Stop voting for fucking Tories

[dpedin]

surprise!

Exactly - we know what the plan is, we know what they are doing, we know how they are going to do it, they wrote books about it telling us all this and we all now have armchair views of these bunch of cnuts destroying our country. It is going to get very very nasty very quickly.

[JM2K6]

letthemfight.gif

[sturginho]

letthemfight.gif

Whoa, Mad Nads saying something sensible? Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[redderneck]

If Lord of the Flies had been written by Enid Blyton...

[JM2K6]

letthemfight.gif

Whoa, Mad Nads saying something sensible? Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

Not that sensible. Boris broke lots of manifesto promises, and there was no mandate for most of that shit either (particularly C4). She's just angling for Johnson's return.

[_Os_]

And 35% of the country will still vote for and support them because blue rosette.

That 30%-35% is their core vote and has a staggeringly high tolerance level for poor governance. As discussed with neeps pages back, as long as they hold that they still have a chance in any election.

The Kamikwazi budget revealed a bit more about how firm it is. All the polling since has the Tories in the 20%-29% range. It seems their core support has 20% in the vote for the pig with a blue rosette category, and a top up of 15% who largely vote in their own immediate economic self interest. Polls show that top up 15% looks entirely mercenary and is breaking for Labour likely because they can beat the Tories (the Lib Dems gained nothing), only a small amount went from the Tories to Reform UK.

There's some other recent polling developments. Leave voters aren't consolidated behind the Tories, Labour and the Tories have about the same amount of Leave voters (Yougov had them at 39% each, and Reform UK taking 8%), but the Remain vote is more consolidated (Labout 63%/Lib Dems 12%). Supporting Brexit doesn't look like a big vote winner, but those parties that were more favourable to Remain are still trusted by Remainers more (Greens/SNP/Tories share the rest of the remain vote roughly equally, but the SNP and Greens are parties with a much smaller footprint than the Tories). The Tories are also nowhere with those under the age of 50, they're below 15% in those age groups. Labour are also polling ahead of the Tories in areas they normally don't, immigration and the economy.

The Tories could still regain their core vote, which will mean replacing the Truss government. If they maintain this course, the polling is now showing they'll be on 20%-ish with all that weighted towards those over 50 years old in England.

[Torquemada 1420]

Can't disagree with any of this. It is interesting that the Gov claim we are one of the highest taxed countries but have one of the lowest state pensions - where does all the money go?

I don't know enough about the ins and outs of pensions to add anything to what you and Torq have posted. But this is a different question.

The big thing that's happened in the past few weeks, is the Tory energy bailout costing £60bn (some estimate the eventual cost could be much higher, even £200bn). That's UK public debt going to private energy companies that are currently making windfall profits because of the Russia/Ukraine war, Thatcher used a windfall tax but the Tories deem that too left wing now, nationalisation was also rejected. All that's being paid for is a limited period of lower energy bills for consumers. It's a huge public debt to fund consumption with nothing else to show for it.

These assets were originally privatised under Thatcherism to supposedly drive growth and efficiency etc. In economics it's called "crowding out" when state speeding prevents private investment, because the state's expanded fiscal policy means interest rates rise and suck up all the private investment spending, why go to the effort of investing when you can buy bonds at a high interest rate and get a similar return with the same or less risk. This has been known since at least the 18th century (the two Scots, Hume and Smith). This is all the libertarian (IEA, Thatcherism etc) stuff is built on, most of the rest is ideological bullshit and billionaires refusing to pay taxes.

This has happened before. After the 2008 GFC, and Covid PPE. The 2008 crash wasn't really "bailing out the banks" they're not free floating entities disconnected from anything else in the economy, it was bailing home owners and pensions. The Covid PPE spend just looks like mass looting. It's all really just an asset swap, private junk becomes public debt.

The next move that happens, is everyone looks at the huge government debt mountain and says "there's a public debt crisis!", when actually there isn't. In the absence of growth government spending is cut to try and reduce this debt, this is what austerity is. During the austerity phase everyone fights like mad bastards to cut who knows what blaming anyone that isn't them for destroying the economy. What this really means is liquidating assets to try and pay off debts, spending on teachers or roads isn't a cost it's an asset. Ultimately assets generate the growth, and the assets are the public goods (good luck having a "high skilled high wage economy" if the education system is unequal and underfunded). Liquidating assets to pay off debt, usually means you have a reduced asset pool and so reduced scope to outgrow the debt ... and in the end more debt (the debt to asset ratio rises). All through the Tory austerity years the UK's debt kept growing and there was little growth.

Then it gets weird.

First the Tories privatise everything they can to prevent crowding out, then they pump up government debt and give it to those same private entities. Now there's potentially privatisation and crowding out. Truss and Kamikwazi don't know what they're talking about because they're okay with massive interest rate increases and also talk about private sector generated growth (when there's shitloads of UK bonds that could be paying 6%?). Then it gets even more weird, they're now cutting taxes in an attempt to increase growth, which there's no evidence works, besides the UK already having low corporate taxation and all sorts of loopholes. To fund this tax cutting there'll apparently be further austerity (which as the track record shows means more debt).

... You can tell this isn't really understood, because there's little outrage over how the energy bailout was funded, Tories normally get away with saying it's an excellent solution (which it is, for their funders).

Agree with pretty much all of this and just a few observations
1) 100% on the energy issue. I can't understand why commentators are not exposing it for what it is: rob Peter to pay Paul. And, as you highlight, it's a massive gamble on prices falling or this becomes a millstone around their necks forever at the expense of the public purse propping up super profits of the energy cos.

2) Whatever Thatcher's Govt claimed it was, the privatisation of assets paid for and owned by the public was really about 2 things
- one trick pony of clearing the national debt
- placing into the hands of their cronies products/services that had monopoly or cartelised oligopoly positions and so would be able to profiteer ad infinitum.

3) There is the other aspect to bond pricing: confidence. Kwarteng has seen the markets have concerns over the UK Govt's ability to pay back its own debt. Suicide.

4) Your point on spending being an asset rather than a debt is only true if the target of the spending provides an effective pay off down the line. Crudely, investing in teaching meeejuh studies is not the same as teaching electronic engineering. Around here, I've seen a new section of road relaid 4x in the last 12 months alone. New Deals can work but it's not a given and can easily go all Gosplan.

{EDIT} I had not checked but I see S&P has in effect downgraded the UK's credit rating. It still says AA rated but now comes with "outlook negative".

[sturginho]

letthemfight.gif

Whoa, Mad Nads saying something sensible? Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

Not that sensible. Boris broke lots of manifesto promises, and there was no mandate for most of that shit either (particularly C4). She's just angling for Johnson's return.

True, but apparently it was "priced in" that Johnson is a liar

[Slick]

Gove and Raab to the rescue?

[Biffer]

Gove and Raab to the rescue?

Baker also now highlighting his 'moderate' credentials. They'll all be at it soon, reslising that things like trans rights lose them no votes, just excite their base that will vote for them anyway

[Torquemada 1420]

The other elephant in an already pachyderm packed room is property prices.

This might just be total over reaction
https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4 ... t-projects?

but there is a an increasing risk that the combo of
- rapidly falling disposable income
- huge mortgage rate rises with both home owners and BTL speculators coming off fixed rates straight into the storm
- banks pulling deals, thereby reducing the no. of potential buyers
- a sh*tload of new developments to come to the market over the next 2 years which are
> already behind schedule
> servicing funding debt that is spiralling upwards
> and have already massively over run costs due both to material price increases and COVID delays
will trigger some sort of price collapse.

[dpedin]

The other elephant in an already pachyderm packed room is property prices.

This might just be total over reaction
https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4 ... t-projects?

but there is a an increasing risk that the combo of
- rapidly falling disposable income
- huge mortgage rate rises with both home owners and BTL speculators coming off fixed rates straight into the storm
- banks pulling deals, thereby reducing the no. of potential buyers
- a sh*tload of new developments to come to the market over the next 2 years which are
> already behind schedule
> servicing funding debt that is spiralling upwards
> and have already massively over run costs due both to material price increases and COVID delays
will trigger some sort of price collapse.

Entirely credible, and unfortunately likely, scenario and why Truss and Kamikaze will be gone soon!

[Biffer]

The other elephant in an already pachyderm packed room is property prices.

This might just be total over reaction
https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4 ... t-projects?

but there is a an increasing risk that the combo of
- rapidly falling disposable income
- huge mortgage rate rises with both home owners and BTL speculators coming off fixed rates straight into the storm
- banks pulling deals, thereby reducing the no. of potential buyers
- a sh*tload of new developments to come to the market over the next 2 years which are
> already behind schedule
> servicing funding debt that is spiralling upwards
> and have already massively over run costs due both to material price increases and COVID delays
will trigger some sort of price collapse.

I'm good with that. Three reasons, one personal, one to do with societal equity and one macroeconomics

1. Personally I'm trying to move up the ladder so it'll make places more affordable

2. Young people might actually be able to buy somewhere

3. All this investment money both at an investment fund scale and a personal investment scale, that is tied up in non productive asset growth. Moving a slab of that investment into productivity development via infrastructure and company investment is key to growing the UK economy.

[Insane_Homer]

[SaintK]

Shit speech from a shit Chancellor appears to have forgotten who has been in power the past 12 years

[dpedin]

Wow - even the FT is realising the current Gov are a bunch of idealogues and zealots! How much longer can they go on for?

[Slick]

I quite like JRM. Don’t agree with a word he says but I find him quite an intriguing character

[Tichtheid]

I quite like JRM. Don’t agree with a word he says but I find him quite an intriguing character

He’s playing us all, he’s as much a charlatan as Johnson

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -to-con-us

[Biffer]

Wow - even the FT is realising the current Gov are a bunch of idealogues and zealots! How much longer can they go on for?

FT has fairly consistently been condemning their policies for a good while.

[Biffer]

I quite like JRM. Don’t agree with a word he says but I find him quite an intriguing character

Dear God. Seriously?

[petej]

Wow - even the FT is realising the current Gov are a bunch of idealogues and zealots! How much longer can they go on for?

FT has fairly consistently been condemning their policies for a good while.

Pretty much since brexit.

[sockwithaticket]

I quite like JRM. Don’t agree with a word he says but I find him quite an intriguing character

He's a weapons grade cunt who actively works against the interests of the nation and its population. The only intriguing thing about him is his possible death day.

[Slick]

I quite like JRM. Don’t agree with a word he says but I find him quite an intriguing character

He’s playing us all, he’s as much a charlatan as Johnson

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -to-con-us

Enjoyed that article.

All probably correct, but he did once hold the door open for me with the utmost politeness, so not all bad

[Slick]

I quite like JRM. Don’t agree with a word he says but I find him quite an intriguing character

Dear God. Seriously?

Not completely seriously but I do quite enjoy his interviews, he’s pretty unique. KGM was trying everything to rile him on C4 tonight and he didn’t miss a beat

[JM2K6]

I quite like JRM. Don’t agree with a word he says but I find him quite an intriguing character

Dear God. Seriously?

Not completely seriously but I do quite enjoy his interviews, he’s pretty unique. KGM was trying everything to rile him on C4 tonight and he didn’t miss a beat

So essentially you like the fact that he doesn't give a toss and it's all a game to him?

He's a genuine, bona fide, class-A cunt. An absolute scumbag, dressed up as a Victorian 'gentleman'.

[Biffer]

I quite like JRM. Don’t agree with a word he says but I find him quite an intriguing character

Dear God. Seriously?

Not completely seriously but I do quite enjoy his interviews, he’s pretty unique. KGM was trying everything to rile him on C4 tonight and he didn’t miss a beat

Isn't that part of the problem though? Grifters like him have reduced politics to entertainment, regardless of the effect he has on millions of people.

[Crash669]

I quite like JRM. Don’t agree with a word he says but I find him quite an intriguing character

He’s playing us all, he’s as much a charlatan as Johnson

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -to-con-us

Enjoyed that article.

All probably correct, but he did once hold the door open for me with the utmost politeness, so not all bad

You're not the first person I've heard say that they find him really endearing in person. But it is just an act, the same as BoJo's clown persona, a front to hide the monster underneath.

[Torquemada 1420]

Excellent article in the FT
https://www.ft.com/content/bd511177-f2a ... 7856e09c4e?
which sadly is behind the paywall (and oddly, was pulled for a while yesterday).

Truss learns the hard way that Britain isn’t America

[Torquemada 1420]

The other elephant in an already pachyderm packed room is property prices.

This might just be total over reaction
https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4 ... t-projects?

but there is a an increasing risk that the combo of
- rapidly falling disposable income
- huge mortgage rate rises with both home owners and BTL speculators coming off fixed rates straight into the storm
- banks pulling deals, thereby reducing the no. of potential buyers
- a sh*tload of new developments to come to the market over the next 2 years which are
> already behind schedule
> servicing funding debt that is spiralling upwards
> and have already massively over run costs due both to material price increases and COVID delays
will trigger some sort of price collapse.

I'm good with that. Three reasons, one personal, one to do with societal equity and one macroeconomics

1. Personally I'm trying to move up the ladder so it'll make places more affordable

2. Young people might actually be able to buy somewhere

3. All this investment money both at an investment fund scale and a personal investment scale, that is tied up in non productive asset growth. Moving a slab of that investment into productivity development via infrastructure and company investment is key to growing the UK economy.

Entirely in agreement that it needs whatever it takes to break Britain's obsession with houses being investments rather than homes

and if it torches a lot of home "owners" and BTL speculators who overextended themselves, then that's just tough.

[shaggy]

The other elephant in an already pachyderm packed room is property prices.

This might just be total over reaction
https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4 ... t-projects?

but there is a an increasing risk that the combo of
- rapidly falling disposable income
- huge mortgage rate rises with both home owners and BTL speculators coming off fixed rates straight into the storm
- banks pulling deals, thereby reducing the no. of potential buyers
- a sh*tload of new developments to come to the market over the next 2 years which are
> already behind schedule
> servicing funding debt that is spiralling upwards
> and have already massively over run costs due both to material price increases and COVID delays
will trigger some sort of price collapse.

I'm good with that. Three reasons, one personal, one to do with societal equity and one macroeconomics

1. Personally I'm trying to move up the ladder so it'll make places more affordable

2. Young people might actually be able to buy somewhere

3. All this investment money both at an investment fund scale and a personal investment scale, that is tied up in non productive asset growth. Moving a slab of that investment into productivity development via infrastructure and company investment is key to growing the UK economy.

Entirely in agreement that it needs whatever it takes to break Britain's obsession with houses being investments rather than homes

and if it torches a lot of home "owners" and BTL speculators who overextended themselves, then that's just tough.

I’m sure the young families that have scrimped and saved and made many sacrifices to eventually own their home but have a significant mortgage would support your desire to burn them. After all, negative equity, ballooning repayments or losing your home is only a minor factor for those on average wages.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no sympathy for those overextended and always wanting the bigger and shinier things, or those with BTL portfolios without any collateral but to punish them you destroy millions of lives further down the system.

[dpedin]

The other elephant in an already pachyderm packed room is property prices.

This might just be total over reaction
https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news/4 ... t-projects?

but there is a an increasing risk that the combo of
- rapidly falling disposable income
- huge mortgage rate rises with both home owners and BTL speculators coming off fixed rates straight into the storm
- banks pulling deals, thereby reducing the no. of potential buyers
- a sh*tload of new developments to come to the market over the next 2 years which are
> already behind schedule
> servicing funding debt that is spiralling upwards
> and have already massively over run costs due both to material price increases and COVID delays
will trigger some sort of price collapse.

I'm good with that. Three reasons, one personal, one to do with societal equity and one macroeconomics

1. Personally I'm trying to move up the ladder so it'll make places more affordable

2. Young people might actually be able to buy somewhere

3. All this investment money both at an investment fund scale and a personal investment scale, that is tied up in non productive asset growth. Moving a slab of that investment into productivity development via infrastructure and company investment is key to growing the UK economy.

Entirely in agreement that it needs whatever it takes to break Britain's obsession with houses being investments rather than homes

and if it torches a lot of home "owners" and BTL speculators who overextended themselves, then that's just tough.

Whilst we agree the housing market is a shitfest the economic and social fallout of a dramatic and severe collapse of the housing market would impact on us all pretty severely. Also lots of innocent casualties at the bottom end of the market who were merely taken in by all the guff they have been fed over the years. This wouldn't be good for anyone and I say this as someone with no mortgage and would benefit from higher interest rates.

We really do need some folk with serious brains, political nous and a social conscious in charge.

[tabascoboy]

Meanwhile Braverman throwing some fresh red meat for the jackals at the Tory party conference

[Biffer]

Wow. Truss refuses to say that she trusts her chancellor with big decisions.

[dpedin]

Gordon Brown agrees with us fear mongers!

[Tichtheid]

Wow. Truss refuses to say that she trusts her chancellor with big decisions.

There should be far more of that from journalists when interviewing any politicians, keep pointing out that they haven't answered the question.

We've got to the point where you could ask them who their favourite Teletubbie is and they wouldn't notice, they'd just come out with the prepared speech from their spin docs

[_Os_]

Agree with pretty much all of this and just a few observations
1) 100% on the energy issue. I can't understand why commentators are not exposing it for what it is: rob Peter to pay Paul. And, as you highlight, it's a massive gamble on prices falling or this becomes a millstone around their necks forever at the expense of the public purse propping up super profits of the energy cos.

2) Whatever Thatcher's Govt claimed it was, the privatisation of assets paid for and owned by the public was really about 2 things
- one trick pony of clearing the national debt
- placing into the hands of their cronies products/services that had monopoly or cartelised oligopoly positions and so would be able to profiteer ad infinitum.

3) There is the other aspect to bond pricing: confidence. Kwarteng has seen the markets have concerns over the UK Govt's ability to pay back its own debt. Suicide.

4) Your point on spending being an asset rather than a debt is only true if the target of the spending provides an effective pay off down the line. Crudely, investing in teaching meeejuh studies is not the same as teaching electronic engineering. Around here, I've seen a new section of road relaid 4x in the last 12 months alone. New Deals can work but it's not a given and can easily go all Gosplan.

{EDIT} I had not checked but I see S&P has in effect downgraded the UK's credit rating. It still says AA rated but now comes with "outlook negative".

2. Agree with that, but the post was already long and wanted to just focus on the debt issue. The other part of crowding out is when the government dominates a market preventing private investment (this is the one usually mentioned by Thatcherites), but opening utilities up to competition hasn't produced expensive strategic infrastructure investment (water looks to be in the very early stages of a crisis because of this). Tories also conflate competition with deregulation, but the point of good regulation is to prevent crowding out of smaller players by larger players, simply ending all regulation means monopolisation.

3, Yes that's true. I just focused on bond rates because a lot of people who are running the UK, seem to have forgotten about the absolute basics. When bond rates go up and there's no realistic sovereign risk, capital flows from stocks to bonds, what would've funded private investments goes into whatever the debt is funding.

4. The pay off isn't always easy to measure, but it does reach a point where it becomes easy to determine that continuing to cut is detrimental. Many Tories seem to view things like youth centres, mental health services, free skills training, as something the state shouldn't pay for/charities should provide/left wing bullshit. If they implement their austerity MK2 programme debt will increase, just like it did under austerity MK1.

Rating agency downgrades only start becoming crucial when junk status (BB+) is being approached, because some funds are barred from investing in non-investment grade bonds as they're more risky. The UK would require another 10+ years of this standard of governance to reach that point.

[Hal Jordan]

Meanwhile Braverman throwing some fresh red meat for the jackals at the Tory party conference

And, surprise, surprise, she's been caught embellishing her CV, claiming author contribution to a book. The contribution was, in fact, photocopying.

[laurent]

Meanwhile Braverman throwing some fresh red meat for the jackals at the Tory party conference

And, surprise, surprise, she's been caught embellishing her CV, claiming author contribution to a book. The contribution was, in fact, photocopying.

that's great skills for a tory I suppose

[Torquemada 1420]

Whilst we agree the housing market is a shitfest the economic and social fallout of a dramatic and severe collapse of the housing market would impact on us all pretty severely. Also lots of innocent casualties at the bottom end of the market who were merely taken in by all the guff they have been fed over the years. This wouldn't be good for anyone and I say this as someone with no mortgage and would benefit from higher interest rates.

We really do need some folk with serious brains, political nous and a social conscious in charge.

Same position as you although somewhat less charitable about many others' plights. Way too many people have used cheap credit since 2008 to gear themselves up to the eyeballs rather than using surplus income (from falling interest rates) to clear their debt.

But aside from the social conscience aspect, I genuinely believe a hard kick in the teeth over the relationship with housing is needed to try and fix all this because the people you refer to in your last line do no exist anywhere within Britain's political top echelons.

[Torquemada 1420]

2. Agree with that, but the post was already long and wanted to just focus on the debt issue. The other part of crowding out is when the government dominates a market preventing private investment (this is the one usually mentioned by Thatcherites), but opening utilities up to competition hasn't produced expensive strategic infrastructure investment (water looks to be in the very early stages of a crisis because of this). Tories also conflate competition with deregulation, but the point of good regulation is to prevent crowding out of smaller players by larger players, simply ending all regulation means monopolisation.

3, Yes that's true. I just focused on bond rates because a lot of people who are running the UK, seem to have forgotten about the absolute basics. When bond rates go up and there's no realistic sovereign risk, capital flows from stocks to bonds, what would've funded private investments goes into whatever the debt is funding.

4. The pay off isn't always easy to measure, but it does reach a point where it becomes easy to determine that continuing to cut is detrimental. Many Tories seem to view things like youth centres, mental health services, free skills training, as something the state shouldn't pay for/charities should provide/left wing bullshit. If they implement their austerity MK2 programme debt will increase, just like it did under austerity MK1.

Rating agency downgrades only start becoming crucial when junk status (BB+) is being approached, because some funds are barred from investing in non-investment grade bonds as they're more risky. The UK would require another 10+ years of this standard of governance to reach that point.

On 4+:
You are completely correct and I'm happy with erring slightly on the waste side of such spending initiatives. And you've highlighted another pet soapbox subject of mine: charities. I'll take Children In Need because it's the most visible one. Every penny that goes there (well, every part of a penny that actually reaches the cause) is simply another hidden tax. That a so called, christian, developed nation has to resort to the public's pocket to fund one of the most essential needs is a disgrace. The fact that it's then peddled as a success is just salt in the wound.

On ratings (not that they are worth jack sh*t IMHO): it wasn't so much the barrier threshold to investing but that the erosion of confidence forces an increase in coupons and hence increases the cost of servicing the debt (or more printing money to buy up the debt).