Can only a step-change in opinion stop Cameron?
November 24th, 2008
Will the PBR make the media narrative a reality?
It’s a measure of how completely potty the media has become in recent weeks that on the eve of the the PBR and all the talk of an early general election that there’s been an almost total news black-out on yesterday’s ICM showing the Tories on 42%, Labour on 31% with the Lib Dems scoring 19%. You would have thought that every little bit of polling data would have been devoured, highlighted and scrutinised.
But the media narrative, that is what journalists collectively deem the story to be, is that the financial collapse has totally changed the UK political situation. The consequence is that the only polling data that is given prominence is anything that supports this line. So last week’s MORI’s 3% Tory lead is given huge and ongoing coverage without any serious questioning about what appear to be distortions in the sample. Anything else is ignored.
This doesn’t change the reality. Cameron’s Tories are still firmly there in the 40s and the only way Labour can have a chance is if that number can be brought down sharply. Big changes in opinion normally come in step changes and that’s what we have not seen
Yes Labour has improved from the depths of June but the Tories are still only down a couple of notches or so from their peak with the pollsters that have most experience with past vote weighting. Just see this list of ICM polls.
So today’s pre-budget report could be crucial. In the run-up to today we have had huge changes in the stances of both main parties so that there is real clear division. The talk of a 5% post general election tax hike for top earners seems designed to put the squeeze really on the Tories. If this is what is announced then that, surely, will be the main battle-ground for the general election.
Today on PB: Unless there is a late change of plan I’m spending three hours this afternoon at Sky News as one of studio “pundits” on the PBR and its reaction. The channel is splitting its coverage so the bit that I’m on can on can only be accessed “by pressing the red button” or something like that. After that I’m off to an evening function in London.
This means that I won’t be able to post but a combination of continuation threads and contributions from Morus should provide the framework the ongoing discussions.
General election betting - live prices.
Mike Smithson
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FPT.
[and why on earth are you up so early? My excuse is lingering jetlag from Boston]
414. lol. John. Fair point. But check out the shelagh na gig on the same Kilpeck church! -
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3106/2765910000_9028d89f70.jpg
In the 19th century a local guide to the church was so disturbed by this imagery, with its notorious fertility symbol, that it felt obliged to describe the carving as “depicting a fool with his mouth wide open”.
Ahem.
As regards the isolated 10% of Labour backbenchers who foresee a terrible recession, as against just a “moderately severe” one, surely this is all semantics. What is severe? What is moderate? It means nothing.
I do, however, believe that most lefties have little idea how bad the Brown Bust could be. I think it will be worse than the recession of the 90s, a recession which destroyed the Tories as a political force for a decade and a half.
Congratulations on your Sky News slot! I’ll definitely check it out behind the red button on Monday afternoon.
Although much of the detail has already been leaked to the media ahead of time, it will be interesting to see how the markets react through Monday to all the news and official announcements.
As I wrote earlier, I’m expecting sterling to appreciate against the top basket of currencies this week. At least our government is drawing up some plan that deals with repaying the enormous debt. The US government is about to unveil another several hundred billion dollar stimulus that will be completely unfunded. The dollar is grossly overvalued right now IMO.
As the 45p tax band is only going to raise a trivial sum in comparison to the total budget deficit, it has to be purely a political move.
As such, it surely represents a core vote strategy. What does that say about Brown’s own view as to his chances of winning the GE?
Like you I note that the polls have been all over the place, and find the way the MSM have given great prominence to polls with low single figure Conservative leads but ignored those with double digit leads, to be highly unprofessional.
Since not all of the people doing this are generally biased to the left I can think of two possible explanations:
1) Most MSM journalists do not have the elementary knowledge of statistics required to know that it is a bad idea to read too much into a single poll, and that it is wiser to look at vote shares than poll leads, or
2) The media have collectively decided that running with “Labour are useless and will get smashed into the ground” for up to thirty months, from the election that never was to whenever GB finally calls one, would bore all their readers, viewers, and listeners to tears.
So they have cynically resolved to play “Let’s build Gordon up for a while and then knock him down again when a suitable moment comes to change the narrative.”
It may be a bit of both.
Gordon Brown is neither as formidable an opponent as his strongest supporters imagine nor as weak an opponent as some of the more complacent people in other parties hope.
But no British government presiding over a mess as serious as the country is in now can get re-elected unless the opposition screws up as badly as Kinnock did in 1992. And I don’t believe for a moment that David Cameron will do that.
The Conservative lead is soft insofar as it is really an anti-Labour lead. It can hardly be enthusiasm for Conservative policies since very few have been announced. The trick is to maintain this happy state of affairs up to polling day.
The media narrative really does not matter very much outside of Westminster. Continued Tory leads show this. The question is whether the coming fiscal stimulus will make more erstwhile Labour voters feel better off than the recession makes worse off.
Probably not but we shall see.
Tax cuts financed by borrowing while expanding the state’s spending when we’re already running a huge deficit is horrendous. We’re about to turn a crisis into a disaster. I’m very very worried about 2009.
I don’t know what Cameron could do differently but I can’t believe that this is any more sensible than putting 15% of GDP on Red.
The PBR will be a ‘jam today, bankruptcy tomorrow’ budget.
The stimulus will not work for three reasons:
1. It will not put money back into people’s pockets - only save them 2.5% if they can spend more - BFD! Even Bush saw the need to write cheques for people.
2. If you offer something today but say it will have to be repaid with interest tomorrow then there is no stimulus. This VAT ‘giveaway’ will NOT get people spending (that would require cash in hand).
3. People are worried. To get spending going will require that magical thing so difficult to conjure up called ‘confidence’. Gordon doesn’t do hope or confidence. He does grim reality and ‘whatever it takes’. Cameron, on the other hand, can do the ’sunshine’ thing - he is human (which Brown is not).
Economically the only really key thing right now is to preserve the UK’s national credit rating so that it can continue to support the banking sector (if that goes down we are all going to become subsistence farmers). That means dealing with debt (which means dealing with public spending and putting 100% of the stimulus into the private sector). Brown should savage public spending and give meaningful and permanent tax cuts to business and off income tax.
The political needs of Gordon Brown and the needs of the country are at polar opposties. We all know from past form exactly which side of that painful equation our lovely PM will favour.
The economy will tank, lives will be ruined and Labour will be out in 2010 leaving behind the worst financial mess in living memory.
Certainly, so far, Brown’s jiggeryp0kery has not done the trick in terms of Forex.
Since the tax hike on the rich was leaked at about 11pm, sterling has fallen almost a cent against the dollar and the euro.
Darling needs to come up with transparent and cogent explanations as to how he can fund his VAT giveaway and the rest of the enormous borrowing deficit (a couple of billion sponged off millionaires, who may in any case cheerily abscond, is no solution).
If he doesn’t give this explanation then sterling will plummet. If he does, Labour’s poll ratings might tank as the dire truth of our situation sinks in.
I reckon Labour are f*cked. But let’s wait and see.
The odd thing about these leaks is that Brown’s budgets did not leak. Has the Treasury really become indiscreet or is this mere kite flying?
Brown has not just put 15% of GDP on red, but possibily the future of the Labour party. If the economy does not respond to the changes that are announced in the PBR, then the chorus of dissenters to its proposals will grow louder. A particular area of weakness for Brown is that unless the Government is seen to be doing something about the public sector then the resentment from the private sector will grow.
I don’t think the guppymint has any money so i think the PBR will either be
a) Badger driven, lots of separate things which can be spun various ways but don’t actually involve much cash. Lots of sound and fury but signifying nothing.
b) McBean driven. The G20 / IMF are saying f*cked up countries that are the worst placed to weather the recession shouldn’t splurge. McBean will want to pretend those comments aren’t directed specifically at him and Britain so he’d want a big splurge and… IMF time whoosh. Except it prob won’t be the IMF, he’ll sell the country to the Arabs in exchange for enough cash to get through to the next election.
Fingers crossed it’s going to be a)
~~~
On topic… lot of different political currents near me (inner London) going in lots of different directions, some aren’t relevant to the rest of the country but I think the two most important ones are probably the same everywhere:
1) Cameron’s got all the “Lost Tories” back from the Lib-Dems and non-voters.
2) The WWC chunk of the Zanu core vote is very unenthusiastic for various reasons. The economic crisis is huge but even then, on the day I’m not at all sure that will be enough on it’s own. I think ZNL needs a hefty dose of anti-Tory enthusiasm and Cameron just doesn’t give off the vampiric vibes neccessary to achieve that. And even if they got some anti-Tory traction going all Cameron would need to do is wheel IDS out onto the telly for half an hour and that would calm it all down again.
So I think the general answer to the thread question is probably yes. I don’t think they’ve got a chance unless they can nobble Cameron first.
9 - There won’t be much private sector left soon.
I’m not sure that you need a “step-change” to close a 42%/31% difference back to hung parliament territory, assuming that the electoral system gives Labour a few % advantage. A gradual slide back of 1 voter in 20 over the next year would do the trick. And that’s assuming ICM have got this stuff right and MORI and Yougov have got it wrong, which may or may not be true.
And I think Cameron does have a genuine problem in that his image - positive, optimistic, likable, but maybe a bit of a lightweight - is less well suited to the times than the image Brown has ended up with: miserable, brooding, socially awkward but serious. In normal times, the optimist would win hands-down over the miserable bastard, but in the next Great Depression, maybe not so much. Maybe the Tories would have been better off with David Davis after all…
That said, I think Chris Whitehead @3 is right that the media narrative will turn around sooner or later, and incumbents don’t usually get reelected when the economy goes horribly, disastrously wrong. I think plausible outcomes right now range from Labour just hanging on as the largest party to getting completely and utterly buried, like the Tories in 1997 and then some.
6 “Economically the only really key thing right now is to preserve the UK’s national credit rating…”
That’s my view as well.
SeanT@7: “Darling needs to come up with transparent and cogent explanations as to how he can fund his VAT giveaway and the rest of the enormous borrowing deficit… If he doesn’t give this explanation then sterling will plummet. ”
Nobody’s expecting this stuff to be revenue-neutral, are they? Haven’t the currency markets have already priced a massive, unfunded spending splurge in? (Hanging on to my yen for the minute, though…)
I predict a short Labour uptick in the polls following the VAT cut, followed by a slump in a few months after people realise the transmission mechanism for both monetary and fiscal policy is severely jammed, and there is little Gordon Brown can do about it except wait for deflation and a deep recession to take their course.
Just about the only sensible thing Darling has done is speed up infrastructure investment, but IMHO he should go far further with that. This creates jobs, but importantly, meaningful ones. These are jobs which bring long-term benefit to the economy. Lots of unemployed and a desperate construction industry mean that it’s a great time to build new roads and railway lines, schools, hospitals and prisons relatively cheaply.
A stimulus package is pointless unless it’s huge; we don’t have the financial capacity to pay the interest a huge stimulus package would bring. I don’t think it will be too long before pessimism spreads itself amongst the electorate.
The politically savvy move would be to corner the conservatives short-term with the 45% tax band and VAT cuts, and then call a election shortly after the new year. Unfortunately this will have the side effect of screwing the country for years to come…
15 Wibbler.
‘we don’t have the financial capacity to pay the interest a huge stimulus package would bring’
Rubbish. You assume that the stimulus can only be in the public sector. You assume the boost could only be delivered through borrowing. This country is in profound need of a reassessment of what the productive and consumptive sectors of the economy can and should deliver.
We need to rebuild the private sector at the expense of the wasteful parts of the public sector. Let’s say that the PBR put 15 billion back into lower paid individuals’ hands through income tax cuts (permanent) and another 25 billion back into industry through corporation tax cuts, employer NI cuts, capital allowances, etc (also permanent) - and funded this through 40 billion of public sector reduction. That would be a huge fillip to the economy. Any half competent finance director could find 40 billion of waste and nonsense spending in the public sector. Brown himself and the ‘Gershon’ review found over half that. Will ID cards, Regional development agencies, quangoes, ‘communications’, etc get us out of the hole we’re in? No way.
If this PBR goes ahead as billed it will destroy permanently the Brown narrative of the last 11 years. Tony Blair never happened. ‘Prudence for a purpose’ is no more than a memory. What will Labour stand for by tonight? Tax, waste, borrow, no aspiration (if higher rate income tax comes in), blow today and forget tomorrow (that’s your kids’ future the way). Governments do not survive the destruction of their reputation for economic competence.
This is a political betting site. I am personally convinced that after tomorrow there is no value at all in putting money on a Labour re-election. It will not happen (probably for 20 years). For once my political head and my heart are in line (and you need to abandon the heart to make money on political betting).
wibbler@15, I Am Not An Economist, and I don’t disagree that it won’t be long before pessimism spreads itself among the electorate (if it hasn’t already), but a couple of points I wondered about:
“A stimulus package is pointless unless it’s huge”
Why? Isn’t it better if we only summon two horsemen of the apocalypse rather than all four?
“We don’t have the financial capacity to pay the interest a huge stimulus package would bring”
Why not? The UK doesn’t seem to have much debt to start off with - you’re only in the 40’s as a % of GDP. Over here we’re at over four times that, and still seem to have enough money for free green tea at City Hall. (Though admittedly nobody believes they’ll be getting their pensions.) But lots of countries seem to have lots more debt than the UK:
http://tinyurl.com/673rxg
Can the Tories effectively side-step the 45p issue by saying “this shows massive adjustments (implying tax rises or spending cuts) will be needed after the GE and we’ll use the GE to argue the best way forward”?
12. But Edmund, this current 10-point deficit is after a period which is arguably the biggest political gift to an incumbent government anywhere in the Western world since 9/11 for Bush, and in Britain since the Falklands in 1982. If under the current circumstances Labour are really still so far behind, I think Mike’s point is that this indicates a real seismic change in required and upticks won’t do.
Gabble Check List for Monday, November 24, 2008
FTSE 100 opens at 3780.96
Optimistic milestones to watch for:
4455.60 - up 674.64 (17.84%) to return to 2nd May 1997 level
4834.76 - up 1053.80 (27.87%) to match CAC performance since 2 May 97
5070.09 - up 1289.13 (34.10%) to match DOW performance since 2 May 97
5314.44 - up 1533.48 (40.56%) to match DAX performance since 2 May 97
5385.90 - up 1604.94 (42.45%) to come out of current bear market
6330.07 - up 2549.11 (67.42%) to match inflation (42.07%) since 2 May 97
6527.60 - up 2746.64 (72.64%) to return to Blair’s 27th June 2007 level
6930.20 - up 3149.24 (83.29%) to equal all-time high on 30 Dec 99
Pessimistic milestones to watch for:
3460.00 - down 320.96 (-8.49%) to reach Madasafish’s interim low
3287.00 - down 493.96 (-13.06%) to return to Blair’s low on 12 Mar 03
2780.00 - down 1000.96 (-26.47%) to reach Madasafish’s low low (under review!)
2144.30 - down 1636.66 (-43.29%) to return to 28th Nov 90 (exit Maggie!)
Thought it might be interesting, this week, to track sterling against the euro and the dollar.
Data in this area is constantly changing, so - arbitrarily - I intend to use the BBC World figures at or shortly after 4am each morning.
Today - 24/11/08 - £1 = $1,4906 & €1.1809.
17. Edmund that depends on the status of your currency. The US can borrow as much as it wants because it can always print greenbacks to pay foreigners without causing inflation. Likewise other “reserve currencies” such as the Euro and, to a certain extent, the Yen and the Swiss Franc. Unfortunately this does not really apply to the good old Sterling. Time to join the Euro I think …
19: No doubt the media narrative has been friendly to Brown, but we wouldn’t normally consider a massive economic crisis to be “the biggest political gift to an incumbent government anywhere in the Western world since 9/11 for Bush, and in Britain since the Falklands in 1982″. And there’s plenty more economic crisis where that came from.
21: Sure, the rules are different for the dollar (and with the yen, apparently the fact that the creditors are domestic rather than foreign makes a difference), but there were plenty of European countries that were running much bigger deficits than this for years before the Euro even existed, no?
o/t — ACT FAST!
I’ve just placed a bet of 555 $ (CAD) that Franken (DEM) will win Minnesota @ 2.0 — incredible odds!
There is still about 500$ available.
http://sports.betfair.com/Index.do?mi=21211184&ex=1&origin=MRL
–> 538’s Projection: Franken to Win Recount by 27 Votes
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
o/t — ACT FAST!
I’ve just placed a bet of 555 $ (CAD) that Franken (DEM) will win Minnesota @ 2.0 — i.e. @ very very good odds!
There is still about 429$ available on betfair at those odds.
As well as on intrade.
–> 538’s Projection: Franken to Win Recount by 27 Votes
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
According to the Grauniad:
“A plan to create more than 10,000 jobs in the construction industry by insulating homes in the private and public sectors will be announced by Alistair Darling in today’s pre-budget report.
The government will bring forward future capital spending in an attempt to reduce energy bills this winter and to employ some of those laid off during the worst downturn in the property market for two decades.”
Perhaps his speech will contain this cut and paste:
“Many of the least well insulated houses in Britain are occupied by older people. No pensioner should be in a position where for reasons of finance they cannot adequately insulate their homes. Today with our new programme of training and jobs for young people we are able to expand the national programme of home insulation.
Contractors within the home energy efficiency scheme, and voluntary organisations will be encouraged to take on young people to insulate the homes of pensioners. This will give jobs and new skills to our young people, help and protection to the elderly, and it will improve our environment.”
It comes from a reliable source - the first Budget Speech made by his boss on Wednesday, 2nd July 1997.
Plus ça change….
–> 538’s Projection: Franken to Win Recount by 27 Votes
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
I’ve just placed a bet of 555 $ (CAD) that Franken (DEM) will win Minnesota @ 2.0 — i.e. @ very very good odds!
There is still about 429$ available on betfair at those odds.
As well as on intrade.
ACT FAST!
23. It depends on how much is much, and the fact is that those European countries were all very much subject to whimsical inflation, particularly France and Italy. The Deutschmark had a semi-reserve currency status.
On 22, well I have said it before and I will say it again, I do believe exactly what I wrote. This crisis represents a massive political gift for incumbent governments, just as 9/11 and the Falklands did. It gives even the most pathetic government a chance to “act like a man” and break the cycle - Major would have killed for such a moment in 1995. Brown has had a hugely fortunate premiership in general: he was gifted all those “emergencies” in his first few weeks, albethey slightly overegged. Then after he falls into the doldrums he gets this. And yet, he is still unable to pull up in the polls - every substantial negative for him have been “unforced errors” such as the 10p tax, Iraq announcement and so on. All the “events, dear boy, events” have been largely in his favour.
27 et al re Franken Minnesota bet. 538 says: “even if you buy my analysis, you should not regard Franken as more than a very slight favorite”.
And if Franken is only a very slight favourite then even money (before commission is deducted) is less tempting.
Good spot though, and still worthy of consideration.
Antole@28: “This crisis represents a massive political gift for incumbent governments”
Didn’t help the Republicans much, did it? Or the LDP over here, for that matter.
Not sure what your point is here: clearly the gift, having been delivered, needs to be acted upon. I am certainly not arguing that by its very existence a crisis will increase incumbent popularity, I am saying it gives no-hopers a chance to step up and change the narrative when it would otherwise be impossible to do so. The Republicans, in their confusion and partly because of an ongoing Presidential election, cocked up their response to the crisis but the opportunity was nevertheless there to break out of the otherwise inevitable spiral of defeat. Additionally the perception of the crisis originating from the US meant they had less room for manouvre unlike European governments - clearly this applies mostly to exogenous crises such as 9/11 and the Falklands.
Not sure about the Japanese LDP.
Oh dear - the Grauniad is not only illiterate, it is innumerate:
This is a cut and paste (honestly) from today’s article by Sean O’Grady, their Economics Editor:
17.5%
Full rate 17.5% VAT items thought to be changing to 15%
*Ford Mondeo Current price: £15,995; new price: £15,175.26 Saving: £819.74
Wrong! new price: £15,654.68 Saving: £340.32
*John Lewis men’s jacket Current price: £110; new price: £104.36 Saving: £5.64
Wrong! new price: £107.66 Saving: £2.34
*Clarks women’s shoes Current price: £39.99; new price: £37.94 Saving: £2.05
Wrong! new price: £39.14 Saving: £0.85
*Bottle of wine Current price: £5.99; new price: £5.68 Saving: 31p
Wrong! new price: £5.86 Saving: 13p
*Big Mac meal Current price: £3.79; new price: £3.60 Saving: 19p
Wrong! new price: £3.71 Saving: 8p
*Tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream Current price: £3.72; new price: £3.53 Saving: 19p
Wrong! new price: £3.64 Saving: 8p
*Large latte from Starbucks Current price: £2.65; new price; £2.51 Saving: 14p
Wrong! new price: £2.59 Saving: 6p
*Mars bar Current price: 40p; new price: 38p; Saving: 2p
Wrong! new price: 39p Saving: 1p
How do these clowns get away with this?
Re 32. My abject and unreserved apologies to the Grauniad. The article is, of course, from today’s Independent
Modest doings from me this morning.Have Backed Tories Most Seats at 1.44 and Layed Tory Overall at 1.93 and NOM at 3.1.
Holding my Sell of Tories at 334.0 for now.
33. The Indy’s innumeracy is not the problem - it’s the idea that spooked customers are going to go out and buy something along the lines of a £100 jacket because of a savings under £10.
I wonder if Darling knows that this is all nonsense, in every photo I’ve even seen of the man he looks as if he is seconds away from an intense bout of fear-induced vomiting.
The October 2007 non election was 33 months before the legal deadline for a real one. 33 months of labour is doomed would never have sold that many papers or filled 24 hours per diem of rolling news. A media inspired Brown bounce was a s predictable as the monster not really being dead in the penultimate scene in the horror flick.
In terms of the polling we ned more You Govs. I don’t take MORI that seriously, I do take ICM seriously. However I also think yougov has a rack record now and if they are saying 5% tory lead then i’m a little nervous. the post PBR figures will be tilted by media coverage and then its christmas. I’d look again at the figures at the end of the second week in january when everyone is back at work, feeling miserable and has no money.
All the hard-nosed,well heeled punters of my acquaintance are Labour Backers and Tory Layers.
All the fiddlers and non-gamblers are very sweet on the Tory chances.
One additional thought on all this - look to see the mainstream media reaction. I was quite surprised today to see the Sun (Kavanagh), the Independent, the Telegraph, the Times, the Mail, even to a more limited extent the Guardian having a serious go at Brown over the likelihood of VAT making any difference and the horrible risks associated with even more borrowing. The BBC’s view will predictably be straight from Mandelson / Campbell - but I’m increasingly feeling that Brown’s 2nd honeymoon is about to be over.
Not sure if there is a market in poll results. I’d put some on a move away from Labour over the next week.
333 Ooops!
The current betting levels are predicated on a Tory poll lead of around 9-10 points over Labour and if any polls do come out giving them a bigger lead,this should cause the Tories to firm.
If on the other hand the next tranche of polls show a lead of less than seven points that favours Labour.
This weekend has provided great relief for the struggling Conservatives and their beleagured Shadow Chancellor so it is all to play for today and later in the fallout.
27 - the problem with the 538 projection showing Franken winning in MN, is that it is subject to the Tyranny of Small Numbers. That is, when the margin gets to the vanishing point in a recount situation, then any darn thing can upset your analytical applecart.
My sources say that Dems are betting that Franken comes up short in the recount. Which is why they are pinning their real hopes on convincing the US Senate to throw out the MN recount result, on grounds that enough eligible electors were deprived of their vote by administrative errors that Franken really won, despite (likely) losing the recount.
Problem with this, is that polticos will be VERY reluctant to trash the Minnesota process. Which has been pretty above-board, what you’d expect from a progressive state that prides itself on good government.
BTW most of the challenges by both campaigns are bogus. That is, there really isn’t any issue. Or if their is, the rules for adjudicating it are pretty cut and dried. Most of the challenge have been made for effect, or to “keep up with the Jones” or rather the Colemans/Frankens.
Obviously we don’t get the PBR until 3.30 and the new funding remit from the Debt Management Office until after that, however I get the feeling that the Gilt market might take the announcements positively
1) If what has been ‘leaked’ so far is correct it won’t do that much and the macro bond bull always beats the fiscal bond bear
2) The extra supply isn’t half as much as the market had been led to believe
3) There has been an element of overfunding already this year through bill issuance
4) The is the best seasonal period of the year for Gilts with ex-dividend this week and an index extension, huge coupon payments on 7th December and the usual end-of-year pension demand for bonds.
As far as Sterling goes there was a huge Middle Eastern buyer that supported it all last week and perhaps with the Barclays/Abu Dhabi tie-up this will contiune too for a while.
All this might be taken by the MSM as signs that the markets approve.
However I may be talking my book as I’m long Gilts (although not as long as last week now).
For me, the issue will be how optimistic Darling’s economic recovery predictions prove to be. If he tries to retain any aspect of his previous sunny assessments - that we are just going through a bit of a blip during Gordon’s Golden Age, then he - and his PBR - will lose all credibility with the markets.
But equally, to admit how far things have actually deviated from his earlier forecasts would expose his (but more importantly, Gordon’s) record for being a financial wizzard to unfavourable scrutiny.
An awkward balancing act.
Voxpop: the correspondents to the BBC breakfast bunnies are all saying they won’t be tempted to spend more money by the cut in VAT. Oh dear - if you’ve lost them, it doen’t bode well, Alistair….
We are seeing standard diversionary tactics. Yesterday it was the non-VAT story, this morning it is the non-Income Tax story.
So what are they really doing ?
Well, nothing to support the pound, they actually think a lower exchange rate is no bad thing.
Yes, they will lag all the houses with yet more lagging, if you don’t have 18 inches of cotton wool inside / outside all your walls, roofs, under your floors …
There will be a major investment in renewable energy, they will force through a windfarm of 3 turbines on Rockall, and build a dam raising the level of Lake Windermere by 1.35 cm.
There will be a major improvement in the roads infrastructure, duelling the remainder of the A66 - yes I know they’ve done that already - upgrades to the A1(M). There will be major upgrades to the West Coast Main Line whereby Virgin can run another carriage on the Pendelinos.
i.e. They will announce nothing, they won’t mention the 2% increase in NI Employer contribution. It is a cliche to say the government is bankrupt, it isn’t unfortunately. But after 11 disasterous years of Labour government the country clearly is.
Nick - you can mark me down as “probably not”. Oh, and totally off topic, if you think their handling of the edconomy has been bad just see what the effects of Nick’s policy on TB in badgers has been. Nick, come up to Cumbria and see for your self.
Citigroup saved by US Govt:
http://www.reuters.com/article/americasDealsNews/idUSTRE4AN0YM20081124
Stephen Adams in the Telegraph:
“A cut in VAT to 15 per cent, the lowest level allowed under European Union law, would save shoppers £2.50 in every £100 spent.”
No. £2.31 in every £100 spent.
If we get simple errors like this in the Telegraph, for heaven’s sake, stand by for a tsunami of mathematical errors from the economically illiterate Labour apologists on here later today. (Remember the 10p tax fiasco?)
How will the Markets take to the PBR tax cuts/hikes. Not too well I’d imagine. A sharp decline could take the shine of Darlings turd!
Do not expect a 2.1% cut in prices across the board as a result of a VAT cut. Retailers will do more 25% off for a day promotions or £50 off a £400 TV whilst leaving the others at current prices.
It look as if the Tories have been badly wrong footed but I will wait to see the whole package - Who will respond for the opposition parties? Osborne and Cable I hope. Have all the details been leaked already or has Lord Mandelson counselled that a surprise should be left until the statement to grab the headlines?
To all the mad Tories who say
“The govt cannot afford this” - They (we) can. Govt debt to GDP isnt that high. There is a great deal of appetite for risk free (govt debt) assets. Just as there is no demand for risky assets.
“The interest cost is too much”. No. It isnt. £100 billion costs an annual £5 billion at the moment. Diddly.
“We can cut government spending now and cut tax now to stimulate the economy”. No. Government spending on capital projects has a multiplier of about 0.6x, a tax cut a multiplier of 0.3x. So GDP will fall if you cut government spending by £10 billion and cut taxes by £10 billion. (by £3 billion).
“Cutting VAT by 2.5% will lower prices by 2.5%”. No, it cuts it by 2.1%, the correct reduction is current price x 115/117.5
To all the mad Labourites:
See all my comments in yesterday’s thread.
45% on 150K plus raises (if youre lucky) £1.7 billion (diddly). This is a foolish move - it shows the government to be partisan and by implication lying - since it doesnt raise anything like enough to pay for anything.
2.5% off VAT is rubbish as a stimulus policy - it was chosen no doubt as it was simple, but it gives far too much to the rich and not enough to the (credit constrained) poor. The Tory JSA idea is substantially better and yes it was cr@p.
The problem with tax cuts today is that they will have to be paid for later. Each tax cut has no impact on growth in future years, it is just an extra cost required.
In order to raise the money for stabilisation, hitting the rich at 150K doesnt cut it. You need a 50% top rate for those earning over 50K (20% of the pop) or 22.5% on VAT. The middle class are not going to be impressed either way.
My guess of the headline number is it will be big - over £40 billion - actual spending will be £21 billion - impact on economy will be £7.5 billion (or 0.5% of GDP). So in 2010, the government will continue to spend an extra £21 billion for no extra stimulus effect.
While the UK can afford to run a big deficit for a while, it cannot do it for too long - as the gilts markets expect action and one day there will be a rise in the demand for non-government debt, and a rapid rise in cost savings and tax rises will be required.
The Tories are not calling for immediate tax rises or spending cuts - you just cant do that in the middle of the recession. They would borrow less than Brown, but they would spend more. They would probably be looking for efficiency savings (getting rid of all those jobs that add no or subtract value) Labour can’t do this because they are philosophically locked in to their existing ways of doing things. (For example if we dropped the insane target culture in the NHS and the police, we could increase the number of frontline staff, increase their efficiency and still make cuts).
Thanks for the wake up call, Icarus. I am getting so agitated I even got my correction wrong.
It’s not £2.31 in every £100 spent, but £2.13
Dyslexia rules.
49. Correction in my last paragraph
- “the Tories” would borrow less than Brown, they would spend more (than the current status quo pre- PBR - not that they would spend more than the Brown PBR.)
48. Why do you think the Tories have been wrong-footed? As a stimulus package so far the measures are rubbish and the tax raising thing is nonsense.
£1.2 Billion is pissing in the wind with the 45% rate of tax - I don’t think the markets will take kindly to this political move.
The whole budget plan is misconcievedand a wasted opportunity.
48. It look as if the Tories have been badly wrong footed
The idea of government is not to run the country in order to wrong foot the Tories.
I do not agree - I think this is economic catastrophe for the country and political sucide by Labour. It is mad absolutly barking what Labour are proposing.
Saying that the the ratio of debt to GDP is favourable surely overlooks the fact that the debt is rising quickly whilst the GDP (based on individual debt) is falling.
Current position = Slump
The package Darling will today will mean:
Slump + 5 years of feel shit factor + loss of economic competiveness & innovation.
55. Take a worst case scenario. We have debt of 43% of GDP today. Say over the next three years the economy plunges by a total of 10% and government deficit rises to an average of £150 billion of GDP a year. Debt at the end is £1,095 billion, GDP is £1,350 billion. 81% debt to GDP. High, but nowhere near the 160% of GDP that Japan carries and roughly where the USA is likely to end up - whereas the above scenario is an exercise in extreme pessimissm.
Mirthios - Thanks I went back to check my figures.
Martin, wrong footing the Tories may not be the object of running the government but just a happy consequence.
I hope that the Tories will vote against the tax cuts and presumably in favour of the increases, then tie themselves in knots trying to explain it.
Does the 43% debt to GDP include PFI or unfunded public pensions ? (Do the US and Japan figures include public pensions)
I read today that Lord Mandelson of Fop has been giving Gordo coaching in the answering of PMQs. Is THAT why he is getting so much worse?
Could this be the result of the a secret conspiracy between the Geek/Greek Yachtocracy, Pirate Pete and Toryboy Gideon, to do down the gruff enemy and install pliant Chamereon in his place?
54.
“It is mad absolutly barking what Labour are proposing”
you have therefore urgently applied for immediate membership?
Its clear the uk is going back to the 70s with higher taxes and spending. Wealth creators are likely to relocate. The 45p band is likely to fall to 100,OOO , or 50,000 in due course. Labour have done it again. We have nothing to look forward to with labour apart from higher debt and rampant taxes, and unemployment. Many people can see that better opportunities wil beckon in other countries and simply leave. I’m now certainly giving it serious consideration and i bet many others are too.
32.
“the Grauniad is not only illiterate, it is innumerate”
People who can do hard sums do not generally choose the career path to become journalists - they go off to build and run nuclear reactors. Which begs the question how it is that the British nuclear industry appears to be run by a group of latter-day poets - who can lie for England better than any Sun sub-editor.
61. No!
I try not to wear old clothes and NP said that when you go Labour canvassing you need to wear old clothes! 
62 Relocate where? I’ve been to plenty of other countries with tax regimes that are tighter than in the UK.
62 “Many people can see that better opportunities wil beckon in other countries and simply leave.”
Well, people have a couple of years to get their act together - and take advantage of “Gordon’s low-tax stimulated economy” - before the pain hits.
“I think I might travel to Rio…”
64. I think it was Labour meetings, not canvassing!
The media narrative this morning is all about the 45% tax rate. This has all the classic elements of a New Labour spin operation (at the same time as New-Labour-the-party has been killed and buried). The intention is to set up one of the false choices that Blair was so beloved of: “if you oppose these measures then you back a 40% top tax rate for millionaires” - something which talk of ‘flatter taxes’ will reinforce. That’s not a core-vote strategy; it’s a middle-England strategy by proxy. The hope - as with fox hunting legislation - is that the Conservatives play ball and defend (or can be made to be appearing to defend) a position unpopular with the majority of the country. The economics of it are neither here nor there in the short term.
68. If I were the Tories I would say that the Labour Government has a huge hole in its plans. I would not even get into the 45% rate as it does not add up, Labour are administering the wrong cure - they are giving a patient with a hang over a Beer enema.
It will be a mess!
67.
That would be old Armani jackets then!
70. Don’t know - I have not knowingly met a socialist for a long time!
Wonder if Sterling will tank this morning?
“The new poster calling himself “Tax the Rich” needs to find something else.”
“Tax, the very rich” (ie wealthy) would presumably be OK? or does he post here already under another name?
I note that this selective ban on partisanship does not extend to the supporters of team bladder-kicking!
72.
Of course he could call himself ‘Tax the poor’ because that would be bipartisan: you couldn’t tell whether he supported the GideO Tories or the Gordo Tories.
68 If the Tories are canny, they could turn the 45% to their advantage. Labour has capped the amount the richwill bear. Thus:
We all know that after a “stimulus” giveaway, the borrowed billions will have to be repaid.
The Govt. has indicated that the 45% band will come in - but it will raise only a tiny amount of what is required. A token.
Labour has therefore acknowledged that the vast bulk of the borrowed money will have to be repaid by hard-working families….
I entirely agree that the government has a huge hole in its spending plans and has had since about 2001. Politically though, what’s important in the next 18 months is which party the public trusts and in whose interests they appear to be operating.
Unless the Conservative front bench propose alternative measures fairly soon (by April at the latest), the Labour hope and Conservative fear will be that the image of Labour’s false-choice will stick. The Conservatives will oppose these measures for sound fiscal and economic reasons but could be made to appear to be doing so ‘to protect their rich friends’. That charge is made more potent by the background of Cameron and Osborne; it would be harder to make against Hague and Davis, for example.
For a long time I’ve been saying that Cameron was right to keep the policy powder dry because he didn’t know what situation he’d be fighting the next election under - and that reasoning has not been far off the mark. But the situation’s changed; we all do now know and it’s time for him to break open the policies.
72 Under the new regime, does “Maggie Thatcher Fan” have to rebrand himself? And what of “Tory Boy”?
59 - “Do the US and Japan figures include public pensions?”
Not sure about the American figures, but the Japanese don’t need to include public pensions, since these are NOT a debt!
According to iStock Analyst on 11th November 2008,
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle+articleid_2788096.html
“Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (the prior Pension Welfare Service Corp., or Nenpuku) is the world’s largest pension fund, with some JPY120 trillion of assets.”
75. I don’t think DC & GO’s background is any more of a problem than Hague or Davis’s on the top level of income tax. Inheratence tax would be a different kettle of fish and I think Hague’s parents have their own drinks company or did (Hence the XX pints).
I agree that the tories can come out now and say what they want to say. The government proposals are wrong and leave this country more exposed IMO to deflation not less. It also leaves the Tax base more open to collapse as well.
This country is at a turning point - it can become an economic basket case under Labour or be rejuvinated under the Tories. The people will decide.
Land Rover / Jaguar are in discussion with the Government over a £1bn loan.
Land Rover / Jaguar were acquired a few months ago by Tata, an Indian conglomerate, who also acquired the steel company Corus, formerly British Steel / Hoogovens.
Both Corus and Land Rover / Jaguar are suffering in the recession. These are classic cyclical companies which are affected by the kind of economic conditions we are about to enter.
But Land Rover / Jaguar are also being hit by the Government’s demonising of so called “gas guzzlers”. The proposed changes to Vehicle Excise Duty are reportedly being deferred in today’s PBR. But the damage has already been done.
A prime example of how not to win friends and influence much need investors.
There might be a risk in the dodgy Mori poll coming out just before the PBR.
What will happen if the next MORI shows a Tory lift and a Labour fall?
Will the media ignore it or will they be forced to report people didn’t like the PBR?
The problem ofcourse is the you gov - which will become the poll of choice if it shows any further tightening.
74 / Mark. Yes, that’s a good point. The tables can be turned on Labour if the message can be got across as to just how much of the spending binge will be paid for by the 45% band.
80 Sally C, I would have thought any paid-for polling will have been held up so as to take the public pulse after the PBR? On that basis, we should get a bunch by the weekend….
75 - I have been arguing this for a little while. The point has been reached at which the advantages for the Tories in not revealing their policy platform (surprise, dry poweder, momentum into campaign) are outweighed by the disadvantages of not doing so (looking lightweight, voter distrust etc).
Brown intended the 45% tax rate to be the great totem for this package of reforms, and no doubt it is based on some pretty sound polling that a comfortable majority have no qualms about the rich getting whacked. The aim, as others have said, is clearly to try to get Cameron on the wrong side of an artificial political line, defending the bankers and other high earners. Cameron’s task is to oppose this measure in a calm, measured way, avoiding the specifics and focussing instead on the economic case for lower taxes. His line needs to be: low income taxes has been a key part of the sustained growth Britain achieved from 1992 to 2008 (see here, here and here where Brown said so) and will be a key part in making Britain competitive in the future. This government is not struggling for want of tax revenue - taxes have increased from X to Y under Labour - but from the failure to manage expenditure. Broken roof etc. This is the wrong long-term decision for Britain, and is being done only to provide a fig leaf for Brown as he tries to spend his way out of trouble, piling debt on more debt. For years he lectured us on the importance of prudence. Now, when this country needs it the most, he has abandoned it in favour of the gambler’s last desparate roll of the dice.” Could be a storming speech.
A 2.5% cut in VAT will of course be of most value to the rich, who spend most, and of least value to the poor, who have least to spend.
2.5% is in any case pretty desirory; a friend made a large purchase recently in a major high street chain. When she was about to pay, she hinted at a possible discount, and almost unbidden was offered 25% off. Of course, again this is the wealthy benefitting, as a person of mosdest means, making a smaller purchase would almost certainly not have been offered a discount.
And are shops going to pass on the reduction? They have already bought the goods at the 17.5% VAT rate, so they can only pass on the 2.5% reduction on their margin, not on the whole price
Meanwhile, rail fares for commuters are to go up 6%, council tax is rising, and foreign holidays (to the Euro zone or the US) will be hit by the decline in the pound
I agree with Mike’s theme up to a point. Brown has done a good job of pulling us back into contention, but going into the PBR I accept that there is a Tory lead fluctuating in the 5-12 range, and if nothing whatever happened between this morning and polling day I’d predict a Tory win. Like Edmund, though, I don’t think that is remotely large enough for Cameron to assume that he’s got a majority in the bag unless something changes. We all know that quite trivial things can move ratings a few per cent either way, and what’s happening at the moment, whatever you think of it, is hardly trivial.
It’s a bit pointless to speculate on the impact of the PBR since we really don’t know what’s in it. Early talk of VAT leaping to 25% later seems to have given way to it returning to 17.5%. However, I think there will be both a white rabbit (goodies for pensioners?) and a black rabbit (some other future tax rises) coming out of the hat and until we know what they are we can’t assess the package.
Some of the reaction to the 45% rate last night was pretty hysterical, though - one in four affected emigrating! When I was earning £90K, never mind £150K, a 5% rise in marginal tax would have rated a raised eyebrow, not a move to another country. LibDem policy has been 50% from £100K for ages, and attracted no particular comment. In fact last night’s thread showed a rather desperate whack-a-mole attempt to rubbish any idea as it emerged from the MSM speculation. Tories here are clearly nervous.
They’re right to be, but so should we all. These are, to be prosaic, difficult times for the country, and unpredictable times for all parties. One thing I will say. I’m against a snap election. But if the Tory reaction today is as OTT as last night’s thread, then I’ll change my mind. A ‘mandate’ election right now could make excellent sense: our calm leadership vs. their wild cries of ‘do nothing!’ I’d take that.
And how annoying that mirthios noticed his arithmetical error. I was going to accuse him of pro-Labour spin.
49. Great post Ken. I think the sort of package that appears to be taking shape is pretty depressing overall. It seems to be designed almost exclusively to support short-term political posturing.
The 45% tax is particularly pathetic - a footling measure in revenue terms that seems to be there for wholly partisan reasons viz. to ‘wrongfoot’ the Tories and attract some of the flat-earth economists among the Lib Dems.
This really exposes the hollowness of Brown’s claim to be ‘the man to turn to in a crisis’. The national interest doesn’t feature one iota in these proposals, it’s rather the same old transparent triangulation and positioning.
85. The point is 45% makes no impact on the telephone numbers Darling & Brown are suggesting. What other taxes are Labour going to put up to calm the markets, if they don’t come up with anything there will be a crisis of confidence in the markets.
As i have said for the last few days, the VAT thing is barking if ‘deflation’ is the problem and Ken Clarke is talking out of his arse!
Maybe if VAT was suspended till January 1st that would work?
85. Dear me, Mr.Palmer descending into troll-like mode this morning. Playground stuff.
85. Do nothing = “If you are in a hole stop digging” ?
If the Uk economy was a bank, Gordon would have to nationalise it as it’s f**ked.
Interestingly some retailers are saying a sudden change in the VAT rate would cause problems in administration and are asking for it to be phased in. I suspect for small ticket retalers the 2.5% reduction will cause more trouble than its worth. Even with a large ticket item (eg a kitchen) if it costs £4000 plus VAT, a saving of £100 from £4700 to £4600 will not be enough to persuade me to bring my spending forward if repaying personal debt is my greater priority and when it is likely the price of same item (or services) might be cut by say 25% in the months to come due to ongoing severe competitive pressures in a downturn.
At a £12bn cost for little gain except at the margins, fiddling with the VAT rate in this way is both ludricrous and ridiculous (to use Labour supporter Duncan Bannatyne’s favourite expressions as mentioned in the excellent Dragons Den programme about him last night).
85. NickP. AARGH. FFS. When I said 1 in 4 of the 8,000 people earning more than £1 million leaving - it was an example - I certainly didnt say it would happen. The point is, that this tax rise is quite fragile - if those 2,000 of 8,000 leave, it removes £1.3 billion in total tax while the tax raises £1.7 billion in total (all back of the envelope guesses) - leaving a net gain of 0.4 billion. The Tories have no reason to be nervous - this tax raises diddly - if I were you, I’d be nervous - Labour are going to either slash spending or go for one of the two tax raising measures that will raise sufficient revenue - 50% on 50K+ or 22.5% on VAT.
If next years total government spending for 2009-2010 is £620.5 Billion and one years borrowing is £120 Billion. There is a bit of a problem is there not????
Indeed it will be going on for 10% of GDP at the 2008 level (GDP: £1,365.4 billion), which of course is shrinking and forecst to shrink further.
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/
The whole point of the 45% tax is that any Conservative on the tv/radio has to spend half the interview avoiding answering if they would get rid of.
Our economy is being run for the sake of media tactics
Kavanagh in the Sun…
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/columnists/kavanagh/article1963101.ece
85 “LibDem policy has been 50% from £100K for ages, and attracted no particular comment.”
Because they were never going to be in power, perhaps? Does anything the LibDems do attract particular comment ifit doesn’t involve the number “thirty”?
As for the Tories being “nervous”? I don’t think so. If you’d offered them a 5-12% range lead two years ago, they’d have banked that. Bemused perhaps better describes the feeling. Britain has had cowboy builders in our home, bleeding us of money for a dozen years - only to discover water pouring trough the roof when it rains. So who would even consider hiring them to fix the same roof….???
Blair, Brown and Darling - aka Bodgit Builders. Personally, guv, I reckon your foundations are looking a bit dodgy. That’s going to be expensive….
the thing about the 45% tax hike is that it is the thin end of a very large wedge of tax increases to come.
94. Any Tory just has to see the £1.2 Billion is tiny compared to the 120 Billion Labour are borrowing, what other taxes will Labour put up for it’s election politics?
Actually I always thought Alister Darling was better than this, it seems to me that Brown has nobbled him!
this election is in Copeland…………Chris Whiteside (number 3 on this thread,posting at 2.24am) is Con PPC, and related to the Con candidate?
I expect around 20% turnout on 18th December, so just short of 600 votes will win it. The election was called by the BNP, who have been active in the area. The deceased Labour Councillor, Joe, was highly respected.
I expect a Labour hold.
As County Returning Officer, please note the following Candidates: Brigid Anne Whiteside Conservative Party
Wendy Skillicorn Labour Party
Simon Nicholson BNP
2005 County Election Result as follows for Kells and Sandwith( Whitehaven ) Electoral Division:
Leah Higgins Conservative 355
Gordon James Brown Independent 357
Joseph Benedict McAllister 1367 ELECTED
Overall Majority 1010% turnout ( combined with Parliamentary ) 53.3%
95. Spot on article - and it highlights that Gordon has form.
The slogan for the next election should be “no time for a serial incompetent”
85 - As a general rule, those that are seriously thinking about emigrating don’t talk about it, they just do it. I don’t think the rate will be one in four and I’d be surprised if it were one in forty.
However, even one more in four hundred could blow a hole in the figures, if that one in four hundred is at the upper end. I mention it regularly, but it’s a statistic which never seems to sink in: the top 1% of income tax payers pay 22% of income tax. This is a resource that needs to be cultivated with care.
I am genuinely baffled why supporters of any party see taxation as a moral issue. Surely the aim is to obtain as much money as necessary as efficiently as possible to meet the Government’s needs on a long term basis. Pushing up the rate of income tax for the wealthiest seems unlikely to achieve this.
85
will be interesting to see opinion polls when Joe/Jane Public realise how bad it is. Gordon has dissembled over the economy for a decade, now all the smoke and mirrors are gove and its not a pretty sight. A cut and run election as Nick Palmermentioned would be extremely cowardly, and I wouldnt put it past Gordon. Gordon doesnt do courage. He just writes about it.
Calm leadership. LEADERSHIP???, you gotta be kidding. maybe in name only but we are being led over the cliff.
98. I suspect the laughable 45% move is also designed to try to take the eyes of the public and the media off the much more significant stealth taxes that will be buried in the detail. That would be standard Labour tactics.
I suppose it’s reasonable to assume, on recent form, that the media are thick enough to fall for it, at least initially - I doubt the public are though.
95. I am worried - I find myself agreeing with a Sun editorial!
The 45% is and was intended as a distraction - Mrs Thatcher initially opposed bringing all top earners taxes down to 40%, and I think any Conservative Chancellor faced with across board tax rises would probably also raise the taxes on the £100k a year taxpayer.
Its distracting from the fact that the decline in financial services will mean a large proportion of that £40bn a year tax income is gone, repaying the bnge will add another £10 bn or more, cutting the deficit to stop debt growing another few billion. That means that every taxpayer will pay more, even if the rich are hit a bit harder.
As Ken pointed out this almost certainly means that VAT will need to go higher than 17.5% - probably the 22.5% isn’t far wrong.
98 So the message is £1.2 billion will be paid by the rich. The remaining £118.8 billion will have to be paid by the rest of us non-rich.
If Cameron can’t spin that to an election winning formula, frankly he doesn’t deserve the keys to Number 10….
77. Mirthios. & 59. Blue Spartacus. I dont include the public pension numbers or PFI. PFI is diddly around 5% of GDP (include it if you want, but it makes no difference).
The 60% for the US and 160% for Japan do not include their off-balance sheet or their pensions. Why? Because pensions are a contingent liability with variable assumptions and the possibility of renegotiation. While the nenpuku and other forms of Japanese social security trust funds are enormous - they are actually also in structural deficit. I used to have long arguments about whether we should net out the assets of the pension funds in Japan - I always said that you shouldnt because they had liabilities as well. It’s a highly complex area and I prefer to look at the “official” numbers - I’m comparing like with like. Still pension liabilities exist and do impact government bond yields - it is just something to be borne in mind.
Bruce Anderson in the Indy
Brown is happy to risk further damage to the economy as long as he can inflict damage on the Tories. The only recovery which interests him is the recovery in his poll ratings. Today’s measures are not economic. They are political
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/bruce-anderson/bruce-anderson-brown-is-not-after-economic-recovery-hes-after-votes-1032217.html
Brown seems to have ceiled the Suns support for the Tories looking at MTF’s link!
Splendid stuff Brown, he knows how to lose an election very badly!
Brown’s head can truthfully be put in a lightbulb next election as he has not made the decisions to keep the lights on!
Crikey Brown looking shifty and pale on sky news.
108..
Gordon Brown borrowed us into this mess, and now he would like to borrow us out of it. We now know what he means by PSBR. It is the price of subsidising Brown’s re-election
108 “Today’s measures are not economic. They are political”
If Joe Voter gets even a whiff of that, Labour is sunk. Without. Trace.
It’s all about timing - in the sort of boom we had between 2002 and 2007 people would have come to this country regardless of whether there was a 45% top rate. However our economy is now being shattered by the financial crisis (especially) and the knock on recession so now or in 2010/11 is absolutely not the time to drive these people away when there will be a lot of rebuilding to be done.
Blue Spartacus@60, I’m pretty sure the figures for Japan don’t include unfunded pension liabilities. I vaguely remember hearing that if you include those too, the national debt is well over 200% of GDP.
Mirthios@78, they’ve got a bunch of assets, but they’re going to need them, because they have a lot of people to pay out to, and from next year they’re going to have to pay more out than they’ve got coming in. (That’s what the article you linked said.) The problem here is partly caused by population - there were lots of baby boomers, and they didn’t have many kids, and we don’t have much immigration, so there’s a shrinking labour force paying out for a growing number of retirees. It’s got to the point where people try to avoid paying in to the system, because they don’t expect that it will be able to afford to pay out. (It didn’t help that the government lost a bunch of records so they don’t know who’s paid in and who hasn’t.)
This week’s pension-related news has been a serial killer going around murdering retired civil servants who were involved in administering our pensions in the 1970s and 1980s. I am not making this up.
112
The thing is, when people realise just how bad it is. (Darling is supposed to be being absolutely honest) Well theres a thing !,People’s instincts will be to save not spend.
Time to get out all Brown’s vain speeches and throw them back at him.
112. I notice in the detail of the proposals in today’s press there is a suggestion that foreign dividends will attract some extra tax relief. At least Labour is making sure that its own private ‘tax base’ (super rich foreigners) isn’t going to driven away…
3. It is not a trivial sum - especially if the 45p rate applies to all earnings, i.e. not just those earnings over £150K.
115. hahaha
The speccie
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3034381/playing-politics.thtml
115. No. It is a measure to try to prevent firms moving headquarters. UK firms with overseas subs were not happy. Unfortunately it is too little too late. The incompetence of Brown and Darling in angering firms over the past five years has come home to roost and thanks to the uncertainty engendered by their clomping tactics, it is likely that we will continue to see a shift to low tax countries like Ireland.
106 That should be the Tory response.
- OK. Fine, it will raise 1.2 billion - who is going to pay the other 119 billion?
Brown has just said (to the CBI) that national debt is lower than in the 1990’s…
Surely, that is just not true? - how can he say that without someone challenge him on it?
Global, Global, Global, Global, Global…
Out of interest, are other world leaders also blaming everyone else / using Browns tactics of shifting everything into a global context?
I’m not saying Brown isn’t clever to do this - it is his only option to deflect blame… a unique get out that PM’s of the past have not had before.
Maybe he is the luckiest PM ever aterall. Unless of course the wheels are about to come off.
94. They should do a Brown, ignore the question and deliver the party political broadcast. They may as well deliver a barrow full of lies in true happy Gordon fashion.
116. Are you really asking that?
3. and 116.
He may increase the 1% extended NI rate (an income tax in all but name anyway) and extend it further to catch all income.
Going back to the political implications I can only hope sense prevails and the VAT measure will not come to pass this afternoon. If it does and the electorate realise it will cost them £12.5bn for little apparent gain and a big future VAT rise to pay for it (and there are anecdotal signs they already realise this) then I think it will be hugely damaging for Labour. Their best option will be to go for a very early election before their disastrous blunder becomes all too obvious.
119. Might be presented that way Ken, but the aim is apparently ‘ to stop a stream of foreign nationals based in Britain leaving the country by unveiling a tax exemption on foreign dividends.’
116 ‘It is not a trivial sum - especially if the 45p rate applies to all earnings, i.e. not just those earnings over £150K.’
Oh my lord. I cannot believe I just read that - do you know anything about economics and the tax system? Are you really suggesting a tax on all the earnings of those making £150K+?
123. I`m merely saying that the tax revenue raised from a 45p tax rate depends on how this new rate is applied. If you`re asking what I think he should do, then yes I think that very high earners should pay much more tax. Part of the problem is the exponential growth in the gap between rich and poor.
86 ‘Calm leadership’, Nick. You ‘aving a larff.
All I see is frenetic activity, mostly to no purpose and often contradictory.
Firstly the banks are rebuked for imprudent lending and told to increase their capital bases, and then they are rebuked for more cautious lending. This has culminated in threats to legislate forcing them to lend, a meaningless threat if ever one existed.
Now taxes are being cut, temporarily, only to see them rise to even higher levels in a couple of year’s time.
Help to beleaguered home owners is welcome but it would have been better never to have let the housing bubble inflate to the levels it did.
Help to hard pressed pensioners would also be welcome but it would have been better not to have almost destroyed final salary schemes and impoverished money purchase schemes by taxing their dividend income.
127. No of course not. Just 45% of the earnings.
109 Kavanagh has been strongly anti-Brown for ages - but he does moan that the Tories are not threatening to cut public spending enough etc.
130. That really would be a taxodus. Australia would think it was Christmas.
128 You are clearly an idiot. What you seem to be suggesting would lead to someone on £150K+ taking home less net than someone on £149,999.99 - is that correct?
130. I imagine we can look forward to a whole host of new mystery posters spouting illiterate (in both the economic and stylistic senses) b*llocks today.
128. should Darling not have used the 45% band to pay for the 10p debacle last year?
In fact the 45% band is that pathetic it will not even cover that 10p loss of revenue never mind the rest - It should be interesting watching the coming Gilt strike!
Somebody please get Brown out of office before he ruins the country beyond repair. Politically he hasn’t just shited on the number 10 doorstep, he has shited throughout every home including No.10 around the country.
I would expect a further increase in the, ‘old peoples heating allowance’ means I can afford to buy Xmas prezzies!
Looks like Boris has lost Mad Mels vote.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088802/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-An-amnesty-illegal-immigrants-What-staggering-stupidity-Boris.html
Should expect that the, ‘taxi driver’ vote has, ‘gorn sarf of the river’ too!!
105. On that basis (political stunt to make the Conservatives have to evade the question) the 45% tax thing has been quite successful. The lugubrious Philip Hammond had some difficulties with it this morning on Sky. As NP MP would say, “Distract and confuse political opponents. Tick.” It’s obviously got the square root of ball all to do with raising revenue but nobody ever went far wrong by assuming the larger proportion of the public are idiots.
136. Your finger on the pulse of most important topic of the day as ever Coldie…
Brown is now LYING through his teeth. Playing POLITICS with the economy, which will leave our nation in RUINS.
137 Philip Hammond is not having a good war….
133. No I`m not suggesting that, I`m just pondering how Darling will apply a 45p rate, that is all. I am suggecting that earnings over £150000 should be taxed at 45p (actually, I`d make it over £100k (that figure being approximatekly four times average earnings)).
141. Oh dear we are tying ourselves in knots, aren’t we?
139. A POLITICIAN who plays POLITICS? How DARE he? Next we’ll have a POLITICIAN who LIES to us. Then we’ll all be so ANGRY that we will randomly CAPITALISE words to show EMPHASIS.
Anyone else thinking that there’s going to be another as-yet-unannounced major plan in the PBR?
141. “not just those earnings over £150K”
“earnings over £150000″
?! You don’t seem to have made your mind up.
128. This is why I tend to the belief that lefties are economically illiterate morons.
The 45% rate has to be a marginal rate, otherwise salaries would rise to just short of where that rate kicks in and stop and then restart at some astronomical level (to justify the 45% on all income). People would simply find tax efficient ways to avoid it.
In order to raise significant amounts of money, you need to tax lots of people a bit. Say I want to target raising £20 billion.
I reckon a marginal rate of 50% on all income above 50K would get me there. Alternatively I could take the 190,000 people earning more than £150K and charge them a top marginal tax rate of 99% on all earnings above £150K. I’d actually fall a bit short of £20 billion. This of course would mean that no one would bother staying or earning above 150K. So I’d raise no extra income - at 99% we are definitely on the wrong side of the Laffer curve.
Tax is all about maximum milk for minimum moo.
144. Is wrecking the country not enough for one day ?
[130] - You’re only allowed to inflict >100% rates of marginal taxation on benefit claimants, not the rich.
144 - If there isn’t, these news managers aren’t half as good as I believe them to be. Not just that, it will be something that George Osborne will have some difficulty formulating a view on in a very short timeframe.
140. Perhaps he’s a genius, I can’t tell, but his demeanour of a clinically depressed deputy headmaster is not very media friendly.
138
I thought there’d be a general welcome for Boris’s proposals, I certainly support them: dont you?
Hastings on Brown!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/24/gordon-brown-economic-crisis
144. I think they need one.
144. Surely there must be. If what we have so far is everything, there will neither be any real goodies or (especially) any significant future tax rises.
144 Probably. Brown can’t help himself, going for those glitzy eye-catching novelty items.
Brown has much in common with a Christmas cracker - an initial loud bang, a weird novelty item that nobody can make work - and with a bad joke at the heart of it.
141 I refer you to an earlier post which pointed out that the top 1% of tax payers are responsible for 22% of income tax take. Pi$$ them off, and everyone else has to make up the shortfall. These are people who can find ways to circumnavigate tax increases or leave the UK. Do the maths, and be afraid! This new 45% tax is all smoke and mirrors anyway.
Out of curiosity, do you have a job and is it in the public or private sector?
[144] - They’ll employ people to hand out brown paper bags on street corners so as to stop everyone from hyperventilating when the panic kicks in.
151. The really interesting thing is that BJ is starting to stray outside his brief. Possibly, and perhaps I credit him with too much acumen, to position himself as a leadership candidate in anticipation of a Cameron defenestration.
And when everyone realises in the New Year that the economy is still a complete disaster and Brown and Darling has failed to stop the rot, watch the 40% start to push towards 45-50% again.
http://www.lettersfromatory.com
121 Matt, Gordon will have to drop that line pretty soon - the Debt is about £20bn short of equalling the highest in percentage of GDP that it was in the 1990’s (perhaps he’ll start comparing it with the early 80’s next). Same with budget deficit - the Treasury forecasts are likely to show a very high deficit as % of GDP next year.
Unemployment rising but he can still claim that’s lower, interst rates will most probably remain and the single figure he produces to show how much better he’s doing this time than Major/Lamont did. Will it matter though? The 1992/3 recession is 15 years ago, by end next year it’ll be this one that really matters.
What I find surprising is that a read of the papers seems to show that no-one actually thinks this PBR will make much difference in terms of depth or duration of recession. Lots of must do it, little confidence that it will work.
I’m sure we’ll find out by this evening, but there’s a real feel of “is that it?” to this, unless there is something substancial up a sleeve or two.
Unless of course this was the big idea, and it got leaked
Dear me, lots of rightie posters being suckered by a lefty troll today.
161. Totally agree. If what has been leaked so far is all there is to the PBR, then it is a woefully inadequate package. And many of the smaller measures are reversals of previous policies implemented by Brown or proposed by Darling.
[103] - “I suspect the laughable 45% move is also designed to try to take the eyes of the public and the media off the much more significant stealth taxes that will be buried in the detail. That would be standard Labour tactics.”
There’s more to it than that. The intention, as noted in the Guardian, is to attempt to force the Tories into a corner of being the “Rich man’s friend”, by framing the argument at the next election as between cutting services for normal people and raising tax on the rich.
It remains to be seen which side manages to frame this argument successfully.
151 However will you vote for him next time? I do find it strange how politicians of both left and right seek to appeal in outlandish ways to their political opponents who won’t vote for them anyway and at the same time not seem to realise how they are alienating their own supporters.
161. 66. Ah, tres is feeling left out in the troll stakes. All right then, I’ll bite - “62 Relocate where? I’ve been to plenty of other countries with tax regimes that are tighter than in the UK.
by tres November 24th, 2008 at 8:20 am”
Yes, I’ve been to plenty of countries with lower tax regimes. It only requires that there is one country with a lower tax regime for the rich to be able to leave. Happy now?
163. Oh sure that’s part of it too, as I mentioned earlier. But the reality is that tax rises will have to be far more widespread than this pitiful little measure and cut deeply into the pockets of millions of people who are not rich. One of Labour’s aims will be to disguise this fact - I imagine they might pull it off for a few hours.
NickPalmer, the true perniciousness of the bash-the-rich tax hike is the principle behind it. For three elections you’ve said you will not raise tax on the rich, you will not increase the top rate, you are relaxed about people getting wealthy, you are not Old Labour.
Suddenly that’s all been trashed.
This tax hike is gonna make a lot of rich people, who have come here in the last twenty years, take a look at Britain and think… hmmmm…. reverting to its old socialist ways… do I really need to stay here…
And it doesn’t take one in four millionaires to sod off to render this tax rise useless, or actually counterproductive; as antifranks says, it just takes one in a hundred if they are the real high earners.
Add in the general sense of Britain becoming a high tax high spend country (I understand the British government now spends more as a proportion of GDP than the Germans), plus the whole tenor of your anti-white anti-male legislation (and most of these millionaires will be male, and many will be white), and you do have a recipe for some a steady and financially significant emigration of very high earners.
This will be calamitous for Britain. We are a small country with a big financial sector; we depend very much on the dynamism of London attracting creative and wealthy people. These people could go to America, or Australia, or Canada if they want a welcoming English speaking country. Look at the weather today - it’s not the climate they come for. Nor is it our crime free streets.
What Labour are doing is tragic. You are now destroying the vibrant economic legacy bequeathed by Thatcher. You are slowly ruining the country, though that slow process is now accelerating. And all for petty party political gain.
You should be ashamed of yourselves. Look at the f*cking mess you have made. You are a bunch of lying clowns.
162 - as the post below yours has suggested, and others today as well, if this is “it” then it’s a political manoever.
If this is the case, will this be Brown’s new Iraq moment?
168. Well it’s hard to believe Brown can be so bovine and one-dimensional as to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, but on the other hand…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088698/Brown-kills-speculation-early-general-election-Tories-11-lead.html
The bringing forward of projects such as schools and hospitals looks great and gets good media coverage but the reality when linked with stimulus is somewhat different.
With problems in planning and procurement even if most projects were given the green light now the money would not filter into the economy for at least 18 months.
The headlines this morning are another great Campbell/Mandleson media con trick.There is bound to be at least 2 other policy announcements this afternoon that will trump the VAT and Tax headlines.
I have a funny feeling that he might abolish housing stamp duty across the board for a year.The reason being that the govt arent getting any revenue through the housing mkt at present anyway as it has come to a standstill.
Now that would grab the headlines.
165 The rich need to work too. How much would a Premiership footballer who left to play for an Irish league side get?
171. A distinct possibility. It won’t work though.
How about bringing back MIRAS for a temporary period? That would be good for floating voters.
I see Brownisms were out in force this morning for the CBI e.g IAAASHEA (apparently is how you pronounce ASIA now), and there were plenty more like that. Can’t imagine businesses leaders are hugely impressed by a man that can’t pronounce simple words correctly. We haven’t had an lecture about ALKY-AIDER in a while.
167
Even better, those creative people can come here illegally, safe in the knowledge Boris will give ‘em an amnesty!!
Finally Labour have owned up to what many have known for ages - They’ve Blown It. Blown all the money. Tax hikes are now the order of the day. It will prolong this recession here for years. What a complete and utter disaster we face and what a waste of all those years of growth. Blown it, totally.
How marvellous. At this time our economy is in the hands of a party political lunatic who thinks nothing of using income tax and the death of an infant to further his tribal politics.
171 The housing market is dead for the foreseeable future - no amount of tinkering at the edges will restart the great Ponzi scheme that was the centrepiece of Browns supposed economic miracle.
The thing about today is it’s either going to be looked back on in two years as the moment that Brown and Darling gave Labour more than a fighting chance or we see the end of the current media narrative.
I think a lot of posters here are underestimating that this is not just a core-vote stroking policy, most people are economists and they won’t see this as quite a political / ideological viewpoint, a lot will see this as the Government doing something (versus not doing something) and the rich, and let’s be clear to an overwhelming majority of the country £150k pa is 5, 6 times what they earn, it’s someone else picking up the tab. As incorrect economically as that may be.
These sieve like leaks are not very GB esque, I’m guessing there will be something else tucked away.
Whatever happens, one front bench is going be hideously wrong in the long run.
179. I really don’t think the public are as thick as you suggest.
173. MIRAS - gift to rich people who buy houses. Might help to raise house prices slightly. Horrible idea for equity, not much bang for buck, easy to administer. It’s probably marginally worse than the VAT cut.
169/171 - whatever else happens today, it will be done mostly (or even purely) for a 24-48 headline and/or tactical reasons.
I really believe that Brown, Campbell, Mandy et al know no other way
181. Yes - wasteful and iniquitous, I agree. But politically,,,
182. That really does seem to be the case, doesn’t it?
179. Don’t dispute that. This rich man’s tax hike, however illiterate and destructive, is obviously a trap for Cammo - he has to play it carefully.
My suggestion: he should either go along with it *provisionally* (i.e. dog whistle to the rich: we don’t do it really) - OR propose an equally compassionate sounding alternative.
OK, gotta go out look after my daughter. I expect to find the country in ruins on my return.
Even if Stamp Duty is removed for year, the sudden glut of houses on the market will just trash prices even more! D’oh! No more equity for me and millions of others.
180. I wouldn’t describe it as thick. The vox pops on BBC News this morning were broadly the same. People expected tax to go up in the future to pay for the now. Half the people weren’t happy but said “What else can they do?” Billions this billion that doesn’t register with people in quite the way it should.
186. I think most people (even a majority of Labour voters) can understand that a tax raising £1.2bn (and possibly zero) won’t fill a £120 billion hole.
The 45% rate will raise so little cash it is obviously just a headline and symbol. The main argument against the new tax is that it raises such a tiny amount of cash (£1.5bn) that even a slight push of top earners towards more tax avoidance will wipe it out completely. It is clearly purely symbolic and presumably a dog-whistle to the poor who have been tempted by Lib Dem tax fairness proposals, and an issue to draw Tory lines in the sand.
Brown desperately has to deflect comment from the total abandonment of “prudence” and everything it stood for. He also has to kill “No return to boom and bust” and “I will not let house prices get out of control” - before they kill him.
Gordon Brown has maxed out on one credit card and is now starting another one.
186
THE BBC will have chosen its vox pops carefully….
186 ITV viewers must be more intelligent. They thought there was no point in handouts now if it might leave you in a mess later.
189..from among its own staff?
186 - I heard 30 minutes of Five Live this morning, and themes seemed to be:-
1) Cut in VAT, that isn’t going to help me I have lost/losing/stop me (delete as appropriate) my job/house/business.
2) Higher income tax band, I bet I’m next.
3) Where is my hand out.
Didn’t seem very supportive in general. I think people have heard that in places like US people have got lump sum hands out from the government and are wanting something similar.
Depending what else is announced today the fairest response by Cameron/Osbourne would be to lift the Personal Allowance, taking a lot of part-time workers out of tax completely and giving money back to everyone. Trotting out the red-tape line with some actual examples might work well and almost sound viable.
Ironically the 45% increase would probably raise the same poultry sums as a major crackdown on benefit fraud.
186. That was my reaction and I’m voting Tory next time come hell or high water. It’s the sound of resignation you heard, not enthusiasm. I can’t see this measure appealing beyond Labour’s core vote. Labour are behind and they need more than that. There has to be another measure to try to entice swing voters. (Why not scrap ID cards?)
192. Lump-sum handouts to all taxpayers of £1000 might be an idea. Ought to clear a few credit card debts, if nothing else…
re 184. Will it be the act of your return to the country that causes it to be “in ruins” Sean?
194, if they don’t scrap ID cards they’re completely retarded. £20bn of useless, expensive, impractical and very unpopular nonsense when we need all the cash we can get.
192 - if anything, such reactions will probably make another major PBR announcement more likely.
Think about it : “oh, my house/job/bank balance is doomed”, throw in a nice little taster and suddenly it goes “ooh, that’s not so bad after all”.
Of course, the big danger with that is that it’s been done so often in the past it can and does lose its effect
Some weird posts today.
A 5% increase in income tax for taxable earnings over £150,000 and the sky falls in - so someone on £200k would pay an extra £2,220 (if the personal allowance was held at 2009 rates).
Government borrows money - shock horror. Governments are not individuals - the rules are not the same. The cost of financing the deficit must be dropping with interest rate falls which will allow a bigger debt to be financed.
I agree that the economy is F***ed but largely as a result of underinvestment in infrastructure and industries that created jobs. (due to high interest rates). But this was the policy of both Labour and the Tories. The thing is how to get out of it and I am pleasantly surprised at the way Gordon is tearing up the rule books and at least giving us a chance of a reasonable outcome. When the Tories decide what they are going to do then we will discuss it.
I also noticed that Brown let slip (deliberately I’m sure) in his CBI speech that the government will sell assets. After Thatcher, Major and now Brown what do the state own of any real value? We sold off all the rail, power, water, gas, gold, defence companies, a lot public building (as Rory Bremner pointed out the IR building is actually owned by private equity group). What have we got left to sell, the MET office? Refloat Network Rail :-)? Flotation on the market of the odd quango like the potato council? Also in current market nobody is going to pay a good price for anything the state sells, be it real estate or a business.
iirc it was a factory in Dudley.
I’m sure most people can see that that there is still 98% of the borrowing that isn’t going to be accounted for but the borrowing should really be considered as more than just a big number. Not that the current proportion of debt to GDP going in to a recession isn’t a cause for concern of course.
194
It all depends on how much political credibility Brown has stacked on ID cards.
Think back to 42 days; he destroyed the measure, along with previous legislation, to get it through the commons. Far from strengthening security, the deals to secure 42 days have weakened it.
Brown and Smith are pushing ahead with the card scheme and, even if it is compromised beyond redemption, they want the victory.
200. That looks like another reannouncement of a previous pledge. It’s just more empty gesture politics - throw a bone to the business audience.
199 no Icarus, Its because an overblown and inflated public sector thast has acheived little, and because of a debt boom based on an unsustainable house price boom that Gordo ignored whilst the sun was shining. Add to that dissembling on a huge scale as to the level of Govt debt, and there you have it. Blaming it on America will not wash.
Gordo hass been found out.
199. Icarus - in case you hadnt noticed - the Tories are agreeing that the 5% on those earning more than 150K is diddly. It raises barely enough to cover the Crewe and Nantwich by-election bribe.
Government borrows - yeah so what?
Gordon isnt tearing up the rule book - in fact he’s barely opened the book. So far having committed (kind of) to £16 billion of spending, I calculate the impact on GDP of about £4 billion. I expect another £5billion of slightly more effective spending, taking us to £7.5 billion in total impact on the economy. That’s 0.5% of GDP btw. Hardly ripping up the rule book.
200 Apparently its selling off the Forestry Commission (60% of who’s forest are in Scotland - wonder what SNP thinks of that), the Ordnance Survey and probably some more MoD land.
Of course somewhere down the line there will be a quite a few Bank shares to sell.
188 “Gordon Brown has maxed out on one credit card and is now starting another one.”
I think he is way beyond credit cards. More like creative ways to bump off Auny Flo for his inheritence….
“I agree that the economy is F***ed but largely as a result of underinvestment in infrastructure and industries that created jobs”
I think that is the single most stupid thing I have seen on PB since I became active on this forum. It is so stupid I am not even going to bother wasting a huge amount of time responding the reasons why. But put simply:-
1) We are in this mess due to reckless credit and spending by government and public, both here and the US. Also a house bubble over inflated by greed and easy credit.
2) For a lot of sins of the current government, jobs have been created (if it was due to the governemnt is besides the point), lots of them. A problem is that many have been filled by the likes of hard working Eastern Europeans and hasn’t done anything to reduce the long term unemployed / sick (but could work).
and I could do on, but it has little to do with your idea of why the country is in the mess.
202 Too many third parties have a commercial interest in ID cards for it to be allowed to die. Think of all those juicy contracts, and the piles of taxpayers cash to be spent. Lovely jubbly if you’re one of the technology providers involved. Follow the money.
208 But can we all at least find some common ground - and agree that the UK economy is F**ked?
209 - I wonder in time if we will find out who in parliament has personally gained from ID cards. There is so much money in ID Card and NHS computer system, I fail to believe no politicians have got plenty of podgy fingers in the pie (no suggesting they are doing anything illegal btw).
209. To be honest, I seriously wonder if 5 have something on the Labour boys from their past in the SWP or the CP. Their attachment to this sh*theap of a policy is utterly irrational. Wait, what’s that sound? Is that a black helicopter? Gotta go.
209- good point. Same with contact point for children’s services, and why the ridiculous HIP’s were not scarpped.
Once things are a bad idea, they are a bad idea even if loads of money has been wasted in fully realising what a bad idea they were. But contracts are made……
210 - Me? Wasn’t disagreeing that economy isn’t screwed. I was disagreeing that current problems are due to the government not building infrastructure and somehow under investment “industries that create jobs” (don’t they all create jobs…. and that the government place is to encourage enterprise).
Sorry disagreeing economy is screwed!!!!!!
213…and future donations are at risk….
Is seant like the rest Frank Bruno,Paul Daniels and some Scottish snooker player who were going to leave the UK if Labour won in 97.
All bull shiters like those appalled at 5% over 150k.
surely Darlings Tax is going to hit Labour lovies like Roger hard!
217. I remeber well the sun’s take on Paul Daniels saying he should go anyway as he would not be missed!
217 Your point might have more resonance if SeanT didn’t spend so much of his time outside the UK.
A couple of observations.
Firstly VAT is not a tax on TVs, cars, or whatever. It’s a tax on business turnover. Buy what you can from traders who don’t qualify (turnover less than 64K pa) - you’ll save 17.5%, not just 2%.
You want business stimulus? OK, start at the bottom with the millions of sole traders - abolish Class 4 National Insurance, which ain’t insurance, they already pay Class 2, it’s an 8% tax on profits between £5K and £40K, so tax rates for self-employed are 8% above everyone else’s.
Thirdly, this 150K level tax hike - has anyone else noticed that a Cabinet Minister falls just short of this band at about £140K? What a coincidence….
Looks like Brown has lifted the Tory tax plan again! This time it is for small businesses etc!
Watch for this in the statement later today!
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/images/2007/10/09/smilingbrown.gif
216- I think it is far more insidious than donnations to be honest. It is the little functions, the clubs, the contacts, the societies that we do not know about.
My brother is a member of a business group whose membership costs more than my salary. Other than that all I know is that is secret.
113 - Edmund in Tokyo - many, many thanks. Where else in the world would you get an authoritative answer to a query on Japanese state pensions direct from a man on the ground in addition to the clown factor provided by coldstone, gabble et al. Brilliant!
Couple of observations from BBC spin on PBR:-
Amid all the speculation over the PBR, the FTSE 100 index of leading shares is up almost 4%.
No its up cos Citigroup has been stopped from failing (breath massive shy of relief from the suits in the city) and two because the FTSE tanked last week and it is rebounding on a strong Friday performance on US Markets.
And from Cameron:-
Cities need strong, independent mayors to help restore the health of regional economies, the Conservative leader says.
Noooooooooo. Not more of this even more directly elected c##p. Police chiefs, mayors etc. I saw first hand in the US how stupid it is when some PC Plod has to run TV ad’s, bill board etc to run for police chief in a district. Firstly it must cost the individual stupid money and secondly be it just leads to more “he is a bad man”, “he did rubbish”, “I will do better”, which doesn’t do anybody any favours.
Let the police do their job, politicians outline a good framework and fire the “managers” (police is a service now after all and we are customers) who mess up. Cough cough Iain Blair. Simple. I don’t want to have to vote between two doughnut munchers, who I nothing about, ever 4 years.
I don’t understand Brown’s reasoning for the 45% tax rate. Because it’s a completely new tax rate, it distracts from what surely was their intended message - “we are cutting taxes”. Instead the headlines focus on 45% and the floating voter sees Labour as the socialist party of old. It’s not even as if it raises very much revenue, in the scheme of things. Perhaps they’d been secretly itching to increase the top rate and think they now have cover..? It will come back to haunt them, I suspect.
218 Yes lol “what did you first see in the millionaire Paul Daniels”
218 Well - not a lot!
I once had the heart-skips-a-beat joy of driving past Paul Daniels as he was peering under the smoking bonnet of his powder blue Rolls Royce (number plate MAG 1 C).
101. Taxation should be at least partly about justice and equity. BTW; The top 1% own 22% of all the wealth.
167 and others; Why did some tories support BHO when he advocated raising taxes on the rich and borrowing to cut taxes for the middle class? When Gordon suggests it, it presages the end of all existence.
Anyone would think they supported Obama for reasons other than his policies…
Cameron on the PBR to the CBI
http://www.politicshome.com/Landing.aspx?blog=4719&perma=link
I have just noticed the Cabinet is meeting in Leeds on Friday according to Guido!
Must make sure i get on the telly denouncing the stunt as a waste of cash!
225 Old Labour Old Liberals hell they wanted 50% over 100k will think it hasnt gone far enough.
New Labour think in these times might be ok.Anyways flush the real conservatives out.
New conservatives cant make my mind up, but won`t in public be too against, as seen as defending this modest rise on those who can afford it, could be a risk.
[224] - The Mayor has been quite good for London, I think. An elected mayor for the Greater Manchester region could do some good, given that the councils are similarly fractured there.
Not so sure whether Birmingham would benefit, given that I think the city council covers the whole city there already.
199 Icarus, Larry Elliot in the Guardian has a good column on the problems. He distills it down to one sentence -
“with consumers in rehab as they seek to wean themselves off their debt habit, tax cuts - even assuming they work - will prove to be the equivalent of giving the junkie another fix unless the chancellor, Alistair Darling, takes the opportunity to look beyond the short term and lay the foundations for a saner economy.”
The Conservative policy for the short term is to minimise the pain of unemployment and help small businesses survive through measures targeted at JSA and improving business cash flow for small and medium sized companies. They support action to free up credit for healthy businesses hit bu the squeeze. Not as headline grabbing as VAT cuts or tax on the rich but arguable more effective in staunching the closure of businesses and creation of high levels of unemployment without which a recovery will be harder and slower.
Attempting a recovery from a financial crisis through a return to the habits of 2007, buy now pay later, increasing private debt, increasing public debt does not lay the foundations for a healthy economy in two or three years time.
Then there is “investment” in infrastructure. A good investment has a return, measurable benefits. I am unconvinced that re-building schools, replacing serviceable buildings with architecturally inspired £20m buildings is a good investment. Gordon’s favourite Loft Insulation may be - though 11 years after he first announced it I’d of thought we shouldn’t still be talking about it. Road repairs, road building may be, make weight measures “to be seen doing something” are not.
The leaks and political posturing around this PBR concern me because it looks more like a budget for political effect than one for economic recovery.
the FT today highlights one of the fundamental structural problems we face and that is that 2 out of 3 jobs created since 2008 have been in the public sector , some 900,000 if classified correctly . a number of areas of the private sector have actually shed labour over this period in spite of overall economic strength . This shows that economy is not as strong to weather a downturn as may have been thought . The sobering thought is that it is the private ector that has to lift the economy to repay the huge borrowing but the private sectors capacity to do this has been hurt by being crowded out by the public sector . The huge government borrowing and higher taxes will only increase this problem in the future
231 Good to see your mind is on the good of the country. Are you a SPAD?
228 Move to North Korea if you want a level playing field!
224 - I absolutely disagree with you about directly elected mayors, etc. It is good to have local figures who are truly beholden to no one but their own electorate. Who knows, they might actually have a better idea than the man in Whitehall about what their local neighbourhood needs.
The big problem with the local council system is that it leads to local authorities being run by faceless apparatchiki with no talent except for behind-the-scenes manoeuvring, which in turn leads to the local government officials running the show in a way that suits their interests rather than the public’s. If one person has to take responsibility for it all, there is more chance of him or her banging heads together when it is necessary.
It would be good for police chiefs to need to be responsive to the public. The police force should explain its approach more and bring the public in on the process of law enforcement. Direct elections are an excellent way of achieving just that.
[224] - Oh, and ideally, having elected police chiefs would give people more say on whether the police were going to use tasers, for example.
I expect that most people would want them to be used, as the government has now announced, but it would give an opportunity for people opposed, like myself, to have their say and have a vote in a small enough community that they could be heard, whereas the issue of tasers is never going to be a big enough issue for a general election.
This creates more democratic legitimacy.
Anyone fancy a new career as a mole catcher?
Keep an eye on NICs - and what the Tories do
“The new 45p top rate for high earners is the early shock of what will be a stunner of a PBR. Whatever you may think, the Treasury and No10 didn’t want it out overnight (Michael Fallon might want to look a bit closer to home on that one). But by tea-time it won’t figure as much, if only because the additional pain for about 400,000 people on £150k plus will be as nothing compared to what the other 22million earners can look forward to after the next election. The new 45p rate brings in little relative to the huge sums needed, so keep an eye on National Insurance Contributions.
What seems clear is that Gordon Brown has decided to turn political convention on its head by offering voters a tax-raising manifesto at the next election. He will couple it with plans to limit even further the growth in public spending. He has convinced himself that the old rules no longer apply and that we will be willing to trust him with another term despite a promise to clobber us. Whether we will or not depends on how bad it gets. And between now and polling day he will be asking the Tories whether they will endorse Labour tax increases, and whether they will cut spending even more. Mr Brown is betting his future on red.”
This is going to be a highly *political* PBR.
This will be Brown’s biggest electorally dishonest boomerang yet, the emphasis is totally political rather than economic. Worst PM we have had in many years, which means we are really screwed!
And Benedicts warning on NI contributions is worth heeding, remember the last budget.
One of the great things about reading PB.C is the discovery that there are almost as many armchair economists in the country as armchair football managers.
In answer to the original article - it is clear that if this budget ‘works’ then Labour are going to head to the next election with a media narrative behind them, and the Tories are going to have to fight with something more of a handicap than may have seemed the case 6 months ago. If it doesn’t, the Tories can virtually say anything (or nothing as has been their preferred strategy). Having only a degree in politics with economics, I personally (unlike many here, in full ‘man at the bar mode’) do not feel qualified to predict the likely course of the economy over the next few months. Purely from a political / strategic standpoint, then this is obviously crunch time in the next General Election campaign.
236. What the hell was there in my post that suggested I thought anything more socialist than a 5% increase in income tax on those earning over 150,000 wasn’t going to cause the end of the world?
re 33 the Indy’s prices seem to be based on a VAT rate of 11.5%. Pesky things those decimal points, aren’t they?
235 Sally c both major parties are looking at whats could for the country as well as their prospect.
That is always the case.
Just like you do.
The danger for Brown is that people will note that the promise not to raise income tax rates has now been abandoned. A precedent has been set. To raise the really large sums necessary to fund and pay back this extra borrowing he will need to make inroads into those earning 75k to 150k. Blair had skilfully defused the perception of Labour as the enemy of the aspiring, hard working middle classes. I wonder what Mandelson thinks of this abandonment?
seanT @ 167 — “the vibrant economic legacy bequeathed by Thatcher”
The what now? The Mrs Thatcher who brought us two, count ‘em, two recessions and took us into the ERM? That Mrs Thatcher?
Or a different one?
Comment on Iain Dale’s site (can’t seem to post it on here) suggests the leak in today’s papers about the 45% tax rate didn’t come from the Treasury, who are apparently “angry”.
Hmm.
242 - Chris A - I’ve pointed it out to them twice so far - they still ignore the problem. Presumably they’ve put these figures out in their print edition? One more for the dole queue?
246 Ben Brogan points to the Tories for the leaks - the Treasury Mole hunt is underway.
243 Should read good for the country.
248 - did hear recently (might have been on here) that somebody has been leaking some Treasury info to them. The plot thickens
Goupillon’s plan for economic recovery to be carried out immediately:
Raise personal tax allowances so that cash rebates can be made in February 2009
Decrease Employer’s NI contributions drastically
Abolish Stamp Duty
Give first time housebuyers upto £30000 of mortgage interest tax relief which reduces by 10% per annum over a 10 year period
Ensure businesses’ overdraft business interest rates set by Banks are kept as low as possible
Abolish the ID card scheme
Scrap Trident
Genuinely cut out unnecessary bureaucracy in the public sector and cut costs to the taxpayer
Review and scrap legislation which has been brought in during the last 10 years which causes unworthwhile and unfair costs to taxpayers, consumers and businesses ( eg HIPS and some features of H@S acts and Human Rights legislation)
And finally DO NOT tinker with the VAT rate or further reduce interest rates if this will result in a run on the pound and an irretreivable loss of London’s chances of regaining its position as an important World class financial centre.
248 About time we copied the US and changed the administration completley.
No more civil servants for life, they left with the outgoing lot.
Also would save a lot of money hopefully.
240: Unfortunately, if you are like me a FD of a multinational company, nothwithstanding one’s limitations, you have to try and predict the economic future of not only the UK but also many other countries.
The first signal that first time house buyers could not afford to get on the housing ladder meant that we shifted a lot of our marketing effort and new business investment into overseas markets as it was apparent that Labour would continue to invest in an increasingly inefficient public sector and for political purposes ignore the the results of their deregulation and lack of monitoring of the financial markets.
May I say that we frequently have to update our predicitions as we cannot afford Brown’s crystal ball, but again his motives are contrary to our expectations.
The result is that we are still expanding and innovating.
In discussing the likely effect of Darling’s budget, I have seen no reference to the most important set of figures, the base from which he makes his projections, the revenue stream available to him. There is a huge difference in required future debt repayment between 1)over 3m. unemployed, 2% GDP reduction for the next 3 years and substantial reduction in taxable profits and income and 2) 2.2m. unemployed,1% GDP reduction in 2009 levelling off thereafter and a private sector in equilibrium.I suspect he will choose the latter, and nobody can prove him wrong - the necessary tax increase and borrowing requirements will be much less. It could well be a strong argument for going for a GE early in 2009, as I believe the first set of assumptions will prove to be much nearer the mark, and Darling knows it.
re 247 yes it’s splashed all over page 6 in the print edition in a big colour graphic taking up almost half the page. Highly embarrassing.
If bribing people with their own and their children’s money works, then God help us all.
The “low debt” lie must be nailed by the tories. They needs hard facts about budget surpluses and defecits during the good years from various other western countries. Surely we are the worst sinners in terms of running a deficit year after year in the good times, apart from the US probably, and a lot of that was because they actually spend a decent amount of money on their troops.
248.
Certainly it was foolish to have the details leaked early, but one might as well suggest the Treasury did leak this in the belief that it would get them kudos and cause the Tories to start bickering amongst themselves/overreact.
Now the reaction has been “you should brief Parliament first, not the press” of course they would try to point the finger elsewhere.
254 I raised this last night - with a Budget due in spring, and another PBR in autumn any optimism in the Treasury forecasts will be found out, which is a drive for an early 2009 election. Think Darling will probably tale opportunity to move recovery into 2010 from the BoE’s unbelievable bounce back in late 2009 but figures will tend to the optimistic beyond that.
Browns chutzpah is beyond belief, when in view of the last weeks leaks and breifings on the PBR, his line in the CBI questions after his tractor figures, that he couldn’t possibly comment on what may be in the PBR as it would break all the rules and conventions of announcing measures only in the chamber
250.The Treasury has been mole hunting for about 2 years now, Osborne has been far too often on target. A point often missed by those that have been underestimating him and criticising him recently. Getting rid of Osborne has been one of the Labour party’s priorities recently, for both personal and political reasons.
Sam Coates at the Red Box, Treasury mole?
”
Hearing Nick Robinson take a swipe at John Humphrys for suggesting that the PBR 45p rate leak was a government handout was entertaining early morning tonic. But proper Budget leaks are usually no laughing matter, and there’s mystification at the Treasury at seeing their details out a day early.
This may have been a government operation. But surely - surely - it can’t have been in their interest to have had the two main planks of Alistair Darling’s PBR - the VAT cut and new top rate of tax - splashed over the Sunday and Monday papers. After all, it spoils the surprise and gives the opposition more chance to work out their response.
There have been rumours of a Tory Treasury mole before. For instance, there was speculation in the Sunday Times here that George Osborne was tipped off about the inheritance tax move before last year’s pre-election budget report. Interestingly, Benedict Brogan as good as says it came from the Tories here. Is there a molehunt going on at HMT right now? Perhaps Sir Gus O’Donnell will ask the police to become involved?”
Posted the link to Benedict Brogan blog article@239.
I have just done a You Gov poll. The notification was sent to me via email, and I only have until 3pm to answer it.
(The questions were the usual party political stuff)
Anyone else polled?
239 On the subject of mole catching my lawn was invaded by a very difficult one to trap about 2 weeks. Usually it takes me 1 to 3 days to trap them using “scissor traps” - this one seems to know these traps are not good for the wellbeing of moles and digs “bypasses” around them.
I have heard that one can buy mole traps in France/Belgium which have an explosive charge which is triggered by the movement of a nearby mole. It appears to me this magnificently conceived invention is not approved for use in the UK as I can not find it for sale on the web anywhere.
I am desperate so I might have to resort to a cross channel trip to get some or has anyone got any better ideas?
The 45% tax rate looks like a Sarah Palin strategy. It will end in tears. It energises the base - Polly Toynbee and the very, very poor - but it will also energise the opposition and, most damaging of all, it will put off swathes of middle England. Gordon was nearly dished by the Tories’ inheritance tax plan - it didn’t matter that it benefited the very rich, it sent a message feared by everyone with aspiration. Labour have thrown away their hard won trustworthiness on tax. If 45% over £150,000 now, it will surely go up to much more later, higher rates on lower earnings. Even if it does not, the perception of it, the fear of it, will be absolutely toxic. This is a mean spirited desperate move, typical of Gordon Brown’s too-clever-by-half short termism.
254 I still think the very early GE is behind the current positioning. The British have become addicted to spending money and much as everyone is moaning about drawing in their horns, I suspect that the retail figures for Christmas itself will be not too far off last year. “Well, you have to, don’t you - for the kiddies….” Darling will hail this as a success for his strategy - and Brown will go for the GE as the all-conquering hero.
The real pull-back will be in holidays and new cars and electrical goods and bigger household expenditures - conservatories, kitchens and carpets. These will all take a mighty hammering in 2009.
For those prepared to demean themselves by reading it, I suggest a visit to Guido, to find out how Ireland is tackling the problem - makes more sense, perhaps? Of course, I exclude NickP (who is far too important) and Coldstone (who is far too stupid).
I don’t see the advantage in the leak from the Tories point of view unless Darling intended use it to hide behind.
I must be missing something but I think the PBR may well be being overplayed politically - certainly in the long run.
Let’s say its Vat, fuel payments, the temporary reversal of a few tax rises [car and 10p]and the new 45p band.
No one except some of Labour’s core vote will notice much if any difference. The reduction in mortgage payments was far more tangible for far more people across the political spectrum.
And we will still have a recession.
If this roll of the dice stops repossessions, businesses folding,
unemployment rising, then its a winner, if not many voters will think it has not ‘worked’.
Unless Brown gets ahead in the polls and feels he can call an election without accusations of ‘cashing in’ costing him, we will not see an election for many months, by which time the voters will be thinking about the borrowing figures and impending tax rises, not what, if anything, they received months before.
262 - One of the best posts I’ve read in a while - PB.com, the gift that keeps on giving!!
Of course there’s a mole inside the Treasury, but if they’re looking at civil servants it could take them a long time to find it.
265 - No-one demeans themselves by reading Guido. Joining the comments section perhaps, but not by readnig the blog.
In all seriousness, I think he’s one of the very best bloggers going - the online equivalent of the Sun.
262. Ever seen Jasper Carrott’s mole sketch? It involves a torch and a shotgun.
The evidence from across the world is that governments are taking a proactive approach to get mitigate the worst effects of this global downturn.
From America to China and today in Britain, the responsible approach is using a fiscal stimulus to help businesses and maintain confidence in the economy.
Even at this late hour, Mr Cameron is still in denial about the magnitude of the challenge and is stuck in his narrow channelled, ideological adherence to monetary orthodoxy.
The world has changed, and almost all political parties(except the UK Tories), business organisations and leaders and international institutions such as the IMF can see this reality.
Action requires leadership and a sense of reality. Cameron, Osborne & Co. have neither.
268 - Because civil servants tend to resemble burrowing rodents, or because the leaks are coming from elected or “party” persons?
268. The latter.
265 - The Irish government has suffered one of the most stunning falls in popularity ever experienced. For the first time in my lifetime Fine Gael has a sustained lead in all polls. While I might see why you would like Labour to experience something similar I’m not sure they are stupid enough…
273. Sorry, 273 referred to 272.
269 Morus - Yes, Guido is always worth a quick look. The comments are not.
Come to think of it, PB.com is almost the only site where the comments are worth reading.
Why are yougov doing a poll the same day as the PBR ? Can only be some left leaning newspaper looking for a good bounce number before the horrors in the fine print are announced..
275. Ever wondered what people on the end of a mobile-throwing session do for revenge?
265. One thinks he is far too important - the other can be forgiven - he doesn’t have the intelligence to realise he is far too stupid.
YouGov - did an e-mailed poll on Friday.
270. Yes I have a freind who claims he has successfully killed one with a shotgun. Apparently if you shoot directly down into the molehill when you see one digging the momentum of the shot causes a shockwave in the ground and kills the mole.
278 - It makes perfect sense. Do you know who this person is (I’m not asking you to name them, obviously) or is this speculative?
Very intriguing!
What if we do a bailout/hand out and other countries across Europe do not?
Will the British taxpayer be pleased with being left with a bill?
I understood Germany was reluctant.
I think the government should be looking how to fill the hole in it’s finances rather than trying to catch a mole!
Seriously, maybe the mole is actually Badger?
271 The DollyBot’s back. I wondered when you’d make an appearance - another brilliant piece of cut and paste.
Vwry good speech to CBI by Caneron this morning
; for once I was impressed.
Still got a lot to do though.
CAmeron and Osborne are out of touch with reality and size of the economic challenge. Their effective “do nothing” approach would leave the UK in a huge hole!
281. I have seen people behave in a similar way when people fart on the tube in London!
284 Morning Martin, perhap’s Gabble is really a double agent and it’s he who leaked from the Treasury. Lol
287.
http://www.politicshome.com/Landing.aspx?blog=4719&perma=link#
282. I don’t know who it is.
271 - that’s the funniest thing i’ve heard in a long while.
We’ve already seen billions and billions and billions pumped in…and the result? Stocks sliding.
The solution according to Labour? Pour more billions and billions and billions into the failing economies.
Sometimes in life and also betting it is better not to follow the crowd like sheep as on the whole the crowd never win. At least the Tories adopt this attitude and are sticking with it.
291. But then I don’t know who Banksy is, either. Doesn’t mean he isn’t real.
On the subject of the thread.
“But the media narrative, that is what journalists collectively deem the story to be, is that the financial collapse has totally changed the UK political situation. The consequence is that the only polling data that is given prominence is anything that supports this line. So last week’s MORI’s 3% Tory lead is given huge and ongoing coverage without any serious questioning about what appear to be distortions in the sample. Anything else is ignored.”
That has been the key to this revitalised and grinning PM, with added crowd support from his PLP who are now singing the chorus of the Wombats great song “lets dance to Joy Division”.
And they need to thank the UK media, rather than the supposed genius of Brown bringing back Campbell and Mandelson. This New Labour tribute band are not what they once were, namely because they do not have Blair up front in the media spotlight while Brown hides away plotting the Treasury. They are trying to restart the New Labour project without the electoral winning part of the duo.
The media are trying to dress the emperor again, this time they have squeezed him into a lycra economic superman suit several sizes too small. And that is why there has been so much hype and focus on the one or two polls that show the public are buying this idea, it backs their narrative and their reputations.
The Downing Street press machine is no where near as improved as has been reported. The message is incoherent and confused, with more than one Cabinet Minister hitting a off key note.
Every time that the media has reported with glee the way that Brown and Darling have wrong footed the Conservatives in recent days, they tell us, the voters that the government are busy playing politics rather than than sound economics. Brown just cannot help himself can he? Remember the 2p off income tax for those much sought after middle income voters, the one that turned into the 10p tax con.
Brown needed to play it totally straight, as it was being briefed that Darling would do with this PBR. He has failed before we have even heard the contents of the PBR.
Just heard Adam Boulton on Sky emphasising the *politics* of this PBR just now. That is a very bad miscalculation on the part of Gordon Brown, rather than Alastair Darling. Short term political tactics that throw a boomerang at the Conservatives, only to miss them and rebound badly on Brown.
287. You’re inane mate. You’ve posted that robotic Dolly Draper message serveral times this week. Either say something original or disappear.
Why cutting VAT won’t work by John Redwood
http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2008/11/23/cutting-vat-wont-work/
It’s not fair on the poor. Essentials that make up most of the budgets of the lower paid are already VAT free. The biggest gains will be for those who buy expensive wines, flashy cars and use lots of petrol
287 Troll
289. I remeber watching the Alan clark diaries but his leaking did not involve paper work but the minions passing below his office!
If Badger is the Mole - then we all know who the toad is meant to be!
264. Definitely. The whole thing smacks of an attempt to create the conditions for a cut and run election as early as possible.
277. Perhaps they’ll commission 3 or 4 polls and pick the one with the best results.
290. CAMERON’s LACUNA
Yes, Ghost this Cameron speech proves my argument. He bangs on about the debt, but has a profound lacuna the consequence of which, if Tories were ever in power, would be absolutely devastating for the UK economy.
Get real, Leadership means decisive and substantive action TODAY
263. This PBR wont energize anybody. When Polly looks at the Tax she’ll have to pay back in the future, she and other lefty’s will have simoultanious heart attacks.
300. So Brown will not “Steal” any tory plans today?
294 - I’d mentally been singing Garbage’s “Only happy when it rains”, with its chorus of “pour your misery on me”. But the Wombats works well too.
300. Brown confused yet again. Global?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/janet_daley/blog/2008/11/24/gordon_browns_contradictory_message
300 - ah go on….your really Gordon Brown aren’t you??!!
Just to reply to the people who said elected police officials and mayors are a good thing. Putting London aside for a second, here are a few thoughts:-
1) People complain than Iain Blair was too political. Making them directly elected with increase this perception and I think the reality. Police chiefs will be forced to do what is best for their re-election. This will waste their time and energy, rather than distracting them from what might be the real best course of action. As previously stated talking to American friends, they say for the most part it makes little difference. The State and Feds still have the final say. The only thing you can do is if the police chief is absolutely terrible, just flat out useless, they get shifted. However, you would hope that the system should identify they are rubbish and sack them anyway.
2) The funding still all comes from central government. So at the end of the day they hold the purse strings and thus local elected officials can only effect so much change.
3) How is an elected mayor better than elected council officials?
4) As showed with Boris vs Iain Blair, although Boris did force him out in the end, he didn’t have a proper official way of making a decision about the head of police. He had to “threaten” to make life very hard for him and Blair knew he was on a hiding to nothing (and we still don’t know if the government won’t “promote” him at a later date to Lord Blair head on xxxx). However he could in theory have toughed it out.
5) I already have to vote over town council, county council, MP, MEP (if I was in scotland also have MSP). That is a lot of elected officials. Do I feel empowered?, no, do I feel involved with the process?, no. I can’t really see how a town mayor or a police chief would change that. I am realistic, the biggest change you can make is changing the political party in charge of the country, and even then the difference is that huge (although that have widened since Blair went).
296 - So that’s Cabinet Ministers, Lords Mandelson, Bragg & Myners. Paxman and friends.
Reference mole control - the “mole plant” worked really well for us using about 6 plants over a 1/3 acre. Planted them 4 years ago and not seen a mole since having had most of the lawn destroyed
href=”http://landscaping.about.com/cs/pests/a/mole_control_4.htm”>http://landscaping.about.com/cs/pests/a/mole_control_4.htm
Slightly off topic I know but if you see the treasury gardeners suddenly planting them around the Treasury you will have your answer as to why
Should have said the majority of funding….
Sorry about the link - trying again
<a href=”http://landscaping.about.com/cs/pests/a/mole_control_4.htm”
As I said, Cameron has a huge lacuna in his strategic approach and his assessment of the magniude of this global problem. His approach is a little Englander, provincial one, when what matters in a sytemic global crisis is co-ordination.
261 Disraeli, yes I had one too. I think they want to see whether PBR changes opinion in any way? I guess it depends who the client is.
Darmstadtium, why do you write exactly like Gabble?
Twins in one body perhaps? But definately no brains.
296
The biggest gains will be for those who buy expensive wines, flashy cars and use lots of petrol
So you’ll be celebrating then!!
285
Yep a ‘Dollybot’.
I was debating whether it could be termed an ‘Astrobot’ but the last comment convinced me you are right.
314 . I wish
no 45% tax will be paid here..
“Their effective “do nothing” approach would leave the UK in a huge hole!”
The UK already *is* in a huge hole, Dollybot!
News thread: “Have the leaks been designed to wrong-foot Osborne?
262.”I am desperate so I might have to resort to a cross channel trip to get some or has anyone got any better ideas?”
Goupillion, please let me know how you get on?!! Got a persistent mole in a very underused area of my garden last winter, spent the whole of the spring and summer repairing the damage. About three weeks ago, the little sod reappeared in exactly the same place causing mayhem!
300 Darmstadtium. “Get real, Leadership means decisive and substantive action TODAY”
Yeah - but what you are suggesting is Brown’s equivalent of the Ardennes Offensive - and we know how that turned out.
The Wehrmacht ran out of fuel - the “Brownmacht” will run out of money.
263. Interesting that you think that the 45% tax rate will only appeal to the “very, very poor” and I wonder how you define poor people.
For example I just received an email from a GP friend saying that it’s a good idea. I would say that GPs are middle class, wouldn’t you?
I guess that Brown/Darling have done private polling which shows that tax rises are becoming acceptable again. It could be that the rhetoric about aspiration works less when businesses are queuing up for handouts from the taxpayer.
The politics of this are astute. And although I don’t subscribe to the view that Mandy is all-important for recent labour party changes, I think the fact that the arch–Blairite is in the cabinet made this move more possible.
I see the government are pulling out a lot of stops, with the late in the day announcement and the fact there will be no debate. All this sounds like there could well be lots of hidden stuff, and that they are hoping that the press/Tories don’t manage to figure it out before evening news and deadline for papers. Furthermore, the market won’t have time to react as he will finish at 4.30, so only tomorrow will we know what they think.
313 Darmstadtium & Gabble = Two cheeks of the same ar$e.
Seriously, I think someone’s having a laugh. ‘Darmstadtium’ isn’t a person as such but a programming routine that churns out Labour speak when requested by a human operator.
294 Mrs Marr in today’s Guardian says of Cameron “His polling figures have tumbled.” So that’s the view in the Marr household then.
Its only a few journalists who actually examine the polls - most go on the paper’s headlines. So the stickiness of the Tory share hasn’t been noted only recovery of Labour, and then they don’t seem to notice it is only to the 2008 pre-budget levels.
308. Rob Lowe - thanks for the suggestion but I am not sure that “her indoors” will approve it. Maving just looked at the state of my lawn again I think the idea of blowing the mole up appeals the most.
295 - Ignore the troll.
They do not believe what they post, they have lied repeatedly even so and they do this only to make themselves feel that their empty life is of some consequence.
Actually, they make the rest of us feel superior, as a result, so they serves some sort of purpose.
298. Parp parp! Make way make way, for the amazing Mr Toad!
306.
1) They already ARE political, as your example shows. Directly elected police chiefs will be politically influenced by local people, not central government.
2) Funding is not the issue, policy is. There is a lot of unhappiness with the way the police have been prosecuting people for ridiculously trivial things to get their scores up. This is a consequence of centrally mandated targets for prosecutions: the govt decides what shall be ’success’. This is wrong. Local people should decide what success is.
3) He is accountable. One person, one set of policies, easy to judge at the end of a term whether he has implemented them or not. Compare that to the labyrinthine PR based horse-trading of local councils. No contest.
4) So? It was good that Boris got rid of Blair who was unpopular and had brought the Met into disrepute. If he was facing an election himself the people could have decided and Boris wouldn’t/couldn’t/shouldn’t try to pre-empt the people’s choice.
5) See my answer to 3. Single people standing on a simple platform are easier to assess and hold to account.
As for the MSP and MEP situation, that’s a different matter. Scottish MPs should do the job of the Scottish parliament and sit at Westminster one or two days a week to deal with UK matters. MEPs should be scrapped.
311 Do you actually know what lacuna means or a have you just got a thing for the word perhaps from the superhero comics (X-Statix) you obviously read.
306. “3) How is an elected mayor better than elected council officials? ”
more visibility hopefully leads to higher calibre of applicant.
most local councillors are completely useless freaks, and many town halls have an awful system where these people decide between themselves who gets to be mayor, in rotation. the result is a mayor elected by 500 votes in his safe ward and then by private ballot of 20 extremely partisan weirdoes just like himself.