Be Excellent To Each Other

The top and bottom of it is that if you want better trains or healthcare then you need to pay for it. All the rest is a sideshow.

I maintain that any industry where competition is impossible should be nationalised, and that very much applies to the railways.

With regard to pricing, you may not get a direct drop in cost, but right now treasury subsidies are basically being turned directly into shareholder profit, and limiting that route indirectly makes the public coffers better off.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... of-killing

Rather a sobering read about the state of affairs in Mosul.

Sic semper tyrannis.

Thanks for that. Yes, very sobering

Remember when we had seven years of grinding austerity, because if we didn't pay back the national debt we were doomed? Good times, good times.

I'm not a Tory but surely the only bit of that graph which might raise an eyebrow is that last bar. The rest shows the increase in debt levelling off as the deficit was reduced.

It was supposed to do a lot more than just about level off, though. Osborne in 2010:



Year after year, we heard that the pain of austerity -- of welfare cuts, of limited public investment, of public sector pay freezes -- was justified by "paying back our credit card bills." Well, we got the downside, where is the upside?

I increasingly think this is going to turn into an electability crisis for the Tories. Look at this data from Sky. First: "who do you trust to run the economy" across all voters:



Now the same data, broken down by age demographic:



That's pretty dramatic, and I don't think it's a coincidence that those most badly affected by austerity have no confidence in Conservative governance -- combined with a crisis in housing which is entirely bi-partisan but the Conservatives just happen to be in power when the music is stopping so will cop most of the blame. It's quite a hole that Osborne has dug for the party.

I was going to post, but really, it’s just all too pathetic for words. I have better things to do with my time than vainly trying to educate the perpetually deluded and/or stupid. Sorry.

Is that why you're not in Parliament?

Part of me hopes Hammond just says "Given for some I don't know why really reason we are leaving the EU, and it is going to negatively impact the economy, we have to prepare ..." and introduce Mega austerity with Mega taxes so people can still enjoy government services provided to the same level but the impact of a brexit means they have to pay for it. And then there are riots and we stay in EU.

Or they just borrow a quajillionbillionty dollars, and invest it all in fracking because does it really make any sense anymore?

How much of today's budget will be dumped in a week's time?

This is the new I'm not a racist but. The gentleman doth protest too much!

It's all true. Moggmentum!

All you NHS types are secret Tories. Admit it!

Definitely. We love them all. Jeremy Hunt is most people's favourite one, though.

"You're all too stupid to understand me" is hardly an argument that can be levelled at this forum.

EXCEPT ZARDOZ OBVS.

As regards today's budget I am principally on the look out for further IR35 reforms being rolled out to the private sector effectively ending the industry I currently work in.

Ahahaaa

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/ ... 0686605312

Full Times headline furiously tweeted by Tory MPs pre Budget strategically covers up last six words...

Quote:

Full Times headline furiously tweeted by Tory MPs pre Budget strategically covers up last six words... “.. since Brexit cut value of pound”

Growth forecasts cut again in the budget. Nice graph with context:

No stamp duty for first time buyers on houses under £300k; no stamp duty on the first £300k on houses up to £500k.

Definition of "first time buyers", like Help To Buy and the Lifetime ISA, is "people who have never owned property." I bought a house in Wales in Jan 2006 which I had to sell at a loss to move to London; I have no equity, yet am excluded from all these schemes.

And that's not going to help the actual problem, really, right? It'll inflate the cost of first-time-suitable houses.

Yes, it actually makes it worse for anyone in my position.

That's balls. Sorry to hear that.

£3 billion for Brexit preparations. Can't we spend it on the NHS instead?

Do both. Just borrow a load of money now and then pay it back using all the extra cash we're going to have after Brexit!

Those growth prediction cuts are savage. Real world pay cuts for all for at least another 4 years.

'Project Fear'.

Stop being perpetually deluded and stupid people. Cavey has said things are great. We must believe him.

No rise on beer duty though! Hooray!

You may have missed it, but in the Red Book they've acknowledged for the first time that this is definitely going to happen.

It always was really - just a matter of when. I was fearing April 2018 in a bid to accelerate tax receipts, especially when I saw those growth figures, so this is a win for me really - gives me a chance to get out before the hammer falls.

Still - no VAT threshold reduction thank fuck.

OBR say exactly this

http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/box/ ... me-buyers/

Every new government housing scheme is the same: it prioritises preserving value for existing owners over lowering prices for new buyers. In favouring the first, the effect on the second is at best weak and at worst unnoticeable.

Hey! I understand perfectly well that it's not very good all this stuff like.

Short of engineering a crash there's not much else they can do, is there?

Indeed. There needs to be a house price crash, but if one happens, it fucks over homeowners. I have absolutely no idea how you go about addressing that.

Build a fuck ton of housing?

Invade France.

Never in Mali's back yard

If anything, that would just bring about a crash which would put a hell of a lot people in hock.

Wouldn't a crash put interest rates through the roof?

But there are a fuck ton of new houses being built!

Not really. Interest rates rise to control inflation, and a housing crash wouldn't necessarily cause an inflation spike

In that case, as a home owner I welcome a crash if it means other people can afford to buy.

There's no way you can build houses quick enough to make a true crash though. Every bloody builder in the UK knocking out 2 bed semi's would hardly send it through the floor.

Is it just supply and demand or the increase in buy to let that's fucking everything up?

No, but it would put a substantial number of people in negative equity.

Round me would cause traffic issues to further worsen, rainwater run off would cause havoc and subside the remnants of the open cast coal pits. There would be huge pressure on already over subscribed schools and other infrastructure and why build on green belt when there are loads of brownfield sites in Bradford proper?

Too easy