The point about today is the strength of Sunak's position which is analogous to him having won a General Election. There is no way on God's green earth the Conservative Parliamentary party is going to put us through a third leadership election before a General Election so Sunak is absolutely safe until the verdict of the electorate.
That means he has been able to keep his friends close and his enemies closer effectively muzzling them by collective responsibility. The likes of Braverman, Badenoch and any other aspiring leader are inside and if it is seen that their behaviour is a factor in a heavy defeat at the election, the membership won't take kindly.
Some on here seem to Sunak can turn this round as John Major did after becoming Prime Minister. It's not impossible and indeed there are parallels - economic headwinds and a war but that's probably where it stops. The way the Conservatives have comported themselves since early July won't soon be forgotten even if Sunak does restore some confidence and poll ratings.
The other point is this may well not be the final team which goes into the next election - a further reshuffle after the local elections next May (especially if they are disappointing) may yet see some newer blood from the backbenches given a chance.
Not to mention the as-yet undisclosed hand grenades at least one or two of these characters must be wandering around with, just waiting to go off at an inopportune moment; backbench unrest from Mogg and co, the motivation or otherwise of the activist base in the run up to the election. And "events".
Remarkable to think that as we watched Bake Off last week, she was still Prime Minister.
Now she has been erased into a "non-person" with an alacrity that would make Stalin blush.
A lot happens between Bake Offs these days. But Bake Off itself doesn't change. Always a signature, a technical, a showstopper in that order. Always an elimination. Always a star baker. Hollywood, Leith, Lucas, Fielding, the tent, and the voiceover guy. Bake Off.
I want to be on bake off. Get me on bake off.
They put something hot in a freezer and didn’t realise it would warm the freezer 🤦♀️
Yes, apply if you have the skills and also the nerve to cope with live tv and 20m watching.
Kevin gone. Right decision imo. Always mid division and no chance of winning so best to end it now.
@GoodwinMJ · 1h If you voted for Boris Johnson & the Conservatives in 2019 you should feel happy today. You have a pro-Brexit PM who is prioritising the 2019 manifesto, a serious mind on Levelling Up, a no nonsense Home Sec on migration and a Cabinet with lots of Leavers
There you go HY. Your dream come true.
Sunak is the future. Johnson was the future once...
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
Eh? Some of us were discussing the point earlier today that the young continentals are no longer flocking en masse to London, with real damage to the economy. I have not been recently, so can't comment from personal observation.
I sense that the reappointment of Braverman has effectively made today a wasted opportunity for the Tories in terms of seeking to reset the image of this Government. Less than a week ago people were rejoicing with some singing 'Ding Dong the Witch is dead!'. Now they are singing 'Ding Dong the Witch is back!'. It is comparable to Keir Starmer now deciding to appoint Laura Pidcock to his Shadow Cabinet.
@GoodwinMJ · 1h If you voted for Boris Johnson & the Conservatives in 2019 you should feel happy today. You have a pro-Brexit PM who is prioritising the 2019 manifesto, a serious mind on Levelling Up, a no nonsense Home Sec on migration and a Cabinet with lots of Leavers
There you go HY. Your dream come true.
Sunak is the future. Johnson was the future once...
The risible Goodwin was given silly amounts of airtime on BBC 6pm News. He did seem rather desperate to get his standard message across, as if he’d been struggling for oxygen of late.
@GoodwinMJ · 1h If you voted for Boris Johnson & the Conservatives in 2019 you should feel happy today. You have a pro-Brexit PM who is prioritising the 2019 manifesto, a serious mind on Levelling Up, a no nonsense Home Sec on migration and a Cabinet with lots of Leavers
There you go HY. Your dream come true.
Sunak is the future. Johnson was the future once...
The risible Goodwin was given silly amounts of airtime on BBC 6pm News. He did seem rather desperate to get his standard message across, as if he’d been struggling for oxygen of late.
I was merely trying to cheer a despondent HY.
P.S. I suspect the BBC are trying to make up for Martine Croxall. It's going to be wall-to-wall Conservative sycophancy from now 'til Christmas.
I sense that the reappointment of Braverman has effectively made today a wasted opportunity for the Tories in terms of seeking to reset the image of this Government. Less than a week ago people were rejoicing with some singing 'Ding Dong the Witch is dead!'. Now they are singing 'Ding Dong the Witch is back!'. It is comparable to Keir Starmer now deciding to appoint Laura Pidcock to his Shadow Cabinet.
Yes, I think so.
Of course, this is only among the hyper-incestuous Westminster village and the very online and politically obsessive.
But that group tends have an outsized influence on broader sentiment.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Remarkable to think that as we watched Bake Off last week, she was still Prime Minister.
Now she has been erased into a "non-person" with an alacrity that would make Stalin blush.
A lot happens between Bake Offs these days. But Bake Off itself doesn't change. Always a signature, a technical, a showstopper in that order. Always an elimination. Always a star baker. Hollywood, Leith, Lucas, Fielding, the tent, and the voiceover guy. Bake Off.
I want to be on bake off. Get me on bake off.
They put something hot in a freezer and didn’t realise it would warm the freezer 🤦♀️
Yes, apply if you have the skills and also the nerve to cope with live tv and 20m watching.
Kevin gone. Right decision imo. Always mid division and no chance of winning so best to end it now.
It's not 'live' TV though is it?
Don't go spoiling it. I believe.
Can you still bet on the outcome? Something that has already finished months ago?
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
We are all going to come round to the view that borrowing to fund tax cuts is sensible?
Now you are spinning it, as you are good at, because the too much that was unfunded was Truss mistake, i agree. But that doesn’t change the fundamental point, because the economic truth is it didn’t have to be unfunded did it? If properly funded those tax cuts would still have been politically explosive, but that doesn’t change or should not reflect on the economics in anyway should it, the political assessment and economic assessment should rightly be separate.
So how about this, we are in a new place now, just like when Sunny Jim gave his “I can tell you in all candour” the levers we usually pull are now not working speech - call Truss growth policy right wing Keynesianism, call it what you like, the alternative is you are unbothered by the need for growth aren’t you? You feel we can borrow or raise taxes instead? Well, I can tell you in all candour… 😁
Truss tax cuts could have been funded by cuts,
prediction one: Just like Sunak’s and Starmer’s tax cuts will be funded by cuts.
Prediction two: 7 years of shrinking the state to pay for a push for growth lie ahead for UK now - Sunak and Starmer don’t have a say in that, nor the voters of this country, the markets have decided for us that we are now in a new orthodoxy, wherein we have to repay the bill for years of cheap credit.
Any questions?
'Shrinking the state' is not going to help the push for growth one iota.
There are things we can do to encourage growth for sure*. Austerity is certainly not one of them. If you'd paid any attention during the 2010s you'd know that.
(* E.g. Re-joining the Single Market; ensuring that the poorest get income increases at least in line with inflation).
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Brexit, probably. Plus we are all just awful racists over here.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
We are all going to come round to the view that borrowing to fund tax cuts is sensible?
Now you are spinning it, as you are good at, because the too much that was unfunded was Truss mistake, i agree. But that doesn’t change the fundamental point, because the economic truth is it didn’t have to be unfunded did it? If properly funded those tax cuts would still have been politically explosive, but that doesn’t change or should not reflect on the economics in anyway should it, the political assessment and economic assessment should rightly be separate.
So how about this, we are in a new place now, just like when Sunny Jim gave his “I can tell you in all candour” the levers we usually pull are now not working speech - call Truss growth policy right wing Keynesianism, call it what you like, the alternative is you are unbothered by the need for growth aren’t you? You feel we can borrow or raise taxes instead? Well, I can tell you in all candour… 😁
Truss tax cuts could have been funded by cuts,
prediction one: Just like Sunak’s and Starmer’s tax cuts will be funded by cuts.
Prediction two: 7 years of shrinking the state to pay for a push for growth lie ahead for UK now - Sunak and Starmer don’t have a say in that, nor the voters of this country, the markets have decided for us that we are now in a new orthodoxy, wherein we have to repay the bill for years of cheap credit.
Remarkable to think that as we watched Bake Off last week, she was still Prime Minister.
Now she has been erased into a "non-person" with an alacrity that would make Stalin blush.
A lot happens between Bake Offs these days. But Bake Off itself doesn't change. Always a signature, a technical, a showstopper in that order. Always an elimination. Always a star baker. Hollywood, Leith, Lucas, Fielding, the tent, and the voiceover guy. Bake Off.
I want to be on bake off. Get me on bake off.
They put something hot in a freezer and didn’t realise it would warm the freezer 🤦♀️
Yes, apply if you have the skills and also the nerve to cope with live tv and 20m watching.
Kevin gone. Right decision imo. Always mid division and no chance of winning so best to end it now.
It's not 'live' TV though is it?
Don't go spoiling it. I believe.
The important consequence of it not being live TV, of course, is the lack of betting markets.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Remarkable to think that as we watched Bake Off last week, she was still Prime Minister.
Now she has been erased into a "non-person" with an alacrity that would make Stalin blush.
A lot happens between Bake Offs these days. But Bake Off itself doesn't change. Always a signature, a technical, a showstopper in that order. Always an elimination. Always a star baker. Hollywood, Leith, Lucas, Fielding, the tent, and the voiceover guy. Bake Off.
I want to be on bake off. Get me on bake off.
They put something hot in a freezer and didn’t realise it would warm the freezer 🤦♀️
Yes, apply if you have the skills and also the nerve to cope with live tv and 20m watching.
Kevin gone. Right decision imo. Always mid division and no chance of winning so best to end it now.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
I think it was the hubris and incompetence that spooked the markets, not any particular policy.
Trussonomics was soundbites plus magical thinking. Don't think it really merits much analysis tbh.
It was the lack of forecasts, and/or forward projections of what the proposals would supposedly deliver and what they would mean for public finances. Along with the general "we don't care what the markets do, we're doing it anyway, suck on that". So they did.
It wasn't that they didn't care. They didn't countenance at all the possibility. See also the next day's headlines and comments from the right wing commentators. It was a spectacular triumph to be repeated as soon as possible by all governments envious they hadn't thought of it first.
Like I said when I described it on topic, my view is running contrary to the perceived wisdom at this time. But imagine it’s a history programme in 2062, just like we get history programmes describing politics in the seventies. There’s Labour winning two general elections in a year - they didn’t New Labour high fiving supporters all up Downing Street in 70s, nor podium speeches largely fluff and bullshit, but still this history programme will show cockahoop Labour supporters celebrating the win, but the voiceover kicks in “but the economy would be in the wrong shape for the expensive policies of the next two years” cue Healey going around a revolving door in at an airport, cut to Sunny Jim delivering post IMF bailout conference spoech in the face of hecklers (IMF loan terms were based on monetarism in those days).
Today we had Truss not backing down that Trussism is right. Minutes later Sunak standing in same street saying she’s wrong. But like in 74 and 75, who was saying Labours splurge of spending was wrong?
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
At least you read it! That quote is from the economics correspondent for the Economist…
Remarkable to think that as we watched Bake Off last week, she was still Prime Minister.
Now she has been erased into a "non-person" with an alacrity that would make Stalin blush.
A lot happens between Bake Offs these days. But Bake Off itself doesn't change. Always a signature, a technical, a showstopper in that order. Always an elimination. Always a star baker. Hollywood, Leith, Lucas, Fielding, the tent, and the voiceover guy. Bake Off.
I want to be on bake off. Get me on bake off.
They put something hot in a freezer and didn’t realise it would warm the freezer 🤦♀️
Yes, apply if you have the skills and also the nerve to cope with live tv and 20m watching.
Kevin gone. Right decision imo. Always mid division and no chance of winning so best to end it now.
It's not 'live' TV though is it?
Don't go spoiling it. I believe.
Can you still bet on the outcome? Something that has already finished months ago?
No, there's no betfair market on bake off. But nothing leaks so you do watch it as live. It feels live, it IS live really. Eg you never watch it on catch up. You watch it when it happens at 8pm on Tuesdays.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
At least you read it!
I did. Reminded me a lot of US hit reporting of recent years about how awful things are over here. Which bears little resemblance to the truth.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
We were having discussions about hand car washes donkeys years ago on here (before Brexit). About why garages who previously had automated machines weren't getting any business and the rapid rise of these pop-up car cleaning services offering to do your car for £5. Many back in the day run by / staffed by Albanians here illegally if I am not mistaken.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
We are all going to come round to the view that borrowing to fund tax cuts is sensible?
Now you are spinning it, as you are good at, because the too much that was unfunded was Truss mistake, i agree. But that doesn’t change the fundamental point, because the economic truth is it didn’t have to be unfunded did it? If properly funded those tax cuts would still have been politically explosive, but that doesn’t change or should not reflect on the economics in anyway should it, the political assessment and economic assessment should rightly be separate.
So how about this, we are in a new place now, just like when Sunny Jim gave his “I can tell you in all candour” the levers we usually pull are now not working speech - call Truss growth policy right wing Keynesianism, call it what you like, the alternative is you are unbothered by the need for growth aren’t you? You feel we can borrow or raise taxes instead? Well, I can tell you in all candour… 😁
Truss tax cuts could have been funded by cuts,
prediction one: Just like Sunak’s and Starmer’s tax cuts will be funded by cuts.
Prediction two: 7 years of shrinking the state to pay for a push for growth lie ahead for UK now - Sunak and Starmer don’t have a say in that, nor the voters of this country, the markets have decided for us that we are now in a new orthodoxy, wherein we have to repay the bill for years of cheap credit.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
We are all going to come round to the view that borrowing to fund tax cuts is sensible?
Now you are spinning it, as you are good at, because the too much that was unfunded was Truss mistake, i agree. But that doesn’t change the fundamental point, because the economic truth is it didn’t have to be unfunded did it? If properly funded those tax cuts would still have been politically explosive, but that doesn’t change or should not reflect on the economics in anyway should it, the political assessment and economic assessment should rightly be separate.
So how about this, we are in a new place now, just like when Sunny Jim gave his “I can tell you in all candour” the levers we usually pull are now not working speech - call Truss growth policy right wing Keynesianism, call it what you like, the alternative is you are unbothered by the need for growth aren’t you? You feel we can borrow or raise taxes instead? Well, I can tell you in all candour… 😁
Truss tax cuts could have been funded by cuts,
prediction one: Just like Sunak’s and Starmer’s tax cuts will be funded by cuts.
Prediction two: 7 years of shrinking the state to pay for a push for growth lie ahead for UK now - Sunak and Starmer don’t have a say in that, nor the voters of this country, the markets have decided for us that we are now in a new orthodoxy, wherein we have to repay the bill for years of cheap credit.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
At least you read it!
I did. Reminded me a lot of US hit reporting of recent years about how awful things are over here. Which bears little resemblance to the truth.
It’s actually a pretty fair summary of Britain’s current malaise.
Of course, to escape a malaise you have to at least first admit there is one. So many do not want to.
Remarkable to think that as we watched Bake Off last week, she was still Prime Minister.
Now she has been erased into a "non-person" with an alacrity that would make Stalin blush.
A lot happens between Bake Offs these days. But Bake Off itself doesn't change. Always a signature, a technical, a showstopper in that order. Always an elimination. Always a star baker. Hollywood, Leith, Lucas, Fielding, the tent, and the voiceover guy. Bake Off.
I want to be on bake off. Get me on bake off.
They put something hot in a freezer and didn’t realise it would warm the freezer 🤦♀️
Yes, apply if you have the skills and also the nerve to cope with live tv and 20m watching.
Kevin gone. Right decision imo. Always mid division and no chance of winning so best to end it now.
Noel Fielding saying "shit just got real" tonight (with the shit obviously bleeped) is my favourite Bake Off moment in some time now. I don't know why it made me laugh so hard.
He's having a good series, I think.
It's strange how the prog weaves its spell. I'm not a 'reality tv' person at all, but this one I never miss.
Well there is a clear point to it. It works because it's a reality show - real people whom you get to know and care about over the series - but at heart it is still basically a baking competition. Also the presenters/judges are very likeable - even more so than in the original iteration. That said, the only reason I'd ever watch it is one of the sporadic occassions when the wife decides it'd be nice to watch something together as a family. And there is precious little which fits that particular bill any more. Which again is one of its key strengths. (Not that, in practice, we do all watch: at least two members of the family will be more focused on phones, one daughter will be cavailling around the room, another will be drawing...)
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
I think it was the hubris and incompetence that spooked the markets, not any particular policy.
Trussonomics was soundbites plus magical thinking. Don't think it really merits much analysis tbh.
It was the lack of forecasts, and/or forward projections of what the proposals would supposedly deliver and what they would mean for public finances. Along with the general "we don't care what the markets do, we're doing it anyway, suck on that". So they did.
It wasn't that they didn't care. They didn't countenance at all the possibility. See also the next day's headlines and comments from the right wing commentators. It was a spectacular triumph to be repeated as soon as possible by all governments envious they hadn't thought of it first.
Like I said when I described it on topic, my view is running contrary to the perceived wisdom at this time. But imagine it’s a history programme in 2062, just like we get history programmes describing politics in the seventies. There’s Labour winning two general elections in a year - they didn’t New Labour high fiving supporters all up Downing Street in 70s, nor podium speeches largely fluff and bullshit, but still this history programme will show cockahoop Labour supporters celebrating the win, but the voiceover kicks in “but the economy would be in the wrong shape for the expensive policies of the next two years” cue Healey going around a revolving door in at an airport, cut to Sunny Jim delivering post IMF bailout conference spoech in the face of hecklers (IMF loan terms were based on monetarism in those days).
Today we had Truss not backing down that Trussism is right. Minutes later Sunak standing in same street saying she’s wrong. But like in 74 and 75, who was saying Labours splurge of spending was wrong?
Bringing in the IMF in the Autumn of 1976 was based on economic data which proved to be wrong, and subsequent revisions revealed it not to have been necessary. Healey and Callaghan should have allowed the pound to fall as dictated by market conditions. As always it would have bounced back when it became clear the markets had overshot - particularly when the corrected economic data emerged a few months later.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
We are all going to come round to the view that borrowing to fund tax cuts is sensible?
Now you are spinning it, as you are good at, because the too much that was unfunded was Truss mistake, i agree. But that doesn’t change the fundamental point, because the economic truth is it didn’t have to be unfunded did it? If properly funded those tax cuts would still have been politically explosive, but that doesn’t change or should not reflect on the economics in anyway should it, the political assessment and economic assessment should rightly be separate.
So how about this, we are in a new place now, just like when Sunny Jim gave his “I can tell you in all candour” the levers we usually pull are now not working speech - call Truss growth policy right wing Keynesianism, call it what you like, the alternative is you are unbothered by the need for growth aren’t you? You feel we can borrow or raise taxes instead? Well, I can tell you in all candour… 😁
Truss tax cuts could have been funded by cuts,
prediction one: Just like Sunak’s and Starmer’s tax cuts will be funded by cuts.
Prediction two: 7 years of shrinking the state to pay for a push for growth lie ahead for UK now - Sunak and Starmer don’t have a say in that, nor the voters of this country, the markets have decided for us that we are now in a new orthodoxy, wherein we have to repay the bill for years of cheap credit.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
I think it was the hubris and incompetence that spooked the markets, not any particular policy.
Trussonomics was soundbites plus magical thinking. Don't think it really merits much analysis tbh.
It was the lack of forecasts, and/or forward projections of what the proposals would supposedly deliver and what they would mean for public finances. Along with the general "we don't care what the markets do, we're doing it anyway, suck on that". So they did.
It wasn't that they didn't care. They didn't countenance at all the possibility. See also the next day's headlines and comments from the right wing commentators. It was a spectacular triumph to be repeated as soon as possible by all governments envious they hadn't thought of it first.
Like I said when I described it on topic, my view is running contrary to the perceived wisdom at this time. But imagine it’s a history programme in 2062, just like we get history programmes describing politics in the seventies. There’s Labour winning two general elections in a year - they didn’t New Labour high fiving supporters all up Downing Street in 70s, nor podium speeches largely fluff and bullshit, but still this history programme will show cockahoop Labour supporters celebrating the win, but the voiceover kicks in “but the economy would be in the wrong shape for the expensive policies of the next two years” cue Healey going around a revolving door in at an airport, cut to Sunny Jim delivering post IMF bailout conference spoech in the face of hecklers (IMF loan terms were based on monetarism in those days).
Today we had Truss not backing down that Trussism is right. Minutes later Sunak standing in same street saying she’s wrong. But like in 74 and 75, who was saying Labours splurge of spending was wrong?
Bringing in the IMF in the Autumn of 1976 was based on economic data which proved to be wrong, and subsequent revisions revealed it not to have been necessary. Healey and Callaghan should have allowed the pound to fall as dictated by market conditions. As always it would have bounced back when it became clear the markets had overshot - particularly when the corrected economic data emerged a few months later.
The bad years of the seventies were 1973-75. The economy boomed from 1976-80.
The University of York has dropped students' initials from the email addresses it assigns people in a trans-friendly move.
The university traditionally used the first letters of a students' first name and surname to create their email and username for the duration of their time at the institution.
But it has now scrapped the practice to accommodate those who want to change their email addresses part way through their course because they changed their gender, or got married or divorced, and therefore changed their name.
Other reasons students wanted to change their email addresses from their original initials included adopting a Western name, or having "difficult" family relationships that meant they did not want to be associated with their surname.
The university has now said it will simply use randomly generated letters with no relation to the people involved.
What so hard with if somebody changes their name just give them a new email address (and the old one just silently forwards if people keep sending the wrong address).
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
We are all going to come round to the view that borrowing to fund tax cuts is sensible?
Now you are spinning it, as you are good at, because the too much that was unfunded was Truss mistake, i agree. But that doesn’t change the fundamental point, because the economic truth is it didn’t have to be unfunded did it? If properly funded those tax cuts would still have been politically explosive, but that doesn’t change or should not reflect on the economics in anyway should it, the political assessment and economic assessment should rightly be separate.
So how about this, we are in a new place now, just like when Sunny Jim gave his “I can tell you in all candour” the levers we usually pull are now not working speech - call Truss growth policy right wing Keynesianism, call it what you like, the alternative is you are unbothered by the need for growth aren’t you? You feel we can borrow or raise taxes instead? Well, I can tell you in all candour… 😁
Truss tax cuts could have been funded by cuts,
prediction one: Just like Sunak’s and Starmer’s tax cuts will be funded by cuts.
Prediction two: 7 years of shrinking the state to pay for a push for growth lie ahead for UK now - Sunak and Starmer don’t have a say in that, nor the voters of this country, the markets have decided for us that we are now in a new orthodoxy, wherein we have to repay the bill for years of cheap credit.
Any questions?
'Shrinking the state' is not going to help the push for growth one iota.
There are things we can do to encourage growth for sure*. Austerity is certainly not one of them. If you'd paid any attention during the 2010s you'd know that.
(* E.g. Re-joining the Single Market; ensuring that the poorest get income increases at least in line with inflation).
And the central point, where are you getting new money to invest in growth from? Borrowing? Nope. Putting up taxes? Nope. Axing stuff. Yep.
Hence I called it right wing Keynesianism.
Trying to keep gilts and interest rates down has become doom loop economics, low interest rates creates debt, QE creates inflation - instead of that defunct system the Markets now want an era of 2-4% interest rates and higher gilt markets than they have been for much of this century as a fair return on their investment in a country maxxed out on tax take and borrowing.
The penny hasn’t dropped for you yet Ben, but wether you like the sound of it or not, do you at least see the point I am making?
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
Not for the first time, I don't agree at all.
So called "Trussnomics" (your term, not mine) or if you prefer good old fashioned supply side economics failed partially because of the way it was done but it also failed because it's not what people want and it's not how people think any more.
It's not 1980 - waving tax cuts like a magic wand might have worked then but the world now is predicated on a notion (some may call it strange or "woke") of fairness. The ideology of trickle-down (if you make the rich much richer you'll make the poor a little richer) no longer resonates on any level. Perhaps it's a result of the 1980s experience or the pandemic or a myriad of other factors but it's a product which can no longer be sold.
If anything and there's extensive polling supporting this, the mood is, yes, cut income tax for the poorest but tax the actual wealth of the richest. Some on here may find that repellent or impractical or both but that's where the majority is - if you like, the Robin Hood Tree (as the Magic Money Tree has been cut down ad its stump pulled out and burnt).
In short, you make everyone richer by making the rich poorer - that's quite appealing as a notion for all its issues.
The question is how will this Government and its Labour successor seek to re-balance the public finances and the inevitability is a mix of higher taxes and spending cuts. In 2010, for every £5 cut from spending, £1 was raised from higher taxes - it will be interesting to see if Sunak, once the protege of Osborne, seeks to follow a similar direction but the notion of a bloated public sector just doesn't fit the facts.
Given that the rich are inherently mobile, and there seems to be little desire on the part of Monaco, Jersey, Belize or Dubai to repatriate our wealthy exiles, such a policy, whilst superficially appealing, is clearly quite stupid. God forbid we really get behind it, or we will be putting the pedal to the floor on decline.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
We are all going to come round to the view that borrowing to fund tax cuts is sensible?
Now you are spinning it, as you are good at, because the too much that was unfunded was Truss mistake, i agree. But that doesn’t change the fundamental point, because the economic truth is it didn’t have to be unfunded did it? If properly funded those tax cuts would still have been politically explosive, but that doesn’t change or should not reflect on the economics in anyway should it, the political assessment and economic assessment should rightly be separate.
So how about this, we are in a new place now, just like when Sunny Jim gave his “I can tell you in all candour” the levers we usually pull are now not working speech - call Truss growth policy right wing Keynesianism, call it what you like, the alternative is you are unbothered by the need for growth aren’t you? You feel we can borrow or raise taxes instead? Well, I can tell you in all candour… 😁
Truss tax cuts could have been funded by cuts,
prediction one: Just like Sunak’s and Starmer’s tax cuts will be funded by cuts.
Prediction two: 7 years of shrinking the state to pay for a push for growth lie ahead for UK now - Sunak and Starmer don’t have a say in that, nor the voters of this country, the markets have decided for us that we are now in a new orthodoxy, wherein we have to repay the bill for years of cheap credit.
Any questions?
How do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?
I don’t understand the question. 🥺
Lieutenant Gorman: Any questions?
[Hudson raises his hand]
Lieutenant Gorman: What is it, Private?
Private Hudson: How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
At least you read it!
I did. Reminded me a lot of US hit reporting of recent years about how awful things are over here. Which bears little resemblance to the truth.
It’s actually a pretty fair summary of Britain’s current malaise.
Of course, to escape a malaise you have to at least first admit there is one. So many do not want to.
And yet the first PM to try got shot within 7 weeks. How to explain that? There are lots of issues in Britain. We have high expectation of what the state will do, but we don’t want to pay for it. Some are obsessed by the markets and think everything should be run but them, while others detest markets and think the state should control everything. The NHS needs huge reform and a new funding model, and a realisation that extending life should not be the goal without looking at quality of life too. We think we will never get old and wont need help, and don’t want to help the old, lonely folk in the autumn of their existence. We turned away from making stuff, although we make more stuff than some care to admit. We have astonishingly good Universities that produce tonnes of breakthroughs that we then fail to exploit. Yet through it all we change governments without a riot trying to overturn the result. If labour surge to power in 2024 the Tories wont go to court to try to change the result, they will congratulate their opponents, go into opposition and try to win next time. Are we poorer than other western countries? I have no idea. It’s probably not that easy to measure, just as covid death reporting was different everywhere and the way economics are measured are different too. Most articles reflect the writers beliefs. Fine. It doesn’t make them automatically right.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
At least you read it! That quote is from the economics correspondent for the Economist…
The point about hand car washes is that they are of much higher quality than the mechanised version. They're a feature of societies growing richer, not poorer.
The UK's rate of growth per head since 2000, has been 1.1% pa. Very poor compared to the previous 50 years, but entirely in line with the average of rich Western democracies.
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
As Robert Smithson has frequently pointed out, most other rich Western countries are not seeing rapid growth rates. All of which suggests that these are problems that apply across the board, rather than being specific to the UK.
Remarkable to think that as we watched Bake Off last week, she was still Prime Minister.
Now she has been erased into a "non-person" with an alacrity that would make Stalin blush.
A lot happens between Bake Offs these days. But Bake Off itself doesn't change. Always a signature, a technical, a showstopper in that order. Always an elimination. Always a star baker. Hollywood, Leith, Lucas, Fielding, the tent, and the voiceover guy. Bake Off.
I want to be on bake off. Get me on bake off.
They put something hot in a freezer and didn’t realise it would warm the freezer 🤦♀️
Yes, apply if you have the skills and also the nerve to cope with live tv and 20m watching.
Kevin gone. Right decision imo. Always mid division and no chance of winning so best to end it now.
It's not 'live' TV though is it?
Don't go spoiling it. I believe.
Can you still bet on the outcome? Something that has already finished months ago?
No, there's no betfair market on bake off. But nothing leaks so you do watch it as live. It feels live, it IS live really. Eg you never watch it on catch up. You watch it when it happens at 8pm on Tuesdays.
I watch it on catch-up sometimes. But I know now who's out this week.
Google’s parent company suffered a sharp fall in its share price after revealing the first ever decline in advertising revenues at its YouTube video streaming service.
YouTube ad sales fell 1.9pc to $7.1bn (£6.2bn) in the three months to 30 September, compared to a year earlier, in the latest sign of a slowdown in the global economy.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
At least you read it!
I did. Reminded me a lot of US hit reporting of recent years about how awful things are over here. Which bears little resemblance to the truth.
It’s actually a pretty fair summary of Britain’s current malaise.
Of course, to escape a malaise you have to at least first admit there is one. So many do not want to.
It summed up the issues well. Cossetted pensioners demanding politicians pander to their whims together with decades of selling everything off to foreigners to finance inefficiency. Add in the self-inflicted wound of Brexit and it is no wonder we are in such a mess.
From my vantage point in the more deprived end of the northeast, that we are poorer than France is pretty obvious by taking a short walk. Course London and the SE are doing OK as ever. But that isn't the UK by a long chalk
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
We are all going to come round to the view that borrowing to fund tax cuts is sensible?
Now you are spinning it, as you are good at, because the too much that was unfunded was Truss mistake, i agree. But that doesn’t change the fundamental point, because the economic truth is it didn’t have to be unfunded did it? If properly funded those tax cuts would still have been politically explosive, but that doesn’t change or should not reflect on the economics in anyway should it, the political assessment and economic assessment should rightly be separate.
So how about this, we are in a new place now, just like when Sunny Jim gave his “I can tell you in all candour” the levers we usually pull are now not working speech - call Truss growth policy right wing Keynesianism, call it what you like, the alternative is you are unbothered by the need for growth aren’t you? You feel we can borrow or raise taxes instead? Well, I can tell you in all candour… 😁
Truss tax cuts could have been funded by cuts,
prediction one: Just like Sunak’s and Starmer’s tax cuts will be funded by cuts.
Prediction two: 7 years of shrinking the state to pay for a push for growth lie ahead for UK now - Sunak and Starmer don’t have a say in that, nor the voters of this country, the markets have decided for us that we are now in a new orthodoxy, wherein we have to repay the bill for years of cheap credit.
Any questions?
'Shrinking the state' is not going to help the push for growth one iota.
There are things we can do to encourage growth for sure*. Austerity is certainly not one of them. If you'd paid any attention during the 2010s you'd know that.
(* E.g. Re-joining the Single Market; ensuring that the poorest get income increases at least in line with inflation).
And the central point, where are you getting new money to invest in growth from? Borrowing? Nope. Putting up taxes? Nope. Axing stuff. Yep.
Hence I called it right wing Keynesianism.
Trying to keep gilts and interest rates down has become doom loop economics, low interest rates creates debt, QE creates inflation - instead of that defunct system the Markets now want an era of 2-4% interest rates and higher gilt markets than they have been for much of this century as a fair return on their investment in a country maxxed out on tax take and borrowing.
The penny hasn’t dropped for you yet Ben, but wether you like the sound of it or not, do you at least see the point I am making?
No I don't.
Borrowing? Nope. Putting up taxes? Yes, I'm afraid so. We need to put up tax on those on higher incomes, especially unearned income, ant the wealthy. Axing stuff. Nope - that's not going help growth at all.
Your neoliberal voodoo economics has been tried and failed.
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
As Robert Smithson has frequently pointed out, most other rich Western countries are not seeing rapid growth rates. All of which suggests that these are problems that apply across the board, rather than being specific to the UK.
Britain outperformed its peers 2000-2008 and has underperformed since then.
As, even in 2000 it hadn’t closed the gap with - say Germany / US / Netherlands etc, it is now quite well behind.
Outside London and the South East, British productivity looks like something you’d expect in an ex Warsaw Pact country.
Yes there is a global growth issue in Western economies, but Britain’s issue is starker. I’m afraid you have your head in the sand.
From my vantage point in the more deprived end of the northeast, that we are poorer than France is pretty obvious by taking a short walk. Course London and the SE are doing OK as ever. But that isn't the UK by a long chalk
Which bit of France though? Try the bits of Paris where TSE was in May. Try rural France. What goes in the U.K. happens elsewhere too.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
At least you read it!
I did. Reminded me a lot of US hit reporting of recent years about how awful things are over here. Which bears little resemblance to the truth.
It’s actually a pretty fair summary of Britain’s current malaise.
Of course, to escape a malaise you have to at least first admit there is one. So many do not want to.
And yet the first PM to try got shot within 7 weeks. How to explain that? There are lots of issues in Britain. We have high expectation of what the state will do, but we don’t want to pay for it. Some are obsessed by the markets and think everything should be run but them, while others detest markets and think the state should control everything. The NHS needs huge reform and a new funding model, and a realisation that extending life should not be the goal without looking at quality of life too. We think we will never get old and wont need help, and don’t want to help the old, lonely folk in the autumn of their existence. We turned away from making stuff, although we make more stuff than some care to admit. We have astonishingly good Universities that produce tonnes of breakthroughs that we then fail to exploit. Yet through it all we change governments without a riot trying to overturn the result. If labour surge to power in 2024 the Tories wont go to court to try to change the result, they will congratulate their opponents, go into opposition and try to win next time. Are we poorer than other western countries? I have no idea. It’s probably not that easy to measure, just as covid death reporting was different everywhere and the way economics are measured are different too. Most articles reflect the writers beliefs. Fine. It doesn’t make them automatically right.
You seem to have missed the point entirely as this appears (it’s quite dense) to be a long rant about regime change.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
I think it was the hubris and incompetence that spooked the markets, not any particular policy.
Trussonomics was soundbites plus magical thinking. Don't think it really merits much analysis tbh.
It was the lack of forecasts, and/or forward projections of what the proposals would supposedly deliver and what they would mean for public finances. Along with the general "we don't care what the markets do, we're doing it anyway, suck on that". So they did.
It wasn't that they didn't care. They didn't countenance at all the possibility. See also the next day's headlines and comments from the right wing commentators. It was a spectacular triumph to be repeated as soon as possible by all governments envious they hadn't thought of it first.
Like I said when I described it on topic, my view is running contrary to the perceived wisdom at this time. But imagine it’s a history programme in 2062, just like we get history programmes describing politics in the seventies. There’s Labour winning two general elections in a year - they didn’t New Labour high fiving supporters all up Downing Street in 70s, nor podium speeches largely fluff and bullshit, but still this history programme will show cockahoop Labour supporters celebrating the win, but the voiceover kicks in “but the economy would be in the wrong shape for the expensive policies of the next two years” cue Healey going around a revolving door in at an airport, cut to Sunny Jim delivering post IMF bailout conference spoech in the face of hecklers (IMF loan terms were based on monetarism in those days).
Today we had Truss not backing down that Trussism is right. Minutes later Sunak standing in same street saying she’s wrong. But like in 74 and 75, who was saying Labours splurge of spending was wrong?
Have you heard of the Barber Boom and the three day week and blackouts?
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
At least you read it!
I did. Reminded me a lot of US hit reporting of recent years about how awful things are over here. Which bears little resemblance to the truth.
It’s actually a pretty fair summary of Britain’s current malaise.
Of course, to escape a malaise you have to at least first admit there is one. So many do not want to.
And yet the first PM to try got shot within 7 weeks. How to explain that? There are lots of issues in Britain. We have high expectation of what the state will do, but we don’t want to pay for it. Some are obsessed by the markets and think everything should be run but them, while others detest markets and think the state should control everything. The NHS needs huge reform and a new funding model, and a realisation that extending life should not be the goal without looking at quality of life too. We think we will never get old and wont need help, and don’t want to help the old, lonely folk in the autumn of their existence. We turned away from making stuff, although we make more stuff than some care to admit. We have astonishingly good Universities that produce tonnes of breakthroughs that we then fail to exploit. Yet through it all we change governments without a riot trying to overturn the result. If labour surge to power in 2024 the Tories wont go to court to try to change the result, they will congratulate their opponents, go into opposition and try to win next time. Are we poorer than other western countries? I have no idea. It’s probably not that easy to measure, just as covid death reporting was different everywhere and the way economics are measured are different too. Most articles reflect the writers beliefs. Fine. It doesn’t make them automatically right.
You seem to have missed the point entirely as this appears (it’s quite dense) to be a long rant about regime change.
No, it’s an attempt to see the challenges we face as partly related to the publics expectations. People need to be realistic.
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
Nice story except that up to 2016 we were one of the fastest growing economies in the G7....... And then the Tories messed it up with their Brexit psychodrama. We killed the goose that we didn't realise was laying the golden eggs.......
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
At least you read it!
I did. Reminded me a lot of US hit reporting of recent years about how awful things are over here. Which bears little resemblance to the truth.
It’s actually a pretty fair summary of Britain’s current malaise.
Of course, to escape a malaise you have to at least first admit there is one. So many do not want to.
The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament?
From my vantage point in the more deprived end of the northeast, that we are poorer than France is pretty obvious by taking a short walk. Course London and the SE are doing OK as ever. But that isn't the UK by a long chalk
Which bit of France though? Try the bits of Paris where TSE was in May. Try rural France. What goes in the U.K. happens elsewhere too.
France still has quite large rural areas that are indeed relatively poor. But the secondary cities, which is where French people actually live if not in Paris, shit all over Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool etc.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
Not for the first time, I don't agree at all.
So called "Trussnomics" (your term, not mine) or if you prefer good old fashioned supply side economics failed partially because of the way it was done but it also failed because it's not what people want and it's not how people think any more.
It's not 1980 - waving tax cuts like a magic wand might have worked then but the world now is predicated on a notion (some may call it strange or "woke") of fairness. The ideology of trickle-down (if you make the rich much richer you'll make the poor a little richer) no longer resonates on any level. Perhaps it's a result of the 1980s experience or the pandemic or a myriad of other factors but it's a product which can no longer be sold.
If anything and there's extensive polling supporting this, the mood is, yes, cut income tax for the poorest but tax the actual wealth of the richest. Some on here may find that repellent or impractical or both but that's where the majority is - if you like, the Robin Hood Tree (as the Magic Money Tree has been cut down ad its stump pulled out and burnt).
In short, you make everyone richer by making the rich poorer - that's quite appealing as a notion for all its issues.
The question is how will this Government and its Labour successor seek to re-balance the public finances and the inevitability is a mix of higher taxes and spending cuts. In 2010, for every £5 cut from spending, £1 was raised from higher taxes - it will be interesting to see if Sunak, once the protege of Osborne, seeks to follow a similar direction but the notion of a bloated public sector just doesn't fit the facts.
Given that the rich are inherently mobile, and there seems to be little desire on the part of Monaco, Jersey, Belize or Dubai to repatriate our wealthy exiles, such a policy, whilst superficially appealing, is clearly quite stupid. God forbid we really get behind it, or we will be putting the pedal to the floor on decline.
If the wealthy elites want to f*ck-off to Monaco, Jersey, Belize or wherever, to avoid taxes, let them go. If they love money more than they love their country well so be it.
But don't let them expect to remain British citizens or be able to come and go whenever they want, or own property here and not pay UK taxes.
The University of York has dropped students' initials from the email addresses it assigns people in a trans-friendly move.
The university traditionally used the first letters of a students' first name and surname to create their email and username for the duration of their time at the institution.
But it has now scrapped the practice to accommodate those who want to change their email addresses part way through their course because they changed their gender, or got married or divorced, and therefore changed their name.
Other reasons students wanted to change their email addresses from their original initials included adopting a Western name, or having "difficult" family relationships that meant they did not want to be associated with their surname.
The university has now said it will simply use randomly generated letters with no relation to the people involved.
What so hard with if somebody changes their name just give them a new email address (and the old one just silently forwards if people keep sending the wrong address).
Cambridge assigns email addresses based on initials then an incrementing number. These numbers started from 1, though there were a few years when a sequence starting from 1000 was used (hence, I assume, rcs1000; I was of the same generation).
A few years before my time, someone decided to change their name by deed poll simply to “mathew” (no surname) in order to get the ultimate email address.
Unfortunately, the Computing Service was and is staffed by malevolent sociopaths, who took great delight in informing him: “We have issued you with the new email address xxm10@cam.ac.uk.”
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
Nice story except that up to 2016 we were one of the fastest growing economies in the G7....... And then the Tories messed it up with their Brexit psychodrama. We killed the goose that we didn't realise was laying the golden eggs.......
The golden eggs were not shared -- that was the problem. They were kept by the affluent who benefitted enormously from the EU.
If the wealth had been properly shared, then of course all the poor parts of the country would not have voted for Brexit.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
You didn’t read it, did you?
Go on, tell us why Britain is much poorer than France, then.
Well, it’s got you in it for a start. Apart from that, just read the piece.
Not a lot of cold, hard facts there. The rise of hand car washes is surely more to do with unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe than a failure to automate car washes.
At least you read it!
I did. Reminded me a lot of US hit reporting of recent years about how awful things are over here. Which bears little resemblance to the truth.
It’s actually a pretty fair summary of Britain’s current malaise.
Of course, to escape a malaise you have to at least first admit there is one. So many do not want to.
The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament?
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
As Robert Smithson has frequently pointed out, most other rich Western countries are not seeing rapid growth rates. All of which suggests that these are problems that apply across the board, rather than being specific to the UK.
Britain outperformed its peers 2000-2008 and has underperformed since then.
As, even in 2000 it hadn’t closed the gap with - say Germany / US / Netherlands etc, it is now quite well behind.
Outside London and the South East, British productivity looks like something you’d expect in an ex Warsaw Pact country.
Yes there is a global growth issue in Western economies, but Britain’s issue is starker. I’m afraid you have your head in the sand.
'A “toxic combination” of poor productivity and a failure to narrow the divide between rich and poor had resulted in a widening prosperity gap with France, Germany, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands, the report from the Resolution Foundation said.
The thinktank said that if the UK matched the average income and inequality levels of those countries, typical household incomes in Britain would be a third higher and those of the poorest households two-fifths greater.'
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
Nice story except that up to 2016 we were one of the fastest growing economies in the G7....... And then the Tories messed it up with their Brexit psychodrama. We killed the goose that we didn't realise was laying the golden eggs.......
We had a little boomlet 14/15 in time for the election, but generally, 2008-2015 was GFC hangover.
From my vantage point in the more deprived end of the northeast, that we are poorer than France is pretty obvious by taking a short walk. Course London and the SE are doing OK as ever. But that isn't the UK by a long chalk
Which bit of France though? Try the bits of Paris where TSE was in May. Try rural France. What goes in the U.K. happens elsewhere too.
Overall. We are more unequal than our neighbours. The bits which aren't doing well are poorer than East Germany and the Baltic States.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
Eh? Some of us were discussing the point earlier today that the young continentals are no longer flocking en masse to London, with real damage to the economy. I have not been recently, so can't comment from personal observation.
Actually, they still are. At the one German bank I have personal knowledge of, they stopped trying to expand the IT function in Germany. Because they can’t hire the people they want there. They all seem to be in London.
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
As Robert Smithson has frequently pointed out, most other rich Western countries are not seeing rapid growth rates. All of which suggests that these are problems that apply across the board, rather than being specific to the UK.
Britain outperformed its peers 2000-2008 and has underperformed since then.
As, even in 2000 it hadn’t closed the gap with - say Germany / US / Netherlands etc, it is now quite well behind.
Outside London and the South East, British productivity looks like something you’d expect in an ex Warsaw Pact country.
Yes there is a global growth issue in Western economies, but Britain’s issue is starker. I’m afraid you have your head in the sand.
'A “toxic combination” of poor productivity and a failure to narrow the divide between rich and poor had resulted in a widening prosperity gap with France, Germany, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands, the report from the Resolution Foundation said.
The thinktank said that if the UK matched the average income and inequality levels of those countries, typical household incomes in Britain would be a third higher and those of the poorest households two-fifths greater.'
From my vantage point in the more deprived end of the northeast, that we are poorer than France is pretty obvious by taking a short walk. Course London and the SE are doing OK as ever. But that isn't the UK by a long chalk
Which bit of France though? Try the bits of Paris where TSE was in May. Try rural France. What goes in the U.K. happens elsewhere too.
France still has quite large rural areas that are indeed relatively poor. But the secondary cities, which is where French people actually live if not in Paris, shit all over Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool etc.
Get your head out of the sand.
It’s not in the sand. We have huge challenges in this country. I just think that like so often people run down their own country without ever realising the challenges other nations face. Take Spain. How has employment been for the younger generation there? Not great. I don’t know the answers for turning things around. I think we need to be as close to the EU as possible. I think we need young immigrants looking to build better lives. I think we would be wise to try to lead the green energy revolution. I’m not in denial - I don’t know why you think that.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
Eh? Some of us were discussing the point earlier today that the young continentals are no longer flocking en masse to London, with real damage to the economy. I have not been recently, so can't comment from personal observation.
Actually, they still are. At the one German bank I have personal knowledge of, they stopped trying to expand the IT function in Germany. Because they can’t hire the people they want there. They all seem to be in London.
Cities produce jobs and wealth. London has the biggest critical mass of IT capability Europe. We need to encourage that.
From my vantage point in the more deprived end of the northeast, that we are poorer than France is pretty obvious by taking a short walk. Course London and the SE are doing OK as ever. But that isn't the UK by a long chalk
But the deprived bits of the NE have been deprived since at least the 80s. To my eyes they are less deprived now than then by some way. It's very hard to compare like with like, but compare, say, Tow Law to its counterpart in Lorraine in 1985 and now, and I'd be very surprised if the former hadn't made more progress. There is of course a certain amount of talking out of my hat, here of course. My knowledge of Tow Law is not intimate and of Lorraine even less. But still.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
Eh? Some of us were discussing the point earlier today that the young continentals are no longer flocking en masse to London, with real damage to the economy. I have not been recently, so can't comment from personal observation.
Actually, they still are. At the one German bank I have personal knowledge of, they stopped trying to expand the IT function in Germany. Because they can’t hire the people they want there. They all seem to be in London.
Yet no f****r wants to live in Ashington. Therein lies the issue.
The UK is not “the poorest country in Western Europe”. It’s obviously richer than Italy, Portugal and Spain for a start. Maybe just behind France. It is notably poorer than Denmark, Austria, and other smaller rich countries
What the UK is, is more unequal
In the UK the rich are richer, esp in London. And the poor are poorer
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
Not for the first time, I don't agree at all.
So called "Trussnomics" (your term, not mine) or if you prefer good old fashioned supply side economics failed partially because of the way it was done but it also failed because it's not what people want and it's not how people think any more.
It's not 1980 - waving tax cuts like a magic wand might have worked then but the world now is predicated on a notion (some may call it strange or "woke") of fairness. The ideology of trickle-down (if you make the rich much richer you'll make the poor a little richer) no longer resonates on any level. Perhaps it's a result of the 1980s experience or the pandemic or a myriad of other factors but it's a product which can no longer be sold.
If anything and there's extensive polling supporting this, the mood is, yes, cut income tax for the poorest but tax the actual wealth of the richest. Some on here may find that repellent or impractical or both but that's where the majority is - if you like, the Robin Hood Tree (as the Magic Money Tree has been cut down ad its stump pulled out and burnt).
In short, you make everyone richer by making the rich poorer - that's quite appealing as a notion for all its issues.
The question is how will this Government and its Labour successor seek to re-balance the public finances and the inevitability is a mix of higher taxes and spending cuts. In 2010, for every £5 cut from spending, £1 was raised from higher taxes - it will be interesting to see if Sunak, once the protege of Osborne, seeks to follow a similar direction but the notion of a bloated public sector just doesn't fit the facts.
Given that the rich are inherently mobile, and there seems to be little desire on the part of Monaco, Jersey, Belize or Dubai to repatriate our wealthy exiles, such a policy, whilst superficially appealing, is clearly quite stupid. God forbid we really get behind it, or we will be putting the pedal to the floor on decline.
If the wealthy elites want to f*ck-off to Monaco, Jersey, Belize or wherever, to avoid taxes, let them go. If they love money more than they love their country well so be it.
But don't let them expect to remain British citizens or be able to come and go whenever they want, or own property here and not pay UK taxes.
Then they won't. This is a situation (like so many) where we seem to want to enforce our notions of fairness on a world that doesn't work that way. So we're going to get annoyed with it and break it. Surely it is better (if we want to be successful) to understand how the world works and go with that grain.
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
Nice story except that up to 2016 we were one of the fastest growing economies in the G7....... And then the Tories messed it up with their Brexit psychodrama. We killed the goose that we didn't realise was laying the golden eggs.......
The whole of the industrialised west faced stagnating living standards after the financial crisis. If there had been more honesty about our economic problems then maybe people would have reacted differently. Instead Cameron and Osborne tried to state that everything was fine and the public said no it isn't.
From my vantage point in the more deprived end of the northeast, that we are poorer than France is pretty obvious by taking a short walk. Course London and the SE are doing OK as ever. But that isn't the UK by a long chalk
Which bit of France though? Try the bits of Paris where TSE was in May. Try rural France. What goes in the U.K. happens elsewhere too.
France still has quite large rural areas that are indeed relatively poor. But the secondary cities, which is where French people actually live if not in Paris, shit all over Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool etc.
Get your head out of the sand.
It’s not in the sand. We have huge challenges in this country. I just think that like so often people run down their own country without ever realising the challenges other nations face. Take Spain. How has employment been for the younger generation there? Not great. I don’t know the answers for turning things around. I think we need to be as close to the EU as possible. I think we need young immigrants looking to build better lives. I think we would be wise to try to lead the green energy revolution. I’m not in denial - I don’t know why you think that.
Because you airily dismiss attempts to raise or analyse the issue.
You have to start with asking yourself why British economic performance is so much worse than the countries we would want to compare ourselves with DESPITE high employment rates, top universities, a global financial centre, the right timezone etc.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
Not for the first time, I don't agree at all.
So called "Trussnomics" (your term, not mine) or if you prefer good old fashioned supply side economics failed partially because of the way it was done but it also failed because it's not what people want and it's not how people think any more.
It's not 1980 - waving tax cuts like a magic wand might have worked then but the world now is predicated on a notion (some may call it strange or "woke") of fairness. The ideology of trickle-down (if you make the rich much richer you'll make the poor a little richer) no longer resonates on any level. Perhaps it's a result of the 1980s experience or the pandemic or a myriad of other factors but it's a product which can no longer be sold.
If anything and there's extensive polling supporting this, the mood is, yes, cut income tax for the poorest but tax the actual wealth of the richest. Some on here may find that repellent or impractical or both but that's where the majority is - if you like, the Robin Hood Tree (as the Magic Money Tree has been cut down ad its stump pulled out and burnt).
In short, you make everyone richer by making the rich poorer - that's quite appealing as a notion for all its issues.
The question is how will this Government and its Labour successor seek to re-balance the public finances and the inevitability is a mix of higher taxes and spending cuts. In 2010, for every £5 cut from spending, £1 was raised from higher taxes - it will be interesting to see if Sunak, once the protege of Osborne, seeks to follow a similar direction but the notion of a bloated public sector just doesn't fit the facts.
As I said in a post below, the politics and the economics are separate judgements. You are trying to to say I am wrong because the politics was bad and proved to be bad and out of place today?
But I didn’t even go there. I didn’t go into the politics side of it, just judgement on the economics. In fact you have proved my point perfectly - the opinion polls and this thread header and now your post show people have fused the two as one and same thing cannot now give you a separate judgement on each.
Here’s Truss mistake - a growth budget cutting some taxes could be perfectly funded by cutting public spending. That’s the point I am making - Trussnomics, right wing Keynesianism, getting and sustaining growth funded through cutting size of state isn’t something I am making up. It’s the economic era we are now in where opinion of Sunak or Starmer, or party members or voters just doesn’t matter a jot.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
Eh? Some of us were discussing the point earlier today that the young continentals are no longer flocking en masse to London, with real damage to the economy. I have not been recently, so can't comment from personal observation.
Actually, they still are. At the one German bank I have personal knowledge of, they stopped trying to expand the IT function in Germany. Because they can’t hire the people they want there. They all seem to be in London.
Yet no f****r wants to live in Ashington. Therein lies the issue.
Plenty of people appear to want to live in Blyth however. Leading to its partial transformation from declining industrial town to mixed industrial town/seaside commuter town over the past 20 years. Ashington will follow.
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
Nice story except that up to 2016 we were one of the fastest growing economies in the G7....... And then the Tories messed it up with their Brexit psychodrama. We killed the goose that we didn't realise was laying the golden eggs.......
The golden eggs were not shared -- that was the problem. They were kept by the affluent who benefitted enormously from the EU.
If the wealth had been properly shared, then of course all the poor parts of the country would not have voted for Brexit.
This is essentially true, but plays into the idea that the EU was some kind of upper middle class wealth machine.
But the problems are to do with (lack of) domestic redistribution and investment policy rather than the bounty of European market access and talented labour.
The University of York has dropped students' initials from the email addresses it assigns people in a trans-friendly move.
The university traditionally used the first letters of a students' first name and surname to create their email and username for the duration of their time at the institution.
But it has now scrapped the practice to accommodate those who want to change their email addresses part way through their course because they changed their gender, or got married or divorced, and therefore changed their name.
Other reasons students wanted to change their email addresses from their original initials included adopting a Western name, or having "difficult" family relationships that meant they did not want to be associated with their surname.
The university has now said it will simply use randomly generated letters with no relation to the people involved.
What so hard with if somebody changes their name just give them a new email address (and the old one just silently forwards if people keep sending the wrong address).
Cambridge assigns email addresses based on initials then an incrementing number. These numbers started from 1, though there were a few years when a sequence starting from 1000 was used (hence, I assume, rcs1000; I was of the same generation).
A few years before my time, someone decided to change their name by deed poll simply to “mathew” (no surname) in order to get the ultimate email address.
Unfortunately, the Computing Service was and is staffed by malevolent sociopaths, who took great delight in informing him: “We have issued you with the new email address xxm10@cam.ac.uk.”
I preceded the 3 digit shift, and was mwa12. I know one ancient and venerable individual who has a 1 digit username.
The UK is not “the poorest country in Western Europe”. It’s obviously richer than Italy, Portugal and Spain for a start. Maybe just behind France. It is notably poorer than Denmark, Austria, and other smaller rich countries
What the UK is, is more unequal
In the UK the rich are richer, esp in London. And the poor are poorer
The other problem we have in the UK compared to say Germany and France is just how dominant London / SE, it literally sucks all the talent, which then just drive more demand for housing etc etc etc. Other European countries, people go to Frankfurt for some jobs, Munich for other types of careers etc.
Here, pretty much everybody comes straight out of uni, I want a grad job in London....its seen as second best if you get sent to the Manchester office instead.
We have had government after government try to change that, putting public sector jobs in other parts of the country etc to try and drive the blue chip private sector to go there, all with very limited success.
The point about today is the strength of Sunak's position which is analogous to him having won a General Election. There is no way on God's green earth the Conservative Parliamentary party is going to put us through a third leadership election before a General Election so Sunak is absolutely safe until the verdict of the electorate.
That means he has been able to keep his friends close and his enemies closer effectively muzzling them by collective responsibility. The likes of Braverman, Badenoch and any other aspiring leader are inside and if it is seen that their behaviour is a factor in a heavy defeat at the election, the membership won't take kindly.
Some on here seem to Sunak can turn this round as John Major did after becoming Prime Minister. It's not impossible and indeed there are parallels - economic headwinds and a war but that's probably where it stops. The way the Conservatives have comported themselves since early July won't soon be forgotten even if Sunak does restore some confidence and poll ratings.
The other point is this may well not be the final team which goes into the next election - a further reshuffle after the local elections next May (especially if they are disappointing) may yet see some newer blood from the backbenches given a chance.
If Sunak had just won a general election, then the Conservatives would be ahead in the polls (almost by definition); they are not; he did not. What Sunak has recognised, as mentioned in his speech, is that his government is a continuation of, with the mandate of, Boris 2019. Liz Truss, of course, acted as if her party members had somehow given her a new, anti-Boris, mandate.
Pity it's clearly nonsensical, migrants aren't camping in Calais because they want to flee a rich country to get to a poor country, nor do young Spaniards and Italians flock to London because the streets of Lisbon are paved with gold.
Eh? Some of us were discussing the point earlier today that the young continentals are no longer flocking en masse to London, with real damage to the economy. I have not been recently, so can't comment from personal observation.
Actually, they still are. At the one German bank I have personal knowledge of, they stopped trying to expand the IT function in Germany. Because they can’t hire the people they want there. They all seem to be in London.
And yet as a country we do the IT sector no favours. As soon as something looks like it is making money it is either taxed to death or sold off to foreigners.
The UK is not “the poorest country in Western Europe”. It’s obviously richer than Italy, Portugal and Spain for a start. Maybe just behind France. It is notably poorer than Denmark, Austria, and other smaller rich countries
What the UK is, is more unequal
In the UK the rich are richer, esp in London. And the poor are poorer
The other problem we have in the UK compared to say Germany and France is just how dominant London / SE, it literally sucks all the talent, which then just drive more demand for housing etc etc etc. Other European countries, people go to Frankfurt for some jobs, Munich for other types of careers etc.
Here, pretty much everybody comes straight out of uni, I want a grad job in London....its seen as second best if you get sent to the Manchester office instead.
So, a few good signs from Sunak today - keeping Hunt & Wallace, speaking to Sturgeon and Drakeford, and Zelensky of course.
I can only assuming that the Braverman, Zahawi and Coffey appointments are about promises made and/or keeping your enemies inside the tent. However, Braverman's re-appointment six days after she resigned for breaching the ministerial code challenges the 'govern with integrity' claim Sunak made earlier.
Johnson, JRM, Patel, Dorries and a few others kicked into the wilderness is a positive sign anyway.
At best I predict two years of difficult struggle against the economic headwinds for which Sunak will receive little credit at the 2024 GE, resulting in a workable Labour majority.
At worst, more chaos leading to an early GE, Labour landslide, possible Tory oblivion.
Odds favour the former, if the Tories can keep a lid on the headbangers.
From my vantage point in the more deprived end of the northeast, that we are poorer than France is pretty obvious by taking a short walk. Course London and the SE are doing OK as ever. But that isn't the UK by a long chalk
Which bit of France though? Try the bits of Paris where TSE was in May. Try rural France. What goes in the U.K. happens elsewhere too.
France still has quite large rural areas that are indeed relatively poor. But the secondary cities, which is where French people actually live if not in Paris, shit all over Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool etc.
Get your head out of the sand.
France's secondary cities have nothing like Britain's secondary cities' legacy of the industrial revolution. From where it is a long way back. But has there really been more progress in the last 40 years in Lyon, Marseille, Lille than there has in Mamchester, Glasgow, Newcastle?
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
Nice story except that up to 2016 we were one of the fastest growing economies in the G7....... And then the Tories messed it up with their Brexit psychodrama. We killed the goose that we didn't realise was laying the golden eggs.......
The golden eggs were not shared -- that was the problem. They were kept by the affluent who benefitted enormously from the EU.
If the wealth had been properly shared, then of course all the poor parts of the country would not have voted for Brexit.
This is essentially true, but plays into the idea that the EU was some kind of upper middle class wealth machine.
But the problems are to do with (lack of) domestic redistribution and investment policy rather than the bounty of European market access and talented labour.
Of course the EU couldn't possibly be at fault. Your posts are easily recognised by their EU sycophancy.
I am still researching what actually happened and piecing it together for lessons learned. And I’m coming to the opposite take to what the generally accepted wisdom is here.
The hugely expensive Energy Freeze bucking the market for two years, that is now history, was actually the cuckoo in Liz Truss IEA designed nest of policies - Trussnomics is actually closer and more on the ball with the change markets have moved to now two decades of economic orthodoxy is coming to an end, and where markets are now certain to move UK government, than Sunak, Hunt and Starmer all are.
I think it is almost certain to happen that your header TSE will date, history books will tell it completely the other way around. if people feel Truss crashed the economy (she certainly did not crash the whole thing) this view will change when those who told her she was wrong, properly crash the economy themselves.
To what degree Truss is vindicated as ahead of the game depends to what degree Sunak and Starmer (I still think change of government nailed on as voters have already made their minds up) adopt Trussnomics. If they don’t at all then a proper crash of the economy, Greek Style, is definitely going to happen in the UK at some point, the markets have decided on that.
But more likely we will get two short lived austerity governments now. Especially painful for Labour out of office for so long, face five years basically implementing austerity 2.0 and then thrown out for being hated for that.
You might be interested in a program on radio 4 this morning about the Treasury. It featured Osborne Balls and several Civil Servants. Apart from being a fascinating insight into among other things the reasons for the OBR involvement it also (to me at least) helps answer the question why Truss got it all wrong. 'The Treasury Under Siege'
The UK is not “the poorest country in Western Europe”. It’s obviously richer than Italy, Portugal and Spain for a start. Maybe just behind France. It is notably poorer than Denmark, Austria, and other smaller rich countries
What the UK is, is more unequal
In the UK the rich are richer, esp in London. And the poor are poorer
The other problem we have in the UK compared to say Germany and France is just how dominant London / SE, it literally sucks all the talent, which then just drive more demand for housing etc etc etc. Other European countries, people go to Frankfurt for some jobs, Munich for other types of careers etc.
Here, pretty much everybody comes straight out of uni, I want a grad job in London....its seen as second best if you get sent to the Manchester office instead.
Yes. It is a problem. I am not denying we have many socioeconomic problems. But then, this is true of much of the developed world, tho the problems vary. I am right now sitting in Phoenix Airport - the bustling airport of one of America’s boom towns - and about half the people are obese and their average life expectancy is now 76 - and still going down
And on the bald figures America is one of the richest countries in the world
The UK is not “the poorest country in Western Europe”. It’s obviously richer than Italy, Portugal and Spain for a start. Maybe just behind France. It is notably poorer than Denmark, Austria, and other smaller rich countries
What the UK is, is more unequal
In the UK the rich are richer, esp in London. And the poor are poorer
There are four “inequalities” in my view.
1. is income inequality, where the UK is an outlier in Western Europe. As you say, the rich are richer, the poor are poorer. It’s not as bad as the US. This accounts for poverty in places like East London.
2. Is intergenerational inequality which is a global problem caused by demographic changes and years of low inflation creating very wealthy boomers. I’d guess UK is “on par”.
3. Is racial or religious or inequality where I suspect Britain is world-beating. This accounts for Parisian banlieues and US ghettos.
4. Is regional inequality, where Britain is very bad, by some measures the worse in the OECD. Hence very wealthy London but Eastern European levels of wealth in the North.
Overall, the quality of life outside the rich is now quite a bit poorer than comparable nations, see the post upthread from the Resolution Foundation.
The University of York has dropped students' initials from the email addresses it assigns people in a trans-friendly move.
The university traditionally used the first letters of a students' first name and surname to create their email and username for the duration of their time at the institution.
But it has now scrapped the practice to accommodate those who want to change their email addresses part way through their course because they changed their gender, or got married or divorced, and therefore changed their name.
Other reasons students wanted to change their email addresses from their original initials included adopting a Western name, or having "difficult" family relationships that meant they did not want to be associated with their surname.
The university has now said it will simply use randomly generated letters with no relation to the people involved.
What so hard with if somebody changes their name just give them a new email address (and the old one just silently forwards if people keep sending the wrong address).
Cambridge assigns email addresses based on initials then an incrementing number. These numbers started from 1, though there were a few years when a sequence starting from 1000 was used (hence, I assume, rcs1000; I was of the same generation).
A few years before my time, someone decided to change their name by deed poll simply to “mathew” (no surname) in order to get the ultimate email address.
Unfortunately, the Computing Service was and is staffed by malevolent sociopaths, who took great delight in informing him: “We have issued you with the new email address xxm10@cam.ac.uk.”
I preceded the 3 digit shift, and was mwa12. I know one ancient and venerable individual who has a 1 digit username.
I'm old enough to have picked anyname@ that I wanted.
From my vantage point in the more deprived end of the northeast, that we are poorer than France is pretty obvious by taking a short walk. Course London and the SE are doing OK as ever. But that isn't the UK by a long chalk
Which bit of France though? Try the bits of Paris where TSE was in May. Try rural France. What goes in the U.K. happens elsewhere too.
France still has quite large rural areas that are indeed relatively poor. But the secondary cities, which is where French people actually live if not in Paris, shit all over Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool etc.
Get your head out of the sand.
France's secondary cities have nothing like Britain's secondary cities' legacy of the industrial revolution. From where it is a long way back. But has there really been more progress in the last 40 years in Lyon, Marseille, Lille than there has in Mamchester, Glasgow, Newcastle?
I doubt if post-industrial France is very different to post-industrial Britain. GDP per head in each country is almost identical.
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
Nice story except that up to 2016 we were one of the fastest growing economies in the G7....... And then the Tories messed it up with their Brexit psychodrama. We killed the goose that we didn't realise was laying the golden eggs.......
The golden eggs were not shared -- that was the problem. They were kept by the affluent who benefitted enormously from the EU.
If the wealth had been properly shared, then of course all the poor parts of the country would not have voted for Brexit.
This is essentially true, but plays into the idea that the EU was some kind of upper middle class wealth machine.
But the problems are to do with (lack of) domestic redistribution and investment policy rather than the bounty of European market access and talented labour.
As an EU member, we continued our path of economical decline, and paid handsomely for the privilege. We maintained a consistent BOP deficit with the Continent, partly because the free market was weighted toward goods, especially food, rather than services, where there was never a true free market.
The U.K. is now an object lesson for other countries dealing with a dark triad of deindustrialization, degrowth, and denigration of foreigners. Having offshored industry in favor of finance, its economy wasn’t resilient. The resulting erosion in living standards made the public desperate for something to blame. Blame-seeking conservatives spotted bogeymen abroad. Brexit cut off the economy from further growth and set the stage for a rolling political circus.
Nice story except that up to 2016 we were one of the fastest growing economies in the G7....... And then the Tories messed it up with their Brexit psychodrama. We killed the goose that we didn't realise was laying the golden eggs.......
The golden eggs were not shared -- that was the problem. They were kept by the affluent who benefitted enormously from the EU.
If the wealth had been properly shared, then of course all the poor parts of the country would not have voted for Brexit.
This is essentially true, but plays into the idea that the EU was some kind of upper middle class wealth machine.
But the problems are to do with (lack of) domestic redistribution and investment policy rather than the bounty of European market access and talented labour.
Of course the EU couldn't possibly be at fault. Your posts are easily recognised by their EU sycophancy.
Your posts are not recognisable at all. If you keep posting you’ll eventually say something coherent.
Comments
Sunak is the future. Johnson was the future once...
P.S. I suspect the BBC are trying to make up for Martine Croxall. It's going to be wall-to-wall Conservative sycophancy from now 'til Christmas.
Of course, this is only among the hyper-incestuous Westminster village and the very online and politically obsessive.
But that group tends have an outsized influence on broader sentiment.
There are things we can do to encourage growth for sure*. Austerity is certainly not one of them. If you'd paid any attention during the 2010s you'd know that.
(* E.g. Re-joining the Single Market; ensuring that the poorest get income increases at least in line with inflation).
Apart from that, just read the piece.
Today we had Truss not backing down that Trussism is right. Minutes later Sunak standing in same street saying she’s wrong. But like in 74 and 75, who was saying Labours splurge of spending was wrong?
That quote is from the economics correspondent for the Economist…
Of course, to escape a malaise you have to at least first admit there is one. So many do not want to.
Also the presenters/judges are very likeable - even more so than in the original iteration.
That said, the only reason I'd ever watch it is one of the sporadic occassions when the wife decides it'd be nice to watch something together as a family. And there is precious little which fits that particular bill any more. Which again is one of its key strengths. (Not that, in practice, we do all watch: at least two members of the family will be more focused on phones, one daughter will be cavailling around the room, another will be drawing...)
The university traditionally used the first letters of a students' first name and surname to create their email and username for the duration of their time at the institution.
But it has now scrapped the practice to accommodate those who want to change their email addresses part way through their course because they changed their gender, or got married or divorced, and therefore changed their name.
Other reasons students wanted to change their email addresses from their original initials included adopting a Western name, or having "difficult" family relationships that meant they did not want to be associated with their surname.
The university has now said it will simply use randomly generated letters with no relation to the people involved.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/25/university-york-drops-students-initials-email-addresses-trans/
What so hard with if somebody changes their name just give them a new email address (and the old one just silently forwards if people keep sending the wrong address).
Borrowing? Nope.
Putting up taxes? Nope.
Axing stuff. Yep.
Hence I called it right wing Keynesianism.
Trying to keep gilts and interest rates down has become doom loop economics, low interest rates creates debt, QE creates inflation - instead of that defunct system the Markets now want an era of 2-4% interest rates and higher gilt markets than they have been for much of this century as a fair return on their investment in a country maxxed out on tax take and borrowing.
The penny hasn’t dropped for you yet Ben, but wether you like the sound of it or not, do you at least see the point I am making?
[Hudson raises his hand]
Lieutenant Gorman: What is it, Private?
Private Hudson: How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?
Sergeant Apone: You secure that shit, Hudson!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/quotes/?ref_=tt_trv_qu
There are lots of issues in Britain. We have high expectation of what the state will do, but we don’t want to pay for it. Some are obsessed by the markets and think everything should be run but them, while others detest markets and think the state should control everything.
The NHS needs huge reform and a new funding model, and a realisation that extending life should not be the goal without looking at quality of life too.
We think we will never get old and wont need help, and don’t want to help the old, lonely folk in the autumn of their existence.
We turned away from making stuff, although we make more stuff than some care to admit.
We have astonishingly good Universities that produce tonnes of breakthroughs that we then fail to exploit.
Yet through it all we change governments without a riot trying to overturn the result. If labour surge to power in 2024 the Tories wont go to court to try to change the result, they will congratulate their opponents, go into opposition and try to win next time.
Are we poorer than other western countries? I have no idea. It’s probably not that easy to measure, just as covid death reporting was different everywhere and the way economics are measured are different too.
Most articles reflect the writers beliefs. Fine. It doesn’t make them automatically right.
The UK's rate of growth per head since 2000, has been 1.1% pa. Very poor compared to the previous 50 years, but entirely in line with the average of rich Western democracies.
The password’s a bit rude, though
YouTube ad sales fell 1.9pc to $7.1bn (£6.2bn) in the three months to 30 September, compared to a year earlier, in the latest sign of a slowdown in the global economy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2022/10/25/google-shares-drop-youtube-suffers-first-ever-fall-advertising/
Wonder how much of ad spend is moving to Tik Tok?
Unlike Truss who didn't speak to them at all in her whole time as PM.
Course London and the SE are doing OK as ever.
But that isn't the UK by a long chalk
Borrowing? Nope.
Putting up taxes? Yes, I'm afraid so. We need to put up tax on those on higher incomes, especially unearned income, ant the wealthy.
Axing stuff. Nope - that's not going help growth at all.
Your neoliberal voodoo economics has been tried and failed.
As, even in 2000 it hadn’t closed the gap with - say Germany / US / Netherlands etc, it is now quite well behind.
Outside London and the South East, British productivity looks like something you’d expect in an ex Warsaw Pact country.
Yes there is a global growth issue in Western economies, but Britain’s issue is starker.
I’m afraid you have your head in the sand.
Sunak offered her the job this weekend in exchange for her endorsement — key moment in his path to No10 — sources confirm
But Shapps was also led to believe he’d be kept on… and had to settle for Beis
Game’s the game
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-25/sunak-keeps-ally-hunt-as-chancellor-to-helm-uk-economy-in-crisis
Get your head out of the sand.
But don't let them expect to remain British citizens or be able to come and go whenever they want, or own property here and not pay UK taxes.
A few years before my time, someone decided to change their name by deed poll simply to “mathew” (no surname) in order to get the ultimate email address.
Unfortunately, the Computing Service was and is staffed by malevolent sociopaths, who took great delight in informing him: “We have issued you with the new email address xxm10@cam.ac.uk.”
If the wealth had been properly shared, then of course all the poor parts of the country would not have voted for Brexit.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/13/average-uk-household-8800-a-year-worse-off-than-those-in-france-or-germany
'A “toxic combination” of poor productivity and a failure to narrow the divide between rich and poor had resulted in a widening prosperity gap with France, Germany, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands, the report from the Resolution Foundation said.
The thinktank said that if the UK matched the average income and inequality levels of those countries, typical household incomes in Britain would be a third higher and those of the poorest households two-fifths greater.'
The bits which aren't doing well are poorer than East Germany and the Baltic States.
But people just don’t want to hear it.
Take Spain. How has employment been for the younger generation there? Not great.
I don’t know the answers for turning things around. I think we need to be as close to the EU as possible. I think we need young immigrants looking to build better lives. I think we would be wise to try to lead the green energy revolution.
I’m not in denial - I don’t know why you think that.
London has the biggest critical mass of IT capability Europe. We need to encourage that.
Bit impersonal in a way but it got the job done. Bit weird being emailed by other people also just represented by mostly a string of numbers.
There is of course a certain amount of talking out of my hat, here of course. My knowledge of Tow Law is not intimate and of Lorraine even less. But still.
What the UK is, is more unequal
In the UK the rich are richer, esp in London. And the poor are poorer
You have to start with asking yourself why British economic performance is so much worse than the countries we would want to compare ourselves with DESPITE high employment rates, top universities, a global financial centre, the right timezone etc.
But I didn’t even go there. I didn’t go into the politics side of it, just judgement on the economics. In fact you have proved my point perfectly - the opinion polls and this thread header and now your post show people have fused the two as one and same thing cannot now give you a separate judgement on each.
Here’s Truss mistake - a growth budget cutting some taxes could be perfectly funded by cutting public spending. That’s the point I am making - Trussnomics, right wing Keynesianism, getting and sustaining growth funded through cutting size of state isn’t something I am making up. It’s the economic era we are now in where opinion of Sunak or Starmer, or party members or voters just doesn’t matter a jot.
But the problems are to do with (lack of) domestic redistribution and investment policy rather than the bounty of European market access and talented labour.
Here, pretty much everybody comes straight out of uni, I want a grad job in London....its seen as second best if you get sent to the Manchester office instead.
We have had government after government try to change that, putting public sector jobs in other parts of the country etc to try and drive the blue chip private sector to go there, all with very limited success.
I can only assuming that the Braverman, Zahawi and Coffey appointments are about promises made and/or keeping your enemies inside the tent. However, Braverman's re-appointment six days after she resigned for breaching the ministerial code challenges the 'govern with integrity' claim Sunak made earlier.
Johnson, JRM, Patel, Dorries and a few others kicked into the wilderness is a positive sign anyway.
At best I predict two years of difficult struggle against the economic headwinds for which Sunak will receive little credit at the 2024 GE, resulting in a workable Labour majority.
At worst, more chaos leading to an early GE, Labour landslide, possible Tory oblivion.
Odds favour the former, if the Tories can keep a lid on the headbangers.
But has there really been more progress in the last 40 years in Lyon, Marseille, Lille than there has in Mamchester, Glasgow, Newcastle?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001dfff
And on the bald figures America is one of the richest countries in the world
1. is income inequality, where the UK is an outlier in Western Europe. As you say, the rich are richer, the poor are poorer. It’s not as bad as the US. This accounts for poverty in places like East London.
2. Is intergenerational inequality which is a global problem caused by demographic changes and years of low inflation creating very wealthy boomers. I’d guess UK is “on par”.
3. Is racial or religious or inequality where I suspect Britain is world-beating. This accounts for Parisian banlieues and US ghettos.
4. Is regional inequality, where Britain is very bad, by some measures the worse in the OECD. Hence very wealthy London but Eastern European levels of wealth in the North.
Overall, the quality of life outside the rich is now quite a bit poorer than comparable nations, see the post upthread from the Resolution Foundation.
If you keep posting you’ll eventually say something coherent.