Plenty of people like that, just not many with a million+ followers on social media.
I pay her the same attention I pay any drooling lunatic at closing time in any local pub.
I am sure she would think the same of you if she even knew you existed.
If I were a billionaire, I would probably find better ways to spend my days than sitting on social media drumming up hatred for oppressed minorities.
But hey-ho.
I've never watched or read any of her fiction, the only reason I know of her existence is because she's a massive [expletive deleted].
This posting shows you might actually be a better writer of fiction than she is.
I've never watched a movie based on her stories or read one of her books. If it weren't for the trans stuff, as far as I'm concerned she'd be no more famous than Leon. I.e. an author who shitposts online far too much and is a bit touched in the head by certain issues.
The difference is I actually like Leon, and think he has a modicum of wit.
I was not referring to her abilities (which are prodigious) but more towards yours. You do a fine line in deranged fantasy. Like Lovecraft but with more drugs.
This is nauseating ahistorical drivel and more Kremlin propaganda. Nobody provoked Putin. Nobody “poked the bear with a stick”. The people of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly in 1991 to be a sovereign and independent country. They were perfectly entitled to seek both NATO and EU membership. There is only one person responsible for Russian aggression against Ukraine - both in 2014 and 2022 - and that is Putin. To try to spread the blame is morally repugnant and parroting Putin’s lies.
It is bizarre that the author should also suggest we now reduce our support for Ukraine, when the solution to the conflict is in fact clear - the Ukrainians need to win, and to repel Putin’s invasion. They can and they will. The problem in the last 30 years has not been western provocation but western weakness in the face of Russian aggression - a weakness exemplified by this article.
"Boris Johnson blamed EU for Russia’s 2014 attacks on Ukraine and was branded ‘Putin apologist’ Future prime minister was condemned for arguing Brussels had ‘caused real trouble’ in Ukraine – in stark contrast to current stance"
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
FFS loads of old guys opining about Taylor Swift. It’s like me saying I don’t see the appeal of Enrico Caruso.
Yes a lot of us brought up children over the last 15 yrs and Taylor has been a staple. Writes her own catchy songs, works incredibly hard, a great business mind.
Re. JK Rowling, she fiddled with the early HP films to their detriment. Best leave a writer to her genre. Whenever authors meddle in film production it invariably ends badly.
Leon’s comment that Victoria Starmer ‘must have been an absolute stunner once’ is pure perviness coming from a 62 yr old man. The kind that makes my toes curl.
Strong "creepy uncle vibes" indeed
At what age must men stop finding women attractive Horse? I don't think he's cracking on to her.
Leon not demonstrating creepy uncle vibes. Are you new here?
Creepy uncle?
You do know Victoria Starmer is 61?
Seriously? In a way, they are a glimpse of the future having kids in their late 40s rather than in their late 30s.
Thanks Vino! Hmmm...I think after Brexit, 'referendum' is probably too dirty a word. And I confess I don't know enough about the Swiss system. In general I wonder if we need to get away from the tyranny of the majority where we can. The Swiss may do this.
Referendum is only a dirty word to 48% of the voting population so what you are saying is that people just have to accept laws that the majority are against - seems an incentive to vote right wing
Not what I meant, I expressed myself poorly I think.
I think there is an issue with making complex policy decisions a binary choice. I don't know if that's what the Swiss system does. I do think it's what the Brexit referendum did. I think many of the 52% would acknowledge that we haven't reached the outcome they hoped for.
And I want right wing, left wing etc to have a voice even if they are not the majority. I think citizens assemblies achieve this.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway because all you would do is stop businesses expanding beyond the £250,000 turnover threshold.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
It’s pretty low level stuff but just feeds into the narrative of the Tories lack of integrity and just thinking they can do whatever they like.
A new bettingate twist from the Betfair forum, pointing out there were other markets in play. This is the graph for Rishi to be replaced as Conservative leader in the year 2024.
Or indeed the quarterlies market, where I had my bets (i.e July-September) and three times as much was traded as the monthly bets, but they don't seem to have been mentioned.
Given that the cheaters seem to have been morons though, I should imagine that the most obvious bets were the ones taken.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
A key problem facing the advanced western countries is the difficulty in getting anything done due to the legal/bureaucratic state. The solution to every problem is more regulations and process, all of which is inherently imperfect and contradictory. There was a realisation of the problems this was creating in the 1980's but no lasting or meaningful answer was ever settled on. So now most work in the economy is connected to the implementation of process or regulation rather than being productive or creative in its own right.
The conservatives had 14 years and made the situation I have described above worse. Labour will continue this trend. But the whole system needs rapid disruption - perhaps this is inevitable as the rest of the world adapts faster to technological innovation. It feels to me like the centrist parties (IE all the main parties) are just part of the old world and they will be transformed or swept away by something new, it may be called 'far right' but it is not necessarily correct to view it this way.
This is most incisive analysis.
In my own industry I have watched over nearly 40 years the situation has gone from 90% of the cost /time is for doing the work / 10% for "getting permission" and documenting the work, to the exact opposite.
The standards are more and more complex (and often conflict with each other) to the extent that you almost need to be a lawyer to interpret the correct course of action.
Compare and contrast the cost of building a mileof motorway in the 1970s with the cost of doing so now (exponentially greater). This is why.
I would say on this, that 'process' is connected to the proliferation of law/regulation which is the responsibility of the government. You can meaningfully redesign things to reduce processes but you can't stop the government reeling out more and more laws/rules. The only thing that will stop it is an existential crisis.
A key problem facing the advanced western countries is the difficulty in getting anything done due to the legal/bureaucratic state. The solution to every problem is more regulations and process, all of which is inherently imperfect and contradictory. There was a realisation of the problems this was creating in the 1980's but no lasting or meaningful answer was ever settled on. So now most work in the economy is connected to the implementation of process or regulation rather than being productive or creative in its own right.
The conservatives had 14 years and made the situation I have described above worse. Labour will continue this trend. But the whole system needs rapid disruption - perhaps this is inevitable as the rest of the world adapts faster to technological innovation. It feels to me like the centrist parties (IE all the main parties) are just part of the old world and they will be transformed or swept away by something new, it may be called 'far right' but it is not necessarily correct to view it this way.
This is most incisive analysis.
In my own industry I have watched over nearly 40 years the situation has gone from 90% of the cost /time is for doing the work / 10% for "getting permission" and documenting the work, to the exact opposite.
The standards are more and more complex (and often conflict with each other) to the extent that you almost need to be a lawyer to interpret the correct course of action.
Compare and contrast the cost of building a mileof motorway in the 1970s with the cost of doing so now (exponentially greater). This is why.
I would say on this, that 'process' is connected to the proliferation of law/regulation which is the responsibility of the government. You can meaningfully redesign things to reduce processes but you can't stop the government reeling out more and more laws/rules. The only thing that will stop it is an existential crisis.
Just as it did in Russia in 1991. Its inevitable now in the west I fear.
China et al dedollaraising is pulling the plug on the west.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
Thanks Vino! Hmmm...I think after Brexit, 'referendum' is probably too dirty a word. And I confess I don't know enough about the Swiss system. In general I wonder if we need to get away from the tyranny of the majority where we can. The Swiss may do this.
Referendum is only a dirty word to 48% of the voting population so what you are saying is that people just have to accept laws that the majority are against - seems an incentive to vote right wing
Not what I meant, I expressed myself poorly I think.
I think there is an issue with making complex policy decisions a binary choice. I don't know if that's what the Swiss system does. I do think it's what the Brexit referendum did. I think many of the 52% would acknowledge that we haven't reached the outcome they hoped for.
And I want right wing, left wing etc to have a voice even if they are not the majority. I think citizens assemblies achieve this.
Swiss Referendum System - To challenge a law, citizens must collect 50,000 signatures within 100 days of the official publication of a new law. If they manage to do it, a nationwide referendum is held. And if the majority of the voters reject the law, it is cancelled. What's wrong with this system? sounds like perfect government.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
You're planning to vote for Farage's unfunded tens of billions of pounds of spending and smashing the economy by having a central planning hiring solution for all UK employers, so you can shut the fuck up really.
FFS loads of old guys opining about Taylor Swift. It’s like me saying I don’t see the appeal of Enrico Caruso.
Yes a lot of us brought up children over the last 15 yrs and Taylor has been a staple. Writes her own catchy songs, works incredibly hard, a great business mind.
Re. JK Rowling, she fiddled with the early HP films to their detriment. Best leave a writer to her genre. Whenever authors meddle in film production it invariably ends badly.
Leon’s comment that Victoria Starmer ‘must have been an absolute stunner once’ is pure perviness coming from a 62 yr old man. The kind that makes my toes curl.
Strong "creepy uncle vibes" indeed
At what age must men stop finding women attractive Horse? I don't think he's cracking on to her.
Leon not demonstrating creepy uncle vibes. Are you new here?
Creepy uncle?
You do know Victoria Starmer is 61?
Seriously? In a way, they are a glimpse of the future having kids in their late 40s rather than in their late 30s.
I've looked around again. Read an article from a year or two back that claimed she is (now) 61 and that is what Google headlines but we also have:
Mirror - 51 Telegraph - age unknown Tatler - 49 (Must admit, thought it was a Tatler article from a while back that led me to think 61 when I first checked)
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000....
Because that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided.
So even more people think Fuck it, pack it in and do 16 hours a week at Tesco on minimum wage, pay no tax, and claim more off fewer remaining taxpayers in Universal Credit.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000....
Because that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided.
Does anyone still do VAT lotteries? I remember last time I went to Slovenia, which is a few years ago now, every time you got a VAT receipt as a consumer you could enter it into some kind of lottery for free. This made sure everyone gave you a receipt!
This is nauseating ahistorical drivel and more Kremlin propaganda. Nobody provoked Putin. Nobody “poked the bear with a stick”. The people of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly in 1991 to be a sovereign and independent country. They were perfectly entitled to seek both NATO and EU membership. There is only one person responsible for Russian aggression against Ukraine - both in 2014 and 2022 - and that is Putin. To try to spread the blame is morally repugnant and parroting Putin’s lies.
It is bizarre that the author should also suggest we now reduce our support for Ukraine, when the solution to the conflict is in fact clear - the Ukrainians need to win, and to repel Putin’s invasion. They can and they will. The problem in the last 30 years has not been western provocation but western weakness in the face of Russian aggression - a weakness exemplified by this article.
Thanks Vino! Hmmm...I think after Brexit, 'referendum' is probably too dirty a word. And I confess I don't know enough about the Swiss system. In general I wonder if we need to get away from the tyranny of the majority where we can. The Swiss may do this.
Referendum is only a dirty word to 48% of the voting population so what you are saying is that people just have to accept laws that the majority are against - seems an incentive to vote right wing
Not what I meant, I expressed myself poorly I think.
I think there is an issue with making complex policy decisions a binary choice. I don't know if that's what the Swiss system does. I do think it's what the Brexit referendum did. I think many of the 52% would acknowledge that we haven't reached the outcome they hoped for.
And I want right wing, left wing etc to have a voice even if they are not the majority. I think citizens assemblies achieve this.
Swiss Referendum System - To challenge a law, citizens must collect 50,000 signatures within 100 days of the official publication of a new law. If they manage to do it, a nationwide referendum is held. And if the majority of the voters reject the law, it is cancelled. What's wrong with this system? sounds like perfect government.
Sclerosis, that's what. Nothing gets done. Conservatism by design.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000....
Because that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided.
So even more people think Fuck it, pack it in and do 16 hours a week at Tesco on minimum wage, pay no tax, and claim more off fewer remaining taxpayers in Universal Credit.
Fair enough - but once you children hit 16, you discover that living on universal credit without children to bump up what you receive is not a good idea.
But clearly you don't understand why most EU countries have reduced the threshold over the years and I can't be bothered to explain that most people actually want a half decent standard of living so the go and work at Tesco stage doesn't last that long...
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000....
Because that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided.
So even more people think Fuck it, pack it in and do 16 hours a week at Tesco on minimum wage, pay no tax, and claim more off fewer remaining taxpayers in Universal Credit.
You really have no clue whatsoever do you?
Anyone who thinks living on Universal Credit is anything but utter shit is living in La-la land.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
He just has no pissing idea.
Um someone round here has no idea - and I doubt it's the person who used to fly around Europe working...
Hint once everyone is charging VAT, there is zero incentive to play games and stop working - the perverse incentive of only working a 3 day week or taking January to March off disappears because there is zero incentive to keep your turnover low.
Thanks Vino! Hmmm...I think after Brexit, 'referendum' is probably too dirty a word. And I confess I don't know enough about the Swiss system. In general I wonder if we need to get away from the tyranny of the majority where we can. The Swiss may do this.
Referendum is only a dirty word to 48% of the voting population so what you are saying is that people just have to accept laws that the majority are against - seems an incentive to vote right wing
Not what I meant, I expressed myself poorly I think.
I think there is an issue with making complex policy decisions a binary choice. I don't know if that's what the Swiss system does. I do think it's what the Brexit referendum did. I think many of the 52% would acknowledge that we haven't reached the outcome they hoped for.
And I want right wing, left wing etc to have a voice even if they are not the majority. I think citizens assemblies achieve this.
Swiss Referendum System - To challenge a law, citizens must collect 50,000 signatures within 100 days of the official publication of a new law. If they manage to do it, a nationwide referendum is held. And if the majority of the voters reject the law, it is cancelled. What's wrong with this system? sounds like perfect government.
Sclerosis, that's what. Nothing gets done. Conservatism by design.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
There are no shortages of jobs and opportunities in northern areas now.
And if we include opportunities to own a home its far easier to do so away from London and the waitrose belt.
In fact if you're a young, northern working class male then the opportunities now are probably better than they have ever been and likely better than most southern middle class equivalents.
That's opportunities though, not guarantees or certainties.
There will still be many who fall by the wayside unfortunately.
Likewise most of the older 'left behinds' will continue to be 'left behind' - its all a question of having a useful skillset and the longer people don't have one the harder it is for them to get one.
Thanks Vino! Hmmm...I think after Brexit, 'referendum' is probably too dirty a word. And I confess I don't know enough about the Swiss system. In general I wonder if we need to get away from the tyranny of the majority where we can. The Swiss may do this.
Referendum is only a dirty word to 48% of the voting population so what you are saying is that people just have to accept laws that the majority are against - seems an incentive to vote right wing
Not what I meant, I expressed myself poorly I think.
I think there is an issue with making complex policy decisions a binary choice. I don't know if that's what the Swiss system does. I do think it's what the Brexit referendum did. I think many of the 52% would acknowledge that we haven't reached the outcome they hoped for.
And I want right wing, left wing etc to have a voice even if they are not the majority. I think citizens assemblies achieve this.
Swiss Referendum System - To challenge a law, citizens must collect 50,000 signatures within 100 days of the official publication of a new law. If they manage to do it, a nationwide referendum is held. And if the majority of the voters reject the law, it is cancelled. What's wrong with this system? sounds like perfect government.
Sclerosis, that's what. Nothing gets done. Conservatism by design.
Yes, I'm sure the Swiss are crying all the way to the bank.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
This is nauseating ahistorical drivel and more Kremlin propaganda. Nobody provoked Putin. Nobody “poked the bear with a stick”. The people of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly in 1991 to be a sovereign and independent country. They were perfectly entitled to seek both NATO and EU membership. There is only one person responsible for Russian aggression against Ukraine - both in 2014 and 2022 - and that is Putin. To try to spread the blame is morally repugnant and parroting Putin’s lies.
It is bizarre that the author should also suggest we now reduce our support for Ukraine, when the solution to the conflict is in fact clear - the Ukrainians need to win, and to repel Putin’s invasion. They can and they will. The problem in the last 30 years has not been western provocation but western weakness in the face of Russian aggression - a weakness exemplified by this article.
The one area where Johnson has been consistently stronger and more straightforward than most of his peers.
Well, sort of. He was quite happy with Russian contacts till he saw which way the wind was blowing, then in true Johnson style, he raced to the front.
The turning point was the Salisbury poisonings. As it was, I think, for a lot of people. He did a decent job as foreign secretary getting international support for sanctions.
"How ‘selfish and entitled’ millennials are capitalising on a £71 trillion goldmine As baby boomer parents die, a record number of wills are being challenged in the courts Charlotte Lytton"
Thanks Vino! Hmmm...I think after Brexit, 'referendum' is probably too dirty a word. And I confess I don't know enough about the Swiss system. In general I wonder if we need to get away from the tyranny of the majority where we can. The Swiss may do this.
Referendum is only a dirty word to 48% of the voting population so what you are saying is that people just have to accept laws that the majority are against - seems an incentive to vote right wing
Not what I meant, I expressed myself poorly I think.
I think there is an issue with making complex policy decisions a binary choice. I don't know if that's what the Swiss system does. I do think it's what the Brexit referendum did. I think many of the 52% would acknowledge that we haven't reached the outcome they hoped for.
And I want right wing, left wing etc to have a voice even if they are not the majority. I think citizens assemblies achieve this.
Swiss Referendum System - To challenge a law, citizens must collect 50,000 signatures within 100 days of the official publication of a new law. If they manage to do it, a nationwide referendum is held. And if the majority of the voters reject the law, it is cancelled. What's wrong with this system? sounds like perfect government.
Thanks (genuinely) for doing my Googling for me. That does sound sensible to me.
Plenty of people like that, just not many with a million+ followers on social media.
I pay her the same attention I pay any drooling lunatic at closing time in any local pub.
I am sure she would think the same of you if she even knew you existed.
If I were a billionaire, I would probably find better ways to spend my days than sitting on social media drumming up hatred for oppressed minorities.
But hey-ho.
I've never watched or read any of her fiction, the only reason I know of her existence is because she's a massive [expletive deleted].
This posting shows you might actually be a better writer of fiction than she is.
I've never watched a movie based on her stories or read one of her books. If it weren't for the trans stuff, as far as I'm concerned she'd be no more famous than Leon. I.e. an author who shitposts online far too much and is a bit touched in the head by certain issues.
The difference is I actually like Leon, and think he has a modicum of wit.
I was not referring to her abilities (which are prodigious) but more towards yours. You do a fine line in deranged fantasy. Like Lovecraft but with more drugs.
Citation required before you call me out like that, bud. If you have something to say it, say it, rather than pathetically insinuate stuff.
FFS loads of old guys opining about Taylor Swift. It’s like me saying I don’t see the appeal of Enrico Caruso.
Yes a lot of us brought up children over the last 15 yrs and Taylor has been a staple. Writes her own catchy songs, works incredibly hard, a great business mind.
Re. JK Rowling, she fiddled with the early HP films to their detriment. Best leave a writer to her genre. Whenever authors meddle in film production it invariably ends badly.
Leon’s comment that Victoria Starmer ‘must have been an absolute stunner once’ is pure perviness coming from a 62 yr old man. The kind that makes my toes curl.
Strong "creepy uncle vibes" indeed
At what age must men stop finding women attractive Horse? I don't think he's cracking on to her.
Leon not demonstrating creepy uncle vibes. Are you new here?
Creepy uncle?
You do know Victoria Starmer is 61?
Seriously? In a way, they are a glimpse of the future having kids in their late 40s rather than in their late 30s.
I've looked around again. Read an article from a year or two back that claimed she is (now) 61 and that is what Google headlines but we also have:
Mirror - 51 Telegraph - age unknown Tatler - 49 (Must admit, thought it was a Tatler article from a while back that led me to think 61 when I first checked)
So, who knows!
She looks quite young in her wedding photo from 2007, so I would think about 50 now.
Anther vegetarian for number 10 too. Its getting to be a habit.
"How ‘selfish and entitled’ millennials are capitalising on a £71 trillion goldmine As baby boomer parents die, a record number of wills are being challenged in the courts Charlotte Lytton"
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
The cliff edge at £90k definitely distorts the market. Bring it down the to ICT personal allowance.
Pensioner class or pleb class personal allowance?
They're the same, pretty much. The basic state pension is very close to the basic non-pensioner ICT personal allowance (for lower incomes), ergo the pensioner ICT allowance is much the same. It's only different for really old people who are married, and it's not that great even then.
Mr Sunak's rhetoric has perhaps overshot the mark.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
The cliff edge at £90k definitely distorts the market. Bring it down the to ICT personal allowance.
Sadly no government will dare do it because of all the negative coverage it would generate.
I don't know - now (well October) would be the absolute perfect time to announce it from April 2026 alongside say a token reduction in VAT rates then...
By the time the next election came around everyone would be used to it...
Remember the ideal time to implement something is in the first 18 months of a Parliament. By the time the next election has come round (say after 48 months) everyone will be used to the changes...
Lowering the VAT threshold with decent reasons would be forgotten by the next election. The bigger issue is things like council tax where revaluations have a massive lead time so the date of implementation would be just before the election was called...
Er... we're going to have a dozen or more polls out next week, why does Keiran think this one is 'not to miss'?
It would be refreshing if for once pollsters said: “We have yet another boring MOE survey coming out at some point next week. Go down the pub. Meet friends. Put your bloody phone away you sad twats.”
Thanks Vino! Hmmm...I think after Brexit, 'referendum' is probably too dirty a word. And I confess I don't know enough about the Swiss system. In general I wonder if we need to get away from the tyranny of the majority where we can. The Swiss may do this.
Referendum is only a dirty word to 48% of the voting population so what you are saying is that people just have to accept laws that the majority are against - seems an incentive to vote right wing
Not what I meant, I expressed myself poorly I think.
I think there is an issue with making complex policy decisions a binary choice. I don't know if that's what the Swiss system does. I do think it's what the Brexit referendum did. I think many of the 52% would acknowledge that we haven't reached the outcome they hoped for.
And I want right wing, left wing etc to have a voice even if they are not the majority. I think citizens assemblies achieve this.
Swiss Referendum System - To challenge a law, citizens must collect 50,000 signatures within 100 days of the official publication of a new law. If they manage to do it, a nationwide referendum is held. And if the majority of the voters reject the law, it is cancelled. What's wrong with this system? sounds like perfect government.
Thanks (genuinely) for doing my Googling for me. That does sound sensible to me.
Agree - everyone is part of the system so will accept referendum results that they don't like.Thanks again for a real good thread
This is nauseating ahistorical drivel and more Kremlin propaganda. Nobody provoked Putin. Nobody “poked the bear with a stick”. The people of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly in 1991 to be a sovereign and independent country. They were perfectly entitled to seek both NATO and EU membership. There is only one person responsible for Russian aggression against Ukraine - both in 2014 and 2022 - and that is Putin. To try to spread the blame is morally repugnant and parroting Putin’s lies.
It is bizarre that the author should also suggest we now reduce our support for Ukraine, when the solution to the conflict is in fact clear - the Ukrainians need to win, and to repel Putin’s invasion. They can and they will. The problem in the last 30 years has not been western provocation but western weakness in the face of Russian aggression - a weakness exemplified by this article.
"Boris Johnson blamed EU for Russia’s 2014 attacks on Ukraine and was branded ‘Putin apologist’ Future prime minister was condemned for arguing Brussels had ‘caused real trouble’ in Ukraine – in stark contrast to current stance"
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
When parliament reconvenes he's going to get his supporters to protest outside parliament isn't he?
🚨 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ALERT 🚨
Today's Mail on Sunday claimed President Zelensky said that I was personally infected with Putinism. This is totally untrue and I have instructed Carter Ruck to deal with it.
Tomorrow’s Daily Mail are so desperate to smear Reform that they have now contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and goaded them into a supposed quote from someone in Sergey Lavrov’s office calling me an ‘ally’.
That a UK newspaper group is actively collaborating with the Kremlin to protect their dying Conservative party is an absolute scandal. The British people will see through this act of utter desperation.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000....
Because that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided.
So even more people think Fuck it, pack it in and do 16 hours a week at Tesco on minimum wage, pay no tax, and claim more off fewer remaining taxpayers in Universal Credit.
Fair enough - but once you children hit 16, you discover that living on universal credit without children to bump up what you receive is not a good idea.
But clearly you don't understand why most EU countries have reduced the threshold over the years and I can't be bothered to explain that most people actually want a half decent standard of living so the go and work at Tesco stage doesn't last that long...
18 not 16 in most cases. You identify correctly tbe horrible poverty trap that Tax Credits now UC offers for tbose with children.
As much as a full time job for working 16 hours a week. But then it ends overnight and your CV is useless.
Especially as with millions hapily on 16-24 hours a week with little if any employers NI, McTesco dont offer much that isn't 16-24 hours a week at near minimum wage, so few full time McJobs anyway.
Few think years ahead though. This is of course why long term sick UC claims have rocketed in recent years as peoples kids turn 18.
You have to make work pay, that means less tax and less complex paperwork and regulation at the lower end.
Big corporations hate that though as it undercuts them.
Farage gets it though. As do his "white van man" supporters.
If nobody knows what you mean by the word and you'd need an entire essay or worse a George Monbiot podcast to say what you mean by the word, use a different word.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
The cliff edge at £90k definitely distorts the market. Bring it down the to ICT personal allowance.
Sadly no government will dare do it because of all the negative coverage it would generate.
I don't know - now (well October) would be the absolute perfect time to announce it from April 2026 alongside say a token reduction in VAT rates then...
By the time the next election came around everyone would be used to it...
Remember the ideal time to implement something is in the first 18 months of a Parliament. By the time the next election has come round (say after 48 months) everyone will be used to the changes...
Lowering the VAT threshold with decent reasons would be forgotten by the next election. The bigger issue is things like council tax where revaluations have a massive lead time so the date of implementation would be just before the election was called...
You really can't stop thinking of new and wonderful ways to fuck that golden egg laying goose can you?
I said very recently that Rowling was on the edge of a descent into fascism and I gave it four years. Turns out she was mere hours away from endorsing the communist party.
Thanks Vino! Hmmm...I think after Brexit, 'referendum' is probably too dirty a word. And I confess I don't know enough about the Swiss system. In general I wonder if we need to get away from the tyranny of the majority where we can. The Swiss may do this.
Referendum is only a dirty word to 48% of the voting population so what you are saying is that people just have to accept laws that the majority are against - seems an incentive to vote right wing
Not what I meant, I expressed myself poorly I think.
I think there is an issue with making complex policy decisions a binary choice. I don't know if that's what the Swiss system does. I do think it's what the Brexit referendum did. I think many of the 52% would acknowledge that we haven't reached the outcome they hoped for.
And I want right wing, left wing etc to have a voice even if they are not the majority. I think citizens assemblies achieve this.
Swiss Referendum System - To challenge a law, citizens must collect 50,000 signatures within 100 days of the official publication of a new law. If they manage to do it, a nationwide referendum is held. And if the majority of the voters reject the law, it is cancelled. What's wrong with this system? sounds like perfect government.
Thanks (genuinely) for doing my Googling for me. That does sound sensible to me.
Agree - everyone is part of the system so will accept referendum results that they don't like.Thanks again for a real good thread
Not sure Britain is so good at the 'everyone will accept referendum results that they don't like' bit.
PS Thanks Max for the excellent header - I wholeheartedly agree.
Matt Goodwin is a Russian mouthpiece and an utter tool.
He is an utter helmet. Why do otherwise sensible people follow him around?
They probably began when he was just starting out and had some somewhat interesting things to say, but now he just parrots ever more extreme and utterly bog standard talking points to lavish in praise of fans, and vicariously enjoy the hate tweets of those who dislike him.
Which makes him just a pundit, and pundits, even the best of them, just pump out article after article, tweet after tweet, of the same old shower.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
Mrs Flatlander doesn't make a lot as she only tends to pick jobs she's interested in.
She used to be VAT registered and took up the offer to do it as a flat rate.
George Osborne then accused sole traders of using the flat rate scheme "aggressively", whatever that means, so she gave up and de-registered. It wasn't worth the paperwork.
A threshold of £30k would definitely be treated as something to be avoided, "digital tax" or otherwise. Why bother?
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
The cliff edge at £90k definitely distorts the market. Bring it down the to ICT personal allowance.
Sadly no government will dare do it because of all the negative coverage it would generate.
I don't know - now (well October) would be the absolute perfect time to announce it from April 2026 alongside say a token reduction in VAT rates then...
By the time the next election came around everyone would be used to it...
Remember the ideal time to implement something is in the first 18 months of a Parliament. By the time the next election has come round (say after 48 months) everyone will be used to the changes...
Lowering the VAT threshold with decent reasons would be forgotten by the next election. The bigger issue is things like council tax where revaluations have a massive lead time so the date of implementation would be just before the election was called...
You really can't stop thinking of new and wonderful ways to fuck that golden egg laying goose can you?
How do Norway, Denmark and Sweden all manage to survive having fucked their golden egg laying geese with VAT thresholds less than €10k?
JK Rowling needed an editor. The last two or three books are silly.
And the movies she's written are utter trash.
She hasn’t written any movies
I disagree with JKR's stance on trans and I can't speak knowledegably on her written fiction, (having never read them) although her sales figures speak for themselves. But oddly I may be able to cast light on her screenwriting and filmrunning abilities post-Potter, as it's cropped up in the past.
As a broad rule of thumb, she has two problems as a screenwriter
She casts oddly/capriciously. She insisted on casting Johnny Depp in FB despite his star fading due to age/domestic issues, as IIUC she had a crush on him when she was younger. Katherine Waterston was defocussed due to her views on trans. God alone knows how Ezra Miller got in or stayed in.
She writes exposition, not scenes. She has a tendency to impart info by dialogue, with characters sat around talking to each other. It works on the page, not on film.
People familiar with the evolution of - say - Star Trek will be familiar with this problem, with a much-loved creator sticking with an old formula and needing to shunted off to the side to let the thing breathe. If in twenty years one of her grown children executive produces "HP XIV: The Return of Voldemort" and saying that it must be true to the spirit of JKR, you'll see the parallel.
Also what is "a system of stakeholder capitalism* backed by a second chamber of citizens assemblies to replace the House of Lords" and how does it stop parents letting their kids use a mobile phone
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
The cliff edge at £90k definitely distorts the market. Bring it down the to ICT personal allowance.
Sadly no government will dare do it because of all the negative coverage it would generate.
I don't know - now (well October) would be the absolute perfect time to announce it from April 2026 alongside say a token reduction in VAT rates then...
By the time the next election came around everyone would be used to it...
Remember the ideal time to implement something is in the first 18 months of a Parliament. By the time the next election has come round (say after 48 months) everyone will be used to the changes...
Lowering the VAT threshold with decent reasons would be forgotten by the next election. The bigger issue is things like council tax where revaluations have a massive lead time so the date of implementation would be just before the election was called...
You really can't stop thinking of new and wonderful ways to fuck that golden egg laying goose can you?
The VAT registration threshold is a big and known problem though. The only solution is either to increase it massively, so most small-mid sized businesses are outside (but at a significant cost to the exchequer) or lower it substantially. We’ve painted ourselves into a corner with the current threshold.
Actually the most likely policy response because it’s the least politically risky will be freezing the threshold until inflation catches up: fiscal drag.
When parliament reconvenes he's going to get his supporters to protest outside parliament isn't he?
🚨 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ALERT 🚨
Today's Mail on Sunday claimed President Zelensky said that I was personally infected with Putinism. This is totally untrue and I have instructed Carter Ruck to deal with it.
Tomorrow’s Daily Mail are so desperate to smear Reform that they have now contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and goaded them into a supposed quote from someone in Sergey Lavrov’s office calling me an ‘ally’.
That a UK newspaper group is actively collaborating with the Kremlin to protect their dying Conservative party is an absolute scandal. The British people will see through this act of utter desperation.
One, if Farage is angry he is being painted as parroting Putin talking points perhaps he should stop doing it.
Two, isn't hiring Carter Ruck essentially an admission the thing you've been accused of is true, but you hope they will be able to intimidate people into withdrawing?
When parliament reconvenes he's going to get his supporters to protest outside parliament isn't he?
🚨 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ALERT 🚨
Today's Mail on Sunday claimed President Zelensky said that I was personally infected with Putinism. This is totally untrue and I have instructed Carter Ruck to deal with it.
Tomorrow’s Daily Mail are so desperate to smear Reform that they have now contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and goaded them into a supposed quote from someone in Sergey Lavrov’s office calling me an ‘ally’.
That a UK newspaper group is actively collaborating with the Kremlin to protect their dying Conservative party is an absolute scandal. The British people will see through this act of utter desperation.
One, if Farage is angry he is being painted as parroting Putin talking points perhaps he should stop doing it.
Two, isn't hiring Carter Ruck essentially an admission the thing you've been accused of is true, but you hope they will be able to intimidate people into withdrawing?
Yes, Carter Ruck presumably still make good money but their brand hasn’t had a good 12 months.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000....
Because that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided.
So even more people think Fuck it, pack it in and do 16 hours a week at Tesco on minimum wage, pay no tax, and claim more off fewer remaining taxpayers in Universal Credit.
Fair enough - but once you children hit 16, you discover that living on universal credit without children to bump up what you receive is not a good idea.
But clearly you don't understand why most EU countries have reduced the threshold over the years and I can't be bothered to explain that most people actually want a half decent standard of living so the go and work at Tesco stage doesn't last that long...
18 not 16 in most cases. You identify correctly tbe horrible poverty trap that Tax Credits now UC offers for tbose with children.
As much as a full time job for working 16 hours a week. But then it ends overnight and your CV is useless.
Especially as with millions hapily on 16-24 hours a week with little if any employers NI, McTesco dont offer much that isn't 16-24 hours a week at near minimum wage, so few full time McJobs anyway.
Few think years ahead though. This is of course why long term sick UC claims have rocketed in recent years as peoples kids turn 18.
You have to make work pay, that means less tax and less complex paperwork and regulation at the lower end.
Big corporations hate that though as it undercuts them.
Farage gets it though. As do his "white van man" supporters.
Farage only gets it because he hasn't got a budget to balance - if he had he wouldn't be making economically insane policies up.
Basically the only argument I can see here is - the VAT threshold should match the point at which you register for self employment because anything else is going to create issues. Which is not what you want but is the logical conclusion to your argument...
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Are you arguing that bright people from working-class communities should stay there even if they want to go elsewhere?
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
The cliff edge at £90k definitely distorts the market. Bring it down the to ICT personal allowance.
Sadly no government will dare do it because of all the negative coverage it would generate.
I don't know - now (well October) would be the absolute perfect time to announce it from April 2026 alongside say a token reduction in VAT rates then...
By the time the next election came around everyone would be used to it...
Remember the ideal time to implement something is in the first 18 months of a Parliament. By the time the next election has come round (say after 48 months) everyone will be used to the changes...
Lowering the VAT threshold with decent reasons would be forgotten by the next election. The bigger issue is things like council tax where revaluations have a massive lead time so the date of implementation would be just before the election was called...
You really can't stop thinking of new and wonderful ways to fuck that golden egg laying goose can you?
What golden egg laying goose - our economy is f***ed... Many parts of England (let alone Wales) are poorer than 90% of EU regions....
When parliament reconvenes he's going to get his supporters to protest outside parliament isn't he?
🚨 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ALERT 🚨
Today's Mail on Sunday claimed President Zelensky said that I was personally infected with Putinism. This is totally untrue and I have instructed Carter Ruck to deal with it.
Tomorrow’s Daily Mail are so desperate to smear Reform that they have now contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and goaded them into a supposed quote from someone in Sergey Lavrov’s office calling me an ‘ally’.
That a UK newspaper group is actively collaborating with the Kremlin to protect their dying Conservative party is an absolute scandal. The British people will see through this act of utter desperation.
One, if Farage is angry he is being painted as parroting Putin talking points perhaps he should stop doing it.
Two, isn't hiring Carter Ruck essentially an admission the thing you've been accused of is true, but you hope they will be able to intimidate people into withdrawing?
Yes, Carter Ruck presumably still make good money but their brand hasn’t had a good 12 months.
Carter Ruck's brand hasn't been good for 30 odd years - it's the byline for a dodgy libel claim...
When parliament reconvenes he's going to get his supporters to protest outside parliament isn't he?
🚨 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ALERT 🚨
Today's Mail on Sunday claimed President Zelensky said that I was personally infected with Putinism. This is totally untrue and I have instructed Carter Ruck to deal with it.
Tomorrow’s Daily Mail are so desperate to smear Reform that they have now contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry and goaded them into a supposed quote from someone in Sergey Lavrov’s office calling me an ‘ally’.
That a UK newspaper group is actively collaborating with the Kremlin to protect their dying Conservative party is an absolute scandal. The British people will see through this act of utter desperation.
One, if Farage is angry he is being painted as parroting Putin talking points perhaps he should stop doing it.
Two, isn't hiring Carter Ruck essentially an admission the thing you've been accused of is true, but you hope they will be able to intimidate people into withdrawing?
Yes, Carter Ruck presumably still make good money but their brand hasn’t had a good 12 months.
Carter Ruck's brand hasn't been good for 30 odd years - it's the byline for a dodgy libel claim...
Careful you might end up with Carter Ruck coming for you ;-)
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Any argument is a little undermined by this "Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are."
This is where the paradox with Reform is at its most stark - Farage is an unreconstructed Thatcherite. He wants tax cuts, a la Truss, for the wealthy and is signed up to all this supply-side Lafferite nonsense. He also wants spending cuts though he rarely says it out loud wittering on about "woke" and "diversity".
Reform members and voters, on the other hand, are in a very different place. They signed up to the Conservative Levelling Up aganda which promised more money and resources for the north and midlands. Sunak and the Conservatives betrayed this in a nanosecond with the scrapping of HS2 north of Birmingham - a huge middle finger to the north.
Reform members and voters want the money and resources spent on the WWC in the north, not "wasted" as they would see it on the metropolitan liberal south. What won the north and midlands (the "Red Wall") wasn't Brexit - it was the sale of council houses. The sons and daughters of the original council house buyers inheriting property, becoming home owners and becoming Conservatives.
Labour neglected the north and didn't see or understand the impact of this huge change from rental to ownership - the Conservatives betrayed the north via the failure of HS2 and Levelling Up and the home owners are now left with big mortgages.
Reform's paradox will render it completely unable to meet the promises of their members and voters. The best hope for Reform oddly enough is to ditch Farage completely.
I don't see the contradiction that you do. The North didn’t grow rich on Southern taxes building it tramways and municipal sculptures; it grew rich because people had factories and business and they grew. Infrastructure followed, again built privately. That's what Reform want to do - get the state off peoples' backs, so that once again, running an actual business is doable in this country. That's actual 'levelling up'.
I confess I've not read the Reform manifesto in detail but that doesn't sound like the Reform minded voter. They simply want what they should consider a fair slice of the national cake spent in the poorer areas. That was a key aspect of Levelling Up - the re-direction of resources as well a the prioritisation on infrastructure.
It's not just about running a business and to be controversial, given how many businesses fail, perhaps it should be more about helping people run businesses by showing them how to run businesses.
It has nothing to do with being shown how to run a business. Energy in this country is double what it is in the US. Taxes are through the roof. The Government hikes the minimum wage every time it wants a free popularity boost. Net Zero is busy nailing the coffin shut. How can we compete on those terms?
There isn't the environment to do business in this country. I made a blue sky suggestion at work that we should build a garment factory in the UK and was laughed out of the room.
I think you'll find the voters Reform is targeting understand this completely and are a lot more streetwise than you are giving them credit for.
I'm sure that "insight" is found in supporters of all parties and none - it's not exclusive to Reform who can express the anger but seem to have no more answer than anyone else.
I seem, Budget after Budget, to have heard Chancellor after Chancellor claiming they are helping business (especially SMEs) and yet it's never enough. Banks used to fight for local SME accounts - perhaps they don't any longer.
I appreciate it's impossible to square the circle between demands on the public finances (and that includes the armed forces as much as it does the NHS) and the ability of the economy to generate the growth needed to sustain that demand.
But the point is that they shouldn't NEED support. And they only need subsidies and grants and loans and exemptions because of the costs that are being imposed by Government in the first place - particular green levies. So we have a tax-subsidy-go-round where the Government picks the winners. It is deeply unhealthy and it is killing our economy.
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Increasing the VAT threshold to £250,000 is utterly insane.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Are you mad?
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
In which case we set the threshold at £10,000 as the whole point is that everyone collects VAT so there is zero incentive to turn the work down...
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
The cliff edge at £90k definitely distorts the market. Bring it down the to ICT personal allowance.
Sadly no government will dare do it because of all the negative coverage it would generate.
I don't know - now (well October) would be the absolute perfect time to announce it from April 2026 alongside say a token reduction in VAT rates then...
By the time the next election came around everyone would be used to it...
Remember the ideal time to implement something is in the first 18 months of a Parliament. By the time the next election has come round (say after 48 months) everyone will be used to the changes...
Lowering the VAT threshold with decent reasons would be forgotten by the next election. The bigger issue is things like council tax where revaluations have a massive lead time so the date of implementation would be just before the election was called...
You really can't stop thinking of new and wonderful ways to fuck that golden egg laying goose can you?
The VAT registration threshold is a big and known problem though. The only solution is either to increase it massively, so most small-mid sized businesses are outside (but at a significant cost to the exchequer) or lower it substantially. We’ve painted ourselves into a corner with the current threshold.
Actually the most likely policy response because it’s the least politically risky will be freezing the threshold until inflation catches up: fiscal drag.
But then people, likea relation, doing some part time tutoring while at university, simply won't bother as it isn't worth the hassle/risk of being a collection agency for the treasury.
And with 20% stuck on hourly rate, less parents will hire anyway.
So less tax take (noting the combined tutoring (self empl) /summer holiday job means that she has to file a tax return and will pay some tax and NI this year. Which wouldn't be the case if she plugholed the tutoring.
Talking of scapegoating, what about the scapegoating of working class communities for whom none of this has worked and for whom labour just took for granted as they always voted for them and the Tories did sod all to level up. Communities that lose their brightest and best to London and the South where the jobs and opportunities are. Communities that, under both parties, saw the good paying jobs in industry exported and replace with call centres and distribution hubs. The posho contingency here has not got a clue how many people just exist in this country.
You see some of the wailing about Brexit, like Eric idle today whining because he cannot go to France for more than 90 days, something that really affects precious few people to see the level of detachment.
I did not vote Brexit and would not vote reform but I absolutely get why people did/do and the failure of mainstream politicians to engage with these communities but just tell them what they should think has been telling.
Are you arguing that bright people from working-class communities should stay there even if they want to go elsewhere?
The obvious argument is that they should have more opportunities to stay.
Taz has this bang on. I have to walk less than half a mile to see the problems that both parties have failed to address.
Boris had the right vibes on "levelling up" but the wrong governance.
Comments
At least the world is entertaining us. Look at it that way x
"Boris Johnson blamed EU for Russia’s 2014 attacks on Ukraine and was branded ‘Putin apologist’
Future prime minister was condemned for arguing Brussels had ‘caused real trouble’ in Ukraine – in stark contrast to current stance"
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-ukraine-russia-brexit-b2024817.html
As for Reform's answer, it has found two major sources of untapped revenue, and it plans to deploy them to raise the VAT threshhold to £250,000 and the personal allowance to £20,000. Those are exciting policies that alone, would be game on for the economy. They are the sort of thing that would be in a Tory manifesto were the Tories not centrist no-hopers.
Come on Nige.
I think there is an issue with making complex policy decisions a binary choice. I don't know if that's what the Swiss system does. I do think it's what the Brexit referendum did. I think many of the 52% would acknowledge that we haven't reached the outcome they hoped for.
And I want right wing, left wing etc to have a voice even if they are not the majority. I think citizens assemblies achieve this.
With tax going digital in April 2026 reducing the VAT threshold to £30,000 or makes sense because all the paperwork needs to be done anyway because all you would do is stop businesses expanding beyond the £250,000 turnover threshold.
The only question then is can you reduce the rate to 18% or do you keep it at 20%.
Conservatives lose a third of their voters since January, survey finds
https://x.com/hendopolis/status/1804979917567754627
Given that the cheaters seem to have been morons though, I should imagine that the most obvious bets were the ones taken.
Do you wan't even more people to pack up or reduce work and live on Universal Credit at Taxpayers expense?
Because that is exactly what cutting the VAT threshold will do. Many sole traders already turn down work to keep their turnover below the VAT threshold.
China et al dedollaraising is pulling the plug on the west.
Remember that is how the rest of the world operates VAT, very low thresholds in a way that can't be avoided. For reference these are the EU thresholds at which point you start collecting..
Austria (AT) EUR 35,000
Belgium (BE) EUR 25,000
Czech Republic (CZ) EUR 37,800 (CZK 2,000,000)
Denmark (DK) EUR 6,708 (DKK 50,000)
Estonia (EE) EUR 40,000
Finland (FI) EUR 15,000
France (FR) EUR 34,400
Germany (DE) EUR 22,000
Greece (GR) None (EUR 10,000 for distance sales)
Hungary (HU) EUR 34,164 (HUF 12,000,000)
Ireland (IE) EUR 37,500
Italy (IT) None (EUR 10,000 for distance sales)
Latvia (LV) EUR 40,000
Lithuania (LT) EUR 45,000
Luxembourg (LU) EUR 35,000
Netherlands (NL) EUR 25,000
Norway (NO) EUR 4,500 (NOK 50,000)
Poland (PL) EUR 43,800 (PLN 200,000)
Portugal (PT) EUR 25,000 (one-time taxable events)
Slovak Republic (SK) EUR 49,790
Slovenia (SI) EUR 50,000
Spain (ES) None (EUR 10,000 for distance sales)
Sweden (SE) EUR 7,500 (SEK 80,000)
Switzerland (CH) EUR 97,000 (CHF 100,000)
United Kingdom (GB) EUR 104,795 (GBP 90,000)
Mirror - 51
Telegraph - age unknown
Tatler - 49
(Must admit, thought it was a Tatler article from a while back that led me to think 61 when I first checked)
So, who knows!
But clearly you don't understand why most EU countries have reduced the threshold over the years and I can't be bothered to explain that most people actually want a half decent standard of living so the go and work at Tesco stage doesn't last that long...
Anyone who thinks living on Universal Credit is anything but utter shit is living in La-la land.
Hint once everyone is charging VAT, there is zero incentive to play games and stop working - the perverse incentive of only working a 3 day week or taking January to March off disappears because there is zero incentive to keep your turnover low.
(No personal experience. But a guy can dream.)
And if we include opportunities to own a home its far easier to do so away from London and the waitrose belt.
In fact if you're a young, northern working class male then the opportunities now are probably better than they have ever been and likely better than most southern middle class equivalents.
That's opportunities though, not guarantees or certainties.
There will still be many who fall by the wayside unfortunately.
Likewise most of the older 'left behinds' will continue to be 'left behind' - its all a question of having a useful skillset and the longer people don't have one the harder it is for them to get one.
Thanks very much.
A cyclist in a cycle lane.
Someone playing basketball in a park basketball court.
As baby boomer parents die, a record number of wills are being challenged in the courts
Charlotte Lytton"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/inheritance/troubling-rise-in-inheritance-legal-challenges/
Put up or shut up.
Anther vegetarian for number 10 too. Its getting to be a habit.
Mr Sunak's rhetoric has perhaps overshot the mark.
By the time the next election came around everyone would be used to it...
Remember the ideal time to implement something is in the first 18 months of a Parliament. By the time the next election has come round (say after 48 months) everyone will be used to the changes...
Lowering the VAT threshold with decent reasons would be forgotten by the next election. The bigger issue is things like council tax where revaluations have a massive lead time so the date of implementation would be just before the election was called...
As much as a full time job for working 16 hours a week. But then it ends overnight and your CV is useless.
Especially as with millions hapily on 16-24 hours a week with little if any employers NI, McTesco dont offer much that isn't 16-24 hours a week at near minimum wage, so few full time McJobs anyway.
Few think years ahead though. This is of course why long term sick UC claims have rocketed in recent years as peoples kids turn 18.
You have to make work pay, that means less tax and less complex paperwork and regulation at the lower end.
Big corporations hate that though as it undercuts them.
Farage gets it though. As do his "white van man" supporters.
Turns out she was mere hours away from endorsing the communist party.
She's a lunatic.
PS Thanks Max for the excellent header - I wholeheartedly agree.
Which makes him just a pundit, and pundits, even the best of them, just pump out article after article, tweet after tweet, of the same old shower.
Not like glorious PB commentators of course.
If so then perhaps a 'one lion' version of "thirty years of hurt never stopped me dreaming" could be arranged for them for world cup 2026.
Skinner and Baddiel will not be available - they'll be singing about England's sixty years of hurt.
She used to be VAT registered and took up the offer to do it as a flat rate.
George Osborne then accused sole traders of using the flat rate scheme "aggressively", whatever that means, so she gave up and de-registered. It wasn't worth the paperwork.
A threshold of £30k would definitely be treated as something to be avoided, "digital tax" or otherwise. Why bother?
Then I went and pointed out what I'd done in a WhatsApp group of political betters and they in response pointed out the summer recess and so on.
But there was nothing I could do at that point so I let it ride and forgot about it.
Accidentally drunkenly correct is the best kind of bet.
As a broad rule of thumb, she has two problems as a screenwriter
- She casts oddly/capriciously. She insisted on casting Johnny Depp in FB despite his star fading due to age/domestic issues, as IIUC she had a crush on him when she was younger. Katherine Waterston was defocussed due to her views on trans. God alone knows how Ezra Miller got in or stayed in.
- She writes exposition, not scenes. She has a tendency to impart info by dialogue, with characters sat around talking to each other. It works on the page, not on film.
People familiar with the evolution of - say - Star Trek will be familiar with this problem, with a much-loved creator sticking with an old formula and needing to shunted off to the side to let the thing breathe. If in twenty years one of her grown children executive produces "HP XIV: The Return of Voldemort" and saying that it must be true to the spirit of JKR, you'll see the parallel.Here's some YouTubes
Actually the most likely policy response because it’s the least politically risky will be freezing the threshold until inflation catches up: fiscal drag.
One, if Farage is angry he is being painted as parroting Putin talking points perhaps he should stop doing it.
Two, isn't hiring Carter Ruck essentially an admission the thing you've been accused of is true, but you hope they will be able to intimidate people into withdrawing?
I mean, that's the main thing they are known for.
Basically the only argument I can see here is - the VAT threshold should match the point at which you register for self employment because anything else is going to create issues. Which is not what you want but is the logical conclusion to your argument...
https://x.com/adrianmcmenamin/status/1804996207745339784?s=46
Now I know that can't possibly be true.
Because. Reasons.
'For peace and socialism' my arse.
And with 20% stuck on hourly rate, less parents will hire anyway.
So less tax take (noting the combined tutoring (self empl) /summer holiday job means that she has to file a tax return and will pay some tax and NI this year. Which wouldn't be the case if she plugholed the tutoring.
Taz has this bang on. I have to walk less than half a mile to see the problems that both parties have failed to address.
Boris had the right vibes on "levelling up" but the wrong governance.