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A Brexit bonus from Chancellor Kwasi? – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited September 2022 in General
imageA Brexit bonus from Chancellor Kwasi? – politicalbetting.com

We have one at last! According to press reports, Kwasi Kwarteng is thinking of lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses and presenting it as a Brexit win. To echo the eminent lawyer, Marshall Hall (asked by a judge if his clients were familiar with the phrase res ipsa loquitur) – Chancellor, in the Red Wall, they talk of little else.

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Comments

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    rcs1000 said:

    Dynamo said:

    Dynamo said:

    Dynamo said:

    Sandpit said:

    Dynamo said:

    Nigelb said:

    FPT

    As one of the replies says, “He at least helpfully lists all the other countries that Germany would happily give up to Russian aggression…”
    A small reminder of German armed forces leadership.

    Here’s the video that led to the resignation of the German navy chief
    https://twitter.com/mathieuvonrohr/status/1484998437317844996

    Former commanding general of US forces in Europe:
    https://twitter.com/general_ben/status/1570330220674306048
    Stunningly poor analysis of Russian capabilities that unfortunately reflects much of the German “elite” thinking.

    Finland alone would crush Russian forces. Lithuania/Poland would smother Kaliningrad in a week. Russian Navy hiding behind Crimea even though Ukraine has no Navy.
    Of course Ukraine has a f***ing navy.
    Give it a few months and they’ll have a much bigger one. Based out of Sevastopol.
    They were at Sevastopol until 2014, alongside the much bigger Russian navy. Can you see the Russian navy leaving Sevastopol without the war turning nuclear?
    What target would Russia nuke and how would it improve their strategic position?
    You don't believe in nukes as a deterrent then? Kiev? NATO capital cities? Cue escalation with mega-destruction and large losses on both sides.

    Losing Sevastopol completely so that a Ukraine in NATO could welcome in the US navy (and screw the Montreux convention) would mark a major change in the balance of power.

    What's the scenario for Russia being forced to cede Sevastopol without reaching for the nukes and hello WW3? That's what I'd like to know.

    This could be an interesting discussion. Sevastopol is a much bigger prize than the Donbas.
    If Putin tried to suggest to his high command that it was appropriate to use nuclear weapons (he cannot do it on his own) he knows he will be removed from power faster than a retreating "elite" Russian soldier on the Ukrainian front line.

    Stop scaremongering, you just make yourself look like a Putin paid troll.
    "look like" ... :)
    What a pair of idiots you both are, in effect screaming "Enemy agent!" (or is it "Non-believer"? - can you even distinguish?) when somebody suggests that aiming to conquer the main base of nuclear-armed Russia's Black Sea fleet might trigger a nuclear response. Kenny Everett and all true patriots realised all along that the other side's nuclear arsenal was a paper tiger, right?

    I wouldn't want either of you bug-eyed loons on my side in a conflict - you can't consider possible consequences.

    Interestingly (and scarily) the understanding that right-wingers here are showing of the different roads along which this war might develop has plummeted since February.

    But that's enough counter-insults from me. This is a site where people discuss probabilities of eventualities, yes?

    Here's a question then.

    What's the probability of nuclear war breaking out between Russia and the West before say the end of next year?

    From the top of my head (because who really knows?): 30% and rising.

    What are the chances of Russian nuclear weapons working as planned?

    Very low.

    Nuclear weapons require a lot of maintenance. Plutonium and highly enriched Uranium is, by its very nature, throwing off a ton of radiation as it decays. (If it wasn't unstable like this, it'd be a bloody awful weapon.)

    Just as in nuclear power plants, this absolutely hammers the kit used to hold it. And do you really want a brittle enclosure for your nuclear warhead?

    And then there's the fuel. It also tends to be very unstable and to degrade over time.

    Basically, nuclear weapons are incredibly maintenance heavy.

    If there's one thing we've learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it's the extent to which corruption has permeated the Russian army. Those stalled columns of lorries were the direct result of not doing simple maintenance.

    And if you can't do simple, low cost maintenance, what chance that expensive maintenance has been done?

    I would be staggered if more than 10% of Russian nuclear weapons work as planned. I think it is highly likely they would do more damage to Russia than to the West.

    Putin's Generals probably know this. Their yachts came from skimping on maintenance.

    So, my money is on no nuclear war. And if it did occur: well, so be it. One cannot simple accede to a bully's demands to avoid Armageddon, because that way leads to demands-upon-demands-upon-demands.
    Not quite.

    Enriched Uranium is a very low emitter if radiation. Plutonium is a bit higher - depends on the grade (amount of 240 mixed in with the 239). Some super grade stuff was made for nuclear torpedos, since in some subs crew slept next to the torpedoes.

    The early bombs had trouble with rapidly expiring components - mostly imitators and batteries. Aging explosives were an issue.

    In post 60s designs, the big issue is the Tritium. Universally the designs are boosted - a little bit of fusion from the Tritium turbo charges the fission reaction which in turn kicks of the main event (the secondary), itself containing tritium to get tings going.

    The problem is that Tritium decays to Helium 3. Which is a reaction poison - it is worse than useless. And Tritium is fairly radioactive and decays quickly.

    The capsule of Tritium gas in the warheads will need changing every 18 months or so - exact number depends on the design. 5 grams or so of Tritium per bomb. And Tritium is $30,000 odd per gram.

    So you need frequent changes of something that is highly valuable on open market.

    What could go wrong in modern Russia?
    Thank you!
  • Thanks @Cyclefree

    I can only assume that the strategy is to dash for this 2.5% growth target and hope to get there in time for election and then run a campaign saying 'don't let Starmer ruin it'.

    I doubt, though, even if they hit the target (and there is no real sign they have a clue how to) that most ordinary voters will notice.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,341
    All true. The dilemma is that financial services make a lot of money for the UK nonetheless, and therefore there is a (politically impossible) case for allowing payment of the going rate. The case is distasteful but has some clout.
  • I suspect no-one in the "red-wall" will give a stuff tbh, unless Labour can turn into a meaningful narrative, it is unlikely to change the way many people vote, and it is likely to increase tax take. Is it definitely likely to increase financial wrongdoing? Not necessarily if the correct regulatory frameworks are in place
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    The government will need to do better than Big Bung 2.0 https://on.ft.com/3Lfpy8G
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited September 2022
    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138
    edited September 2022

    Thanks @Cyclefree

    I can only assume that the strategy is to dash for this 2.5% growth target and hope to get there in time for election and then run a campaign saying 'don't let Starmer ruin it'.

    I doubt, though, even if they hit the target (and there is no real sign they have a clue how to) that most ordinary voters will notice.

    Even without it I think there's a dilemma for Labour being presented here (and I say that as someone who thinks all these tax cuts and regulatory loosenings are inadvisable and bad politics generally). Come the next election Labour will have a choice whether to promise rises in CT and NI, and possibly income tax, in order to get back to where we were with Rishi, or whether to keep them, Blair-style.

    Tories will I assume try the 1992 tax bombshell tactic. They are creating facts on the ground. The question is whether they are doing so masterfully like Russia in 2014, or so cack-handedly that it leads ultimately to their destruction like Russia in 2022.

    Of all the changes Kwarteng and Truss are proposing I think Labour should focus on the regulatory ones. Nobody (apart from a few bank employees) will vote Tory because they are protecting banking bonuses. Many will vote Labour or Lib Dem to protect food standards, stop sewage releases on beaches and ensure net-zero.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,784
    edited September 2022
    Bankers can have unlimited bonuses. Bankers can have unlimited wages.

    What I would legislate is that, for a company employing in the UK, the CEO's or any top earners bonus, can only be a certain.multiple of the lowliest employees bonus (say 40% average vs 20% average). The pension in multiplier terms is on a par with the lowliest employees terms. Etc.

    Pay your top staff an uncapped bonus, expect to pay much more to the lowliest too.

    Oh, and note that your cleaning contractor has a CEO as well.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    FPT:

    MattW said:

    ping said:

    Selebian said:

    Foss said:

    The new BBC News countdown is rather good.

    https://nitter.net/chrisckmedia/status/1570359005561913346#m

    I was totally expecting that to be a parody. It's for real?
    I don’t see the problem, on its own. It’s quite nice and fitting and the soundtrack, especially, is better than their normal techno/Ibiza one.

    Well, it wouldn’t be a problem if the BBC (and most other media) mostly reverted to normal service after the first 48hrs after her death. Going big on the funeral is fine with me, too.

    It’s the nine days of unnecessary, blanket coverage, inbetween, that pisses me off. Stories about the queens favourite Tupperware, or whatever.

    They’ve got it wrong. But the soundtrack isn’t the problem. It’s a target for attack because it’s a proxy.
    “ It’s the nine days of unnecessary, blanket coverage, inbetween, that pisses me off.”

    I’m totally addicted to this TV coverage.

    I keep telling myself if I don’t join the queue I will regret it for the rest of my life, but I’m hooked on the news coverage and scared I might miss something. I’d also rather see the queen alive, seeing her dead might be a bit sad.

    I’m definitely going Monday because I can record it on all channels and watch them later.
    I think it depends what place HMQ / the funeral has in your own life, and what rituals you choose to follow.

    I went to watch Diana's funeral cortege with members of her personal staff, and for them it was about a goodbye, and marking an endpoint of what time in their lives, and also about supporting in some way her immediate family. A punctuation mark in life before a new start.

    Personally, I won't be going to the funeral itself or the lying in state, or following the story in especial detail, as the amount of complication seems too much for me this time. I'll do something to mark the moment and the transition, though.

    For me with family one of the important rituals around a death is going to view the body, to fix in my mind that the person is now gone. I'm surprised how many people do not do that. It's also a deliberate decision I made years ago to avoid buying into the pretence quite prevalent in our society that a death does not matter, and should be minimised or ignored.
    Maybe it’s because I’m younger I feel differently about seeing dead body. Do I need to see them actually dead for my brain to compute they are gone? Seeing someone dead to jog your brain into realises goneness is different than a funeral, a funeral is thanks giving for a life.

    I’m still in two minds. My first feeling was to join the queue, but then I started to ask myself what will I get from it? Are people jumping in the queue for queen or country - see dead person or see pageantry? And then if Royalty are doing a vigil of princes at coffin I couldn’t decide how I should dress or do my hair for it, the same as for a funeral or not? What does it say in debrettes about dressing to visit someone lying in state?

    To go back to Ping’s point, how people don’t realise the market for this coverage not just how right and proper it is. there is an absolute massive demand for this, when newspapers do special royal supplements and editions they double sales, you see they will have sold loads more newspapers everyday this week. Would not be surprised the tv viewing figures much bigger than normal these “9 days”

    My mum and Dad and brother addicted to this blanket coverage too.
    An interesting reply - thanks. Difficult to reply in a comment. Let me try.

    It's not really about age - more imo about worldview. It was a practice I adopted in my early 20s after reading a book by an interesting sociologist called Dr Andrew Walker, arguing that modernity had removed richness from life. An interesting man - he was a convert from rationalised Protestantism to more numinous Russian Orthodoxy, which has a far deeper ritual practice.

    Around death the case was that people who have died are still part of our lives through being in our memories and in our lives through things we have shared with them, and that modern culture seeks to hide death (and illness) away in hospitals, which are almost a factory setting, to hand it over to professionals, and not to acknowledge the full breadth of the relationship. He viewed the over---transactional nature of modernist culture as dehumanising.

    And that it is far healthier to acknowledge that continuing relationship with someone who has died, and deliberately allow it time to steep and turn into a memory, than to package it up and try and bury or burn it with the body at a single stroke. I treat viewing the body as part of the process of allowing my relationship with the deceased to develop from a living relationship into an acknowledged memory over time.

    There are parallel things - hospices focused on a 'good death' are part of it, as is a swing towards deliberate acknowledgment of dying / death over the last several decades, as are homespun rituals that many adopt.

    To return to @ping 's point, I think that one important function of the current process is to remind ourselves of our largely unwritten constitutional settlement - just as the various parades around Parliament, Black Rod having the doors slammed etc. Naturally some people who would prefer a written constitution etc are protesting.

  • HYUFD said:

    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw

    I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,725
    'Does the Chancellor really think'

    I note there is no answer to this question.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138

    I suspect no-one in the "red-wall" will give a stuff tbh, unless Labour can turn into a meaningful narrative, it is unlikely to change the way many people vote, and it is likely to increase tax take. Is it definitely likely to increase financial wrongdoing? Not necessarily if the correct regulatory frameworks are in place

    All Labour needs in order to win back most of the red wall is for 2019 new Tory voters to be too apathetic or disillusioned to vote for them this time. Labour probably doesn't need to excite or inspire them. Consider all those blue wall remain-inclined seats that returned Tories, reluctantly and with no great joy, in 2019 because they couldn't stand Corbyn.
  • Pro_Rata said:

    Bankers can have unlimited bonuses. Bankers can have unlimited wages.

    What I would legislate is that, for a company employing in the UK, the CEO's or any top earners bonus, can only be a certain.multiple of the lowliest employees bonus (say 40% average vs 20% average). The pension in multiplier terms is on a par with the lowliest employees terms. Etc.

    Pay your top staff an uncapped bonus, expect to pay much more to the lowliest too.

    Oh, and note that your cleaning contractor has a CEO as well.

    Great way to see the mass redundancy of the lower paid and mass outsourcing as an unintended consequence.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited September 2022

    HYUFD said:

    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw

    I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
    Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.

    If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,749
    edited September 2022
    My favourite piece on banking hypocrisy, greed, criminality and regulatory incompetence remains Matt Taibbi's article in Rolling Stone Magazine of all places:
    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-102004/

    It is an extremely well researched piece that is also extremely funny, if you like your humour pitch dark.

    But of course everything will be completely different now 😉
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138
    I'm one of those considering going to view the queue. Not to join it, but to take a look.
    It's moving inexorably closer to my patch of SE London.

    The only other time we get mass gatherings of the general public down here is on London Marathon day.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Pro_Rata said:

    Bankers can have unlimited bonuses. Bankers can have unlimited wages.

    What I would legislate is that, for a company employing in the UK, the CEO's or any top earners bonus, can only be a certain.multiple of the lowliest employees bonus (say 40% average vs 20% average). The pension in multiplier terms is on a par with the lowliest employees terms. Etc.

    Pay your top staff an uncapped bonus, expect to pay much more to the lowliest too.

    Oh, and note that your cleaning contractor has a CEO as well.

    Great way to see the mass redundancy of the lower paid and mass outsourcing as an unintended consequence.
    It wouldn't be mass redundancy - just mass TUPE over to outsourced companies with consequences that can be seen in the USA.

    It would be a courageous decision.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    edited September 2022
    About an hour ago 100,000 were watching the TV livestream of The Queue doing the Catafalque Shuffle (and that's the BBC, Sky and ITV has their own live-streams)

    That's 100,000 looking at OTHER people looking a box with a crown on it

    Given that this is on 24/7 the overall viewing stats will be phenom
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    Leon said:

    About an hour ago 100,000 were watching the TV livestream of The Queue doing the Catafalque Shuffle (and that's the BBC, Sky has its own live-stream)

    That's 100,000 looking at OTHER people looking a box with a crown on it

    Given that this is on 24/7 the overall viewing stats will be phenom

    How many of those 100,000 are in the queue?
  • It seems the left have no question to which the answer is not "spend more money" - but any measures to raise revenues are utterly anathema.

    If people in the private sector get paid more, then HMRC takes more in taxes, and then they can spend more on your pet projects, whether it be Care or the NHS or Education. The public sector wages can't go up without a healthy private sector paying for it.

    If people are evading their fair share of taxes, then that is a problem, which needs to be tackled. But if people are getting paid more, which is getting taxed honestly, then that should not be considered problematic.
  • TimS said:

    I suspect no-one in the "red-wall" will give a stuff tbh, unless Labour can turn into a meaningful narrative, it is unlikely to change the way many people vote, and it is likely to increase tax take. Is it definitely likely to increase financial wrongdoing? Not necessarily if the correct regulatory frameworks are in place

    All Labour needs in order to win back most of the red wall is for 2019 new Tory voters to be too apathetic or disillusioned to vote for them this time. Labour probably doesn't need to excite or inspire them. Consider all those blue wall remain-inclined seats that returned Tories, reluctantly and with no great joy, in 2019 because they couldn't stand Corbyn.
    I personally think there is a lot of BS said about the "Red Wall". A lot of those seats had shifting demographics so were going Tory anyway. Corbyn helped them on their way with out a doubt. I am in "Blue Wall" territory and voted LD in the last two GEs out of protest at the Brexit absurdity and would have remained that way if The Clown was still in post, but I have an open mind about Truss, so we will see.
  • How does banning bonuses actually help ordinary people?
  • The idea that the 2008/9 crash was caused by bankers' bonuses is at best speculative, and more likely utter nonsense, and the EU-imposed limit is daft in the extreme: it doesn't mean bankers get paid less, it means that fixed pay has to be a higher proportion of their total expected remuneration. The cap is therefore destabilising for financial institutions, who will have to pay those mega-salaries even in bad years. Removing the cap would therefore be attractive to financial institutions, as it limits their risk whilst still allowing them to pay the megabucks they need to attract the big hitters to London. So, looking at the policy in isolation, Kwarteng is quite right to want to scrap it.

    However, a sensible government doesn't look at policy in isolation. There are two ginormous downsides to the announcement. The first is the obvious one that the politics is dire: this is a massive free gift to Labour, especially now when many ordinary people are facing financial difficulties or outright disaster. The second is that it will encourage the EU to make life harder for the City. It's a double own-goal, a blunder which only an extremely inexperienced and over-confident new Chancellor and PM could make. It doesn't bode well for the government's prospects in the months ahead.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,583
    There were confident reports that there would be no help with lockdown.

    There were confident reports that nothing would be done about energy bills this winter

    How confident is this report on the @Leon rumour scale?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,111
    eek said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Bankers can have unlimited bonuses. Bankers can have unlimited wages.

    What I would legislate is that, for a company employing in the UK, the CEO's or any top earners bonus, can only be a certain.multiple of the lowliest employees bonus (say 40% average vs 20% average). The pension in multiplier terms is on a par with the lowliest employees terms. Etc.

    Pay your top staff an uncapped bonus, expect to pay much more to the lowliest too.

    Oh, and note that your cleaning contractor has a CEO as well.

    Great way to see the mass redundancy of the lower paid and mass outsourcing as an unintended consequence.
    It wouldn't be mass redundancy - just mass TUPE over to outsourced companies with consequences that can be seen in the USA.

    It would be a courageous decision.
    "If you don't give us huge bonuses, the kitten gets it, and the schoolteacher, and the old lady, and the dentist too."
  • EPGEPG Posts: 5,996
    Isn't the London financial sector one of the largest in the world? Whatever the problems may be, it is not evidently a failure? It's also not clear that retaining the old boys' networks would have made things better? Nor that paying staff much less would have made things better? Perhaps there should be a public morality cap on high salaries, but won't we find when the genie is out of the bottle that the cap will end up somewhere around 65k?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited September 2022
    Kwasi won University Challenge of course, but earlier today, an old video of PB's favourite quizzical MP for somewhere up north popped up on my Youtube feed.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzaWpkHQ5JQ

    ETA it's a bit dull tbh
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw

    I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
    Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.

    If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
    Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 5,996
    Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Bankers can have unlimited bonuses. Bankers can have unlimited wages.

    What I would legislate is that, for a company employing in the UK, the CEO's or any top earners bonus, can only be a certain.multiple of the lowliest employees bonus (say 40% average vs 20% average). The pension in multiplier terms is on a par with the lowliest employees terms. Etc.

    Pay your top staff an uncapped bonus, expect to pay much more to the lowliest too.

    Oh, and note that your cleaning contractor has a CEO as well.

    Great way to see the mass redundancy of the lower paid and mass outsourcing as an unintended consequence.
    It wouldn't be mass redundancy - just mass TUPE over to outsourced companies with consequences that can be seen in the USA.

    It would be a courageous decision.
    "If you don't give us huge bonuses, the kitten gets it, and the schoolteacher, and the old lady, and the dentist too."
    To be extremely fair, the bonuses are coming from the services they provide and not from "you" as such. It is noble but puzzling to demand that shareholders and partners be protected from labour competition by penalising performance-related pay.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,111

    There were confident reports that there would be no help with lockdown.

    There were confident reports that nothing would be done about energy bills this winter

    How confident is this report on the @Leon rumour scale?

    OTOH what happens if he doesn't lift the cap, now it's been floated? The ERG will not be happy.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,111
    EPG said:

    Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Bankers can have unlimited bonuses. Bankers can have unlimited wages.

    What I would legislate is that, for a company employing in the UK, the CEO's or any top earners bonus, can only be a certain.multiple of the lowliest employees bonus (say 40% average vs 20% average). The pension in multiplier terms is on a par with the lowliest employees terms. Etc.

    Pay your top staff an uncapped bonus, expect to pay much more to the lowliest too.

    Oh, and note that your cleaning contractor has a CEO as well.

    Great way to see the mass redundancy of the lower paid and mass outsourcing as an unintended consequence.
    It wouldn't be mass redundancy - just mass TUPE over to outsourced companies with consequences that can be seen in the USA.

    It would be a courageous decision.
    "If you don't give us huge bonuses, the kitten gets it, and the schoolteacher, and the old lady, and the dentist too."
    To be extremely fair, the bonuses are coming from the services they provide and not from "you" as such. It is noble but puzzling to demand that shareholders and partners be protected from labour competition by penalising performance-related pay.
    Okay, sorry, 'allow' would be a better verb!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,725
    DavidL said:

    My favourite piece on banking hypocrisy, greed, criminality and regulatory incompetence remains Matt Taibbi's article in Rolling Stone Magazine of all places:
    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-102004/

    It is an extremely well researched piece that is also extremely funny, if you like your humour pitch dark.

    But of course everything will be completely different now 😉

    Well, yes. We're so broke now we can't even afford rope to hang them from the lamp posts with.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    MattW said:

    Leon said:

    About an hour ago 100,000 were watching the TV livestream of The Queue doing the Catafalque Shuffle (and that's the BBC, Sky has its own live-stream)

    That's 100,000 looking at OTHER people looking a box with a crown on it

    Given that this is on 24/7 the overall viewing stats will be phenom

    How many of those 100,000 are in the queue?
    Not me!

    As the world's foremost connoisseur of Royal Lying-in-State Livestreams I have to say the one in St Giles Scotland was marginally better, as the mourners got more time with the coffin - ten or fifteen seconds rather than 3 or 5 - allowing more intense emotions to emerge: proper tears, deeper bows, murmured prayers

    The sheer weight of numbers invLondon is limiting the emoting

    However, it is still compelling to watch. All those people, all those stories. Just now some rich, well dressed woman - completely composed - did an urgent almost gasping prayer. WTF
  • TimS said:

    I'm one of those considering going to view the queue. Not to join it, but to take a look.
    It's moving inexorably closer to my patch of SE London.

    The only other time we get mass gatherings of the general public down here is on London Marathon day.

    Will there end up being a queue to view the queue....
  • There are two ginormous downsides to the announcement. The first is the obvious one that the politics is dire: this is a massive free gift to Labour, especially now when many ordinary people are facing financial difficulties or outright disaster. The second is that it will encourage the EU to make life harder for the City. It's a double own-goal, a blunder which only an extremely inexperienced and over-confident new Chancellor and PM could make. It doesn't bode well for the government's prospects in the months ahead.

    I'm sure that if the Cameron/Osborne team had made the same move, you wouldn't find these downsides at all compelling.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 5,996

    How does banning bonuses actually help ordinary people?

    Hits them in the warm feels. Putting this policy in the same noble category as Brexit: naff all good.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,145
    edited September 2022

    The idea that the 2008/9 crash was caused by bankers' bonuses is at best speculative, and more likely utter nonsense, and the EU-imposed limit is daft in the extreme: it doesn't mean bankers get paid less, it means that fixed pay has to be a higher proportion of their total expected remuneration. The cap is therefore destabilising for financial institutions, who will have to pay those mega-salaries even in bad years. Removing the cap would therefore be attractive to financial institutions, as it limits their risk whilst still allowing them to pay the megabucks they need to attract the big hitters to London. So, looking at the policy in isolation, Kwarteng is quite right to want to scrap it.

    However, a sensible government doesn't look at policy in isolation. There are two ginormous downsides to the announcement. The first is the obvious one that the politics is dire: this is a massive free gift to Labour, especially now when many ordinary people are facing financial difficulties or outright disaster. The second is that it will encourage the EU to make life harder for the City. It's a double own-goal, a blunder which only an extremely inexperienced and over-confident new Chancellor and PM could make. It doesn't bode well for the government's prospects in the months ahead.

    I love your perverse logic that the policy the EU implemented is a bad policy, but abolishing it is an own goal as the EU might not like us diverging from their bad policies.

    If it is a good policy then argue for it on its own merits.

    If its a bad policy, then diverging from that will make us more competitive than the EU, if they end up sticking to a bad policy.

    Diverging from bad ideas is not problematic. That is precisely the benefit of Brexit.
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594
    edited September 2022
    Does no limits for bank bonuses mean lots in more tax revenues for the Exchequer?

    A. Yes, in which case can the limit

    B. No, in which case don't can the limit.

    There's no stability issue here really. If banks start making big losses, the post 2008 system means that these losses can be borne by investors, not taxpayers.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    OOOH something's happened. They've switched to a shot of Parliament outside. Means there's be *a incident* inside

    Last time it was an archer collapsing. Maybe this time it will be an arquebuser vomiting
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,725

    TimS said:

    I'm one of those considering going to view the queue. Not to join it, but to take a look.
    It's moving inexorably closer to my patch of SE London.

    The only other time we get mass gatherings of the general public down here is on London Marathon day.

    Will there end up being a queue to view the queue....
    If there is, I want to join the queue of people waiting to see the queue of people waiting to see the queue for the lying in state.
  • There are two ginormous downsides to the announcement. The first is the obvious one that the politics is dire: this is a massive free gift to Labour, especially now when many ordinary people are facing financial difficulties or outright disaster. The second is that it will encourage the EU to make life harder for the City. It's a double own-goal, a blunder which only an extremely inexperienced and over-confident new Chancellor and PM could make. It doesn't bode well for the government's prospects in the months ahead.

    I'm sure that if the Cameron/Osborne team had made the same move, you wouldn't find these downsides at all compelling.
    Dream on, Osborne would never make a political blunder like that at a time like this.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw

    I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
    Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.

    If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
    Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
    Mrs T was a giant compared to Truss and also more politically savvy about what the average voter needed and also had not changed positions on key issues multiple times.

    She was also lucky enough to be facing a failing Labour government, not be PM 12 years into a Tory government
  • What a day to be somebody who supervises and regulates bankers.
  • Mind you, the most amusing thing about bankers' bonuses and their mega-pay is that the Left get so het up about the issue. I thought the whole point of socialism was to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, which is exactly what happens at Goldman Sachs.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,111

    What a day to be somebody who supervises and regulates bankers.

    Put it this way, you won't be made redundant soon.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,725

    What a day to be somebody who supervises and regulates bankers.

    Why? Have they all spontaneously combusted via multiple orgasms?
  • Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Bankers can have unlimited bonuses. Bankers can have unlimited wages.

    What I would legislate is that, for a company employing in the UK, the CEO's or any top earners bonus, can only be a certain.multiple of the lowliest employees bonus (say 40% average vs 20% average). The pension in multiplier terms is on a par with the lowliest employees terms. Etc.

    Pay your top staff an uncapped bonus, expect to pay much more to the lowliest too.

    Oh, and note that your cleaning contractor has a CEO as well.

    Great way to see the mass redundancy of the lower paid and mass outsourcing as an unintended consequence.
    It wouldn't be mass redundancy - just mass TUPE over to outsourced companies with consequences that can be seen in the USA.

    It would be a courageous decision.
    "If you don't give us huge bonuses, the kitten gets it, and the schoolteacher, and the old lady, and the dentist too."
    Silly comment from a poster who normally speaks some sense, and while I am sure was intended to have comic effect merely underlines the tragic lack of understanding of commerce by those in the education sector. As for dentists, I have never seen one of those living in a small house, and most people outside the city in the private sector would love one of their index linked final salary tax payer guaranteed pensions.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,583
    Carnyx said:

    There were confident reports that there would be no help with lockdown.

    There were confident reports that nothing would be done about energy bills this winter

    How confident is this report on the @Leon rumour scale?

    OTOH what happens if he doesn't lift the cap, now it's been floated? The ERG will not be happy.
    My impression is that we are in a game of press briefing - both to promote and sabotage various ideas. Very common in the run up to budgets. The briefings in the Blair years for and against Browns pet ideas come to mind.

    This is multiplied by the press often not having a clue and inventing stories.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,725
    edited September 2022
    Carnyx said:

    What a day to be somebody who supervises and regulates bankers.

    Put it this way, you won't be made redundant soon.
    Ummmm...with Truss in charge I suggest that's a bold assumption.

    If there's no regulation, you won't need regulators.

    WTAF is autocorrect playing at? Even when I'm typing words correctly it randomly changes them.

    Honestly, more useless than Amanda Spielman.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    MISTY said:

    Does no limits for bank bonuses mean lots in more tax revenues for the Exchequer?

    A. Yes, in which case can the limit

    B. No, in which case don't can the limit.

    There's no stability issue here really. If banks start making big losses, the post 2008 system means that these losses can be borne by investors, not taxpayers.

    The post 2008 system means it's more likely losses will be borne by investors - it doesn't guarantee that the taxpayers won't pay a penny...
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    What a day to be somebody who supervises and regulates bankers.

    I hope the backhanders are a % of the total take?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    edited September 2022
    ydoethur said:

    TimS said:

    I'm one of those considering going to view the queue. Not to join it, but to take a look.
    It's moving inexorably closer to my patch of SE London.

    The only other time we get mass gatherings of the general public down here is on London Marathon day.

    Will there end up being a queue to view the queue....
    If there is, I want to join the queue of people waiting to see the queue of people waiting to see the queue for the lying in state.
    Why are you here?


    "Because it's an historic moment. How often do you get to see a long queue of people simply waiting in line to see the huge queue of people that are patiently waiting to see that totally massive queue of people who are slowly queuing to see the queen? We had to join the queue. It's what she would have wanted"

  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw

    I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
    Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.

    If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
    Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
    Mrs T was a giant compared to Truss and also more politically savvy about what the average voter needed and also had not changed positions on key issues multiple times.

    She was also lucky enough to be facing a failing Labour government, not be PM 12 years into a Tory government
    Yes Mrs T was much more savvy about what voters needed. At times of hardship Mrs T imposed windfall taxes on those not suffering in order to redistribute to those who were. Straight away Truss failed the Mrs T test.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    I love the people that bring their sweet little kids to see Her Maj

    As they enter the great medieval hall, and walk in their little shoes down the steps to confront the coffin, you can see, on their tiny angelic faces, they are also thinking: What the c*nting hell is all this shit about?
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw

    I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
    Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.

    If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
    Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
    Mrs T was a giant compared to Truss and also more politically savvy about what the average voter needed and also had not changed positions on key issues multiple times.

    She was also lucky enough to be facing a failing Labour government, not be PM 12 years into a Tory government
    Yes but you missed my point; she was definitely not considered a giant when she first took leadership. She was mocked for having a "shrill" silly voice and there was lots of misogyny thrown her way. Boris Johnson would have been the type to underestimate her because she wasn't one of the lads and didn't lie to get where she needed to go.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,111
    edited September 2022

    Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Bankers can have unlimited bonuses. Bankers can have unlimited wages.

    What I would legislate is that, for a company employing in the UK, the CEO's or any top earners bonus, can only be a certain.multiple of the lowliest employees bonus (say 40% average vs 20% average). The pension in multiplier terms is on a par with the lowliest employees terms. Etc.

    Pay your top staff an uncapped bonus, expect to pay much more to the lowliest too.

    Oh, and note that your cleaning contractor has a CEO as well.

    Great way to see the mass redundancy of the lower paid and mass outsourcing as an unintended consequence.
    It wouldn't be mass redundancy - just mass TUPE over to outsourced companies with consequences that can be seen in the USA.

    It would be a courageous decision.
    "If you don't give us huge bonuses, the kitten gets it, and the schoolteacher, and the old lady, and the dentist too."
    Silly comment from a poster who normally speaks some sense, and while I am sure was intended to have comic effect merely underlines the tragic lack of understanding of commerce by those in the education sector. As for dentists, I have never seen one of those living in a small house, and most people outside the city in the private sector would love one of their index linked final salary tax payer guaranteed pensions.
    It was an ironic allusion to the public image this is generating, and the possibnle public reaction when it's coupled with tax cuts. It's been interesting to see the comments on this and on the deeper realities - notably Cyclefree's (for which many thanks to C.)

    (As for dentists, are you right about the ILFSP? Lots of them have gone private for much or all of their work. And the impression I get is that even when they are doing NHS work some are employees of private firms which get the dosh from the NHS.)
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    edited September 2022

    Mind you, the most amusing thing about bankers' bonuses and their mega-pay is that the Left get so het up about the issue. I thought the whole point of socialism was to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, which is exactly what happens at Goldman Sachs.

    Not rich mostly Tory voting workers for a Jewish founded firm, by definition they are scum for socialists
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,111
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    What a day to be somebody who supervises and regulates bankers.

    Put it this way, you won't be made redundant soon.
    Ummmm...with Truss in charge I suggest that's a bold assumption.

    If there's no regulation, you won't need regulators.

    WTAF is autocorrect playing at? Even when I'm typing words correctly it randomly changes them.

    Honestly, more useless than Amanda Spielman.
    Okay, should have said "ought not to be made redundant"!
  • There are two ginormous downsides to the announcement. The first is the obvious one that the politics is dire: this is a massive free gift to Labour, especially now when many ordinary people are facing financial difficulties or outright disaster. The second is that it will encourage the EU to make life harder for the City. It's a double own-goal, a blunder which only an extremely inexperienced and over-confident new Chancellor and PM could make. It doesn't bode well for the government's prospects in the months ahead.

    I'm sure that if the Cameron/Osborne team had made the same move, you wouldn't find these downsides at all compelling.
    Dream on, Osborne would never make a political blunder like that at a time like this.
    You think the man who was hosted on Oleg Deripaska's yacht shortly after Russia's invasion of Georgia has infallible judgment?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Arguably it would be a political mistake for Labour to revert to the politics of envy over bonuses instead of the relaxed New Labour attitude. The structural problems that our economy faces are not caused by having too many high-earning people working here rather than in New York, Frankfurt or Singapore.

    That's 'politics of envy' scratched off the bingo card.

    Keep an eye out for how people should be 'intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich'.
  • Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Bankers can have unlimited bonuses. Bankers can have unlimited wages.

    What I would legislate is that, for a company employing in the UK, the CEO's or any top earners bonus, can only be a certain.multiple of the lowliest employees bonus (say 40% average vs 20% average). The pension in multiplier terms is on a par with the lowliest employees terms. Etc.

    Pay your top staff an uncapped bonus, expect to pay much more to the lowliest too.

    Oh, and note that your cleaning contractor has a CEO as well.

    Great way to see the mass redundancy of the lower paid and mass outsourcing as an unintended consequence.
    It wouldn't be mass redundancy - just mass TUPE over to outsourced companies with consequences that can be seen in the USA.

    It would be a courageous decision.
    "If you don't give us huge bonuses, the kitten gets it, and the schoolteacher, and the old lady, and the dentist too."
    Silly comment from a poster who normally speaks some sense, and while I am sure was intended to have comic effect merely underlines the tragic lack of understanding of commerce by those in the education sector. As for dentists, I have never seen one of those living in a small house, and most people outside the city in the private sector would love one of their index linked final salary tax payer guaranteed pensions.
    It was an ironic allusion to the public image this is generating, and the possibnle public reaction when it's coupled with tax cuts. It's been interesting to see the comments on this and on the deeper realities - notably Cyclefree's (for which many thanks to C.)

    (As for dentists, are you right about the ILFSP? Lots of them have gone private for much or all of their work. And the impression I get is that even when they are doing NHS work some are employees of private firms which get the dosh.)
    Yep, most have taken their NHS training and then gone private and charge absurd fees so that some poor folk are forced to pull their own teeth out. Do they ever get the opprobrium poured on them that these treeible bankers get? Nope, they just keep on making mountains of cash
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,530
    I can’t see this policy going ahead . I suspect no 11 will see the polling and think , perhaps not .
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    There are two ginormous downsides to the announcement. The first is the obvious one that the politics is dire: this is a massive free gift to Labour, especially now when many ordinary people are facing financial difficulties or outright disaster. The second is that it will encourage the EU to make life harder for the City. It's a double own-goal, a blunder which only an extremely inexperienced and over-confident new Chancellor and PM could make. It doesn't bode well for the government's prospects in the months ahead.

    I'm sure that if the Cameron/Osborne team had made the same move, you wouldn't find these downsides at all compelling.
    Dream on, Osborne would never make a political blunder like that at a time like this.
    It’s almost like all the new cabinet have been brainwashed in a cult together, and it’s like a tiny cult takeover that they won’t have anyone with a different view in their cabinet.

    Whatever it is they were all brainwashed together with, it’s not Conservatism - it’s extremely dry 21st century neo liberal economics or something, because as HY points out in recent post, everything Truss government announces instantly fails the Mrs T 1980s conservatism test, let alone the “Cameroon” view.
  • You think the man who was hosted on Oleg Deripaska's yacht shortly after Russia's invasion of Georgia has infallible judgment?

    No, but much better political judgment than any other senior politician of recent years, other than Blair and Mandelson (neither of whom were infallible either, of course, indeed Mandelson was on the same yacht).
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,145
    edited September 2022

    There are two ginormous downsides to the announcement. The first is the obvious one that the politics is dire: this is a massive free gift to Labour, especially now when many ordinary people are facing financial difficulties or outright disaster. The second is that it will encourage the EU to make life harder for the City. It's a double own-goal, a blunder which only an extremely inexperienced and over-confident new Chancellor and PM could make. It doesn't bode well for the government's prospects in the months ahead.

    I'm sure that if the Cameron/Osborne team had made the same move, you wouldn't find these downsides at all compelling.
    Dream on, Osborne would never make a political blunder like that at a time like this.
    Why's it a blunder? All you seem to be saying is:

    A: Because its a good idea, but Labour voters may not like it.
    B: Because its a good idea, but the EU are cutting off their nose to spite their face, so we should too.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Unless you can prove immediate benefits to normal people as a whole the bankers bonus thing is just not politically worth doing. You'll have to do a lot of explaining, and people already dislike the government at the best of times, never mind during a coming recession and energy crisis. They don't want to hear about it, and is it worth the political capital it will cost ahead of an election?
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138
    Lifting the bonus cap or at least looking into it is probably not a massively bad idea, policy wise. But it’s the messaging it sends about priorities and whose side they’re on that’s the killer.

    That plus it nicely neutralises any future attempts at finger pointing at Brown for single-handedly causing the financial crisis by deregulating banks. An attack line that served successive Tory leaders well despite their own track record on the subject, but will be unusable henceforth.
  • ydoethur said:

    What a day to be somebody who supervises and regulates bankers.

    Why? Have they all spontaneously combusted via multiple orgasms?
    I have my annual pay review soon, I’ll be able to write my own contract.

    This policy change is going to lead to whoopsies.
  • kle4 said:

    Unless you can prove immediate benefits to normal people as a whole the bankers bonus thing is just not politically worth doing. You'll have to do a lot of explaining, and people already dislike the government at the best of times, never mind during a coming recession and energy crisis. They don't want to hear about it, and is it worth the political capital it will cost ahead of an election?

    "This will generate banks more secure, by allowing remuneration to be more linked to performance and less fixed, and generate more tax revenues to spend on Schools, Care and Hospitals"

    There, done. And move on. It won't stay in the news for long, once its done, its done.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    I love the people that bring their sweet little kids to see Her Maj

    As they enter the great medieval hall, and walk in their little shoes down the steps to confront the coffin, you can see, on their tiny angelic faces, they are also thinking: What the c*nting hell is all this shit about?

    Borderline child abuse if they aren't fast tracking them.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,111
    edited September 2022

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    Pro_Rata said:

    Bankers can have unlimited bonuses. Bankers can have unlimited wages.

    What I would legislate is that, for a company employing in the UK, the CEO's or any top earners bonus, can only be a certain.multiple of the lowliest employees bonus (say 40% average vs 20% average). The pension in multiplier terms is on a par with the lowliest employees terms. Etc.

    Pay your top staff an uncapped bonus, expect to pay much more to the lowliest too.

    Oh, and note that your cleaning contractor has a CEO as well.

    Great way to see the mass redundancy of the lower paid and mass outsourcing as an unintended consequence.
    It wouldn't be mass redundancy - just mass TUPE over to outsourced companies with consequences that can be seen in the USA.

    It would be a courageous decision.
    "If you don't give us huge bonuses, the kitten gets it, and the schoolteacher, and the old lady, and the dentist too."
    Silly comment from a poster who normally speaks some sense, and while I am sure was intended to have comic effect merely underlines the tragic lack of understanding of commerce by those in the education sector. As for dentists, I have never seen one of those living in a small house, and most people outside the city in the private sector would love one of their index linked final salary tax payer guaranteed pensions.
    It was an ironic allusion to the public image this is generating, and the possibnle public reaction when it's coupled with tax cuts. It's been interesting to see the comments on this and on the deeper realities - notably Cyclefree's (for which many thanks to C.)

    (As for dentists, are you right about the ILFSP? Lots of them have gone private for much or all of their work. And the impression I get is that even when they are doing NHS work some are employees of private firms which get the dosh.)
    Yep, most have taken their NHS training and then gone private and charge absurd fees so that some poor folk are forced to pull their own teeth out. Do they ever get the opprobrium poured on them that these treeible bankers get? Nope, they just keep on making mountains of cash
    Doesn't dental training just consist of the BDS or eqwuivalent, for which they have had to pay for a while now, anyway? The only NHS component would be the teaching hospitals, but that's basically for providing practice fodder so the NHS gets cheap labour in return. One does need to do a supervised year in the NHS after graduating, but that is only if you want to work in the NHS (not sure if that means do NHS work or acvtually be employed).

    https://bda.org/careers/becomingadentist

  • Why's it a blunder? All you seem to be saying is:

    A: Because its a good idea, but Labour voters may not like it.
    B: Because its a good idea, but the EU are cutting off their nose to spite their face, so we should too.

    It's a blunder for the obvious reasons: the more important reason is that it will go down very badly with the Tory voters they need to retain, and the secondary reason is that the disadvantages of the policy itself are likely to be outweighed by the EU's response.

    Of course, it's insignificant compared with the damage already done to the economy by government policy since 2019.
  • TimS said:

    Lifting the bonus cap or at least looking into it is probably not a massively bad idea, policy wise. But it’s the messaging it sends about priorities and whose side they’re on that’s the killer.

    That plus it nicely neutralises any future attempts at finger pointing at Brown for single-handedly causing the financial crisis by deregulating banks. An attack line that served successive Tory leaders well despite their own track record on the subject, but will be unusable henceforth.

    Brown didn't cause the financial crisis by deregulating banks.

    He caused the issues by overspending and by screwing up the regulations by removing Bank of England oversight from the Banks.

    More regulations don't make the financial sector more secure if they're bad regulations, you need deregulation but smart regulations, rather than box ticking for the sake of politics.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited September 2022

    kle4 said:

    Unless you can prove immediate benefits to normal people as a whole the bankers bonus thing is just not politically worth doing. You'll have to do a lot of explaining, and people already dislike the government at the best of times, never mind during a coming recession and energy crisis. They don't want to hear about it, and is it worth the political capital it will cost ahead of an election?

    "This will generate banks more secure, by allowing remuneration to be more linked to performance and less fixed, and generate more tax revenues to spend on Schools, Care and Hospitals"

    There, done. And move on. It won't stay in the news for long, once its done, its done.
    I said immediate. People aren't going to believe it in advance, since we all know how rich people have tricks for avoiding tax which are, somehow, legal. Not in a period of financial strain like this.

    Government's also promise endless amounts of efficiency savings without affecting performance or outcomes, and is that always achieved? Do you really think it will go down well with voters or that they won't care, when it is so easy to portray as Tories revealing their priorities?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    A woman in absolute floods of tears

    A woman who can barely walk, determined to curtsey

    An affluent seeming middle aged man trying not to cry: and failing

    Lots of masked East Asian people who are super respectful and do enormous bows: Hong Kongers?

    And teens. Really quite a few teens. Girls with blue hair, boys who look like skateboarders. That is unexpected

    And on and on it goes
  • There are two ginormous downsides to the announcement. The first is the obvious one that the politics is dire: this is a massive free gift to Labour, especially now when many ordinary people are facing financial difficulties or outright disaster. The second is that it will encourage the EU to make life harder for the City. It's a double own-goal, a blunder which only an extremely inexperienced and over-confident new Chancellor and PM could make. It doesn't bode well for the government's prospects in the months ahead.

    I'm sure that if the Cameron/Osborne team had made the same move, you wouldn't find these downsides at all compelling.
    Dream on, Osborne would never make a political blunder like that at a time like this.
    Why's it a blunder? All you seem to be saying is:

    A: Because its a good idea, but Labour voters may not like it.
    B: Because its a good idea, but the EU are cutting off their nose to spite their face, so we should too.
    It's not a good idea.....

  • Why's it a blunder? All you seem to be saying is:

    A: Because its a good idea, but Labour voters may not like it.
    B: Because its a good idea, but the EU are cutting off their nose to spite their face, so we should too.

    It's a blunder for the obvious reasons: the more important reason is that it will go down very badly with the Tory voters they need to retain, and the secondary reason is that the disadvantages of the policy itself are likely to be outweighed by the EU's response.

    Of course, it's insignificant compared with the damage already done to the economy by government policy since 2019.
    What EU response? Are they going to stop cutting off their own nose and start being more competitive? Or are they going to fail to and ensure more business comes to the UK, along with Singapore, New York etc which we're competing with, rather than Frankfurt.

    You seem to still believe in this myth of an "EU response" that will bully the UK, which is as mythical as the notion Russia can just steamroll their tanks into Kyiv.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw

    I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
    Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.

    If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
    Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
    Mrs T was a giant compared to Truss and also more politically savvy about what the average voter needed and also had not changed positions on key issues multiple times.

    She was also lucky enough to be facing a failing Labour government, not be PM 12 years into a Tory government
    Yes Mrs T was much more savvy about what voters needed. At times of hardship Mrs T imposed windfall taxes on those not suffering in order to redistribute to those who were. Straight away Truss failed the Mrs T test.
    Also, Maggie could read a calendar.

    If this is the right thing to do, the time to do it is in the sweet afterglow of a new electoral mandate.

    Even if this works*, it's not going to work by autumn 2024. So proposing it now gets the political pain without the tax receipts. Nuts, and the sort of thing that you do if you read about Maggie without direct experience or understanding.

    * By works, I'd go a bit wider than annual tax take. Does a bonus obsession encourage too much risk to be taken by bankers? I don't know, but it needs consideration.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,111
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I love the people that bring their sweet little kids to see Her Maj

    As they enter the great medieval hall, and walk in their little shoes down the steps to confront the coffin, you can see, on their tiny angelic faces, they are also thinking: What the c*nting hell is all this shit about?

    Borderline child abuse if they aren't fast tracking them.
    Send them off with big sister to Maccy D's, NHM, HMS Belfast etc and phone them when it's time to come back to daddy in the queue.
  • MISTYMISTY Posts: 1,594

    TimS said:

    Lifting the bonus cap or at least looking into it is probably not a massively bad idea, policy wise. But it’s the messaging it sends about priorities and whose side they’re on that’s the killer.

    That plus it nicely neutralises any future attempts at finger pointing at Brown for single-handedly causing the financial crisis by deregulating banks. An attack line that served successive Tory leaders well despite their own track record on the subject, but will be unusable henceforth.

    Brown didn't cause the financial crisis by deregulating banks.

    He caused the issues by overspending and by screwing up the regulations by removing Bank of England oversight from the Banks.

    More regulations don't make the financial sector more secure if they're bad regulations, you need deregulation but smart regulations, rather than box ticking for the sake of politics.
    How much does Kwarteng think the treasury can make by scrapping the cap, I wonder.

    He must think its a lot, to risk the political capital.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,182
    Leon said:

    MattW said:

    Leon said:

    About an hour ago 100,000 were watching the TV livestream of The Queue doing the Catafalque Shuffle (and that's the BBC, Sky has its own live-stream)

    That's 100,000 looking at OTHER people looking a box with a crown on it

    Given that this is on 24/7 the overall viewing stats will be phenom

    How many of those 100,000 are in the queue?
    Not me!

    As the world's foremost connoisseur of Royal Lying-in-State Livestreams I have to say the one in St Giles Scotland was marginally better, as the mourners got more time with the coffin - ten or fifteen seconds rather than 3 or 5 - allowing more intense emotions to emerge: proper tears, deeper bows, murmured prayers

    The sheer weight of numbers invLondon is limiting the emoting

    However, it is still compelling to watch. All those people, all those stories. Just now some rich, well dressed woman - completely composed - did an urgent almost gasping prayer. WTF
    I rather like that the emoting is limited.
    Eight hours of queuing to note that yes, at the end of the queue, there is the box in which the body of the Queen lies. Stiff upper lip and all that. A bried nod, and move on, and reflect. But reflect internally!
    Look upon this world: this is how the British mourn.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw

    I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
    Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.

    If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
    Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
    Mrs T was a giant compared to Truss and also more politically savvy about what the average voter needed and also had not changed positions on key issues multiple times.

    She was also lucky enough to be facing a failing Labour government, not be PM 12 years into a Tory government
    Yes Mrs T was much more savvy about what voters needed. At times of hardship Mrs T imposed windfall taxes on those not suffering in order to redistribute to those who were. Straight away Truss failed the Mrs T test.
    Also, Maggie could read a calendar.

    If this is the right thing to do, the time to do it is in the sweet afterglow of a new electoral mandate.

    Even if this works*, it's not going to work by autumn 2024. So proposing it now gets the political pain without the tax receipts. Nuts, and the sort of thing that you do if you read about Maggie without direct experience or understanding.

    * By works, I'd go a bit wider than annual tax take. Does a bonus obsession encourage too much risk to be taken by bankers? I don't know, but it needs consideration.
    Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.

    Any major changes she wants to get done, that might not be politically appealing, now is the time. The politically appealing ones, those you can save up for the General Election year.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138
    edited September 2022

    kle4 said:

    Unless you can prove immediate benefits to normal people as a whole the bankers bonus thing is just not politically worth doing. You'll have to do a lot of explaining, and people already dislike the government at the best of times, never mind during a coming recession and energy crisis. They don't want to hear about it, and is it worth the political capital it will cost ahead of an election?

    "This will generate banks more secure, by allowing remuneration to be more linked to performance and less fixed, and generate more tax revenues to spend on Schools, Care and Hospitals"

    There, done. And move on. It won't stay in the news for long, once its done, its done.
    The Tories have been masterful at quoting back Labour policies years or decades after they fell out of the news, to deadly effect. Whether the opposition can make capital out of it depends on their own competence.

    Labour now have banking bonuses, CT cuts, no windfall tax and fracking in Northern constituencies to go after in poorer marginals.

    Lib Dems already have raw sewage releases (which focus groups suggest has real salience) and may shortly have food standards, net zero and (probably) another spat with the EU to weaponise.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    MattW said:

    Leon said:

    About an hour ago 100,000 were watching the TV livestream of The Queue doing the Catafalque Shuffle (and that's the BBC, Sky has its own live-stream)

    That's 100,000 looking at OTHER people looking a box with a crown on it

    Given that this is on 24/7 the overall viewing stats will be phenom

    How many of those 100,000 are in the queue?
    Not me!

    As the world's foremost connoisseur of Royal Lying-in-State Livestreams I have to say the one in St Giles Scotland was marginally better, as the mourners got more time with the coffin - ten or fifteen seconds rather than 3 or 5 - allowing more intense emotions to emerge: proper tears, deeper bows, murmured prayers

    The sheer weight of numbers invLondon is limiting the emoting

    However, it is still compelling to watch. All those people, all those stories. Just now some rich, well dressed woman - completely composed - did an urgent almost gasping prayer. WTF
    I rather like that the emoting is limited.
    Eight hours of queuing to note that yes, at the end of the queue, there is the box in which the body of the Queen lies. Stiff upper lip and all that. A bried nod, and move on, and reflect. But reflect internally!
    Look upon this world: this is how the British mourn.
    Mate, I'm not knocking it. It's one of the most subtly yet powerfully moving things I've seen. Deeply impressive albeit slightly bizarre and totally unexpected

    The Spectator nailed it earlier, with lines that could have been literally stolen from our debate


    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-the-live-streamed-lying-in-state-says-to-us
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I love the people that bring their sweet little kids to see Her Maj

    As they enter the great medieval hall, and walk in their little shoes down the steps to confront the coffin, you can see, on their tiny angelic faces, they are also thinking: What the c*nting hell is all this shit about?

    Borderline child abuse if they aren't fast tracking them.
    Rubbish.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,812
    I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support.
    'This package is to provide support and boost growth'
    'Well lets see how that goes'
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,111
    Did we discuss this latest self-Ratnerisation? From GRaun feed.

    "Heathrow to stop all flights for national silence on Monday
    Heathrow airport has announced that it will stop all flights for 15 minutes before the two-minute national silence on Monday and 15 minutes afterwards as a “mark of respect” to the royal family.

    Flights will also be grounded during the arrival of the funeral cortege and procession at Windsor Castle, and diverted around the castle to minimise noise during the private family service on Monday night.

    [...] Passengers affected by these changes will be contacted directly by their airlines about the options available to them, a spokesperson for the airport said.

    They added that passengers who have been notified that their flight has been cancelled, or do not have a confirmed seat on a flight, should not go to the airport."
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw

    I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
    Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.

    If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
    Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
    Mrs T was a giant compared to Truss and also more politically savvy about what the average voter needed and also had not changed positions on key issues multiple times.

    She was also lucky enough to be facing a failing Labour government, not be PM 12 years into a Tory government
    Yes Mrs T was much more savvy about what voters needed. At times of hardship Mrs T imposed windfall taxes on those not suffering in order to redistribute to those who were. Straight away Truss failed the Mrs T test.
    Also, Maggie could read a calendar.

    If this is the right thing to do, the time to do it is in the sweet afterglow of a new electoral mandate.

    Even if this works*, it's not going to work by autumn 2024. So proposing it now gets the political pain without the tax receipts. Nuts, and the sort of thing that you do if you read about Maggie without direct experience or understanding.

    * By works, I'd go a bit wider than annual tax take. Does a bonus obsession encourage too much risk to be taken by bankers? I don't know, but it needs consideration.
    Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.

    Any major changes she wants to get done, that might not be politically appealing, now is the time. The politically appealing ones, those you can save up for the General Election year.
    “ Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.‘

    😆

    This hasn’t been one of your better days Barty.

    Less than 50% of the members of her own party voted for her. She just about pipped second in vote of her parties MPs.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Andy_JS said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    I love the people that bring their sweet little kids to see Her Maj

    As they enter the great medieval hall, and walk in their little shoes down the steps to confront the coffin, you can see, on their tiny angelic faces, they are also thinking: What the c*nting hell is all this shit about?

    Borderline child abuse if they aren't fast tracking them.
    Rubbish.
    I assume you have no children and sprang fully grown from your father's thigh, if you have no feel for how boring 9 hours of queuing would be for a small child.
  • Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    MattW said:

    Leon said:

    About an hour ago 100,000 were watching the TV livestream of The Queue doing the Catafalque Shuffle (and that's the BBC, Sky has its own live-stream)

    That's 100,000 looking at OTHER people looking a box with a crown on it

    Given that this is on 24/7 the overall viewing stats will be phenom

    How many of those 100,000 are in the queue?
    Not me!

    As the world's foremost connoisseur of Royal Lying-in-State Livestreams I have to say the one in St Giles Scotland was marginally better, as the mourners got more time with the coffin - ten or fifteen seconds rather than 3 or 5 - allowing more intense emotions to emerge: proper tears, deeper bows, murmured prayers

    The sheer weight of numbers invLondon is limiting the emoting

    However, it is still compelling to watch. All those people, all those stories. Just now some rich, well dressed woman - completely composed - did an urgent almost gasping prayer. WTF
    I rather like that the emoting is limited.
    Eight hours of queuing to note that yes, at the end of the queue, there is the box in which the body of the Queen lies. Stiff upper lip and all that. A bried nod, and move on, and reflect. But reflect internally!
    Look upon this world: this is how the British mourn.
    Mate, I'm not knocking it. It's one of the most subtly yet powerfully moving things I've seen. Deeply impressive albeit slightly bizarre and totally unexpected

    The Spectator nailed it earlier, with lines that could have been literally stolen from our debate


    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-the-live-streamed-lying-in-state-says-to-us
    Very good piece.

  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138

    I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support.
    'This package is to provide support and boost growth'
    'Well lets see how that goes'

    Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    "Why can’t the Civil Service, just for once, pull out all the stops?
    Britain must not let petty officialdom stop millions from paying their respects to the late Queen

    ALLISTER HEATH" (£)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/14/dont-let-petty-officialdom-stop-millions-paying-respects-late/
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,951
    nico679 said:

    I can’t see this policy going ahead . I suspect no 11 will see the polling and think , perhaps not .

    Then why do they open their f*cking mouths before checking the polling?

    But then, I already had a very low opinion of the Chancellor.

  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 6,812
    TimS said:

    I think theres a risk of dramatically overstating the electoral effect of this policy. 65% against it but so what? It costs nothing. It no more leads to polling decline than the 80 to 90% in favour of the energy measures have produced a landslide lead. Plus it will be announced amidst a tsunami of support.
    'This package is to provide support and boost growth'
    'Well lets see how that goes'

    Opportunity cost. Now is the time she could be announcing widely popular policies that would close the polling gap.
    Not really. We are in the null zone.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Andy_JS said:

    "Why can’t the Civil Service, just for once, pull out all the stops?
    Britain must not let petty officialdom stop millions from paying their respects to the late Queen

    ALLISTER HEATH" (£)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/14/dont-let-petty-officialdom-stop-millions-paying-respects-late/

    What a preternatural arse.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Early evening all :)

    Mrs Stodge's colleague got home at 4.30am having joined the queue at Southwark Bridge at 5.30pm.

    According to Mrs Stodge, it's a long story.

    Details to follow.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    The government is reportedly considering plans to scrap the cap on bankers' bonuses. Britons are strongly against the idea.

    All Britons
    Should scrap: 15%
    Should not scrap: 67%

    Con voters
    Should scrap: 20%
    Should not scrap: 65%.

    The North of England most anti scrapping the bankers' bonus cap, 71% against, 15% in favour. The South most supportive but even there 65% opposed, just 16% in favour

    https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1570430058292211718?s=20&t=ORZ2SzNedSUAstdxVD_xXw

    I imagine that approximately 67% of Britons are in favour of increasing taxes on other people other than themselves also.
    Much as I want to give Truss a chance she is a dull leader who is on record as previously wanting to scrap the Queen and royal family while just announcing a policy to give City bankers more cash in a cost of living crisis and having switched from backing Remain to being a hard as nails Brexiteer.

    If Starmer could design his ideal Tory opponent, at the moment Liz would be it unfortunately!
    Far better a dull leader than a law breaking incompetent Clown IMO. I imagine you are too young to remember Mrs Thatcher, and while I don't want to make what at the moment seems like a ludicrous comparison, almost as silly as comparing Johnson to Churchill, but the fact was that everyone underestimated Mrs T to begin with. Truss may yet surprise us.
    Mrs T was a giant compared to Truss and also more politically savvy about what the average voter needed and also had not changed positions on key issues multiple times.

    She was also lucky enough to be facing a failing Labour government, not be PM 12 years into a Tory government
    Yes Mrs T was much more savvy about what voters needed. At times of hardship Mrs T imposed windfall taxes on those not suffering in order to redistribute to those who were. Straight away Truss failed the Mrs T test.
    Also, Maggie could read a calendar.

    If this is the right thing to do, the time to do it is in the sweet afterglow of a new electoral mandate.

    Even if this works*, it's not going to work by autumn 2024. So proposing it now gets the political pain without the tax receipts. Nuts, and the sort of thing that you do if you read about Maggie without direct experience or understanding.

    * By works, I'd go a bit wider than annual tax take. Does a bonus obsession encourage too much risk to be taken by bankers? I don't know, but it needs consideration.
    Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.

    Any major changes she wants to get done, that might not be politically appealing, now is the time. The politically appealing ones, those you can save up for the General Election year.
    “ Right now is the afterglow of Truss's new electoral mandate.‘

    😆

    This hasn’t been one of your better days Barty.

    Less than 50% of the members of her own party voted for her. She just about pipped second in vote of her parties MPs.
    She won, Sunak lost, that's the end of it. She won, she's new PM, and now is when she needs to get going on her agenda.

    If you're not going to implement your agenda when you win and become Prime Minister, when will you?
This discussion has been closed.