LEAVE the Conservative Party and save your country!

wallace_and_gromit

Jezyboy said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

Jezyboy said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

Jezyboy said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

rick_chasey said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

rick_chasey said:

Sure, he [Brown] didn't run it [the economy] perfectly...

That is some understatement!

You really think so? I mean, rhetoric about boom or bust aside, what's your problem with the economic track record there? Looks pretty rosy to me.

Vast amounts of children lifted out of poverty. Real wage growth, consistently. What more do you want?

The problem is that per my earlier comment, you need to exclude the period when the consequences of Brown's hubris emerged post-GFC to conclude consistent real wage growth during the Labour years. Or indeed consistency in most good economic metrics. There were 10/11 years of steady "good things" followed 2 years of an almighty sh*t show in terms of economic measures.

I'll grant you that his heart was in the right place and that he supported a lot of public spending on social issues. This is definitely an area where the Tories undid a lot of good work. But even so, all lifting children out of poverty really requires is the political will to spend a lot of other people's money. You don't need any great skill to do that.

To go back to one of the original points, I think this oversimplifies it to the point of being silly. It's not like the Tory party have made significant savings (significant as in, start to do real progress in reducing govt debt), yet as you point out, they seem to have managed to undo this good work.

New Labour seem to have got better bang for their buck.

I wasn’t defending the Tories. Just disagreeing with Rick that we were lucky to have Brown. The reality is that we were lucky to survive his tenure as Chancellor.

I feel like that is overly dramatic. The likely alternative to a New Labour chancellor would be a Conservative one, would they be likely to have encouraged a stricter regulatory environment?

Fair point, but having been in power since 1997, Brown et al have to take responsibility for everything that went relatively more wrong post-GFC than it did in similar countries. Most of Europe escaped relatively unscathed from the banking crisis. The U.K., Ireland and Iceland were the three outliers in Europe. And Australia and Canada weren’t too badly affected either. Not was the US, though its sheer size caused knock-on effects globally.

The Labour narrative that the U.K. was an innocent victim of factors beyond their control is just as incorrect as the Tory narrative that Labour caused the GFC.

...the narrative is that Labour caused the global financial crisis by giving public service workers decent wages. (Slight exaggeration on my part).

That's probably better for Labour actually than the truth (in my view) that they made the effects of the unavoidable GFC in the UK far worse than they needed to be due to policy choices based on overly optimistic assumptions as to the extent to which the economic cycle had been flattened.

It's actually quite easy to play the "Sh*t may have happened but it was only because we wanted to pay decent public sector wages and benefits" card.

It's much harder to play the "Sh*t may have happened and we completely misjudged the underlying risks" card.

The former is a failing due to "too much compassion". The latter due to too little competence.

rjsterry

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

rjsterry said:

There is so little connection between government spending decisions and the amount of tax I pay that it's completely meaningless to talk about the government spending my money.

So whose money are they spending then?

I think its fair to say rather without people and businesses the government would have no money, so what we give them is reasonably described as our money.

This is back to front. Money doesn't originate from the general public. It is issued by a central bank - part of the state. If you have no say in how it is spent and it isn't in your possession, describing it as your money is a fairy story. It only used to be yours.

And without people and businesses they would have nothing to issue. We fund the state, it is reliant on us for that.

What?!

A central bank literally creates money from nothing. It doesn't come from taxes. People and businesses create goods and services that they can exchange for money but they don't create money for the central bank to issue.

Unless you are forging pound coins in your spare time.

People and businesses create wealth. The state printing money is not wealth creation, its allowing economic exchanges that create wealth. Then we donate some of that wealth to that state.

I mean, QE is literally creating money out of thin air and then using it to buy government and corporate bonds. A huge chunk of that money ended up in private hands so in a very real sense the state does create wealth. From the BoE website:

One of the consequences of QE is it increases the value of assets such as shares. That increases the wealth of the people who own them

Not exclusively of course. Corporations create things or services which they can exchange for money. Hopefully more money than it cost to create them => wealth. I would agree that the state collects some of that wealth as taxes, although donations are not usually compulsory. Once you have donated to Battersea Dogs Home, that's their money to do with as they see fit. It's no longer yours.

Not exclusively but mainly. My point still stands.

Injecting an additional £895bn into the economy is clearly creating significant wealth. Most of this went into the government budget and thence to furlough => landlords, healthcare, energy payments => energy companies and so on. It's not surprising that the government claws some of that back through taxes.

wallace_and_gromit

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

rjsterry said:

There is so little connection between government spending decisions and the amount of tax I pay that it's completely meaningless to talk about the government spending my money.

So whose money are they spending then?

I think its fair to say rather without people and businesses the government would have no money, so what we give them is reasonably described as our money.

This is back to front. Money doesn't originate from the general public. It is issued by a central bank - part of the state. If you have no say in how it is spent and it isn't in your possession, describing it as your money is a fairy story. It only used to be yours.

And without people and businesses they would have nothing to issue. We fund the state, it is reliant on us for that.

What?!

A central bank literally creates money from nothing. It doesn't come from taxes. People and businesses create goods and services that they can exchange for money but they don't create money for the central bank to issue.

Unless you are forging pound coins in your spare time.

People and businesses create wealth. The state printing money is not wealth creation, its allowing economic exchanges that create wealth. Then we donate some of that wealth to that state.

I mean, QE is literally creating money out of thin air and then using it to buy government and corporate bonds. A huge chunk of that money ended up in private hands so in a very real sense the state does create wealth. From the BoE website:

One of the consequences of QE is it increases the value of assets such as shares. That increases the wealth of the people who own them

Not exclusively of course. Corporations create things or services which they can exchange for money. Hopefully more money than it cost to create them => wealth. I would agree that the state collects some of that wealth as taxes, although donations are not usually compulsory. Once you have donated to Battersea Dogs Home, that's their money to do with as they see fit. It's no longer yours.

Not exclusively but mainly. My point still stands.

Injecting an additional £895bn into the economy is clearly creating significant wealth. Most of this went into the government budget and thence to furlough => landlords, healthcare, energy payments => energy companies and so on. It's not surprising that the government claws some of that back through taxes.

Not sure that creating wealth is quite so simple as doing a bit of QE.

rjsterry

wallace_and_gromit said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

rjsterry said:

There is so little connection between government spending decisions and the amount of tax I pay that it's completely meaningless to talk about the government spending my money.

So whose money are they spending then?

I think its fair to say rather without people and businesses the government would have no money, so what we give them is reasonably described as our money.

This is back to front. Money doesn't originate from the general public. It is issued by a central bank - part of the state. If you have no say in how it is spent and it isn't in your possession, describing it as your money is a fairy story. It only used to be yours.

And without people and businesses they would have nothing to issue. We fund the state, it is reliant on us for that.

What?!

A central bank literally creates money from nothing. It doesn't come from taxes. People and businesses create goods and services that they can exchange for money but they don't create money for the central bank to issue.

Unless you are forging pound coins in your spare time.

People and businesses create wealth. The state printing money is not wealth creation, its allowing economic exchanges that create wealth. Then we donate some of that wealth to that state.

I mean, QE is literally creating money out of thin air and then using it to buy government and corporate bonds. A huge chunk of that money ended up in private hands so in a very real sense the state does create wealth. From the BoE website:

One of the consequences of QE is it increases the value of assets such as shares. That increases the wealth of the people who own them

Not exclusively of course. Corporations create things or services which they can exchange for money. Hopefully more money than it cost to create them => wealth. I would agree that the state collects some of that wealth as taxes, although donations are not usually compulsory. Once you have donated to Battersea Dogs Home, that's their money to do with as they see fit. It's no longer yours.

Not exclusively but mainly. My point still stands.

Injecting an additional £895bn into the economy is clearly creating significant wealth. Most of this went into the government budget and thence to furlough => landlords, healthcare, energy payments => energy companies and so on. It's not surprising that the government claws some of that back through taxes.

Not sure that creating wealth is quite so simple as doing a bit of QE.

Let's put it another way (and point out if I've got anything wrong).

Government issues bonds.
BoE creates money to buy those bonds.
Government spends proceeds of those bonds on myriad things.
Some of that money ends up back in Government account through taxation.
The rest ends up in private accounts of businesses and individuals who have provided some service or goods to the Government.
Bonds mature so Government takes some of receipts from taxation and pays to BoE.
BoE is currently reversing QE, so 'destroys' some of those receipts.

briantrumpet

How big is the Government's majority now, and what are they doing with it? I know it's not the glory days of 80 seats, but it must still be big enough to do some useful stuff to get us out of the mess we're in, and get some good news in before the 2024 election. Surely?

Stevo_666

briantrumpet said:

How big is the Government's majority now, and what are they doing with it? I know it's not the glory days of 80 seats, but it must still be big enough to do some useful stuff to get us out of the mess we're in, and get some good news in before the 2024 election. Surely?

A quick Google says 62.

Unfortunately for some on this forum, some of the good stuff could be in the area mentioned in the link below, now that the penny has dropped about how cheesed off many voters are with LTNs, ULEZs, 20mph zones etc.
https://telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/29/cars-conserative-party-election-ulez-net-zero/

tailwindhome

ULEZ is all they talk about in the former red wall.

super_davo

tailwindhome said:

ULEZ is all they talk about in the former red wall.

TBF they are implementing a similar scheme in Manchester and they already have similar schemes in Sheffield.

With respect to being "pro-motorist" the problem IMO is that current infrastructure creaks with the level of cars we have today. If you start to reverse policies that are designed to tip the balance towards alternatives to driving (like LTNs, or having functioning railways) then more people get in cars. Therefore the roads creak even more, and far from improving personal liberties, things get worse.

Gove was talking sense when he was talking about increasing density of cities; if you do that whilst continung policies that make car usage an absolute necessity even for the most basic things, chaos will result.

shirley_basso

Populist pandering. Outcome will be : no change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66351785

Stevo_666

shirley_basso said:

Populist pandering. Outcome will be : no change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66351785

You sure about that? There's a GE due by the end of next year and these issues are now known to shift the dial on voting.

surrey_commuter

rjsterry said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

rjsterry said:

There is so little connection between government spending decisions and the amount of tax I pay that it's completely meaningless to talk about the government spending my money.

So whose money are they spending then?

I think its fair to say rather without people and businesses the government would have no money, so what we give them is reasonably described as our money.

This is back to front. Money doesn't originate from the general public. It is issued by a central bank - part of the state. If you have no say in how it is spent and it isn't in your possession, describing it as your money is a fairy story. It only used to be yours.

And without people and businesses they would have nothing to issue. We fund the state, it is reliant on us for that.

What?!

A central bank literally creates money from nothing. It doesn't come from taxes. People and businesses create goods and services that they can exchange for money but they don't create money for the central bank to issue.

Unless you are forging pound coins in your spare time.

People and businesses create wealth. The state printing money is not wealth creation, its allowing economic exchanges that create wealth. Then we donate some of that wealth to that state.

I mean, QE is literally creating money out of thin air and then using it to buy government and corporate bonds. A huge chunk of that money ended up in private hands so in a very real sense the state does create wealth. From the BoE website:

One of the consequences of QE is it increases the value of assets such as shares. That increases the wealth of the people who own them

Not exclusively of course. Corporations create things or services which they can exchange for money. Hopefully more money than it cost to create them => wealth. I would agree that the state collects some of that wealth as taxes, although donations are not usually compulsory. Once you have donated to Battersea Dogs Home, that's their money to do with as they see fit. It's no longer yours.

Not exclusively but mainly. My point still stands.

Injecting an additional £895bn into the economy is clearly creating significant wealth. Most of this went into the government budget and thence to furlough => landlords, healthcare, energy payments => energy companies and so on. It's not surprising that the government claws some of that back through taxes.

Not sure that creating wealth is quite so simple as doing a bit of QE.

Let's put it another way (and point out if I've got anything wrong).

Government issues bonds.
BoE creates money to buy those bonds.
Government spends proceeds of those bonds on myriad things.
Some of that money ends up back in Government account through taxation.
The rest ends up in private accounts of businesses and individuals who have provided some service or goods to the Government.
Bonds mature so Government takes some of receipts from taxation and pays to BoE.
BoE is currently reversing QE, so 'destroys' some of those receipts.

Your 2nd point is not correct, the Bank never bought newly issued bonds.

Point 7 is a touch rosy as the Bank bought bonds (in the open market see point above) at sky high prices so when the bonds mature the Bank will realise a loss. The bad news is that this forecast to be £150bn over the next decade. The really bad news is that the Bank got the Treasury to indemnify them against these losses. You could see it as the Govt have committed to spending the money in your bank acct on unravelling dodgy financial practices.

What we need TBB to explain is how much they are losing on coupons/interest on that holding. I.e. are they borrowing at 5% to pay themselves a return of 0.5%?

shirley_basso

Stevo_666 said:

shirley_basso said:

Populist pandering. Outcome will be : no change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66351785

You sure about that? There's a GE due by the end of next year and these issues are now known to shift the dial on voting.

They will talk about it and make promises but not change anything.

First.Aspect

shirley_basso said:

Stevo_666 said:

shirley_basso said:

Populist pandering. Outcome will be : no change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66351785

You sure about that? There's a GE due by the end of next year and these issues are now known to shift the dial on voting.

They will talk about it and make promises but not change anything.

And as dim a view as I have about the British electorate, this sort of thing will affect people who (a) commute by car and (b) are self entitled enough to want their rat runs back. That will be balanced against people who live in LTNs, where they are really rather popular.

If the Tories are relying on LTNs, ULEZ and IHT as election winners, they've already lost.

kingstongraham

I'm not convinced that "we're going to force your council to open up your street to ratrunning traffic again" is a winning message to people who have got used to quieter residential roads.

kingstongraham

Am I going mad or was the department for energy security and net zero created in February 2023?

rick_chasey

First.Aspect said:

shirley_basso said:

Stevo_666 said:

shirley_basso said:

Populist pandering. Outcome will be : no change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66351785

You sure about that? There's a GE due by the end of next year and these issues are now known to shift the dial on voting.

They will talk about it and make promises but not change anything.

And as dim a view as I have about the British electorate, this sort of thing will affect people who (a) commute by car and (b) are self entitled enough to want their rat runs back. That will be balanced against people who live in LTNs, where they are really rather popular.

If the Tories are relying on LTNs, ULEZ and IHT as election winners, they've already lost.

It goes against all the objectives and targets this government set out

Jezyboy

First.Aspect said:

shirley_basso said:

Stevo_666 said:

shirley_basso said:

Populist pandering. Outcome will be : no change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66351785

You sure about that? There's a GE due by the end of next year and these issues are now known to shift the dial on voting.

They will talk about it and make promises but not change anything.

And as dim a view as I have about the British electorate, this sort of thing will affect people who (a) commute by car and (b) are self entitled enough to want their rat runs back. That will be balanced against people who live in LTNs, where they are really rather popular.

If the Tories are relying on LTNs, ULEZ and IHT as election winners, they've already lost.

I suspect ULEZ (outside of London) might prove a little more sticky. Given the towns and cities outside of London often lack such good public transport.

sungod

obviously no connection at all between the russian money that has flowed (and still is flowing) into tory party coffers and the government going easy on sanctioned russians

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/world/europe/uk-russia-sanctions.html?unlocked_article_code=G1tLy2rjXE7fAwQCfnazV_xhQ4VDoXsbZTA7qFMXDHicYKAM_TEV0O1rg0PLpJVN7-UnHM41iJUn664j3n0PAfgsZ2DcT9bIoIv53P88S2Z8qUzCayrgcwjwfB_qMgFRA9Yu4RjkNv7R1Bm4-1hNCYKQg3XhxPDaXXDu9bkWY4bgFf2cQ220tsURJashKrIN7N9KDCtO9iVZno16TvhGtSXaXcQl7oxzIe294be1ZTEqi_G1ON4ATo6JG_ZIk6dvRrqe0hj8E6CxprDola7xR3v1YkTZHQfaef5SH5tdOEMjNNYoD1wMBKJTlXxvXSvw3J2uUfetkeJhHJUjDBcwxGVw&smid=url-share

pblakeney

Jezyboy said:

First.Aspect said:

shirley_basso said:

Stevo_666 said:

shirley_basso said:

Populist pandering. Outcome will be : no change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66351785

You sure about that? There's a GE due by the end of next year and these issues are now known to shift the dial on voting.

They will talk about it and make promises but not change anything.

And as dim a view as I have about the British electorate, this sort of thing will affect people who (a) commute by car and (b) are self entitled enough to want their rat runs back. That will be balanced against people who live in LTNs, where they are really rather popular.

If the Tories are relying on LTNs, ULEZ and IHT as election winners, they've already lost.

I suspect ULEZ (outside of London) might prove a little more sticky. Given the towns and cities outside of London often lack such good public transport.

Not being silly but I have an 8 year old powerful petrol car which is liable for a charge of £0 in all the cities that have implemented ULEZ. This really is a mountain out of a molehill. Silly.

Stevo_666

shirley_basso said:

Stevo_666 said:

shirley_basso said:

Populist pandering. Outcome will be : no change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66351785

You sure about that? There's a GE due by the end of next year and these issues are now known to shift the dial on voting.

They will talk about it and make promises but not change anything.

Can I borrow your crystal ball? You seem very sure.

Stevo_666

pblakeney said:

Jezyboy said:

First.Aspect said:

shirley_basso said:

Stevo_666 said:

shirley_basso said:

Populist pandering. Outcome will be : no change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66351785

You sure about that? There's a GE due by the end of next year and these issues are now known to shift the dial on voting.

They will talk about it and make promises but not change anything.

And as dim a view as I have about the British electorate, this sort of thing will affect people who (a) commute by car and (b) are self entitled enough to want their rat runs back. That will be balanced against people who live in LTNs, where they are really rather popular.

If the Tories are relying on LTNs, ULEZ and IHT as election winners, they've already lost.

I suspect ULEZ (outside of London) might prove a little more sticky. Given the towns and cities outside of London often lack such good public transport.

Not being silly but I have an 8 year old powerful petrol car which is liable for a charge of £0 in all the cities that have implemented ULEZ. This really is a mountain out of a molehill. Silly.

It goes beyond ULEZ, for example congestion charges, LTNs and blanket 20mph speed limits, etc I think lot of motorists are understandably getting hacked off with the whole thing.

pblakeney

Boo hoo, and meh.

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

First.Aspect said:

shirley_basso said:

Stevo_666 said:

shirley_basso said:

Populist pandering. Outcome will be : no change.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66351785

You sure about that? There's a GE due by the end of next year and these issues are now known to shift the dial on voting.

They will talk about it and make promises but not change anything.

And as dim a view as I have about the British electorate, this sort of thing will affect people who (a) commute by car and (b) are self entitled enough to want their rat runs back. That will be balanced against people who live in LTNs, where they are really rather popular.

If the Tories are relying on LTNs, ULEZ and IHT as election winners, they've already lost.

It goes against all the objectives and targets this government set out

Now that they have realised what a vote winner or loser it can be, I would expect some changes in this area of policy before the next GE.

tailwindhome

They've gone nuts

tailwindhome

The 5th Conservative government since 2010 is going to run the next election as an opposition insurgency.

It's what you do when you don't have a record to run on

skyblueamateur

It’s absolutely incredible that we are in the worst cost of living crisis in memory and Sunak’s priority is abolishing 20mph zones.

Stevo_666

tailwindhome said:

They've gone nuts

Why is this nuts? The Uxbridge by election has shown that these sorts of issues can materially affect voting patterns, so looking at it from that perspective with a GE coming up, it appears to be entirely understandable.

rjsterry

surrey_commuter said:

rjsterry said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

wallace_and_gromit said:

rjsterry said:

There is so little connection between government spending decisions and the amount of tax I pay that it's completely meaningless to talk about the government spending my money.

So whose money are they spending then?

I think its fair to say rather without people and businesses the government would have no money, so what we give them is reasonably described as our money.

This is back to front. Money doesn't originate from the general public. It is issued by a central bank - part of the state. If you have no say in how it is spent and it isn't in your possession, describing it as your money is a fairy story. It only used to be yours.

And without people and businesses they would have nothing to issue. We fund the state, it is reliant on us for that.

What?!

A central bank literally creates money from nothing. It doesn't come from taxes. People and businesses create goods and services that they can exchange for money but they don't create money for the central bank to issue.

Unless you are forging pound coins in your spare time.

People and businesses create wealth. The state printing money is not wealth creation, its allowing economic exchanges that create wealth. Then we donate some of that wealth to that state.

I mean, QE is literally creating money out of thin air and then using it to buy government and corporate bonds. A huge chunk of that money ended up in private hands so in a very real sense the state does create wealth. From the BoE website:

One of the consequences of QE is it increases the value of assets such as shares. That increases the wealth of the people who own them

Not exclusively of course. Corporations create things or services which they can exchange for money. Hopefully more money than it cost to create them => wealth. I would agree that the state collects some of that wealth as taxes, although donations are not usually compulsory. Once you have donated to Battersea Dogs Home, that's their money to do with as they see fit. It's no longer yours.

Not exclusively but mainly. My point still stands.

Injecting an additional £895bn into the economy is clearly creating significant wealth. Most of this went into the government budget and thence to furlough => landlords, healthcare, energy payments => energy companies and so on. It's not surprising that the government claws some of that back through taxes.

Not sure that creating wealth is quite so simple as doing a bit of QE.

Let's put it another way (and point out if I've got anything wrong).

Government issues bonds.
BoE creates money to buy those bonds.
Government spends proceeds of those bonds on myriad things.
Some of that money ends up back in Government account through taxation.
The rest ends up in private accounts of businesses and individuals who have provided some service or goods to the Government.
Bonds mature so Government takes some of receipts from taxation and pays to BoE.
BoE is currently reversing QE, so 'destroys' some of those receipts.

Your 2nd point is not correct, the Bank never bought newly issued bonds.

Point 7 is a touch rosy as the Bank bought bonds (in the open market see point above) at sky high prices so when the bonds mature the Bank will realise a loss. The bad news is that this forecast to be £150bn over the next decade. The really bad news is that the Bank got the Treasury to indemnify them against these losses. You could see it as the Govt have committed to spending the money in your bank acct on unravelling dodgy financial practices.

What we need TBB to explain is how much they are losing on coupons/interest on that holding. I.e. are they borrowing at 5% to pay themselves a return of 0.5%?

Not sure I said they were newly issued bonds and not sure this makes a difference to the basic point: the BoE creates reserves out of nothing and some of that ends up in private hands. I don't think whether the BoE making a loss makes a difference to that point either.

rjsterry

Stevo_666 said:

tailwindhome said:

They've gone nuts

Why is this nuts? The Uxbridge by election has shown that these sorts of issues can materially affect voting patterns, so looking at it from that perspective with a GE coming up, it appears to be entirely understandable.

In another year or so the ULEZ will have been in operation and will have become part of the background just as the tax rises and big hikes in energy costs have.

Also the ULEZ affects ~10% of the ~60% with access to a vehicle. Basing your whole campaign strategy on 6% of the electorate is a bold move.

Still, if it's the only candle you've got.

Stevo_666

pblakeney said:

Boo hoo, and meh.

I think that pretty much what the Labour candidate in the Uxbridge by election said