Starmergeddon: They Came And Ate Us

[Biffer]

Local authorities to retain full amounts in right to buy sales and discounts for purchasers reduced. Good.

[sockwithaticket]

I hope it'll mostly be on green initiatives, the floods today in Valencia could easily be happening in the UK

Won't hold my breath, this iteration of Labour doesn't seem to be especially serious about the environment. Won't even commit to banning neocontinoids even though farmers still have plenty of other poisons at their disposal.

Why would t5hat be announced in a budget?

It wouldn't, but it's an issue emblematic of their lack of seriousness over the environment. Ergo, don't expect much for green initiatives in the budget.

[petej]

I think there's a growing realisation that supermarket bread/rolls especially pre-packed is full of all manner of additives that are at best of questionable benefit and at worst potentially damaging to the gut. Naturally we want food to keep as long as possible but it does come at the cost of possible long term side-effects. And freshly baked artisanal bread/rolls/pastries from specialist bakers are in another world when it comes to taste

The supermarket loaves pretty much all use the Chorloywood process - much quicker and generally lower-cost ingredients.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process

An innovation of its time, postwar method of making quick product, stacking it high, selling cheap. And immensely suitable for soaking up bacon juice in a sarnie.

But one day take a gouge out of some supermarket white loaf, a golf ball sized piece of interior fluff. Crush it in your hand, medium pressure and release. In the majority of cases you'll be holding an off white to dull grey rock of dough. Completely inert, possible oozing one last bit of moisture out.

You imagine large amounts of that slamming into your stomach like a cannonball, what your gut needs to do in digesting those 30+ additional ingredients, fats, emulsifiers, bread improvers etc. Usually soft to the point of being underbaked and produced from raw ingredients to a mixed, risen, shaped, baked, cooled, sliced and packaged loaf in two hours.

By contrast, a homemade loaf has just four ingredients: flour, yeast, water, salt. Simple, delicious and when you crush it the dough reforms into shape when you releade. Also doesn't leave a generation of people with digestion problems or a deeply held belief they're allergic to bread. Don't even get me started on supermarket sourdough...

But yeah, thanks mate We do. And breadmakers are just fine. Instant yeast is your friend and just make sure it's not a year old. Those double foil 7g sachets are notorious

I'm lazy and use a bread machine (usually spelt or rye flour)) but so much better. Supermarket bread is just so wrong - taste, texture plus upsets my stomach. Food industry and supermarkets are arseholes and most the supermarkets have so much debt on them they aren't even that cheap any more. Don't go near a supermarket for fruit, veg, meat or most dairy products. The "fresh" supermarket bread is actually just reheated from frozen on site and the smell is pumped out. The damage to the populations health must be horrific in terms of healthy years of life lost and cost of medical treatment.

Edit: The line with famine as a food industry CEO in Good Omens nails it.

"CHOW contained spun, plaited, and woven protein molecules, capped and coded, carefully designed to be ignored by even the most ravenous digestive tract enzymes; no-cal sweeteners; mineral oils replacing vegetable oils; fibrous materials, colorings, and flavorings. The end result was a foodstuff almost indistinguishable from any other except for two things. Firstly, the price, which was slightly higher, and secondly, the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walkman.

MEALS was CHOW with added sugar and fat. The theory was that if you ate enough MEALS you would a) get very fat, and b) die of malnutrition."

[Tichtheid]

The NI increase is going to really hit small charities which are already scrabbling over ever-decreasing sources of funding

[robmatic]

£40bn increase in taxes

I hope there is also a hefty whack of investment coming.

I hope it'll mostly be on green initiatives, the floods today in Valencia could easily be happening in the UK

Looks like the green stuff is hydrogen and carbon capture i.e. expensive stuff that won't do much

[Paddington Bear]

That NI increase is enormous

[inactionman]

That NI increase is enormous

Yep, and presumably will be payable by all contractors inside IR35.

Expect a load of contactors to shift to Non-IR35 work, and lose the employer's NIC.

[Biffer]

That NI increase is enormous

Yep, and presumably will be payable by all contractors inside IR35.

Expect a load of contactors to shift to Non-IR35 work, and lose the employer's NIC.

How does the sme allowance work?

Edit - I can see IR35 work isn't eligible for it, but more generally can someone explain it?

2nd Edit - a simple reading of what's on line suggests you could now have three employees earning £35k each and you would basically get a discount on your employer NICs to the extent that nothing is payable?

[lemonhead]

The supermarket loaves pretty much all use the Chorloywood process - much quicker and generally lower-cost ingredients.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process

An innovation of its time, postwar method of making quick product, stacking it high, selling cheap. And immensely suitable for soaking up bacon juice in a sarnie.

But one day take a gouge out of some supermarket white loaf, a golf ball sized piece of interior fluff. Crush it in your hand, medium pressure and release. In the majority of cases you'll be holding an off white to dull grey rock of dough. Completely inert, possible oozing one last bit of moisture out.

You imagine large amounts of that slamming into your stomach like a cannonball, what your gut needs to do in digesting those 30+ additional ingredients, fats, emulsifiers, bread improvers etc. Usually soft to the point of being underbaked and produced from raw ingredients to a mixed, risen, shaped, baked, cooled, sliced and packaged loaf in two hours.

By contrast, a homemade loaf has just four ingredients: flour, yeast, water, salt. Simple, delicious and when you crush it the dough reforms into shape when you releade. Also doesn't leave a generation of people with digestion problems or a deeply held belief they're allergic to bread. Don't even get me started on supermarket sourdough...

But yeah, thanks mate We do. And breadmakers are just fine. Instant yeast is your friend and just make sure it's not a year old. Those double foil 7g sachets are notorious

I'm lazy and use a bread machine (usually spelt or rye flour)) but so much better. Supermarket bread is just so wrong - taste, texture plus upsets my stomach. Food industry and supermarkets are arseholes and most the supermarkets have so much debt on them they aren't even that cheap any more. Don't go near a supermarket for fruit, veg, meat or most dairy products. The "fresh" supermarket bread is actually just reheated from frozen on site and the smell is pumped out. The damage to the populations health must be horrific in terms of healthy years of life lost and cost of medical treatment.

Edit: The line with famine as a food industry CEO in Good Omens nails it.

"CHOW contained spun, plaited, and woven protein molecules, capped and coded, carefully designed to be ignored by even the most ravenous digestive tract enzymes; no-cal sweeteners; mineral oils replacing vegetable oils; fibrous materials, colorings, and flavorings. The end result was a foodstuff almost indistinguishable from any other except for two things. Firstly, the price, which was slightly higher, and secondly, the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walkman.

MEALS was CHOW with added sugar and fat. The theory was that if you ate enough MEALS you would a) get very fat, and b) die of malnutrition."

Love Good Omens to this day, couldn't really watch the TV series (which I'm sure is grand in its own right) because the book's so goddamn good.

Keep making your own. As Saint says, you're rarely spoilt for choice in the shires and often dependant on some very basic stuff. You didn't ask about supermarket sourdough but I'm still angry remembering it even for a second. Waitrose and the like are better but what the majority do is make that CHOWleywood loaf as per normal but either add sour vinegar, yoghurt or get some real sourdough starter (y'know, which should be replacing your instant yeast), putting the sourdough in the oven all on its own till completely incinerated, whizzing its now dead remains into powder and mixing said powder into these factory loaves for consumption, adding a slightly sour aftertaste.

But hey it does have sourdough innit, right? So we can pop a few pence premium on the price and let people assume it's the real thing. Wankers.

[Biffer]

Reading through some parts of the full doc atm, and this struck me as positive

Late payments can bring cash-flow challenges for small businesses, so from
1 October 2025, companies bidding for government contracts over £5 million per
annum will be excluded from the procurement process if they do not pay their
own suppliers within an average of 45 days.

[Big D]

The NI increase is going to really hit small charities which are already scrabbling over ever-decreasing sources of funding

Going to hit workers at small businesses too. That rise NICs will be taken from sums allocated to pay rises.

[petej]

Love Good Omens to this day, couldn't really watch the TV series (which I'm sure is grand in its own right) because the book's so goddamn good.

Keep making your own. As Saint says, you're rarely spoilt for choice in the shires and often dependant on some very basic stuff. You didn't ask about supermarket sourdough but I'm still angry remembering it even for a second. Waitrose and the like are better but what the majority do is make that CHOWleywood loaf as per normal but get some real sourdough starter (y'know, which should be replacing your instant yeast), putting the sourdough in the oven all on its own till completely incinerated, whizzing its now dead remains into powder and mixing said powder into these factory loaves for consumption, adding a slightly sour aftertaste.

But hey it does have sourdough innit, right? So we can pop a few pence premium on the price and let people assume it's the real thing. Wankers.

The dishonesty in the food industry really upsets me and makes me angry because the damage is terrible. I tend to use yoghurt and diet yoghurts as the easy example of adding shit. I don't have an issue with stuff like proper coke or haribo as they aren't even vaguely pretending to be good for you. Find it upsetting to see parents feeding their kids jelly like sweets branded as healthy as made from fruit that are no better than stuff like haribo and almost certainly more expensive.

[lemonhead]

The NI increase is going to really hit small charities which are already scrabbling over ever-decreasing sources of funding

Going to hit workers at small businesses too. That rise NICs will be taken from sums allocated to pay rises.

Really small businesses (1-15) might be able to weather it focusing on part time roles but on full time, anyone with five employees or more gets pulled into the bracket.

The slight worry I have is a blanket U-21 young adult minimum wage which is excellent in theory, but as an employer are you more likely to hire a fully fit, experienced 20yr old who can slot straight in or take a punt on a 16yr old green as summer grass and spend the time developing them on exactly the same wage.

[Hal Jordan]

Won't hold my breath, this iteration of Labour doesn't seem to be especially serious about the environment. Won't even commit to banning neocontinoids even though farmers still have plenty of other poisons at their disposal.

Why would t5hat be announced in a budget?

It wouldn't, but it's an issue emblematic of their lack of seriousness over the environment. Ergo, don't expect much for green initiatives in the budget.

Pissing money away on carbon capture and basing things in Aberdeen lead me to believe that the fossil fuel industry has its claws just as firmly in this Government as the last.

As for green hydrogen, we need it, but not for cars, heat or power, and it will be used as a slow marcher against electrification in general.

[petej]

Why would t5hat be announced in a budget?

It wouldn't, but it's an issue emblematic of their lack of seriousness over the environment. Ergo, don't expect much for green initiatives in the budget.

Pissing money away on carbon capture and basing things in Aberdeen lead me to believe that the fossil fuel industry has its claws just as firmly in this Government as the last.

As for green hydrogen, we need it, but not for cars, heat or power, and it will be used as a slow marcher against electrification in general.

For me hydrogen is bullshit outside of industrial processing and as energy storage.

[epwc]

Agree hydrogen is bollocks for most uses

[shaggy]

Why would t5hat be announced in a budget?

It wouldn't, but it's an issue emblematic of their lack of seriousness over the environment. Ergo, don't expect much for green initiatives in the budget.

Pissing money away on carbon capture and basing things in Aberdeen lead me to believe that the fossil fuel industry has its claws just as firmly in this Government as the last.

As for green hydrogen, we need it, but not for cars, heat or power, and it will be used as a slow marcher against electrification in general.

The evidence does not match up. 78% effective tax rate and removal of many offsets make the industry dead in the uk.

The majors can use their dollars to invest elsewhere at much better rates of return. Why they continue with carbon capture and hydrogen in the uk is a complete mystery.

[Hal Jordan]

Milk the hydrogen cow for all the grant money you can squeeze out of it and then write it off as a tax expense when it runs dry.

[Slick]

Why would t5hat be announced in a budget?

It wouldn't, but it's an issue emblematic of their lack of seriousness over the environment. Ergo, don't expect much for green initiatives in the budget.

Pissing money away on carbon capture and basing things in Aberdeen lead me to believe that the fossil fuel industry has its claws just as firmly in this Government as the last.

As for green hydrogen, we need it, but not for cars, heat or power, and it will be used as a slow marcher against electrification in general.

Easy old boy, the completely made up billions of overseas investment made at the sucking up to P&O conference had not one imaginary project based in Scotland. The least the can do is give an empty office to Aberdeen.

[shaggy]

Milk the hydrogen cow for all the grant money you can squeeze out of it and then write it off as a tax expense when it runs dry.

Why? They can invest the same money in the US and have access to far more tax payer cash for carbon/hydrogen like Exxon or make way more money finding and selling hydrocarbons.

25bn over 20-odd years is not really an incentive.

[GuLi]

Milk the hydrogen cow for all the grant money you can squeeze out of it and then write it off as a tax expense when it runs dry.

Indeed. That's exactly what Airbus and a few other actors in aviation did and still do.
5 years ago they promised operational hydrogen fueled aircraft for 2035 (IIRC). They got hundreds of millions euros of public money, and we'll never see those fly. (Maybe a prototype or 2 ? Not to scale of course :) )

[Hal Jordan]

Milk the hydrogen cow for all the grant money you can squeeze out of it and then write it off as a tax expense when it runs dry.

Why? They can invest the same money in the US and have access to far more tax payer cash for carbon/hydrogen like Exxon or make way more money finding and selling hydrocarbons.

25bn over 20-odd years is not really an incentive.

As the meme says, can't we do both?

[Biffer]

Well. Would you look at that. Someone actually running the numbers on farms and realising that not that many will be ffected

[shaggy]

Milk the hydrogen cow for all the grant money you can squeeze out of it and then write it off as a tax expense when it runs dry.

Why? They can invest the same money in the US and have access to far more tax payer cash for carbon/hydrogen like Exxon or make way more money finding and selling hydrocarbons.

25bn over 20-odd years is not really an incentive.

As the meme says, can't we do both?

Hundreds of millions, if not a billion or more has already spent. The opportunity of grants would be a fraction.

You are looking for something that is not there.

[robmatic]

Well. Would you look at that. Someone actually running the numbers on farms and realising that not that many will be ffected

Yeah, I am from a farming family and I think there has been a lot of knee-jerk reaction that isn't warranted. It's definitely true that the inter-generation transfer with farms is really important because it does take decades to develop the business and the money is objectively terrible. However, if you do have a next generation that actually wants to continue in the business there are really obvious routes around IHT. The kids will already be directly be involved in the farm from when they start working, so they should be getting made a partner or director in the limited company or whatever at some point, and you should be able to trust them with gifts of land or other assets to start the transfer of the farm early.

This will have more of an effect on the families that want to sell up and cash out.

[I like neeps]

The NI increase is going to really hit small charities which are already scrabbling over ever-decreasing sources of funding

Going to hit workers at small businesses too. That rise NICs will be taken from sums allocated to pay rises.

They'll be exemptions for small businesses I think.

Pretty poor budget, the only reason they raised NI on employers was because they made the stupid pledge not to raise taxes on "working people" so instead depressed wage growth and hiring.

The green stuff is also a nonsense no more oil licences but also no tax increase on cars but a big increase in train and bus costs.

Good to give the NHS more money and some good tax reform e.g. pensions taxed if not spent.

[weegie01]

Well. Would you look at that. Someone actually running the numbers on farms and realising that not that many will be ffected

Every holding for which an APR claim is made is not a farm. A rule of thumb in Scotland is that to be a viable working farm in you are looking at £2m plus. The definition of 'farm' can be debated, but a decent proportion of full time working farms will be affected compared to other smaller holdings of whatever type. This is hidden if every smallholding, pony field, hobby farm etc for which APR is claimed is called a farm. It suits Labour to use the numbers in this way to minimise the impact on actual working family farms.

Farmers will whine and exaggerate, but there will be an impact, and it will fall most heavily on the middle ground of working family farms between smallholdings and agri businesses.

A big issue is the huge diversity of people to whom the term 'farmer' is applied. There is no obvious way to me beyond the current measures to make a distinction between proper working farms, hobby farms run by retired venture capitalists, investment farms, agri business etc so that tax measures can be better targetted.

Farm tax planning will of course change in response but so will the avoidance measures. A big issue is for farmers whose tax planning based on the previous regime.

[Paddington Bear]

Gilts in Truss territory, and Reeves having to go out to reassure the markets. I think I’ve seen this film before

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Gilts in Truss territory, and Reeves having to go out to reassure the markets. I think I’ve seen this film before

That sort of chat would encourage the thinking let the BoE set the inflation target.

[SaintK]

Gilts in Truss territory, and Reeves having to go out to reassure the markets. I think I’ve seen this film before

You've been reading the Maily Torygraph front page!

[Rhubarb & Custard]

If anyone wants some economic considerations on all this whilst it's a little dry this isn't bad - https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/Public- ... t-2024.pdf

[Biffer]

Gilts in Truss territory, and Reeves having to go out to reassure the markets. I think I’ve seen this film before

They were already substantially higher than when Truss did her thing. From the start of August to the end of September 2022, 10 year gilt yields went up from less than 2% to just under 4.5%. That included the largest ever jump on the day of the budget - followed by an even bigger one three days later.

To pretend this is the same is deeply, deeply disingenuous. And I know you'll try and weasel it by saying you weren't suggesting that, but it's pretty clear you're making the comparison.

[Sandstorm]

Gilts in Truss territory, and Reeves having to go out to reassure the markets. I think I’ve seen this film before

They were already substantially higher than when Truss did her thing. From the start of August to the end of September 2022, 10 year gilt yields went up from less than 2% to just under 4.5%. That included the largest ever jump on the day of the budget - followed by an even bigger one three days later.

To pretend this is the same is deeply, deeply disingenuous. And I know you'll try and weasel it by saying you weren't suggesting that, but it's pretty clear you're making the comparison.

"Bring back Rushi as Chancellor!"

[Paddington Bear]

Gilts in Truss territory, and Reeves having to go out to reassure the markets. I think I’ve seen this film before

You've been reading the Maily Torygraph front page!

Or indeed looking at the gilt markets

[Paddington Bear]

Gilts in Truss territory, and Reeves having to go out to reassure the markets. I think I’ve seen this film before

They were already substantially higher than when Truss did her thing. From the start of August to the end of September 2022, 10 year gilt yields went up from less than 2% to just under 4.5%. That included the largest ever jump on the day of the budget - followed by an even bigger one three days later.

To pretend this is the same is deeply, deeply disingenuous. And I know you'll try and weasel it by saying you weren't suggesting that, but it's pretty clear you're making the comparison.

If the comparison is ‘we have another poorly thought through budget that the markets don’t like that has spiked gilt prices and reduced the value of Sterling’ then I’m happy to make it. I don’t expect the crisis that Truss induced to be repeated, I don’t think this budget does anything to change the trajectory the country is on

When did you become a Labour outrider?

[Biffer]

Gilts in Truss territory, and Reeves having to go out to reassure the markets. I think I’ve seen this film before

They were already substantially higher than when Truss did her thing. From the start of August to the end of September 2022, 10 year gilt yields went up from less than 2% to just under 4.5%. That included the largest ever jump on the day of the budget - followed by an even bigger one three days later.

To pretend this is the same is deeply, deeply disingenuous. And I know you'll try and weasel it by saying you weren't suggesting that, but it's pretty clear you're making the comparison.

If the comparison is ‘we have another poorly thought through budget that the markets don’t like that has spiked gilt prices and reduced the value of Sterling’ then I’m happy to make it. I don’t expect the crisis that Truss induced to be repeated, I don’t think this budget does anything to change the trajectory the country is on

When did you become a Labour outrider?

I'm not. I just have some understanding of economics and I don't like false comparisons.

I don't recall you talking about spikes in the gilt markets in January 2023, or April-May 2023, or Dec 23-Jan 24, or April 24.

When did you become a Tory outrider?

[Paddington Bear]

They were already substantially higher than when Truss did her thing. From the start of August to the end of September 2022, 10 year gilt yields went up from less than 2% to just under 4.5%. That included the largest ever jump on the day of the budget - followed by an even bigger one three days later.

To pretend this is the same is deeply, deeply disingenuous. And I know you'll try and weasel it by saying you weren't suggesting that, but it's pretty clear you're making the comparison.

If the comparison is ‘we have another poorly thought through budget that the markets don’t like that has spiked gilt prices and reduced the value of Sterling’ then I’m happy to make it. I don’t expect the crisis that Truss induced to be repeated, I don’t think this budget does anything to change the trajectory the country is on

When did you become a Labour outrider?

I'm not. I just have some understanding of economics and I don't like false comparisons.

When did you become a Tory outrider?

I don’t think I’ve offered any praise to the Tories for years, perhaps excluding their funding for Ukraine! Thinking we had a shit government before doesn’t preclude me from thinking we still have a shit one now, and given the breathless way such things would be covered on the other thread under the Tories it isn’t unreasonable to point out that gilts have spiked and the pound has slid since the budget, and neither is a good thing

[Sandstorm]

it isn’t unreasonable to point out that gilts have spiked and the pound has slid since the budget, and neither is a good thing

If you were surprised this happened when everyone (sane) knew taxes have to rise and then the Govt actually announced they would.....well then I have a bridge in London you can buy with cyrpto.
If Labour did nothing with the new Budget, the markets would probably react negatively too.

[Paddington Bear]

it isn’t unreasonable to point out that gilts have spiked and the pound has slid since the budget, and neither is a good thing

If you were surprised this happened when everyone (sane) knew taxes have to rise and then the Govt actually announced they would.....well then I have a bridge in London you can buy with cyrpto.
If Labour did nothing with the new Budget, the markets would probably react negatively too.

If you can point to where I said they should have done nothing I will concede that you have made an excellent point

[Biffer]

it isn’t unreasonable to point out that gilts have spiked and the pound has slid since the budget, and neither is a good thing

If you were surprised this happened when everyone (sane) knew taxes have to rise and then the Govt actually announced they would.....well then I have a bridge in London you can buy with cyrpto.
If Labour did nothing with the new Budget, the markets would probably react negatively too.

If you can point to where I said they should have done nothing I will concede that you have made an excellent point

I can't recall you stating anywhere what you think they should do. Only what they shouldn't.