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Politics Today

Mr Jinx

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Nov 28, 2006
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14,792
So after a couple of traumatic weeks or so of being PM , what’s the general opinion on Ms Liz? Will she suddenly surprise us and solve all our problems in miraculous fashion or will she enjoy a shorter tenure than Theresa?
Answers on a postcard please summing up her performance to date in not more than ten words.

Of course the Mirror would say all that. But it's beyond short sighted imho. And I'm sure you'd remark, of course I'd say that.

As I said in my previous post, the top rate of tax is a political weapon that handcuffs this country to quite a degree. What the Mirror spews is simply age old class war stuff. You know, evil bankers hoarding their seven figure bonuses offshore avoiding all tax and never spending it., whilst we have record numbers visiting food banks. It's such a way off from the truth. The problem for Truss and the Tories is that it does resonate.

My opinion is that I'm more impressed with her long term plans than I was with the previous PM, although I think Covid scuppered most of Boris's goals early doors (if he ever had any).

Tax is at an eye watering level here. It simply needs to be brought down. Last Friday was a good starting point imho (get the bad news out of the way early), but there's some way to go on it.

As you all know, the BOE and interest rates has been a major bugbear of mine for over ten years. I'm not going to rabbit on further here along the lines of 'I told you so' and chickens coming home to roost, yada yada. The Tories are partly to blame as they had a hand in putting Carney then Bailey in charge ,I suspect with a remit of - whatever you do, keep interest rates low. Anyway, the markets will be forcing hands now on that front. With inflation around 10%, having interest rates around the 1% mark was always going to end in tears. We've nearly had a generation now that's used to gorging on cheap credit with the interest rates on the floor. Runaway inflation, that's being seen around the world, was always going to put an end to it and the BOE have been way too slow to react. When the inflation rate was a mere 5% in 2007, interest rates almost matched it.
 
Last edited:

lamrobhero

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Joined
May 31, 2018
Messages
1,303
Location
Hangingstone Hill
Liz emerges to say "crisis what crisis?".
The 1976 IMF loan had to be signed off by US President Gerald Ford - maybe posters need to be a bit kinder to Mr Biden.
Housing market crash next? - maybe the emergence of buy-to-let and housing benefit paid for by taxpayers puts a floor under it - but maybe housing benefit is going to be cut?
We are witnessing the natural outcome of Brexit / Modern Right wing policies
 

Alistair20000

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May 5, 2009
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Avoiding the Hundred
The cost of binning the 45% rate is a little over £2bn, so it’s indicative of the terrible optics of the ‘mini-budget’ that its the least fiscally impactful tax cut that’s hit home most with the public.
Your figure is the annual cost and as the Government collects over £700 billion in taxes it is a tiny part of the overall take.

The reversal of the Corporation Tax increase and NIC increases had been widely trailed. The support for energy bills was also known and supported by all parties.

The furore seems to have been unleashed only by the abolition of the 45% rate.

Where Miz Liz has slipped up here can best be described as “bad politics” as it is easily criticised as benefiting the better off.
 

elginCity

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Swindon
Please define “total cost”
 

Alistair20000

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Thanks.
 

Banksy

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Crostwight Norfolk
Of course the Mirror would say all that. But it's beyond short sighted imho. And I'm sure you'd remark, of course I'd say that.

As I said in my previous post, the top rate of tax is a political weapon that handcuffs this country to quite a degree. What the Mirror spews is simply age old class war stuff. You know, evil bankers hoarding their seven figure bonuses offshore avoiding all tax and never spending it., whilst we have record numbers visiting food banks. It's such a way off from the truth. The problem for Truss and the Tories is that it does resonate.

My opinion is that I'm more impressed with her long term plans than I was with the previous PM, although I think Covid scuppered most of Boris's goals early doors (if he ever had any).

Tax is at an eye watering level here. It simply needs to be brought down. Last Friday was a good starting point imho (get the bad news out of the way early), but there's some way to go on it.

As you all know, the BOE and interest rates has been a major bugbear of mine for over ten years. I'm not going to rabbit on further here along the lines of 'I told you so' and chickens coming home to roost, yada yada. The Tories are partly to blame as they had a hand in putting Carney then Bailey in charge ,I suspect with a remit of - whatever you do, keep interest rates low. Anyway, the markets will be forcing hands now on that front. With inflation around 10%, having interest rates around the 1% mark was always going to end in tears. We've nearly had a generation now that's used to gorging on cheap credit with the interest rates on the floor. Runaway inflation, that's being seen around the world, was always going to put an end to it and the BOE have been way too slow to react. When the inflation rate was a mere 5% in 2007, interest rates almost matched it.
No snide remarks coming from me about any of the contents of your post Mr J , I was just gauging folks opinions in these early days. P.s I concur that interest rates have been artificially kept ridiculously low and were just an accident waiting to happen.
 

DB9

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Jun 19, 2005
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Hampshire. Heart's in N Devon
With a PM in difficult times all the Country wants/needs is a PM who comes across confidant and know what they're doing and by that be able to handle themselves when being interviewed by the media, If you can, listen to the interviews Ms Truss has given this morning to various local BBC radio stations, The interviewers are not hardcore Andrew Neil/Robert Peston/Andrew Marr types but the questions they asked were what we wanted to know and her responses are awful, Lots of silence, Lots of stuttering and quite frankly really not knowing the answers. Seriously they were even worse than Johnson's mumbling and latin talk to deflect that he didn't know the answer.
 

Rosencrantz

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I think the bad political optics of scrapping the 45% rate comes with the assertion that Truss and others make that they want to reward "hard workers" as she mentioned this morning. The problem is that it often seems that this government equate "hard workers" to high earners and things like scrapping the 45% rate plays into that. You can work hard and not get paid much, just as I suspect some high earners might not actually work that hard. That is why a lot of people who are working hard but not in the highly paid bracket might, rightly, feel that they are not being rewarded or helped as much as those at the top end of earnings.

That is why Boris's "levelling up" spiel won favour. Whether he actually had a plan for it or knew what it meant was another thing. This first action of a new government has basically binned that in the eyes of many.

I am no economist but having no independent OBR report on this fiscal report which turned out to be bigger than a budget seems amateurish in the need to avoid scrutiny at all costs, possibly as they hadn't done any costs. No wonder the markets have reacted the way they have.
 

arthur

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Aug 18, 2004
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Utterly disastrous round of local radio interviews this morning. She even said that no household would pay more than £2500 pa for their energy indicating that she doesn't even understand that it's the unit price of energy that's capped, not the bill as a whole.

There is absolutely no way back from this. I wondered whether she'd last until Christmas. I now wonder whether she'll survive the party conference next week. G2K and I already have our seats in the visitors gallery booked and two gallons of popcorn on order....

 

angelic upstart

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No snide remarks coming from me about any of the contents of your post Mr J , I was just gauging folks opinions in these early days. P.s I concur that interest rates have been artificially kept ridiculously low and were just an accident waiting to happen.
Agree, I've long disliked low interest rates. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks it may be a plan to keep the FTSE artificially high and savings low as it's largely pointless saving and relying on interest rates. After all, The FTSE is laden with legacy or soon to be legacy companies. This needs to be addressed by govt and business asap, in my humble.
 
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