Starmergeddon: They Came And Ate Us

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Paddington Bear
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Biffer wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 11:59 am
Paddington Bear wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 11:52 am
Sandstorm wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 11:45 am

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.
I am neither the chancellor nor her shadow and this isn’t the House of Commons!

Some ideas though:

My preference for tax raising is VAT. Higher rate for luxuries and far fewer if any exemptions. You raise more revenue, reduce the byzantine complexity of the tax system and (I have no proof for this) I think it is politically more sustainable than hiking income and NI.

What I see from the public services I interact with (primarily Justice and NHS) is that the primary issue is capital spending or lack of it not day to day. The £22bn pumped into the NHS for day to day spending is lost money, I’d far rather see it invested. If you look at trusts who have been successful, they tend to be ones that have got up to date equipment and non leaking roofs. There’s more staff in the NHS than there was 5 years ago and they see fewer patients, no point sending £22bn more of good money after bad.
Similarly the justice system needs better digital systems and physical court facilities far more than more clerks or judges.

I’d scrap the triple lock and freeze pensioner benefits for a Parliament. Harsh but the same has happened to just about every other benefit. That frees up billions a year in capital investment.

Overall the whole thing is dependent on economic growth, which Labour have professed to understand but have delivered a budget that doesn’t seem to get it to 2%pa. Planning reforms seems to be our silver bullet there, I’d steamroller through the system a fleet of nuclear power plants, and redesignate the area inside the M25 as a Special Economic Zone with zoned planning allowing for major building. Same around Cambridge. Manchester and Leeds seem to manage development fine without this but it would be available to them if they want it.
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages, What feats he did that day
Biffer
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Paddington Bear wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 12:15 pm
Biffer wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 11:59 am
Paddington Bear wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 11:52 am

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.
I am neither the chancellor nor her shadow and this isn’t the House of Commons!

Some ideas though:

My preference for tax raising is VAT. Higher rate for luxuries and far fewer if any exemptions. You raise more revenue, reduce the byzantine complexity of the tax system and (I have no proof for this) I think it is politically more sustainable than hiking income and NI.

What I see from the public services I interact with (primarily Justice and NHS) is that the primary issue is capital spending or lack of it not day to day. The £22bn pumped into the NHS for day to day spending is lost money, I’d far rather see it invested. If you look at trusts who have been successful, they tend to be ones that have got up to date equipment and non leaking roofs. There’s more staff in the NHS than there was 5 years ago and they see fewer patients, no point sending £22bn more of good money after bad.
Similarly the justice system needs better digital systems and physical court facilities far more than more clerks or judges.

I’d scrap the triple lock and freeze pensioner benefits for a Parliament. Harsh but the same has happened to just about every other benefit. That frees up billions a year in capital investment.

Overall the whole thing is dependent on economic growth, which Labour have professed to understand but have delivered a budget that doesn’t seem to get it to 2%pa. Planning reforms seems to be our silver bullet there, I’d steamroller through the system a fleet of nuclear power plants, and redesignate the area inside the M25 as a Special Economic Zone with zoned planning allowing for major building. Same around Cambridge. Manchester and Leeds seem to manage development fine without this but it would be available to them if they want it.
Ok, so

For VAT, it depends how much revenue you want to raise. A 1p rise would get you £6.7bn. Is that enough? VAT is also inflationary, so higher interest rates for longer, given it's the only tool available to the BoE - raising gilt prices same problem as Reeves has. It's also far more visible to the average worker as it's money directly out of their pocket (rather than out of a hypothetical future pay raise which is what the effect is for employer NICs).

Capital spending is a big issue, it's been butchered by the last fifteen years. But what do you do in the meantime? Accept NHS waiting lists, A&E times, dental & GP appointments getting longer in the minimum three years it takes you to build new hospitals etc? If you're talking repairing current assets, where do you do work in the meantime with no extra funding to rent anywhere? Or do you just make the waiting lists even worse? Do you say to people who are will 'try not to die while we're building a new facility?'. Or do you increase throughput in where possible in the current facilities until the new ones are working - which means added revenue spend.
If you're talking about new capital equipment only that's a shorter lead time but it's still far from instant. But in the UK we have fewer beds per person available across the population, as well as fewer MRI / CATSCAN / etc machines than comparable countries. So, do you just want to apply service cuts while we're waiting for the capital investments to come on line?
Do you want to borrow for capital spend or take it out of annual revenue? If so, are you just looking at a 1p rise in VAT for that or more substantial? If you want to borrow, you'll have the same gilt problem as Reeves - added to the one you've caused by increasing VAT. If you want to do it from revenue, it's either more raised tax or cut spending elsewhere or increase borrowing.
If you want to increase the numbers of doctors and nurses to do this, you need to increase revenue spend again. But to do that, you'll need to reach consistent settlements with the unions over pay rates, which will need to be ahead of inflation - so more revenue raised from VAT, more pressure on gilt prices. An d probably more immigration to recruit these folks from overseas (we'll train more while we're at it, but that takes multiple years and is further cost so more revenue needs to be raised)

I don't have a problem with changing the locks on pensions, but it means you're virtually unelectable. Very difficult to navigate. And if you want a double term to facilitate real structural economic change that's something you need to consider

Growth - I personally take the view that the budget is where you set a framework for a growth economy. Tory policy has been 'set the framework and entrepreneurs will just fill the gaps' and that quite obviously hasn't worked. This budget to me is the baseline - could have been better could have been worse. The key to growth is the industrial strategy which is still 6 months away (far too long in my opinion, should be getting pushed through more quickly) which will then allow the R&D spending, economic development spending etc to be targeted to high growth, high productivity industries and methods to increase productivity in the economy (some of these purely governmental, some purely private industry, some mixed). We haven't had an industrial strategy for a long time, and I personally think that's why our productivity and growth are poor: industry has no idea what the vision of the future is and as such is very reluctant to invest. This is presented to them in a number of ways - industrial research support has been set out on a year by year basis for most of the last ten years, so no certainty in long term product development work, which is most of high tech engineering where you get the high value manufacturing and jobs from (e.g. Germany, but France and Italy and the Netherlands are much better at this than us too).

Changing planning is a monumental task and trying to steamroller it will tie you up in the courts for a long time. But I don't know enough about planning to have an idea how that should be fixed. But actually employing civil engineers to run the government departments tasked to do it, and accepting you've got to pay them the big wages they'd get in industry to do so, is a critical part of it.
And are there two g’s in Bugger Off?
Biffer
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While I was typing that I saw the response from ADS, the UK Aerospace, Defence and Space Industry & Trade body, which is welcoming some things (confirmation of ongoing investment in aerospace tech, cap on corporation tax, full expensing and R&D relief maintained) but cautious about others (employer NICs, delay to defense spending hitting 2.5% GDP). They've also been emphasising to members that 'this Budget is a part of a wider multi-month pivot in this Government’s economic policy rather than a single turning point', which is the point I was trying to make about growth above. Key lines for me would be (no problem sharing this, it's a public announcement)

The desire of this Government to provide a clear and stable economic climate for business to plan and invest for the long-term has to be strongly applauded.

We are happy that this Government appears committed to extensive consultation with industry on its policy decisions. However, until next Spring we will be waiting for clarity on the Industrial Strategy, the Spending Review and the Strategic Defence Review

Cumulatively, this period of review is not completely convincing on the economic certainty and stability that this Government made clear it wants to foster. This is obviously something we’re feeding into our engagement with them.
And are there two g’s in Bugger Off?
I like neeps
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I can't see how the NIC rise isn't inflationary, the costs will be passed on...
Biffer
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I like neeps wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 1:30 pm I can't see how the NIC rise isn't inflationary, the costs will be passed on...
Yeah, but it's likely to be more gradual and will be ameliorated by people trying to meet costs in other ways and make other economies to keep their price down. VAT just goes 'bang' on top of the existing price. In some ways you could consider the employer NICs as being a more market oriented tax as it encourages efficiency in the employers and additional pressure to reach the 'best' price point for the market - any price increase decision is left in the hands of the supplier to balance out against their costs, rather than being imposed at the point of sale.
And are there two g’s in Bugger Off?
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JM2K6
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Paddington Bear wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 10:32 am
Biffer wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 10:14 am
Paddington Bear wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 9:36 am 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?
Quick question, how much are you hoping that no one bothers to compare the scale of the two and looks up the numbers?
Dogbert
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Paddington Bear wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 12:15 pm
Biffer wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 11:59 am
Paddington Bear wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 11:52 am

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.
I am neither the chancellor nor her shadow and this isn’t the House of Commons!

Some ideas though:

My preference for tax raising is VAT. Higher rate for luxuries and far fewer if any exemptions. You raise more revenue, reduce the byzantine complexity of the tax system and (I have no proof for this) I think it is politically more sustainable than hiking income and NI.

What I see from the public services I interact with (primarily Justice and NHS) is that the primary issue is capital spending or lack of it not day to day. The £22bn pumped into the NHS for day to day spending is lost money, I’d far rather see it invested. If you look at trusts who have been successful, they tend to be ones that have got up to date equipment and non leaking roofs. There’s more staff in the NHS than there was 5 years ago and they see fewer patients, no point sending £22bn more of good money after bad.
Similarly the justice system needs better digital systems and physical court facilities far more than more clerks or judges.

I’d scrap the triple lock and freeze pensioner benefits for a Parliament. Harsh but the same has happened to just about every other benefit. That frees up billions a year in capital investment.

Overall the whole thing is dependent on economic growth, which Labour have professed to understand but have delivered a budget that doesn’t seem to get it to 2%pa. Planning reforms seems to be our silver bullet there, I’d steamroller through the system a fleet of nuclear power plants, and redesignate the area inside the M25 as a Special Economic Zone with zoned planning allowing for major building. Same around Cambridge. Manchester and Leeds seem to manage development fine without this but it would be available to them if they want it.
Keep the triple lock for State Pensions , however they should be means tested
Lager & Lime - we don't do cocktails
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JM2K6
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Anyone bringing up either the truss budget or the reaction to it as a comparison to this one is either breathlessly repeating daft shit from the more idiotic corners of the right wing, or being deliberately disingenuous. Flip a coin!
dpedin
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Dogbert wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 8:42 pm
Paddington Bear wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 12:15 pm
Biffer wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 11:59 am

I can't recall you stating anywhere what you think they should do. Only what they shouldn't.
I am neither the chancellor nor her shadow and this isn’t the House of Commons!

Some ideas though:

My preference for tax raising is VAT. Higher rate for luxuries and far fewer if any exemptions. You raise more revenue, reduce the byzantine complexity of the tax system and (I have no proof for this) I think it is politically more sustainable than hiking income and NI.

What I see from the public services I interact with (primarily Justice and NHS) is that the primary issue is capital spending or lack of it not day to day. The £22bn pumped into the NHS for day to day spending is lost money, I’d far rather see it invested. If you look at trusts who have been successful, they tend to be ones that have got up to date equipment and non leaking roofs. There’s more staff in the NHS than there was 5 years ago and they see fewer patients, no point sending £22bn more of good money after bad.
Similarly the justice system needs better digital systems and physical court facilities far more than more clerks or judges.

I’d scrap the triple lock and freeze pensioner benefits for a Parliament. Harsh but the same has happened to just about every other benefit. That frees up billions a year in capital investment.

Overall the whole thing is dependent on economic growth, which Labour have professed to understand but have delivered a budget that doesn’t seem to get it to 2%pa. Planning reforms seems to be our silver bullet there, I’d steamroller through the system a fleet of nuclear power plants, and redesignate the area inside the M25 as a Special Economic Zone with zoned planning allowing for major building. Same around Cambridge. Manchester and Leeds seem to manage development fine without this but it would be available to them if they want it.
Keep the triple lock for State Pensions , however they should be means tested
In a way the state pension is means tested as it forms part of your taxable income and anyone who has additional incomes - private pensions, dividends, interest on savings, etc - and goes above the relevant threshold is taxed accordingly. The State Pension is a universal benefit - everyone pays in and everyone gets the same out, changing the rules on the state pension is a very slippery slope which I cant see any Government choosing to go down.

International comparisons can be difficult but the UK State Pension is one of the lowest amongst comparable European countries, the UK spends 4.7% of GDP on state pensions compared with OECD average of 7%.

The real problem in the UK and most of developed countries isn't unaffordable pensions per se but rather the changing demographics - England and Wales reported a total fertility rate of only 1.44 children per woman this year, the lowest on record. We need TFR of 2.1 to sustain our population. We don't have enough births to sustain our current population or to stop the working population - 16 to 66 year olds - from shrinking. The balance between those in work and pensioners is becoming skewed but reducing pensions to poverty levels isnt a sustainable solution. Options are either address the factors why folk aren't having kids - housing costs, childcare costs, relative low wages, etc - or increase inward migration to fill the workforce gaps. The latter is the easier option for Governments and is one reason why the Tory Gov had record levels of legal immigration!

The Trumpian approach of finding someone to blame for our ills - the young, the pensioners, those on benefits, the immigrants - is neither a true reflection nor understanding of what is driving our problems nor will it come up with real solutions, however it does provide some material to fill the front pages of the Mail, Express, Telegraph etc and give GBNews something to shout about.
Biffer
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Read something interesting about fertility rates the other day and how it's not even monitored for men. That results in men not being considered part of the solution to raising the birth rate. This immediately starts to sound incelish, but it went on further to talk about things like income inequality, the change in having children (for both men and women) starting to become a capstone instead of a cornerstone, financial pressure on younger generations being substantially different and the need to look to men to consider child birth an rearing to be a cereer break point, as women have to. It was quit interesting and if I find it again I'll post it here.
And are there two g’s in Bugger Off?
I like neeps
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Tuition fees going up next year...
robmatic
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I like neeps wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 4:42 pm Tuition fees going up next year...
I presume this will be beneficial for university finances but won't make much difference for young people who will spend at least the first couple of decades of their working lives being screwed by an excessive marginal tax rate regardless.
sockwithaticket
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robmatic wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2024 5:34 am
I like neeps wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 4:42 pm Tuition fees going up next year...
I presume this will be beneficial for university finances but won't make much difference for young people who will spend at least the first couple of decades of their working lives being screwed by an excessive marginal tax rate regardless.
Maintenance loans going up £400 too.

Both totally pointless and stupid moves. Just give universities the money directly. Giving it to them via students will just, as you say, handbrake spending power as graduates and just make the debt pile the government will ultimately write off anyway considerably larger. Of course doing it this way around allows the scum we sold off student debt to to make even more money.
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Paddington Bear
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sockwithaticket wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2024 10:09 am
robmatic wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2024 5:34 am
I like neeps wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 4:42 pm Tuition fees going up next year...
I presume this will be beneficial for university finances but won't make much difference for young people who will spend at least the first couple of decades of their working lives being screwed by an excessive marginal tax rate regardless.
Maintenance loans going up £400 too.

Both totally pointless and stupid moves. Just give universities the money directly. Giving it to them via students will just, as you say, handbrake spending power as graduates and just make the debt pile the government will ultimately write off anyway considerably larger. Of course doing it this way around allows the scum we sold off student debt to to make even more money.
Politics seems to forget that with every year that passes those of us paying pretty crippling marginal tax rates on our student loans are getting older and it is a factor in preventing people from moving on in their lives as they would like to. I sense the politics is always around it being a minor worry for a 22 year old.
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages, What feats he did that day
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Labour need to be careful, they've had younger voters reliably onside for a long time, if they don't materially improve their circumstances, they might not hang around.
weegie01
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dpedin wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2024 12:00 pm International comparisons can be difficult but the UK State Pension is one of the lowest amongst comparable European countries, the UK spends 4.7% of GDP on state pensions compared with OECD average of 7%.
Other countries have much higher state provision, but much lower private. So the average French or German pensioner will have circa 80% of their income from state sources, and 20% from non state sources such as occupational pension, personal pensions etc. In the UK it is about 50% from state sources the rest from the non state sources mentioned. When you add all sources together the UK is actually not badly placed. Though there is to me a big issue that the relative reliance on non state provision leaves a significant variability in outcomes.

I can't find numbers to give a better picture of how well off overall leaves the average UK pensioner vis-vis others when everything is taken int account, but rather to my surprise the Australian Mercer Institute benchmarks the UK system overall ahead of all other major EU economies, but behind most of the of EU smaller economies.

https://www.mercer.com/insights/investm ... ion-index/
Biffer
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Biffer wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2024 12:30 pm Read something interesting about fertility rates the other day and how it's not even monitored for men. That results in men not being considered part of the solution to raising the birth rate. This immediately starts to sound incelish, but it went on further to talk about things like income inequality, the change in having children (for both men and women) starting to become a capstone instead of a cornerstone, financial pressure on younger generations being substantially different and the need to look to men to consider child birth an rearing to be a cereer break point, as women have to. It was quit interesting and if I find it again I'll post it here.
Remembered where I found it

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp81ynn7r4mo
And are there two g’s in Bugger Off?
_Os_
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Gray has declined to take up her new job. It now looks like a faction battle which one side (Starmer/Gray) lost, as the evil right wing press reported at the time. I hold my hand up, I got that wrong, Neeps and Mr.Bear look correct.

Team McSweeney is the winner then. Debateable how good he is, definitely has a lot of connections to Lambeth council and also Croydon council (his group looks strongly south London) which may give a read on how the UK goes. Croydon went from Labour to no overall control in 2022. Beyond that no clue how well run Croydon was. Lambeth has always been strongly Labour and is now close to a Labour one party council. It's debateable how good he is, as one read of his successes (winning back Lambeth from a Tory/Lib Dem coalition and winning the 2024 GE) is that they weren't difficult.

Two Blairite factions, the more right wing one has won by the looks of things. Should cheer up Neeps.
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SaintK
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_Os_ wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2024 2:30 pm Gray has declined to take up her new job. It now looks like a faction battle which one side (Starmer/Gray) lost, as the evil right wing press reported at the time. I hold my hand up, I got that wrong, Neeps and Mr.Bear look correct.

Team McSweeney is the winner then. Debateable how good he is, definitely has a lot of connections to Lambeth council and also Croydon council (his group looks strongly south London) which may give a read on how the UK goes. Croydon went from Labour to no overall control in 2022. Beyond that no clue how well run Croydon was. Lambeth has always been strongly Labour and is now close to a Labour one party council. It's debateable how good he is, as one read of his successes (winning back Lambeth from a Tory/Lib Dem coalition and winning the 2024 GE) is that they weren't difficult.

Two Blairite factions, the more right wing one has won by the looks of things. Should cheer up Neeps.
Both Croydon and Lambeth are local government basket cases!
Croydon was put in special measures as it is virtually bankrupt due to some horrendous investment gambles on house building in recent years.
Lambeth not much better and has been dogged by child care and housing scandals as well financial mismanagement and criminal behaviour for donkey's years.
I like neeps
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_Os_ wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2024 2:30 pm Gray has declined to take up her new job. It now looks like a faction battle which one side (Starmer/Gray) lost, as the evil right wing press reported at the time. I hold my hand up, I got that wrong, Neeps and Mr.Bear look correct.

Team McSweeney is the winner then. Debateable how good he is, definitely has a lot of connections to Lambeth council and also Croydon council (his group looks strongly south London) which may give a read on how the UK goes. Croydon went from Labour to no overall control in 2022. Beyond that no clue how well run Croydon was. Lambeth has always been strongly Labour and is now close to a Labour one party council. It's debateable how good he is, as one read of his successes (winning back Lambeth from a Tory/Lib Dem coalition and winning the 2024 GE) is that they weren't difficult.

Two Blairite factions, the more right wing one has won by the looks of things. Should cheer up Neeps.
My gripe with Keir Starmer is not left vs right. My gripe is that he ran a campaign to win the Labour leadership which he clearly never had any interest in actually implementing. I think that lying and opportunism of pledging/promising what is required to win one election without the conviction to follow through with that decays our politics. When Tory politicians e.g. Mr Johnson relentlessly lied in campaigning we all (rightly) called him out on that.

Why would anyone trust Starmer? He lied and lied and lied again. Saying what is required to win an election and then governing differently is just wrong whatever way you cut it.

If he came out in the Labour leadership election and said I'm going to follow a Labour right tradition in government I'd have no issue with him.
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tabascoboy
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Scripted without a doubt but still quite good (and I hope a true account, but he appeared to laugh it off in the House)



tc27
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That RS Archer account is bizzare.

Pretends to be a famous author living in a French estate..quite the performance.
sockwithaticket
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Badenoch made it very easy for Starmer to slap her down at PMQs again today. She seems awfully pleased with herself at the despatch box with no clear reason as to why.
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JM2K6
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tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2024 5:10 pm That RS Archer account is bizzare.

Pretends to be a famous author living in a French estate..quite the performance.
Yeah, it's bullshit central. Repeatedly posts made up nonsense.
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Paddington Bear
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JM2K6 wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2024 8:17 pm
tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2024 5:10 pm That RS Archer account is bizzare.

Pretends to be a famous author living in a French estate..quite the performance.
Yeah, it's bullshit central. Repeatedly posts made up nonsense.
He’s hit a remarkable sweetspot of creating a character that particularly appeals to a middle aged demographic that is uniquely unable to detect internet scams whilst being very online
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember with advantages, What feats he did that day
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JM2K6
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Paddington Bear wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2024 9:44 pm
JM2K6 wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2024 8:17 pm
tc27 wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2024 5:10 pm That RS Archer account is bizzare.

Pretends to be a famous author living in a French estate..quite the performance.
Yeah, it's bullshit central. Repeatedly posts made up nonsense.
He’s hit a remarkable sweetspot of creating a character that particularly appeals to a middle aged demographic that is uniquely unable to detect internet scams whilst being very online
"What if Russ In Cheshire or that weird Tanskii MySpace Angle woman weren't real" basically

Also it's rude to talk about Softie like that when he doesn't post on here!
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Raggs
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So turns out if you get on with it, you can make things better without wasting hundreds of millions on 4 people.

The 3 biggest deportation flights have taken place under this government. And a big increase in forced deporations. As well as sending a criminal helping lots of people crossing the channel to court.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... d-34124726
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
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tabascoboy
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Raggs wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2024 8:35 pm So turns out if you get on with it, you can make things better without wasting hundreds of millions on 4 people.

The 3 biggest deportation flights have taken place under this government. And a big increase in forced deporations. As well as sending a criminal helping lots of people crossing the channel to court.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... d-34124726
Makes you wonder why the previous Government kept shouting "RWANDA DEAL!" at everyone for months, and just where all that money went ( as if we didn't know), don't it?
Biffer
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tabascoboy wrote: Sun Nov 17, 2024 1:13 pm
Raggs wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2024 8:35 pm So turns out if you get on with it, you can make things better without wasting hundreds of millions on 4 people.

The 3 biggest deportation flights have taken place under this government. And a big increase in forced deporations. As well as sending a criminal helping lots of people crossing the channel to court.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... d-34124726
Makes you wonder why the previous Government kept shouting "RWANDA DEAL!" at everyone for months, and just where all that money went ( as if we didn't know), don't it?
Because they thought that it would make them look harder on immigration.
And are there two g’s in Bugger Off?
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... dApp_Other
Would a major explosion or complete water supply failure force the government to not bail out these arseholes? If it happens in London they might actually do something about it.
weegie01
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petej wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2024 6:11 pm https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... dApp_Other
Would a major explosion or complete water supply failure force the government to not bail out these arseholes? If it happens in London they might actually do something about it.
We really are abysmal at regulation in this country. We keep on making the same regulatory mistakes seemingly in thrall to the private sector who demand and get risk free returns. It is hardly a surprise that so much of our infrastructure is owned by foreign investors when it is such a good bet for them at the cost of the customers.

Let them go bust and any renationalisation should wipe out the shareholders stake as a quid pro quo for them leaching out dividends while neglecting the investments that now look like being met from the public purse.
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Stranger
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Let them go bust and any renationalisation should wipe out the shareholders stake as a quid pro quo for them leaching out dividends while neglecting the investments that now look like being met from the public purse.
[/quote]

This
sockwithaticket
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Also cancels out that we sold our water system to these fucks debt free in the first place.
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lemonhead
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weegie01 wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2024 6:48 pm
petej wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2024 6:11 pm https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... dApp_Other
Would a major explosion or complete water supply failure force the government to not bail out these arseholes? If it happens in London they might actually do something about it.
We really are abysmal at regulation in this country. We keep on making the same regulatory mistakes seemingly in thrall to the private sector who demand and get risk free returns. It is hardly a surprise that so much of our infrastructure is owned by foreign investors when it is such a good bet for them at the cost of the customers.

Let them go bust and any renationalisation should wipe out the shareholders stake as a quid pro quo for them leaching out dividends while neglecting the investments that now look like being met from the public purse.
Such an obvious solution, is there any reason it rarely sees the light of day in government or media soundbites?
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fishfoodie
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Biffer wrote: Sat Nov 02, 2024 12:30 pm Read something interesting about fertility rates the other day and how it's not even monitored for men. That results in men not being considered part of the solution to raising the birth rate. This immediately starts to sound incelish, but it went on further to talk about things like income inequality, the change in having children (for both men and women) starting to become a capstone instead of a cornerstone, financial pressure on younger generations being substantially different and the need to look to men to consider child birth an rearing to be a cereer break point, as women have to. It was quit interesting and if I find it again I'll post it here.
There's a wonderful confluence between Incel/MAGA/Qanon conspiracy theories that ends up in a very inconvenient place.

You have the likes of Space Karen spouting horseshit about replacement theory, & how important it is for WASPs to have more children, Stepford wives etc. He conveniently ignores the role that businesses have in enabling couples to have children in all of this, because the cunt resents things like a living wage, affordable childcare, parental leave etc, etc, etc....

Then most of us have probably heard the bizarre shit about transgender frogs, or whatever that theory has morphed into in the Qanon world, & wondered just WTF they're on about ?

... I'm convinced that this comes from a scientific article years ago about the decline in sperm counts across the 1st world & it's impacts, the reason ...... the Pill !

There's now a few decades of data to show the impact of the wide availability of the Pill, & what Scientists have observed is that it has caused waterways across those parts of the globe where it's in widespread use, to become contaminated with high levels of Estrogen. Estrogen isn't removed by the normal waste water treatment systems, so it just gets recycled, & recycled forever, & when it builds up enough it has two important impacts, (1) if causes amphibians to unsurprisingly change to the female gender, because they literally soaking in female hormones, & (2) crater sperm counts.

So Space Karen & his mates have the power to fix the problems they continually complain about, but the prefer to keep their money & just bitch about it !
weegie01
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lemonhead wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2024 10:20 pm
weegie01 wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2024 6:48 pm
petej wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2024 6:11 pmhttps://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... dApp_Other Would a major explosion or complete water supply failure force the government to not bail out these arseholes? If it happens in London they might actually do something about it.
We really are abysmal at regulation in this country. We keep on making the same regulatory mistakes seemingly in thrall to the private sector who demand and get risk free returns. It is hardly a surprise that so much of our infrastructure is owned by foreign investors when it is such a good bet for them at the cost of the customers.

Let them go bust and any renationalisation should wipe out the shareholders stake as a quid pro quo for them leaching out dividends while neglecting the investments that now look like being met from the public purse.
Such an obvious solution, is there any reason it rarely sees the light of day in government or media soundbites?
It is miles from my area of expertise but I'd have thought it was possible to have a pre pack administration set up where everyone is still employed and does the same job (so the water keeps flowing etc) but everything is transferred to a new company and an adminstrator steps in to take over control. How / if this works in practice I have no idea.
Dinsdale Piranha
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weegie01 wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2024 9:31 am
lemonhead wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2024 10:20 pm
weegie01 wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2024 6:48 pm

We really are abysmal at regulation in this country. We keep on making the same regulatory mistakes seemingly in thrall to the private sector who demand and get risk free returns. It is hardly a surprise that so much of our infrastructure is owned by foreign investors when it is such a good bet for them at the cost of the customers.

Let them go bust and any renationalisation should wipe out the shareholders stake as a quid pro quo for them leaching out dividends while neglecting the investments that now look like being met from the public purse.
Such an obvious solution, is there any reason it rarely sees the light of day in government or media soundbites?
It is miles from my area of expertise but I'd have thought it was possible to have a pre pack administration set up where everyone is still employed and does the same job (so the water keeps flowing etc) but everything is transferred to a new company and an adminstrator steps in to take over control. How / if this works in practice I have no idea.
Water companies have a lot of assets so there will be a massive bunfight over who's entitled to what.

Also if you ever expect to borrow money from a bank again, don't stiff the bank.

Prepack administration works best when there's very few tangible assets. A local business does it every couple of years - it's just a somewhat legal way to stop paying your bills.
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SaintK
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Looks like a potential "win/win" if they did this?
Rupert Harrison, chief of staff to George Osborne when Osborne was chancellor, reckons that the Treasury could find a more effective way of raising money from the mega-wealthy who are buying farms to dodge inheritance tax. The NFU says it thinks a better policy could be devised. (See 9.35am.) Harrison posted these on social media yesterday with an example of how this could be done.
Labour’s family farm tax problem should be really easy to fix, and they could probably even do it in a revenue neutral way - eg instead of 20% above £1m go to 30% above £5 million.
They’ve got it wrong, and if you’re going to have to do a U-turn then best to get on with it.
This would also actually raise more from the people they’re really trying to target who are using the relief for tax avoidance.
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Hal Jordan
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Yeah, and then they'd still scream about having to sell the family farm to pay the IHT, even though they will 100% be farming companies, where IHT planning with shareholdings is way, way easier.
dpedin
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Useful analysis from BBC Verified about the number of farms actually impacted by the new IHT rate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rlk0d2vk2o

I see the demo in London was addressed by Jeremy Clarkson who called his farm Diddly Squat due to the amount of IHT he would pay on it once he died. Fed up hearing about the cash poor, asset rich quandary facing farmers ... how many folk have an aged relative living sedately on their state pension and living in a house worth many thousands or millions and whose relatives will have to sell the asset in order to pay the IHT bill when they die? I have no idea why farmers think they should be exempt from a tax that everyone else pays? The only reason the farmers are asset rich is because of the price of land being inflated by rich individuals buying farms to avoid IHT, once the tax loophole is closed then they will invest their money elsewhere and land prices will fall. the only reason many farmers will end of paying tax is either because of poor planning or else they have benefited from a huge increase in their wealth due to rampant land prices, a bit like house prices in London?
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