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whelk
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2 hours ago, Turkish said:

Hope they are more forthcoming that Ralph Krugers infamous five pledges.

I just wonder what all the SPADs are doing right now to give her robot response to what she is doing to the economy. Like having some injected new government that doing what they want and not even close to what they were mandated to do by the electorate. The should change rules so we get an election when PM changes 

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On 24/09/2022 at 18:06, Lord Duckhunter said:

Have Holland & Spain left the EU? 

Not sure what you are getting at, but I doubt if you are importing or exporting to see the allied costs that is adding to every product we are buying or selling. All added to the price structure. We are shedding good profitable businesses to Europe as they can sell their goods without the add ons. The shelled fish businesses are relocating to Denmark etc, their profits and taxes going to other exchequers not ours.

I have been unable to send much into Europe due to the added costs, and many of my colleagues likewise. It is a mess, perfect storm really Covid, Ukraine, Brexit, Fuel, and commodity prices going up. 

 

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4 hours ago, whelk said:

Don’t worry lads there’s a pledge 

 

678416E8-9FE5-463C-9C1A-D08A64403632.jpeg

 

 

and there was me thinking it was reckless mass give away to show what 'real Tory'she was. She bet the whole house on the roulette wheel coming up blue.  "Whaddya mean there is no blue?" Liz, Liz Liz....  

Edited by buctootim
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4 hours ago, sadoldgit said:

When the cure is killing the patient, perhaps best find a new cure?  What do we have to do to force a general election?

when you say "we" is this the usual Soggy approach of actually meaning what do other people need to do while you seat on your arse moaning about everything?

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4 minutes ago, whelk said:

Assume if this happens there will be another bailout (it’s what we do these days) and won’t allow repossessions and market equilibrium to reset?

 

Truss will announce widespread measures to assist the poor in the housing crisis and then remove capital gains tax for any properties worth more than £4million...

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1 hour ago, ecuk268 said:

A few rumblings of discontent among the troops...

 

 

2022-09-26 16_15_26-Window.jpg

It's a mess, and I think she'll avoid a clash with the BoE by taking back rate decisions from them. The sad thing is, Rishi laid out the consequences of her plans yet the Tory faithful voted for her - self serving people voting for tax cuts without any thought of the wider impact. 

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46 minutes ago, egg said:

It's a mess, and I think she'll avoid a clash with the BoE by taking back rate decisions from them. The sad thing is, Rishi laid out the consequences of her plans yet the Tory faithful voted for her - self serving people voting for tax cuts without any thought of the wider impact. 

If she takes back rate decisions from the BoE the markets will lose all confidence in the UK economy and the pound will dip below the dollar. 

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20 minutes ago, Tamesaint said:

If she takes back rate decisions from the BoE the markets will lose all confidence in the UK economy and the pound will dip below the dollar. 

Agreed, there is no real scope for a modern western democracy for monetary policy decisions to not be independent of politics. The markets would throw a fit.

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23 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Get enough MP’s to agree with you. Good luck 😂

I don’t know if you have any children or grandchildren, but I find it very sad that you think it is funny that the people you and people like you put in power are making such an unholy mess of our and their lives and futures.

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17 hours ago, Tamesaint said:

If she takes back rate decisions from the BoE the markets will lose all confidence in the UK economy and the pound will dip below the dollar. 

She is also blocking publication of the Office of Budgetary Responsibility's forecasts. Which shows they are saying something contra to her BS  

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1 hour ago, sadoldgit said:

I don’t know if you have any children or grandchildren, but I find it very sad that you think it is funny that the people you and people like you put in power are making such an unholy mess of our and their lives and futures.

I agree, but I wouldnt have any faith in Corbyns lot to have got anywhere. Listening to the rant from the Shadow Chncellor last night also made me uneasy.

Using the same tripe as the Brexiteers to gain favour 'We will put all that money into the NHS' ffs. You put 100bn more in and it still would run the same as it is basically poorly run

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1 hour ago, buctootim said:

She is also blocking publication of the Office of Budgetary Responsibility's forecasts. Which shows they are saying something contra to her BS  

I can't see why the worry, the institutions will know all the figures anyway, and the masses will listen to the strapline and then switch over to Strictly or Coronation Street.

 

 

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25 minutes ago, OldNick said:

I can't see why the worry, the institutions will know all the figures anyway, and the masses will listen to the strapline and then switch over to Strictly or Coronation Street.

 

 

Have you thought about a comms career advising the President of Russia? 

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I wonder how a lot of the Red Wall seats which switched in 2019 and some extent 2015 are feeling? Voted in 2019 for levelling up and hazy One Nation Conservatism from an ‘untory’ leader, get unelected B side Thatcherism on steroids 2022. Voted to level up regions, told now that unshackling the City of London will trickle equality to them (in spite of 40 years of evidence to the contrary). 

Their Brexit is backfiring on them as harder to export and cost of living crisis which impacts us all bar the biggest Conservative donors biting their towns hardest. Restricting freedom of movement straight away has made the skills gaps into a chasm. 

I wouldn’t want to be one of those 50 or so MPs, that’s for sure.

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1 minute ago, saint1977 said:

I wonder how a lot of the Red Wall seats which switched in 2019 and some extent 2015 are feeling? Voted in 2019 for levelling up and hazy One Nation Conservatism from an ‘untory’ leader, get unelected B side Thatcherism on steroids 2022. 

If you’re going to comment, try and stop writing such utter pony. What was announced Friday wasn’t Thatcherism at all. The great lady was obsessed with control of the budget deficit &  inflation. Was against state intervention in the economy, and wanted lower spending and a market driven economy. What we have is Reaganomics, or risky  Reaganomics, as we don’t have the security of currency he had. Just because she’s a women and lefties don’t like her, doesn’t make this Thatcherism. 

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63049044

"All the costings for the tax cuts revealed by the chancellor in the mini-budget will now be refined - and very possibly changed.

The borrowing numbers will be calculated and revealed.

The even higher costs the government now faces to borrow money - taking up even more of the UK budget - will have to be factored in. And all that will have to add up within eight weeks when Mr Kwarteng sets out his medium-term fiscal plan on 23 November.

It is difficult to see how this will work while sticking to current plans.

Either some of the tax cuts will be rolled back, slowed down or U-turned on entirely, or expect massive spending cuts. The spending cuts would have to be of a size that will be politically fraught at a febrile time.

And yet the Treasury said in a statement on Monday that the existing Spending Review totals set until 2024-25 will be adhered to.

Something will have to give.

To earn back lost market credibility, the government will now have to show its workings and eventually will adjust policy in one of these unpalatable ways.

And in the intervening weeks the markets will continue to test the government at every turn."

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21 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

If you’re going to comment, try and stop writing such utter pony. What was announced Friday wasn’t Thatcherism at all. The great lady was obsessed with control of the budget deficit &  inflation. Was against state intervention in the economy, and wanted lower spending and a market driven economy. What we have is Reaganomics, or risky  Reaganomics, as we don’t have the security of currency he had. Just because she’s a women and lefties don’t like her, doesn’t make this Thatcherism. 

You're right re Thatcherism. It's not quite Reaganomics either - that was built in a strong currency, and was  staunchly anti inflation. What we've given is a rancid cocktail of ideas, mixed up in a way that has crashed out currency and is on course to fuck us royally. The "leftie" jibe normally doesn't irk me, but to use it as a criticism of people who don't like Truss after her car crash beginning is a bit unnecessary. 

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57 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

If you’re going to comment, try and stop writing such utter pony. What was announced Friday wasn’t Thatcherism at all. The great lady was obsessed with control of the budget deficit &  inflation. Was against state intervention in the economy, and wanted lower spending and a market driven economy. What we have is Reaganomics, or risky  Reaganomics, as we don’t have the security of currency he had. Just because she’s a women and lefties don’t like her, doesn’t make this Thatcherism. 

Egg makes better responses below, although I did say B string Thatcherism as I do know what Monetarism is thank you very much. Truss’s gender (or Thatcher’s) has naff all to do with it as well, I voted for May in 2017 as the Lib Dems were in a mess and Corbyn, never. My issue with Thatcher was rigidly not having any state intervention in the economy which New Labour followed and look what happened in 2007 with the financial crisis, now with energy policy, East Coast Mainline (makes surplus nationalised and loss commercially). I could go on but I’m a pragmatist - if it works better for the public private let it be private. If the market fails for essential population needs, and many have, get it working again for people. Some regulation is needed at times where approprIate. 

That said about Reagan you have a point on to some extent and the budget deficit for the next Prime Minister is going to be horrific. Fuck all control over the money supply in the economy and interest rates will eat any giveaways as those of us young enough to have a mortgage are about to find out. If you can even get one even judging by this morning’s mass withdrawal of products. 

Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Benn. Now they are lefties. Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke, Paddy Ashdown, David Laws and Vince Cable. In your language ‘pinko Remainers’ and if you want to call me one of those go ahead because they are my favourite political figures. Centrist and remainer, and very comfortable about it. Ideology doesn’t put food on the table and I just want to enjoy life without the constant ideological extremes we’ve endured since 2015. 

At least we agree the budget is a risky mess and I don’t see any plan for growth, just a trip to the casino. 

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1 hour ago, egg said:

You're right re Thatcherism. It's not quite Reaganomics either - that was built in a strong currency, and was  staunchly anti inflation. 

That’s why I said it’s “risky” Reagonomics, specifically mentioning the currency. Increasing the deficit to fund tax cuts in the hope it superchargers growth is not, as the original poster claimed “Thatcherism on steroids”. 
 

I’m not defending Truss particularly, just pointing out the comparison with The Great Lady is off the mark when it comes to what they’ve done so far. Hopefully that will come with time , because tax cuts need to be made in conjunction with spending cuts and you just  cannot  lose control of the deficit. If I wanted the deficit to run out of control,  I’d vote Labour. 

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If one thing is clear from the political events of the last few years it is that party members should never be allowed to elect party leaders. Corbyn was a disaster for Labour. Truss looks like being the same for the Conservatives. Representative democracy whereby the elected representatives of a party choose the leadership works so much better. 

 

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Seems to me that whenever any economist has talked about growth in the recent past then the solution has been how to tackle poor productivity.  Tax cuts don't address that, and even in the short term won't do much against a backdrop of rising inflation and rising interest rates.  Productivity isn't all about getting us to work harder or smarter, it's also about attracting investment.  Whether you're a brexiteer or a remainer, it's hard to deny that attracting investment has become much harder since 2016 and that's a big problem.  It was a problem before then as well but it's even harder now.

I think if you announced new borrowing to attract investment, to build and support business, and to tackle the main driver of inflation (cost of energy) then the market would probably support that.  At the very least you wouldn't get the tanking of the value of sterling.  

Problem with all of that is it's not sexy and it doesn't yield immediate results.  Truss and Kwarteng are still acting like they're in a tory election campaign and the only electorate are tory party members.  They're ideologues convinced that cutting taxes will sort everything because that's what Thatcher did.  They forget that she didn't do it until the economy could stand it.

The line between whether this is Thatcherite or Reagonomics is irrelevant to the average person (it's mostly Reagonomics) but people know when they're worse off, they know it now and they know it's going to get a lot worse and quickly.  

As Lord D said, it's a hail mary but it's not a very good one.  I can easily see Kwarteng gone by Christmas.

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How can you get growth in an economy where the labour market is so tight that job vacancies outnumber the number of people unemployed?

By letting more people into the country and increasing the size of the labour market.

Are we going to see restrictions on freedom of movement lifted and many more visas issued to foreign workers in order to increase the size of the  labour market?

It's going to be interesting to see who in the Cabinet wins the argument. The "growth idealogues" who are willing to bet the strength of the pound on their growth idealology or the hard Brexiteers who believe in unicorns and are against freedom of movement.

 

Edited by Tamesaint
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Children hiding in the playground during the lunch break because their working parents earn more than £150 a week so they don't qualify for free school meals.

Other kids pretending to eat out of empty lunchboxes because they're embarrassed that they have no food.

As a country, what the fuck have we become?

 

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16 hours ago, saint1977 said:

 

Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Benn. Now they are lefties. Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke, Paddy Ashdown, David Laws and Vince Cable. In your language ‘pinko Remainers’ and if you want to call me one of those go ahead because they are my favourite political figures. Centrist and remainer, and very comfortable about it. Ideology doesn’t put food on the table and I just want to enjoy life without the constant ideological extremes we’ve endured since 2015. 

 

What extremes?
 

We haven’t had an extreme right or left Government for years?
We have had 30 odd years of centrist Governments. We’ve had New Labour or a version of New Labour ever since. Cameron, Osborne, Gove are nearer to Blair than most of the Labour membership. Boris was a high spend, big state Tory, Grocer Heath with jokes, and May had too small a majority to do anything. The right of the Labour Party and the left of the Tory party have been running the show for a generation. Most Tory MP’s are friggin Lib Dems anyway. 
 

Early days, but it looks like we could have a radical Government that could be moving away from the centre ground. I’ll be judging her by her actions, not her talk, as there’s a rich history of Tories talking Right, but governing pink. 

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7 hours ago, whelk said:


Comical they wheel out Redwood to explain how IMF and BofE are wrong and how he paints BofE as the enemy. Never own anything these cunts.

I dont know why media outlets still wheel him out. It's not as though he was ever popular or right. Even in Thatchers era he was a despised headbanger.   

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I voted Brexit, at the same time I am all for letting foreign workers into this country.

Brexit means we have more control over it.  
 

Expanding the labour force to fill the vacancies in the economy has never been so important.  What the fuck were Kwasi and Liz thinking with that budget.

Pair of fucking halfwits.

Time to give Labour a chance.

 

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5 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

What extremes?
 

We haven’t had an extreme right or left Government for years?
We have had 30 odd years of centrist Governments. We’ve had New Labour or a version of New Labour ever since. Cameron, Osborne, Gove are nearer to Blair than most of the Labour membership. Boris was a high spend, big state Tory, Grocer Heath with jokes, and May had too small a majority to do anything. The right of the Labour Party and the left of the Tory party have been running the show for a generation. Most Tory MP’s are friggin Lib Dems anyway. 
 

Early days, but it looks like we could have a radical Government that could be moving away from the centre ground. I’ll be judging her by her actions, not her talk, as there’s a rich history of Tories talking Right, but governing pink. 

This is quite interesting so I’ll add a further response.

If you are talking about pure macroeconomic policy and orthodoxy then I’d agree that we’ve had a stable period broadly through Clarke/Brown/Darling/Osborne/Hammond/Sunak. It’s the reason the country was able to ride out the credit crunch as debt was only 46% of GDP and businesses could be supported through the pandemic. 

We probably have a different view of austerity 2010-15. It didn’t touch me professionally in a market environment but when I was doing community work outside of paid employment it was very stark. Huge impacts on literacy, community facilities and paved the way to food banks. Cameron was onto something with Big Society but too far and too fast to replace state investment with cohesion and it just felt like cuts. 

The real professional hit has been on the professional aspects around moving people and goods between the UK and the EU. We’ve gone from being technical specialists at work to HR managers because of the sheer volumes of changes we’ve had to adapt to over a short time. I get that people wanted more control over this stuff but with the turnover of Home Office and Business Ministers it is constantly changing and since Patel bollocksed the Home Office all of the people there who knew what they were doing have left in droves. Nor has there been the investment in skills to grow our own nor the patience when there is investment to see if it works over a 3-5 year period at least. Now the markets are nervous about this week and so am I - huge decisions to make professionally and personally that will effect what my retirement looks like. The last five-seven years have been unstable but this is something else. 

Yeah, there is a history of Tories talking and not walking right wing eg Heath and Selsdon Man, Cameron with the EU, Boris’s ‘Save Big Dog’ but actually I prefer periods of orthodox policy to have some chance of planning. There’s always events that you can’t foresee which disrupt things but this last week is a huge own goal, unnecessary and unforced to me. Probably where we are different again. 

I grew up in the 1980s and understood that before my time the IMF having to sort out Labour’s economic approach in 1976 was one of the main reasons along with the Winter of Discontent as to why not to vote Labour and it probably explains why the LDs are more comfortable. Now it’s happened in 2022 and intellectuals like Minford (studied his work at Uni) and Redwood who have spent their entire careers espousing free market theories and saying listen to the market are now saying ignore it because Truss gave them a job. George Osborne is right, they are hypocrites. 

Anyway, listening to different perspectives is something we’ve lost the habit of a bit so it’s been interesting. 

Edited by saint1977
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3 hours ago, saint1977 said:

 

Anyway, listening to different perspectives is something we’ve lost the habit of a bit so it’s been interesting. 

Agreed, it has been interesting.

Im not particularly comfortable with what Truss has done despite spending years thinking we’re over taxed and over regulated. I’m all for tax cuts, particularly the ridiculous top rate which was just Gordon Brown playing politics and should have been abolished by Osborne early doors, but it needs to be funded by spending cuts in the present climate. I’d be critical of Labour if they borrowed to “invest” at such a volatile moment, so I not going to say it’s the right thing for Truss to do. The Tories should have prepared the pitch for a smaller state and lower taxes once they got the Lib Dems off their back, but the problem was nobody at the top of the party really believed in it. They were probably more comfortable being in a coalition than having to enact proper Right Wing policies. 

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