The flaw in Liz’s reliance on tax cuts – politicalbetting.com
The 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.
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So, why is that fair? Why should the government take more money from taxpayers & give it as handouts to the rest?
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.
1.11 Liz Truss 90%
9.6 Rishi Sunak 10%
Next Conservative leader
1.11 Liz Truss 90%
9.8 Rishi Sunak 10%
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.
https://twitter.com/alexofbrown/status/1557084983428370432
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 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.
Touchingly naive to think her policy is intended to help people rather than win an election.
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Blown your cover, tovarisch.
Wordle 417 1/6
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
It tends to arrive in the UK as UO3 and then Springfields processes it into reactor fuel.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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'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'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.
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.
I've heard he's a bit arrogant in private, but I'll let that pass for the good works he does.
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.
Don't want to put up NI or Income Tax ?
Fine. Put up the "health and social care levy".
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.
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 think though that the Truss/Sunak social agenda repels far more than a financial bung attracts.
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.
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
It’s only the Russians, that are so stupid as to keep ammo stores and planes close together.
All very odd.
But, a fuel processing facility will be needed for the new stations coming online in the 2030s. As usual, this is HMG foot dragging.
Ratcheting up taxes on those who are working for a living in order to further swell the welfare state isn't the only option.
“Have you considered joining the space program?”
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.
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.
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.
Meanwhile, plenty of those in work are still going to struggle to pay their bills.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severomorsk_Disaster
Perhaps his faithful lackeys are just re-creating the USSR for him with great accuracy?
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)?
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.
We have clearly progressed from then to "Heat or eat"!
That was if you could get a tap.
You ‘ad kettle?
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.
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.
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.