Kwarteng now 30% favourite for first cabinet exit – politicalbetting.com
Comments
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The SNP have made their written submission to the SC in respect of their referendum bill: https://www.snp.org/the-snps-supreme-court-submission-on-the-independence-referendum/
TLDR, the argument boils down to this. Peoples have a right to self determination. We are a people. Hence we have that right. The Scotland Act 1998 should be construed in a way that does not interfere with that right. A referendum allows the views of the Scottish people to be determined. The reserved matters therefore cannot constrain this.0 -
I trust 100m is the size of the area, not the size of the bubbleswooliedyed said:The Nordstream story is gathering steam if you'll excuse the pun. Bubbles reaching the surface of the sea over diameter of 100M suggesting a very big breach and 'accidental' is no longer being considered.
Europe is fucked this winter. Properly fucked. Imo scenarios leading to the collapse of the EU have moved from ridiculous and implausible to very outside possibility.
.
I think La Sturgeon would take the zombie CalMac ferries there to try and lose them forever if so:
Leaked dossier suggests Scottish ferry deal may have been rigged
By BBC Disclosure
BBC Scotland
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-629867571 -
Despite this being a lol-worthy juxtaposition, what planet is he on?Scott_xP said:Friday:
‘Cuts to stamp duty will get the housing market moving and support first-time buyers’
-Kwasi Kwarteng
Tuesday:
‘300 mortgage deals have been pulled by banks and building societies after fall in the pound fuelled forecasts of jump in interest rates to nearly 6%’
“Get the housing market moving”? - mate, the housing market has been absolutely racing for the past 3 years. Prices have skyrocketed.
Appreciate things might change a bit now, but what a tone deaf statement.
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Therefore all local councils have the right to run concurrent referenda for their people to remain or leave, or apply to join the EU, or whatever. County councils in England can run secede referenda at will etc etcDavidL said:The SNP have made their written submission to the SC in respect of their referendum bill: https://www.snp.org/the-snps-supreme-court-submission-on-the-independence-referendum/
TLDR, the argument boils down to this. Peoples have a right to self determination. We are a people. Hence we have that right. The Scotland Act 1998 should be construed in a way that does not interfere with that right. A referendum allows the views of the Scottish people to be determined. The reserved matters therefore cannot constrain this.0 -
You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
0 -
Wow. Some big bubbles!
This photo, taken by a Danish F-16 near Bornholm, shows the disturbance in the water caused by one of the gas leaks in the Baltic Sea.
Image shared by the Danish Armed Forces
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1574741612093181952
Edit: How safe is it flying a jet over the top of a large release of flammable gas?!0 -
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.1 -
That just isn't a sensible way to forecast. You can't just draw a straight line between two arbitrary points because it suits you.BartholomewRoberts said:
Its taken about 15 years to get from $2 to almost parity, and doesn't seem to show any sign of slowing down.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
It hasn't been at $5 since before the Second World War, so over 80 years.BartholomewRoberts said:
Sterling used to be $5, then $2, and its now been approaching parity for a while.GIN1138 said:
Freefloating into oblivion?BartholomewRoberts said:
Sterling is freely floating now. Freely floating currencies can go up or down, its not a problem. The government's stated goal is to get the economy growing, if lower taxes and lower Sterling helps make that viable, then they will have achieved their goal.
It wouldn't surprise me if in my lifetime £1 = $0.20
Going from $1 to 20c is the equivalent of going from $5 to $1 (80% loss of value).
I don't know how old you are, but frankly it would surprise me quite a lot if it got to 20c in any of our lifetimes.
At that rate, we could see the 50 cent jokes become reality in another fifteen, within 30 years we're at what they call a quarter. Then just a few more takes us to 20c.
By that approach, one could've just drawn a line between, say, 1993 and 2007 and said "there - look at the pound going stratospheric in my lifetime!"
You need to take a longer view, noting currency movements are part fundamentals and part speculation.0 -
We need to find a way to increase productivity - which last Friday's budget simply doesn't do for 1 very obvious reason.ExiledInScotland said:
So what you are saying is that there are limits in reality of what we can achieve to grow our economy. Ok. We have a wider problem then: having bankrupted ourselves with 2 World Wars, used North Sea wealth to avoid hard decisions on government expenditure, built a rapacious welfare system and NHS that uses an increasing share of government spending while still not meeting expectations, all while having our tax system take a higher percentage of our income than ever plus borrowing at unsustainable levels - what is the end position going to be? We cannot *CANNOT* continue as we are.RochdalePioneers said:
Hard to grasp why this apparently is hard to grasp. The US Dollar is *the* global reserve currency. The exchange rate of other currencies against it matters, especially when yours is one of the other leading global currencies.Cicero said:
In two words: confidence and capacity.BartholomewRoberts said:
Who gives a flying f**k if we pass parity with either the dollar or the Euro? What difference does it make?Cicero said:
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.williamglenn said:
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.Cicero said:Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
The long term productivity numbers show that there has been insufficient investment in the UK over the past 30-odd years, so lower currency rates do not improve the competitive position of the economy sufficient to trigger growth. The economic capacity, especially the industrial capacity, is too small and too weak for Sterling based assets alone to restore a stable growth rate. The negative view of the country means that it would take a very long time to gain inward investment, especially as we are not in the single market.
The impact of a collapse of confidence in the UK means that we can no longer afford so many imports but do not have the capacity for import substitution and there will be a persistent investment gap. So the most likely impact is a very long and very deep depression.
Yesterday we fell to our lowest exchange rate against the dollar since its creation. That is not a position that global traders believe to be tenable - they do not have confidence in what a growing number of very senior global finance figures have described in various kinds of choice language.
BR is one of these England uber Alles lunatics. Remember how people said bin the EEA and lets go WTO? Then tried to lecture the WTO on how the WTO worked when it was made clear to them that there are rules for global trade. Same moronity on display here.
What is the Pound? It is fiat - it only has the value that the confidence of others grant it. We have to pay our taxes in it, creditors receive their gilt interest payments in it. Confidence creates value. Take the confidence away by being bloody stupid and your scrip may not even have the value of the polymer its printed on.
Either we grow the economy or else economic reality will force 1) an increase in pension age by 10yrs - most people will die while working, 2) a smaller NHS with fewer basic treatment options at end of life - but more support to help people stay in their homes or get back out of hospital, 3) a shift to individual state pension pots funded by our own work history, 4) wealth taxes - the last resort of governments who have run out of all other options. Oh, and we will have to build millions of new houses to force property prices down.
A very different Britain
If you continue doing the same things you've been doing for the past 10 years (low corporation tax) during which time they haven't resulted in companies investing money - continuing to offer low corporation tax rates isn't going to suddenly result in companies investing...
Sunak at least was trying to change that point and trying to identify how a Government could provide incentives for firms to invest in productivity improvements.1 -
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.0 -
That seems like a much weaker argument than I expected. I expected the argument to be that a referendum is simply asking the people their opinion, so doesn't change any reserved matters, so it isn't reserved.DavidL said:The SNP have made their written submission to the SC in respect of their referendum bill: https://www.snp.org/the-snps-supreme-court-submission-on-the-independence-referendum/
TLDR, the argument boils down to this. Peoples have a right to self determination. We are a people. Hence we have that right. The Scotland Act 1998 should be construed in a way that does not interfere with that right. A referendum allows the views of the Scottish people to be determined. The reserved matters therefore cannot constrain this.
Their argument seems far more political than legal, which is perhaps deliberate.0 -
If they have bought recently, then they won't be planning to move for a while.eek said:
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
So time for things to stabilise for them.2 -
Extinguish all cigarettes and fasten seatbeltsAlistairM said:Wow. Some big bubbles!
This photo, taken by a Danish F-16 near Bornholm, shows the disturbance in the water caused by one of the gas leaks in the Baltic Sea.
Image shared by the Danish Armed Forces
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1574741612093181952
Edit: How safe is it flying a jet over the top of a large release of flammable gas?!3 -
All investments can go down as well as up.eek said:
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
If you rule out negative equity, then you're abolishing that principle and putting a one way ratchet on prices, with horrendous consequences.2 -
Absolutely and this is surely one reason why the UK is getting brickbats from policymakers in the US and Germany.BartholomewRoberts said:
Excellent article. Matches my thoughts.williamglenn said:Quite a good blog on Truss/Kwarteng:
https://keirbradwell.substack.com/p/2-kwartengs-plan
Government after government has failed to do nearly enough about the supply side of the British economy. Reams have been written, far more eloquently than I can manage, about how this inaction has trapped us, time and time again, into choices we don’t want to have to make, on public services and elsewhere. It has trapped us into falling ever further behind America in our living standards. And it has nudged us into accepting relative decline as the norm and the future of Britain.
Until now, nobody has truly dared tackle this head-on. But we have finally found a PM and chancellor willing to do so. And yet for whatever reason — perhaps simply because we cannot get our heads around the reorganisation they have in mind — we are risking making it politically impossible before they have even begun to try.
I like this Tweet in it: https://twitter.com/s8mb/status/1573259866801684483
Sam Bowman 🇺🇦
@s8mb
I think this is a "gamble" in the same sense that quitting a job that hasn't given you a pay rise in 10 years is a "gamble".
The idea that something will come along eventually, without us doing anything different, seems at least as foolhardy as trying to change course like this.
We are breaking away from the consensus convoy that has delivered the current malaise all over the West. They cannot afford for us to be right.
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The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach1
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Don't panic!HYUFD said:Truss and Kwarteng are now joined like Johnson and Sunak. If one goes both go, so he probably stays
Interesting. On WATO, Ben Wright suggesting that despite what BigG. would call hubris at the Labour Party Conference, this era smacks of the early 1990s rather than the early 1960s and he suggests we don't forget the Conservatives won in 1992 against the odds and with the backdrop of a recession.
Lizzie and Krazy could pull this off after all.0 -
House prices cannot go up forever, there has to be a correctioneek said:
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.2 -
That'll take more than a sticking plaster.wooliedyed said:The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach
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“The government has lost control of the economy and for what?… Tax cuts for the 1%. Don’t forget and don’t forgive - the only way to stop this is with a Labour government.” Clear, confident message from Sir Keir Starmer making the most of the Conservatives’ economic turmoil.
https://twitter.com/amandaakass/status/1574748834999271424
Starmer enjoying himself; “they haven’t just failed to fix the roof, they ripped out the windows and now they’ve blown the doors off for good measure.”
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/15747488051273195521 -
I think that the SNP would argue that the population of local authority is not a people and therefore does not have that right.wooliedyed said:
Therefore all local councils have the right to run concurrent referenda for their people to remain or leave, or apply to join the EU, or whatever. County councils in England can run secede referenda at will etc etcDavidL said:The SNP have made their written submission to the SC in respect of their referendum bill: https://www.snp.org/the-snps-supreme-court-submission-on-the-independence-referendum/
TLDR, the argument boils down to this. Peoples have a right to self determination. We are a people. Hence we have that right. The Scotland Act 1998 should be construed in a way that does not interfere with that right. A referendum allows the views of the Scottish people to be determined. The reserved matters therefore cannot constrain this.
But I also think that the SC will be rather more interested on what the law is and what the competency of that creature of statute, the Scottish Parliament is and what it can and cannot do.2 -
"The Tories claimed that we didn't repair the roof when the sun was shining.
But this government has collapsed the foundations, brought down the walls and has just blown the doors off."4 -
The people behind thingy doesn't work for me.
But otherwise he is smashing this out of the park.1 -
prices might go down but affordability wont. except for cash buyers.noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.0 -
Good. We shouldn't be importing Russian products.wooliedyed said:The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach
Good riddance to Nordstream if this kills it off.1 -
Maybe I'm just some utopian lefty but maybe we could just decide that different things are important. We say we have a welfare state, but really we have an emergency pull cord - people in medical emergencies have good outcomes, and some people in very dire economic straights have a safety net. But we don't have a welfare state in the sense of having a good standard of living as a guaranteed foundation of existence. And people ask, "well how would you pay for that?", but in many ways it pays for itself. Investing in cheaper public transport allows workers to move more freely and be more productive. A guarantee of affordable roof over your head makes less anxious workers. The same for healthcare and education. But they would be less economically precarious, and therefore would flex their muscles against capital, and that is unacceptable to business.eek said:
We need to find a way to increase productivity - which last Friday's budget simply doesn't do for 1 very obvious reason.ExiledInScotland said:
So what you are saying is that there are limits in reality of what we can achieve to grow our economy. Ok. We have a wider problem then: having bankrupted ourselves with 2 World Wars, used North Sea wealth to avoid hard decisions on government expenditure, built a rapacious welfare system and NHS that uses an increasing share of government spending while still not meeting expectations, all while having our tax system take a higher percentage of our income than ever plus borrowing at unsustainable levels - what is the end position going to be? We cannot *CANNOT* continue as we are.RochdalePioneers said:
Hard to grasp why this apparently is hard to grasp. The US Dollar is *the* global reserve currency. The exchange rate of other currencies against it matters, especially when yours is one of the other leading global currencies.Cicero said:
In two words: confidence and capacity.BartholomewRoberts said:
Who gives a flying f**k if we pass parity with either the dollar or the Euro? What difference does it make?Cicero said:
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.williamglenn said:
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.Cicero said:Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
The long term productivity numbers show that there has been insufficient investment in the UK over the past 30-odd years, so lower currency rates do not improve the competitive position of the economy sufficient to trigger growth. The economic capacity, especially the industrial capacity, is too small and too weak for Sterling based assets alone to restore a stable growth rate. The negative view of the country means that it would take a very long time to gain inward investment, especially as we are not in the single market.
The impact of a collapse of confidence in the UK means that we can no longer afford so many imports but do not have the capacity for import substitution and there will be a persistent investment gap. So the most likely impact is a very long and very deep depression.
Yesterday we fell to our lowest exchange rate against the dollar since its creation. That is not a position that global traders believe to be tenable - they do not have confidence in what a growing number of very senior global finance figures have described in various kinds of choice language.
BR is one of these England uber Alles lunatics. Remember how people said bin the EEA and lets go WTO? Then tried to lecture the WTO on how the WTO worked when it was made clear to them that there are rules for global trade. Same moronity on display here.
What is the Pound? It is fiat - it only has the value that the confidence of others grant it. We have to pay our taxes in it, creditors receive their gilt interest payments in it. Confidence creates value. Take the confidence away by being bloody stupid and your scrip may not even have the value of the polymer its printed on.
Either we grow the economy or else economic reality will force 1) an increase in pension age by 10yrs - most people will die while working, 2) a smaller NHS with fewer basic treatment options at end of life - but more support to help people stay in their homes or get back out of hospital, 3) a shift to individual state pension pots funded by our own work history, 4) wealth taxes - the last resort of governments who have run out of all other options. Oh, and we will have to build millions of new houses to force property prices down.
A very different Britain
If you continue doing the same things you've been doing for the past 10 years (low corporation tax) during which time they haven't resulted in companies investing money - continuing to offer low corporation tax rates isn't going to suddenly result in companies investing...
Sunak at least was trying to change that point and trying to identify how a Government could provide incentives for firms to invest in productivity improvements.
We should also be looking at more automation and an acceptance that we don't need to work as much as we do. Taking a purely material marxist view, private automation would lead to workers being laid off and less need for workers, but there is no reason why the profits of automation should be held in private hands rather than for common good. More work done by robots, less work done by people, but more fruits of labour going to everyone is what we should be aiming for. A real transformation of how we consider work in the digital age. Not revived voodoo economics.2 -
Voters would need a 'positive' to change tack now imo.Mexicanpete said:
Don't panic!HYUFD said:Truss and Kwarteng are now joined like Johnson and Sunak. If one goes both go, so he probably stays
Interesting. On WATO, Ben Wright suggesting that despite what BigG. would call hubris at the Labour Party Conference, this era smacks of the early 1990s rather than the early 1960s and he suggests we don't forget the Conservatives won in 1992 against the odds and with the backdrop of a recession.
Lizzie and Krazy could pull this off after all.
Off the top of my head, an unexpected strong bounceback and not too much pain this winter here combined with EU misery and civil unrest leading to a 'better off out' Brexit relief rally. But how likely is that?0 -
Poland and the Baltic States are probably very happy!BartholomewRoberts said:
Good. We shouldn't be importing Russian products.wooliedyed said:The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach
Good riddance to Nordstream if this kills it off.1 -
Except Truss and Kwarteng are much less to the centre than Major, indeed Starmer is more decent but dull Major than themMexicanpete said:
Don't panic!HYUFD said:Truss and Kwarteng are now joined like Johnson and Sunak. If one goes both go, so he probably stays
Interesting. On WATO, Ben Wright suggesting that despite what BigG. would call hubris at the Labour Party Conference, this era smacks of the early 1990s rather than the early 1960s and he suggests we don't forget the Conservatives won in 1992 against the odds and with the backdrop of a recession.
Lizzie and Krazy could pull this off after all.0 -
I'm trying to buy a house at the moment.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
We have a mortgage offer approved, but we subsequently negotiated the price down slightly. I really hope this wasn't a massive error - as we now seem to be in limbo waiting to get a revised offer from the bank.
I've re-read the t's and c's and think they have to honour the old offer they made at least (which in a rare display of successful gambling on my part was a 5 year fixed rate). But it feels pretty nervy waiting while interest rates go up ever other week it seems.1 -
That is an utterly useless analogy.BartholomewRoberts said:
Excellent article. Matches my thoughts.williamglenn said:Quite a good blog on Truss/Kwarteng:
https://keirbradwell.substack.com/p/2-kwartengs-plan
Government after government has failed to do nearly enough about the supply side of the British economy. Reams have been written, far more eloquently than I can manage, about how this inaction has trapped us, time and time again, into choices we don’t want to have to make, on public services and elsewhere. It has trapped us into falling ever further behind America in our living standards. And it has nudged us into accepting relative decline as the norm and the future of Britain.
Until now, nobody has truly dared tackle this head-on. But we have finally found a PM and chancellor willing to do so. And yet for whatever reason — perhaps simply because we cannot get our heads around the reorganisation they have in mind — we are risking making it politically impossible before they have even begun to try.
I like this Tweet in it: https://twitter.com/s8mb/status/1573259866801684483
Sam Bowman 🇺🇦
@s8mb
I think this is a "gamble" in the same sense that quitting a job that hasn't given you a pay rise in 10 years is a "gamble".
The idea that something will come along eventually, without us doing anything different, seems at least as foolhardy as trying to change course like this.
National governments don't have the option of forgoing 100% of their income in the hope that something better will turn up. Just silly.0 -
Its more the effect on the EU this winter....... theyre already roger ruggeredSlackbladder said:
That'll take more than a sticking plaster.wooliedyed said:The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach
0 -
needs a giant inverted funnel on the surface with a pipe out the top. russian gas for free.Slackbladder said:
That'll take more than a sticking plaster.wooliedyed said:The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach
0 -
IMO, another leadership challenge only happens on the grounds of a 'national interest' intervention (basically an acceptance she has to be stopped, even if that speeds Labour's advance to power - which feels like quite a high bar when the people who do it would lose their own seats and power).MarqueeMark said:
We just aren't party to the internal Tory whatsapp groups....BartholomewRoberts said:
Well we know not even a single Tory MP seems to be pissed off enough to say anything on camera, as Aaron Bell MP did at the turn of the year.MarqueeMark said:
You don't know how pissed off the Tory MPs are though....Andy_JS said:
Talking about another Tory leader already is one of the silliest things this forum has ever engaged in IMO.numbertwelve said:Re a coronation - In the last leadership race however, they were hopelessly split. Who can they actually unite behind?
Can’t be Rishi - members have just rejected him…
Appears to me it can only be Wallace*. But he doesn’t want it and it’s a poisoned chalice, particularly when he is perfectly happy doing the job he likes doing at the MOD.
Penny or Kemi are other options I suppose but they are both relatively inexperienced and the hour would not call for another gamble.
*or, whisper it, the Rt Hon Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip?
They are the ones already sending in letters/plotting.
Start with all those Rishi Sunak supporters. "We f*cking TOLD you. Tw@s....."
The Penny Mordaunt supporters won't be far behind. That's 2/3rds of Tory MPs.
God alone knows what the Truss backers are making of it. They aren't rushing to the media to defend her.
The discipline for once will be in making this a very private event. The quieter it is, the more is going on. The issue is - who do the pissed off get behind? If Wallace very discretely was asked - and equally discretely indicated he would take the job if it would save the Party - then Truss is basically on 24 hours notice.
I just don't see any circumstances in which changing leader again this side of the next GE doesn't make things even worse for the Cons.
1. They're already paying the price for dicking around playing "Who's Your Favourite Tory?" while the economy went to pot in the summer, and doing so again would lop another 5 points off their polling immediately.
2. Fine, that can be mitigated by crowning an Adult Left In The Room. But (a) those are in perilously short supply since Boris kicked most of the actual talent out over Brexit, (b) any remaining adults know it's a poisoned chalice, (c) it's virtually impossible to guarantee a coronation without a second maverick candidate emerging and promising members the moon on a stick ("The King has been pleased to ask Andrew Bridgen MP to form a government").
3. If MPs pull the trigger against such a recent membership choice, I can see an irreparable rift between the party at Westminster and in the country. Very dangerous in the run up to an election which will require door knockers and poster putter-uppers.
None of that is to say Truss isn't and won't be a disaster.. or that someone else couldn't be an improvement.. but the process of getting from here to there is fraught with ways to lose another chunk of votes.
3 -
-
Every single vid I've seen from Telegram about the war seems to involve soldiers smoking. All of them. On both sides.wooliedyed said:
Extinguish all cigarettes and fasten seatbeltsAlistairM said:Wow. Some big bubbles!
This photo, taken by a Danish F-16 near Bornholm, shows the disturbance in the water caused by one of the gas leaks in the Baltic Sea.
Image shared by the Danish Armed Forces
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1574741612093181952
Edit: How safe is it flying a jet over the top of a large release of flammable gas?!0 -
You need to pay for the automation first - and businesses have been using cheap migrant labour and overtime for the past 17 years rather than investing in automation to improve productivity.148grss said:
Maybe I'm just some utopian lefty but maybe we could just decide that different things are important. We say we have a welfare state, but really we have an emergency pull cord - people in medical emergencies have good outcomes, and some people in very dire economic straights have a safety net. But we don't have a welfare state in the sense of having a good standard of living as a guaranteed foundation of existence. And people ask, "well how would you pay for that?", but in many ways it pays for itself. Investing in cheaper public transport allows workers to move more freely and be more productive. A guarantee of affordable roof over your head makes less anxious workers. The same for healthcare and education. But they would be less economically precarious, and therefore would flex their muscles against capital, and that is unacceptable to business.eek said:
We need to find a way to increase productivity - which last Friday's budget simply doesn't do for 1 very obvious reason.ExiledInScotland said:
So what you are saying is that there are limits in reality of what we can achieve to grow our economy. Ok. We have a wider problem then: having bankrupted ourselves with 2 World Wars, used North Sea wealth to avoid hard decisions on government expenditure, built a rapacious welfare system and NHS that uses an increasing share of government spending while still not meeting expectations, all while having our tax system take a higher percentage of our income than ever plus borrowing at unsustainable levels - what is the end position going to be? We cannot *CANNOT* continue as we are.RochdalePioneers said:
Hard to grasp why this apparently is hard to grasp. The US Dollar is *the* global reserve currency. The exchange rate of other currencies against it matters, especially when yours is one of the other leading global currencies.Cicero said:
In two words: confidence and capacity.BartholomewRoberts said:
Who gives a flying f**k if we pass parity with either the dollar or the Euro? What difference does it make?Cicero said:
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.williamglenn said:
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.Cicero said:Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
The long term productivity numbers show that there has been insufficient investment in the UK over the past 30-odd years, so lower currency rates do not improve the competitive position of the economy sufficient to trigger growth. The economic capacity, especially the industrial capacity, is too small and too weak for Sterling based assets alone to restore a stable growth rate. The negative view of the country means that it would take a very long time to gain inward investment, especially as we are not in the single market.
The impact of a collapse of confidence in the UK means that we can no longer afford so many imports but do not have the capacity for import substitution and there will be a persistent investment gap. So the most likely impact is a very long and very deep depression.
Yesterday we fell to our lowest exchange rate against the dollar since its creation. That is not a position that global traders believe to be tenable - they do not have confidence in what a growing number of very senior global finance figures have described in various kinds of choice language.
BR is one of these England uber Alles lunatics. Remember how people said bin the EEA and lets go WTO? Then tried to lecture the WTO on how the WTO worked when it was made clear to them that there are rules for global trade. Same moronity on display here.
What is the Pound? It is fiat - it only has the value that the confidence of others grant it. We have to pay our taxes in it, creditors receive their gilt interest payments in it. Confidence creates value. Take the confidence away by being bloody stupid and your scrip may not even have the value of the polymer its printed on.
Either we grow the economy or else economic reality will force 1) an increase in pension age by 10yrs - most people will die while working, 2) a smaller NHS with fewer basic treatment options at end of life - but more support to help people stay in their homes or get back out of hospital, 3) a shift to individual state pension pots funded by our own work history, 4) wealth taxes - the last resort of governments who have run out of all other options. Oh, and we will have to build millions of new houses to force property prices down.
A very different Britain
If you continue doing the same things you've been doing for the past 10 years (low corporation tax) during which time they haven't resulted in companies investing money - continuing to offer low corporation tax rates isn't going to suddenly result in companies investing...
Sunak at least was trying to change that point and trying to identify how a Government could provide incentives for firms to invest in productivity improvements.
We should also be looking at more automation and an acceptance that we don't need to work as much as we do. Taking a purely material marxist view, private automation would lead to workers being laid off and less need for workers, but there is no reason why the profits of automation should be held in private hands rather than for common good. More work done by robots, less work done by people, but more fruits of labour going to everyone is what we should be aiming for. A real transformation of how we consider work in the digital age. Not revived voodoo economics.
And without that productivity you really can't have any long term utopia no matter what utopia you want,0 -
The chancellor can come out all he likes and say “I’m confident in my plan”
Ok then. Prove it. Provide the analysis and OBR evidence. Or provide the plan that shows it can be made to work.
It was utter negligence to come out and announce what he did without any semblance of credibility. And then to say yesterday “I’ll give you a plan in 8 weeks”. And then today saying “it’ll be ok”
It is utter negligence and we all pay for it2 -
If it is Russia, is that not an Act of War against a NATO country?eek said:
Russia because few other people have the means or the motive....AlistairM said:
Not really surprising. Not likely both would be damaged simultaneously. I'm still of a view that this is a good thing in the long term. Main question is - whodunnit?Nigelb said:So probably not just dodgy build quality, after all.
https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1574717885016154117
BREAKING: Germany suspects damage to Nord Stream pipeline is the result of sabotage - Bloomberg
Yes Ukraine supposedly has a motive but it wouldn't want to annoy anyone supplying it with the arms it needs.0 -
@Nigel_Farage
Huge amounts of immigration from the
subcontinent provides cheap labour to big business.
The Liz Truss immigration policy is betraying Brexit voting Tories and she will pay a big price
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1574686284471074816?s=20&t=_r-3EaZn8hV72N5YBogdjA0 -
0
-
fingers crossed for you.rkrkrk said:
I'm trying to buy a house at the moment.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
We have a mortgage offer approved, but we subsequently negotiated the price down slightly. I really hope this wasn't a massive error - as we now seem to be in limbo waiting to get a revised offer from the bank.
I've re-read the t's and c's and think they have to honour the old offer they made at least (which in a rare display of successful gambling on my part was a 5 year fixed rate). But it feels pretty nervy waiting while interest rates go up ever other week it seems.2 -
My home isn’t an investment. It is my home.BartholomewRoberts said:
All investments can go down as well as up.eek said:
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
If you rule out negative equity, then you're abolishing that principle and putting a one way ratchet on prices, with horrendous consequences.8 -
Yep affordability remains the same - it's just the consequences of interest rates being higher means you can no longer afford to pay 4.5 times your salary for a property you can only afford 3.5 times your salary.paulyork64 said:
prices might go down but affordability wont. except for cash buyers.noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
And so houses price drop significantly - at 2.5% interest rates for £1000 a month you could borrow £223,000. At 7% interest rates you can borrow £141,000..
It's an extreme demonstration but that's a 36% drop in house prices there...
0 -
to be fair i would think tories are used to be being betrayed on immigration....its run at the same rate under them as it did under BlairHYUFD said:@Nigel_Farage
Huge amounts of immigration from the
subcontinent provides cheap labour to big business.
The Liz Truss immigration policy is betraying Brexit voting Tories and she will pay a big price
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1574686284471074816?s=20&t=_r-3EaZn8hV72N5YBogdjA0 -
How much methane is being leaked from Nordstream right now into the atmosphere ?
Could it be actually accidental. We all love a good whodunnit but could shoddy Russian maintenance be to blame ?
It's not unheard of.0 -
No-one thought Nordstream was being turned back on this winter did they? Thought it was pretty clear it was off for the duration of the war.wooliedyed said:
Its more the effect on the EU this winter....... theyre already roger ruggeredSlackbladder said:
That'll take more than a sticking plaster.wooliedyed said:The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach
This presumably means that it will be off for considerably longer than that - Germany needs a plan for next winter that doesn't involve it.0 -
I mean he's not wrong that the UK has been in relative decline. But there isn't really a great mystery here.williamglenn said:Quite a good blog on Truss/Kwarteng:
https://keirbradwell.substack.com/p/2-kwartengs-plan
Government after government has failed to do nearly enough about the supply side of the British economy. Reams have been written, far more eloquently than I can manage, about how this inaction has trapped us, time and time again, into choices we don’t want to have to make, on public services and elsewhere. It has trapped us into falling ever further behind America in our living standards. And it has nudged us into accepting relative decline as the norm and the future of Britain.
Until now, nobody has truly dared tackle this head-on. But we have finally found a PM and chancellor willing to do so. And yet for whatever reason — perhaps simply because we cannot get our heads around the reorganisation they have in mind — we are risking making it politically impossible before they have even begun to try.
People wondering why there has been no growth might want to take a look at what the Tories did to capital spending (i.e. spending that is supposed to lead to growth) when they got into office in 2010. We're still paying the price now.
0 -
Corbynism like a distant bad dream as conferences cheers to the rafters reference to stamping out anti-jewish stuff in the party.0
-
Both pipelines at the same time - at multiple places on each pipeline????Pulpstar said:How much methane is being leaked from Nordstream right now into the atmosphere ?
Could it be actually accidental. We all love a good whodunnit but could shoddy Russian maintenance be to blame ?
It's not unheard of.
Seems very unlikely0 -
The witless morons now running the Tory party really did write Starmer's speech for him.
Awesome work...0 -
Are the Russians still pumping gas in?Richard_Nabavi said:Video of the Nordstream gas leak here:
https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/15747406908771778580 -
Who has dunnit then ?eek said:
Both pipelines at the same time - at multiple places on each pipeline????Pulpstar said:How much methane is being leaked from Nordstream right now into the atmosphere ?
Could it be actually accidental. We all love a good whodunnit but could shoddy Russian maintenance be to blame ?
It's not unheard of.
Seems very unlikely0 -
read Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber for a great analysis of whats wrong with modern "work"148grss said:
Maybe I'm just some utopian lefty but maybe we could just decide that different things are important. We say we have a welfare state, but really we have an emergency pull cord - people in medical emergencies have good outcomes, and some people in very dire economic straights have a safety net. But we don't have a welfare state in the sense of having a good standard of living as a guaranteed foundation of existence. And people ask, "well how would you pay for that?", but in many ways it pays for itself. Investing in cheaper public transport allows workers to move more freely and be more productive. A guarantee of affordable roof over your head makes less anxious workers. The same for healthcare and education. But they would be less economically precarious, and therefore would flex their muscles against capital, and that is unacceptable to business.eek said:
We need to find a way to increase productivity - which last Friday's budget simply doesn't do for 1 very obvious reason.ExiledInScotland said:
So what you are saying is that there are limits in reality of what we can achieve to grow our economy. Ok. We have a wider problem then: having bankrupted ourselves with 2 World Wars, used North Sea wealth to avoid hard decisions on government expenditure, built a rapacious welfare system and NHS that uses an increasing share of government spending while still not meeting expectations, all while having our tax system take a higher percentage of our income than ever plus borrowing at unsustainable levels - what is the end position going to be? We cannot *CANNOT* continue as we are.RochdalePioneers said:
Hard to grasp why this apparently is hard to grasp. The US Dollar is *the* global reserve currency. The exchange rate of other currencies against it matters, especially when yours is one of the other leading global currencies.Cicero said:
In two words: confidence and capacity.BartholomewRoberts said:
Who gives a flying f**k if we pass parity with either the dollar or the Euro? What difference does it make?Cicero said:
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.williamglenn said:
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.Cicero said:Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
The long term productivity numbers show that there has been insufficient investment in the UK over the past 30-odd years, so lower currency rates do not improve the competitive position of the economy sufficient to trigger growth. The economic capacity, especially the industrial capacity, is too small and too weak for Sterling based assets alone to restore a stable growth rate. The negative view of the country means that it would take a very long time to gain inward investment, especially as we are not in the single market.
The impact of a collapse of confidence in the UK means that we can no longer afford so many imports but do not have the capacity for import substitution and there will be a persistent investment gap. So the most likely impact is a very long and very deep depression.
Yesterday we fell to our lowest exchange rate against the dollar since its creation. That is not a position that global traders believe to be tenable - they do not have confidence in what a growing number of very senior global finance figures have described in various kinds of choice language.
BR is one of these England uber Alles lunatics. Remember how people said bin the EEA and lets go WTO? Then tried to lecture the WTO on how the WTO worked when it was made clear to them that there are rules for global trade. Same moronity on display here.
What is the Pound? It is fiat - it only has the value that the confidence of others grant it. We have to pay our taxes in it, creditors receive their gilt interest payments in it. Confidence creates value. Take the confidence away by being bloody stupid and your scrip may not even have the value of the polymer its printed on.
Either we grow the economy or else economic reality will force 1) an increase in pension age by 10yrs - most people will die while working, 2) a smaller NHS with fewer basic treatment options at end of life - but more support to help people stay in their homes or get back out of hospital, 3) a shift to individual state pension pots funded by our own work history, 4) wealth taxes - the last resort of governments who have run out of all other options. Oh, and we will have to build millions of new houses to force property prices down.
A very different Britain
If you continue doing the same things you've been doing for the past 10 years (low corporation tax) during which time they haven't resulted in companies investing money - continuing to offer low corporation tax rates isn't going to suddenly result in companies investing...
Sunak at least was trying to change that point and trying to identify how a Government could provide incentives for firms to invest in productivity improvements.
We should also be looking at more automation and an acceptance that we don't need to work as much as we do. Taking a purely material marxist view, private automation would lead to workers being laid off and less need for workers, but there is no reason why the profits of automation should be held in private hands rather than for common good. More work done by robots, less work done by people, but more fruits of labour going to everyone is what we should be aiming for. A real transformation of how we consider work in the digital age. Not revived voodoo economics.1 -
We have 5 by-elections in the House of Lords next month due to retirements of Viscount Ullswater, Lord Colwyn, the Earl of Listowel and Lord Astor of Hever and the death of the Earl of Home.
There is one vacancy in the Crossbenchers, 2 vacancies in the Conservatives and 2 vacancies for the whole House (although these are expect to be filled by Conservatives).
The first election will be by AV, but the last two elections will be by STV.
Candidates statements to be published later this week.0 -
Well precisely, so long as you don't intend to move, if your home's value goes down then it doesn't affect you one jot, you still have your home.Gallowgate said:
My home isn’t an investment. It is my home.BartholomewRoberts said:
All investments can go down as well as up.eek said:
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
If you rule out negative equity, then you're abolishing that principle and putting a one way ratchet on prices, with horrendous consequences.
If you buy your home for £x and then in a few years time its worth £2x then you still have your home, not 2 homes. If its worth £0.5x then you still have your home, not half a home.
If you intend to move, you may have less money invested for a new purchase, but that's possible for all investments.1 -
Not both pipelines.Pulpstar said:How much methane is being leaked from Nordstream right now into the atmosphere ?
Could it be actually accidental. We all love a good whodunnit but could shoddy Russian maintenance be to blame ?
It's not unheard of.
I and II have both experience some kind of catastrophic failure.0 -
Well im working on the assumption this makes replenishing stored gas even more distant and unlikely later, meaning more stringent 'rationing' nowLostPassword said:
No-one thought Nordstream was being turned back on this winter did they? Thought it was pretty clear it was off for the duration of the war.wooliedyed said:
Its more the effect on the EU this winter....... theyre already roger ruggeredSlackbladder said:
That'll take more than a sticking plaster.wooliedyed said:The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach
This presumably means that it will be off for considerably longer than that - Germany needs a plan for next winter that doesn't involve it.0 -
The engineering of how they construct these things is amazing. The engineering of how they *fix* them is even more amazing.Slackbladder said:
That'll take more than a sticking plaster.wooliedyed said:The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach
It reminds of the early transatlantic cables, as laid by (say) the Great Eastern. When a cable broke, they would have to drag the seabed for the ends, bring them up, and splice them back together. Quite an amazing feat for the 1860s.0 -
This is what I always find confusing as someone who (self admittedly) does not understand economics.eek said:
You need to pay for the automation first - and businesses have been using cheap migrant labour and overtime for the past 17 years rather than investing in automation to improve productivity.148grss said:
Maybe I'm just some utopian lefty but maybe we could just decide that different things are important. We say we have a welfare state, but really we have an emergency pull cord - people in medical emergencies have good outcomes, and some people in very dire economic straights have a safety net. But we don't have a welfare state in the sense of having a good standard of living as a guaranteed foundation of existence. And people ask, "well how would you pay for that?", but in many ways it pays for itself. Investing in cheaper public transport allows workers to move more freely and be more productive. A guarantee of affordable roof over your head makes less anxious workers. The same for healthcare and education. But they would be less economically precarious, and therefore would flex their muscles against capital, and that is unacceptable to business.eek said:
We need to find a way to increase productivity - which last Friday's budget simply doesn't do for 1 very obvious reason.ExiledInScotland said:
So what you are saying is that there are limits in reality of what we can achieve to grow our economy. Ok. We have a wider problem then: having bankrupted ourselves with 2 World Wars, used North Sea wealth to avoid hard decisions on government expenditure, built a rapacious welfare system and NHS that uses an increasing share of government spending while still not meeting expectations, all while having our tax system take a higher percentage of our income than ever plus borrowing at unsustainable levels - what is the end position going to be? We cannot *CANNOT* continue as we are.RochdalePioneers said:
Hard to grasp why this apparently is hard to grasp. The US Dollar is *the* global reserve currency. The exchange rate of other currencies against it matters, especially when yours is one of the other leading global currencies.Cicero said:
In two words: confidence and capacity.BartholomewRoberts said:
Who gives a flying f**k if we pass parity with either the dollar or the Euro? What difference does it make?Cicero said:
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.williamglenn said:
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.Cicero said:Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
The long term productivity numbers show that there has been insufficient investment in the UK over the past 30-odd years, so lower currency rates do not improve the competitive position of the economy sufficient to trigger growth. The economic capacity, especially the industrial capacity, is too small and too weak for Sterling based assets alone to restore a stable growth rate. The negative view of the country means that it would take a very long time to gain inward investment, especially as we are not in the single market.
The impact of a collapse of confidence in the UK means that we can no longer afford so many imports but do not have the capacity for import substitution and there will be a persistent investment gap. So the most likely impact is a very long and very deep depression.
Yesterday we fell to our lowest exchange rate against the dollar since its creation. That is not a position that global traders believe to be tenable - they do not have confidence in what a growing number of very senior global finance figures have described in various kinds of choice language.
BR is one of these England uber Alles lunatics. Remember how people said bin the EEA and lets go WTO? Then tried to lecture the WTO on how the WTO worked when it was made clear to them that there are rules for global trade. Same moronity on display here.
What is the Pound? It is fiat - it only has the value that the confidence of others grant it. We have to pay our taxes in it, creditors receive their gilt interest payments in it. Confidence creates value. Take the confidence away by being bloody stupid and your scrip may not even have the value of the polymer its printed on.
Either we grow the economy or else economic reality will force 1) an increase in pension age by 10yrs - most people will die while working, 2) a smaller NHS with fewer basic treatment options at end of life - but more support to help people stay in their homes or get back out of hospital, 3) a shift to individual state pension pots funded by our own work history, 4) wealth taxes - the last resort of governments who have run out of all other options. Oh, and we will have to build millions of new houses to force property prices down.
A very different Britain
If you continue doing the same things you've been doing for the past 10 years (low corporation tax) during which time they haven't resulted in companies investing money - continuing to offer low corporation tax rates isn't going to suddenly result in companies investing...
Sunak at least was trying to change that point and trying to identify how a Government could provide incentives for firms to invest in productivity improvements.
We should also be looking at more automation and an acceptance that we don't need to work as much as we do. Taking a purely material marxist view, private automation would lead to workers being laid off and less need for workers, but there is no reason why the profits of automation should be held in private hands rather than for common good. More work done by robots, less work done by people, but more fruits of labour going to everyone is what we should be aiming for. A real transformation of how we consider work in the digital age. Not revived voodoo economics.
And without that productivity you really can't have any long term utopia no matter what utopia you want,
Money represents the value of labour. The labour exists, independent of the money. If we really just wanted to shift the economy, we could direct the labour to do that, no? That's what people mean by the WW2 economy shifting - the state needed to put the country on a war footing, so did. With technology we have now and impending climate catastrophe, I feel we could both justify this "war footing" economic turn, and have the means to do it. So is the issue that doing that doesn't really profit private people with capital, and therefore would need to be funded on borrowing / printing money?0 -
Why are all cameras on SKS speech such tight shots?
Looks like its filmed on a PLP away day0 -
Very bizarre. Is the assumption that Russia did this?Richard_Nabavi said:Video of the Nordstream gas leak here:
https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1574740690877177858
0 -
If they stop pumping gas in, then water gets in the pipe.Benpointer said:
Are the Russians still pumping gas in?Richard_Nabavi said:Video of the Nordstream gas leak here:
https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/15747406908771778580 -
You've got it all wrong. Every Brexit vote is hugely in favour of immigration, it's just important that we control it and hence this should be welcomed by any and every Brexit voter including our Nige.HYUFD said:@Nigel_Farage
Huge amounts of immigration from the
subcontinent provides cheap labour to big business.
The Liz Truss immigration policy is betraying Brexit voting Tories and she will pay a big price
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1574686284471074816?s=20&t=_r-3EaZn8hV72N5YBogdjA0 -
"working people" must be leading in the word cloud by now.0
-
Of course it might not be deliberate sabotage.
Watch to the end...
https://twitter.com/chrisschmitz/status/15747430684648120330 -
Eh? My mortgage is pretty much unaffordable at 7% interest rates. I therefore have to sell it. If I can’t sell it for high enough to cover the outstanding mortgage, what do I do then?BartholomewRoberts said:
Well precisely, so long as you don't intend to move, if your home's value goes down then it doesn't affect you one jot, you still have your home.Gallowgate said:
My home isn’t an investment. It is my home.BartholomewRoberts said:
All investments can go down as well as up.eek said:
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
If you rule out negative equity, then you're abolishing that principle and putting a one way ratchet on prices, with horrendous consequences.
If you buy your home for £x and then in a few years time its worth £2x then you still have your home, not 2 homes. If its worth £0.5x then you still have your home, not half a home.
If you intend to move, you may have less money invested for a new purchase, but that's possible for all investments.
“Doesn’t affect me one jot”.2 -
There have been massive winners and losers from housing the last decade. Surely fairer to swap them over at some point, than just consecutive governments ensuring the winners keep winning and the losers keep losing?eek said:
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.0 -
I'm aware of the work, haven't read it all the way through: I agree with what I understand to be its position. But I don't see how the right economics their way out of that issue - either more and more jobs are "bullshit", in which case productivity will never go up because the work is almost purposefully pointless, or we accept that a certain amount of work just doesn't need to be done, and the labour market becomes flooded with lots of workers, destroying it and likely the economy?PeterM said:
read Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber for a great analysis of whats wrong with modern "work"148grss said:
Maybe I'm just some utopian lefty but maybe we could just decide that different things are important. We say we have a welfare state, but really we have an emergency pull cord - people in medical emergencies have good outcomes, and some people in very dire economic straights have a safety net. But we don't have a welfare state in the sense of having a good standard of living as a guaranteed foundation of existence. And people ask, "well how would you pay for that?", but in many ways it pays for itself. Investing in cheaper public transport allows workers to move more freely and be more productive. A guarantee of affordable roof over your head makes less anxious workers. The same for healthcare and education. But they would be less economically precarious, and therefore would flex their muscles against capital, and that is unacceptable to business.eek said:
We need to find a way to increase productivity - which last Friday's budget simply doesn't do for 1 very obvious reason.ExiledInScotland said:
So what you are saying is that there are limits in reality of what we can achieve to grow our economy. Ok. We have a wider problem then: having bankrupted ourselves with 2 World Wars, used North Sea wealth to avoid hard decisions on government expenditure, built a rapacious welfare system and NHS that uses an increasing share of government spending while still not meeting expectations, all while having our tax system take a higher percentage of our income than ever plus borrowing at unsustainable levels - what is the end position going to be? We cannot *CANNOT* continue as we are.RochdalePioneers said:
Hard to grasp why this apparently is hard to grasp. The US Dollar is *the* global reserve currency. The exchange rate of other currencies against it matters, especially when yours is one of the other leading global currencies.Cicero said:
In two words: confidence and capacity.BartholomewRoberts said:
Who gives a flying f**k if we pass parity with either the dollar or the Euro? What difference does it make?Cicero said:
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.williamglenn said:
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.Cicero said:Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
The long term productivity numbers show that there has been insufficient investment in the UK over the past 30-odd years, so lower currency rates do not improve the competitive position of the economy sufficient to trigger growth. The economic capacity, especially the industrial capacity, is too small and too weak for Sterling based assets alone to restore a stable growth rate. The negative view of the country means that it would take a very long time to gain inward investment, especially as we are not in the single market.
The impact of a collapse of confidence in the UK means that we can no longer afford so many imports but do not have the capacity for import substitution and there will be a persistent investment gap. So the most likely impact is a very long and very deep depression.
Yesterday we fell to our lowest exchange rate against the dollar since its creation. That is not a position that global traders believe to be tenable - they do not have confidence in what a growing number of very senior global finance figures have described in various kinds of choice language.
BR is one of these England uber Alles lunatics. Remember how people said bin the EEA and lets go WTO? Then tried to lecture the WTO on how the WTO worked when it was made clear to them that there are rules for global trade. Same moronity on display here.
What is the Pound? It is fiat - it only has the value that the confidence of others grant it. We have to pay our taxes in it, creditors receive their gilt interest payments in it. Confidence creates value. Take the confidence away by being bloody stupid and your scrip may not even have the value of the polymer its printed on.
Either we grow the economy or else economic reality will force 1) an increase in pension age by 10yrs - most people will die while working, 2) a smaller NHS with fewer basic treatment options at end of life - but more support to help people stay in their homes or get back out of hospital, 3) a shift to individual state pension pots funded by our own work history, 4) wealth taxes - the last resort of governments who have run out of all other options. Oh, and we will have to build millions of new houses to force property prices down.
A very different Britain
If you continue doing the same things you've been doing for the past 10 years (low corporation tax) during which time they haven't resulted in companies investing money - continuing to offer low corporation tax rates isn't going to suddenly result in companies investing...
Sunak at least was trying to change that point and trying to identify how a Government could provide incentives for firms to invest in productivity improvements.
We should also be looking at more automation and an acceptance that we don't need to work as much as we do. Taking a purely material marxist view, private automation would lead to workers being laid off and less need for workers, but there is no reason why the profits of automation should be held in private hands rather than for common good. More work done by robots, less work done by people, but more fruits of labour going to everyone is what we should be aiming for. A real transformation of how we consider work in the digital age. Not revived voodoo economics.0 -
I would point out that (a) European gas storage is currently full, (b) that EU natural gas prices are still 35% below where they were two months ago (the UK is down more, albeit prices are actually above EU levels right now), and (c) that the UK is almost as badly affected by a Nordstream shutdown, as we have limited gas storage, and this means that we'll be (again) competing with Europeans for limited numbers of spot gas cargoes.wooliedyed said:
If it needs turning off and a complicated repair, the EU will end up effectively criminalising turning up the heating and staying warm in an effort to meet energy use reduction targets and have rolling blackouts. Thats when the race for the exit will pick up pace.MarqueeMark said:
One of the oligarch's "yachts" had a capacity to cut seabed fibre optic cables. If Russia wanted to, it knows exactly where the pipelines sit. But probably not alone. Great scope for everyone to be paranoid about what is going on. (Personally, for maximum mischief, I favour it being SPECTRE.)wooliedyed said:The Nordstream story is gathering steam if you'll excuse the pun. Bubbles reaching the surface of the sea over diameter of 100M suggesting a very big breach and 'accidental' is no longer being considered.
Europe is fucked this winter. Properly fucked. Imo scenarios leading to the collapse of the EU have moved from ridiculous and implausible to very outside possibility.
Won't be an easy repair, especially with winter coming on.
Im intensely relaxed about my mass civil unrest in the EU prediction whilst being intensely concerned at its possibility0 -
There were also some pro-Brexit voices (maybe not NF) making the point that it would be less racist to open up immigration to people (useful to the economy) from all over the world instead of automatically to 27 nations producing mainly white Europeans. So these people will presumably welcome more coming from south Asia..TOPPING said:
You've got it all wrong. Every Brexit vote is hugely in favour of immigration, it's just important that we control it and hence this should be welcomed by any and every Brexit voter including our Nige.HYUFD said:@Nigel_Farage
Huge amounts of immigration from the
subcontinent provides cheap labour to big business.
The Liz Truss immigration policy is betraying Brexit voting Tories and she will pay a big price
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1574686284471074816?s=20&t=_r-3EaZn8hV72N5YBogdjA
0 -
Its the millennials who will suffer. Again. Incomes squeezed renting to afford a deposit. Those who managed to save enough in their 20s to get their claws on the property ladder in the last 5 years are screwed.noneoftheabove said:
There have been massive winners and losers from housing the last decade. Surely fairer to swap them over at some point, than just consecutive governments ensuring the winners keep winning and the losers keep losing?eek said:
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.2 -
Haven't they heard it's dangerous?Pulpstar said:
Every single vid I've seen from Telegram about the war seems to involve soldiers smoking. All of them. On both sides.wooliedyed said:
Extinguish all cigarettes and fasten seatbeltsAlistairM said:Wow. Some big bubbles!
This photo, taken by a Danish F-16 near Bornholm, shows the disturbance in the water caused by one of the gas leaks in the Baltic Sea.
Image shared by the Danish Armed Forces
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1574741612093181952
Edit: How safe is it flying a jet over the top of a large release of flammable gas?!1 -
This Kier guy seems competent enough. I’ll vote for him0
-
Gas storage is already full in Europewooliedyed said:
Well im working on the assumption this makes replenishing stored gas even more distant and unlikely later, meaning more stringent 'rationing' nowLostPassword said:
No-one thought Nordstream was being turned back on this winter did they? Thought it was pretty clear it was off for the duration of the war.wooliedyed said:
Its more the effect on the EU this winter....... theyre already roger ruggeredSlackbladder said:
That'll take more than a sticking plaster.wooliedyed said:The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach
This presumably means that it will be off for considerably longer than that - Germany needs a plan for next winter that doesn't involve it.
And there is rationing going on right now in Europe (and the UK) - it's called the price mechanism.0 -
New nationwide Mortgage rates - not necessarily the cheapest but probably reflects the new market
The phrase Oh Boy springs to mind.
For reference these were the rates in a press release from January 2022
First-time buyers:
Five-year fixed rate at 60% LTV increased by 0.05% to 1.52%, with a £999 fee.
Two-year fixed rate at 85% LTV increased by 0.05% to 1.54%, with a £999 fee.
Two-year tracker rate at 80% LTV increased by 0.05% to 1.24%, with a £999 fee.
New customers moving home:
Five-year fixed rate at 75% LTV increased by 0.05% to 1.54%, with a £999 fee.
Two-year fixed rate at 85% LTV increased by 0.05% to 1.44%, with a £999 fee.
Two-year tracker rate at 80% LTV increased by 0.10% to 1.19%, with a £999 fee.
Remortgage:
Two-year fixed rate at 60% LTV increased by 0.10% to 1.44%, with a £999 fee.
Five-year fixed rate at 80% LTV increased by 0.10% to 1.94%, with a £999 fee.
Three-year fixed rate at 75% LTV increased by 0.20% to 1.64%, with a £999 fee.0 -
0
-
Ah right, makes sense I guess. ThanksSlackbladder said:
If they stop pumping gas in, then water gets in the pipe.Benpointer said:
Are the Russians still pumping gas in?Richard_Nabavi said:Video of the Nordstream gas leak here:
https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1574740690877177858
Edit: Wait though: Are you saying they have to maintain the pressure in an intact pipe to keep the water out or they have to pump gas in now that it's breached, to keep the water out?0 -
There are three leaks, and they aren't small cracks. There doesn't appear to be a mechanism aside from deliberate sabotage.Pulpstar said:How much methane is being leaked from Nordstream right now into the atmosphere ?
Could it be actually accidental. We all love a good whodunnit but could shoddy Russian maintenance be to blame ?
It's not unheard of.0 -
You're under 35 iirc - Would moving to Nationwide for a 40 year term make it affordable ?Gallowgate said:
Eh? My mortgage is pretty much unaffordable at 7% interest rates. I therefore have to sell it. If I can’t sell it for high enough to cover the outstanding mortgage, what do I do then?BartholomewRoberts said:
Well precisely, so long as you don't intend to move, if your home's value goes down then it doesn't affect you one jot, you still have your home.Gallowgate said:
My home isn’t an investment. It is my home.BartholomewRoberts said:
All investments can go down as well as up.eek said:
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
If you rule out negative equity, then you're abolishing that principle and putting a one way ratchet on prices, with horrendous consequences.
If you buy your home for £x and then in a few years time its worth £2x then you still have your home, not 2 homes. If its worth £0.5x then you still have your home, not half a home.
If you intend to move, you may have less money invested for a new purchase, but that's possible for all investments.
“Doesn’t affect me one jot”.0 -
If the Tories leak votes to Farage though on immigration they could fall even further than the 28% they are on nowTOPPING said:
You've got it all wrong. Every Brexit vote is hugely in favour of immigration, it's just important that we control it and hence this should be welcomed by any and every Brexit voter including our Nige.HYUFD said:@Nigel_Farage
Huge amounts of immigration from the
subcontinent provides cheap labour to big business.
The Liz Truss immigration policy is betraying Brexit voting Tories and she will pay a big price
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1574686284471074816?s=20&t=_r-3EaZn8hV72N5YBogdjA0 -
Liz Truss had to be convinced to issue govt statement to calm markets after meeting with chancellor http://news.sky.com/story/liz-truss-had-to-be-convinced-to-issue-govt-statement-to-calm-markets-after-meeting-with-chancellor-127063520
-
I heard her on the radio at lunchtime talking rubbish, not about Kwarteng this was some other drivel. She was followed by Angela Rayner who was just as bad.MISTY said:
It's remarkable just how poor the quality of modern politicians has become.0 -
That works for NS1, because that's subsea damage. It's a much harder line (so to speak) to take with NS2, because (a) that's routing maintenance, and (b) Putin said the gas wouldn't be turned back on until the sanctions were lifted.Nigelb said:One of the cui bono answers.
https://twitter.com/LawyerForFuture/status/1574701718838943745
If Gazprom ever sells gas to Europe again they will face huge damage claims from gas importers like Uniper for broken contracts. Now Gazprom can shield themselves from that for the time until the repair of these new leaks of NS1 & 2 because now it’s force majeure.0 -
The sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines is a last, desperate attempt to try and force Germany into pushing for freezing the conflict. The Russian may also attempt to sabotage the Norwegian pipelines, but that would effectively be a direct act of war. In any event its not going to work, there is sufficient headroom across other supplies and alternatives to create work arounds.
The complete chaos enveloping Russia is also being seen on the battlefield, where there is now growing evidence of a Russian catastrophe around Lyman. The new recruits are just dead men walking, and even the Ukrainians are shaken by the scale of death that the Russians are effectively inflicting on their own side.
Another significant defeat is looming for Russia, and now the call up has brought the economy in several areas to a dead stop. Even if Putin formally annexes the occupied territories and uses a nuclear weapon to "defend Russian territory" there is every chance that a non-nuclear response could be so devastating that Russia itself, never mind its army, will "decohere". Chunks of Russian territory, notably Dagestan, are already slipping into open rebellion.
The crisis for Russia may be only just beginning.0 -
Starmer promises to create a public owned Great British Energy company in his conference speech1
-
He does address that if you read the whole piece:MaxPB said:
That, at least, is a load of waffle just because there were no supply side reforms, just a bunch of tax cuts which will push up demand.williamglenn said:Quite a good blog on Truss/Kwarteng:
https://keirbradwell.substack.com/p/2-kwartengs-plan
Government after government has failed to do nearly enough about the supply side of the British economy. Reams have been written, far more eloquently than I can manage, about how this inaction has trapped us, time and time again, into choices we don’t want to have to make, on public services and elsewhere. It has trapped us into falling ever further behind America in our living standards. And it has nudged us into accepting relative decline as the norm and the future of Britain.
Until now, nobody has truly dared tackle this head-on. But we have finally found a PM and chancellor willing to do so. And yet for whatever reason — perhaps simply because we cannot get our heads around the reorganisation they have in mind — we are risking making it politically impossible before they have even begun to try.
I'm all in favour of supply side reforms and pushing up business investment, there's was very little in the Friday statement that actually achieves any supply side fix.
This is a long list, and even then it is only really a start on the work that the economy needs. It is also vague: it equivocates about the most important supply-side reform of all — housing reform — promising merely that more detail will be announced soon.
But it is a start. And if it is implemented properly (and followed up with more), it would allow Kwarteng’s plan to succeed, and with it, bring to end the awful bind that British policymaking has been stuck in since 2008.
The plan is therefore a do-or-die moment.
To commit to the Growth Plan’s tax-and-spend decisions without the structural reforms to go along with them would be a disaster. It would represent the worst of the status quo, but with a new layer of ‘bad’ added on top.
And there are lots of reasons for pessimism. Getting a supply-side reform through Parliament is much more difficult than doing new spending, especially with special interest groups doing their absolute utmost to block progress. Truss is already light on political capital, given how few MPs originally voted for her, and the response to our currency trouble will only have made that worse. Worst of all, there is very little time: it is less than two years until a general election.0 -
Great British Energy.
Starmers big idea at last?2 -
I have no issues with this. Sounds like a good idea.HYUFD said:Starmer promises to create a public owned Great British Energy company in his conference speech
0 -
Energy will be publicly owned in the first year of a Lab Govt
Kin ell has someone nobbled SKS0 -
I guess we’ll see. My fix runs until February 2024.Pulpstar said:
You're under 35 iirc - Would moving to Nationwide for a 40 year term make it affordable ?Gallowgate said:
Eh? My mortgage is pretty much unaffordable at 7% interest rates. I therefore have to sell it. If I can’t sell it for high enough to cover the outstanding mortgage, what do I do then?BartholomewRoberts said:
Well precisely, so long as you don't intend to move, if your home's value goes down then it doesn't affect you one jot, you still have your home.Gallowgate said:
My home isn’t an investment. It is my home.BartholomewRoberts said:
All investments can go down as well as up.eek said:
Not really suddenly a lot of recent purchasers are going to be in negative equity....noneoftheabove said:
Great, that means prices will come down. One good thing from the mad duo.eek said:You know that stamp duty cut - it's not going to help house prices now interest rates are heading upwards
From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/banks-will-cut-mortgage-offers-90000-interest-rates-soar/
Home buyers face severe restrictions on the amount they can borrow, as rocketing interest rates force banks to limit mortgage offers.
In some cases customers could be able to borrow £90,000 less than previously expected.
If you rule out negative equity, then you're abolishing that principle and putting a one way ratchet on prices, with horrendous consequences.
If you buy your home for £x and then in a few years time its worth £2x then you still have your home, not 2 homes. If its worth £0.5x then you still have your home, not half a home.
If you intend to move, you may have less money invested for a new purchase, but that's possible for all investments.
“Doesn’t affect me one jot”.0 -
2 million households on tracker mortgages now 1.2 million needing a new fix in the next year. Thats 3.2 million household. Assume 2 people per household at least 6.5 million people affected in the next year. Lots of lost votes thereeek said:New nationwide Mortgage rates - not necessarily the cheapest but probably reflects the new market
The phrase Oh Boy springs to mind.0 -
British energy will be publicly owned
0 -
Yes and this exacerbates it, we've seen the predictions for what happens without further rationing in a cold european winter. Its not a *shrugs* thing.rcs1000 said:
Gas storage is already full in Europewooliedyed said:
Well im working on the assumption this makes replenishing stored gas even more distant and unlikely later, meaning more stringent 'rationing' nowLostPassword said:
No-one thought Nordstream was being turned back on this winter did they? Thought it was pretty clear it was off for the duration of the war.wooliedyed said:
Its more the effect on the EU this winter....... theyre already roger ruggeredSlackbladder said:
That'll take more than a sticking plaster.wooliedyed said:The Nordstream breach is now showing disturbance over an area of a kilometre. Its a fecking HUGE breach
This presumably means that it will be off for considerably longer than that - Germany needs a plan for next winter that doesn't involve it.
And there is rationing going on right now in Europe (and the UK) - it's called the price mechanism.0 -
I don't see the logic there. If the pipelines are out of action then they are no longer a potential source of leverage for Russia. If anything it renders the German pro-Russian faction impotent.Cicero said:The sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines is a last, desperate attempt to try and force Germany into pushing for freezing the conflict.
3 -
Blimey.eek said:New nationwide Mortgage rates - not necessarily the cheapest but probably reflects the new market
The phrase Oh Boy springs to mind.
For reference these were the rates in a press release from January 2022
First-time buyers:
Five-year fixed rate at 60% LTV increased by 0.05% to 1.52%, with a £999 fee.
Two-year fixed rate at 85% LTV increased by 0.05% to 1.54%, with a £999 fee.
Two-year tracker rate at 80% LTV increased by 0.05% to 1.24%, with a £999 fee.
New customers moving home:
Five-year fixed rate at 75% LTV increased by 0.05% to 1.54%, with a £999 fee.
Two-year fixed rate at 85% LTV increased by 0.05% to 1.44%, with a £999 fee.
Two-year tracker rate at 80% LTV increased by 0.10% to 1.19%, with a £999 fee.
Remortgage:
Two-year fixed rate at 60% LTV increased by 0.10% to 1.44%, with a £999 fee.
Five-year fixed rate at 80% LTV increased by 0.10% to 1.94%, with a £999 fee.
Three-year fixed rate at 75% LTV increased by 0.20% to 1.64%, with a £999 fee.
I did a look at remortgage rates today and some 2 year fixes still seemed to be around 2.69%. Presumably this changes pretty quickly0 -
Big passive smoking risk if you sign up to the foreign forces brigade of either side I think.kinabalu said:
Haven't they heard it's dangerous?Pulpstar said:
Every single vid I've seen from Telegram about the war seems to involve soldiers smoking. All of them. On both sides.wooliedyed said:
Extinguish all cigarettes and fasten seatbeltsAlistairM said:Wow. Some big bubbles!
This photo, taken by a Danish F-16 near Bornholm, shows the disturbance in the water caused by one of the gas leaks in the Baltic Sea.
Image shared by the Danish Armed Forces
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1574741612093181952
Edit: How safe is it flying a jet over the top of a large release of flammable gas?!0 -
The gas will disperse pretty quickly, as it's lighter than air and there's plenty of wind. But I wouldn't want to be in a small boat having a cigarette in the area.AlistairM said:Wow. Some big bubbles!
This photo, taken by a Danish F-16 near Bornholm, shows the disturbance in the water caused by one of the gas leaks in the Baltic Sea.
Image shared by the Danish Armed Forces
https://twitter.com/COUPSURE/status/1574741612093181952
Edit: How safe is it flying a jet over the top of a large release of flammable gas?!0 -
Starmer says the Tories do believe in redistribution 'from the poor to the rich' with a big deficit to pay for it.
He also dismisses the idea working people don't graft hard enough from the Britainnia Unchanged group0
