Larry Sabato @LarrySabato · 3h No need for polling averages today since the big surveys are all showing the same thing. On Day 400 of Trump 2.0, Trump has a miserable job approval of 36-40%, and disapproval at 58-62%. And Trump is way underwater on virtually every top issue. Sobering for #SOTU
Turkey is preparing for a scenario of regime collapse in Iran - and is even considering entering Iranian territory to stop an influx of refugees in the event of government chaos.
What are the odds that HMRC has to abandon “Making Tax Digital” within the next tax year
Doing tax return? Sympathies.
I’ve only just realised the total insanity of Making Tax Digital
It’s going to be the HS2 of tax policies. It will end up a massive net negative for UK PLC as sole traders reduce their income to avoid the intense hassle, or emigrate
Truly, we are governed by lunatics that hate us
Intrigued to see where all those self employed, British construction workers are off to.
Are they going to the middle east to compete with bonded labour ?
And the people with a handful of buy to lets ? Love to know where they are off to.
The same nonsense has been said about VAT, Construction Industry Scheme (CIS), self assessment, IR35 and indeed MTD which is now 6 years old.
Half witted right wingers spaffing on about how great the likes Estonia's government IT infrastructure & interfacing is and not realising what it actually means.
You could barely make it up.
It is estimated that MTD will ensnare 900,000 new people this year alone. And everyone hates it
And "everyone" hates self assessment, but 12 million are "ensnared" and the sky hasn't fallen in.
The majority of self employed people who are not VAT registered will effectively be supplying their labour only. They will be in the self assessment system already, and yes quarterly reporting is a ballache but its hardly onerous,
Lots of letters to the Telegraph and Times, claiming Clive & Doreen from Tunbridge Wells would rather stop working ?
Sure.
HS2 of tax policies ?
Laughable hyperbole
Again
People want more efficient cost effective government that collects the right amount of tax, but then bleat on when the realise what it means. Are people really that thick ?
I wonder who has to pay for the extra costs all these self employed people need to take on board to accommodate the new system? The government could have made a 6 monthly set up where you submit a half yearly tax return and your tax for the 6 month period is worked out, or a system where you submit an annual return and the tax you pay, including any forward payment for the current year is worked out then.
If they had done this, and made it only necessary for those above the VAT threshold to register, they could have designed a system which made life easier for self employed and small businesses. But for no reason at all, there needs to be quarterly returns for a much wider chunk of the population. Somewhere along the chain a lot more people are going to have to absorb the cost of this, and it won't be the larger multinationals or the government
Labour's General Secretary has told an all-staff call that the Greens have no chance of winning the Gorton and Denton by-election on Thursday
"The Green Party are clearly high on the Class A drugs they want to legalise if they think they’re in this race. We know they’re not. They know they’re not. Our promise rate is very strong and we're seeing lots of anti-Reform undecideds come over to Labour. A vote for the Greens is a vote for Tommy Robinson’s candidate - Matt Goodwin"
Labour do certainly seem quite bullish. It’s making me question whether this could indeed be Labour vs Reform after all.
If Labour wins this it will be the political sensation of the century, and we will have to abandon everything we thought was true. Exciting...
Labour's General Secretary has told an all-staff call that the Greens have no chance of winning the Gorton and Denton by-election on Thursday
"The Green Party are clearly high on the Class A drugs they want to legalise if they think they’re in this race. We know they’re not. They know they’re not. Our promise rate is very strong and we're seeing lots of anti-Reform undecideds come over to Labour. A vote for the Greens is a vote for Tommy Robinson’s candidate - Matt Goodwin"
Labour do certainly seem quite bullish. It’s making me question whether this could indeed be Labour vs Reform after all.
If Labour wins this it will be the political sensation of the century, and we will have to abandon everything we thought was true. Exciting...
Indeed. If you've got a history book at home, take it out, throw it in the bin – it's worthless. The history books will now have to be rewritten
....4) Parliament is a much blunter, dimmer, more useless and slower instrument than courts....
...and yet Parliament is the only forum which can confer legitimacy. We should not abandon Parliamentary supremacy in favour of (putatively) wise and efficient judges. We end up with "government by court" and Starmerism, which Sam Ashworth-Hayes (Telegraph bod) summarized thus:
"...It is hard to escape the notion that in Sir Keir’s ideal world, the job of Prime Minister would be purely ceremonial. There would be little room for individual judgment or decision making. All acts of government would emerge fully formed from the duties and obligations of the legal system. As much as it may disappoint him, that is not the world we live in. It is high time Sir Keir realised as much..." - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2026/02/19/prime-minister-legalistic-chagossian-mistakes/
NEW: Labour's General Secretary has told an all-staff call that the Greens have no chance of winning the Gorton and Denton by-election on Thursday
"The Green Party are clearly high on the Class A drugs they want to legalise if they think they’re in this race. We know they’re not. They know they’re not. Our promise rate is very strong and we're seeing lots of anti-Reform undecideds come over to Labour. A vote for the Greens is a vote for Tommy Robinson’s candidate - Matt Goodwin"
Looks like a desperate attempt to keep Labour activists enthused! If not are we in for a surprise!
I think Labour will hope to regain the seat at the general election, provided they are not too far behind. If they do lose then this can be understood as part of the attempt to reduce the margin of defeat, and still be well-placed to win at the general election when there won't be the high tempo of a by-election campaign.
If the result is 35-30-25 Green-Reform-Labour then that's much better for Labour than 50-30-10, where the Labour vote collapses to give the Greens a comfortable win.
If Labour cannot win the ideal way for them to lose is to see Reform win, and then they can chide Green voters for splitting the anti-Reform vote.
Comments
@LarrySabato
·
3h
No need for polling averages today since the big surveys are all showing the same thing. On Day 400 of Trump 2.0, Trump has a miserable job approval of 36-40%, and disapproval at 58-62%. And Trump is way underwater on virtually every top issue. Sobering for #SOTU
https://x.com/LarrySabato/status/2026294528777310487
Turkey is preparing for a scenario of regime collapse in Iran - and is even considering entering Iranian territory to stop an influx of refugees in the event of government chaos.
-Bloomberg.
NEW THREAD
The government could have made a 6 monthly set up where you submit a half yearly tax return and your tax for the 6 month period is worked out, or a system where you submit an annual return and the tax you pay, including any forward payment for the current year is worked out then.
If they had done this, and made it only necessary for those above the VAT threshold to register, they could have designed a system which made life easier for self employed and small businesses. But for no reason at all, there needs to be quarterly returns for a much wider chunk of the population. Somewhere along the chain a lot more people are going to have to absorb the cost of this, and it won't be the larger multinationals or the government
"...It is hard to escape the notion that in Sir Keir’s ideal world, the job of Prime Minister would be purely ceremonial. There would be little room for individual judgment or decision making. All acts of government would emerge fully formed from the duties and obligations of the legal system. As much as it may disappoint him, that is not the world we live in. It is high time Sir Keir realised as much..."
- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2026/02/19/prime-minister-legalistic-chagossian-mistakes/
If the result is 35-30-25 Green-Reform-Labour then that's much better for Labour than 50-30-10, where the Labour vote collapses to give the Greens a comfortable win.
If Labour cannot win the ideal way for them to lose is to see Reform win, and then they can chide Green voters for splitting the anti-Reform vote.