Bear in mind that following the sham referendum Zaphorizhzhia is part of Russia as far as Putin is concerned. Taking care of their new citizens in the same way they took care of their Chechens in the 1990s.
As for the bridge, here’s what the railway looks like today. Not sure I’d be putting trains across it. The blown out fuel train is still there.
I think we’re headed for a deep and prolonged recession and a period of asset price deflation throughout all developed economies.
I’ve sold almost all of my (not very impressive) equity portfolio.
The era of cheap money has, rather abruptly, come to an end. Most people - and most of our politicians - are like the cartoon character who has run off a cliff, suspended in mid air before the inevitable fall. The value of all the inflated assets are gonna tumble. Negative equity is going to be common. Used car values etc will tumble. Any asset which derives its value from discounted future cashflow will become worth a fraction of its current value.
This is going to hurt.
And the government - of whatever colour - is not going to have the fiscal wiggle room to help.
ping or anyone. Assuming ping is correct, what would happen to interest rates? The Bank of England sets interest rates to control inflation. So if we get deflation would interest rates then fall dramatically?
Or am I missing an important point. I guess you can have asset price deflation along with inflation in other stuff, food, fuel etc?
Asset price inflation and consumer price inflation are different things that can and often do move independently.
Bank of England targeting is on CPI (which is why they were relaxed about the API seen in the housing bubble).
On interest rates what really matters is the difference between nominal interest rates and CPI as that influences economic expansion. (As does a loose fiscal policy such as randomly and uncontrollable cutting taxes).
The issue is that an asset price crash acts as a long term drag on economic performance as a result of impact on capital and confidence. So people typically cut interest rates to support growth - but this is why stagflation is such a bugger: inflation is high requiring higher interest rates, but growth is poor requiring lower interest rates. You’d normally deal with this through fiscal policy… unless someone has already spent all the money…
Bear in mind that following the sham referendum Zaphorizhzhia is part of Russia as far as Putin is concerned. Taking care of their new citizens in the same way they took care of their Chechens in the 1990s.
As for the bridge, here’s what the railway looks like today. Not sure I’d be putting trains across it. The blown out fuel train is still there.
Off on a Car Collection Caper to the Balkans. My subsequent absence should not be interpreted as death by motorcycle accident or mobiliZation. It's 100x more complicated than it should be due to Brexit so fuck every who voted for it deep in the rectum.
It's one of the joys of life here that it's so cosmopolitan and multi lingual. The much loved Rumanian girl who runs the local shop speaks French English Italian and Spanish. I often think if she could have done a Brexit Broadcast on Hartlepool TV they might have reconsidered
There will be more anarchy when MPs return to Westminster. Since the maxi-disaster of the mini-budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor have been scrambling around for ways to restore their credibility with financial markets. That means trying to make their sums add up. Desperate not to make any more humiliating about-turns on their unfunded tax cuts, they are looking to take the blade to spending. This at a time when public services are grappling with the legacy of the pandemic and the ravaging impact of an inflation rate far higher than was expected when their budgets were set. Substantial sums can only be found by raiding the resources allocated to the four biggest spenders, which are welfare, health, education and defence. “There are not many bleeding stumps left to cut off,” says one senior Tory on the right of his party. “I’m not going to vote for a cut to universal credit, I’m not going to vote for a cut to the NHS, I’m not going to vote for a cut to education, I’m not going to vote for a cut to defence.”
Bear in mind that following the sham referendum Zaphorizhzhia is part of Russia as far as Putin is concerned. Taking care of their new citizens in the same way they took care of their Chechens in the 1990s.
As for the bridge, here’s what the railway looks like today. Not sure I’d be putting trains across it. The blown out fuel train is still there.
Bear in mind that following the sham referendum Zaphorizhzhia is part of Russia as far as Putin is concerned. Taking care of their new citizens in the same way they took care of their Chechens in the 1990s.
As for the bridge, here’s what the railway looks like today. Not sure I’d be putting trains across it. The blown out fuel train is still there.
There will be more anarchy when MPs return to Westminster. Since the maxi-disaster of the mini-budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor have been scrambling around for ways to restore their credibility with financial markets. That means trying to make their sums add up. Desperate not to make any more humiliating about-turns on their unfunded tax cuts, they are looking to take the blade to spending. This at a time when public services are grappling with the legacy of the pandemic and the ravaging impact of an inflation rate far higher than was expected when their budgets were set. Substantial sums can only be found by raiding the resources allocated to the four biggest spenders, which are welfare, health, education and defence. “There are not many bleeding stumps left to cut off,” says one senior Tory on the right of his party. “I’m not going to vote for a cut to universal credit, I’m not going to vote for a cut to the NHS, I’m not going to vote for a cut to education, I’m not going to vote for a cut to defence.”
There will end up being more bumbling and U turns.
They are stuffed. Whatever they do. I cannot see Team Truss recovering from this especially given how consistently dire their numbers are.
Indeed. If they can't get Parliament to vote for cuts and they struggle to borrow enough money to fund the tax cuts, then either the tax cuts have to be binned or the ones they want to make need to be balanced with rises elsewhere. And the only class of tax rises compatible with a growth agenda is a direct raid on property and inheritances, which will have the core vote absolutely screaming.
There will be more anarchy when MPs return to Westminster. Since the maxi-disaster of the mini-budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor have been scrambling around for ways to restore their credibility with financial markets. That means trying to make their sums add up. Desperate not to make any more humiliating about-turns on their unfunded tax cuts, they are looking to take the blade to spending. This at a time when public services are grappling with the legacy of the pandemic and the ravaging impact of an inflation rate far higher than was expected when their budgets were set. Substantial sums can only be found by raiding the resources allocated to the four biggest spenders, which are welfare, health, education and defence. “There are not many bleeding stumps left to cut off,” says one senior Tory on the right of his party. “I’m not going to vote for a cut to universal credit, I’m not going to vote for a cut to the NHS, I’m not going to vote for a cut to education, I’m not going to vote for a cut to defence.”
There will be more anarchy when MPs return to Westminster. Since the maxi-disaster of the mini-budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor have been scrambling around for ways to restore their credibility with financial markets. That means trying to make their sums add up. Desperate not to make any more humiliating about-turns on their unfunded tax cuts, they are looking to take the blade to spending. This at a time when public services are grappling with the legacy of the pandemic and the ravaging impact of an inflation rate far higher than was expected when their budgets were set. Substantial sums can only be found by raiding the resources allocated to the four biggest spenders, which are welfare, health, education and defence. “There are not many bleeding stumps left to cut off,” says one senior Tory on the right of his party. “I’m not going to vote for a cut to universal credit, I’m not going to vote for a cut to the NHS, I’m not going to vote for a cut to education, I’m not going to vote for a cut to defence.”
There will end up being more bumbling and U turns.
They are stuffed. Whatever they do. I cannot see Team Truss recovering from this especially given how consistently dire their numbers are.
Indeed. If they can't get Parliament to vote for cuts and they struggle to borrow enough money to fund the tax cuts, then either the tax cuts have to be binned or the ones they want to make need to be balanced with rises elsewhere. And the only class of tax rises compatible with a growth agenda is a direct raid on property and inheritances, which will have the core vote absolutely screaming.
Stick a fork in em, they're done.
Haha the Tories introducing a wealth/property tax would be wonderfully ironic.
Off on a Car Collection Caper to the Balkans. My subsequent absence should not be interpreted as death by motorcycle accident or mobiliZation. It's 100x more complicated than it should be due to Brexit so fuck every who voted for it deep in the rectum.
I’m not sure that votes put deep in the rectum would have been counted?
Gavin Williamson might have more chance of succeeding Liz Truss as Conservative Party leader. If she does take the party into a shellacking, there won't be many other options left. Williamson had a near-30,000 majority in 2019.
Anything short of Canada 93 and Sunak, Truss, Patel and Braverman are all likely to survive. There may well be other notable figures, but I'm not about to start drawing up a full list of ultra secure Tories.
Regardless, if the defeat is very heavy then the identity of the rump party leader won't matter to any of us for at least two Parliaments.
Oh yes. I should perhaps have been more clear about that post being a response to the header and not a betting recommendation. Nonetheless, as Amber Rudd backers found, you do need to pay at least some attention to a candidate's majority.
Unpleasantly surprised and impressed that the Kerch Bridge has reopened so quickly - especially the rail bridge. The remaining question is therefore what limits have been put on it, e.g. weight, and how much capacity of the road and rail bridges have been reduced.
Looking at the aerial photographs, they were very unlucky not to take out both tracks of the road bridge. The other one must have sustained some damage given the size of the explosion.
Maybe they didn't have enough explosive to drop both carriageways, or maybe any charges they did place were not as well positioned. They would likely have attacked both though.
I'm more curious about the rail bridge. Was the demolition of the road bridge triggered just as the fuel train was crossing, or was it just very fortuitous timing?
Off on a Car Collection Caper to the Balkans. My subsequent absence should not be interpreted as death by motorcycle accident or mobiliZation. It's 100x more complicated than it should be due to Brexit so fuck every who voted for it deep in the rectum.
I’m not sure that votes put deep in the rectum would have been counted?
Bear in mind that following the sham referendum Zaphorizhzhia is part of Russia as far as Putin is concerned. Taking care of their new citizens in the same way they took care of their Chechens in the 1990s.
As for the bridge, here’s what the railway looks like today. Not sure I’d be putting trains across it. The blown out fuel train is still there.
Clearly beyond the mental capacities of F1 to have announced upon the restart:
"Guys, you are now racing for full points..."
Yes, it seems that totally different rules apply, depending of whether the race ends by a red flag or by the clock. A 28 lap race finishing with a red flag, results in a different set of points to a 28-lap race finishing with the clock timing out.
Does anyone know how the £45 billion figure for the cost of tax cuts in the mini budget was derived. How much for abolishing NI rises? How much for abolishing Corporation tax rises? Where does the rest come from? I know the 45p rate was priced at £2 billion.
How’s about those involved in the broadband rollout actually train some people to do it, rather than mindlessly relying on importing skills?
Indeed, the UK telecoms industry has made huge commitments to fibre rollout*, so they need to match it with staff to complete the work. Of course that doesn't mean you just fling the doors wide open, the whole point of being in control of immigration is that you can make choices about sectors and the scale of immigration.
* Currently IIRC we are second behind France in terms of the speed of rollout, things have changed a lot over the last few year.
How’s about those involved in the broadband rollout actually train some people to do it, rather than mindlessly relying on importing skills?
Most likely the pay and conditions on offer are crap, so they're not getting enough takers for the training. You can get over that by improving pay and conditions, or by importing workers willing to put up with crap. Guess what businesses prefer to do.
I think we’re headed for a deep and prolonged recession and a period of asset price deflation throughout all developed economies.
I’ve sold almost all of my (not very impressive) equity portfolio.
The era of cheap money has, rather abruptly, come to an end. Most people - and most of our politicians - are like the cartoon character who has run off a cliff, suspended in mid air before the inevitable fall. The value of all the inflated assets are gonna tumble. Negative equity is going to be common. Used car values etc will tumble. Any asset which derives its value from discounted future cashflow will become worth a fraction of its current value.
This is going to hurt.
And the government - of whatever colour - is not going to have the fiscal wiggle room to help.
And - brutal as it may seem - the government should not help (beyond the normal help for people on welfare - I’m no @BartholomewRoberts !)
Covid and energy price spikes due to foreign wars are not the fault of individuals, so it is reasonable that society, via the government, steps in to help
People losing money because asset prices fall? Well you decided to buy it… if you didn’t think through the risk that interest rates would likely go up in future that’s your fault. It’s entirely your right to blame the government for it (and many are!) but not to expect a bailout
Not sure why I'm tagged in this post?
I have always thought that a safety net should exist, but work should pay better. I don't think that's especially unreasonable.
In fact I'm an advocate of a UBI as a right wing solution to welfare: a safety net of support should exist, but work should pay as a carrot rather than punitively taxing those who work, or dicking around with sanctions etc
But yet if you lose equity then that's nobody else's responsibility but your own. All investments can go down as well as up.
Is the argument supposed to be "we need a particular subset of immigrants, therefore we should have completely limitless migration from the whole continent they're in"?
How’s about those involved in the broadband rollout actually train some people to do it, rather than mindlessly relying on importing skills?
Most likely the pay and conditions on offer are crap, so they're not getting enough takers for the training. You can get over that by improving pay and conditions, or by importing workers willing to put up with crap. Guess what businesses prefer to do.
Indeed, and it’s the job of ministers to push back on the companies who don’t want to train their staff.
How’s about those involved in the broadband rollout actually train some people to do it, rather than mindlessly relying on importing skills?
Indeed, the UK telecoms industry has made huge commitments to fibre rollout*, so they need to match it with staff to complete the work. Of course that doesn't mean you just fling the doors wide open, the whole point of being in control of immigration is that you can make choices about sectors and the scale of immigration.
* Currently IIRC we are second behind France in terms of the speed of rollout, things have changed a lot over the last few year.
That massive fibre rollout is going to look to be a huge waste of money when everyone can sign up to Starlink....*
(*as long as you aren't actively fighting the Russian in your neighbourhood....)
How’s about those involved in the broadband rollout actually train some people to do it, rather than mindlessly relying on importing skills?
Most likely the pay and conditions on offer are crap, so they're not getting enough takers for the training. You can get over that by improving pay and conditions, or by importing workers willing to put up with crap. Guess what businesses prefer to do.
More likely what this, and the previous government prefer to do. Import people on a temporary basis, rather than investing in education facilities.
How’s about those involved in the broadband rollout actually train some people to do it, rather than mindlessly relying on importing skills?
Most likely the pay and conditions on offer are crap, so they're not getting enough takers for the training. You can get over that by improving pay and conditions, or by importing workers willing to put up with crap. Guess what businesses prefer to do.
I doubt it's the pay and conditions. It's probably more down to the way the industry has ramped up installation. It would be very hard to train and fill all the jobs at the rate needed to meet demand. And of course in 5 years or so a lot of these roles will be gone.
Liz Truss is completely right about an anti-growth coalition.
The problem is it includes a large number of her backbenchers.
Not for a nanosecond do I believe Labour, the LDs, the Greens (yes, them as well) as well as almost every other non-Conservative organisation don't want economic growth.
I see the CBI Director General is a fully paid-up member of the Truss Bunker and hangs on her and Kwarteng's every word. Pity, business has a plurality of voices and I bet they don't all support the Government so slavishly.
Where Truss and her adherents have made such a monumental error is to grossly misread the public mood. It's not 1980 any more - while the notion of cutting tax for the lowest paid does have support, the notion of cutting tax for those already wealthy on the spurious argument making them even wealthier helps us all doesn't wash any more.
There's a strong notion of "fairness" and some may ridicule that as naive or even inane but the fact remains the very strong sense is you don't make the poorest a little richer by making the rich a lot richer. Indeed, the rich can and perhaps should pay even more to reduce the burden on the lowest paid and the poorest.
I'm more than happy to debate economic growth and how we achieve that - some have argued raising taxes and increasing public spending into infrastructure projects is one way of achieving growth. I certainly think we should eschew further borrowing currently and we've discussed taxing wealth rather than income as an option though I think that needs a lot more thought.
It really is quite simple - bin the tax cuts, put the CT rise back in place and windfall tax the energy companies. Freeze allowances and put stamp duty back.
They need to stop borrowing and raise money the old fashined way and then pay off the most expensive borrowing as quickly as possible.
Is the argument supposed to be "we need a particular subset of immigrants, therefore we should have completely limitless migration from the whole continent they're in"?
I'm not sure that penny will ever drop for Gauke or Scott etc
Though perhaps local engineers should be trained and paid better as another option?
But I'm fine with unlimited immigration past a sufficiently minimum earnings threshold personally, so long as housing is dealt with. It is unlimited immigration as cheap labour combined with restrictive housing planning that is a problem.
The History of the Conservative and Unionist Party: The Liz Truss Years
The Liz Truss Months
The Liz Truss Weeks
In a way it has to be. The fun opposition parties will have with any MP enabling her policies through parliament.
If it’s months, or a year, the old waiting for the locals chestnut, and the Tory Party has been enabling Truss in the commons, then changing leader will make less difference because in both voters minds and opposition attacks the whole party will be infected with the Liz Virus and unclean.
"Liz Truss is facing a rural revolt against her plans to prioritise a “dash for economic growth” over nature protection and the environment.
Senior party figures, including ministers under Boris Johnson’s premiership and former Tory leader William Hague, have joined the National Trust, the RSPB, the Angling Trust and Wildlife Trusts in criticising what they see as environmental vandalism.
It follows concerns Truss is treating the leading nature charities as part of a so-called “anti-growth coalition” that she claims to be confronting."
Liz Truss is completely right about an anti-growth coalition.
The problem is it includes a large number of her backbenchers.
Truss is a total moron. What we're liable to get out of her Government - if those backbenchers don't block it, which hopefully they shall - are all the wrong developments in the wrong places. Concreting over nature reserves to build Amazon warehouses: yes. Thoughtfully located and planned housing that makes ownership affordable for young people without access to enormous gifts from the Bank of Mum and Dad: no.
See also: real terms benefit cuts for the working poor whilst continuing to mollycoddle pensioners. All this talk about growth is bullshit. The only thing the Conservative Party is about is redistributing finite resources to its key supporters - elderly homeowners and the very wealthy - from everybody else. This actually *IS* the anti-growth coalition. Choking off investment in skills and infrastructure whilst encouraging the concentration of an ever-increasing share of national wealth in the bank accounts of the already minted and in non-productive piles of overpriced bricks. And they're completely shameless about the whole thing.
"Thoughtfully located and planned housing" is a load of crap. "Planned economies" result in a shortfall in whatever's planned, like in the Soviet Union where people would struggle to buy essentials as there wasn't enough of them, or the UK where our planned housing system means it takes 14 years to get permission to build an estate fought all the way by NIMBYs.
We need unplanned, wild and organically built housing that allows people to get a home built wherever they need it rather than relying upon "plans" to be drawn up for them.
But yes, zone nature reserves as unsuitable for development, I have no qualms with that.
Is the argument supposed to be "we need a particular subset of immigrants, therefore we should have completely limitless migration from the whole continent they're in"?
I'm not sure that penny will ever drop for Gauke or Scott etc
Though perhaps local engineers should be trained and paid better as another option?
But I'm fine with unlimited immigration past a sufficiently minimum earnings threshold personally, so long as housing is dealt with. It is unlimited immigration as cheap labour combined with restrictive housing planning that is a problem.
Housing won't be dealt with, because the Conservative Party is completely in thrall to nimbyism.
"Liz Truss is facing a rural revolt against her plans to prioritise a “dash for economic growth” over nature protection and the environment.
Senior party figures, including ministers under Boris Johnson’s premiership and former Tory leader William Hague, have joined the National Trust, the RSPB, the Angling Trust and Wildlife Trusts in criticising what they see as environmental vandalism.
It follows concerns Truss is treating the leading nature charities as part of a so-called “anti-growth coalition” that she claims to be confronting."
Liz Truss is completely right about an anti-growth coalition.
The problem is it includes a large number of her backbenchers.
It includes far more than that.
Some years back, a chap I knew looked at placing a factory in the North. Classic Red Wall. Labour since whenever. Local government, political and professional took the attitude that “We might allow your horrible factory, one day. But we hate factories”
In comparison his scouting trip for locations in the Far East was interesting. No, not “build your factory, we don’t care”. But government officials were eager to explain what sites were possible. Tax and environmental regulations were set out - with examples of how to meet them. The local trade unions had an example of their no-strike deals they had in other factories… the whole thing was pitched as “Come here, build a legit, decent business and we will love you for it. And help you do it.”
Obviously some of that was a snow job - but it was incredibly indicative.
"Liz Truss is facing a rural revolt against her plans to prioritise a “dash for economic growth” over nature protection and the environment.
Senior party figures, including ministers under Boris Johnson’s premiership and former Tory leader William Hague, have joined the National Trust, the RSPB, the Angling Trust and Wildlife Trusts in criticising what they see as environmental vandalism.
It follows concerns Truss is treating the leading nature charities as part of a so-called “anti-growth coalition” that she claims to be confronting."
Liz Truss is completely right about an anti-growth coalition.
The problem is it includes a large number of her backbenchers.
Truss is a total moron. What we're liable to get out of her Government - if those backbenchers don't block it, which hopefully they shall - are all the wrong developments in the wrong places. Concreting over nature reserves to build Amazon warehouses: yes. Thoughtfully located and planned housing that makes ownership affordable for young people without access to enormous gifts from the Bank of Mum and Dad: no.
See also: real terms benefit cuts for the working poor whilst continuing to mollycoddle pensioners. All this talk about growth is bullshit. The only thing the Conservative Party is about is redistributing finite resources to its key supporters - elderly homeowners and the very wealthy - from everybody else. This actually *IS* the anti-growth coalition. Choking off investment in skills and infrastructure whilst encouraging the concentration of an ever-increasing share of national wealth in the bank accounts of the already minted and in non-productive piles of overpriced bricks. And they're completely shameless about the whole thing.
"Thoughtfully located and planned housing" is a load of crap. "Planned economies" result in a shortfall in whatever's planned, like in the Soviet Union where people would struggle to buy essentials as there wasn't enough of them, or the UK where our planned housing system means it takes 14 years to get permission to build an estate fought all the way by NIMBYs.
We need unplanned, wild and organically built housing that allows people to get a home built wherever they need it rather than relying upon "plans" to be drawn up for them.
But yes, zone nature reserves as unsuitable for development, I have no qualms with that.
The issue isn’t local say - it’s the number of rounds of appeals and new claims etc. people should have just one shot at an appeal and make all their claims at that point. No go arounds
Is the argument supposed to be "we need a particular subset of immigrants, therefore we should have completely limitless migration from the whole continent they're in"?
I'm not sure that penny will ever drop for Gauke or Scott etc
Though perhaps local engineers should be trained and paid better as another option?
But I'm fine with unlimited immigration past a sufficiently minimum earnings threshold personally, so long as housing is dealt with. It is unlimited immigration as cheap labour combined with restrictive housing planning that is a problem.
Housing won't be dealt with, because the Conservative Party is completely in thrall to nimbyism.
As are the Lib Dems and Labour too.
And if anyone in Government ever proposes sensible solutions, like Boris's reforms to zoning, or Truss's reported proposals, then they'll be opposed automatically by the other side allowing the NIMBY rebels to win.
Find me a NIMBY free party that supports a liberal housing policy and I could vote for them.
Does anyone know how the £45 billion figure for the cost of tax cuts in the mini budget was derived. How much for abolishing NI rises? How much for abolishing Corporation tax rises? Where does the rest come from? I know the 45p rate was priced at £2 billion.
It's in Table 4.2 of the Growth Plan document published by HMG, the cost of policy decisions for fiscal year 2026-27.
The NI and corporation tax changes are the two biggest, about £34bn combined.
Bear in mind that following the sham referendum Zaphorizhzhia is part of Russia as far as Putin is concerned. Taking care of their new citizens in the same way they took care of their Chechens in the 1990s.
As for the bridge, here’s what the railway looks like today. Not sure I’d be putting trains across it. The blown out fuel train is still there.
And contrary to the expectations of @JosiasJessop the track is ballasted.
So there's a huge load on it.
I am not sure I would want to go on a train across that bridge. It might suddenly decide to join the submarine service.
(Warning: rail geekery ahead):
I am surprised by that. For ballast to work properly, it needs to be deep: the heavier the expected load (and speed), the greater the depth. Slab concrete track can be much shallower, and therefore weigh less. Depending on the type ballast weighs 1 to 2 tonnes per cubic metre, and the base needs to be a foot to more thick *under* the sleepers. (All from memory, so should check...) This really increases the load on the bridge.
There are other problems with ballasted track: it costs more to maintain, and alignment can move on curves. Also, in ye olden days it was harder to remove ballast, so fresh ballast used to be dumped on top, raising the track level significantly over the years until the tops of trains start hitting lineside structures. This is less of a problem nowadays, with machines to clean and renew ballast that can dig down to depth.
I think HS2 have opted for concrete slab track for most of the way.
Spitballing, I can see that ballast may have helped by acting as a blanket that kept the worst of the heat from the flames from the steel. Perhaps.
(Incidentally, I believe the first ever 'modern' slab concrete track was laid by slip forming in the 1960s near Duffield in Derby. In the 1990s the concrete base was still visible. I've no idea if it's been broken up since then. Derby was also famously where the first steel rail was used - without the railway knowing...)
"Liz Truss is facing a rural revolt against her plans to prioritise a “dash for economic growth” over nature protection and the environment.
Senior party figures, including ministers under Boris Johnson’s premiership and former Tory leader William Hague, have joined the National Trust, the RSPB, the Angling Trust and Wildlife Trusts in criticising what they see as environmental vandalism.
It follows concerns Truss is treating the leading nature charities as part of a so-called “anti-growth coalition” that she claims to be confronting."
Liz Truss is completely right about an anti-growth coalition.
The problem is it includes a large number of her backbenchers.
It includes far more than that.
Some years back, a chap I knew looked at placing a factory in the North. Classic Red Wall. Labour since whenever. Local government, political and professional took the attitude that “We might allow your horrible factory, one day. But we hate factories”
In comparison his scouting trip for locations in the Far East was interesting. No, not “build your factory, we don’t care”. But government officials were eager to explain what sites were possible. Tax and environmental regulations were set out - with examples of how to meet them. The local trade unions had an example of their no-strike deals they had in other factories… the whole thing was pitched as “Come here, build a legit, decent business and we will love you for it. And help you do it.”
Obviously some of that was a snow job - but it was incredibly indicative.
Indicative of globalisation we can’t compete with hastening UKs decline in the world?
The likes of Dyson go over seas for wages up to 8 times cheaper, surely?
Clearly beyond the mental capacities of F1 to have announced upon the restart:
"Guys, you are now racing for full points..."
Yes, it seems that totally different rules apply, depending of whether the race ends by a red flag or by the clock. A 28 lap race finishing with a red flag, results in a different set of points to a 28-lap race finishing with the clock timing out.
Simple, eh?
I'm loving this. Last year, Verstappen won the title when he did not deserve to, and was gifted it by the FIA.
This year he thoroughly deserves the title, and would get it anyway, and yet was still gifted it!
Unless I'm misunderstanding it, the rules are rather nonsensical.
Is the argument supposed to be "we need a particular subset of immigrants, therefore we should have completely limitless migration from the whole continent they're in"?
I'm not sure that penny will ever drop for Gauke or Scott etc
Though perhaps local engineers should be trained and paid better as another option?
But I'm fine with unlimited immigration past a sufficiently minimum earnings threshold personally, so long as housing is dealt with. It is unlimited immigration as cheap labour combined with restrictive housing planning that is a problem.
Housing won't be dealt with, because the Conservative Party is completely in thrall to nimbyism.
As are the Lib Dems and Labour too.
And if anyone in Government ever proposes sensible solutions, like Boris's reforms to zoning, or Truss's reported proposals, then they'll be opposed automatically by the other side allowing the NIMBY rebels to win.
Find me a NIMBY free party that supports a liberal housing policy and I could vote for them.
We're going to have to wait and see what Labour does. If any party can do it, the one that is weakest in rural areas can.
A Labour Government with a decent majority could target well planned, large scale development in some areas currently classed as green belt whilst upsetting an insignificant fraction of its own MPs and voters, in a way that the Tories simply can't.
Russian revenge for the Bridge will not be restricted to “a few missiles”
Tho the fact the Bridge is still semi-functional might rein in their wreakings
To be fair to the Russians, that the bridge is still semi functional (at least) is perhaps a tribute to the builders!
It’s a tribute to the politicians, for whom keeping the bridge ‘open’ is more important than ensuring it’s in any way safe for the load.
LOL! I am reminded of something that happened back in early 1997, where nurse prescribing was being introduced. I was part of a team involved with the local introduction; we asked about the syllabus, about the examination. Nothing had, apparently, been decided. Or even thought about in any depth. Why, we asked, were we being given the job in this embryonic state? Because, came the answer, the minister wants it in before the election. Which was about three months away!
The Sunday Rawnsley, as the sun comes up over the mid-Atlantic:
We have what is effectively a hung parliament in which the Truss faction is not even the largest party. The good news is that she simply does not have the numbers to implement her crazier notions. The bad news is that we will endure a period of numerous emergencies with a dysfunctional government struggling to do much at all.
We have reached a surreal stage of the implosion of the Tory party when Nadine Dorries feels qualified to attack “cruel” cuts and lambast Ms Truss for “lurching to the right”.
Never forget that she attracted just 50 votes in the first leadership ballot, which means that 305 Tory MPs thought someone else would do a better job...She has acted as if she has the thumping endorsement at a general election for her libertarian manifesto when she was actually installed by Tory activists against the wishes of most of her MPs and without any mandate from the public. Never in the field of British politics has a leader become so staggeringly unpopular in such a spectacularly short time.
She packed the cabinet with close friends, ideological soulmates, hard rightists to whom she owed campaign debts and some Johnsonites to try to keep them onside. “I used to say Boris’s cabinet was the worst since world war two,” says one senior Tory. “Hers is even worse.”
Desperate not to make any more humiliating about-turns on their unfunded tax cuts, they are looking to take the blade to spending. This at a time when public services are grappling with the legacy of the pandemic and the ravaging impact of an inflation rate far higher than was expected when their budgets were set.
There is already a lot of chatter about removing Ms Truss and the scheming will become more feverish when they all get back to Westminster. There’s no consensus about how her defenestration might be engineered or who would take her place or how on earth they’d contrive this without making the Tory party look even more demented.
Bear in mind that following the sham referendum Zaphorizhzhia is part of Russia as far as Putin is concerned. Taking care of their new citizens in the same way they took care of their Chechens in the 1990s.
As for the bridge, here’s what the railway looks like today. Not sure I’d be putting trains across it. The blown out fuel train is still there.
Does anyone know how easy it is to measure the damage to the bridge? How will the Russians know what load it can bear?
Guessing: *) Intimate visual inspection, particularly of joints and connections, e.g. expansion joints and bearings. These are the structural parts most likely to suffer 'unseen' damage. *) 'Sounding' it. Basically, hitting it at a certain power and listening for how it reacts. Might be difficult with damaged track and ballast on. *) NDT (e.g. ultrasound of various parts of concern.) *) Put a large number of stress/strain gauges on the structure and then overload it, and see how the stresses and deflections are in comparison to the calculation. In this case, you could compare to undamaged spans.
There will also be a whole host of non-critical parts that are damaged, e.g. cabling, drainage, walkways, that the railway can run without but will need work in the medium term.
Is the argument supposed to be "we need a particular subset of immigrants, therefore we should have completely limitless migration from the whole continent they're in"?
I'm not sure that penny will ever drop for Gauke or Scott etc
Though perhaps local engineers should be trained and paid better as another option?
But I'm fine with unlimited immigration past a sufficiently minimum earnings threshold personally, so long as housing is dealt with. It is unlimited immigration as cheap labour combined with restrictive housing planning that is a problem.
Housing won't be dealt with, because the Conservative Party is completely in thrall to nimbyism.
As are the Lib Dems and Labour too.
And if anyone in Government ever proposes sensible solutions, like Boris's reforms to zoning, or Truss's reported proposals, then they'll be opposed automatically by the other side allowing the NIMBY rebels to win.
Find me a NIMBY free party that supports a liberal housing policy and I could vote for them.
We're going to have to wait and see what Labour does. If any party can do it, the one that is weakest in rural areas can.
A Labour Government with a decent majority could target well planned, large scale development in some areas currently classed as green belt whilst upsetting an insignificant fraction of its own MPs and voters, in a way that the Tories simply can't.
Trouble is in a 50/25 landslide it is going to have a huge new Green Wall constituency of first timer voters and MPs. Now it might say, fuck em, we will jettison them and hope for success next time round based on our trad support only, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Off on a Car Collection Caper to the Balkans. My subsequent absence should not be interpreted as death by motorcycle accident or mobiliZation. It's 100x more complicated than it should be due to Brexit so fuck every who voted for it deep in the rectum.
I’m not sure that votes put deep in the rectum would have been counted?
Well..
That’s clearly a vote for Boris
An election agent might try the argument that if that were so, it would have been drawn smaller?
Russian revenge for the Bridge will not be restricted to “a few missiles”
Tho the fact the Bridge is still semi-functional might rein in their wreakings
To be fair to the Russians, that the bridge is still semi functional (at least) is perhaps a tribute to the builders!
It’s a tribute to the politicians, for whom keeping the bridge ‘open’ is more important than ensuring it’s in any way safe for the load.
If it does subsequently collapse it might be a bigger blow to the regime than the original attack.
Indeed. I actually suspect that the bridge is actually only ‘open’ for some photos to be taken for Russian news.
Throwing down replacement rails and sleepers is easy, but you wouldn’t want to run heavy military trains across until there’s been a proper load test evaluation from the engineers.
Does anyone know how the £45 billion figure for the cost of tax cuts in the mini budget was derived. How much for abolishing NI rises? How much for abolishing Corporation tax rises? Where does the rest come from? I know the 45p rate was priced at £2 billion.
It's in Table 4.2 of the Growth Plan document published by HMG, the cost of policy decisions for fiscal year 2026-27.
The NI and corporation tax changes are the two biggest, about £34bn combined.
Thanks.
The scary thing is that what spooked Mr Market was the abolition of planned, future tax increases rather than cuts in existing taxes. So Mr Market wants either taxes to increase or government spending to be cut. This government won't do the first and will struggle to do the second.
Is the argument supposed to be "we need a particular subset of immigrants, therefore we should have completely limitless migration from the whole continent they're in"?
I'm not sure that penny will ever drop for Gauke or Scott etc
Though perhaps local engineers should be trained and paid better as another option?
But I'm fine with unlimited immigration past a sufficiently minimum earnings threshold personally, so long as housing is dealt with. It is unlimited immigration as cheap labour combined with restrictive housing planning that is a problem.
Housing won't be dealt with, because the Conservative Party is completely in thrall to nimbyism.
As are the Lib Dems and Labour too.
And if anyone in Government ever proposes sensible solutions, like Boris's reforms to zoning, or Truss's reported proposals, then they'll be opposed automatically by the other side allowing the NIMBY rebels to win.
Find me a NIMBY free party that supports a liberal housing policy and I could vote for them.
We're going to have to wait and see what Labour does. If any party can do it, the one that is weakest in rural areas can.
A Labour Government with a decent majority could target well planned, large scale development in some areas currently classed as green belt whilst upsetting an insignificant fraction of its own MPs and voters, in a way that the Tories simply can't.
That would be a good way to get people like me to quit the party and join the Greens.
"Liz Truss is facing a rural revolt against her plans to prioritise a “dash for economic growth” over nature protection and the environment.
Senior party figures, including ministers under Boris Johnson’s premiership and former Tory leader William Hague, have joined the National Trust, the RSPB, the Angling Trust and Wildlife Trusts in criticising what they see as environmental vandalism.
It follows concerns Truss is treating the leading nature charities as part of a so-called “anti-growth coalition” that she claims to be confronting."
Liz Truss is completely right about an anti-growth coalition.
The problem is it includes a large number of her backbenchers.
Truss is a total moron. What we're liable to get out of her Government - if those backbenchers don't block it, which hopefully they shall - are all the wrong developments in the wrong places. Concreting over nature reserves to build Amazon warehouses: yes. Thoughtfully located and planned housing that makes ownership affordable for young people without access to enormous gifts from the Bank of Mum and Dad: no.
See also: real terms benefit cuts for the working poor whilst continuing to mollycoddle pensioners. All this talk about growth is bullshit. The only thing the Conservative Party is about is redistributing finite resources to its key supporters - elderly homeowners and the very wealthy - from everybody else. This actually *IS* the anti-growth coalition. Choking off investment in skills and infrastructure whilst encouraging the concentration of an ever-increasing share of national wealth in the bank accounts of the already minted and in non-productive piles of overpriced bricks. And they're completely shameless about the whole thing.
"Thoughtfully located and planned housing" is a load of crap. "Planned economies" result in a shortfall in whatever's planned, like in the Soviet Union where people would struggle to buy essentials as there wasn't enough of them, or the UK where our planned housing system means it takes 14 years to get permission to build an estate fought all the way by NIMBYs.
We need unplanned, wild and organically built housing that allows people to get a home built wherever they need it rather than relying upon "plans" to be drawn up for them.
But yes, zone nature reserves as unsuitable for development, I have no qualms with that.
The current model of development, even if legislation were used to confound the nimbies, is no good. Left to their own devices, you'll end up with housebuilders throwing up identikit rows of small, poor quality family houses, offered in inadequate quantities and at exorbitant prices to desperate buyers.
If we're going to have communities that offer decent, affordable homes accompanied by good essential services - proper transport links, adequate healthcare, enough school places, and so on - then some modern equivalent of the post war new town movement will be needed. Legislation to protect sensitive landscapes, provide sufficient local services, improve building regulations, provide enormous sums of money to get the whole thing moving, and to strip nimbies and their puppet local councillors of their power to slow it all back down to a halt.
Simply setting property developers free and letting them do what they want won't work, because the market ain't the solution to every problem. It won't give the country the housing it needs, it'll just give developers licence to throw up more of the overpriced shoddy tat that makes them the maximum possible profit.
Bear in mind that following the sham referendum Zaphorizhzhia is part of Russia as far as Putin is concerned. Taking care of their new citizens in the same way they took care of their Chechens in the 1990s.
As for the bridge, here’s what the railway looks like today. Not sure I’d be putting trains across it. The blown out fuel train is still there.
And contrary to the expectations of @JosiasJessop the track is ballasted.
So there's a huge load on it.
I am not sure I would want to go on a train across that bridge. It might suddenly decide to join the submarine service.
(Warning: rail geekery ahead):
I am surprised by that. For ballast to work properly, it needs to be deep: the heavier the expected load (and speed), the greater the depth. Slab concrete track can be much shallower, and therefore weigh less. Depending on the type ballast weighs 1 to 2 tonnes per cubic metre, and the base needs to be a foot to more thick *under* the sleepers. (All from memory, so should check...) This really increases the load on the bridge.
There are other problems with ballasted track: it costs more to maintain, and alignment can move on curves. Also, in ye olden days it was harder to remove ballast, so fresh ballast used to be dumped on top, raising the track level significantly over the years until the tops of trains start hitting lineside structures. This is less of a problem nowadays, with machines to clean and renew ballast that can dig down to depth.
I think HS2 have opted for concrete slab track for most of the way.
Spitballing, I can see that ballast may have helped by acting as a blanket that kept the worst of the heat from the flames from the steel. Perhaps.
(Incidentally, I believe the first ever 'modern' slab concrete track was laid by slip forming in the 1960s near Duffield in Derby. In the 1990s the concrete base was still visible. I've no idea if it's been broken up since then. Derby was also famously where the first steel rail was used - without the railway knowing...)
All you’d ever want to know about ballast (and a little bit more)…
Does anyone know how the £45 billion figure for the cost of tax cuts in the mini budget was derived. How much for abolishing NI rises? How much for abolishing Corporation tax rises? Where does the rest come from? I know the 45p rate was priced at £2 billion.
It's in Table 4.2 of the Growth Plan document published by HMG, the cost of policy decisions for fiscal year 2026-27.
The NI and corporation tax changes are the two biggest, about £34bn combined.
Thanks.
The scary thing is that what spooked Mr Market was the abolition of planned, future tax increases rather than cuts in existing taxes. So Mr Market wants either taxes to increase or government spending to be cut. This government won't do the first and will struggle to do the second.
Governments need credibility to make big cuts. If they had been announced in the 'mini' budget, nay actual budget, there's a smidgeon of a chance it would have flown. But off the back of a market raspberry to the initial statement and with no direct mandate from the electorate? Forget it.
"Liz Truss is facing a rural revolt against her plans to prioritise a “dash for economic growth” over nature protection and the environment.
Senior party figures, including ministers under Boris Johnson’s premiership and former Tory leader William Hague, have joined the National Trust, the RSPB, the Angling Trust and Wildlife Trusts in criticising what they see as environmental vandalism.
It follows concerns Truss is treating the leading nature charities as part of a so-called “anti-growth coalition” that she claims to be confronting."
Liz Truss is completely right about an anti-growth coalition.
The problem is it includes a large number of her backbenchers.
Truss is a total moron. What we're liable to get out of her Government - if those backbenchers don't block it, which hopefully they shall - are all the wrong developments in the wrong places. Concreting over nature reserves to build Amazon warehouses: yes. Thoughtfully located and planned housing that makes ownership affordable for young people without access to enormous gifts from the Bank of Mum and Dad: no.
See also: real terms benefit cuts for the working poor whilst continuing to mollycoddle pensioners. All this talk about growth is bullshit. The only thing the Conservative Party is about is redistributing finite resources to its key supporters - elderly homeowners and the very wealthy - from everybody else. This actually *IS* the anti-growth coalition. Choking off investment in skills and infrastructure whilst encouraging the concentration of an ever-increasing share of national wealth in the bank accounts of the already minted and in non-productive piles of overpriced bricks. And they're completely shameless about the whole thing.
"Thoughtfully located and planned housing" is a load of crap. "Planned economies" result in a shortfall in whatever's planned, like in the Soviet Union where people would struggle to buy essentials as there wasn't enough of them, or the UK where our planned housing system means it takes 14 years to get permission to build an estate fought all the way by NIMBYs.
We need unplanned, wild and organically built housing that allows people to get a home built wherever they need it rather than relying upon "plans" to be drawn up for them.
But yes, zone nature reserves as unsuitable for development, I have no qualms with that.
The current model of development, even if legislation were used to confound the nimbies, is no good. Left to their own devices, you'll end up with housebuilders throwing up identikit rows of small, poor quality family houses, offered in inadequate quantities and at exorbitant prices to desperate buyers.
If we're going to have communities that offer decent, affordable homes accompanied by good essential services - proper transport links, adequate healthcare, enough school places, and so on - then some modern equivalent of the post war new town movement will be needed. Legislation to protect sensitive landscapes, provide sufficient local services, improve building regulations, provide enormous sums of money to get the whole thing moving, and to strip nimbies and their puppet local councillors of their power to slow it all back down to a halt.
Simply setting property developers free and letting them do what they want won't work, because the market ain't the solution to every problem. It won't give the country the housing it needs, it'll just give developers licence to throw up more of the overpriced shoddy tat that makes them the maximum possible profit.
And shedloads of small flats mostly sold to BTL and overseas investors rather than family sized homes sold to those who need to live in them.
How’s about those involved in the broadband rollout actually train some people to do it, rather than mindlessly relying on importing skills?
Most likely the pay and conditions on offer are crap, so they're not getting enough takers for the training. You can get over that by improving pay and conditions, or by importing workers willing to put up with crap. Guess what businesses prefer to do.
Most organisations in the U.K. are completely habituated to not training workers. There’s alway more furriners.
Training requires, time, patience, money and skills (itself). You’d need to massively grow the training infrastructure.
See the recent debates here about medical staff training - we are looking at the (from the COVID A level thing) 25% extra graduates on some courses. The problem is that a medical grad isn’t a doctor, or a nurse. So you need places as teaching hospitals etc. Which have a small problem with existence.
Russian revenge for the Bridge will not be restricted to “a few missiles”
Tho the fact the Bridge is still semi-functional might rein in their wreakings
To be fair to the Russians, that the bridge is still semi functional (at least) is perhaps a tribute to the builders!
It’s a tribute to the politicians, for whom keeping the bridge ‘open’ is more important than ensuring it’s in any way safe for the load.
If it does subsequently collapse it might be a bigger blow to the regime than the original attack.
Indeed. I actually suspect that the bridge is actually only ‘open’ for some photos to be taken for Russian news.
Throwing down replacement rails and sleepers is easy, but you wouldn’t want to run heavy military trains across until there’s been a proper load test evaluation from the engineers.
Would the engineers want to tell the Kremlin it isn't safe.
Perhaps OGH should give me the access codes to PB.com, so in the unlikely event that Leon is right, I can keep it going from mid-Atlantic - a Radio Caroline for the modern age?
Is the argument supposed to be "we need a particular subset of immigrants, therefore we should have completely limitless migration from the whole continent they're in"?
I'm not sure that penny will ever drop for Gauke or Scott etc
Though perhaps local engineers should be trained and paid better as another option?
But I'm fine with unlimited immigration past a sufficiently minimum earnings threshold personally, so long as housing is dealt with. It is unlimited immigration as cheap labour combined with restrictive housing planning that is a problem.
Housing won't be dealt with, because the Conservative Party is completely in thrall to nimbyism.
As are the Lib Dems and Labour too.
And if anyone in Government ever proposes sensible solutions, like Boris's reforms to zoning, or Truss's reported proposals, then they'll be opposed automatically by the other side allowing the NIMBY rebels to win.
Find me a NIMBY free party that supports a liberal housing policy and I could vote for them.
We're going to have to wait and see what Labour does. If any party can do it, the one that is weakest in rural areas can.
A Labour Government with a decent majority could target well planned, large scale development in some areas currently classed as green belt whilst upsetting an insignificant fraction of its own MPs and voters, in a way that the Tories simply can't.
That would be a good way to get people like me to quit the party and join the Greens.
To govern is to choose. It would be an awful lot easier if a third of the population simply vanished off the face of the Earth overnight and Government could therefore forget about plonking a load of new houses all over the place, but that's not the reality of our situation. Labour can afford to wave bye bye to a few stroppy greens if it's going to release millions of young people from the prison of insecure tenancies and crushing rents.
The population keeps growing. How else do you propose to house them all, fill Greater London with fifty storey tower blocks?
Perhaps OGH should give me the access codes to PB.com, so in the unlikely event that Leon is right, I can keep it going from mid-Atlantic - a Radio Caroline for the modern age?
I thought his first action on appointment as OGH was to write you a letter about this.
Does anyone know how the £45 billion figure for the cost of tax cuts in the mini budget was derived. How much for abolishing NI rises? How much for abolishing Corporation tax rises? Where does the rest come from? I know the 45p rate was priced at £2 billion.
It's in Table 4.2 of the Growth Plan document published by HMG, the cost of policy decisions for fiscal year 2026-27.
The NI and corporation tax changes are the two biggest, about £34bn combined.
Thanks.
The scary thing is that what spooked Mr Market was the abolition of planned, future tax increases rather than cuts in existing taxes. So Mr Market wants either taxes to increase or government spending to be cut. This government won't do the first and will struggle to do the second.
Remember that Rishi had already announced the income tax basic rate cut to 19p so there is no reason for that to have spooked the markets, or not on its own. It was the new stuff (cancellation of Rishi's rises and 45p) that did the damage.
"Liz Truss is facing a rural revolt against her plans to prioritise a “dash for economic growth” over nature protection and the environment.
Senior party figures, including ministers under Boris Johnson’s premiership and former Tory leader William Hague, have joined the National Trust, the RSPB, the Angling Trust and Wildlife Trusts in criticising what they see as environmental vandalism.
It follows concerns Truss is treating the leading nature charities as part of a so-called “anti-growth coalition” that she claims to be confronting."
Worth noting that the NT, English Heritage, RSPB and Wildlife Trusts all have memberships that far exceed the numbers in political parties. Many are not particularly active and treat membership as a sort of voluntary tax to defend the fabric of the country, including myself.
The polls show that people want growth, but not at any price.
Plantlife now joining the chorus as I see from their monthly email.
That's not a very polite thing to call Tory backbenchers.
No, the ones which are actually useful and beautiful.
Morning again all, and something espewcially for @dixiedean (alas):
'Headteachers across the country say they cannot fill vital teaching assistant vacancies and that support staff are taking second jobs in supermarkets to survive because their wages are “just a joke”.
Schools are reporting that increasing numbers of teaching assistants are leaving because they will not be able to pay for high energy bills and afford food this winter. And with job ads often attracting no applications at all, heads fear they will be impossible to replace. They warn this will have a serious impact on children in the classroom, especially those with special educational needs, and will make it increasingly hard for teachers to focus on teaching.'
Does anyone know how the £45 billion figure for the cost of tax cuts in the mini budget was derived. How much for abolishing NI rises? How much for abolishing Corporation tax rises? Where does the rest come from? I know the 45p rate was priced at £2 billion.
It's in Table 4.2 of the Growth Plan document published by HMG, the cost of policy decisions for fiscal year 2026-27.
The NI and corporation tax changes are the two biggest, about £34bn combined.
Thanks.
The scary thing is that what spooked Mr Market was the abolition of planned, future tax increases rather than cuts in existing taxes. So Mr Market wants either taxes to increase or government spending to be cut. This government won't do the first and will struggle to do the second.
Remember that Rishi had already announced the income tax basic rate cut to 19p so there is no reason for that to have spooked the markets, or not on its own. It was the new stuff (cancellation of Rishi's rises and 45p) that did the damage.
The other reason to discount [sic] the 19p cut is that Mr/Ms Market will know that it's bollocks anyway as inflation will take care of it, with the tax allowance being unchanged.
Does anyone know how the £45 billion figure for the cost of tax cuts in the mini budget was derived. How much for abolishing NI rises? How much for abolishing Corporation tax rises? Where does the rest come from? I know the 45p rate was priced at £2 billion.
It's in Table 4.2 of the Growth Plan document published by HMG, the cost of policy decisions for fiscal year 2026-27.
The NI and corporation tax changes are the two biggest, about £34bn combined.
Thanks.
The scary thing is that what spooked Mr Market was the abolition of planned, future tax increases rather than cuts in existing taxes. So Mr Market wants either taxes to increase or government spending to be cut. This government won't do the first and will struggle to do the second.
Remember that Rishi had already announced the income tax basic rate cut to 19p so there is no reason for that to have spooked the markets, or not on its own. It was the new stuff (cancellation of Rishi's rises and 45p) that did the damage.
To play devil’s advocate slightly, it was also the below-expectations interest rate rise, and the ‘quantative tightening’ announced by the BoE the day before. The reversal of the NI change had been well trailed, only the 45p change was surprising, something that’s not enough on its own to cause the reaction.
There will be more anarchy when MPs return to Westminster. Since the maxi-disaster of the mini-budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor have been scrambling around for ways to restore their credibility with financial markets. That means trying to make their sums add up. Desperate not to make any more humiliating about-turns on their unfunded tax cuts, they are looking to take the blade to spending. This at a time when public services are grappling with the legacy of the pandemic and the ravaging impact of an inflation rate far higher than was expected when their budgets were set. Substantial sums can only be found by raiding the resources allocated to the four biggest spenders, which are welfare, health, education and defence. “There are not many bleeding stumps left to cut off,” says one senior Tory on the right of his party. “I’m not going to vote for a cut to universal credit, I’m not going to vote for a cut to the NHS, I’m not going to vote for a cut to education, I’m not going to vote for a cut to defence.”
There will end up being more bumbling and U turns.
They are stuffed. Whatever they do. I cannot see Team Truss recovering from this especially given how consistently dire their numbers are.
Indeed. If they can't get Parliament to vote for cuts and they struggle to borrow enough money to fund the tax cuts, then either the tax cuts have to be binned or the ones they want to make need to be balanced with rises elsewhere. And the only class of tax rises compatible with a growth agenda is a direct raid on property and inheritances, which will have the core vote absolutely screaming.
Stick a fork in em, they're done.
Classic Gorilla Monsoon line. You’re right of course.
Planning and NIMBYism is a really tricky political problem. There are no answers that are both universally popular and effective. That’s just a sad fact of life in a country that is both densely populated with biodiversity and green space at a premium in its most economically active regions, and stagnating due to lack of infrastructure and investment.
You’ll never stop NIMBYs and if you ignore them you won’t win elections, and in many cases they have a point. What’s good for the country is often not good for a local community.
What would I do if I were in government? I think there’s something to be said for concentrating development as much as possible: massive industrialisation, house building, infrastructure building in a small number of very large, intensive urbanised areas including proper new towns, and leave the rest alone.
Is the argument supposed to be "we need a particular subset of immigrants, therefore we should have completely limitless migration from the whole continent they're in"?
I'm not sure that penny will ever drop for Gauke or Scott etc
Though perhaps local engineers should be trained and paid better as another option?
But I'm fine with unlimited immigration past a sufficiently minimum earnings threshold personally, so long as housing is dealt with. It is unlimited immigration as cheap labour combined with restrictive housing planning that is a problem.
Housing won't be dealt with, because the Conservative Party is completely in thrall to nimbyism.
As are the Lib Dems and Labour too.
And if anyone in Government ever proposes sensible solutions, like Boris's reforms to zoning, or Truss's reported proposals, then they'll be opposed automatically by the other side allowing the NIMBY rebels to win.
Find me a NIMBY free party that supports a liberal housing policy and I could vote for them.
We're going to have to wait and see what Labour does. If any party can do it, the one that is weakest in rural areas can.
A Labour Government with a decent majority could target well planned, large scale development in some areas currently classed as green belt whilst upsetting an insignificant fraction of its own MPs and voters, in a way that the Tories simply can't.
That would be a good way to get people like me to quit the party and join the Greens.
To govern is to choose. It would be an awful lot easier if a third of the population simply vanished off the face of the Earth overnight and Government could therefore forget about plonking a load of new houses all over the place, but that's not the reality of our situation. Labour can afford to wave bye bye to a few stroppy greens if it's going to release millions of young people from the prison of insecure tenancies and crushing rents.
The population keeps growing. How else do you propose to house them all, fill Greater London with fifty storey tower blocks?
Well for a start I would take measures to prevent the population from growing.
And in terms of new homes, I would look at derelict former industrial sites and the redevelopment of redundant office and retail premises and existing residential that is unfit for purpose.
Green field sites should be rewilded, not built on.
Morning again all, and something espewcially for @dixiedean (alas):
'Headteachers across the country say they cannot fill vital teaching assistant vacancies and that support staff are taking second jobs in supermarkets to survive because their wages are “just a joke”.
Schools are reporting that increasing numbers of teaching assistants are leaving because they will not be able to pay for high energy bills and afford food this winter. And with job ads often attracting no applications at all, heads fear they will be impossible to replace. They warn this will have a serious impact on children in the classroom, especially those with special educational needs, and will make it increasingly hard for teachers to focus on teaching.'
Yes. Just read that. Tallies with the situation in my school. The other point is that the job of a TA is to build relationships with kids who are struggling. And often have very complex physical, mental or emotional needs. This can't be done by agency staff on week long contracts with no experience, training or qualifications whatsoever. Where they exist
Clearly beyond the mental capacities of F1 to have announced upon the restart:
"Guys, you are now racing for full points..."
I feel a bit sorry for Verstappen. Obviously last years race was a farce but he should be allowed to enjoy one championship in a non-controversial way
When you read the rules with the understanding that the reduced points are if they suspend the race and cannot restart, it makes sense. What does not make sense is that there is nothing to explicitly make clear that full points are awarded to a resumed race regardless of length.
Does anyone know how the £45 billion figure for the cost of tax cuts in the mini budget was derived. How much for abolishing NI rises? How much for abolishing Corporation tax rises? Where does the rest come from? I know the 45p rate was priced at £2 billion.
It's in Table 4.2 of the Growth Plan document published by HMG, the cost of policy decisions for fiscal year 2026-27.
The NI and corporation tax changes are the two biggest, about £34bn combined.
Thanks.
The scary thing is that what spooked Mr Market was the abolition of planned, future tax increases rather than cuts in existing taxes. So Mr Market wants either taxes to increase or government spending to be cut. This government won't do the first and will struggle to do the second.
Remember that Rishi had already announced the income tax basic rate cut….(snip)
A 1p lower rate with significantly lower allowances (in real terms) not, of course, being an actual tax cut, but just looking like one.
Planning and NIMBYism is a really tricky political problem. There are no answers that are both universally popular and effective. That’s just a sad fact of life in a country that is both densely populated with biodiversity and green space at a premium in its most economically active regions, and stagnating due to lack of infrastructure and investment.
You’ll never stop NIMBYs and if you ignore them you won’t win elections, and in many cases they have a point. What’s good for the country is often not good for a local community.
What would I do if I were in government? I think there’s something to be said for concentrating development as much as possible: massive industrialisation, house building, infrastructure building in a small number of very large, intensive urbanised areas including proper new towns, and leave the rest alone.
It is tedious that there isn't a more neutral and accurate term than NIMBY available. I am not one, both because I have never in 30 years living in the countryside objected to or even commented on a planning application, and because I object to loss of natural habitat in let's say Lincolnshire, where I have never actually been, and indeed in France and Antarctica.
There isn't a solution. We are growing like a culture in a petri dish, and absent forced killing and/or sterilisation there is nothing to be done about it till we gobble up all remaining natural habitat, and die horribly off.
The Sunday Rawnsley, as the sun comes up over the mid-Atlantic:
We have what is effectively a hung parliament in which the Truss faction is not even the largest party. The good news is that she simply does not have the numbers to implement her crazier notions. The bad news is that we will endure a period of numerous emergencies with a dysfunctional government struggling to do much at all.
We have reached a surreal stage of the implosion of the Tory party when Nadine Dorries feels qualified to attack “cruel” cuts and lambast Ms Truss for “lurching to the right”.
Never forget that she attracted just 50 votes in the first leadership ballot, which means that 305 Tory MPs thought someone else would do a better job...She has acted as if she has the thumping endorsement at a general election for her libertarian manifesto when she was actually installed by Tory activists against the wishes of most of her MPs and without any mandate from the public. Never in the field of British politics has a leader become so staggeringly unpopular in such a spectacularly short time.
She packed the cabinet with close friends, ideological soulmates, hard rightists to whom she owed campaign debts and some Johnsonites to try to keep them onside. “I used to say Boris’s cabinet was the worst since world war two,” says one senior Tory. “Hers is even worse.”
Desperate not to make any more humiliating about-turns on their unfunded tax cuts, they are looking to take the blade to spending. This at a time when public services are grappling with the legacy of the pandemic and the ravaging impact of an inflation rate far higher than was expected when their budgets were set.
There is already a lot of chatter about removing Ms Truss and the scheming will become more feverish when they all get back to Westminster. There’s no consensus about how her defenestration might be engineered or who would take her place or how on earth they’d contrive this without making the Tory party look even more demented.
This raises a very valid question - what is the government's working majority? Does it even have a working majority?
Whilst Sebastian Fox will never ever ever become Prime Minister, that he is organising the rebellion from inside the government benches demonstrates that the answer to my question is "no".
How’s about those involved in the broadband rollout actually train some people to do it, rather than mindlessly relying on importing skills?
Indeed, the UK telecoms industry has made huge commitments to fibre rollout*, so they need to match it with staff to complete the work. Of course that doesn't mean you just fling the doors wide open, the whole point of being in control of immigration is that you can make choices about sectors and the scale of immigration.
* Currently IIRC we are second behind France in terms of the speed of rollout, things have changed a lot over the last few year.
That massive fibre rollout is going to look to be a huge waste of money when everyone can sign up to Starlink....*
(*as long as you aren't actively fighting the Russian in your neighbourhood....)
It doesn’t work like that. There is a limit to the number of Starlink (or any other LEO internet provider) subscribers who can be supported per square km. Starlink has a higher number than the competing systems, and is working on increasing that with the V2 satellites. But it will always be there.
What LEO internet constellations are for is for the applications where fibre isn’t an option - remoter areas, ships, planes etc. by itself this is a 100s of Billions market. Imagine providing the backhaul for the cellular market in large chunks of Africa, for example. Or hi speed internet on every plane in the sky.
Is the argument supposed to be "we need a particular subset of immigrants, therefore we should have completely limitless migration from the whole continent they're in"?
I'm not sure that penny will ever drop for Gauke or Scott etc
Though perhaps local engineers should be trained and paid better as another option?
But I'm fine with unlimited immigration past a sufficiently minimum earnings threshold personally, so long as housing is dealt with. It is unlimited immigration as cheap labour combined with restrictive housing planning that is a problem.
Housing won't be dealt with, because the Conservative Party is completely in thrall to nimbyism.
As are the Lib Dems and Labour too.
And if anyone in Government ever proposes sensible solutions, like Boris's reforms to zoning, or Truss's reported proposals, then they'll be opposed automatically by the other side allowing the NIMBY rebels to win.
Find me a NIMBY free party that supports a liberal housing policy and I could vote for them.
We're going to have to wait and see what Labour does. If any party can do it, the one that is weakest in rural areas can.
A Labour Government with a decent majority could target well planned, large scale development in some areas currently classed as green belt whilst upsetting an insignificant fraction of its own MPs and voters, in a way that the Tories simply can't.
That would be a good way to get people like me to quit the party and join the Greens.
To govern is to choose. It would be an awful lot easier if a third of the population simply vanished off the face of the Earth overnight and Government could therefore forget about plonking a load of new houses all over the place, but that's not the reality of our situation. Labour can afford to wave bye bye to a few stroppy greens if it's going to release millions of young people from the prison of insecure tenancies and crushing rents.
The population keeps growing. How else do you propose to house them all, fill Greater London with fifty storey tower blocks?
Well for a start I would take measures to prevent the population from growing.
And in terms of new homes, I would look at derelict former industrial sites and the redevelopment of redundant office and retail premises and existing residential that is unfit for purpose.
Green field sites should be rewilded, not built on.
There isn’t enough of that for the existing population. More houses are needed.
Perhaps OGH should give me the access codes to PB.com, so in the unlikely event that Leon is right, I can keep it going from mid-Atlantic - a Radio Caroline for the modern age?
I thought his first action on appointment as OGH was to write you a letter about this.
I thought PB going offline is confirmation for the Trident sub commanders to fire, along with the BBC being off air?
Comments
So there's a huge load on it.
I am not sure I would want to go on a train across that bridge. It might suddenly decide to join the submarine service.
Bank of England targeting is on CPI (which is why they were relaxed about the API seen in the housing bubble).
On interest rates what really matters is the difference between nominal interest rates and CPI as that influences economic expansion. (As does a loose fiscal policy such as randomly and uncontrollable cutting taxes).
The issue is that an asset price crash acts as a long term drag on economic performance as a result of impact on capital and confidence. So people typically cut interest rates to support growth - but this is why stagflation is such a bugger: inflation is high requiring higher interest rates, but growth is poor requiring lower interest rates. You’d normally deal with this through fiscal policy… unless someone has already spent all the money…
They are stuffed. Whatever they do. I cannot see Team Truss recovering from this especially given how consistently dire their numbers are.
https://youtu.be/O6FaRo4ZwUI
F1: post-race ramble: https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2022/10/japan-post-race-analysis-2022.html
Edited extra bit: post = blog.
Does anyone know how easy it is to measure the damage to the bridge? How will the Russians know what load it can bear?
Stick a fork in em, they're done.
https://twitter.com/LukeSmithF1/status/1579026113111941120
I'm more curious about the rail bridge. Was the demolition of the road bridge triggered just as the fuel train was crossing, or was it just very fortuitous timing?
https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1579030082693132289
"Guys, you are now racing for full points..."
YearsThe Liz Truss
MonthsThe Liz Truss Weeks
Simple, eh?
* Currently IIRC we are second behind France in terms of the speed of rollout, things have changed a lot over the last few year.
I have always thought that a safety net should exist, but work should pay better. I don't think that's especially unreasonable.
In fact I'm an advocate of a UBI as a right wing solution to welfare: a safety net of support should exist, but work should pay as a carrot rather than punitively taxing those who work, or dicking around with sanctions etc
But yet if you lose equity then that's nobody else's responsibility but your own. All investments can go down as well as up.
(*as long as you aren't actively fighting the Russian in your neighbourhood....)
They need to stop borrowing and raise money the old fashined way and then pay off the most expensive borrowing as quickly as possible.
This really is not rocket science.
Though perhaps local engineers should be trained and paid better as another option?
But I'm fine with unlimited immigration past a sufficiently minimum earnings threshold personally, so long as housing is dealt with. It is unlimited immigration as cheap labour combined with restrictive housing planning that is a problem.
If it’s months, or a year, the old waiting for the locals chestnut, and the Tory Party has been enabling Truss in the commons, then changing leader will make less difference because in both voters minds and opposition attacks the whole party will be infected with the Liz Virus and unclean.
Tho the fact the Bridge is still semi-functional might rein in their wreakings
We need unplanned, wild and organically built housing that allows people to get a home built wherever they need it rather than relying upon "plans" to be drawn up for them.
But yes, zone nature reserves as unsuitable for development, I have no qualms with that.
Some years back, a chap I knew looked at placing a factory in the North. Classic Red Wall. Labour since whenever. Local government, political and professional took the attitude that “We might allow your horrible factory, one day. But we hate factories”
In comparison his scouting trip for locations in the Far East was interesting. No, not “build your factory, we don’t care”. But government officials were eager to explain what sites were possible. Tax and environmental regulations were set out - with examples of how to meet them. The local trade unions had an example of their no-strike deals they had in other factories… the whole thing was pitched as “Come here, build a legit, decent business and we will love you for it. And help you do it.”
Obviously some of that was a snow job - but it was incredibly indicative.
I would guess it’ll be a while before large scale heavy weaponry starts crossing again.
And if anyone in Government ever proposes sensible solutions, like Boris's reforms to zoning, or Truss's reported proposals, then they'll be opposed automatically by the other side allowing the NIMBY rebels to win.
Find me a NIMBY free party that supports a liberal housing policy and I could vote for them.
The NI and corporation tax changes are the two biggest, about £34bn combined.
I am surprised by that. For ballast to work properly, it needs to be deep: the heavier the expected load (and speed), the greater the depth. Slab concrete track can be much shallower, and therefore weigh less. Depending on the type ballast weighs 1 to 2 tonnes per cubic metre, and the base needs to be a foot to more thick *under* the sleepers. (All from memory, so should check...) This really increases the load on the bridge.
There are other problems with ballasted track: it costs more to maintain, and alignment can move on curves. Also, in ye olden days it was harder to remove ballast, so fresh ballast used to be dumped on top, raising the track level significantly over the years until the tops of trains start hitting lineside structures. This is less of a problem nowadays, with machines to clean and renew ballast that can dig down to depth.
I think HS2 have opted for concrete slab track for most of the way.
Spitballing, I can see that ballast may have helped by acting as a blanket that kept the worst of the heat from the flames from the steel. Perhaps.
(Incidentally, I believe the first ever 'modern' slab concrete track was laid by slip forming in the 1960s near Duffield in Derby. In the 1990s the concrete base was still visible. I've no idea if it's been broken up since then. Derby was also famously where the first steel rail was used - without the railway knowing...)
The likes of Dyson go over seas for wages up to 8 times cheaper, surely?
This year he thoroughly deserves the title, and would get it anyway, and yet was still gifted it!
Unless I'm misunderstanding it, the rules are rather nonsensical.
A Labour Government with a decent majority could target well planned, large scale development in some areas currently classed as green belt whilst upsetting an insignificant fraction of its own MPs and voters, in a way that the Tories simply can't.
Because, came the answer, the minister wants it in before the election. Which was about three months away!
We have what is effectively a hung parliament in which the Truss faction is not even the largest party. The good news is that she simply does not have the numbers to implement her crazier notions. The bad news is that we will endure a period of numerous emergencies with a dysfunctional government struggling to do much at all.
We have reached a surreal stage of the implosion of the Tory party when Nadine Dorries feels qualified to attack “cruel” cuts and lambast Ms Truss for “lurching to the right”.
Never forget that she attracted just 50 votes in the first leadership ballot, which means that 305 Tory MPs thought someone else would do a better job...She has acted as if she has the thumping endorsement at a general election for her libertarian manifesto when she was actually installed by Tory activists against the wishes of most of her MPs and without any mandate from the public. Never in the field of British politics has a leader become so staggeringly unpopular in such a spectacularly short time.
She packed the cabinet with close friends, ideological soulmates, hard rightists to whom she owed campaign debts and some Johnsonites to try to keep them onside. “I used to say Boris’s cabinet was the worst since world war two,” says one senior Tory. “Hers is even worse.”
Desperate not to make any more humiliating about-turns on their unfunded tax cuts, they are looking to take the blade to spending. This at a time when public services are grappling with the legacy of the pandemic and the ravaging impact of an inflation rate far higher than was expected when their budgets were set.
There is already a lot of chatter about removing Ms Truss and the scheming will become more feverish when they all get back to Westminster. There’s no consensus about how her defenestration might be engineered or who would take her place or how on earth they’d contrive this without making the Tory party look even more demented.
*) Intimate visual inspection, particularly of joints and connections, e.g. expansion joints and bearings. These are the structural parts most likely to suffer 'unseen' damage.
*) 'Sounding' it. Basically, hitting it at a certain power and listening for how it reacts. Might be difficult with damaged track and ballast on.
*) NDT (e.g. ultrasound of various parts of concern.)
*) Put a large number of stress/strain gauges on the structure and then overload it, and see how the stresses and deflections are in comparison to the calculation. In this case, you could compare to undamaged spans.
There will also be a whole host of non-critical parts that are damaged, e.g. cabling, drainage, walkways, that the railway can run without but will need work in the medium term.
Throwing down replacement rails and sleepers is easy, but you wouldn’t want to run heavy military trains across until there’s been a proper load test evaluation from the engineers.
The scary thing is that what spooked Mr Market was the abolition of planned, future tax increases rather than cuts in existing taxes. So Mr Market wants either taxes to increase or government spending to be cut. This government won't do the first and will struggle to do the second.
If we're going to have communities that offer decent, affordable homes accompanied by good essential services - proper transport links, adequate healthcare, enough school places, and so on - then some modern equivalent of the post war new town movement will be needed. Legislation to protect sensitive landscapes, provide sufficient local services, improve building regulations, provide enormous sums of money to get the whole thing moving, and to strip nimbies and their puppet local councillors of their power to slow it all back down to a halt.
Simply setting property developers free and letting them do what they want won't work, because the market ain't the solution to every problem. It won't give the country the housing it needs, it'll just give developers licence to throw up more of the overpriced shoddy tat that makes them the maximum possible profit.
Training requires, time, patience, money and skills (itself). You’d need to massively grow the training infrastructure.
See the recent debates here about medical staff training - we are looking at the (from the COVID A level thing) 25% extra graduates on some courses. The problem is that a medical grad isn’t a doctor, or a nurse. So you need places as teaching hospitals etc. Which have a small problem with existence.
The population keeps growing. How else do you propose to house them all, fill Greater London with fifty storey tower blocks?
'Headteachers across the country say they cannot fill vital teaching assistant vacancies and that support staff are taking second jobs in supermarkets to survive because their wages are “just a joke”.
Schools are reporting that increasing numbers of teaching assistants are leaving because they will not be able to pay for high energy bills and afford food this winter. And with job ads often attracting no applications at all, heads fear they will be impossible to replace. They warn this will have a serious impact on children in the classroom, especially those with special educational needs, and will make it increasingly hard for teachers to focus on teaching.'
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/oct/09/teaching-assistants-quitting-schools-for-supermarkets-because-of-joke-wages
You’ll never stop NIMBYs and if you ignore them you won’t win elections, and in many cases they have a point. What’s good for the country is often not good for a local community.
What would I do if I were in government? I think there’s something to be said for concentrating development as much as possible: massive industrialisation, house building, infrastructure building in a small number of very large, intensive urbanised areas including proper new towns, and leave the rest alone.
And in terms of new homes, I would look at derelict former industrial sites and the redevelopment of redundant office and retail premises and existing residential that is unfit for purpose.
Green field sites should be rewilded, not built on.
The other point is that the job of a TA is to build relationships with kids who are struggling. And often have very complex physical, mental or emotional needs.
This can't be done by agency staff on week long contracts with no experience, training or qualifications whatsoever.
Where they exist
Englands bottom 6 looks like a decent test attack.
There isn't a solution. We are growing like a culture in a petri dish, and absent forced killing and/or sterilisation there is nothing to be done about it till we gobble up all remaining natural habitat, and die horribly off.
Whilst Sebastian Fox will never ever ever become Prime Minister, that he is organising the rebellion from inside the government benches demonstrates that the answer to my question is "no".
What LEO internet constellations are for is for the applications where fibre isn’t an option - remoter areas, ships, planes etc. by itself this is a 100s of Billions market. Imagine providing the backhaul for the cellular market in large chunks of Africa, for example. Or hi speed internet on every plane in the sky.