Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

The papers on Kwarteng’s vast tax cuts gamble – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited September 2022 in General
imageThe papers on Kwarteng’s vast tax cuts gamble – politicalbetting.com

It will be interesting to see what the public reaction is because one would assume that a lot of tax cuts are going to be very popular. The only problem here is that people have been conditioned to the sort of crisis that the government is facing and were expecting the worst not what has actually happened.

Read the full story here

«1345

Comments

  • Sterling dropping won't help. It drives up the price of imports, including oil which is priced in dollars. Remember the petrol price theory of elections?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited September 2022
    The Times, the self-styled paper of record, is serialising a book about Megxit.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    The opinion poll graph currently shows a clear uptick Truss bounce, the mechanics of which explained by Mike Smithson, where Tory % dropped it was losing supporters to don’t know, this has been reversed for the Tory move to mid 30s in some polling - so I was wrong, I pushed there would be no Truss up tick because she been in governments for a decade, so voters would wait for improvement, not expect it.

    However, what the table shows is since Truss became leader, Labour have yet to drop into the 30s, Liz also seems to firm up Labour support, those starting to flirt with Labour this year seem to have firmed up with option of her or him for Downing Street? Again I was wrong, last week I pushed the idea this Truss uptick would close the gap and put Labour in the thirties going into their conference with just 3 or 4 percent leads in some polls, though this could still happen if Opinium and Kantor report this week.

    When it comes to polling, % trend is just as important to watch as gap between parties.

    Considering the amount of Labour voters who sat on their hands at last GE, to be more than 10% behind on PV, but now pulling their hands out, where do we look to see the % swing in actual vote switching? In actual voting this parliament is it fair to say Labour doing okay at the former, but not as good at real votes switching from one to other? There might only be a 4 or 5 % swing buried inside what looks bigger with abstentions coming back?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    How this budget gets 110% support on front pages irritates you, is the impression I’m getting. Maybe inside there’s more nuanced write up such a policy approach deserves.
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 2,179

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    How this budget gets 110% support on front pages irritates you, is the impression I’m getting. Maybe inside there’s more nuanced write up such a policy approach deserves.
    Not seen much nuance anywhere in either the Mail or the Express!
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    How this budget gets 110% support on front pages irritates you, is the impression I’m getting. Maybe inside there’s more nuanced write up such a policy approach deserves.
    I think the impact of the tighter monetary policy, which is coming, on economic growth will be interesting to see. Sharply negative real interest rates, which we've had for a long time now, haven't stimulated the economy the way the textbooks would indicate they should have. Imo this is because the main mechanism for this, house building, is broken by the shortage of land available for building.

    You can see this by comparing what happened during the easy money 1930s (a huge construction boom when a third of the houses in England were built) with what has happened since 2010 (a big increase in the price of existing houses anywhere anybody wants to live). The government knows how serious this problem is. If it can solve it, it will deserve the rave notices from the conservative press. If not, then an inflationary spiral and big Public spending cuts are most likely.

    Not that big public sector cuts would necessarily be bad given how much public spending is wasted. Axing foreign aid, Northern Ireland subsidies and farming subsidies would pay for about three quarters of the package the Chancellor just announced.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    Fishing said:

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    How this budget gets 110% support on front pages irritates you, is the impression I’m getting. Maybe inside there’s more nuanced write up such a policy approach deserves.
    I think the impact of the tighter monetary policy, which is coming, on economic growth will be interesting to see. Sharply negative real interest rates, which we've had for a long time now, haven't stimulated the economy the way the textbooks would indicate they should have. Imo this is because the main mechanism for this, house building, is broken by the shortage of land available for building.

    You can see this by comparing what happened during the easy money 1930s (a huge construction boom when a third of the houses in England were built) with what has happened since 2010 (a big increase in the price of existing houses anywhere anybody wants to live). The government knows how serious this problem is. If it can solve it, it will deserve the rave notices from the conservative press. If not, then an inflationary spiral and big Public spending cuts are most likely.

    Not that big public sector cuts would necessarily be bad given how much public spending is wasted. Axing foreign aid, Northern Ireland subsidies and farming subsidies would pay for about three quarters of the package the Chancellor just announced.
    Blimey Fish! Your more right wing than Liz and Kwarzy. 🫢
  • Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    Brilliant post.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    Without getting into other things (I am not enamoured with the love of high borrowing that has infected left and right in this country), a point of order: Robin Hood wanted lower taxes. This not-a-Budget, if nothing else, delivers on that.

    It'll stick as a long but as a matter of fact it's plain wrong. And there are more accurate and reasonable attacks to be made, although perhaps those don't come with a tabloid headline of a few words and so don't merit quite the attention they ought.
  • murali_smurali_s Posts: 3,037
    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    Post of the week, if not year.

    I’m sure when the right-wing fruitcakes wake up they will have a different view.

    As I have said many times, Labour will be 20 points clear in the polls by the end of winter.
  • stjohnstjohn Posts: 1,777
    What is the "fall in Cable yesterday" that Cicero refers to?
  • - “On the betting markets, there are signs that punters think it is not good for the Tories.”

    Nice understatement.

    Lab Maj now shorter than Con Maj. When did we last see that? Two decades ago?

    NOM 1.88
    Lab Maj 3.8
    Con Maj 4.2
  • stjohn said:

    What is the "fall in Cable yesterday" that Cicero refers to?

    The fall in the value of the pound sterling against the dollar. For historical reasons (viz the use of undersea telephone cables between the City and Wall Street) this is known as Cable. (It is also quoted the other way round from other currencies against the dollar.)
  • Sterling dropping won't help. It drives up the price of imports, including oil which is priced in dollars. Remember the petrol price theory of elections?

    A drop in Sterling could, theoretically, have assisted exporters. Shame the Revolutionary New Brexit Party took the island out of a single market of 250 million people with a GDP of $16.3 trillion.
  • Mr. Dickson, there was a referendum on that, you may recall. The Conservative leadership and most of the MPs were in favour of staying in the EU.

    (Also, the single market is a fair bit bigger, I think more like 450m, isn't it?)
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?
  • Cicero said:

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    How this budget gets 110% support on front pages irritates you, is the impression I’m getting. Maybe inside there’s more nuanced write up such a policy approach deserves.
    Not seen much nuance anywhere in either the Mail or the Express!
    Even the Express have gone with "big bet". Whilst that definitely sounds better than "gamble", it's in the same space. If it goes pearshaped, it's the first step in a shuffle away from the genius who turned out to be a crazy person.

    And I'm not sure, outside the terminally loyal and wannabe pirates, whether people will see a gambling chancellor as a desirable thing. Forget the distinction with gambling with hobby money and gambling with the housekeeping, this is gambling with everyone else's housekeeping when they've had no say in the matter.
  • Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    Well said. The evolution of the Mail into a propaganda sheet promoting a section of the Tory elite does feel new. It used to have a bias, but what it goes further today. Its campaign against Penny Mourdaunt was eye opening.

    Not sure what anyone can do about it, but the journalist/press officers must be conflicted.
  • Tory backbenchers despair at ‘toxic’ mini-budget

    The divisions of the Tory leadership campaign roared back to the fore… with critics claiming the chancellor was trying to avoid scrutiny by refusing to publish economic forecasts from the independent budget regulator.

    … compared by one senior party figure to the ill-fated “Barber budget” of 1972, which emulated a similar aim but ended in boom, soaring inflation and ultimately the demise of Ted Heath’s premiership.

    “I’ve never known a government that has had so little support from its own backbenches, just four sitting days in,” observed one MP.

    “I completely despair, because I’m a member of a party that stands up for the squeezed middle not the very rich. This will be politically toxic and economically dubious,” said another MP present for the statement.

    … “It’s the richest we’re helping while the poorest are suffering the most,” was one northern MP’s stark assessment.

    “Everybody is distraught at the reshuffle and the way it’s been handled,” said one person recently ousted from the government. “Looking ahead, you’re going to have a situation where, unless some goodwill is extended, people will look for a cause to lay a marker down to make clear their unhappiness.”

    Sunak’s supporters said they were more likely to boycott the Conservative party conference and ruminate over WhatsApp with other frustrated colleagues over the following few weeks of recess.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/23/tory-backbenchers-despair-at-toxic-mini-budget
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    stjohn said:

    What is the "fall in Cable yesterday" that Cicero refers to?

    A sign they didn’t con Vince.
  • Mr. Dickson, there was a referendum on that, you may recall. The Conservative leadership and most of the MPs were in favour of staying in the EU.

    (Also, the single market is a fair bit bigger, I think more like 450m, isn't it?)

    Whoops. Thanks for catching the typo. Correct: 450 million people.

    The referendum was on leaving the EU, not on leaving the single market.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,728
    Plunge in sterling leaves drivers paying £6 more for tank of petrol, says AA https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/24/plunge-in-sterling-leaves-drivers-paying-6-more-for-tank-of-petrol-says-aa
  • Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yup.

    Remember that a load of tax rises were pre-announced and most are still in the pipeline.

    In particular, the freezing of tax thresholds has turned into a huge stealth tax that hits average voters a lot, far more than initially planned.

    Selling tax cuts when most voters can see their taxes going up might prove tricky.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Tory backbenchers despair at ‘toxic’ mini-budget

    The divisions of the Tory leadership campaign roared back to the fore… with critics claiming the chancellor was trying to avoid scrutiny by refusing to publish economic forecasts from the independent budget regulator.

    … compared by one senior party figure to the ill-fated “Barber budget” of 1972, which emulated a similar aim but ended in boom, soaring inflation and ultimately the demise of Ted Heath’s premiership.

    “I’ve never known a government that has had so little support from its own backbenches, just four sitting days in,” observed one MP.

    “I completely despair, because I’m a member of a party that stands up for the squeezed middle not the very rich. This will be politically toxic and economically dubious,” said another MP present for the statement.

    … “It’s the richest we’re helping while the poorest are suffering the most,” was one northern MP’s stark assessment.

    “Everybody is distraught at the reshuffle and the way it’s been handled,” said one person recently ousted from the government. “Looking ahead, you’re going to have a situation where, unless some goodwill is extended, people will look for a cause to lay a marker down to make clear their unhappiness.”

    Sunak’s supporters said they were more likely to boycott the Conservative party conference and ruminate over WhatsApp with other frustrated colleagues over the following few weeks of recess.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/23/tory-backbenchers-despair-at-toxic-mini-budget

    Ex coalition leader, orange book, Ed Davey is perfectly positioned to offer something to sound money Cameron era Tories

    They have a huge opportunity, but are they still too weak to grab it?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,728
    ...
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yup.

    Remember that a load of tax rises were pre-announced and most are still in the pipeline.

    In particular, the freezing of tax thresholds has turned into a huge stealth tax that hits average voters a lot, far more than initially planned.

    Selling tax cuts when most voters can see their taxes going up might prove tricky.
    What did he do to welfare payments for media to call it a squeeze on them, it seems to have been lost in the noise.

    What did he do to VAT? I was waiting to buy a 4K TV, will it be cheaper now?
  • Scott_xP said:

    ...

    Thatcherite ideology, meet cruel reality.
  • maxhmaxh Posts: 815
    FPT

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Foxy said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Phil said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Foxy said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT
    Question and I am genuinely happy to hear an answer from left or right as it puzzles me.

    Many of our public services whether national or local throughout the years have been giving funding increases above inflation and then announced they have to cut services. Either the inflation figure is a fiction or the money is somehow being siphoned off. The nhs is a good example of this...plenty of years of above inflation increases in budget while service is cut.

    Medical inflation is higher than CPI. Not just because of costly new treatments, but also the obvious one of an ageing boomer population, so more demand.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html

    Needed to fit a source in somewhere for what I had been saying so not specifically aimed at you
    “The study, paid for by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, did not take into account other potential costs of obesity and smoking, such as lost economic productivity or social costs.”

    Yeah. What do you think happens to all those uncontrolled diabetes patients who end up losing a limb?
    Losing a limb through diabetes isnt common as most get caught before that point, certainly not to the point of distorting the figures.
    Diabetes foot disease is the cause of more diabetic inpatient days than anything else.
    Didn't claim it wasnt what I disputed is that a lot of diabetics ended up losing a limb.

    If 50% of diabetics lose a limb thats a big deal....if its 0.05% then hardly disrupting the figures.

    You are a doctor...what percentage of diabetics lose a limb?
    You started off by asking why the NHS is cutting services whilst the budget is increasing.

    You got the correct answer in the first response. People are living longer with more things wrong with them. So demand is up and the budget isn't increasing fast enough to match that increase.

    We also have a raft of new expensive technologies and people expect more nowadays.
    Which is why we need life time budgets and you can insure against exceeding it
    Sorry I don't really know what that means in practice.
    Simple you get treatment upto a lifetime budget of say 150k anything over that you pay or your insurance has to pay
    That's a stupidly mental idea, sorry.
    perhaps you would care to state why? The elderly are inflating the nhs budget by living too long. Why should they not pay for it? Is that not the common left wing complaint that the elderly are robbing the young and yet you suggest a sensible compromise and its all "oh but not that"
    Ok. Well for a starters.. how would you start your policy? Who would start paying for the 'insurance' - 50 year olds, 60 year olds, 70 year olds, 80 year olds etc.? Does someone go back in time and tot up all they have used so far? What happens if they can't afford the insurance?

    How about: No health care for the over 80s?

    You've had your life, you've had your chances, here's a ton of excellent opiates, bye

    I'm quite serious. That would be my health policy

    I'd start it at 60 if you are clinically obese. Time to wise up, you fat slobs
    There is a certain plausibility / ethical basis to that argument. It's called the fair innings argument. Google it. Alan Williams.

    Certainly makes more sense than the mad £150K + insurance idea.

    But I just think it might be difficult saying fuck off in practice to all the oldies. But maybe the NHS could employ you to do it with a loud speaker, touring the hospital wards up and down the country?
    Just this week we had a funeral of a 96 year old woman. Should she have had a head shot in 2006?
    No, the point being made is that medical intervention to extend someone's life indefinitely is unsustainable. An age should be chosen where the NHS stops providing life extending care and people are allowed to die of old age or natural causes.
    So the rich can pay to live longer than the poor?
    As with everything else in life.
    That doesn’t mean anything.
    The rich will always pay for better services. They already do, for example my current health issues have been almost exclusively treated in the private sector. The consultant is a family friend and she said that for what I've got the NHS wait time is over a year to get treatment. So I'll pose the question again, how is it different from today?
    Denying health care to the elderly just because they’re poor is different to today. You’ve been watching too much Logan’s Run.

    You have to wonder whether some on the right actually like people. We’re just economic units and costs.
    The definition of a conservative is someone who loves their country but hates most of the people in it.
    @OnlyLivingBoy I often agree with your posts, and I assume this one was somewhat flippant, but it reminded me of an excellent C4 programme maybe 12 years ago. I can't recall the name, but politicians from each major party were filmed living with a family on benefits for a month or so.

    Now it could just be the personalities involved, but the Conservative politician (was or became children's minister, during the coalition govt I think) came out of it very well. Very human, open-minded, and the experience genuinely changed his views on benefits policy, which he then campaigned on. Annoyed I can't remember his name.

    The Labour participant, by contrast, came off as aloof, prissy and uninterested in the actual humans at the end of a benefits policy trying to make ends meet. If I had to pick one of the two to fit the characterisation of 'hates most of the people in it', it would be him, not the Tory.

    It was a really illuminating programme - can anyone remember the name of it or the politicians involved?
  • Jonathan said:

    Tory backbenchers despair at ‘toxic’ mini-budget

    The divisions of the Tory leadership campaign roared back to the fore… with critics claiming the chancellor was trying to avoid scrutiny by refusing to publish economic forecasts from the independent budget regulator.

    … compared by one senior party figure to the ill-fated “Barber budget” of 1972, which emulated a similar aim but ended in boom, soaring inflation and ultimately the demise of Ted Heath’s premiership.

    “I’ve never known a government that has had so little support from its own backbenches, just four sitting days in,” observed one MP.

    “I completely despair, because I’m a member of a party that stands up for the squeezed middle not the very rich. This will be politically toxic and economically dubious,” said another MP present for the statement.

    … “It’s the richest we’re helping while the poorest are suffering the most,” was one northern MP’s stark assessment.

    “Everybody is distraught at the reshuffle and the way it’s been handled,” said one person recently ousted from the government. “Looking ahead, you’re going to have a situation where, unless some goodwill is extended, people will look for a cause to lay a marker down to make clear their unhappiness.”

    Sunak’s supporters said they were more likely to boycott the Conservative party conference and ruminate over WhatsApp with other frustrated colleagues over the following few weeks of recess.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/23/tory-backbenchers-despair-at-toxic-mini-budget

    Ex coalition leader, orange book, Ed Davey is perfectly positioned to offer something to sound money Cameron era Tories

    They have a huge opportunity, but are they still too weak to grab it?
    Yes.

    Any more easy questions?
  • Jonathan said:

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    Well said. The evolution of the Mail into a propaganda sheet promoting a section of the Tory elite does feel new. It used to have a bias, but what it goes further today. Its campaign against Penny Mourdaunt was eye opening.

    Not sure what anyone can do about it, but the journalist/press officers must be conflicted.
    They will keep going. And keep getting more absurd. Until Dacre's ennoblement is confirmed. That's all the Mail are focused on.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
  • maxhmaxh Posts: 815
    maxh said:

    FPT

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Foxy said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Phil said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Foxy said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT
    Question and I am genuinely happy to hear an answer from left or right as it puzzles me.

    Many of our public services whether national or local throughout the years have been giving funding increases above inflation and then announced they have to cut services. Either the inflation figure is a fiction or the money is somehow being siphoned off. The nhs is a good example of this...plenty of years of above inflation increases in budget while service is cut.

    Medical inflation is higher than CPI. Not just because of costly new treatments, but also the obvious one of an ageing boomer population, so more demand.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html

    Needed to fit a source in somewhere for what I had been saying so not specifically aimed at you
    “The study, paid for by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, did not take into account other potential costs of obesity and smoking, such as lost economic productivity or social costs.”

    Yeah. What do you think happens to all those uncontrolled diabetes patients who end up losing a limb?
    Losing a limb through diabetes isnt common as most get caught before that point, certainly not to the point of distorting the figures.
    Diabetes foot disease is the cause of more diabetic inpatient days than anything else.
    Didn't claim it wasnt what I disputed is that a lot of diabetics ended up losing a limb.

    If 50% of diabetics lose a limb thats a big deal....if its 0.05% then hardly disrupting the figures.

    You are a doctor...what percentage of diabetics lose a limb?
    You started off by asking why the NHS is cutting services whilst the budget is increasing.

    You got the correct answer in the first response. People are living longer with more things wrong with them. So demand is up and the budget isn't increasing fast enough to match that increase.

    We also have a raft of new expensive technologies and people expect more nowadays.
    Which is why we need life time budgets and you can insure against exceeding it
    Sorry I don't really know what that means in practice.
    Simple you get treatment upto a lifetime budget of say 150k anything over that you pay or your insurance has to pay
    That's a stupidly mental idea, sorry.
    perhaps you would care to state why? The elderly are inflating the nhs budget by living too long. Why should they not pay for it? Is that not the common left wing complaint that the elderly are robbing the young and yet you suggest a sensible compromise and its all "oh but not that"
    Ok. Well for a starters.. how would you start your policy? Who would start paying for the 'insurance' - 50 year olds, 60 year olds, 70 year olds, 80 year olds etc.? Does someone go back in time and tot up all they have used so far? What happens if they can't afford the insurance?

    How about: No health care for the over 80s?

    You've had your life, you've had your chances, here's a ton of excellent opiates, bye

    I'm quite serious. That would be my health policy

    I'd start it at 60 if you are clinically obese. Time to wise up, you fat slobs
    There is a certain plausibility / ethical basis to that argument. It's called the fair innings argument. Google it. Alan Williams.

    Certainly makes more sense than the mad £150K + insurance idea.

    But I just think it might be difficult saying fuck off in practice to all the oldies. But maybe the NHS could employ you to do it with a loud speaker, touring the hospital wards up and down the country?
    Just this week we had a funeral of a 96 year old woman. Should she have had a head shot in 2006?
    No, the point being made is that medical intervention to extend someone's life indefinitely is unsustainable. An age should be chosen where the NHS stops providing life extending care and people are allowed to die of old age or natural causes.
    So the rich can pay to live longer than the poor?
    As with everything else in life.
    That doesn’t mean anything.
    The rich will always pay for better services. They already do, for example my current health issues have been almost exclusively treated in the private sector. The consultant is a family friend and she said that for what I've got the NHS wait time is over a year to get treatment. So I'll pose the question again, how is it different from today?
    Denying health care to the elderly just because they’re poor is different to today. You’ve been watching too much Logan’s Run.

    You have to wonder whether some on the right actually like people. We’re just economic units and costs.
    The definition of a conservative is someone who loves their country but hates most of the people in it.
    @OnlyLivingBoy I often agree with your posts, and I assume this one was somewhat flippant, but it reminded me of an excellent C4 programme maybe 12 years ago. I can't recall the name, but politicians from each major party were filmed living with a family on benefits for a month or so.

    Now it could just be the personalities involved, but the Conservative politician (was or became children's minister, during the coalition govt I think) came out of it very well. Very human, open-minded, and the experience genuinely changed his views on benefits policy, which he then campaigned on. Annoyed I can't remember his name.

    The Labour participant, by contrast, came off as aloof, prissy and uninterested in the actual humans at the end of a benefits policy trying to make ends meet. If I had to pick one of the two to fit the characterisation of 'hates most of the people in it', it would be him, not the Tory.

    It was a really illuminating programme - can anyone remember the name of it or the politicians involved?
    Tim Loughton was the Tory MP, and Tower Block of Commons the programme (terrible name, great TV): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Block_of_Commons

    Thanks wikipedia.
  • Jonathan said:

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    Well said. The evolution of the Mail into a propaganda sheet promoting a section of the Tory elite does feel new. It used to have a bias, but what it goes further today. Its campaign against Penny Mourdaunt was eye opening.

    Not sure what anyone can do about it, but the journalist/press officers must be conflicted.
    They will keep going. And keep getting more absurd. Until Dacre's ennoblement is confirmed. That's all the Mail are focused on.
    In which case, it's in the government's interests to keep finding an excuse a reason why this particular Honours list isn't quite the right time.
  • Jonathan said:

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    Well said. The evolution of the Mail into a propaganda sheet promoting a section of the Tory elite does feel new. It used to have a bias, but what it goes further today. Its campaign against Penny Mourdaunt was eye opening.

    Not sure what anyone can do about it, but the journalist/press officers must be conflicted.
    They will keep going. And keep getting more absurd. Until Dacre's ennoblement is confirmed. That's all the Mail are focused on.
    … just as Gordon Brown abolishes the House of Lords and partitions England.
  • Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    One would have thought that the risk of interest rate rises was all to clear. I only just managed to get family to fix for two yrs but couldmt persuade them to fix for 5 which would have been prudent. Best bet is to fix now as best you can... 2pc fixes were on offer a while back for5 yrs
  • Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That Major administration did some bad things and had some appalling sneering degenerates as ministers - Peter Lilley and his list as a prime example.

    But you look at their economic policies and they were sound. They flushed through the Lawson recession and had the country on a positive track. Whereas today the entire cabinet is made up of sneering Lilley's and they have just said "fuck you" to every tax payer who doesn't fancy another yacht.

    Surely it can't end well. Because whatever the Wail and Express want to spin, lived reality for voters is clear and unavoidable and damning.

    I've posted before that this party no longer give a rat fuck about anyone other than themselves. So yesterday was hardly a surprise. It's just that after the boosterism of Boris which pretended they still cared, Mistress Truss has no care for such weakness.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    When public services are worse than they've ever been it's unlikely the Truss Kwarteng combo are simply going to be judged by how much dosh they've funneled into Rocco Forte's pockets
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973

    Only those earning more than £155,000 pa will be paying less tax.

    Devastating analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    https://ifs.org.uk/articles/mini-budget-response

    I just can’t see a situation where the budget is seen positively. Lots of Tory MPs trying to come out with the line “people are complaining about receiving more money”, but the reality (as per the IFS piece) is that most of us are buggered as a result.

    The Tory’s are uniquely placed to be the
    Labour of the 2020s. What value can we get on Truss being ousted relatively quickly, as she seems lack support across the party
  • Mr. Dickson, there was a referendum on that, you may recall. The Conservative leadership and most of the MPs were in favour of staying in the EU.

    (Also, the single market is a fair bit bigger, I think more like 450m, isn't it?)

    Mr. Dickson, there was a referendum on that, you may recall. The Conservative leadership and most of the MPs were in favour of staying in the EU.

    (Also, the single market is a fair bit bigger, I think more like 450m, isn't it?)

    I think the issue is that the 2016 Conservative Party no longer exists. Its like one of those ants taken over by fungus in their brains.

    The opinion poll graph currently shows a clear uptick Truss bounce, the mechanics of which explained by Mike Smithson, where Tory % dropped it was losing supporters to don’t know, this has been reversed for the Tory move to mid 30s in some polling - so I was wrong, I pushed there would be no Truss up tick because she been in governments for a decade, so voters would wait for improvement, not expect it.

    However, what the table shows is since Truss became leader, Labour have yet to drop into the 30s, Liz also seems to firm up Labour support, those starting to flirt with Labour this year seem to have firmed up with option of her or him for Downing Street? Again I was wrong, last week I pushed the idea this Truss uptick would close the gap and put Labour in the thirties going into their conference with just 3 or 4 percent leads in some polls, though this could still happen if Opinium and Kantor report this week.

    When it comes to polling, % trend is just as important to watch as gap between parties.

    Considering the amount of Labour voters who sat on their hands at last GE, to be more than 10% behind on PV, but now pulling their hands out, where do we look to see the % swing in actual vote switching? In actual voting this parliament is it fair to say Labour doing okay at the former, but not as good at real votes switching from one to other? There might only be a 4 or 5 % swing buried inside what looks bigger with abstentions coming back?

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

    And so the myth starts. The Govt lost ground after Truss took office. The uptick followed the death of HM the Queen and its not hard to see psychological reasons for that. As well as the end of a constant few weeks of truly terrible headlines for the Govt. None of it matters in even the medium term. Now if the Govt hit a stable 5% lead then that will change things. But please boost the new leader poll bounce as it will join so many other factors in sharpening those knives on the back benchs. Ready for Rishi yet or maybe Boris back by Christmas 2023?
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That’s just totally unsustainable for most. The tories will shout about “more homes”, but they risk shutting the possibility of home ownership for more of us with this lunacy
  • maxh said:

    FPT

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Foxy said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Phil said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Foxy said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT
    Question and I am genuinely happy to hear an answer from left or right as it puzzles me.

    Many of our public services whether national or local throughout the years have been giving funding increases above inflation and then announced they have to cut services. Either the inflation figure is a fiction or the money is somehow being siphoned off. The nhs is a good example of this...plenty of years of above inflation increases in budget while service is cut.

    Medical inflation is higher than CPI. Not just because of costly new treatments, but also the obvious one of an ageing boomer population, so more demand.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html

    Needed to fit a source in somewhere for what I had been saying so not specifically aimed at you
    “The study, paid for by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, did not take into account other potential costs of obesity and smoking, such as lost economic productivity or social costs.”

    Yeah. What do you think happens to all those uncontrolled diabetes patients who end up losing a limb?
    Losing a limb through diabetes isnt common as most get caught before that point, certainly not to the point of distorting the figures.
    Diabetes foot disease is the cause of more diabetic inpatient days than anything else.
    Didn't claim it wasnt what I disputed is that a lot of diabetics ended up losing a limb.

    If 50% of diabetics lose a limb thats a big deal....if its 0.05% then hardly disrupting the figures.

    You are a doctor...what percentage of diabetics lose a limb?
    You started off by asking why the NHS is cutting services whilst the budget is increasing.

    You got the correct answer in the first response. People are living longer with more things wrong with them. So demand is up and the budget isn't increasing fast enough to match that increase.

    We also have a raft of new expensive technologies and people expect more nowadays.
    Which is why we need life time budgets and you can insure against exceeding it
    Sorry I don't really know what that means in practice.
    Simple you get treatment upto a lifetime budget of say 150k anything over that you pay or your insurance has to pay
    That's a stupidly mental idea, sorry.
    perhaps you would care to state why? The elderly are inflating the nhs budget by living too long. Why should they not pay for it? Is that not the common left wing complaint that the elderly are robbing the young and yet you suggest a sensible compromise and its all "oh but not that"
    Ok. Well for a starters.. how would you start your policy? Who would start paying for the 'insurance' - 50 year olds, 60 year olds, 70 year olds, 80 year olds etc.? Does someone go back in time and tot up all they have used so far? What happens if they can't afford the insurance?

    How about: No health care for the over 80s?

    You've had your life, you've had your chances, here's a ton of excellent opiates, bye

    I'm quite serious. That would be my health policy

    I'd start it at 60 if you are clinically obese. Time to wise up, you fat slobs
    There is a certain plausibility / ethical basis to that argument. It's called the fair innings argument. Google it. Alan Williams.

    Certainly makes more sense than the mad £150K + insurance idea.

    But I just think it might be difficult saying fuck off in practice to all the oldies. But maybe the NHS could employ you to do it with a loud speaker, touring the hospital wards up and down the country?
    Just this week we had a funeral of a 96 year old woman. Should she have had a head shot in 2006?
    No, the point being made is that medical intervention to extend someone's life indefinitely is unsustainable. An age should be chosen where the NHS stops providing life extending care and people are allowed to die of old age or natural causes.
    So the rich can pay to live longer than the poor?
    As with everything else in life.
    That doesn’t mean anything.
    The rich will always pay for better services. They already do, for example my current health issues have been almost exclusively treated in the private sector. The consultant is a family friend and she said that for what I've got the NHS wait time is over a year to get treatment. So I'll pose the question again, how is it different from today?
    Denying health care to the elderly just because they’re poor is different to today. You’ve been watching too much Logan’s Run.

    You have to wonder whether some on the right actually like people. We’re just economic units and costs.
    The definition of a conservative is someone who loves their country but hates most of the people in it.
    @OnlyLivingBoy I often agree with your posts, and I assume this one was somewhat flippant, but it reminded me of an excellent C4 programme maybe 12 years ago. I can't recall the name, but politicians from each major party were filmed living with a family on benefits for a month or so.

    Now it could just be the personalities involved, but the Conservative politician (was or became children's minister, during the coalition govt I think) came out of it very well. Very human, open-minded, and the experience genuinely changed his views on benefits policy, which he then campaigned on. Annoyed I can't remember his name.

    The Labour participant, by contrast, came off as aloof, prissy and uninterested in the actual humans at the end of a benefits policy trying to make ends meet. If I had to pick one of the two to fit the characterisation of 'hates most of the people in it', it would be him, not the Tory.

    It was a really illuminating programme - can anyone remember the name of it or the politicians involved?
    Yes slightly tongue in cheek. But I do often get the impression that a certain type of Conservative will profess their love for the country then go on about people on benefits, people on the left, people who live in cities, young people, immigrants etc as if none of them are part of the country they claim to love. Of course in person many Conservatives are lovely kind people and many Leftwingers are nasty cold snobs. The world is complicated like that!
  • Mail and Express are proper mental now.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973

    Mail and Express are proper mental now.

    They are the two papers that stand out as being on the fringes now.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    Mail and Express are proper mental now.

    'Now?'
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Mail and Express are proper mental now.

    The Morning Star has more journalism and objectivity.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited September 2022
    Prince Charles is photographed with working pen:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63011493

    Edit - fucking hell.

    I've left that up just because it so aptly demonstrates how confusing this change is.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    Jonathan said:

    Tory backbenchers despair at ‘toxic’ mini-budget

    The divisions of the Tory leadership campaign roared back to the fore… with critics claiming the chancellor was trying to avoid scrutiny by refusing to publish economic forecasts from the independent budget regulator.

    … compared by one senior party figure to the ill-fated “Barber budget” of 1972, which emulated a similar aim but ended in boom, soaring inflation and ultimately the demise of Ted Heath’s premiership.

    “I’ve never known a government that has had so little support from its own backbenches, just four sitting days in,” observed one MP.

    “I completely despair, because I’m a member of a party that stands up for the squeezed middle not the very rich. This will be politically toxic and economically dubious,” said another MP present for the statement.

    … “It’s the richest we’re helping while the poorest are suffering the most,” was one northern MP’s stark assessment.

    “Everybody is distraught at the reshuffle and the way it’s been handled,” said one person recently ousted from the government. “Looking ahead, you’re going to have a situation where, unless some goodwill is extended, people will look for a cause to lay a marker down to make clear their unhappiness.”

    Sunak’s supporters said they were more likely to boycott the Conservative party conference and ruminate over WhatsApp with other frustrated colleagues over the following few weeks of recess.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/23/tory-backbenchers-despair-at-toxic-mini-budget

    Ex coalition leader, orange book, Ed Davey is perfectly positioned to offer something to sound money Cameron era Tories

    They have a huge opportunity, but are they still too weak to grab it?
    I think the interesting question is whether, when the full consequences of the government's incompetence become apparent, the Lib Dems can attract a significant number of Tory defectors in the Commons. It may sound unlikely now that the Tories could lose their majority in this way, but next year I wonder.

    I can't believe the Lib Dems could be in government, though.
  • Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That Major administration did some bad things and had some appalling sneering degenerates as ministers - Peter Lilley and his list as a prime example.

    But you look at their economic policies and they were sound. They flushed through the Lawson recession and had the country on a positive track. Whereas today the entire cabinet is made up of sneering Lilley's and they have just said "fuck you" to every tax payer who doesn't fancy another yacht.

    Surely it can't end well. Because whatever the Wail and Express want to spin, lived reality for voters is clear and unavoidable and damning.

    I've posted before that this party no longer give a rat fuck about anyone other than themselves. So yesterday was hardly a surprise. It's just that after the boosterism of Boris which pretended they still cared, Mistress Truss has no care for such weakness.
    It's more bonkers than that. A backbench MP is on 84k. The PM is paid about 160k. Yes, MPs have other sources of income, but quite a few won't be in the winners' enclosure themselves. That's how narrowly-drawn this budget is.

    Maybe the way to understand this government is as victims of cultish indoctrination.

    As for the comparison with Major, by 1997 he was seen as a victim of events beyond his control. Not a good look for a PM, sure. But he left the country solvent (albeit shabby) which was good.

    Unless the current gamble works (and what odds would people give on that?), the UK is about to crash into an iceberg, and Truss and KK will have steered it that way.
  • Another potential problem is that if the backbenches do erupt and Truss ends up as a Winter Queen then whoever succeeds will face greater pressure to go to the country quickly.

    Changing PMs within a Parliament is normal. Doing so twice is quite unusual.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087

    Only those earning more than £155,000 pa will be paying less tax.

    Devastating analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    https://ifs.org.uk/articles/mini-budget-response

    Kwasi Kwarteng, 2012:

    “Governments often run a structural deficit to boost the economy with greater spending and lower tax. Unfortunately, this…has a poor track record.”

    https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1573386424027877377
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    How this budget gets 110% support on front pages irritates you, is the impression I’m getting. Maybe inside there’s more nuanced write up such a policy approach deserves.
    Things are judged by how they are presented. That is how the papers want us to remember their arguments. So I don't see how it is unreasonable to judge based on that.

    If I opened by saying something was a pile of poo or the greatest thing since sliced bread I dont think its much defence if I whined my actual views were more nuanced, if you looked elsewhere.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited September 2022

    Another potential problem is that if the backbenches do erupt and Truss ends up as a Winter Queen then whoever succeeds will face greater pressure to go to the country quickly.

    Changing PMs within a Parliament is normal. Doing so twice is quite unusual.

    It hasn't happened in a peacetime Parliament since 1865-1868, when there were four Prime Ministers in three years - Palmerston (died) Russell (resigned after losing VONC) Derby (retired) Disraeli.

    The only other occasion was in the 1935-45 Parliament under somewhat unusual circumstances.

    Edit - technically you could add the 1900-1906 Parliament to that list, but Campbell-Bannerman was appointed on the understanding he would seek an immediate election.
  • Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That Major administration did some bad things and had some appalling sneering degenerates as ministers - Peter Lilley and his list as a prime example.

    But you look at their economic policies and they were sound. They flushed through the Lawson recession and had the country on a positive track. Whereas today the entire cabinet is made up of sneering Lilley's and they have just said "fuck you" to every tax payer who doesn't fancy another yacht.

    Surely it can't end well. Because whatever the Wail and Express want to spin, lived reality for voters is clear and unavoidable and damning.

    I've posted before that this party no longer give a rat fuck about anyone other than themselves. So yesterday was hardly a surprise. It's just that after the boosterism of Boris which pretended they still cared, Mistress Truss has no care for such weakness.
    It's more bonkers than that. A backbench MP is on 84k. The PM is paid about 160k. Yes, MPs have other sources of income, but quite a few won't be in the winners' enclosure themselves. That's how narrowly-drawn this budget is.

    Maybe the way to understand this government is as victims of cultish indoctrination.

    As for the comparison with Major, by 1997 he was seen as a victim of events beyond his control. Not a good look for a PM, sure. But he left the country solvent (albeit shabby) which was good.

    Unless the current gamble works (and what odds would people give on that?), the UK is about to crash into an iceberg, and Truss and KK will have steered it that way.
    The Chris Mason <> Kwarteng interview yesterday was instructive. CofE refusing to accept that we're in a recession despite clear and unambiguous data proving that to be the case.

    So, they crash us into an iceberg. Refuse to accept that we crashed. Start carping that the people saying "oh fuck we're sinking" are Putin apologists. Then start sneering that the people drowning due to lack of lifeboats should have got a better job to insulate themselves from Iceberg incidents should they occur. Which they definitely haven't.

    I will repeatedly return to this word "sneering". It isn't a good look in politics whichever party ends up doing it. The current government seemingly have no clue just how awful their team look when they interact with anyone. And their effete moron cheerleaders in the right wing media - and lets include the GBeebies idiots here as well - do not help.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That Major administration did some bad things and had some appalling sneering degenerates as ministers - Peter Lilley and his list as a prime example.

    But you look at their economic policies and they were sound. They flushed through the Lawson recession and had the country on a positive track. Whereas today the entire cabinet is made up of sneering Lilley's and they have just said "fuck you" to every tax payer who doesn't fancy another yacht.

    Surely it can't end well. Because whatever the Wail and Express want to spin, lived reality for voters is clear and unavoidable and damning.

    I've posted before that this party no longer give a rat fuck about anyone other than themselves. So yesterday was hardly a surprise. It's just that after the boosterism of Boris which pretended they still cared, Mistress Truss has no care for such weakness.
    It's more bonkers than that. A backbench MP is on 84k. The PM is paid about 160k. Yes, MPs have other sources of income, but quite a few won't be in the winners' enclosure themselves. That's how narrowly-drawn this budget is.

    Maybe the way to understand this government is as victims of cultish indoctrination.

    As for the comparison with Major, by 1997 he was seen as a victim of events beyond his control. Not a good look for a PM, sure. But he left the country solvent (albeit shabby) which was good.

    Unless the current gamble works (and what odds would people give on that?), the UK is about to crash into an iceberg, and Truss and KK will have steered it that way.
    What I still am not clear on is how much of a growth boost is needed, given all the fresh commitments and tax changes. A doubling, tripling? Quadrupling?
  • maxhmaxh Posts: 815

    maxh said:

    FPT

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Foxy said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Phil said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Foxy said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT
    Question and I am genuinely happy to hear an answer from left or right as it puzzles me.

    Many of our public services whether national or local throughout the years have been giving funding increases above inflation and then announced they have to cut services. Either the inflation figure is a fiction or the money is somehow being siphoned off. The nhs is a good example of this...plenty of years of above inflation increases in budget while service is cut.

    Medical inflation is higher than CPI. Not just because of costly new treatments, but also the obvious one of an ageing boomer population, so more demand.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html

    Needed to fit a source in somewhere for what I had been saying so not specifically aimed at you
    “The study, paid for by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, did not take into account other potential costs of obesity and smoking, such as lost economic productivity or social costs.”

    Yeah. What do you think happens to all those uncontrolled diabetes patients who end up losing a limb?
    Losing a limb through diabetes isnt common as most get caught before that point, certainly not to the point of distorting the figures.
    Diabetes foot disease is the cause of more diabetic inpatient days than anything else.
    Didn't claim it wasnt what I disputed is that a lot of diabetics ended up losing a limb.

    If 50% of diabetics lose a limb thats a big deal....if its 0.05% then hardly disrupting the figures.

    You are a doctor...what percentage of diabetics lose a limb?
    You started off by asking why the NHS is cutting services whilst the budget is increasing.

    You got the correct answer in the first response. People are living longer with more things wrong with them. So demand is up and the budget isn't increasing fast enough to match that increase.

    We also have a raft of new expensive technologies and people expect more nowadays.
    Which is why we need life time budgets and you can insure against exceeding it
    Sorry I don't really know what that means in practice.
    Simple you get treatment upto a lifetime budget of say 150k anything over that you pay or your insurance has to pay
    That's a stupidly mental idea, sorry.
    perhaps you would care to state why? The elderly are inflating the nhs budget by living too long. Why should they not pay for it? Is that not the common left wing complaint that the elderly are robbing the young and yet you suggest a sensible compromise and its all "oh but not that"
    Ok. Well for a starters.. how would you start your policy? Who would start paying for the 'insurance' - 50 year olds, 60 year olds, 70 year olds, 80 year olds etc.? Does someone go back in time and tot up all they have used so far? What happens if they can't afford the insurance?

    How about: No health care for the over 80s?

    You've had your life, you've had your chances, here's a ton of excellent opiates, bye

    I'm quite serious. That would be my health policy

    I'd start it at 60 if you are clinically obese. Time to wise up, you fat slobs
    There is a certain plausibility / ethical basis to that argument. It's called the fair innings argument. Google it. Alan Williams.

    Certainly makes more sense than the mad £150K + insurance idea.

    But I just think it might be difficult saying fuck off in practice to all the oldies. But maybe the NHS could employ you to do it with a loud speaker, touring the hospital wards up and down the country?
    Just this week we had a funeral of a 96 year old woman. Should she have had a head shot in 2006?
    No, the point being made is that medical intervention to extend someone's life indefinitely is unsustainable. An age should be chosen where the NHS stops providing life extending care and people are allowed to die of old age or natural causes.
    So the rich can pay to live longer than the poor?
    As with everything else in life.
    That doesn’t mean anything.
    The rich will always pay for better services. They already do, for example my current health issues have been almost exclusively treated in the private sector. The consultant is a family friend and she said that for what I've got the NHS wait time is over a year to get treatment. So I'll pose the question again, how is it different from today?
    Denying health care to the elderly just because they’re poor is different to today. You’ve been watching too much Logan’s Run.

    You have to wonder whether some on the right actually like people. We’re just economic units and costs.
    The definition of a conservative is someone who loves their country but hates most of the people in it.
    @OnlyLivingBoy I often agree with your posts, and I assume this one was somewhat flippant, but it reminded me of an excellent C4 programme maybe 12 years ago. I can't recall the name, but politicians from each major party were filmed living with a family on benefits for a month or so.

    Now it could just be the personalities involved, but the Conservative politician (was or became children's minister, during the coalition govt I think) came out of it very well. Very human, open-minded, and the experience genuinely changed his views on benefits policy, which he then campaigned on. Annoyed I can't remember his name.

    The Labour participant, by contrast, came off as aloof, prissy and uninterested in the actual humans at the end of a benefits policy trying to make ends meet. If I had to pick one of the two to fit the characterisation of 'hates most of the people in it', it would be him, not the Tory.

    It was a really illuminating programme - can anyone remember the name of it or the politicians involved?
    Yes slightly tongue in cheek. But I do often get the impression that a certain type of Conservative will profess their love for the country then go on about people on benefits, people on the left, people who live in cities, young people, immigrants etc as if none of them are part of the country they claim to love. Of course in person many Conservatives are lovely kind people and many Leftwingers are nasty cold snobs. The world is complicated like that!
    I'm not disagreeing with you really, but I think it is also often the case that left-wingers can profess solidarity with a disdvantaged group and yet lack empathy and humanity towards that group.

    I wonder if it is a more general categorisation than a political one - perhaps many of those who care enough about a cause (love of one's country, equality, anti-racism, nationalism etc) to devote their lives to it aren't the sort of people to enjoy the messiness of what that 'cause' looks like when you put real life humans into the mix.

    So in your example - the Conservative will do almost anything to protect the flag, the Queen King, 'Britishness', but struggles when confronted with the reality of what the UK actually is (or perhaps 'who' the UK is).

    Idealists, basically. Don't trust 'em!
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Journalism at its best. Every one who pays income tax or NI, is better off as a result of the measures announced yesterday.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes, the fall in sterling will cause commodity price inflation and we import oil, energy, food and raw commodities.

    The weakness of sterling won't necessarily help exporters who are already struggling with surging prices. If the UK was self sufficient in energy production then it would be of great help, but we aren't so all it means is prices rising by 3-4% in the next few weeks unless the BoE puts up rates by at least 1% on Monday and then another 1% at the next regular meeting in November.

    This is quite possibly the worst fiscal event/budget I've witnessed from any Chancellor. We've splurged £45bn in tax cuts and it will result in 90% of working people being and feeling poorer by the end of October. Mental.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,728
    🔵 "Rishi Sunak’s absence confirmed what Tory MPs knew – for a large rump of the parliamentary party, the PM is on borrowed time" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/23/liz-trusss-budget-has-done-little-unite-tory-party/
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874

    Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That Major administration did some bad things and had some appalling sneering degenerates as ministers - Peter Lilley and his list as a prime example.

    But you look at their economic policies and they were sound. They flushed through the Lawson recession and had the country on a positive track. Whereas today the entire cabinet is made up of sneering Lilley's and they have just said "fuck you" to every tax payer who doesn't fancy another yacht.

    Surely it can't end well. Because whatever the Wail and Express want to spin, lived reality for voters is clear and unavoidable and damning.

    I've posted before that this party no longer give a rat fuck about anyone other than themselves. So yesterday was hardly a surprise. It's just that after the boosterism of Boris which pretended they still cared, Mistress Truss has no care for such weakness.
    It's more bonkers than that. A backbench MP is on 84k. The PM is paid about 160k. Yes, MPs have other sources of income, but quite a few won't be in the winners' enclosure themselves. That's how narrowly-drawn this budget is.

    Maybe the way to understand this government is as victims of cultish indoctrination.

    As for the comparison with Major, by 1997 he was seen as a victim of events beyond his control. Not a good look for a PM, sure. But he left the country solvent (albeit shabby) which was good.

    Unless the current gamble works (and what odds would people give on that?), the UK is about to crash into an iceberg, and Truss and KK will have steered it that way.
    The Chris Mason <> Kwarteng interview yesterday was instructive. CofE refusing to accept that we're in a recession despite clear and unambiguous data proving that to be the case.

    So, they crash us into an iceberg. Refuse to accept that we crashed. Start carping that the people saying "oh fuck we're sinking" are Putin apologists. Then start sneering that the people drowning due to lack of lifeboats should have got a better job to insulate themselves from Iceberg incidents should they occur. Which they definitely haven't.

    I will repeatedly return to this word "sneering". It isn't a good look in politics whichever party ends up doing it. The current government seemingly have no clue just how awful their team look when they interact with anyone. And their effete moron cheerleaders in the right wing media - and lets include the GBeebies idiots here as well - do not help.
    Are we in a recession? I recall the infamous triple dip that wasn’t - full data revised economic performance upwards.
    We also have full employment. You want a job, you can get one.
    There are huge problems ahead for sure, but this is certainly not a normal recession, if we are actually in one.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yup.

    Remember that a load of tax rises were pre-announced and most are still in the pipeline.

    In particular, the freezing of tax thresholds has turned into a huge stealth tax that hits average voters a lot, far more than initially planned.

    Selling tax cuts when most voters can see their taxes going up might prove tricky.
    What did he do to welfare payments for media to call it a squeeze on them, it seems to have been lost in the noise.

    What did he do to VAT? I was waiting to buy a 4K TV, will it be cheaper now?
    He increased from 12 to 15 hours the minimum number of hours of work needed to claim Univrsal Benefit without sanctions.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    ydoethur said:

    Another potential problem is that if the backbenches do erupt and Truss ends up as a Winter Queen then whoever succeeds will face greater pressure to go to the country quickly.

    Changing PMs within a Parliament is normal. Doing so twice is quite unusual.

    It hasn't happened in a peacetime Parliament since 1865-1868, when there were four Prime Ministers in three years - Palmerston (died) Russell (resigned after losing VONC) Derby (retired) Disraeli.

    The only other occasion was in the 1935-45 Parliament under somewhat unusual circumstances.

    Edit - technically you could add the 1900-1906 Parliament to that list, but Campbell-Bannerman was appointed on the understanding he would seek an immediate election.
    Has a Prime Minister ever been ejected and returned within a calender year before?
  • Is it possible this gets voted down?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    edited September 2022
    Sandpit said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Journalism at its best. Every one who pays income tax or NI, is better off as a result of the measures announced yesterday.
    Not really, this budget will add hundreds of pounds per month onto mortgage costs and extend our period of high inflation by an extra 6 months. The small saving on NI will be wiped out by these twin costs. Only people earning £250k or more will actually be better off IMO.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Only those earning more than £155,000 pa will be paying less tax.

    Devastating analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    https://ifs.org.uk/articles/mini-budget-response

    I just can’t see a situation where the budget is seen positively. Lots of Tory MPs trying to come out with the line “people are complaining about receiving more money”, but the reality (as per the IFS piece) is that most of us are buggered as a result.

    The Tory’s are uniquely placed to be the
    Labour of the 2020s. What value can we get on Truss being ousted relatively quickly, as she seems lack support across the party
    She's going nowhere. It took a lot, even in extreme situations, to remove the last two. By the time she's vulnerable it'll be too late.

    On the perception point I think NickPalmer had it right. Another time, if already well perceived, I think the budget could have gone done well. But public and businesses don't seem to believe its optimism, they'd already turned against the government and treat its grandiose boosting with skepticism.

    They say we'll be better off but people don't buy it. Contrarily, they know and are correct that if the gamble does not work out, the rich will still have benefited.

    And that's important. This is no gamble for the rich, but it is for everyone else. No wonder the Cabinet are blase, their friends will be fine regardless.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    Sandpit said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Journalism at its best. Every one who pays income tax or NI, is better off as a result of the measures announced yesterday.
    Not if you take other factors such as mortgage rates and inflation into account.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874
    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Journalism at its best. Every one who pays income tax or NI, is better off as a result of the measures announced yesterday.
    Not really, this budget will add hundreds of pounds per month onto mortgage costs abd extend our period of high inflation by an extra 6 months. The small saving on NI will be wiped out by these twin costs. Only people earning £250k or more will actually be better off IMO.
    How many people actually have variable rate mortgages? I was under the impression it was less than 2 million in the U.K. Its why interest rates are such a poor tool. If you rate is fixed, it has no effect until you need to re-fix.
  • Jonathan said:

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    Well said. The evolution of the Mail into a propaganda sheet promoting a section of the Tory elite does feel new. It used to have a bias, but what it goes further today. Its campaign against Penny Mourdaunt was eye opening.

    Not sure what anyone can do about it, but the journalist/press officers must be conflicted.
    It's more simple than that: the Mail is read by the retired and they are very excited at the prospect of earning interest on their savings.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,728

    Is it possible this gets voted down?

    Presumably it's a confidence vote, even though "it's not a budget"...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That Major administration did some bad things and had some appalling sneering degenerates as ministers - Peter Lilley and his list as a prime example.

    But you look at their economic policies and they were sound. They flushed through the Lawson recession and had the country on a positive track. Whereas today the entire cabinet is made up of sneering Lilley's and they have just said "fuck you" to every tax payer who doesn't fancy another yacht.

    Surely it can't end well. Because whatever the Wail and Express want to spin, lived reality for voters is clear and unavoidable and damning.

    I've posted before that this party no longer give a rat fuck about anyone other than themselves. So yesterday was hardly a surprise. It's just that after the boosterism of Boris which pretended they still cared, Mistress Truss has no care for such weakness.
    It's more bonkers than that. A backbench MP is on 84k. The PM is paid about 160k. Yes, MPs have other sources of income, but quite a few won't be in the winners' enclosure themselves. That's how narrowly-drawn this budget is.

    Maybe the way to understand this government is as victims of cultish indoctrination.

    As for the comparison with Major, by 1997 he was seen as a victim of events beyond his control. Not a good look for a PM, sure. But he left the country solvent (albeit shabby) which was good.

    Unless the current gamble works (and what odds would people give on that?), the UK is about to crash into an iceberg, and Truss and KK will have steered it that way.
    The Chris Mason <> Kwarteng interview yesterday was instructive. CofE refusing to accept that we're in a recession despite clear and unambiguous data proving that to be the case.

    So, they crash us into an iceberg. Refuse to accept that we crashed. Start carping that the people saying "oh fuck we're sinking" are Putin apologists. Then start sneering that the people drowning due to lack of lifeboats should have got a better job to insulate themselves from Iceberg incidents should they occur. Which they definitely haven't.

    I will repeatedly return to this word "sneering". It isn't a good look in politics whichever party ends up doing it. The current government seemingly have no clue just how awful their team look when they interact with anyone. And their effete moron cheerleaders in the right wing media - and lets include the GBeebies idiots here as well - do not help.
    Are we in a recession? I recall the infamous triple dip that wasn’t - full data revised economic performance upwards.
    We also have full employment. You want a job, you can get one.
    There are huge problems ahead for sure, but this is certainly not a normal recession, if we are actually in one.
    Full employment is part of the problem with this "dash for growth". There is little capacity to create new jobs.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    Sandpit said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Journalism at its best. Every one who pays income tax or NI, is better off as a result of the measures announced yesterday.
    Despite today's tax cuts middle earners are still set to lose as a result of tax changes over next years. The freezing of allowances and thresholds is still a big tax increase.

    Only those on over £155,000 will pay less tax overall. The very rich will pay tens of thousands less.


    https://twitter.com/PJTheEconomist/status/1573302375703609347

    Headline-grabbing cuts more than outweighed by Brownian stealth rises - and the cuts are, of course, funded only by Laffer's magic money tree. The spike in gilt yields shows how much confidence the Government's lenders have in that.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Is it possible this gets voted down?

    If the Tory party had any sense they would vote it down. Ordinary working people are going to lose out so that very high earners benefit. Having slept on it, I actually think this is worse than I did yesterday.
  • The Mail's headline is amusing. You'd never guess that they'd been hailing Boris as the final, true Tory saviour for the last three years.
  • Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    Brilliant post.
    Cicero would win the Poster of the Year competition if we still had one.

    If you've never caught his reports from the Baltic States you should try to catch up on them. They are good enough to go between hard covers.
    You want to go to bed with Cicero?
  • Mr. xP, that might encourage Conservative MPs to vote it down! :p
  • Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That Major administration did some bad things and had some appalling sneering degenerates as ministers - Peter Lilley and his list as a prime example.

    But you look at their economic policies and they were sound. They flushed through the Lawson recession and had the country on a positive track. Whereas today the entire cabinet is made up of sneering Lilley's and they have just said "fuck you" to every tax payer who doesn't fancy another yacht.

    Surely it can't end well. Because whatever the Wail and Express want to spin, lived reality for voters is clear and unavoidable and damning.

    I've posted before that this party no longer give a rat fuck about anyone other than themselves. So yesterday was hardly a surprise. It's just that after the boosterism of Boris which pretended they still cared, Mistress Truss has no care for such weakness.
    It's more bonkers than that. A backbench MP is on 84k. The PM is paid about 160k. Yes, MPs have other sources of income, but quite a few won't be in the winners' enclosure themselves. That's how narrowly-drawn this budget is.

    Maybe the way to understand this government is as victims of cultish indoctrination.

    As for the comparison with Major, by 1997 he was seen as a victim of events beyond his control. Not a good look for a PM, sure. But he left the country solvent (albeit shabby) which was good.

    Unless the current gamble works (and what odds would people give on that?), the UK is about to crash into an iceberg, and Truss and KK will have steered it that way.
    The Chris Mason <> Kwarteng interview yesterday was instructive. CofE refusing to accept that we're in a recession despite clear and unambiguous data proving that to be the case.

    So, they crash us into an iceberg. Refuse to accept that we crashed. Start carping that the people saying "oh fuck we're sinking" are Putin apologists. Then start sneering that the people drowning due to lack of lifeboats should have got a better job to insulate themselves from Iceberg incidents should they occur. Which they definitely haven't.

    I will repeatedly return to this word "sneering". It isn't a good look in politics whichever party ends up doing it. The current government seemingly have no clue just how awful their team look when they interact with anyone. And their effete moron cheerleaders in the right wing media - and lets include the GBeebies idiots here as well - do not help.
    Are we in a recession? I recall the infamous triple dip that wasn’t - full data revised economic performance upwards.
    We also have full employment. You want a job, you can get one.
    There are huge problems ahead for sure, but this is certainly not a normal recession, if we are actually in one.
    BofE says we are. Possible that data gets corrected later and revises one quarter just out of it. But it was the attitude that got me. Its only a "technical recession" we don't need to worry about because look at our growth plan!!! But you wont accept the BofE data so how can your plans be robust. Etc etc.

    Politically I don't get it. This government has "only been in office for two weeks" and has inherited a recession from "the previous government". And here's the instant and rapid action we're taking. Done. Way better than "nope, don't accept the data, who are the BofE anyway and what do they know, we've had enough of experts".
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That Major administration did some bad things and had some appalling sneering degenerates as ministers - Peter Lilley and his list as a prime example.

    But you look at their economic policies and they were sound. They flushed through the Lawson recession and had the country on a positive track. Whereas today the entire cabinet is made up of sneering Lilley's and they have just said "fuck you" to every tax payer who doesn't fancy another yacht.

    Surely it can't end well. Because whatever the Wail and Express want to spin, lived reality for voters is clear and unavoidable and damning.

    I've posted before that this party no longer give a rat fuck about anyone other than themselves. So yesterday was hardly a surprise. It's just that after the boosterism of Boris which pretended they still cared, Mistress Truss has no care for such weakness.
    It's more bonkers than that. A backbench MP is on 84k. The PM is paid about 160k. Yes, MPs have other sources of income, but quite a few won't be in the winners' enclosure themselves. That's how narrowly-drawn this budget is.

    Maybe the way to understand this government is as victims of cultish indoctrination.

    As for the comparison with Major, by 1997 he was seen as a victim of events beyond his control. Not a good look for a PM, sure. But he left the country solvent (albeit shabby) which was good.

    Unless the current gamble works (and what odds would people give on that?), the UK is about to crash into an iceberg, and Truss and KK will have steered it that way.
    The Chris Mason <> Kwarteng interview yesterday was instructive. CofE refusing to accept that we're in a recession despite clear and unambiguous data proving that to be the case.

    So, they crash us into an iceberg. Refuse to accept that we crashed. Start carping that the people saying "oh fuck we're sinking" are Putin apologists. Then start sneering that the people drowning due to lack of lifeboats should have got a better job to insulate themselves from Iceberg incidents should they occur. Which they definitely haven't.

    I will repeatedly return to this word "sneering". It isn't a good look in politics whichever party ends up doing it. The current government seemingly have no clue just how awful their team look when they interact with anyone. And their effete moron cheerleaders in the right wing media - and lets include the GBeebies idiots here as well - do not help.
    Are we in a recession? I recall the infamous triple dip that wasn’t - full data revised economic performance upwards.
    We also have full employment. You want a job, you can get one.
    There are huge problems ahead for sure, but this is certainly not a normal recession, if we are actually in one.
    I dont think technical achievement of recession matters.

    I recall the one that wasnt after later revisions and ultimately i dont think people felt as if there was one even if the stats people said there was.

    Likewise, if we technically avoid one it doesn't matter because large numbers feel like we're in the shit. Ive never seen so many people worried about basic spending and the need to adjust to prepare for coming economic pain.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874
    Foxy said:

    Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That Major administration did some bad things and had some appalling sneering degenerates as ministers - Peter Lilley and his list as a prime example.

    But you look at their economic policies and they were sound. They flushed through the Lawson recession and had the country on a positive track. Whereas today the entire cabinet is made up of sneering Lilley's and they have just said "fuck you" to every tax payer who doesn't fancy another yacht.

    Surely it can't end well. Because whatever the Wail and Express want to spin, lived reality for voters is clear and unavoidable and damning.

    I've posted before that this party no longer give a rat fuck about anyone other than themselves. So yesterday was hardly a surprise. It's just that after the boosterism of Boris which pretended they still cared, Mistress Truss has no care for such weakness.
    It's more bonkers than that. A backbench MP is on 84k. The PM is paid about 160k. Yes, MPs have other sources of income, but quite a few won't be in the winners' enclosure themselves. That's how narrowly-drawn this budget is.

    Maybe the way to understand this government is as victims of cultish indoctrination.

    As for the comparison with Major, by 1997 he was seen as a victim of events beyond his control. Not a good look for a PM, sure. But he left the country solvent (albeit shabby) which was good.

    Unless the current gamble works (and what odds would people give on that?), the UK is about to crash into an iceberg, and Truss and KK will have steered it that way.
    The Chris Mason <> Kwarteng interview yesterday was instructive. CofE refusing to accept that we're in a recession despite clear and unambiguous data proving that to be the case.

    So, they crash us into an iceberg. Refuse to accept that we crashed. Start carping that the people saying "oh fuck we're sinking" are Putin apologists. Then start sneering that the people drowning due to lack of lifeboats should have got a better job to insulate themselves from Iceberg incidents should they occur. Which they definitely haven't.

    I will repeatedly return to this word "sneering". It isn't a good look in politics whichever party ends up doing it. The current government seemingly have no clue just how awful their team look when they interact with anyone. And their effete moron cheerleaders in the right wing media - and lets include the GBeebies idiots here as well - do not help.
    Are we in a recession? I recall the infamous triple dip that wasn’t - full data revised economic performance upwards.
    We also have full employment. You want a job, you can get one.
    There are huge problems ahead for sure, but this is certainly not a normal recession, if we are actually in one.
    Full employment is part of the problem with this "dash for growth". There is little capacity to create new jobs.
    Immigration. Attract skilled and talented people from overseas.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Journalism at its best. Every one who pays income tax or NI, is better off as a result of the measures announced yesterday.
    Not really, this budget will add hundreds of pounds per month onto mortgage costs and extend our period of high inflation by an extra 6 months. The small saving on NI will be wiped out by these twin costs. Only people earning £250k or more will actually be better off IMO.
    The budget didn’t mention mortgage costs (I assume you mean changes in interest rates, set by the independent BoE), and inflation has a whole number of causes.

    As I said, terrible journalism, most people will be better off *as a result of the changes in taxation announced yesterday* by the Chancellor.
  • MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Journalism at its best. Every one who pays income tax or NI, is better off as a result of the measures announced yesterday.
    Not really, this budget will add hundreds of pounds per month onto mortgage costs and extend our period of high inflation by an extra 6 months. The small saving on NI will be wiped out by these twin costs. Only people earning £250k or more will actually be better off IMO.
    And don't forget the inflationary pressure and real terms pay cuts we're all having. Sandpit can eulogise the budget from 3k miles away, but on the ground its the literal opposite of what he is spinning.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    MaxPB said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes, the fall in sterling will cause commodity price inflation and we import oil, energy, food and raw commodities.

    The weakness of sterling won't necessarily help exporters who are already struggling with surging prices. If the UK was self sufficient in energy production then it would be of great help, but we aren't so all it means is prices rising by 3-4% in the next few weeks unless the BoE puts up rates by at least 1% on Monday and then another 1% at the next regular meeting in November.

    This is quite possibly the worst fiscal event/budget I've witnessed from any Chancellor. We've splurged £45bn in tax cuts and it will result in 90% of working people being and feeling poorer by the end of October. Mental.
    Yes, but policy wonks who regurgitate their beliefs with religious certainty are happy, so it's fine.
  • YouGov, the only pollster to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples:

    London
    Lab 50%
    Con 23%
    LD 14%
    Grn 10%
    Ref 1%

    Rest of South
    Lab 37%
    Con 36%
    LD 12%
    Grn 9%
    Ref 4%

    Midlands and Wales
    Lab 39%
    Con 37%
    Grn 7%
    LD 7%
    PC 4%
    Ref 2%

    North
    Lab 48%
    Con 32%
    Grn 6%
    LD 6%
    Ref 5%

    Scotland
    SNP 46%
    Lab 20%
    Con 18%
    LD 7%
    Grn 6%
    Ref 2%

    (YouGov / The Times; Sample Size: 1713; Fieldwork: 21st - 22nd September 2022)

    Pro-independence parties 52%
    Unionist parties 47%
  • As an aside, Ladbrokes have 41 on a 2022 removal of Truss, but the window is short.

    If this gets voted down I think it could perhaps happen, otherwise the time frames probably make it impossible.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    Jonathan said:

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    Well said. The evolution of the Mail into a propaganda sheet promoting a section of the Tory elite does feel new. It used to have a bias, but what it goes further today. Its campaign against Penny Mourdaunt was eye opening.

    Not sure what anyone can do about it, but the journalist/press officers must be conflicted.
    It's more simple than that: the Mail is read by the retired and they are very excited at the prospect of earning interest on their savings.
    Real Interest rates will still be negative at 7%.

    Those forecasts of 18% and 22% inflation by next year are not looking so crazy now.

  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Journalism at its best. Every one who pays income tax or NI, is better off as a result of the measures announced yesterday.
    Not really, this budget will add hundreds of pounds per month onto mortgage costs abd extend our period of high inflation by an extra 6 months. The small saving on NI will be wiped out by these twin costs. Only people earning £250k or more will actually be better off IMO.
    How many people actually have variable rate mortgages? I was under the impression it was less than 2 million in the U.K. Its why interest rates are such a poor tool. If you rate is fixed, it has no effect until you need to re-fix.
    Something like 20% of mortgages are renewed every year, people who have fixed at 2% will now be looking at 6-7% before the end of the year is out. I'm extremely lucky that I've got a 10y fix at 2.7% which goes until 2031. Not many people will have that luxury. For some their monthly repayment will double leaving them thousands of pounds per year worse off.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Jonathan said:

    Tory backbenchers despair at ‘toxic’ mini-budget

    The divisions of the Tory leadership campaign roared back to the fore… with critics claiming the chancellor was trying to avoid scrutiny by refusing to publish economic forecasts from the independent budget regulator.

    … compared by one senior party figure to the ill-fated “Barber budget” of 1972, which emulated a similar aim but ended in boom, soaring inflation and ultimately the demise of Ted Heath’s premiership.

    “I’ve never known a government that has had so little support from its own backbenches, just four sitting days in,” observed one MP.

    “I completely despair, because I’m a member of a party that stands up for the squeezed middle not the very rich. This will be politically toxic and economically dubious,” said another MP present for the statement.

    … “It’s the richest we’re helping while the poorest are suffering the most,” was one northern MP’s stark assessment.

    “Everybody is distraught at the reshuffle and the way it’s been handled,” said one person recently ousted from the government. “Looking ahead, you’re going to have a situation where, unless some goodwill is extended, people will look for a cause to lay a marker down to make clear their unhappiness.”

    Sunak’s supporters said they were more likely to boycott the Conservative party conference and ruminate over WhatsApp with other frustrated colleagues over the following few weeks of recess.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/23/tory-backbenchers-despair-at-toxic-mini-budget

    Ex coalition leader, orange book, Ed Davey is perfectly positioned to offer something to sound money Cameron era Tories

    They have a huge opportunity, but are they still too weak to grab it?
    Yes, unfortunately.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Jonathan said:

    Cicero said:

    As with all budgets, mini or otherwise, there are two aspects: the economic and the political. The economic rationale for this package is questionable at best. The problems of the UK economy are structural. Productivity and investment are weak, infrastructure is under-invested and decaying. Small businesses are going to the wall and despite entrepreneurship being relatively strong in Britain, self-employment is increasingly unattractive. Red tape since Brexit has led to a significant fall in exports and the damage has been disproportionately on small businesses. Literally none of these problems are being addressed by this package. Even if the package were to stimulate some kind of short term consumption-led growth boom, this is unlikely to be sustainable, not least because what is being added on the fiscal side will be need to be offset, to a great degree, by the need for higher rates. Owing to the structural weaknesses of the economy, the depreciation of Sterling will not so much stimulate exports as import inflation. The Bank of England therefore will need to set rates increasingly high, and the sugar rush of this nominal fiscal stimulus will rapidly diminish. The fall in Cable yesterday was a sharp warning that an old fashioned Sterling crisis could be just around the corner.

    Politically the package is more or less a disaster. "Reverse Robin Hood" is a charge that will stick and it is a very bad look from an Old Etonian chancellor. The shameless Mail and Express can witter all they like, but "massive tax cuts for the rich" is charge that cuts through, because its true. After nearly a decade of Tory sturm and drang, the voters are getting tired. Even a "coalition of chaos" looks good compared to this Conservative chaos. Tories may deride SKS as a dull figure, but such dullness is increasingly reassuring compared to the reckless and incompetent policies outlined yesterday. Over the course of the next six months, I predict, the voters will make up their minds that change is needed and the Conservatives must go. The glum faces on the government benches yesterday shows that the Tories fear this and also know that the chances of this actually working are not good. Meanwhile, the risks being taken with the economy could torpedo their party for a generation.

    Incidentally I think these front pages show what is wrong with the media in the UK. The hand wringing from the left wing titles is fairly wimpish, but the bullish messages from the right wing press are just garbage. There is not even a pretense any more: it is open propaganda. How little self-respect the journalists and especially readers of these comics must now have to think such vacuous drivel has any kind of intellectual or moral strength.

    Well said. The evolution of the Mail into a propaganda sheet promoting a section of the Tory elite does feel new. It used to have a bias, but what it goes further today. Its campaign against Penny Mourdaunt was eye opening.

    Not sure what anyone can do about it, but the journalist/press officers must be conflicted.
    It's more simple than that: the Mail is read by the retired and they are very excited at the prospect of earning interest on their savings.
    I hadn’t clocked that. Obviously really. Shame for them that inflation is outpacing interest rates.
  • Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Journalism at its best. Every one who pays income tax or NI, is better off as a result of the measures announced yesterday.
    Not really, this budget will add hundreds of pounds per month onto mortgage costs and extend our period of high inflation by an extra 6 months. The small saving on NI will be wiped out by these twin costs. Only people earning £250k or more will actually be better off IMO.
    The budget didn’t mention mortgage costs (I assume you mean changes in interest rates, set by the independent BoE), and inflation has a whole number of causes.

    As I said, terrible journalism, most people will be better off *as a result of the changes in taxation announced yesterday* by the Chancellor.
    No. They won't. And the BofE may be independent, but it has to act "independently" following the cluster fuck yesterday. An emergency rate rise they are talking about, to shore up the £ before it hits parity. You speak from all that distance away - yet again - with no real clue as to what is going on.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874

    Chris said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Yes. If interest rates balloon to 7% I'll be paying an extra £2,000 pcm on my mortgage by the end of next year. I might just be able to stay in my house because i have a good income but I'd have to junk everything else.

    Others will not. Theg might be forced to vote Labour out of desperation for financial control.

    Tories risk being out of power for 20 years with this madness.
    I was thinking about that, and 20 years felt about right to me. Blair and Brown were in power for 13 after the landslide of 1997, but this shower makes the Major government look positively stellar.
    That Major administration did some bad things and had some appalling sneering degenerates as ministers - Peter Lilley and his list as a prime example.

    But you look at their economic policies and they were sound. They flushed through the Lawson recession and had the country on a positive track. Whereas today the entire cabinet is made up of sneering Lilley's and they have just said "fuck you" to every tax payer who doesn't fancy another yacht.

    Surely it can't end well. Because whatever the Wail and Express want to spin, lived reality for voters is clear and unavoidable and damning.

    I've posted before that this party no longer give a rat fuck about anyone other than themselves. So yesterday was hardly a surprise. It's just that after the boosterism of Boris which pretended they still cared, Mistress Truss has no care for such weakness.
    It's more bonkers than that. A backbench MP is on 84k. The PM is paid about 160k. Yes, MPs have other sources of income, but quite a few won't be in the winners' enclosure themselves. That's how narrowly-drawn this budget is.

    Maybe the way to understand this government is as victims of cultish indoctrination.

    As for the comparison with Major, by 1997 he was seen as a victim of events beyond his control. Not a good look for a PM, sure. But he left the country solvent (albeit shabby) which was good.

    Unless the current gamble works (and what odds would people give on that?), the UK is about to crash into an iceberg, and Truss and KK will have steered it that way.
    The Chris Mason <> Kwarteng interview yesterday was instructive. CofE refusing to accept that we're in a recession despite clear and unambiguous data proving that to be the case.

    So, they crash us into an iceberg. Refuse to accept that we crashed. Start carping that the people saying "oh fuck we're sinking" are Putin apologists. Then start sneering that the people drowning due to lack of lifeboats should have got a better job to insulate themselves from Iceberg incidents should they occur. Which they definitely haven't.

    I will repeatedly return to this word "sneering". It isn't a good look in politics whichever party ends up doing it. The current government seemingly have no clue just how awful their team look when they interact with anyone. And their effete moron cheerleaders in the right wing media - and lets include the GBeebies idiots here as well - do not help.
    Are we in a recession? I recall the infamous triple dip that wasn’t - full data revised economic performance upwards.
    We also have full employment. You want a job, you can get one.
    There are huge problems ahead for sure, but this is certainly not a normal recession, if we are actually in one.
    BofE says we are. Possible that data gets corrected later and revises one quarter just out of it. But it was the attitude that got me. Its only a "technical recession" we don't need to worry about because look at our growth plan!!! But you wont accept the BofE data so how can your plans be robust. Etc etc.

    Politically I don't get it. This government has "only been in office for two weeks" and has inherited a recession from "the previous government". And here's the instant and rapid action we're taking. Done. Way better than "nope, don't accept the data, who are the BofE anyway and what do they know, we've had enough of experts".
    The same BOE that is so often derided on here for not curating the economy correctly? All recessions are technical. This feels very different to seventies and eighties recessions, at least for the moment.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,955

    Is it possible this gets voted down?

    You likely lose the Party whip if you don't vote for a Budget.

    But hey, this isn't Budget. If Rishi's supporters sit on their hands, then maybe.

    Even if it passes now, expect a Brady in-tray load of "we told you so...." if in the New Year it has not delivered.

  • Scott_xP said:

    Is it possible this gets voted down?

    Presumably it's a confidence vote, even though "it's not a budget"...
    Is the Fixed Term Parliament Act still in force? I know there was a plan to replace it but not sure if it went through. If not, this Government won't treat anything as a confidence vote. MPs can vote against it without bringing down the Government (whether they keep the whip is another matter) and they should. The FTPA really gives MPs quite a lot of power in these situations.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited September 2022

    ydoethur said:

    Another potential problem is that if the backbenches do erupt and Truss ends up as a Winter Queen then whoever succeeds will face greater pressure to go to the country quickly.

    Changing PMs within a Parliament is normal. Doing so twice is quite unusual.

    It hasn't happened in a peacetime Parliament since 1865-1868, when there were four Prime Ministers in three years - Palmerston (died) Russell (resigned after losing VONC) Derby (retired) Disraeli.

    The only other occasion was in the 1935-45 Parliament under somewhat unusual circumstances.

    Edit - technically you could add the 1900-1906 Parliament to that list, but Campbell-Bannerman was appointed on the understanding he would seek an immediate election.
    Has a Prime Minister ever been ejected and returned within a calender year before?
    Gladstone, 1885. Salisbury 1885-6 (both during the Home Rule Crisis) Melbourne 1834-35. Palmerston 1858.

    Can't think of any since 1886. It's noteworthy as well those were from different parties. I can't think of any PM who has made an immediate comeback by overthrowing a member of their own party.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    edited September 2022
    Unpopular said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Is it possible this gets voted down?

    Presumably it's a confidence vote, even though "it's not a budget"...
    Is the Fixed Term Parliament Act still in force?
    No.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited September 2022
    MaxPB said:

    Sandpit said:

    Today are leading with a think tank opinion, everyone but very rich WORSE OFF after a £45B giveaway budget.

    Really?

    Journalism at its best. Every one who pays income tax or NI, is better off as a result of the measures announced yesterday.
    Not really, this budget will add hundreds of pounds per month onto mortgage costs and extend our period of high inflation by an extra 6 months. The small saving on NI will be wiped out by these twin costs. Only people earning £250k or more will actually be better off IMO.
    Not 100% accurate.

    Come April the sane choice for most people will be to take a contract rather than a permanent job and pay themselves using a limited company.

    For people doing that earn £50,000 it would reduce NI costs to zero and after tax give you a take home pay of £40,080 after all tax was deducted.
This discussion has been closed.