of the windows in the morning and the bath-room was cold. The only source of heating was an open coal or gas fire in the living room. In the winter, which was much colder than it is now, we put on jumpers and cardigans and an extra blanket on the bed.
    We have clearly progressed from then to "Heat or eat"!
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Professor John Curtice is generally held in high regard on this board. Does the rule hold today?

    The next Tory leader "won't keep the Union safe" by following Boris Johnson's blunt refusal to allow an IndyRef2, the country's top pollster has said.

    Professor John Curtice claimed whoever enters Downing Street next month would be better off trying to persuade Scots of the benefits of remaining in the UK.

    “My own view is that if Unionists have any sense, they will get involved. Whatever happens, whether we have a referendum or not, Nicola Sturgeon is going to spend the next 12 months trying to increase the level of support for independence.

    “If you want to make the Union safe, by far and away the best thing to do, is to actually make the case for the Union and persuade people.

    “The reason the Union is in trouble is because, at the moment, only half the people in Scotland want to stay inside it.

    "If you can change that fundamental, the Union will be safe. But so long as you don't change that, it won't be.

    "I would submit that the attempt in the last two years to simply argue about process has not got the Unionists anywhere."


    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-wont-keep-union-27686398

    “… if Unionists have any sense…” The man is a comedian.

    What a ludicrous argument. A Tory government which grants an indyref2 before a generation is up has at best a 50% chance of winning it and keeping the Union together. A Tory government which refuses indyref2 has a 100% chance of keeping the Union together as Union matters are reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998.

    The Tories also would not and should not ever need SNP support to form a government unlike Labour. As long as the Tories are largest party even in a hung parliament they can try and stay in government and refuse an indyref2 and leave it to Starmer to u turn and do a deal with the nationalists for No 10 if Labour fails to get most seats
    Away and play with your train set, if you can't think of something new to say.
    Tbf a cracking bit of honesty from HYUFD with ‘has at best a 50% chance of winning’, the cowardly hypocrisy of referendum blocking Unionism revealed in all its glory.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    I come from a time when the vast majority of dwellings had no central heating and no hot water on tap unless you were lucky enough to have a storage tank with an immersion heater. Generally hot water for washing-up came from a kettle. In the winter there was frost on the inside of the windows in the morning and the bath-room was cold. The only source of heating was an open coal or gas fire in the living room. In the winter, which was much colder than it is now, we put on jumpers and cardigans and an extra blanket on the bed.
    We have clearly progressed from then to "Heat or eat"!

    Frost? You were lucky. When I were a lad, it were so cold you turned on a tap and snow came out.

    That was if you could get a tap.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    I come from a time when the vast majority of dwellings had no central heating and no hot water on tap unless you were lucky enough to have a storage tank with an immersion heater. Generally hot water for washing-up came from a kettle. In the winter there was frost on the inside of the windows in the morning and the bath-room was cold. The only source of heating was an open coal or gas fire in the living room. In the winter, which was much colder than it is now, we put on jumpers and cardigans and an extra blanket on the bed.
    We have clearly progressed from then to "Heat or eat"!

    {pry bars a case of Chateau de Chassilier open}

    You ‘ad kettle?

  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,168
    HYUFD said:

    Professor John Curtice is generally held in high regard on this board. Does the rule hold today?

    The next Tory leader "won't keep the Union safe" by following Boris Johnson's blunt refusal to allow an IndyRef2, the country's top pollster has said.

    Professor John Curtice claimed whoever enters Downing Street next month would be better off trying to persuade Scots of the benefits of remaining in the UK.

    “My own view is that if Unionists have any sense, they will get involved. Whatever happens, whether we have a referendum or not, Nicola Sturgeon is going to spend the next 12 months trying to increase the level of support for independence.

    “If you want to make the Union safe, by far and away the best thing to do, is to actually make the case for the Union and persuade people.

    “The reason the Union is in trouble is because, at the moment, only half the people in Scotland want to stay inside it.

    "If you can change that fundamental, the Union will be safe. But so long as you don't change that, it won't be.

    "I would submit that the attempt in the last two years to simply argue about process has not got the Unionists anywhere."


    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-wont-keep-union-27686398

    “… if Unionists have any sense…” The man is a comedian.

    What a ludicrous argument. A Tory government which grants an indyref2 before a generation is up has at best a 50% chance of winning it and keeping the Union together. A Tory government which refuses indyref2 has a 100% chance of keeping the Union together as Union matters are reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998.

    The Tories also would not and should not ever need SNP support to form a government unlike Labour. As long as the Tories are largest party even in a hung parliament they can try and stay in government and refuse an indyref2 and leave it to Starmer to u turn and do a deal with the nationalists for No 10 if Labour fails to get most seats
    I don’t think Curtice is arguing that Westminster should or not approve a referendum. He’s saying, “whether we have a referendum or not”, that unionists need to be making the case for the union.
  • DavidL said:

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    I am afraid that Martin Lewis is being completely unrealistic here. How can the government pay everyone's increase in their heating bills? It is completely and utterly unsustainable. What needs to be done is to protect the vulnerable. The rest of us will just have to pay more for our fuel until the price comes down again. Sunak's plans for the first increase was frankly terrible policy and should not be repeated or augmented.
    True, in which case tax cuts are worse than useless. The nature of tax cuts is to help those who have more, more.

    Rough ballpark for what has to happen is that the bottom third will need a lot, if not complete help with this. That means the £1000 support going up to close to £2500. We're talking people who don't have £2500 spare. That's not happing by tax cuts.
    Alternatively reducing taxation encourages those who don't have much to be able to work to get more, so paying their bills and having more afterwards.

    Ratcheting up taxes on those who are working for a living in order to further swell the welfare state isn't the only option.
    The tragedy is that so much of the welfare bill is the state subsidising the profits of Asda etc. Companies refused to pay decent wages, so faced with millions working and still living in penury Gordon Brown came up with Working Tax Credits.

    I support a "what works" approach to most things, but despite working short term this hasn't worked long term. The right approach would have been to offer companies corporation tax cuts if they pay appropriate wages. Instead, CTax has collapsed down to 19% with companies not required to do anything in return for it.

    So there is no way back now. Companies won't pay a living wage because why should they. Government has no leverage any more other than demonise working people as "claiming benefits". No, that would be their employers.
    Sorry but that's utter codswallop. A full time 37.5h worker even on the legal minimum 'living wage' of £9.50 per hour is earning over £18.5k per annum and is paying a lot in tax including national insurance and employers national insurance which is a hidden tax on wages. And without kids a couple working full time even on minimum wage aren't entitled to tax credits/universal credit.

    Tax credits wasn't set up to deal with low wages, the "minimum wage" was set up to deal with that, it was pure welfare. Asda etc aren't going to pay for someone who is working only 16 hours per week to support lots of children, if you want the state to do that then argue for that, don't claim its corporate welfare. Asda didn't choose to get pregnant and have kids.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019

    DavidL said:

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    I am afraid that Martin Lewis is being completely unrealistic here. How can the government pay everyone's increase in their heating bills? It is completely and utterly unsustainable. What needs to be done is to protect the vulnerable. The rest of us will just have to pay more for our fuel until the price comes down again. Sunak's plans for the first increase was frankly terrible policy and should not be repeated or augmented.
    True, in which case tax cuts are worse than useless. The nature of tax cuts is to help those who have more, more.

    Rough ballpark for what has to happen is that the bottom third will need a lot, if not complete help with this. That means the £1000 support going up to close to £2500. We're talking people who don't have £2500 spare. That's not happing by tax cuts.
    You do realise that the majority of people paying tax are working hard in demanding jobs and trying to raise families, right?
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited August 2022

    DavidL said:

    This is something that will damage Liz Truss, I remember a pollster telling me Martin Lewis had astronomical trust figures with the public, compared to the gutter most politicians were found in.

    Liz Truss has been urged to ditch “outrageous” claims that tax cuts will deal with energy price rises after she continued to hold out against immediate help with bills yesterday.

    Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, said the frontrunner to become prime minister must set out detailed plans this month and offered to help draw them up as he warned that the energy crisis risked civil unrest and deaths from hypothermia this winter.

    Rishi Sunak, who is Truss’s rival in the Tory leadership race, must also commit himself to doubling the package he set out as chancellor in May, Lewis said. He accused the Conservative Party of neglecting a “financial cataclysm” that would push millions into destitution.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/savings-guru-martin-lewis-criticises-liz-truss-as-4-400-energy-bills-forecast-qjj5wnkm3

    There's a reason why scammers use the image of Martin Lewis to try and entice people to hand their money over to them, people trust him on things like this.

    I am afraid that Martin Lewis is being completely unrealistic here. How can the government pay everyone's increase in their heating bills? It is completely and utterly unsustainable. What needs to be done is to protect the vulnerable. The rest of us will just have to pay more for our fuel until the price comes down again. Sunak's plans for the first increase was frankly terrible policy and should not be repeated or augmented.
    True, in which case tax cuts are worse than useless. The nature of tax cuts is to help those who have more, more.

    Rough ballpark for what has to happen is that the bottom third will need a lot, if not complete help with this. That means the £1000 support going up to close to £2500. We're talking people who don't have £2500 spare. That's not happing by tax cuts.
    You do realise that the majority of people paying tax are working hard in demanding jobs and trying to raise families, right?
    Do you mind if I ask if you are beginning to regret voting for Sunak? Or perhaps that you won't be too upset if he loses?

    You seem to be coming around to the idea that his policies of jacking up NI, sorry the "health and social care levy", to pay for everything are perhaps not the best idea.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    Sandpit said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    I don't think that she is talking about cutting IT though, is she? She is talking about taking the VAT off fuel and suspending the green levies. Everyone who pays for their fuel pays those and they increase the size of their bills. She is also talking about reversing the NI increase. More people pay NI than IT although Rishi's latest reforms which basically took the lowest paid out of the NI increase will have significantly reduced the difference.

    What these tax cuts will not do is give those on benefits the money to pay their vastly increased bills. There simply has to be more help and support for that part of society. Truss failing to recognise that, and the financial implications of that for her CT cuts, is a problem.

    I suspect Truss does realise that, and the simple reality is that all governments and all PMs take actions where required.

    It is entirely appropriate though for the priority to be reversing the tax hikes. Having people keeping more of their own income they're working for is not a "flaw" and if people aren't working then they have the option of working. We keep being told there's a labour shortage afterall.
    Public services need to be paid for. Taxes are a necessary part of a civilised society. I think everyone agrees on that. What there can be disagreement on is what taxes, what rates and who pays them? The NI increases were wrong, not because they increased the tax burden but because they unfairly increased the tax burden on the working population at the expense of the retired who are the main users of both social care and the NHS it was supposedly funding. We need to broaden the net on tax contributions and this will almost certainly involve more capital taxes. I don't hear Truss (or indeed Sunak) talking much about that.
    You're not going to hear either Truss or Sunak talking about that either. But we can agree that the NI increases were wrong, and therefore I stand by that reversing them is right. If that means that money is required via alternative taxes - as I've said all governments make other decisions and no prospective leader is ever going to write an entire budget during a leadership election campaign.

    But at the least reversing the NI tax hike is a step in the right direction. If there are to be tax hikes, then allowing the NI hike to stand will simply set that up as a ratchet to be turned ever higher to pay for the NHS and Social Care while allowing those not paying NI to evade their responsibilities to your civilised society all together.
    Exactly. It's a huge Trojan Horse.

    Don't want to put up NI or Income Tax ?

    Fine. Put up the "health and social care levy".
    Yep, that was the wrong way to do it. Yet another tax that can be raised by governments saying they won’t raise income taxes.

    There was a brief mention of UBI on here yesterday, one of those things that works well in theory but is very difficult in practice. The single most difficult thing about it in practice, is that the setting of the rate becomes a political football at election time. It would have to be set by an external committee, in the same way as interest rates, in order to depoliticise it - but which politicians are going to do that?
    I take a simple view on this: taxes at every level should never exceed 50% so you always have an incentive to keep progressing as you keep more of what you earn than the government takes.

    That applies to UBI benefit withdrawal. It applies to graduates paying 9% on top of Income Tax/NI and the HSC levy, as well as obligatory pensions contributions. And it applies to people earning between 100-120k who face an effective marginal rate of 60%.

    We can debate the precise rates within this but that should be the ceiling and the curve should be smoothed throughout.
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