» show previous quotes In my recent experience (12 nights with broken hip & elbow) I could have been discharged two days faster if the different services were better at talking to each other. While the surgical side did feel “joined up” (an initial plan to delay operating on my elbow quashed in favour of more urgent treatment) the rest was disjointed. I saw this repeatedly in my 6 bed ward - discharge delayed because not all the paperwork was sorted. I counted myself lucky with a two day delay, and in the end that was nearly three.
You fully recovered now hopefully.
Yes, thank you - one more op to remove the metalwork in my elbow, but both hip & elbow are working fine.
Good stuff from the Guardian about sensible kangaroos, babies and mothers. But it's a Guardian classic of presentation.
In the article baby kangaroos have mothers, in all the quotes from the nice midwife human babies have mothers, in the journalists own copy human babies have caregivers. Trans kangas are already organising a demo.
Not just trans. My first two children's initial significant skin to skin contact was with me, not my wife as she was in no fit state.* Third time she was rather better and I didn't get a look in
Clearly, I didn't breastfeed, but there will be circumstances in which the person the baby is strapped to initially may not be the mother.
*nothing too serious, just vomiting and problems getting the placenta out with #1 and a degree of shock for #2 who came rather quickly after being induced.
I think on substance we are agreed! This wasn't a comment on newborn baby care and its vital place. And it's nice to agree with the Guardian and kangaroos in one go.
I think that may just be a statistical blip that can disappear with more polls. For example, the line from Techne would be straight up and now in thirties, I’m predicting next Saturday’s Opinium to be 31+. We haven’t had a Kantor for a while.
Your worm that turned can be gone next time you look. A case of Ephemeral Worms.
Have we returned to analysing hypothetical polls published at some vaguely defined point in the future?
Well. To be bluff. Yes.
You see different polls whose methodologies favour different results report at different times, maybe not even spaced but in clusters. People polling for example had a reform at 8 and others at six from their method, therefore a con of 21 last week, even though it sits away from the polling average or herding they are not remotely outliers for the firm, it’s what people polling been doing since they appeared, so it’s not an outlier because it’s in sequence to their method. Similarly Kantor, Techne and Opinium tend to produce higher Con share and they feed into this graph too - so where you have a statistical blip at the moment, next Techne 30 or 29, Opinium 31+ and a Kantor in 30s will make the blip vanish forever - the more recent ticks on the graph can be ephemeral.
We've had four polls in a row where that company's swing towards the Tories has slowed virtually to a halt, or started reversing. That might be a short term trend, but it's still a real trend, rather than a reporting quirk.
I understand your point about Opinium giving a higher Tory figure, but even their last two polls showed movement back towards Labour.
It’s a mixed picture right now, still to early to say the new leader bounce has peaked and gone into reverse - and rather shockingly didn’t really get anywhere in the first place.
It is beginning to look like that though. 😕
Definitely too early - but I don't see where it's mixed. If we had a selection of polls showing the lead coming solidly down, then that would be mixed, but they pretty much all seem to be slowing/reversing.
It's also a reasonable bounce - not many leaders start from 30%+ down, so it was always going to take time. He was always up against it, and I can't imagine people will be on a budget that raises tax and cuts spending.
I suspect they're looking to hang on till hopefully Ukraine win, and we see fuel prices and inflation fall, and they will claim it as a win for "grown-up politics" or some other nonsense.
It’s mixed because I’m not looking at gap between parties - if Starmgasm belches back to libdems 6% it stole the lead drops even if Tories rise not one iota. I am looking at the Tory share for their recovery, and the last three Techne each show an increase as one example of how it’s mixed, and the down tick does not tell us it’s mixed because of things like people polling con 21 and low yougov that didn’t move built in.
Isn't the Tory share doing exactly the same?
It was going up with when Rishi took over with just about every polling company.
Now it's going down, static, or the rise has slowed almost to a halt with every poll from the last week and that's from half a dozen different pollsters. People polling was down to 14pts before Rishi, so 14-20 was a jump, while 20-21-21 is a stalling. Techne has shown a 4pt jump, then a 3pt jump, and now a 1pt jump. That's technically three increases in a row, but it's also a clear slow down that every other polling company has reflected recently.
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
Redwood sees austerity as a political choice, and wants a growth budget.
Yes. The Kwasi budget wasn't wrong because it cut taxes and went for growth, it was wrong because it was poorly implemented - timing, communication, no reference to balancing cost savings, no working alongside monetary policy, no forecasts, measures that grabbed all the wrong headlines.
In fundamentals though, Liz was right and Sunak wrong. The more he clobbers the economy to try to fill the hole, the bigger that hole will be pulled.
They were also unlucky with what the US were doing with interest rates and the impact that had not just pound but all currencies v dollar that week. The UK media only reported it as a run on the UK pound, and the TV media in particular treated everyday as Black Wednesday, which over egged what was going on.
The other differentials, Truss refused the windfall taxes, but like Thatcher and Sunak she could have done them on both energy companies and banks. And was locked in to two and a half years of bucking the energy market using Labours insanely costly suggestion for doing it, at cost of about two hundred billion. Just doing that till April costs about sixty billion. Where have we heard that figure before?
Everything in markets seemed to settle down the second they said only doing that energy scheme till April, saving about £150bn. Strange that.
"Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out."
From John Redwood's stuff found at length above.. His analysis basically is:
That everything everyone has ever done is wrong, but there is a popular winning formula which avoids austerity, promotes growth, doesn't raise taxes, and balances the books
That he appears to be the only person who knows this
and
I AM NOT TELLING YOU WHAT IT IS.
Redwood writes succinct blog posts, of which this is one. He talks plenty about what he thinks the formula is across his blog; not sure why you expect the meaning of the universe to be imparted in a single quoted passage on PB.
Lewis Goodall: Fmr Environment Sec George Eustice has spoken about the post-Brexit UK/Australia trade deal in the Commons. He says now no longer a minister: "I no longer have to put such a positive gloss on what was agreed...the Australia deal is not actually a very good trade deal for the UK."
If we're now questioning whether free trade is always and everywhere a good thing, then maybe we should revisit the EU agreement, not to make it more open, but to make it more restricted in areas where it is in our national interest.
You need to understand your erstwhile fellow travellers.
Trade with Europe good. Trade with Australia bad.
Barriers with Europe bad. Barriers with Australia good.
Four legs good, two legs better! All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.
Invert that and we have you. But in any case, for our trading account, Australia is of marginal interest compared to Europe.
No, invert that and you don't have me.
I very much want and desire a free trade agreement with both Europe AND Australia.
We have both now. Cake and eat it. 😋
Something doesn't feel quite right here. How can a person who was licking their chops at the prospect of a No Deal "WTO" Brexit - right up until the last minute when the cup was dashed from the lips - also be a person strongly in favour of free trade with Europe?
I never once licked my chops at the prospect of a No Deal Brexit.
I said consistently that I wanted a trade deal, but that we should be prepared to walk away if we can't get a free trade only agreement that leaves us bound to their laws.
Good Deal (Free Trade) > No Deal > Bad Deal (Alignment).
We got the deal I wanted. May's deal, including alignment, was worse than No Deal.
Oh do stop this. You were gagging (!) for it. Couldn't wait to show those EUs how tough we were. Show we didn't need them. If it wouldn't be the dreaded "doxing" I'd copy over some choice posts from you at the time - do it right now - to show without a shadow of a doubt that I speak the truth here.
You're talking rubbish. I always said I'd prefer a good deal, even if we should be prepared to walk away if that's not available. Free trade good, legal alignment bad. That was my view, so long as we determine our own laws, the freer the trade the better.
If you want to quote something I've said in the past, feel free. So long as you don't include my name, I'm OK with it. I don't deny my posting history I only want my privacy respected not to have my real life name used. Feel free to copy and paste changing my old username for my new one.
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
There is no need for austerity, the £60bn could be raised through taxes on the wealthy.
Austerity for the Rich has to at least be in the mix surely. They can't pull the same stunt as last time.
Depends on your definition of austerity I guess.
What would you envisage as austerity for the rich'? Sounds like tax rises by another name to me.
Is what I mean, yes. I also agree with you about a Wealth Tax. That has to happen fairly soon imo. Probably under Labour. Maybe ease it in rather than big bang.
It seems to me a straight wealth tax is not feasible. No-one has yet been able to organise a workable inheritance tax that raises big money. Driving wealth overseas is not a great idea.
The area to look at is property and land. This has these great merits; you can't hide it, you can't take it abroad and much of it is massively undertaxed in relation to both value and CG, (especially in the south, as I live in the north, which of course should be exempt.)
Naturally all such taxes should start at a place a fair bit above the assets of whoever is speaking at the time.
Nope. The electorate have decided they want rid of the Tories. That means voting Labour in England and Wales and SNP in Scotland. The Lib Dems are surplus to requirements.
Lib dems are not surplus in the South of England, Often they will be the best vote to oust a Tory.
Nope.
Rest of South Lab 47% Con 32% LD 9% Grn 8% Ref 3% UKIP 2%
"Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out."
From John Redwood's stuff found at length above.. His analysis basically is:
That everything everyone has ever done is wrong, but there is a popular winning formula which avoids austerity, promotes growth, doesn't raise taxes, and balances the books
That he appears to be the only person who knows this
and
I AM NOT TELLING YOU WHAT IT IS.
Redwood writes succinct blog posts, of which this is one. He talks plenty about what he thinks the formula is across his blog; not sure why you expect the meaning of the universe to be imparted in a single quoted passage on PB.
I think that may just be a statistical blip that can disappear with more polls. For example, the line from Techne would be straight up and now in thirties, I’m predicting next Saturday’s Opinium to be 31+. We haven’t had a Kantor for a while.
Your worm that turned can be gone next time you look. A case of Ephemeral Worms.
Have we returned to analysing hypothetical polls published at some vaguely defined point in the future?
Well. To be bluff. Yes.
You see different polls whose methodologies favour different results report at different times, maybe not even spaced but in clusters. People polling for example had a reform at 8 and others at six from their method, therefore a con of 21 last week, even though it sits away from the polling average or herding they are not remotely outliers for the firm, it’s what people polling been doing since they appeared, so it’s not an outlier because it’s in sequence to their method. Similarly Kantor, Techne and Opinium tend to produce higher Con share and they feed into this graph too - so where you have a statistical blip at the moment, next Techne 30 or 29, Opinium 31+ and a Kantor in 30s will make the blip vanish forever - the more recent ticks on the graph can be ephemeral.
We've had four polls in a row where that company's swing towards the Tories has slowed virtually to a halt, or started reversing. That might be a short term trend, but it's still a real trend, rather than a reporting quirk.
I understand your point about Opinium giving a higher Tory figure, but even their last two polls showed movement back towards Labour.
It’s a mixed picture right now, still to early to say the new leader bounce has peaked and gone into reverse - and rather shockingly didn’t really get anywhere in the first place.
It is beginning to look like that though. 😕
Definitely too early - but I don't see where it's mixed. If we had a selection of polls showing the lead coming solidly down, then that would be mixed, but they pretty much all seem to be slowing/reversing.
It's also a reasonable bounce - not many leaders start from 30%+ down, so it was always going to take time. He was always up against it, and I can't imagine people will be on a budget that raises tax and cuts spending.
I suspect they're looking to hang on till hopefully Ukraine win, and we see fuel prices and inflation fall, and they will claim it as a win for "grown-up politics" or some other nonsense.
It’s mixed because I’m not looking at gap between parties - if Starmgasm belches back to libdems 6% it stole the lead drops even if Tories rise not one iota. I am looking at the Tory share for their recovery, and the last three Techne each show an increase as one example of how it’s mixed, and the down tick does not tell us it’s mixed because of things like people polling con 21 and low yougov that didn’t move built in.
Isn't the Tory share doing exactly the same?
It was going up with when Rishi took over with just about every polling company.
Now it's going down, static, or the rise has slowed almost to a halt with every poll from the last week and that's from half a dozen different pollsters. People polling was down to 14pts before Rishi, so 14-20 was a jump, while 20-21-21 is a stalling. Techne has shown a 4pt jump, then a 3pt jump, and now a 1pt jump. That's technically three increases in a row, but it's also a clear slow down that every other polling company has reflected recently.
But a slow down is not a stop. Speed is not of the essence here, just direction of travel.
It’s still a mixed picture on polling, a good 7 days for Tory share and todays little kink in graph vanishes. you seem to be edging toward admitting it.
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
There is no need for austerity, the £60bn could be raised through taxes on the wealthy.
Austerity for the Rich has to at least be in the mix surely. They can't pull the same stunt as last time.
Depends on your definition of austerity I guess.
What would you envisage as austerity for the rich'? Sounds like tax rises by another name to me.
Is what I mean, yes. I also agree with you about a Wealth Tax. That has to happen fairly soon imo. Probably under Labour. Maybe ease it in rather than big bang.
It seems to me a straight wealth tax is not feasible. No-one has yet been able to organise a workable inheritance tax that raises big money. Driving wealth overseas is not a great idea.
The area to look at is property and land. This has these great merits; you can't hide it, you can't take it abroad and much of it is massively undertaxed in relation to both value and CG, (especially in the south, as I live in the north, which of course should be exempt.)
Naturally all such taxes should start at a place a fair bit above the assets of whoever is speaking at the time.
A workable IHT isn't difficult, just unpalatable. Scrap exemptions for inter vivos transfer, to individuals or to trusts, and bingo. Where's the problem?
Lewis Goodall: Fmr Environment Sec George Eustice has spoken about the post-Brexit UK/Australia trade deal in the Commons. He says now no longer a minister: "I no longer have to put such a positive gloss on what was agreed...the Australia deal is not actually a very good trade deal for the UK."
If we're now questioning whether free trade is always and everywhere a good thing, then maybe we should revisit the EU agreement, not to make it more open, but to make it more restricted in areas where it is in our national interest.
You need to understand your erstwhile fellow travellers.
Trade with Europe good. Trade with Australia bad.
Barriers with Europe bad. Barriers with Australia good.
Four legs good, two legs better! All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.
Invert that and we have you. But in any case, for our trading account, Australia is of marginal interest compared to Europe.
No, invert that and you don't have me.
I very much want and desire a free trade agreement with both Europe AND Australia.
We have both now. Cake and eat it. 😋
Yup. And if only what you said was true we would have cake. The people *who negotiated this deal* are telling us in detail why it is shit. They are the best judge of that with their direct experience of the practical details. Vs your non-involvement and theoretical "expertise".
The "people who negotiated this deal" are telling us it is good.
One person, Eustice, is pandering to people who object by saying "we gave away too much".
Err . . . You what? You can't give away "too much" in a free trade deal, as that's the frigging point, free trade. If you've not "given away" trade restrictions, you've not negotiated a free trade deal.
Name me one "too much" restriction we've "given away" in the trade deal with Australia that still applies to trade with France. I bet you can't.
Admirable theory, and excellent starting point. David Ricardo and others who developed the free trade theory, the law of comparative advantage, are secular saints in my book and have added massively to the good in the world.
However in the actual world there will always be some protectionism. Especially in food production but also in other essentials. It will also occur because of the intervention of ethical standards of product quality and the ethics of how things are produced. So Ricardo's fabulous simplicity gets muddied once you have more than two countries producing more then one product each in a world of war, danger and political realities.
And that's without the intervention of human nature which invariably wants free trade in all things apart from the exceptions in which you have a proprietorial interest.
Considering we have trade with the EU as a benchmark for comparisons, what tariffs on Australian goods have been "given away" that still apply to French ones?
Our free trade with Australia ought to be at least as free as our trade with Europe. So where is this too much that was given down under but not to the 31 EU+EEA nations of Europe we have a trade agreement with?
Obviously I haven’t seen as many world cups as many of you, but I have followed them all since 2006 and come to conclusion the most watchable sides don’t always win, the strongest sides overall don’t always win - so odds like that for a good team like Belgium I think is a good idea. Yes value.
But then too many value bets we can’t hedge them all, it should to be like the Grand National, just punt for one or two and see how far they can go for the reasons you expect?
Fourfourtwo which is a dedicated football magazine has Brazil beating Germany in the final.
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
Thanks to Truss and co we have little choice but to do so because we've seen the consequences of what happens if the markets are displeased.
That doesn't mean I favour austerity, it's just the cost of avoiding austerity would be way worse.
One thing Truss did once and for all was demonstrate that Modern Monetary Theory (i.e. the magic money tree) has limits and Truss successfully (and unfortunately) found those limits.
A lot of financial stuff is trust and confidence, it seems.
And the Truss-Kwateng interlude has left the UK government in much the same position as a teenager who isn't going to be allowed out in the car on their own for a while, even if most of the dents and scratches have been removed.
But the Government is still expected to subsidise the BOE selling off bonds at a lower value than they bought them for, to the tune of £11bn. Which is a good chunk of the supposed £60bn being bandied about. Remind me who's the reckless spoiled teenager here?
I'm not sure about the QE to QT switcherooni causing a profit or loss in this sense. You create money and buy gilts. Then sell gilts and destroy the money. Could be that leads to a real world surplus or deficit bleeding through to government fiscal calculations but it doesn't feel quite right to me. But maybe it does. Where are you getting the info from?
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
Thanks to Truss and co we have little choice but to do so because we've seen the consequences of what happens if the markets are displeased.
That doesn't mean I favour austerity, it's just the cost of avoiding austerity would be way worse.
One thing Truss did once and for all was demonstrate that Modern Monetary Theory (i.e. the magic money tree) has limits and Truss successfully (and unfortunately) found those limits.
A lot of financial stuff is trust and confidence, it seems.
And the Truss-Kwateng interlude has left the UK government in much the same position as a teenager who isn't going to be allowed out in the car on their own for a while, even if most of the dents and scratches have been removed.
But the Government is still expected to subsidise the BOE selling off bonds at a lower value than they bought them for, to the tune of £11bn. Which is a good chunk of the supposed £60bn being bandied about. Remind me who's the reckless spoiled teenager here?
The point is that, as the Leaderene said, you can't buck the markets. It doesn't matter if their response is unfair or irrational, it's still unbuckable. Governments who borrow money have to keep them happy. If you want to ignore them, you have to not owe them anything.
"Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out."
From John Redwood's stuff found at length above.. His analysis basically is:
That everything everyone has ever done is wrong, but there is a popular winning formula which avoids austerity, promotes growth, doesn't raise taxes, and balances the books
That he appears to be the only person who knows this
and
I AM NOT TELLING YOU WHAT IT IS.
Redwood writes succinct blog posts, of which this is one. He talks plenty about what he thinks the formula is across his blog; not sure why you expect the meaning of the universe to be imparted in a single quoted passage on PB.
Give us a clue.
Redwood wants to reduce inessential/wasteful public spending, favours judicious tax reductions, wants to encourage far greater domestic supply of energy and food to displace imports, and wants to halt the BOE's bond selloff.
None of those are particularly earth-shattering, most are in the category of 'the bleedin' obvious' but they are also not happening at the moment.
Sweden just went to COP27 and said they'd need to increase emissions by 10%. That's an honest, capable Government, willing to stand up for its national interest. Sunak doesn't have the nuts to defend our economy that way (Liz would have). He's not a serious PM.
1. Yes, including pension pots. Why not? 2. Illiquid assets - allow the option of a charge against the asset (an approach already used for social care costs). The charge can be collect when the asset is disposed of.
1. We're desperately trying to encourage people to save more into their pensions. Breaking the promise that they would grow tax-free would be disastrous in that respect, as well as exacerbating the problem of inadequate pensions for currently working people (it would be mainly a tax on them, not on the oldies). As I said you've also got the problem of defined-benefit schemes. Who is going to pay your tax on the value of those?
2. Massive, massive bureaucracy. Also a very good way of losing elections! Probably the very best way.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
Thanks to Truss and co we have little choice but to do so because we've seen the consequences of what happens if the markets are displeased.
That doesn't mean I favour austerity, it's just the cost of avoiding austerity would be way worse.
One thing Truss did once and for all was demonstrate that Modern Monetary Theory (i.e. the magic money tree) has limits and Truss successfully (and unfortunately) found those limits.
A lot of financial stuff is trust and confidence, it seems.
And the Truss-Kwateng interlude has left the UK government in much the same position as a teenager who isn't going to be allowed out in the car on their own for a while, even if most of the dents and scratches have been removed.
But the Government is still expected to subsidise the BOE selling off bonds at a lower value than they bought them for, to the tune of £11bn. Which is a good chunk of the supposed £60bn being bandied about. Remind me who's the reckless spoiled teenager here?
The point is that, as the Leaderene said, you can't buck the markets. It doesn't matter if their response is unfair or irrational, it's still unbuckable. Governments who borrow money have to keep them happy. If you want to ignore them, you have to not owe them anything.
The Markets would be delighted if the Bank halted or slowed its bond selloff - that's what they had to do as their 'intervention' in the wake of the mini-budget.
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
Thanks to Truss and co we have little choice but to do so because we've seen the consequences of what happens if the markets are displeased.
That doesn't mean I favour austerity, it's just the cost of avoiding austerity would be way worse.
One thing Truss did once and for all was demonstrate that Modern Monetary Theory (i.e. the magic money tree) has limits and Truss successfully (and unfortunately) found those limits.
A lot of financial stuff is trust and confidence, it seems.
And the Truss-Kwateng interlude has left the UK government in much the same position as a teenager who isn't going to be allowed out in the car on their own for a while, even if most of the dents and scratches have been removed.
But the Government is still expected to subsidise the BOE selling off bonds at a lower value than they bought them for, to the tune of £11bn. Which is a good chunk of the supposed £60bn being bandied about. Remind me who's the reckless spoiled teenager here?
The point is that, as the Leaderene said, you can't buck the markets. It doesn't matter if their response is unfair or irrational, it's still unbuckable. Governments who borrow money have to keep them happy. If you want to ignore them, you have to not owe them anything.
The Markets would be delighted if the Bank halted or slowed its bond selloff - that's what they had to do as their 'intervention' in the wake of the mini-budget.
Not really, bond prices have barely registered the sale of BoE owned bonds. In fact yields are lower now than when they fired up QT a couple of weeks ago.
1. Yes, including pension pots. Why not? 2. Illiquid assets - allow the option of a charge against the asset (an approach already used for social care costs). The charge can be collect when the asset is disposed of.
1. We're desperately trying to encourage people to save more into their pensions. Breaking the promise that they would grow tax-free would be disastrous in that respect, as well as exacerbating the problem of inadequate pensions for currently working people (it would be mainly a tax on them, not on the oldies). As I said you've also got the problem of defined-benefit schemes. Who is going to pay your tax on the value of those?
2. Massive, massive bureaucracy. Also a very good way of losing elections! Probably the very best way.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
The problem with taxing wealth is that if the wealth can be transferred abroad at the click of a mouse nowadays then it's not viable to tax.
The one thing that can't be transferred abroad, and should be liable for taxation for principled reasons anyway, is land.
"Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out."
From John Redwood's stuff found at length above.. His analysis basically is:
That everything everyone has ever done is wrong, but there is a popular winning formula which avoids austerity, promotes growth, doesn't raise taxes, and balances the books
That he appears to be the only person who knows this
and
I AM NOT TELLING YOU WHAT IT IS.
Redwood writes succinct blog posts, of which this is one. He talks plenty about what he thinks the formula is across his blog; not sure why you expect the meaning of the universe to be imparted in a single quoted passage on PB.
Give us a clue.
Redwood wants to reduce inessential/wasteful public spending, favours judicious tax reductions, wants to encourage far greater domestic supply of energy and food to displace imports, and wants to halt the BOE's bond selloff.
None of those are particularly earth-shattering, most are in the category of 'the bleedin' obvious' but they are also not happening at the moment.
Sweden just went to COP27 and said they'd need to increase emissions by 10%. That's an honest, capable Government, willing to stand up for its national interest. Sunak doesn't have the nuts to defend our economy that way (Liz would have). He's not a serious PM.
FFS every politician who says they plan to reduce spending by cutting 'inessential/wasteful public spending' should be disbarred from standing ever again. IT NEVER HAPPENS!
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
There is no need for austerity, the £60bn could be raised through taxes on the wealthy.
Austerity for the Rich has to at least be in the mix surely. They can't pull the same stunt as last time.
Depends on your definition of austerity I guess.
What would you envisage as austerity for the rich'? Sounds like tax rises by another name to me.
Is what I mean, yes. I also agree with you about a Wealth Tax. That has to happen fairly soon imo. Probably under Labour. Maybe ease it in rather than big bang.
It seems to me a straight wealth tax is not feasible. No-one has yet been able to organise a workable inheritance tax that raises big money. Driving wealth overseas is not a great idea.
The area to look at is property and land. This has these great merits; you can't hide it, you can't take it abroad and much of it is massively undertaxed in relation to both value and CG, (especially in the south, as I live in the north, which of course should be exempt.)
Naturally all such taxes should start at a place a fair bit above the assets of whoever is speaking at the time.
A workable IHT isn't difficult, just unpalatable. Scrap exemptions for inter vivos transfer, to individuals or to trusts, and bingo. Where's the problem?
It is difficult not least because of the unpalatable nature of the effects if there are no exemptions. Taxing inter vivos transactions of course is quite different from IHT (you aren't dead).
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
There is no need for austerity, the £60bn could be raised through taxes on the wealthy.
Austerity for the Rich has to at least be in the mix surely. They can't pull the same stunt as last time.
Depends on your definition of austerity I guess.
What would you envisage as austerity for the rich'? Sounds like tax rises by another name to me.
Is what I mean, yes. I also agree with you about a Wealth Tax. That has to happen fairly soon imo. Probably under Labour. Maybe ease it in rather than big bang.
It seems to me a straight wealth tax is not feasible. No-one has yet been able to organise a workable inheritance tax that raises big money. Driving wealth overseas is not a great idea.
The area to look at is property and land. This has these great merits; you can't hide it, you can't take it abroad and much of it is massively undertaxed in relation to both value and CG, (especially in the south, as I live in the north, which of course should be exempt.)
Naturally all such taxes should start at a place a fair bit above the assets of whoever is speaking at the time.
A workable IHT isn't difficult, just unpalatable. Scrap exemptions for inter vivos transfer, to individuals or to trusts, and bingo. Where's the problem?
It is difficult not least because of the unpalatable nature of the effects if there are no exemptions. Taxing inter vivos transactions of course is quite different from IHT (you aren't dead).
Agricultural land?
Why should agricultural land be exempt from IHT?
If someone acquires ownership of commercial land through inheritance they ought to be able to take out a loan to pay any taxes due if required for a lot less than someone else could buy it for on the open market.
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
There is no need for austerity, the £60bn could be raised through taxes on the wealthy.
Austerity for the Rich has to at least be in the mix surely. They can't pull the same stunt as last time.
Depends on your definition of austerity I guess.
What would you envisage as austerity for the rich'? Sounds like tax rises by another name to me.
Is what I mean, yes. I also agree with you about a Wealth Tax. That has to happen fairly soon imo. Probably under Labour. Maybe ease it in rather than big bang.
It seems to me a straight wealth tax is not feasible. No-one has yet been able to organise a workable inheritance tax that raises big money. Driving wealth overseas is not a great idea.
The area to look at is property and land. This has these great merits; you can't hide it, you can't take it abroad and much of it is massively undertaxed in relation to both value and CG, (especially in the south, as I live in the north, which of course should be exempt.)
Naturally all such taxes should start at a place a fair bit above the assets of whoever is speaking at the time.
To me a Wealth Tax is levying a (small %) charge on Wealth each year rather than only on death. The latter being specifically an Inheritance Tax - which we already have. So then a big question is what Wealth. And I agree that property must feature. It's where our wealth is.
As for that last rather familiar sentiment, I'm going to have to nominate for the @Anabobazina list.
1. Yes, including pension pots. Why not? 2. Illiquid assets - allow the option of a charge against the asset (an approach already used for social care costs). The charge can be collect when the asset is disposed of.
1. We're desperately trying to encourage people to save more into their pensions. Breaking the promise that they would grow tax-free would be disastrous in that respect, as well as exacerbating the problem of inadequate pensions for currently working people (it would be mainly a tax on them, not on the oldies). As I said you've also got the problem of defined-benefit schemes. Who is going to pay your tax on the value of those?
2. Massive, massive bureaucracy. Also a very good way of losing elections! Probably the very best way.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
The problem with taxing wealth is that if the wealth can be transferred abroad at the click of a mouse nowadays then it's not viable to tax.
The one thing that can't be transferred abroad, and should be liable for taxation for principled reasons anyway, is land.
We tax income too much, and land not enough.
Owing property and land is wealth. Taxing Proprty and Land is a wealth tax, is it not?
I think that may just be a statistical blip that can disappear with more polls. For example, the line from Techne would be straight up and now in thirties, I’m predicting next Saturday’s Opinium to be 31+. We haven’t had a Kantor for a while.
Your worm that turned can be gone next time you look. A case of Ephemeral Worms.
Have we returned to analysing hypothetical polls published at some vaguely defined point in the future?
Well. To be bluff. Yes.
You see different polls whose methodologies favour different results report at different times, maybe not even spaced but in clusters. People polling for example had a reform at 8 and others at six from their method, therefore a con of 21 last week, even though it sits away from the polling average or herding they are not remotely outliers for the firm, it’s what people polling been doing since they appeared, so it’s not an outlier because it’s in sequence to their method. Similarly Kantor, Techne and Opinium tend to produce higher Con share and they feed into this graph too - so where you have a statistical blip at the moment, next Techne 30 or 29, Opinium 31+ and a Kantor in 30s will make the blip vanish forever - the more recent ticks on the graph can be ephemeral.
We've had four polls in a row where that company's swing towards the Tories has slowed virtually to a halt, or started reversing. That might be a short term trend, but it's still a real trend, rather than a reporting quirk.
I understand your point about Opinium giving a higher Tory figure, but even their last two polls showed movement back towards Labour.
It’s a mixed picture right now, still to early to say the new leader bounce has peaked and gone into reverse - and rather shockingly didn’t really get anywhere in the first place.
It is beginning to look like that though. 😕
Definitely too early - but I don't see where it's mixed. If we had a selection of polls showing the lead coming solidly down, then that would be mixed, but they pretty much all seem to be slowing/reversing.
It's also a reasonable bounce - not many leaders start from 30%+ down, so it was always going to take time. He was always up against it, and I can't imagine people will be on a budget that raises tax and cuts spending.
I suspect they're looking to hang on till hopefully Ukraine win, and we see fuel prices and inflation fall, and they will claim it as a win for "grown-up politics" or some other nonsense.
It’s mixed because I’m not looking at gap between parties - if Starmgasm belches back to libdems 6% it stole the lead drops even if Tories rise not one iota. I am looking at the Tory share for their recovery, and the last three Techne each show an increase as one example of how it’s mixed, and the down tick does not tell us it’s mixed because of things like people polling con 21 and low yougov that didn’t move built in.
Isn't the Tory share doing exactly the same?
It was going up with when Rishi took over with just about every polling company.
Now it's going down, static, or the rise has slowed almost to a halt with every poll from the last week and that's from half a dozen different pollsters. People polling was down to 14pts before Rishi, so 14-20 was a jump, while 20-21-21 is a stalling. Techne has shown a 4pt jump, then a 3pt jump, and now a 1pt jump. That's technically three increases in a row, but it's also a clear slow down that every other polling company has reflected recently.
But a slow down is not a stop. Speed is not of the essence here, just direction of travel.
It’s still a mixed picture on polling, a good 7 days for Tory share and todays little kink in graph vanishes. you seem to be edging toward admitting it.
Have I missed something? I thought you were suggesting that the Rishi bounce was continuing, when we've had six polls in the last week or so, which all show it stalling.
We've gone from a steady increase, reflected across all the polls, to a week where the Tory vote change for each polling company is -2, -2, -1, +1, 0, 0. That's not mixed, that's pretty consistently showing that, for now, the Tory share is no longer going up.
It may go up again if they have a good week, but that doesn't make this week disappear.
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
There is no need for austerity, the £60bn could be raised through taxes on the wealthy.
Austerity for the Rich has to at least be in the mix surely. They can't pull the same stunt as last time.
Depends on your definition of austerity I guess.
What would you envisage as austerity for the rich'? Sounds like tax rises by another name to me.
Is what I mean, yes. I also agree with you about a Wealth Tax. That has to happen fairly soon imo. Probably under Labour. Maybe ease it in rather than big bang.
It seems to me a straight wealth tax is not feasible. No-one has yet been able to organise a workable inheritance tax that raises big money. Driving wealth overseas is not a great idea.
The area to look at is property and land. This has these great merits; you can't hide it, you can't take it abroad and much of it is massively undertaxed in relation to both value and CG, (especially in the south, as I live in the north, which of course should be exempt.)
Naturally all such taxes should start at a place a fair bit above the assets of whoever is speaking at the time.
To me a Wealth Tax is levying a (small %) charge on Wealth each year rather than only on death. The latter being specifically an Inheritance Tax - which we already have. So then the big question is what Wealth. And I agree that property must feature.
As for that last rather familiar sentiment, I'm going to have to nominate for the @Anabobazina list.
I agree that annual taxes are better than one off ones.
If it were up to me as a starting point I'd have something like:
0.25% land tax+ per month for all Property with an 80% discount if that Property is the owners primary residence.
100% surcharge for residential property owned by anyone non domiciled for taxation.
Potentially a separate rate for agriculture and commercial.
No exceptions or ways to evade the tax. Council Tax, Stamp Duty etc abolished.
*Walter Bloomberg @DeItaone SPACEX SAID IN TALKS TO RAISE CAPITAL ABOVE $150 BILLION VALUE
And he'll spend a few billion from that on a single Twitter ad, displayed at 03.52 in the morning to a Mr. Fred Muskrat of Fraud Avenue, Nowheresville, Tomainia.
1. Yes, including pension pots. Why not? 2. Illiquid assets - allow the option of a charge against the asset (an approach already used for social care costs). The charge can be collect when the asset is disposed of.
1. We're desperately trying to encourage people to save more into their pensions. Breaking the promise that they would grow tax-free would be disastrous in that respect, as well as exacerbating the problem of inadequate pensions for currently working people (it would be mainly a tax on them, not on the oldies). As I said you've also got the problem of defined-benefit schemes. Who is going to pay your tax on the value of those?
2. Massive, massive bureaucracy. Also a very good way of losing elections! Probably the very best way.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
The problem with taxing wealth is that if the wealth can be transferred abroad at the click of a mouse nowadays then it's not viable to tax.
The one thing that can't be transferred abroad, and should be liable for taxation for principled reasons anyway, is land.
Lewis Goodall: Fmr Environment Sec George Eustice has spoken about the post-Brexit UK/Australia trade deal in the Commons. He says now no longer a minister: "I no longer have to put such a positive gloss on what was agreed...the Australia deal is not actually a very good trade deal for the UK."
If we're now questioning whether free trade is always and everywhere a good thing, then maybe we should revisit the EU agreement, not to make it more open, but to make it more restricted in areas where it is in our national interest.
You need to understand your erstwhile fellow travellers.
Trade with Europe good. Trade with Australia bad.
Barriers with Europe bad. Barriers with Australia good.
Four legs good, two legs better! All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.
Invert that and we have you. But in any case, for our trading account, Australia is of marginal interest compared to Europe.
No, invert that and you don't have me.
I very much want and desire a free trade agreement with both Europe AND Australia.
We have both now. Cake and eat it. 😋
Something doesn't feel quite right here. How can a person who was licking their chops at the prospect of a No Deal "WTO" Brexit - right up until the last minute when the cup was dashed from the lips - also be a person strongly in favour of free trade with Europe?
I never once licked my chops at the prospect of a No Deal Brexit.
I said consistently that I wanted a trade deal, but that we should be prepared to walk away if we can't get a free trade only agreement that leaves us bound to their laws.
Good Deal (Free Trade) > No Deal > Bad Deal (Alignment).
We got the deal I wanted. May's deal, including alignment, was worse than No Deal.
Oh do stop this. You were gagging (!) for it. Couldn't wait to show those EUs how tough we were. Show we didn't need them. If it wouldn't be the dreaded "doxing" I'd copy over some choice posts from you at the time - do it right now - to show without a shadow of a doubt that I speak the truth here.
You're talking rubbish. I always said I'd prefer a good deal, even if we should be prepared to walk away if that's not available. Free trade good, legal alignment bad. That was my view, so long as we determine our own laws, the freer the trade the better.
If you want to quote something I've said in the past, feel free. So long as you don't include my name, I'm OK with it. I don't deny my posting history I only want my privacy respected not to have my real life name used. Feel free to copy and paste changing my old username for my new one.
Copy and paste but change the name? I have no clue how to do that. Maybe we just do the gist of one that stuck in my mind very vividly:
"Yeah let's No Deal! They'll soon be crawling back and begging for one. They need us and but we don't need them. Have you seen our balance with the Krau ... with Germany. Ha ha ha. Bastards. Screw em, that's what I say."
Ok, not word for word, but that's a 'substance over form' quote from one of them and there were several in that vein.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
My approach is:
1. Stop looking for easy hits. There aren't any. If there were, they'd have been taken already,
2. Concentrate first on the obvious anomalies and the ludicrously high marginal rates of tax which are current system includes at various arbitrary points in the income scale.
3. Spread the tax bases, which fewer exceptions.
In terms of practical measures:
a) The most glaring anomaly of all is that well-off people like me who are past retirement age don't pay NI on PAYE income. If I'm going to pay a big extra chunk of tax (and I accept I should), that would be a chunk which is entirely fair.
b) Smooth out the tax bands. Abolish the ludicrously high rate at £100K to £120K. That just distorts behaviour and therefore loses tax revenue. Instead extend the 45% band down to £100K, Ideally, as a longer term measure, go for a smoothly increasing marginal rate on tax with no cliff-edges or bands at all (except the tax-free band at the low end), so, that at (say) £20K you'd pay 1% on all your income, on £30K 5%, at £40K 15%, rising to (say) 40% on all your income (not marginal income) at the high end. The figures are for illustration only, I haven't looked at what the actual figures should be to be broadly neutral, but the important thing is that the gradation should be smooth so as not to disincentive people from taxable economic activity. You can then adjust the shape of the curve to get your target income-tax take.
c) NI is an abomination, but we are stuck with it for political reasons, But we should change the balance so that PAYE is not so unfairly penalised - non-PAYE income should be taxed at rate closer to PAYE income (that would also reduce the need for IR35, itself a damaging distortion).
d) There is indeed scope for more property taxes. We really do need to update the absurdly out-of-date council tax bands, and in doing that we should add more bands at the high end (or maybe a sliding scale).
There's more, obviously, but I need to go out now. But basically a few billion here, a few billion there. Pluck the goose gently all over, don't try to grab a big handful of feathers in one go.
1. Yes, including pension pots. Why not? 2. Illiquid assets - allow the option of a charge against the asset (an approach already used for social care costs). The charge can be collect when the asset is disposed of.
1. We're desperately trying to encourage people to save more into their pensions. Breaking the promise that they would grow tax-free would be disastrous in that respect, as well as exacerbating the problem of inadequate pensions for currently working people (it would be mainly a tax on them, not on the oldies). As I said you've also got the problem of defined-benefit schemes. Who is going to pay your tax on the value of those?
2. Massive, massive bureaucracy. Also a very good way of losing elections! Probably the very best way.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
How about everyone with more than £10m has to get together in a "papal conclave" and they're not allowed out till they've agreed how *they* can pay off that £2.3tn within 12 months.
The Labour Party isn't pro-Brexit, and never has been. It campaigned to remain, but lost. So Brexit has happened, against the Labour Party's wishes. Having lost, quite sensibly in order to win the next election, the Labour Party is seeking to make Brexit work much better than the Tories.
Brexit cannot work.
For much the same reason as The Oaf cannot win a 100 yard dash.
The product design is not fit for purpose.
I agree that Brexit is a dud, a dismal and costly cul de sac for Britain, from which we will probably eventually reverse. However, there will be no possibility of reversing course until there is a clear and stable majority in favour of that. I would say a 2:1 margin at least. Apart from anything else, the EU won't want us to dick them about by joining and then changing our mind again. So for the time being, Labour should respect the vote and try to make the best of things. Public opinion will gradually move towards rejoining. Or perhaps a compromise semi detached relationship will emerge as a new stable equilibrium. Who knows, perhaps Brexit will turn out to be okay. I mean, I don't think it will, but the future is uncertain. Trying to make it work is a sensible course for now.
It’s more likely that the next administration will recognise reality & move towards a closer alignment with the EU. Maybe not full EEA because that requires freedom of movement, but probably joining the customs union in order to get free trade with the EU.
The customs union only choice is the worst one and I'm surprised it keeps getting brought up as a viable suggestion. We'd have zero say about our trade policy to any other country and we'd merely be dragged along with whatever the EU wanted purely to make Dover a tiny bit simpler. It still would mean a hard border too for immigration purposes so you wouldn't remove queues.
I'd support EFTA (not EEA) because at least then we can still look outwards for other trade deals, but I still think this is 10 years in the future. The political appetite to properly reopen this is not there from either of the main two parties and it's pointless discussing it now as we might be in a different position even 2 years down the line.
We have free trade, but we don't have frictionless trade.
I'm well aware. The customs union option also wouldn't deliver frictionless trade in the way you might expect but would come with a lot of disadvantages including the possibility of having to give up many of the trade deals we've just signed or negotiated.
Turkey is the closest example of what it might look like and it provides nothing for services.
We haven't signed any trade deals though. OK, we signed one with AuzNZ which is so absurd that even the new PM has attacked how one sided against us it is.
The simple reality is that we remain aligned with the EU and that is where we will stay because the alternatives are too costly and too difficult to implement. We can't even add our own standards mark.
As I have repeated many times before the problem is not with what trade deals we could sign but what trade deals the EU might sign. If we were in a customs union with the EU and they signed a trade deal with the US then the US would have customs free access to the UK but we would not have reciprocal rights with the US.
You could kiss goodbye to our long standing balance of trade surplus with the US or any other country in the world that the EU had a trade deal with.
Which why I advocate EFTA/EEA as well as the CU. Most of the "trade deals" that idiot Truss signed simply took the existing EU deal and made it also bilaterally apply to the UK. So reversing that would hardly be difficult.
We are incapable of implementing our own customs deal with the EU. We are incapable of implementing our own new standards insignia regime. We are incapable of negotiating a new deal that isn't massively one-sided. This is just reality as stated by Tory ministers. At which point do we accept what these facts mean and get back into free trade?
EFTA EEA won't help us if we are stupid enough to join an EU customs union. The same will apply. Any country with an FTA will be able to export to the UK tariff free whilst the UK will not be able to export to them under the same conditions. That applies whether we are in or out of the Single Market. It is the reason all the other EFTA members choose not yo join a customs union.
Lewis Goodall: Fmr Environment Sec George Eustice has spoken about the post-Brexit UK/Australia trade deal in the Commons. He says now no longer a minister: "I no longer have to put such a positive gloss on what was agreed...the Australia deal is not actually a very good trade deal for the UK."
If we're now questioning whether free trade is always and everywhere a good thing, then maybe we should revisit the EU agreement, not to make it more open, but to make it more restricted in areas where it is in our national interest.
You need to understand your erstwhile fellow travellers.
Trade with Europe good. Trade with Australia bad.
Barriers with Europe bad. Barriers with Australia good.
Four legs good, two legs better! All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.
Invert that and we have you. But in any case, for our trading account, Australia is of marginal interest compared to Europe.
No, invert that and you don't have me.
I very much want and desire a free trade agreement with both Europe AND Australia.
We have both now. Cake and eat it. 😋
Something doesn't feel quite right here. How can a person who was licking their chops at the prospect of a No Deal "WTO" Brexit - right up until the last minute when the cup was dashed from the lips - also be a person strongly in favour of free trade with Europe?
I never once licked my chops at the prospect of a No Deal Brexit.
I said consistently that I wanted a trade deal, but that we should be prepared to walk away if we can't get a free trade only agreement that leaves us bound to their laws.
Good Deal (Free Trade) > No Deal > Bad Deal (Alignment).
We got the deal I wanted. May's deal, including alignment, was worse than No Deal.
Oh do stop this. You were gagging (!) for it. Couldn't wait to show those EUs how tough we were. Show we didn't need them. If it wouldn't be the dreaded "doxing" I'd copy over some choice posts from you at the time - do it right now - to show without a shadow of a doubt that I speak the truth here.
You're talking rubbish. I always said I'd prefer a good deal, even if we should be prepared to walk away if that's not available. Free trade good, legal alignment bad. That was my view, so long as we determine our own laws, the freer the trade the better.
If you want to quote something I've said in the past, feel free. So long as you don't include my name, I'm OK with it. I don't deny my posting history I only want my privacy respected not to have my real life name used. Feel free to copy and paste changing my old username for my new one.
Copy and paste but change the name? I have no clue how to do that. Maybe we just do the gist of one that stuck in my mind very vividly:
"Yeah let's No Deal! They'll soon be crawling back and begging for one. They need us and but we don't need them. Have you seen our balance with the Krau ... with Germany. Ha ha ha. Bastards. Screw em, that's what I say."
Ok, not word for word, but that's a 'substance over form' quote from one of them and there were several in that vein.
That's a bullocks from your own head imagination. Which is why you can't quote anything.
No wonder you're irritable if the voices in your head are saying that, because I sure didn't.
1. Yes, including pension pots. Why not? 2. Illiquid assets - allow the option of a charge against the asset (an approach already used for social care costs). The charge can be collect when the asset is disposed of.
1. We're desperately trying to encourage people to save more into their pensions. Breaking the promise that they would grow tax-free would be disastrous in that respect, as well as exacerbating the problem of inadequate pensions for currently working people (it would be mainly a tax on them, not on the oldies). As I said you've also got the problem of defined-benefit schemes. Who is going to pay your tax on the value of those?
2. Massive, massive bureaucracy. Also a very good way of losing elections! Probably the very best way.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
How about everyone with more than £10m has to get together in a "papal conclave" and they're not allowed out till they've agreed how *they* can pay off that £2.3tn within 12 months.
1. Yes, including pension pots. Why not? 2. Illiquid assets - allow the option of a charge against the asset (an approach already used for social care costs). The charge can be collect when the asset is disposed of.
1. We're desperately trying to encourage people to save more into their pensions. Breaking the promise that they would grow tax-free would be disastrous in that respect, as well as exacerbating the problem of inadequate pensions for currently working people (it would be mainly a tax on them, not on the oldies). As I said you've also got the problem of defined-benefit schemes. Who is going to pay your tax on the value of those?
2. Massive, massive bureaucracy. Also a very good way of losing elections! Probably the very best way.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
How about everyone with more than £10m has to get together in a "papal conclave" and they're not allowed out till they've agreed how *they* can pay off that £2.3tn within 12 months.
I read that at first as a PayPal conclave which is perhaps appropriate.
I think that may just be a statistical blip that can disappear with more polls. For example, the line from Techne would be straight up and now in thirties, I’m predicting next Saturday’s Opinium to be 31+. We haven’t had a Kantor for a while.
Your worm that turned can be gone next time you look. A case of Ephemeral Worms.
Have we returned to analysing hypothetical polls published at some vaguely defined point in the future?
Well. To be bluff. Yes.
You see different polls whose methodologies favour different results report at different times, maybe not even spaced but in clusters. People polling for example had a reform at 8 and others at six from their method, therefore a con of 21 last week, even though it sits away from the polling average or herding they are not remotely outliers for the firm, it’s what people polling been doing since they appeared, so it’s not an outlier because it’s in sequence to their method. Similarly Kantor, Techne and Opinium tend to produce higher Con share and they feed into this graph too - so where you have a statistical blip at the moment, next Techne 30 or 29, Opinium 31+ and a Kantor in 30s will make the blip vanish forever - the more recent ticks on the graph can be ephemeral.
We've had four polls in a row where that company's swing towards the Tories has slowed virtually to a halt, or started reversing. That might be a short term trend, but it's still a real trend, rather than a reporting quirk.
I understand your point about Opinium giving a higher Tory figure, but even their last two polls showed movement back towards Labour.
It’s a mixed picture right now, still to early to say the new leader bounce has peaked and gone into reverse - and rather shockingly didn’t really get anywhere in the first place.
It is beginning to look like that though. 😕
Definitely too early - but I don't see where it's mixed. If we had a selection of polls showing the lead coming solidly down, then that would be mixed, but they pretty much all seem to be slowing/reversing.
It's also a reasonable bounce - not many leaders start from 30%+ down, so it was always going to take time. He was always up against it, and I can't imagine people will be on a budget that raises tax and cuts spending.
I suspect they're looking to hang on till hopefully Ukraine win, and we see fuel prices and inflation fall, and they will claim it as a win for "grown-up politics" or some other nonsense.
It’s mixed because I’m not looking at gap between parties - if Starmgasm belches back to libdems 6% it stole the lead drops even if Tories rise not one iota. I am looking at the Tory share for their recovery, and the last three Techne each show an increase as one example of how it’s mixed, and the down tick does not tell us it’s mixed because of things like people polling con 21 and low yougov that didn’t move built in.
Isn't the Tory share doing exactly the same?
It was going up with when Rishi took over with just about every polling company.
Now it's going down, static, or the rise has slowed almost to a halt with every poll from the last week and that's from half a dozen different pollsters. People polling was down to 14pts before Rishi, so 14-20 was a jump, while 20-21-21 is a stalling. Techne has shown a 4pt jump, then a 3pt jump, and now a 1pt jump. That's technically three increases in a row, but it's also a clear slow down that every other polling company has reflected recently.
But a slow down is not a stop. Speed is not of the essence here, just direction of travel.
It’s still a mixed picture on polling, a good 7 days for Tory share and todays little kink in graph vanishes. you seem to be edging toward admitting it.
Have I missed something? I thought you were suggesting that the Rishi bounce was continuing, when we've had six polls in the last week or so, which all show it stalling.
We've gone from a steady increase, reflected across all the polls, to a week where the Tory vote change for each polling company is -2, -2, -1, +1, 0, 0. That's not mixed, that's pretty consistently showing that, for now, the Tory share is no longer going up.
It may go up again if they have a good week, but that doesn't make this week disappear.
I understand what you are trying to say, but this is where you are wrong.
The way you apply your sequence to your paragraph implies they are all apples of the same variety, but each one is of a different variety, any moment we can have a Kantor variety, Opinium variety. YouGov tend to be random could show +4 next regardless of anything else.
I think I am trying to take a longer bigger picture than you are. I think I am trying to be careful not to draw conclusions a honeymoon is over too soon as next set of polls could make mockery of that - yes it can make the kink in todays graph disappear into a smooth upward one. Over generous to the Tories my approach maybe right now, but only on basis of trying to be right and fair.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
My approach is:
1. Stop looking for easy hits. There aren't any. If there were, they'd have been taken already,
2. Concentrate first on the obvious anomalies and the ludicrously high marginal rates of tax which are current system includes at various arbitrary points in the income scale.
3. Spread the tax bases, which fewer exceptions.
In terms of practical measures:
a) The most glaring anomaly of all is that well-off people like me who are past retirement age don't pay NI on PAYE income. If I'm going to pay a big extra chunk of tax (and I accept I should), that would be a chunk which is entirely fair.
b) Smooth out the tax bands. Abolish the ludicrously high rate at £100K to £120K. That just distorts behaviour and therefore loses tax revenue. Instead extend the 45% band down to £100K, Ideally, as a longer term measure, go for a smoothly increasing marginal rate on tax with no cliff-edges or bands at all (except the tax-free band at the low end), so, that at (say) £20K you'd pay 1% on all your income, on £30K 5%, at £40K 15%, rising to (say) 40% on all your income (not marginal income) at the high end. The figures are for illustration only, I haven't looked at what the actual figures should be to be broadly neutral, but the important thing is that the gradation should be smooth so as not to disincentive people from taxable economic activity. You can then adjust the shape of the curve to get your target income-tax take.
c) NI is an abomination, but we are stuck with it for political reasons, But we should change the balance so that PAYE is not so unfairly penalised - non-PAYE income should be taxed at rate closer to PAYE income (that would also reduce the need for IR35, itself a damaging distortion).
d) There is indeed scope for more property taxes. We really do need to update the absurdly out-of-date council tax bands, and in doing that we should add more bands at the high end (or maybe a sliding scale).
There's more, obviously, but I need to go out now. But basically a few billion here, a few billion there. Pluck the goose gently all over, don't try to grab a big handful of feathers in one go.
Lewis Goodall: Fmr Environment Sec George Eustice has spoken about the post-Brexit UK/Australia trade deal in the Commons. He says now no longer a minister: "I no longer have to put such a positive gloss on what was agreed...the Australia deal is not actually a very good trade deal for the UK."
If we're now questioning whether free trade is always and everywhere a good thing, then maybe we should revisit the EU agreement, not to make it more open, but to make it more restricted in areas where it is in our national interest.
You need to understand your erstwhile fellow travellers.
Trade with Europe good. Trade with Australia bad.
Barriers with Europe bad. Barriers with Australia good.
Four legs good, two legs better! All Animals Are Equal. But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.
Invert that and we have you. But in any case, for our trading account, Australia is of marginal interest compared to Europe.
No, invert that and you don't have me.
I very much want and desire a free trade agreement with both Europe AND Australia.
We have both now. Cake and eat it. 😋
Something doesn't feel quite right here. How can a person who was licking their chops at the prospect of a No Deal "WTO" Brexit - right up until the last minute when the cup was dashed from the lips - also be a person strongly in favour of free trade with Europe?
I never once licked my chops at the prospect of a No Deal Brexit.
I said consistently that I wanted a trade deal, but that we should be prepared to walk away if we can't get a free trade only agreement that leaves us bound to their laws.
Good Deal (Free Trade) > No Deal > Bad Deal (Alignment).
We got the deal I wanted. May's deal, including alignment, was worse than No Deal.
Oh do stop this. You were gagging (!) for it. Couldn't wait to show those EUs how tough we were. Show we didn't need them. If it wouldn't be the dreaded "doxing" I'd copy over some choice posts from you at the time - do it right now - to show without a shadow of a doubt that I speak the truth here.
You're talking rubbish. I always said I'd prefer a good deal, even if we should be prepared to walk away if that's not available. Free trade good, legal alignment bad. That was my view, so long as we determine our own laws, the freer the trade the better.
If you want to quote something I've said in the past, feel free. So long as you don't include my name, I'm OK with it. I don't deny my posting history I only want my privacy respected not to have my real life name used. Feel free to copy and paste changing my old username for my new one.
Copy and paste but change the name? I have no clue how to do that. Maybe we just do the gist of one that stuck in my mind very vividly:
"Yeah let's No Deal! They'll soon be crawling back and begging for one. They need us and but we don't need them. Have you seen our balance with the Krau ... with Germany. Ha ha ha. Bastards. Screw em, that's what I say."
Ok, not word for word, but that's a 'substance over form' quote from one of them and there were several in that vein.
That's a bullocks from your own head imagination. Which is why you can't quote anything.
No wonder you're irritable if the voices in your head are saying that, because I sure didn't.
I'm not irritable, I'm irritating. But I'm right about you on this.
In many peoples' minds, the Thatcherite governments of the early 80s cut taxes and that reduction in taxes led to economic growth and they therefore paid for themselves.
That is not what her government did. In fact, that is the very opposite of Thatcherism. That's Keynesianism - i.e. injecting demand into the economy via reduces taxes (albeit the Keynesians usually increased spending too).
The first thing that the Thatcher/Howe government did was to raise taxes to close the budget deficit. They did this by freezing personal allowances which significantly increased tax take. They also removed the prevailing double lock on pensions, and allowed them to just move up with inflation (rather than previously, the higher of inflation and wages.)
Raising taxes and cutting spending was considered madness. 364 economists wrote to the Times decrying its foolishness.
But it worked, and it worked because the core economic tenet of Thatcherism was that if you balanced your budget, you would have less inflation and lower interest rates, and therefore one would be able to cut taxes. Lower taxes were the consequence of holding spending down, and not frittering away money on interest payments.
I therefore find it extraordinary that some people think that the Truss government was enacting Thatcherite policies. On the contrary, it was the very opposite of Thatcherite. It wanted a return to the 60s and 70s where governments spent more and taxed less to stimulate the economy and hope it grew faster than the budget deficits. It resulted in persistently high inflation and economic growth that lagged peers.
"Thousands of older Londoners have called on Sadiq Khan to reinstate their free travel during the morning rush hour.
The benefit – which is given to about 1.3m people over 60 – was suspended soon after the start of the pandemic in June 2020 for weekday journeys before 9am, primarily to ensure public transport was kept free for key workers.
But the mayor is due to decide by the end of the year whether to retain the restriction on a permanent basis, which would generate about £15m to £18m in fares for cash-strapped Transport for London.
The charity Age UK London presented a petition signed by more than 10,000 people, demanding the reinstatement of the benefit, to City Hall on Tuesday afternoon."
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
Good grief Redwood is living in a parallel fantasy universe of his own design. His proposal is basically 'repeat the Liz Truss budget'.
Well, he is at least proposing it be prepared for properly, which shows better understanding than Truss and Kwarteng, who seem to have assumed announcing things without anything to back it up, and no answer for very obvious queries was the way to go.
But he already knows they Hunt and Sunak are not going that route.
It's going to be a horror show. I really don't think people are mentally prepared for more taxes, even as they also oppose more austerity. They could do everything right, be sensible and competent, and it will still be unpopular with both those who liked Truss's budget, and the public who want 'sensible' but are not ready for any tough decisions.
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
Good grief Redwood is living in a parallel fantasy universe of his own design. His proposal is basically 'repeat the Liz Truss budget'.
Well, he is at least proposing it be prepared for properly, which shows better understanding than Truss and Kwarteng, who seem to have assumed announcing things without anything to back it up, and no answer for very obvious queries was the way to go.
But he already knows they Hunt and Sunak are not going that route.
It's going to be a horror show. I really don't think people are mentally prepared for more taxes, even as they also oppose more austerity. They could do everything right, be sensible and competent, and it will still be unpopular with both those who liked Truss's budget, and the public who want 'sensible' but are not ready for any tough decisions.
It's going to be a horror show because stupid Tory politicians have tried to tell people they could get something for nothing - scarcely a traditional Tory message!
Don't expect anyone to have sympathy for the Tories when they experience the backlash.
In many peoples' minds, the Thatcherite governments of the early 80s cut taxes and that reduction in taxes led to economic growth and they therefore paid for themselves.
That is not what her government did. In fact, that is the very opposite of Thatcherism. That's Keynesianism - i.e. injecting demand into the economy via reduces taxes (albeit the Keynesians usually increased spending too).
The first thing that the Thatcher/Howe government did was to raise taxes to close the budget deficit. They did this by freezing personal allowances which significantly increased tax take. They also removed the prevailing double lock on pensions, and allowed them to just move up with inflation (rather than previously, the higher of inflation and wages.)
Raising taxes and cutting spending was considered madness. 364 economists wrote to the Times decrying its foolishness.
But it worked, and it worked because the core economic tenet of Thatcherism was that if you balanced your budget, you would have less inflation and lower interest rates, and therefore one would be able to cut taxes. Lower taxes were the consequence of holding spending down, and not frittering away money on interest payments.
I therefore find it extraordinary that some people think that the Truss government was enacting Thatcherite policies. On the contrary, it was the very opposite of Thatcherite. It wanted a return to the 60s and 70s where governments spent more and taxed less to stimulate the economy and hope it grew faster than the budget deficits. It resulted in persistently high inflation and economic growth that lagged peers.
That doesn't sound right to me. I'm pretty sure the only things Thatcher ever did in her time in office was to cut taxes and say she was not for turning. Also something something whatever someone on the right wants to support right now.
"Thousands of older Londoners have called on Sadiq Khan to reinstate their free travel during the morning rush hour.
The benefit – which is given to about 1.3m people over 60 – was suspended soon after the start of the pandemic in June 2020 for weekday journeys before 9am, primarily to ensure public transport was kept free for key workers.
But the mayor is due to decide by the end of the year whether to retain the restriction on a permanent basis, which would generate about £15m to £18m in fares for cash-strapped Transport for London.
The charity Age UK London presented a petition signed by more than 10,000 people, demanding the reinstatement of the benefit, to City Hall on Tuesday afternoon."
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust. The hubris of it!
"Thousands of older Londoners have called on Sadiq Khan to reinstate their free travel during the morning rush hour.
The benefit – which is given to about 1.3m people over 60 – was suspended soon after the start of the pandemic in June 2020 for weekday journeys before 9am, primarily to ensure public transport was kept free for key workers.
But the mayor is due to decide by the end of the year whether to retain the restriction on a permanent basis, which would generate about £15m to £18m in fares for cash-strapped Transport for London.
The charity Age UK London presented a petition signed by more than 10,000 people, demanding the reinstatement of the benefit, to City Hall on Tuesday afternoon."
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
There is no need for austerity, the £60bn could be raised through taxes on the wealthy.
Austerity for the Rich has to at least be in the mix surely. They can't pull the same stunt as last time.
Depends on your definition of austerity I guess.
What would you envisage as austerity for the rich'? Sounds like tax rises by another name to me.
Is what I mean, yes. I also agree with you about a Wealth Tax. That has to happen fairly soon imo. Probably under Labour. Maybe ease it in rather than big bang.
It seems to me a straight wealth tax is not feasible. No-one has yet been able to organise a workable inheritance tax that raises big money. Driving wealth overseas is not a great idea.
The area to look at is property and land. This has these great merits; you can't hide it, you can't take it abroad and much of it is massively undertaxed in relation to both value and CG, (especially in the south, as I live in the north, which of course should be exempt.)
Naturally all such taxes should start at a place a fair bit above the assets of whoever is speaking at the time.
To me a Wealth Tax is levying a (small %) charge on Wealth each year rather than only on death. The latter being specifically an Inheritance Tax - which we already have. So then the big question is what Wealth. And I agree that property must feature.
As for that last rather familiar sentiment, I'm going to have to nominate for the @Anabobazina list.
I agree that annual taxes are better than one off ones.
If it were up to me as a starting point I'd have something like:
0.25% land tax+ per month for all Property with an 80% discount if that Property is the owners primary residence.
100% surcharge for residential property owned by anyone non domiciled for taxation.
Potentially a separate rate for agriculture and commercial.
No exceptions or ways to evade the tax. Council Tax, Stamp Duty etc abolished.
What would be the point in rich donors making friends with politicians if we eliminated those?
Apologies, I'm being cynical again, I'm sure all the perfectly legal ways rich people have the time and money to utilise to avoid paying are all super necessary.
The Autumn Statement will be one of the most crucial budgets ever delivered. Rishi and Jeremy have in their hands the opportunity to rescue the Uk economy from poor performance and recession if they wish, or they can accept the depressing official advice and double down with austerity. Tax rises and the wrong spending cuts now will turn a downturn into a nasty and long recession. This will lead to job losses, struggling businesses and a bigger state deficit.
Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out. This is important for the whole country, and for MPs’ constituents. It is also important for the Conservative party whose reputation for economic competence hinges on it.
Over the last fifty years we have seen Labour lose badly on two occasions and Conservatives lose twice, once badly, thanks to presiding over recessions
Edward Heath presided over the 1973-4 recession. His 1970-2 policies of competition and credit control were inflationary leading to a borrowing binge . The inflation was worsened by the energy crisis when OPEC hiked the oil price. He tightened too much in response and lost the 1974 election.
Harold Wilson lost control of the economy in 1974-5, created a recession and left office. Labour lost the next election under his successor.
John Major on official advice put us into the Exchange rate Mechanism. As I warned it took us through a very predictable violent boom/bust cycle with a five quarter recession. This led to a huge defeat in 1997 which took the Conservatives 13 years to recover from.
Gordon Brown created his own disaster, leading and encouraging the wrong official advice. He put us through a banking and credit boom, only to collapse it too fast through severe policy. The five quarter recession took the economy down by more than 6% . Labour have still not won an election in the 12 years that followed, with their reputation for economics in tatters.
So he thinks we can abolish boom and bust.
So you support an Austerity budget this week, on grounds there’s a sixty billion black hole to fill?
There is no need for austerity, the £60bn could be raised through taxes on the wealthy.
Austerity for the Rich has to at least be in the mix surely. They can't pull the same stunt as last time.
Depends on your definition of austerity I guess.
What would you envisage as austerity for the rich'? Sounds like tax rises by another name to me.
Is what I mean, yes. I also agree with you about a Wealth Tax. That has to happen fairly soon imo. Probably under Labour. Maybe ease it in rather than big bang.
It seems to me a straight wealth tax is not feasible. No-one has yet been able to organise a workable inheritance tax that raises big money. Driving wealth overseas is not a great idea.
The area to look at is property and land. This has these great merits; you can't hide it, you can't take it abroad and much of it is massively undertaxed in relation to both value and CG, (especially in the south, as I live in the north, which of course should be exempt.)
Naturally all such taxes should start at a place a fair bit above the assets of whoever is speaking at the time.
To me a Wealth Tax is levying a (small %) charge on Wealth each year rather than only on death. The latter being specifically an Inheritance Tax - which we already have. So then the big question is what Wealth. And I agree that property must feature.
As for that last rather familiar sentiment, I'm going to have to nominate for the @Anabobazina list.
I agree that annual taxes are better than one off ones.
If it were up to me as a starting point I'd have something like:
0.25% land tax+ per month for all Property with an 80% discount if that Property is the owners primary residence.
100% surcharge for residential property owned by anyone non domiciled for taxation.
Potentially a separate rate for agriculture and commercial.
No exceptions or ways to evade the tax. Council Tax, Stamp Duty etc abolished.
Better in theory, in practice it's expensive to value assets regularly and most governments try to avoid that. Also, unlike labour, taxes on assets directly reduce asset values, because the value of an asset is the present value of its future net income.
For example, a 3% land tax on rental residential property would vapourise the net income of the typical rental property and its value as a rental asset, but because you can sell houses to homebuyers it would lead to the dissolution of the rental sector. Good for kids of asset-rich homeowners, bad for those who rely on future income to live somewhere, or anyone who wants to move around, get divorced, etc.
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
I think that may just be a statistical blip that can disappear with more polls. For example, the line from Techne would be straight up and now in thirties, I’m predicting next Saturday’s Opinium to be 31+. We haven’t had a Kantor for a while.
Your worm that turned can be gone next time you look. A case of Ephemeral Worms.
Have we returned to analysing hypothetical polls published at some vaguely defined point in the future?
Well. To be bluff. Yes.
You see different polls whose methodologies favour different results report at different times, maybe not even spaced but in clusters. People polling for example had a reform at 8 and others at six from their method, therefore a con of 21 last week, even though it sits away from the polling average or herding they are not remotely outliers for the firm, it’s what people polling been doing since they appeared, so it’s not an outlier because it’s in sequence to their method. Similarly Kantor, Techne and Opinium tend to produce higher Con share and they feed into this graph too - so where you have a statistical blip at the moment, next Techne 30 or 29, Opinium 31+ and a Kantor in 30s will make the blip vanish forever - the more recent ticks on the graph can be ephemeral.
We've had four polls in a row where that company's swing towards the Tories has slowed virtually to a halt, or started reversing. That might be a short term trend, but it's still a real trend, rather than a reporting quirk.
I understand your point about Opinium giving a higher Tory figure, but even their last two polls showed movement back towards Labour.
It’s a mixed picture right now, still to early to say the new leader bounce has peaked and gone into reverse - and rather shockingly didn’t really get anywhere in the first place.
It is beginning to look like that though. 😕
Definitely too early - but I don't see where it's mixed. If we had a selection of polls showing the lead coming solidly down, then that would be mixed, but they pretty much all seem to be slowing/reversing.
It's also a reasonable bounce - not many leaders start from 30%+ down, so it was always going to take time. He was always up against it, and I can't imagine people will be on a budget that raises tax and cuts spending.
I suspect they're looking to hang on till hopefully Ukraine win, and we see fuel prices and inflation fall, and they will claim it as a win for "grown-up politics" or some other nonsense.
It’s mixed because I’m not looking at gap between parties - if Starmgasm belches back to libdems 6% it stole the lead drops even if Tories rise not one iota. I am looking at the Tory share for their recovery, and the last three Techne each show an increase as one example of how it’s mixed, and the down tick does not tell us it’s mixed because of things like people polling con 21 and low yougov that didn’t move built in.
Isn't the Tory share doing exactly the same?
It was going up with when Rishi took over with just about every polling company.
Now it's going down, static, or the rise has slowed almost to a halt with every poll from the last week and that's from half a dozen different pollsters. People polling was down to 14pts before Rishi, so 14-20 was a jump, while 20-21-21 is a stalling. Techne has shown a 4pt jump, then a 3pt jump, and now a 1pt jump. That's technically three increases in a row, but it's also a clear slow down that every other polling company has reflected recently.
But a slow down is not a stop. Speed is not of the essence here, just direction of travel.
It’s still a mixed picture on polling, a good 7 days for Tory share and todays little kink in graph vanishes. you seem to be edging toward admitting it.
Have I missed something? I thought you were suggesting that the Rishi bounce was continuing, when we've had six polls in the last week or so, which all show it stalling.
We've gone from a steady increase, reflected across all the polls, to a week where the Tory vote change for each polling company is -2, -2, -1, +1, 0, 0. That's not mixed, that's pretty consistently showing that, for now, the Tory share is no longer going up.
It may go up again if they have a good week, but that doesn't make this week disappear.
I understand what you are trying to say, but this is where you are wrong.
The way you apply your sequence to your paragraph implies they are all apples of the same variety, but each one is of a different variety, any moment we can have a Kantor variety, Opinium variety. YouGov tend to be random could show +4 next regardless of anything else.
I think I am trying to take a longer bigger picture than you are. I think I am trying to be careful not to draw conclusions a honeymoon is over too soon as next set of polls could make mockery of that - yes it can make the kink in todays graph disappear into a smooth upward one. Over generous to the Tories my approach maybe right now, but only on basis of trying to be right and fair.
Opinium were included in that list. YouGov went from 19% before Rishi, to 23 then 24. They're the only polling company, apart from the 6 I mentioned, that I can see that have polled regularly through Truss/Rishi, who haven't polled in the last week or so, but I guess you could stick them in the same box of apples as they had a 4% honeymoon bounce, followed by a 1% change. There aren't lots of other polling companies that have polled throughout that we can identify any short term trends from.
If six polling companies all pretty much follow the same pattern, then it's a real thing, not a statistical quirk. It's also not going to make that bend into a smooth curve no matter what happens.
You can argue that Rishi might do something to restart his recovery - but it will still have stalled in the last week.
In many peoples' minds, the Thatcherite governments of the early 80s cut taxes and that reduction in taxes led to economic growth and they therefore paid for themselves.
That is not what her government did. In fact, that is the very opposite of Thatcherism. That's Keynesianism - i.e. injecting demand into the economy via reduces taxes (albeit the Keynesians usually increased spending too).
The first thing that the Thatcher/Howe government did was to raise taxes to close the budget deficit. They did this by freezing personal allowances which significantly increased tax take. They also removed the prevailing double lock on pensions, and allowed them to just move up with inflation (rather than previously, the higher of inflation and wages.)
Raising taxes and cutting spending was considered madness. 364 economists wrote to the Times decrying its foolishness.
But it worked, and it worked because the core economic tenet of Thatcherism was that if you balanced your budget, you would have less inflation and lower interest rates, and therefore one would be able to cut taxes. Lower taxes were the consequence of holding spending down, and not frittering away money on interest payments.
I therefore find it extraordinary that some people think that the Truss government was enacting Thatcherite policies. On the contrary, it was the very opposite of Thatcherite. It wanted a return to the 60s and 70s where governments spent more and taxed less to stimulate the economy and hope it grew faster than the budget deficits. It resulted in persistently high inflation and economic growth that lagged peers.
That doesn't sound right to me. I'm pretty sure the only things Thatcher ever did in her time in office was to cut taxes and say she was not for turning. Also something something whatever someone on the right wants to support right now.
And win back the Falklands and tell Gorbachev that "she could do business" with him.
1. Yes, including pension pots. Why not? 2. Illiquid assets - allow the option of a charge against the asset (an approach already used for social care costs). The charge can be collect when the asset is disposed of.
1. We're desperately trying to encourage people to save more into their pensions. Breaking the promise that they would grow tax-free would be disastrous in that respect, as well as exacerbating the problem of inadequate pensions for currently working people (it would be mainly a tax on them, not on the oldies). As I said you've also got the problem of defined-benefit schemes. Who is going to pay your tax on the value of those?
2. Massive, massive bureaucracy. Also a very good way of losing elections! Probably the very best way.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
The problem with taxing wealth is that if the wealth can be transferred abroad at the click of a mouse nowadays then it's not viable to tax.
The one thing that can't be transferred abroad, and should be liable for taxation for principled reasons anyway, is land.
We tax income too much, and land not enough.
Owing property and land is wealth. Taxing Proprty and Land is a wealth tax, is it not?
Council tax (is it still called that?) is exactly that - a tax on property. I have a really fabulous idea though, why not tax people instead, for the privilege of existing, calling it perhaps a Poll Tax. What could possibly......
"Their challenge should be to put forward a budget and plan for growth as Liz Truss proposed, but one with forecasts, numbers and sensible controls over spending and borrowing which in his haste Kwasi left out."
From John Redwood's stuff found at length above.. His analysis basically is:
That everything everyone has ever done is wrong, but there is a popular winning formula which avoids austerity, promotes growth, doesn't raise taxes, and balances the books
That he appears to be the only person who knows this
and
I AM NOT TELLING YOU WHAT IT IS.
Redwood writes succinct blog posts, of which this is one. He talks plenty about what he thinks the formula is across his blog; not sure why you expect the meaning of the universe to be imparted in a single quoted passage on PB.
Give us a clue.
Redwood wants to reduce inessential/wasteful public spending, favours judicious tax reductions, wants to encourage far greater domestic supply of energy and food to displace imports, and wants to halt the BOE's bond selloff.
None of those are particularly earth-shattering, most are in the category of 'the bleedin' obvious' but they are also not happening at the moment.
Sweden just went to COP27 and said they'd need to increase emissions by 10%. That's an honest, capable Government, willing to stand up for its national interest. Sunak doesn't have the nuts to defend our economy that way (Liz would have). He's not a serious PM.
FFS every politician who says they plan to reduce spending by cutting 'inessential/wasteful public spending' should be disbarred from standing ever again. IT NEVER HAPPENS!
Not just politicians. People love to believe there is always a ton of very easy things to trim.
Efficiencies can be found. But it is not a serious answer to all our problems, as they are never at the scale pretended. If they were, they'd have been addressed by now!
"Thousands of older Londoners have called on Sadiq Khan to reinstate their free travel during the morning rush hour.
The benefit – which is given to about 1.3m people over 60 – was suspended soon after the start of the pandemic in June 2020 for weekday journeys before 9am, primarily to ensure public transport was kept free for key workers.
But the mayor is due to decide by the end of the year whether to retain the restriction on a permanent basis, which would generate about £15m to £18m in fares for cash-strapped Transport for London.
The charity Age UK London presented a petition signed by more than 10,000 people, demanding the reinstatement of the benefit, to City Hall on Tuesday afternoon."
I don’t see why someone in their early 60s, who is still in work, should get subsidised travel.
Who said anything about "still in work"? The post you were replying to indicates those not in work were penalised for the benefit of those in work.
The benefit the petitioners want reinstated is for anyone over 60. There’s a lot of people over 60, with a wide range of different circumstances. I think some people over 60 — those in their early 60s, who are usually still in work — do not warrant this gift.
1. Yes, including pension pots. Why not? 2. Illiquid assets - allow the option of a charge against the asset (an approach already used for social care costs). The charge can be collect when the asset is disposed of.
1. We're desperately trying to encourage people to save more into their pensions. Breaking the promise that they would grow tax-free would be disastrous in that respect, as well as exacerbating the problem of inadequate pensions for currently working people (it would be mainly a tax on them, not on the oldies). As I said you've also got the problem of defined-benefit schemes. Who is going to pay your tax on the value of those?
2. Massive, massive bureaucracy. Also a very good way of losing elections! Probably the very best way.
Here's the thing: The nation has a structural debt issue. But it turns out that the nation has quite a lot of wealth too.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
The problem with taxing wealth is that if the wealth can be transferred abroad at the click of a mouse nowadays then it's not viable to tax.
The one thing that can't be transferred abroad, and should be liable for taxation for principled reasons anyway, is land.
We tax income too much, and land not enough.
Owing property and land is wealth. Taxing Proprty and Land is a wealth tax, is it not?
Council tax (is it still called that?) is exactly that - a tax on property. I have a really fabulous idea though, why not tax people instead, for the privilege of existing, calling it perhaps a Poll Tax. What could possibly......
No its not, is a tax paid by residents in the Council, not the owners of the property.
"Thousands of older Londoners have called on Sadiq Khan to reinstate their free travel during the morning rush hour.
The benefit – which is given to about 1.3m people over 60 – was suspended soon after the start of the pandemic in June 2020 for weekday journeys before 9am, primarily to ensure public transport was kept free for key workers.
But the mayor is due to decide by the end of the year whether to retain the restriction on a permanent basis, which would generate about £15m to £18m in fares for cash-strapped Transport for London.
The charity Age UK London presented a petition signed by more than 10,000 people, demanding the reinstatement of the benefit, to City Hall on Tuesday afternoon."
I don’t see why someone in their early 60s, who is still in work, should get subsidised travel.
Who said anything about "still in work"? The post you were replying to indicates those not in work were penalised for the benefit of those in work.
The benefit the petitioners want reinstated is for anyone over 60. There’s a lot of people over 60, with a wide range of different circumstances. I think some people over 60 — those in their early 60s, who are usually still in work — do not warrant this gift.
Yes, there's no need for it. If anything it's time to align it to the freedom pass. It's yet another expensive sop to older voters.
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Just a coincidence they fell on the grain dryers, obviously.
Russia was reckless as to the risk. Fire them in the general direction of Poland - and they face the consequences of those reckless actions. Would certainly speed things up if Poland treated it as an act of war.
Nope. The electorate have decided they want rid of the Tories. That means voting Labour in England and Wales and SNP in Scotland. The Lib Dems are surplus to requirements.
Lib dems are not surplus in the South of England, Often they will be the best vote to oust a Tory.
Nope.
Rest of South Lab 47% Con 32% LD 9% Grn 8% Ref 3% UKIP 2%
(Deltapoll; Fieldwork 10-14 November)
You should know better that averages obscure wide variation in individual constituencies. There is no way the labour candidate wins my seat, but the Lib Dem might.
"Thousands of older Londoners have called on Sadiq Khan to reinstate their free travel during the morning rush hour.
The benefit – which is given to about 1.3m people over 60 – was suspended soon after the start of the pandemic in June 2020 for weekday journeys before 9am, primarily to ensure public transport was kept free for key workers.
But the mayor is due to decide by the end of the year whether to retain the restriction on a permanent basis, which would generate about £15m to £18m in fares for cash-strapped Transport for London.
The charity Age UK London presented a petition signed by more than 10,000 people, demanding the reinstatement of the benefit, to City Hall on Tuesday afternoon."
In many peoples' minds, the Thatcherite governments of the early 80s cut taxes and that reduction in taxes led to economic growth and they therefore paid for themselves.
That is not what her government did. In fact, that is the very opposite of Thatcherism. That's Keynesianism - i.e. injecting demand into the economy via reduces taxes (albeit the Keynesians usually increased spending too).
The first thing that the Thatcher/Howe government did was to raise taxes to close the budget deficit. They did this by freezing personal allowances which significantly increased tax take. They also removed the prevailing double lock on pensions, and allowed them to just move up with inflation (rather than previously, the higher of inflation and wages.)
Raising taxes and cutting spending was considered madness. 364 economists wrote to the Times decrying its foolishness.
But it worked, and it worked because the core economic tenet of Thatcherism was that if you balanced your budget, you would have less inflation and lower interest rates, and therefore one would be able to cut taxes. Lower taxes were the consequence of holding spending down, and not frittering away money on interest payments.
I therefore find it extraordinary that some people think that the Truss government was enacting Thatcherite policies. On the contrary, it was the very opposite of Thatcherite. It wanted a return to the 60s and 70s where governments spent more and taxed less to stimulate the economy and hope it grew faster than the budget deficits. It resulted in persistently high inflation and economic growth that lagged peers.
That doesn't sound right to me. I'm pretty sure the only things Thatcher ever did in her time in office was to cut taxes and say she was not for turning. Also something something whatever someone on the right wants to support right now.
And win back the Falklands and tell Gorbachev that "she could do business" with him.
And sell council housing at a discount to those who had been paying rent on them for ages. That was huge.
Nope. The electorate have decided they want rid of the Tories. That means voting Labour in England and Wales and SNP in Scotland. The Lib Dems are surplus to requirements.
Lib dems are not surplus in the South of England, Often they will be the best vote to oust a Tory.
Nope.
Rest of South Lab 47% Con 32% LD 9% Grn 8% Ref 3% UKIP 2%
(Deltapoll; Fieldwork 10-14 November)
You should know better that averages obscure wide variation in individual constituencies. There is no way the labour candidate wins my seat, but the Lib Dem might.
In general I do agree, the same reason LDs came from third to win some by-elections, but it is surprising to me that the LDs have not regained second in many south west seats, including yours. So while at local level they still don't place at all, I do wonder on current polling if they might snatch a few, if not as many as the top level might suggest.
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Just a coincidence they fell on the grain dryers, obviously.
Russia was reckless as to the risk. Fire them in the general direction of Poland - and they face the consequences of those reckless actions. Would certainly speed things up if Poland treated it as an act of war.
And given Poland has convened the defence and security council ministers doesnt sound like they are gonna go 'meh, whatever'.......... Might be at war by supper, lads
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
How do you know it was an accident? You make an assumption that Poland was *not* the target - whilst it is likely the missiles went wrong, Putin's government are not exactly making sane actions atm. They might have felt a warning to NATO countries was necessary.
But even if Russia did not intend this, it is still an action and consequence of the reckless way they are pursuing their war.
I've no idea what the Polish response will be. But they must respond.
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Just a coincidence they fell on the grain dryers, obviously.
Russia was reckless as to the risk. Fire them in the general direction of Poland - and they face the consequences of those reckless actions. Would certainly speed things up if Poland treated it as an act of war.
And hicrn Polamd has convened the defence and security council ministers doesnt sound like they are gonna go 'meh, whatever'.......... Might be at war by supper, lads
If the fear of provoking a NATO country directly means at the least that Russia rein's it in a bit to be more careful (ha), that would be something, if not much.
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Bollocks to that. We should use it as a pretext to destroy every Russian plane, tank, barrel and soldier on Ukrainian sovereign territory and have done with this thing.
In many peoples' minds, the Thatcherite governments of the early 80s cut taxes and that reduction in taxes led to economic growth and they therefore paid for themselves.
That is not what her government did. In fact, that is the very opposite of Thatcherism. That's Keynesianism - i.e. injecting demand into the economy via reduces taxes (albeit the Keynesians usually increased spending too).
The first thing that the Thatcher/Howe government did was to raise taxes to close the budget deficit. They did this by freezing personal allowances which significantly increased tax take. They also removed the prevailing double lock on pensions, and allowed them to just move up with inflation (rather than previously, the higher of inflation and wages.)
Raising taxes and cutting spending was considered madness. 364 economists wrote to the Times decrying its foolishness.
But it worked, and it worked because the core economic tenet of Thatcherism was that if you balanced your budget, you would have less inflation and lower interest rates, and therefore one would be able to cut taxes. Lower taxes were the consequence of holding spending down, and not frittering away money on interest payments.
I therefore find it extraordinary that some people think that the Truss government was enacting Thatcherite policies. On the contrary, it was the very opposite of Thatcherite. It wanted a return to the 60s and 70s where governments spent more and taxed less to stimulate the economy and hope it grew faster than the budget deficits. It resulted in persistently high inflation and economic growth that lagged peers.
That doesn't sound right to me. I'm pretty sure the only things Thatcher ever did in her time in office was to cut taxes and say she was not for turning. Also something something whatever someone on the right wants to support right now.
And win back the Falklands and tell Gorbachev that "she could do business" with him.
And sell council housing at a discount to those who had been paying rent on them for ages. That was huge.
In her first budget, Thatcher cut the top rate of income tax from 83% to 60% and cut the basic rate too. When she left office IIRC the rates were at 40% and 25%.
The Sunday Times pushed the Laffer curve sh*t like hell too. Less is more!
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Bollocks to that. We should use it as a pretext to destroy every Russian plane, tank, barrel and soldier on Ukrainian sovereign territory and have done with this thing.
It might be enough to tip the balance in deploying advanced missile defence systems in Ukraine, as putting them there helps defend Poland (if Israel can be persuaded.)
In many peoples' minds, the Thatcherite governments of the early 80s cut taxes and that reduction in taxes led to economic growth and they therefore paid for themselves.
That is not what her government did. In fact, that is the very opposite of Thatcherism. That's Keynesianism - i.e. injecting demand into the economy via reduces taxes (albeit the Keynesians usually increased spending too).
The first thing that the Thatcher/Howe government did was to raise taxes to close the budget deficit. They did this by freezing personal allowances which significantly increased tax take. They also removed the prevailing double lock on pensions, and allowed them to just move up with inflation (rather than previously, the higher of inflation and wages.)
Raising taxes and cutting spending was considered madness. 364 economists wrote to the Times decrying its foolishness.
But it worked, and it worked because the core economic tenet of Thatcherism was that if you balanced your budget, you would have less inflation and lower interest rates, and therefore one would be able to cut taxes. Lower taxes were the consequence of holding spending down, and not frittering away money on interest payments.
I therefore find it extraordinary that some people think that the Truss government was enacting Thatcherite policies. On the contrary, it was the very opposite of Thatcherite. It wanted a return to the 60s and 70s where governments spent more and taxed less to stimulate the economy and hope it grew faster than the budget deficits. It resulted in persistently high inflation and economic growth that lagged peers.
Sunak has the same problem as Truss had, only more so.
He was born in 1980, and was still in primary school when la Thatch left office. He knows the Thatcher myth much more than the Thatcher reality.
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Just a coincidence they fell on the grain dryers, obviously.
Russia was reckless as to the risk. Fire them in the general direction of Poland - and they face the consequences of those reckless actions. Would certainly speed things up if Poland treated it as an act of war.
And hicrn Polamd has convened the defence and security council ministers doesnt sound like they are gonna go 'meh, whatever'.......... Might be at war by supper, lads
If the fear of provoking a NATO country directly means at the least that Russia rein's it in a bit to be more careful (ha), that would be something, if not much.
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Bollocks to that. We should use it as a pretext to destroy every Russian plane, tank, barrel and soldier on Ukrainian sovereign territory and have done with this thing.
I see - someone else wishing to start World War 3 and have me incinerated.
This is hardly the first time - we remember (or perhaps we don't) Turkish and "Syrian" planes shooting each other down - I use the inverted commas because the Syrian planes were probably Russian planes re-painted and probably flown by Russians.
No one claimed at the time it was a casus belli for a general conflict.
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Just a coincidence they fell on the grain dryers, obviously.
Russia was reckless as to the risk. Fire them in the general direction of Poland - and they face the consequences of those reckless actions. Would certainly speed things up if Poland treated it as an act of war.
I don't know what happened but if it's thought that Russia may have launched rockets that hit Poland that's obviously f***ing serious.
Speed things up? "God Save the King" playing as cricketers start a friendly match in Konigsberg before Christmas?
Nope. The electorate have decided they want rid of the Tories. That means voting Labour in England and Wales and SNP in Scotland. The Lib Dems are surplus to requirements.
Lib dems are not surplus in the South of England, Often they will be the best vote to oust a Tory.
Nope.
Rest of South Lab 47% Con 32% LD 9% Grn 8% Ref 3% UKIP 2%
(Deltapoll; Fieldwork 10-14 November)
You should know better that averages obscure wide variation in individual constituencies. There is no way the labour candidate wins my seat, but the Lib Dem might.
In general I do agree, the same reason LDs came from third to win some by-elections, but it is surprising to me that the LDs have not regained second in many south west seats, including yours. So while at local level they still don't place at all, I do wonder on current polling if they might snatch a few, if not as many as the top level might suggest.
In many peoples' minds, the Thatcherite governments of the early 80s cut taxes and that reduction in taxes led to economic growth and they therefore paid for themselves.
That is not what her government did. In fact, that is the very opposite of Thatcherism. That's Keynesianism - i.e. injecting demand into the economy via reduces taxes (albeit the Keynesians usually increased spending too).
The first thing that the Thatcher/Howe government did was to raise taxes to close the budget deficit. They did this by freezing personal allowances which significantly increased tax take. They also removed the prevailing double lock on pensions, and allowed them to just move up with inflation (rather than previously, the higher of inflation and wages.)
Raising taxes and cutting spending was considered madness. 364 economists wrote to the Times decrying its foolishness.
But it worked, and it worked because the core economic tenet of Thatcherism was that if you balanced your budget, you would have less inflation and lower interest rates, and therefore one would be able to cut taxes. Lower taxes were the consequence of holding spending down, and not frittering away money on interest payments.
I therefore find it extraordinary that some people think that the Truss government was enacting Thatcherite policies. On the contrary, it was the very opposite of Thatcherite. It wanted a return to the 60s and 70s where governments spent more and taxed less to stimulate the economy and hope it grew faster than the budget deficits. It resulted in persistently high inflation and economic growth that lagged peers.
Sunak has the same problem as Truss had, only more so.
He was born in 1980, and was still in primary school when la Thatch left office. He knows the Thatcher myth much more than the Thatcher reality.
God knows what Redwood's excuse is.
People admiring the political operators and actions of their heyday is ok. Their brains ossifying in their preferred period, through a nostalgia filter which ignores inconveniences, is not.
They need to be flexible enough to recognise when things may not work in exactly the same way in a different time.
Nope. The electorate have decided they want rid of the Tories. That means voting Labour in England and Wales and SNP in Scotland. The Lib Dems are surplus to requirements.
Lib dems are not surplus in the South of England, Often they will be the best vote to oust a Tory.
Nope.
Rest of South Lab 47% Con 32% LD 9% Grn 8% Ref 3% UKIP 2%
(Deltapoll; Fieldwork 10-14 November)
You should know better that averages obscure wide variation in individual constituencies. There is no way the labour candidate wins my seat, but the Lib Dem might.
In general I do agree, the same reason LDs came from third to win some by-elections, but it is surprising to me that the LDs have not regained second in many south west seats, including yours. So while at local level they still don't place at all, I do wonder on current polling if they might snatch a few, if not as many as the top level might suggest.
In many peoples' minds, the Thatcherite governments of the early 80s cut taxes and that reduction in taxes led to economic growth and they therefore paid for themselves.
That is not what her government did. In fact, that is the very opposite of Thatcherism. That's Keynesianism - i.e. injecting demand into the economy via reduces taxes (albeit the Keynesians usually increased spending too).
The first thing that the Thatcher/Howe government did was to raise taxes to close the budget deficit. They did this by freezing personal allowances which significantly increased tax take. They also removed the prevailing double lock on pensions, and allowed them to just move up with inflation (rather than previously, the higher of inflation and wages.)
Raising taxes and cutting spending was considered madness. 364 economists wrote to the Times decrying its foolishness.
But it worked, and it worked because the core economic tenet of Thatcherism was that if you balanced your budget, you would have less inflation and lower interest rates, and therefore one would be able to cut taxes. Lower taxes were the consequence of holding spending down, and not frittering away money on interest payments.
I therefore find it extraordinary that some people think that the Truss government was enacting Thatcherite policies. On the contrary, it was the very opposite of Thatcherite. It wanted a return to the 60s and 70s where governments spent more and taxed less to stimulate the economy and hope it grew faster than the budget deficits. It resulted in persistently high inflation and economic growth that lagged peers.
That doesn't sound right to me. I'm pretty sure the only things Thatcher ever did in her time in office was to cut taxes and say she was not for turning. Also something something whatever someone on the right wants to support right now.
And win back the Falklands and tell Gorbachev that "she could do business" with him.
And sell council housing at a discount to those who had been paying rent on them for ages. That was huge.
In her first budget, Thatcher cut the top rate of income tax from 83% to 60% and cut the basic rate too. When she left office IIRC the rates were at 40% and 25%.
The Sunday Times pushed the Laffer curve sh*t like hell too. Less is more!
Down the memory hole with it all.
83% is a stupid tax rate though, because who'd bother working to pay for it, if they could avoid it.
Of course that's why professionals in that era took their income as benefit-in-kind, company cars, expenses, memberships, personal staff and nice offices.
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Just a coincidence they fell on the grain dryers, obviously.
Russia was reckless as to the risk. Fire them in the general direction of Poland - and they face the consequences of those reckless actions. Would certainly speed things up if Poland treated it as an act of war.
I don't know what happened but if it's thought that Russia may have launched rockets that hit Poland that's obviously f***ing serious.
Speed things up? "God Save the King" playing as cricketers start a friendly match in Konigsberg before Christmas?
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Bollocks to that. We should use it as a pretext to destroy every Russian plane, tank, barrel and soldier on Ukrainian sovereign territory and have done with this thing.
You should know better that averages obscure wide variation in individual constituencies. There is no way the labour candidate wins my seat, but the Lib Dem might.
In general I do agree, the same reason LDs came from third to win some by-elections, but it is surprising to me that the LDs have not regained second in many south west seats, including yours. So while at local level they still don't place at all, I do wonder on current polling if they might snatch a few, if not as many as the top level might suggest.
The first and obvious thought is the LDs start from second in fewer constituencies than Labour so the scope of gains is limited and the party's poor position since 2015 has limited that further.
That said, the R&W Blue Wall polling continues to show a significant propensity among Labour and LD voters to vote tactically to unseat a sitting Conservative. That, if present next time, has the propensity to accentuate any Conservative defeat.
No, it’s an accident. An accident is clearly not an attack. I mean, Russia should be more careful with its rockets, and of course they shouldn’t even be shooting them at Ukraine, but, no, don’t be silly, it’s not an attack on a NATO country.
Bollocks to that. We should use it as a pretext to destroy every Russian plane, tank, barrel and soldier on Ukrainian sovereign territory and have done with this thing.
I see - someone else wishing to start World War 3 and have me incinerated.
This is hardly the first time - we remember (or perhaps we don't) Turkish and "Syrian" planes shooting each other down - I use the inverted commas because the Syrian planes were probably Russian planes re-painted and probably flown by Russians.
No one claimed at the time it was a casus belli for a general conflict.
I’ve had enough of this now. Just give Ukraine the assets it needs to finish the job and quit fucking about. Mid terms are done, give them longer range missiles, a proper shield, American planes and German tanks.
If Russia has struck Poland then Poland absolutely has the right to Invoke Article 5 of NATO.
Russia can always choose to stop striking at other countries and pull back to its own, internationally recognised borders.
They probably have the right, but I doubt even now there is NATO support to go in fully on the basis of this. But reaction is surely required in this situation, so what could it be?
"Thousands of older Londoners have called on Sadiq Khan to reinstate their free travel during the morning rush hour.
The benefit – which is given to about 1.3m people over 60 – was suspended soon after the start of the pandemic in June 2020 for weekday journeys before 9am, primarily to ensure public transport was kept free for key workers.
But the mayor is due to decide by the end of the year whether to retain the restriction on a permanent basis, which would generate about £15m to £18m in fares for cash-strapped Transport for London.
The charity Age UK London presented a petition signed by more than 10,000 people, demanding the reinstatement of the benefit, to City Hall on Tuesday afternoon."
In many peoples' minds, the Thatcherite governments of the early 80s cut taxes and that reduction in taxes led to economic growth and they therefore paid for themselves.
That is not what her government did. In fact, that is the very opposite of Thatcherism. That's Keynesianism - i.e. injecting demand into the economy via reduces taxes (albeit the Keynesians usually increased spending too).
The first thing that the Thatcher/Howe government did was to raise taxes to close the budget deficit. They did this by freezing personal allowances which significantly increased tax take. They also removed the prevailing double lock on pensions, and allowed them to just move up with inflation (rather than previously, the higher of inflation and wages.)
Raising taxes and cutting spending was considered madness. 364 economists wrote to the Times decrying its foolishness.
But it worked, and it worked because the core economic tenet of Thatcherism was that if you balanced your budget, you would have less inflation and lower interest rates, and therefore one would be able to cut taxes. Lower taxes were the consequence of holding spending down, and not frittering away money on interest payments.
I therefore find it extraordinary that some people think that the Truss government was enacting Thatcherite policies. On the contrary, it was the very opposite of Thatcherite. It wanted a return to the 60s and 70s where governments spent more and taxed less to stimulate the economy and hope it grew faster than the budget deficits. It resulted in persistently high inflation and economic growth that lagged peers.
That doesn't sound right to me. I'm pretty sure the only things Thatcher ever did in her time in office was to cut taxes and say she was not for turning. Also something something whatever someone on the right wants to support right now.
And win back the Falklands and tell Gorbachev that "she could do business" with him.
And sell council housing at a discount to those who had been paying rent on them for ages. That was huge.
In her first budget, Thatcher cut the top rate of income tax from 83% to 60% and cut the basic rate too. When she left office IIRC the rates were at 40% and 25%.
The Sunday Times pushed the Laffer curve sh*t like hell too. Less is more!
Down the memory hole with it all.
Looks like everyone can be a bit right. The 364 economists were responding to the 1981 budget, which did raise taxes, by approx £13b at todays values. The 1979 budget cut income tax levels (but did increase some other taxes).
Comments
It was going up with when Rishi took over with just about every polling company.
Now it's going down, static, or the rise has slowed almost to a halt with every poll from the last week and that's from half a dozen different pollsters. People polling was down to 14pts before Rishi, so 14-20 was a jump, while 20-21-21 is a stalling. Techne has shown a 4pt jump, then a 3pt jump, and now a 1pt jump. That's technically three increases in a row, but it's also a clear slow down that every other polling company has reflected recently.
The other differentials, Truss refused the windfall taxes, but like Thatcher and Sunak she could have done them on both energy companies and banks. And was locked in to two and a half years of bucking the energy market using Labours insanely costly suggestion for doing it, at cost of about two hundred billion. Just doing that till April costs about sixty billion. Where have we heard that figure before?
Everything in markets seemed to settle down the second they said only doing that energy scheme till April, saving about £150bn. Strange that.
Bitterly disappointed to see SNP and Green MSPs vote down all of my amendments to GRR bill today.
These would have protected women and girls by making it harder for rapists and other criminals to exploit Sturgeon’s dangerous self-ID law.
#GRRBill
https://twitter.com/RussellFindlay1/status/1592547565895307266
If you want to quote something I've said in the past, feel free. So long as you don't include my name, I'm OK with it. I don't deny my posting history I only want my privacy respected not to have my real life name used. Feel free to copy and paste changing my old username for my new one.
The area to look at is property and land. This has these great merits; you can't hide it, you can't take it abroad and much of it is massively undertaxed in relation to both value and CG, (especially in the south, as I live in the north, which of course should be exempt.)
Naturally all such taxes should start at a place a fair bit above the assets of whoever is speaking at the time.
https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1592569963365154817
*Walter Bloomberg
@DeItaone
SPACEX SAID IN TALKS TO RAISE CAPITAL ABOVE $150 BILLION VALUE
It’s still a mixed picture on polling, a good 7 days for Tory share and todays little kink in graph vanishes. you seem to be edging toward admitting it.
"Ordure! Ordure!"
Our free trade with Australia ought to be at least as free as our trade with Europe. So where is this too much that was given down under but not to the 31 EU+EEA nations of Europe we have a trade agreement with?
But then too many value bets we can’t hedge them all, it should to be like the Grand National, just punt for one or two and see how far they can go for the reasons you expect?
Fourfourtwo which is a dedicated football magazine has Brazil beating Germany in the final.
None of those are particularly earth-shattering, most are in the category of 'the bleedin' obvious' but they are also not happening at the moment.
Sweden just went to COP27 and said they'd need to increase emissions by 10%. That's an honest, capable Government, willing to stand up for its national interest. Sunak doesn't have the nuts to defend our economy that way (Liz would have). He's not a serious PM.
£2.3tn debt versus >£17tn wealth. £13tn of that wealth is owned by 40% of the population and half of that is owned by the top 10%.
We have run up the debt through a combination of poor governments (which we have elected), bad habits, and bad luck - and now it's pay-back time.
Some of that wealth needs to pay off some of that debt. Feel free to find your own approaches to make that happen.
The one thing that can't be transferred abroad, and should be liable for taxation for principled reasons anyway, is land.
We tax income too much, and land not enough.
Agricultural land?
If someone acquires ownership of commercial land through inheritance they ought to be able to take out a loan to pay any taxes due if required for a lot less than someone else could buy it for on the open market.
And if they can't pay their taxes, then sell it.
As for that last rather familiar sentiment, I'm going to have to nominate for the @Anabobazina list.
"Tories ruthless cuts warning"
Spelling mistake??
We've gone from a steady increase, reflected across all the polls, to a week where the Tory vote change for each polling company is -2, -2, -1, +1, 0, 0. That's not mixed, that's pretty consistently showing that, for now, the Tory share is no longer going up.
It may go up again if they have a good week, but that doesn't make this week disappear.
If it were up to me as a starting point I'd have something like:
0.25% land tax+ per month for all Property with an 80% discount if that Property is the owners primary residence.
100% surcharge for residential property owned by anyone non domiciled for taxation.
Potentially a separate rate for agriculture and commercial.
No exceptions or ways to evade the tax. Council Tax, Stamp Duty etc abolished.
“Two stray rockets fell in the town of Przewodów in Poland on the border with Ukraine. They hit the grain dryers. Two people died.”
https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1592581319758053376
"Yeah let's No Deal! They'll soon be crawling back and begging for one. They need us and but we don't need them. Have you seen our balance with the Krau ... with Germany. Ha ha ha. Bastards. Screw em, that's what I say."
Ok, not word for word, but that's a 'substance over form' quote from one of them and there were several in that vein.
1. Stop looking for easy hits. There aren't any. If there were, they'd have been taken already,
2. Concentrate first on the obvious anomalies and the ludicrously high marginal rates of tax which are current system includes at various arbitrary points in the income scale.
3. Spread the tax bases, which fewer exceptions.
In terms of practical measures:
a) The most glaring anomaly of all is that well-off people like me who are past retirement age don't pay NI on PAYE income. If I'm going to pay a big extra chunk of tax (and I accept I should), that would be a chunk which is entirely fair.
b) Smooth out the tax bands. Abolish the ludicrously high rate at £100K to £120K. That just distorts behaviour and therefore loses tax revenue. Instead extend the 45% band down to £100K, Ideally, as a longer term measure, go for a smoothly increasing marginal rate on tax with no cliff-edges or bands at all (except the tax-free band at the low end), so, that at (say) £20K you'd pay 1% on all your income, on £30K 5%, at £40K 15%, rising to (say) 40% on all your income (not marginal income) at the high end. The figures are for illustration only, I haven't looked at what the actual figures should be to be broadly neutral, but the important thing is that the gradation should be smooth so as not to disincentive people from taxable economic activity. You can then adjust the shape of the curve to get your target income-tax take.
c) NI is an abomination, but we are stuck with it for political reasons, But we should change the balance so that PAYE is not so unfairly penalised - non-PAYE income should be taxed at rate closer to PAYE income (that would also reduce the need for IR35, itself a damaging distortion).
d) There is indeed scope for more property taxes. We really do need to update the absurdly out-of-date council tax bands, and in doing that we should add more bands at the high end (or maybe a sliding scale).
There's more, obviously, but I need to go out now. But basically a few billion here, a few billion there. Pluck the goose gently all over, don't try to grab a big handful of feathers in one go.
No wonder you're irritable if the voices in your head are saying that, because I sure didn't.
The way you apply your sequence to your paragraph implies they are all apples of the same variety, but each one is of a different variety, any moment we can have a Kantor variety, Opinium variety. YouGov tend to be random could show +4 next regardless of anything else.
I think I am trying to take a longer bigger picture than you are. I think I am trying to be careful not to draw conclusions a honeymoon is over too soon as next set of polls could make mockery of that - yes it can make the kink in todays graph disappear into a smooth upward one. Over generous to the Tories my approach maybe right now, but only on basis of trying to be right and fair.
https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1592581319758053376
In many peoples' minds, the Thatcherite governments of the early 80s cut taxes and that reduction in taxes led to economic growth and they therefore paid for themselves.
That is not what her government did. In fact, that is the very opposite of Thatcherism. That's Keynesianism - i.e. injecting demand into the economy via reduces taxes (albeit the Keynesians usually increased spending too).
The first thing that the Thatcher/Howe government did was to raise taxes to close the budget deficit. They did this by freezing personal allowances which significantly increased tax take. They also removed the prevailing double lock on pensions, and allowed them to just move up with inflation (rather than previously, the higher of inflation and wages.)
Raising taxes and cutting spending was considered madness. 364 economists wrote to the Times decrying its foolishness.
But it worked, and it worked because the core economic tenet of Thatcherism was that if you balanced your budget, you would have less inflation and lower interest rates, and therefore one would be able to cut taxes. Lower taxes were the consequence of holding spending down, and not frittering away money on interest payments.
I therefore find it extraordinary that some people think that the Truss government was enacting Thatcherite policies. On the contrary, it was the very opposite of Thatcherite. It wanted a return to the 60s and 70s where governments spent more and taxed less to stimulate the economy and hope it grew faster than the budget deficits. It resulted in persistently high inflation and economic growth that lagged peers.
But he already knows they Hunt and Sunak are not going that route.
It's going to be a horror show. I really don't think people are mentally prepared for more taxes, even as they also oppose more austerity. They could do everything right, be sensible and competent, and it will still be unpopular with both those who liked Truss's budget, and the public who want 'sensible' but are not ready for any tough decisions.
Don't expect anyone to have sympathy for the Tories when they experience the backlash.
So long as you opt for bust.
Apologies, I'm being cynical again, I'm sure all the perfectly legal ways rich people have the time and money to utilise to avoid paying are all super necessary.
For example, a 3% land tax on rental residential property would vapourise the net income of the typical rental property and its value as a rental asset, but because you can sell houses to homebuyers it would lead to the dissolution of the rental sector. Good for kids of asset-rich homeowners, bad for those who rely on future income to live somewhere, or anyone who wants to move around, get divorced, etc.
If six polling companies all pretty much follow the same pattern, then it's a real thing, not a statistical quirk. It's also not going to make that bend into a smooth curve no matter what happens.
You can argue that Rishi might do something to restart his recovery - but it will still have stalled in the last week.
Efficiencies can be found. But it is not a serious answer to all our problems, as they are never at the scale pretended. If they were, they'd have been addressed by now!
Russia was reckless as to the risk. Fire them in the general direction of Poland - and they face the consequences of those reckless actions. Would certainly speed things up if Poland treated it as an act of war.
Might be at war by supper, lads
But even if Russia did not intend this, it is still an action and consequence of the reckless way they are pursuing their war.
I've no idea what the Polish response will be. But they must respond.
The Sunday Times pushed the Laffer curve sh*t like hell too. Less is more!
Down the memory hole with it all.
I reckon it was one of the first videos that turned me to Tiny Desk, or one of the first that Tiny Desk turned to me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdRAcoD5Gt0
He was born in 1980, and was still in primary school when la Thatch left office. He knows the Thatcher myth much more than the Thatcher reality.
God knows what Redwood's excuse is.
This is hardly the first time - we remember (or perhaps we don't) Turkish and "Syrian" planes shooting each other down - I use the inverted commas because the Syrian planes were probably Russian planes re-painted and probably flown by Russians.
No one claimed at the time it was a casus belli for a general conflict.
Speed things up? "God Save the King" playing as cricketers start a friendly match in Konigsberg before Christmas?
Lots of orange in the South.
In 2010, those oranges covered much of the UK.
https://www.ukelect.co.uk/May2010Lead/UK2ndPlace.jpg
They need to be flexible enough to recognise when things may not work in exactly the same way in a different time.
Of course that's why professionals in that era took their income as benefit-in-kind, company cars, expenses, memberships, personal staff and nice offices.
Russia can always choose to stop striking at other countries and pull back to its own, internationally recognised borders.
That said, the R&W Blue Wall polling continues to show a significant propensity among Labour and LD voters to vote tactically to unseat a sitting Conservative. That, if present next time, has the propensity to accentuate any Conservative defeat.
But why would pensioners be going to work? Do you mean 'over 60s' when you say pensioners?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_United_Kingdom_budget