How is the Tory Government Doing?

Lusty, you’ve ruined this thread just like you did the Brexit one. Since your last few posts confirm exactly what I said earlier, that it’s impossible to hold any sensible dialogue with you, I’m out of this one as well. How can you be so sensible on the Wanderers side and so intransigent on this one? Anyway, you can post what you like now, you won’t get any argument from me. 🤨

Whitesince63 wrote:Lusty, you’ve ruined this thread just like you did the Brexit one. Since your last few posts confirm exactly what I said earlier, that it’s impossible to hold any sensible dialogue with you, I’m out of this one as well. How can you be so sensible on the Wanderers side and so intransigent on this one? Anyway, you can post what you like now, you won’t get any argument from me. 🤨

Don't worry, I won't be asking any more difficult questions - the reality of what 12 years of this government has done to our country will speak for itself.

Should be an interesting meeting between Truss and Biden.

Speaking to reporters ahead of her departure to New York, Ms Truss said of her forthcoming economic plan: “Lower taxes lead to economic growth, there is no doubt in my mind about that.”
The very next morning, Mr Biden tweeted: "I am sick and tired of trickle-down economics. It has never worked. We're building an economy from the bottom up and middle out."


Poles apart on this and so many other issues.

I still haven't heard the government's explanation as to why pay rises for ordinary working people are undesirable because they apparently drive inflation, but unlimited banker bonuses are allegedly good for the economy....

What the hell can you do with a complete idiot like this running our country. It's frightening and truly embarrassing, and Coffey and Quarteng haven't even opened their accounts yet.
After seeing this she'd better be serious about preparing to be unpopular because there's going to be an awful lot of angry Tory MPs who will be expecting to lose their seat at the next GE.
I'll give her 6 months max before they unceremoniously turf her out.

Hip Priest wrote:What the hell can you do with a complete idiot like this running our country. It's frightening and truly embarrassing, and Coffey and Quarteng haven't even opened their accounts yet.
After seeing this she'd better be serious about preparing to be unpopular because there's going to be an awful lot of angry Tory MPs who will be expecting to lose their seat at the next GE.
I'll give her 6 months max before they unceremoniously turf her out.

It's actually painful to listen to.

Trickle down economics has never worked in a democracy - and historically it's failed even without the massive debt she is saddling us with.

By the look on her face, she doesn't even believe what she's saying herself.

For a day, last Monday, I felt uplifted as the country came together in a sense that we would follow the Queen's example of how, as a country, we might all change for the better.....rather as it did when Princess Diana passed away.

Listening to Truss, my heart sank again in the certain knowledge of where her priorities lie.......priorities that will see the rich get richer and the poor get poorer....now, and in the immediate future. Worse still, our children and grandchildren will be paying the price through the generations to follow. 

I blinked away a few tears at the funeral, but I shed way more now.

Eh up. Okocha's up.

Fracking ban lifted says Rees Mogg


The government has lifted a ban on fracking for shale gas, in place since 2019 after a series of tremors, even though a review concluded that forecasting fracking-induced earthquakes “remains a scientific challenge”.
Business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said: "In light of Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine and weaponisation of energy, strengthening our energy security is an absolute priority, and - as the prime minister said - we are going to ensure the UK is a net energy exporter by 2040.

"To get there, we will need to explore all avenues available to us through solar, wind, oil and gas production - so it's right that we've lifted the pause to realise any potential sources of domestic gas."
The new licensing round is expected to lead to over 100 new licences.
Ed Miliband MP, Labour's Shadow Climate Change and Net Zero Secretary, called fracking a "dangerous fantasy".
"It would do nothing to cut energy bills, it costs far more than renewables, it is unsafe and it is deeply unpopular with the public."
The decision has sparked accusations the Conservatives have broken a 2019 manifesto pledge.

What do British people think? The 2022 British Social Attitudes Survey has just been released - here are the key findings and importantly, the changes in public opinion



What struck me was that for the first time in history, the majority are in favour of proportional representation.
If the 2019 election had been based on PR...

Libdems would have 75 seats
Labour 209
Tories 283
SNP 25
Greens 17
BRXT 13

DUP, Sinn Fein, Alliance, Plaid Cymru etc would have very few which would further the devolution/cessation arguments.

The Bank of England have finally acknowledged that the country may already be in recession.

Ed Milliband absolutely murdered Moggy today (along with 4 Tory MPs) in the fracking debate. Great speech, didn't know he had it in him. Never showed that much compassion and conviction when he was Labour leader.

Just listening to Kwarteng's intro to his mini budget and it might as well be Geoffrey Howe back in the day.

Big infrastructure projects, clamp down on benefits, curtail the unions, cut taxes including abolishing the higher tax rate, sell off government land for house building projects, lowest CT in the G20, cut legislation.

Target is to raise GDP growth to a paltry 2.5%.

Markets will like it and that will help the £ in the short term although that will be tempered by the massive national debt hike.

Rachel Reeves: "it's an admission of 12 years of failure" - which is a fair point as the country has struggled on every key economic measure over that period.

We've been here before so we pretty much know what we're going to get - it's going to be another free-for-all unregulated profit fest. Back to the greed and unrest of the divided Britain of the Thatcher era.

The last time they cut Stamp Duty - supposedly to help first time buyers get on the ladder - a bunch of well off people bought second and third homes, the buy to let market went crazy and first time buyers were financially outmuscled in the rush to cash in - which in turn fuelled the housing market and immediately put first time buyers out of contention.
I have to admit I bought a flat to let with underground parking just 120 yds from Piccadilly Gardens and cashed it in 8 years ago.
The only practical way to help them is to build low cost housing - but it's just not as profitable for builders to do that and Councils no longer have the financial clout to grow their own stock. Alternatively the nation goes French where double the number of Brits rent as opposed to buy - but that doesn't help the powerful construction lobby so much.

Kwarteng's mini budget is dividing the Conservative party - with good reason.

This article explains it better than I can:

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled the biggest package of tax cuts in 50 years in his budget on Friday, hailing a "new era" for the UK economy. But will the dramatic change of direction kickstart growth as intended, or, as Labour claims, just reward the already wealthy.



On a balmy autumn day, Westminster witnessed one of those rare political moments that will resonate for decades.
With many MPs still dressed in mourning for the Queen, Kwasi Kwarteng outlined a Growth Plan which broke away from longstanding conventional thinking.
The chancellor unveiled the biggest tax giveaway in 50 years which will overwhelmingly benefit the better off and, initially, will be paid for from additional government borrowing.
In the minutes after the chancellor's Commons statement, Conservative MPs were staggering around the corridors of Westminster in shock. A divided party was united on one point, this was momentous and it marked a sharp break with the past.
"At last we are Conservatives again," came the cry from supporters of Liz Truss, hailing the cuts to National Insurance contributions and the higher income tax rate.
"This is a momentous event which really does break with our party's recent past," one cabinet minister told me. "It is very clear where we stand and opens up really clear dividing lines with Labour."
In contrast, the prime minister's Conservative critics held their heads in their hands, worrying her chancellor had embarked on a dangerous throw of the dice which will have devastating consequences if it goes wrong. "This is one almighty bet," one Tory MP said.

Multiple emotions and thought processes swirled around in the air at Westminster, trying to explain why this was such a seismic moment.
The sheer daring nature of the announcement - so soon after Liz Truss's appointment as prime minister - caused shockwaves because it was both a surprise and unsurprising.
Ms Truss had made clear during the leadership campaign that she is a small state Conservative who believes tax cuts are one of the best ways to promote economic growth. Hardly a surprise then, that she should start cutting taxes.

But to act so quickly - and to deliver about £45bn in tax cuts - was a shock for both her supporters and her detractors. This was a supreme example of the shock-and-awe tactics that Ms Truss believes lie at the heart of political success.
Then there was Mr Kwarteng's unapologetic dismantling of decades of orthodoxy on two fronts. These are that tax cuts should largely benefit the less well off and that borrowing should not be used, in normal times, to fund day-to-day government spending.
In his statement, the new chancellor cast aside years of delicate tiptoeing by his predecessors on the impact of tax changes as they tried to show the Tories were the party of progressive taxation. "For too long in this country we have indulged in a fight over redistribution," Mr Kwarteng said. "Now we need to focus on growth, not just how we tax and spend."
As Tories digested that break with every Conservative chancellor since George Osborne, they then grasped the sheer scale of the tax cuts. Scrapping the top 45p rate of income tax and reducing the basic rate from 20p to 19p next year will, with the other measures, amount to the biggest round of tax cuts in 50 years.

A reason to cheer for many Conservatives. But for others, going beyond the ranks of the Truss detractors, that revives memories of Ted Heath's chancellor who became a byword of how not to run an economy.
Anthony Barber, who coincidentally later became the young John Major's patron in the banking world, was notorious for the "Barber Boom". Barber embarked on a "dash for growth" with dramatic tax cuts in his 1972 budget. The economy over-heated, inflation shot up and Heath lost the election in February 1974.
There is one big difference: the chancellor today only controls fiscal policy - tax and spending. He does not control monetary policy - interest rates - which has rested with the independent Bank of England (BoE) since 1997.
This means that the BoE could respond to the chancellor's loosening of fiscal policy (cutting taxes) by an ever-greater tightening of monetary policy (raising interest rates) in order to tame inflation. The signals from the bank are that it sees inflation as a dragon to be slayed.

The bank will be watching the increased level of borrowing with care. It may note the criticism of some Tory MPs that Ms Truss appears to be behaving like the late US President Ronald Reagan, who ran up a massive pile of debt to finance his tax cuts in the 1980s. The difference was that the US dollar is, unlike the pound, the global reserve currency, which means the US would be much less likely to ever have a problem finding buyers for its debt.
The big focus on tax cuts meant that one core political objective was somewhat overlooked. This is that Liz Truss, with Kwasi Kwarteng, is beginning to deliver the "Singapore-on-Thames" Brexit of light regulation spurned by her predecessor, Boris Johnson.
The architect of the Vote Leave campaign was at pains to stress that his idea of Brexit was not to use new-found freedoms for a widespread slashing of regulations.
Mr Kwarteng and Ms Truss take a very different view. They believe the whole point of freeing the UK from the EU is to allow the UK to pursue a different economic path. That means cutting taxes and scrapping regulations, many of which derive from the EU.
Ms Truss has waited years for this moment. Sitting round the cabinet table for the past eight years, this former Liberal Democrat thought most of her predecessors were too timid and shied away from core Conservative values.
To her, those values had a virtue in freeing an economy to grow. To supporters of the recent Conservative mainstream, they carried a painful burden of history.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-63011639.amp

As one observer described the gamble "it's the equivalent of trying to attract the attention of Mountain Rescue by setting fire to your tent". Amused me anyway.

What the actual f is going on?
Like how is this kind of thing allowed?

If you earn 20k per year, you will benefit to the tune of saving about £150 over 12 months. £2.88 per week. 

The only reason for needing to take drastic measures with the budget is because the average man in the street can't cope with the cost of living. £2 odd per week is not going to make a jot of difference. The only people who will see a dent are the people already on enough money to not be that bothered by the cost of living crisis. 

One of my customers is on about 200k per year and is set to save nearly 6 grand in tax. Well that will not be so he can put bread on the table. It will just be an extra holiday or another makeover of his massive garden.

It fking stinks.

Biggie wrote:What the actual f is going on?
Like how is this kind of thing allowed?

If you earn 20k per year, you will benefit to the tune of saving about £150 over 12 months. £2.88 per week. 

The only reason for needing to take drastic measures with the budget is because the average man in the street can't cope with the cost of living. £2 odd per week is not going to make a jot of difference. The only people who will see a dent are the people already on enough money to not be that bothered by the cost of living crisis. 

One of my customers is on about 200k per year and is set to save nearly 6 grand in tax. Well that will not be so he can put bread on the table. It will just be an extra holiday or another makeover of his massive garden.

It fking stinks.

Underpinning this is traditional Tory philosophy based on an economic lie - that if you work harder than the next man you'll get richer - whereas the reality is that if you're already richer than the next man it's a piece of piss to lose that hard working man in your rearview mirror financially speaking.

However I'm worried about the sell off that always results from this strategy - and this time it might be even worse than when Thatcher spread our legs for the international big boys.
With the £ bombing, it becomes cheap for foreigners to buy into UKPLC
The £ is taking an absolute hammering today against the $ and the euro following Kamikaze's budget and the FTSE is sinking fast so in effect they're selling off our country on the cheap and trying to find someone to buy our massive debt. Problem is there's no investor confidence in our government so effectively the price is being knocked down to until investors bite.

Brexit voters won't like this....

Liz Truss is planning to increase migrant numbers to Britain by loosening immigration rules as part of her mission to boost economic growth. 
The Prime Minister is facing resistance from her cabinet colleagues to a move that would see labour shortages plugged by allowing businesses to recruit more overseas workers. 
Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, Kemi Badenoch, the Trade Secretary, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Business Secretary, are hesistant to give their backing, the Sunday Times reported.

It is understood that Nadhim Zahawi, the Cabinet Office minister, who chaired a meeting on the proposals, is also in favour along with Ranil Jayawardena, the Environment Secretary, and Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor. 
Businesses have been frustrated that the visa system for skilled work has not been responsive enough to shortages they have experienced and  Ms Truss has faced industry demands for more migrant workers.

Ms Truss has insisted she is 'unapologetic' in 'focusing relentlessly on economic growth', even if that means implementing unpopular policies. 
A senior government source told the Times: 'There is a view within the Treasury that migration is good for growth. That is a view that appears to be shared by the PM and the chancellor. 
'We cannot tear up our immigration rules. People who voted for Brexit want to see controlled migration.'
Ms Badenoch is reportedly opposing a 'freedom of movement' type of agreement with India as a way of getting a trade deal. 
And Mr Rees-Mogg is understood to be up for back the expansion of the Government's shortage occupation list if it can be shown it will increase GDP per capita.

Ms Truss has faced industry demands for more migrant workers to be given visas to come to the UK, with labour shortages one of the main concerns voiced by employers across a range of sectors. 
Downing Street did not deny that the Prime Minister is planning to liberalise routes to allow foreign workers to move to the UK, as first reported in The Sun. 
During her campaign for the Tory leadership, Ms Truss promised to tackle the labour shortages in farming - partly caused by post-Brexit freedom of movement restrictions and accentuated by the pandemic - with a short-term expansion to the seasonal workers scheme. 
A recent Government report warned that such shortages were badly affecting the food and farming sector, often forcing farmers to cull healthy pigs and leave fruit rotting in the fields. 
The seasonal workers programme, first launched in 2019, temporarily allows 40,000 overseas workers into the UK for seasonal roles in the horticulture and poultry sectors.
There is also a suggestion that she would change the strict requirements around the English language for visa applicants. And it is said there is also a plan for a new visa giving entry for graduates of the top 50 or top 100 global universities.
A No 10 source said: 'We need to put measures in place so that we have the right skills that the economy, including the rural economy, needs to stimulate growth. 
'That will involve increasing numbers in some areas and decreasing in others. As the Prime Minister has made clear, we also want to see people who are economically inactive get back into work.'
The Government is expected to set out its plan for migration reform later this year. It appears to be a pivot away from Boris Johnson's stance on immigration and may anger some Brexit voters.