New Tory Leader

[Well b back 3,199]

16 minutes ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

Isn't the top rare of personal tax now going to be 40 percent though? 

Indeed we are going to borrow several billion pounds to give to the likes of directors of BP which the most vulnerable will have to repay to allow the rate to be reduced to 40%. 

[Well b back 3,199]

In the competition to become the most hated country in the world outside Russia Liz Truss wishes to move the U.K. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Nice one Liz.

[Rock The Boat 1,329]

7 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

I did A level Economics 45 years ago. I can vividly remember being taught why this sort of thing doesn't work. It absolutely beggars belief. Is it a goodbye gift to their backers or are they completely nuts? 

I'm a Blair/Starmer Labour supporter but I'm not celebrating probably the worst budget ever. It's a gift to the Labour Party but I'm wondering if we'll actually have a country left to argue about in 2 years time. 

If you are a Labour Party supporter I can well see why you would consider this to be the worst budget ever as it mirrors the tax cutting budgets of the 1980s that led to the massive economic boom and eleven years of Conservatism. Will the Labour Party survive eleven more years of Conservative rule? I somehow think not.

If you did A level Economics 45 years ago, that would be about the time of the famous letter to the Times signed by 100 economists who madly ended up with egg on their faces when Thatcher did similar to Truss and turned the economy around and brought about the highest ever levels of employment. I suppose those economists were about on a par with our current Covid data modellers and their wildly exaggerated claims of Covid deaths. 

So there's really no surprise to hear the wailing from the commentariat, it's what they do. We'll ignore them. Let's hope that this is just the beginning of some read-meat policy making and the end of Boris Johnson's soy milk slops. 

[Icecream Snow 761]

From the BBC

The government had to tell the markets that it needed to borrow an extra £72bn this year, but did not publish the numbers behind that. Interest rates charged for British debt hit 4%, having been 3.1% earlier this week, and 1.8% at the beginning of the leadership contest with Rishi Sunak.

The Treasury's answer to all this is a table of forecasts which shows how much tax revenue would be raised if its reforms were able to permanently raise growth in the economy.

[Well b back 3,199]

Plenty of conspiracy theories in that statement RTB, even Tories are questioning what’s going on and confirming this is nothing like Thatcherism. 

[dylanisabaddog 4,909]

5 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

If you are a Labour Party supporter I can well see why you would consider this to be the worst budget ever as it mirrors the tax cutting budgets of the 1980s that led to the massive economic boom and eleven years of Conservatism. Will the Labour Party survive eleven more years of Conservative rule? I somehow think not.

If you did A level Economics 45 years ago, that would be about the time of the famous letter to the Times signed by 100 economists who madly ended up with egg on their faces when Thatcher did similar to Truss and turned the economy around and brought about the highest ever levels of employment. I suppose those economists were about on a par with our current Covid data modellers and their wildly exaggerated claims of Covid deaths. 

So there's really no surprise to hear the wailing from the commentariat, it's what they do. We'll ignore them. Let's hope that this is just the beginning of some read-meat policy making and the end of Boris Johnson's soy milk slops. 

Please don't compare Truss to Thatcher. Thatcher was a hugely intelligent woman surrounded by an extremely gifted cabinet. That level of politician does exist in small numbers in the Conservative Party at the moment but none of them are in Government. 

Thatcher of course relied purely on the financial sector to get things moving and love them or loathe them we are now totally dependent on bankers. Unfortunately they are now being asked to do their job without full access to the EU. 

But the obvious flaw in your argument is the fact that what happened in the 80's led to 3 successive Labour election victories. 

[horsefly 4,296]

Indeed! And if you had quoted my sentence in full, you would see my point was that when Thatcher made her tax cuts she funded them with government money by making changes elsewhere (VAT). What she didn't do was borrow billions to give tax cuts to the very wealthy. To borrow money to give a tax cut to those earning over £150,000 is not Thatcherite but utterly reckless and immoral. 

[horsefly 4,296]

6 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

If you are a Labour Party supporter I can well see why you would consider this to be the worst budget ever as it mirrors the tax cutting budgets of the 1980s that led to the massive economic boom and eleven years of Conservatism. Will the Labour Party survive eleven more years of Conservative rule? I somehow think not.

If you did A level Economics 45 years ago, that would be about the time of the famous letter to the Times signed by 100 economists who madly ended up with egg on their faces when Thatcher did similar to Truss and turned the economy around and brought about the highest ever levels of employment. I suppose those economists were about on a par with our current Covid data modellers and their wildly exaggerated claims of Covid deaths. 

So there's really no surprise to hear the wailing from the commentariat, it's what they do. We'll ignore them. Let's hope that this is just the beginning of some read-meat policy making and the end of Boris Johnson's soy milk slops. 

Oh dear! Simply doubling down on your embarrassing failure to understand Thatcherite economics isn't going to make your childish mistakes go away. Thatcher did NOT do similar to Truss because she wasn't foolish enough to borrow billions to give tax cuts to the very wealthy. Neither does Truss have mass unemployment as an excuse for borrowing money to pay for her crass tax cuts; indeed, we have more jobs available than people to fill them. To borrow money at a time when it is extremely expensive to do so, in order to fill the pockets of the very wealthy is utterly absurd as the international markets have made very clear.

[horsefly 4,296]

Want to know the level of economic literacy within the treasury? Here's the considered opinion of Chris Philp, Chief Secretary to the treasury yesterday morning: 

“Great to see sterling strengthening on the back of the new UK Growth Plan,” Mr Philp said.

Great to see sterling strengthening on the back of the new UK Growth Plan https://t.co/Ec8tgXkgKd

— Chris Philp (@CPhilpOfficial) September 23, 2022

By the end of the day the pound had fallen from 1.12 to under 1.09 to the dollar. Comforting to know we have such a genius at the heart of the treasury dept.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/economic-illiteracy-senior-treasury-minister-mocked-for-failing-to-understand-impact-of-mini-budget/ar-AA12b2i9?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=6a246286300940259e65b9627f380716

[1902 1,167]

8 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

If you are a Labour Party supporter I can well see why you would consider this to be the worst budget ever as it mirrors the tax cutting budgets of the 1980s that led to the massive economic boom and eleven years of Conservatism. Will the Labour Party survive eleven more years of Conservative rule? I somehow think not.

If you did A level Economics 45 years ago, that would be about the time of the famous letter to the Times signed by 100 economists who madly ended up with egg on their faces when Thatcher did similar to Truss and turned the economy around and brought about the highest ever levels of employment. I suppose those economists were about on a par with our current Covid data modellers and their wildly exaggerated claims of Covid deaths. 

So there's really no surprise to hear the wailing from the commentariat, it's what they do. We'll ignore them. Let's hope that this is just the beginning of some read-meat policy making and the end of Boris Johnson's soy milk slops. 

The tax cuts are not the issue. It's the increased borrowing to fund them during a period when the pound is already weak and when we have high inflation caused by $ priced imports.

If the BOE wants to bring inflation under some form of control, the £ will need to be supported by rate rises, which in a country of variable rate mortgage holders and high house prices will cause demand to drop sharply. 

That basically makes the tax cuts irrelevant as a mechanism to create growth.

By all means, come back to me in 6 months and tell me how I was wrong if the UK suddenly enters a boom, but for the time being, it looks like an economically illiterate policy bases on an extremely narrow understanding of economics. 

 

[TeemuVanBasten 3,327]

9 hours ago, Well b back said:

Indeed we are going to borrow several billion pounds to give to the likes of directors of BP which the most vulnerable will have to repay to allow the rate to be reduced to 40%. 

Yes, it's a disgrace, even the city boys aren't buying into this one - and they are beneficiaries. 

[duke63 542]

Many people forget that Thatcherism was also supported by very high interest rates.

If we end up with double figure interest rates again, the economy will collapse completely.

 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,538]

10 hours ago, Well b back said:

I think you will find they were calling for the leader to quit and call a general election, but they weren’t brave enough to do that. Bet they wish they had now.

The kids already hate us because of what we did with Europe, think how they will react when they realise it is them that will be paying back these billions for decades to come.

Yeah, but it doesn't work like that. Parties with a parliamentary majority call general elections on their own terms, just as with when Brown succeeded Blair. 

Edited September 24, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[littleyellowbirdie 2,538]

2 hours ago, horsefly said:

Oh dear! Simply doubling down on your embarrassing failure to understand Thatcherite economics isn't going to make your childish mistakes go away. Thatcher did NOT do similar to Truss because she wasn't foolish enough to borrow billions to give tax cuts to the very wealthy. Neither does Truss have mass unemployment as an excuse for borrowing money to pay for her crass tax cuts; indeed, we have more jobs available than people to fill them. To borrow money at a time when it is extremely expensive to do so, in order to fill the pockets of the very wealthy is utterly absurd as the international markets have made very clear.

@rocktheboat This is correct. In fact, in 1981, Thatcher increased taxes in reaction to the economy shrinking and unemployment rising, against a lot of complaints. It was the right thing to do though. 

[Herman 9,754]

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/mini-budget-response

"The Chancellor announced the biggest package of tax cuts in 50 years without even a semblance of an effort to make the public finance numbers add up."

[sonyc 5,510]

20 minutes ago, Herman said:

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/mini-budget-response

"The Chancellor announced the biggest package of tax cuts in 50 years without even a semblance of an effort to make the public finance numbers add up."

That is a very measured (even you could say courteous) and also sombre read. My take is more tabloid...

Who could have possibly guessed that the worst thing to happen to this country was probably not Brexit, bad though it is. Nor was it Covid, though we're not over the pandemic of a century yet, nor a once in a lifetime liar of a disgraced leader run out of office by his own party who managed to shred any remaining trust in democracy as a principle, nor a war near us with a embattled and embittered antagonist with his hands near a red button threatening world energy supplies and breaking up a nation.

Might it possibly be Liz Truss who will send us headlong into a thirties type depression, huge societal unrest, a widening rift between rich and poor accompanied by soaring crime rates and public infrastructure collapsing because there is no more money to support health, social and community services. It's almost as if she has had to out do all that has gone before.

 

 

 

#headlinestory-you-will-never-see-in-the-Mail

[PurpleCanary 5,557]

1 hour ago, 1902 said:

The tax cuts are not the issue. It's the increased borrowing to fund them during a period when the pound is already weak and when we have high inflation caused by $ priced imports.

If the BOE wants to bring inflation under some form of control, the £ will need to be supported by rate rises, which in a country of variable rate mortgage holders and high house prices will cause demand to drop sharply. 

That basically makes the tax cuts irrelevant as a mechanism to create growth.

By all means, come back to me in 6 months and tell me how I was wrong if the UK suddenly enters a boom, but for the time being, it looks like an economically illiterate policy bases on an extremely narrow understanding of economics. 

 

1902, I am sure you are right about the economics of this, but at bottom I don't think this is being driven by economics. It is really a political - quasi-moral - philosophy that is at play.

What is behind this is the belief that the well-off and the successful (who so the argument goes have become so through their own efforts) should not have to subsidise those who are poor, not least since they are poor as a result of their own fecklessness.

Edited September 24, 2022 by PurpleCanary

[littleyellowbirdie 2,538]

18 minutes ago, sonyc said:

That is a very measured (even you could say courteous) and also sombre read. My take is more tabloid...

Who could have possibly guessed that the worst thing to happen to this country was probably not Brexit, bad though it is. Nor was it Covid, though we're not over the pandemic of a century yet, nor a once in a lifetime liar of a disgraced leader run out of office by his own party who managed to shred any remaining trust in democracy as a principle, nor a war near us with a embattled and embittered antagonist with his hands near a red button threatening world energy supplies and breaking up a nation.

Might it possibly be Liz Truss who will send us headlong into a thirties type depression, huge societal unrest, a widening rift between rich and poor accompanied by soaring crime rates and public infrastructure collapsing because there is no more money to support health, social and community services. It's almost as if she has had to out do all that has gone before.

 

 

 

#headlinestory-you-will-never-see-in-the-Mail

 

I guessed it, and have said as much as the opposition was so enthusiastically doing the right of the Conservative party's dirty work for them in fuelling calls for Johnson's resignation on the back of the leaks about parties that were so obviously coming from inside the Conservative party.

For all his faults, one benefit of Johnson is that fiscally he had an attitude to taxing and spending more in line with more progressive parties. The press and opposition have literally been played for idiots  to allow the right of the party to slash and burn for a couple of years while they're still in power. 

 

Edited September 24, 2022 by littleyellowbirdie

[horsefly 4,296]

17 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

1902, I am sure you are right about the economics of this, but at bottom I don't think this is being driven by economics. It is really a political - quasi-moral - philosophy that is at play.

What is behind this is the belief that the well-off and the successful (who so the argument goes have become so through their own efforts) should not have to subsidise those who are poor, not least since they are poor as a result of their own fecklessness.

Indeed! It's not as if we were not warned, she co-wrote a book with those other loons on the Tory vile right; Raab, Patel, Skidmore, and Kwarteng saying precisely this.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Britannia-Unchained-Global-Lessons-Prosperity/dp/1137032235

[1902 1,167]

10 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

If you are a Labour Party supporter I can well see why you would consider this to be the worst budget ever as it mirrors the tax cutting budgets of the 1980s that led to the massive economic boom and eleven years of Conservatism. Will the Labour Party survive eleven more years of Conservative rule? I somehow think not.

If you did A level Economics 45 years ago, that would be about the time of the famous letter to the Times signed by 100 economists who madly ended up with egg on their faces when Thatcher did similar to Truss and turned the economy around and brought about the highest ever levels of employment. I suppose those economists were about on a par with our current Covid data modellers and their wildly exaggerated claims of Covid deaths. 

So there's really no surprise to hear the wailing from the commentariat, it's what they do. We'll ignore them. Let's hope that this is just the beginning of some read-meat policy making and the end of Boris Johnson's soy milk slops. 

Sorry to reply twice, but after a Saturday morning coffee I couldn't help but think 'but what if RTB is right'.

The problem is, a boom doesn't help us. We have virtually full employment, so there's only so far the British economy can grow without significant growth in worker productivity.

Without that growth, any boom will be exceptionally short lived before workers start demanding higher wages and a wage/price spiral begins.

I'm very happy to be corrected, but I still can't see where the supposed gains will come from.

[Daz Sparks 1,151]

What has been proposed is a mirror of the "Barber" budget of 1972, which is universally accepted by economists to be the worst budget of the last 70 years.

Edited September 24, 2022 by Daz Sparks

[Daz Sparks 1,151]

44 minutes ago, Daz Sparks said:

What has been proposed is a mirror of the "Barber" budget of 1972, which is universally accepted by economists to be the worst budget of the last 70 years.

Below describes this folly abundantly;

 

The Barber Boom (1971-1974) is the story of an economic gear shift which sent post-war Britain careering around country lanes, before skidding on an oil slick and being sent ditchward. There it was left, engine smoking, entangled in the brambles of inflation. It wasn’t until 1980 that road-side recovery eventually arrived in the shape of Paul Volcker and his inflation curbing toolkit.

[CANARYKING 637]

Typical Tories, looking after themselves ( the rich ) 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

14 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

If you are a Labour Party supporter I can well see why you would consider this to be the worst budget ever as it mirrors the tax cutting budgets of the 1980s that led to the massive economic boom and eleven years of Conservatism. Will the Labour Party survive eleven more years of Conservative rule? I somehow think not.

If you did A level Economics 45 years ago, that would be about the time of the famous letter to the Times signed by 100 economists who madly ended up with egg on their faces when Thatcher did similar to Truss and turned the economy around and brought about the highest ever levels of employment. I suppose those economists were about on a par with our current Covid data modellers and their wildly exaggerated claims of Covid deaths. 

So there's really no surprise to hear the wailing from the commentariat, it's what they do. We'll ignore them. Let's hope that this is just the beginning of some read-meat policy making and the end of Boris Johnson's soy milk slops. 

Thatcher sold everything off to the public who in turn sold it off to the big investors. She even sold off Council Houses. It was coincidence that the economy improved. It happened to every other nation as well.

You Thatcherites just cannot except that she was a witch who was determined to blame us, unions, EU for everything. 

And she came to power on the back of Labour who were struggling to pay off the massive loans of Heath/Barbers era.

Edited September 24, 2022 by keelansgrandad

[Herman 9,754]

It looks like they've managed to annoy the RSPB and the Wildlife Trust. Well done tories.👏

[Well b back 3,199]

1 hour ago, Herman said:

It looks like they've managed to annoy the RSPB and the Wildlife Trust. Well done tories.👏

Don’t understand that one Herman, how have they upset them ? 
Thanks

[A Load of Squit 5,161]

18 minutes ago, Well b back said:

Don’t understand that one Herman, how have they upset them ? 
Thanks

https://www.thenational.scot/news/22610672.rspb-england-scathing-warning-tories-investment-zones-plan/

“NOWHERE will be safe” if the Government goes ahead with plans for investment zones across the UK, a leading charity has warned.

RSPB England, which represents the views of the UK-wide bird charity, issued a scathing response to the proposals – warning that they could “tear up the most fundamental protections our remaining wildlife has”.

Not sure how Farmers are going to re-act to this Brexit u-turn, remember paying Farmers just for having land was a crazy EU idea that we had to get rid of.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/24/brexit-bonus-farmers-poised-to-scrap

The government is to scrap the “Brexit bonus” which would have paid farmers and landowners to enhance nature, in what wildlife groups are calling an “all-out attack” on the environment, the Observer can reveal.

Instead, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) sources disclosed, they are considering paying landowners a yearly set sum for each acre of land they own, which would be similar to the much-maligned EU basic payments scheme of the common agricultural policy.

[Well b back 3,199]

1 hour ago, A Load of Squit said:

https://www.thenational.scot/news/22610672.rspb-england-scathing-warning-tories-investment-zones-plan/

“NOWHERE will be safe” if the Government goes ahead with plans for investment zones across the UK, a leading charity has warned.

RSPB England, which represents the views of the UK-wide bird charity, issued a scathing response to the proposals – warning that they could “tear up the most fundamental protections our remaining wildlife has”.

Not sure how Farmers are going to re-act to this Brexit u-turn, remember paying Farmers just for having land was a crazy EU idea that we had to get rid of.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/24/brexit-bonus-farmers-poised-to-scrap

The government is to scrap the “Brexit bonus” which would have paid farmers and landowners to enhance nature, in what wildlife groups are calling an “all-out attack” on the environment, the Observer can reveal.

Instead, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) sources disclosed, they are considering paying landowners a yearly set sum for each acre of land they own, which would be similar to the much-maligned EU basic payments scheme of the common agricultural policy.

O gosh, they really are setting themselves up for a big fall.

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

Its the Battle of the Tory Bulge. One last offensive (and they are truly offensive) before their whole reich falls to the ground.

[BigFish 1,986]

21 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

If you did A level Economics 45 years ago, that would be about the time of the famous letter to the Times signed by 100 economists who madly ended up with egg on their faces when Thatcher did similar to Truss and turned the economy around and brought about the highest ever levels of employment.

Ever wonder why, after the North Sea Oil boom that Norway have highly efficient public services and a Soveriegn Wealth Fund when the UK has a massive national debt. Well @Rock The Boat my friend it is because Thatcher took all our North Sea revenues and pissed them up the wall on unemployment benefit. After that she sold off pretty much everything of value. There was no economic miracle and productivity remained poor. Truss is trying to repeat this without the Oil so will need to borrow until it all goes **** up.