The government says it brings change. It wants national renewal without describing what this looks like or how it happens.
They promised to stop the small boats by appointing a new Border Commander. Conservatives had already done that. The Labour one will be the boss of the Conservative one, but as yet there is no legislation to give them any new powers.Meanwhile numbers arriving have gone up
They said they will set up Great British Energy and a National Wealth Fund to boost investment in renewable power. The Conservatives had set up U.K. Infrastructure Ltd and the British Business bank to do that. Ironically as they have a corporate structure and powers they have to implement the same Labour policy until the government manages to set up the renamed bodies.
They think regulating landlords more will help the housing problems. They have decided to take over the bad Conservative bill and make it worse. Their Bill will cut the supply of homes by more.
They say they are ending austerity. Instead they do the opposite, cutting pensioner benefits and threatening many with tax rises. They claim Conservatives starved public service of money when Conservatives put through huge money and real increases in NHS spending. The issue is how do you boost productivity and quality and manage the money better.
They say they inherited Ā£22 bn of unfunded spending but refuse to itemise the bill or provide any evidence. They have increased public sector wages by Ā£10 bn which is unfunded.
They carry on with creeping full rail nationalisation with no plan to boost fare revenue and cut the huge losses. They grant a big pay award to well paid drivers without negotiating any productivity gain.
They sound like an Opposition with a majority. They criticise what government is doing and blame past Ministers. They criticise the economy and then seem surprised when confidence falls. They criticise the public for our behaviours.
When will they show how they will stop illegal migration, slash NHS waiting lists and get the economy Ā back to being the fastest growing of the G 7 as it was in the first half of 2024 after a slow patch.
September 25, 2024
Good morning.
I think this government is more about using the soundbites generated here in the media to cover what is really going on. The slow dismatling of this country. And by that, I mean England. Expect a lot of stories to fill the pages and the airwaves while they busy themselves creating alternative forms of government, all under the radar.
Blair acheived his revolution of the UK Consitution and the dismatling of the UK by slowly introducing his ‘Reforms’ such as the Supreme Court and laws such as the Human Rights Act and the Equalities Act. All designed to undermine government.
This lot will be no different. We see the ‘reforms’ to the HoL with the removal of the Life Peers, the last vestages of decent.
Banana Republic here we come.
September 25, 2024
They’ve stated quite clearly that Labour want to take over more control of our lives!
Communism!
September 25, 2024
The idea of a āpeerageā is absurd. The idea of a ālife peerā is beyond absurd. I prefer democracy. I wish we had one.
September 25, 2024
The whole, or almost, of the members of the H of L is over populated by accident of birth, sent due to generally held to be political liabilities, old and of use to ease the path of government favoured Bills, or a gong for favours usually financial.
It should be abandoned in favour of perhaps a mixed skills, experienced but not political wide range of people numbering less than 250.
September 25, 2024
@Mike Wilson +1
September 25, 2024
None of the above is something like the answer. This is a huge majority Government in office less than 3 months that has no confidence in itself whatsoever – rightly so.
The Liverpool coverage confirms this – an utterly tone deaf collection of in thrall zealots who are shackled to the incessant fallout from the Winter Fuel Allowance howler, from even Unite..
Pull up a chair and watch the show.
September 25, 2024
Andrew, popcorn time. Free beer, no idea Kier is absolutely out of his depth. Like the rest of his cronies it’s little more than a college debating society.
No idea is a suitable epithet for thos clown. Just sit back and watch them implode.
September 25, 2024
But I haven’t got any smelly veg, over-ripe fruit to throw at the stage.
September 25, 2024
Labour are a party of activists and that is why they will never sound like a government. Their priorities are enforcing social change (the way they see it) and enjoying power (and all the perks and gifts). It is Animal Farm in action.
If they were behaving like a government, Kier Starmer would commission every one of his ministers to perform a root and branch review of their departments for efficiency gains. He would transmit those gains to income, VAT and corporation tax cuts and stimulate the economy. From the enlarged tax pool which the economic growth creates, he would pay down the current 100% debt to GDP ratio (so we are financially able to handle the next unforeseeable crisis without going bankrupt there and then or thereafter).
But that is all Conservative thinking and we will never see that from a party of activists. As long as Labour are in power Britain will carry on getting hurt.
September 25, 2024
Well said. Except for the last line which should say …. “as long as any branch of the Westminster Uni-Party (in hock to the WEF) is in power, Britain will carry on getting hurt.”
September 25, 2024
well said Donna , I totally agree with your finishing line.
September 25, 2024
Be grateful that Johnson is not in power. He want USD 1 TRILLION for Ukraine and immediate NATO membership so that Article 5 is triggered. (The Spectator article – what ex PM of the U.K. writes in the Spectatorš³?)
Makes Starmer look like a statesman with a plan!
September 25, 2024
Yes Johnson is a disgrace but Starmer and Lammy are trying to persuade Biden & Co to authorise the use of longer range missiles thus escalating the war and putting UK and Europe in grave danger!
September 25, 2024
Starmer a statesmanā impossible!
September 25, 2024
That gave me a much needed chuckle.
September 25, 2024
That just tells you how desperate the British Establishment is-they are facing complete oblivion as there is no place (and ,more to the point,no funding)for them in the new Eurasian/BRICS led world order.
A signal event in world history will take place next month at Kazan in Russia-the summit of the expanded-and to be further expanded-BRICS.This event will demonstrate that global leadership has definitively moved east for the first time in a few hundred years.Most of the world will be represented there as either members,aspiring members or observers-the toxic west will not-not invited,persona non gratia;Macron tried to get Observer status for the previous summit but was told NON!
I wonder if the western mainstream media(you know the ‘free’ press of the’democratic’ world) will even mention it for fear that the fantasy of western supremacy will be seen as the mirage that it is.
September 25, 2024
100% Agree. It is a bit worse than just neo-socialism, because they have the ‘Net Zero’ 2030 dogma to support all their loony actions, you can hear the bleating already. Second, they have soooo much less financial headroom to play stupid with. So, the decline into financial and social dystopia will take only a year or two, rather than a generation.
September 25, 2024
The Conservatives had 14 years to carry out root and branch reforms and didn’t. It is not just Labour that is unfit to govern.
September 25, 2024
+ 1
September 25, 2024
+2.
September 25, 2024
+1
September 25, 2024
Reform thinking!
September 25, 2024
To me they are haranguing and messianic. Dangerous because they have never run anything of substance. They have little idea of what makes people tick.
As just one illustration of their detatchment, they say they will introduce law to make it illegal to assault supermarket checkout workers, as if until now it was acceptable. There is law a plenty already, you just need the will and people to apply it. The real question is how are they intending to re-educate Chief Constables in the need to pursue crime at all levels, and when will they create sufficient prison capacity to accommodate the result. The simple expedient of deporting 10,000 foreign criminals resident in our prisons along with their families should they claim the neccessity of family life. Doing that might highlight the need to leave the ECHR. No chance so we are stuck with five years of rehtoric and no action.
At times you have to be tough to be kind, all parents learn this. A few parents, like Labour will thrash around blaming all but themselves. Their Quixotian windmills are black holes and right wing extremists. Whereas the culprits are likely dodgy Treasury accounting and mindless thugs, incapable of any political thought. We are in for a period of government by clear air turbulence, tighten your seat belts and watch them fly around the cabin. Duck when neccessary.
September 25, 2024
Everything they are doing is exactly the wrong direction of travel. Net zero, more taxes, more immigration, more state, more red tape, more market rigging in education, landlord/tenant, energy, schools, transport, universities, bankingā¦ even scrapping the universities free speech bill.
I have never felt any great desire to riot, but the more we heard from the dreadful Two Tier Kier lying about the blatant Two Tier policing and justice and how we are all far right – then more I felt I should consider protesting.
Starsi Starmer, Two Tier Kier needs to go and needs take his sausages with him. The blame however lies with the Consocialists Cameron – Sunak.
September 25, 2024
Meanwhile scooter phone grabbing thefts in London are totally out of control. I know of so many victims just in the last few months. Even more than the number of Covid vaccines heart issue victims I know personally which is four.
Last time I was at London Bridge station I also saw two professional shoplifters sweeping goods from small shops into huge plastic bag and running off. This in the space of ten minutes. Totally out of control. Taxes the highest for 70 years public services virtually non existent. Often the public services that are delivered are entirely negative too – net zero, the road blocks, the vast market riggings listed aboveā¦
Taxation is theft, this can sometimes be justified when the government deliver some needed services of any value that are better delivered by the state like law and order, protection of property. Alas the UK state sector so rarely does this or even tries to.
September 25, 2024
When you do protest, be careful, you might find the full force of the ‘law’ ( a joke?) decides you participated in a riot.
September 25, 2024
+1
September 25, 2024
Dear Sir John,
Can’t argue with any of that. The comment of an “opposition with a majority” is succinctly put.
Completely off topic – will you be on J R-M’s show tonight?
Reply. Yes
September 25, 2024
Reply to reply
Thank goodness for that!
Something to look forward to. Some sense and sanity!
September 25, 2024
I shall look forward to it – thank you
September 25, 2024
I also shall be watching.
September 25, 2024
I saw Cooper on stage yesterday, I wish I hadn’t. She criminally slandered my parents, my friends, family and tens of millions of British citizens. Her and Labour’s racially infused politics is without question the most disturbing and sinister development in British politics for centuries. It has the capacity to fracture this nation,. to subjugate certain identities, to destroy their history and to silence them into invisibility. In effect to neutralise their very identity and sense of place.
Indigenous people deserve legal protection from Labour’s racism and extremism.
The Tories had the chance to criminalise Critical Race Theory, they bottled it. That decision will haunt this country for generations.
September 25, 2024
Indeed Cooper Balls is truly dire. What an appalling selection of Ministers Two Tier Kier, Stasi Starmer, very dim Lammy, Ed mad zealot Miliband and Cooper-Balls two lawyers two PPE. Plus we have another PPE chap at health who seems to think we should retain Lucy Letbyās clearly unsafe conviction so as not to upset the alleged victims relatives.
The truly revolting Angela Eagle was even worse than Cooper-Balls effectively calling nearly everyone racist.
The recent David Starkey videos are pretty much spot on – on this.
September 25, 2024
Not just the capacity, Dom, the intent and the actual programme being implemented.
Those who voted Reform in the election are not responsible for the dire position we’re now in: Reform UK called out the woke-progressive agenda for what it was. Now it’s being totally honest with the voters and saying if you want any improvement, it will come with us in power in 2029, not before. And certainly not with the Tories who shared so much of Labour’s woke-progressive ethos.
September 25, 2024
What on earth did she say?
September 25, 2024
I gather she set herself a target of halving current knife crime in 10 years time.
Sit back for 9 years, and bring in capital punishment for murder, and 10 years prison for knife wounding.
SORTED.
September 25, 2024
Small boats, lack of investment, housing problems, austerity, unfunded spending, huge losses. Yes, terrible. And all of it the result of 14 years of Conservative mis-management. Labour has been in power for ten weeks
September 25, 2024
The Tory leadership hopefuls need to learn the figures for all the investments that the Tories made in the last 14 years: the number of new homes in each region and the percentage of those that were affordable, handed over to councils or housing associations. Building work stalled for 18 months prior to the election, and then the work was finally completed on a project funded Ā£1.9m by Homes England ‘its now back on track’ you can always tell estates with council/govt sector involvement, they take lots longer, have unfinished roads on the estates, tiny tiny windows, leave a mess at the entrance, rotting posts and rubble in a mound, not enough green and planting, contractors who go into administration (how much of the investment was wasted on them?) so the new government will get all the kudos from finally completing it.
September 25, 2024
What are the good policies they are undermining? Free speech at universities – virtually no other good policies left by Socialist Sunak the man who thinks or lies that the Covid Vaccines were unequivocally safe despite the vast clear evidence to the contrary here and around the World.
What is the similarity between Ed Milibandās totally mad energy policy and the sinking of the Bayesian yacht? An energy policy designed not for practical function but for entirely for show for mad religious & political reasons and a boat surely designed not to be very practical or safe, but to show who has the largest mast, is the richest and has the largest w*****. No sensible, competent and honest engineers would or should have pushed either. In the case of the boat it is usually customer (wanting to show off) driven in the case of net zero it is deluded ministers and deluded government driven.
Reply They have reversed the policy of getting out more of our own oil and gas, are meddling with school policies that delivered big improvements in literacy and numeracy, brought forward the ban on diesel and petrol cars, scrapped offshore processing of illegal migrant claims, increased public sector wages with no productivity deals etc
September 25, 2024
To reply – indeed and stopped the free speech at universities bill.
September 25, 2024
Stock in the UK shop stays rotting.
Labour change the labels, presenting worsening items as fresh-grown, expecting people to buy them at higher prices.
September 25, 2024
I’m not sure which good policies Two-Tier-Free-Gear-No-Idea-Keir and his cohorts are making worse. They didn’t inherit any good ones from the previous branch of the Westminster Uni-Party.
They do, however, have a special talent for identifying additional ways to criticise, nanny, coerce and control us …. the latest apparently being an attempt to restrict pub opening times (since denied) so that “the peasants” have less time to down an additional pint and will go home and to bed when Nanny thinks they should …… to “save the NHS, natch.”
It obviously doesn’t occur to the Puritans that (a) this will drive even more pubs out of business and hammer more nails into the Hospitality Industry and (b) anyone who wants to sink another pint in limited time, will just drink the previous ones a bit quicker.
I predict the next Command and Control Policy from the Puritans will be legislation to restrict the Units of Alcohol which Licensed Premises can permit any individual to drink in one visit ….. thus encouraging a pub crawl š
September 25, 2024
Agreed JR, what sad state of affairs we have with this lot in charge for perhaps the next 5 years.
Can only hope they self combust, but who would take their place.
Reform have the policies and drive, but not the manpower, and will not have for at least a few years.
Conservatives and LibDems are both hopeless and rudderless.
September 25, 2024
Reform now has more members than the Lib Dems, SNP, The Green Party, and Plaid Cymru. They attracted around 3,000 new members last weekend and are growing rapidly. They have a long way to go to catch Labour and the Conservatives, but their lack of numbers is made up by the enthusiastic people who want to improve life in this country. Having taken much of the Conservative vote they are now going after Labour.
September 25, 2024
I think Reform is the only hope.
The have an uphill task with the full force of the Establishment and government payroll against them.
The people of the UK will need to stand up and be counted before it’s too late.
September 25, 2024
They have made the mistake of making a few of their promises measurable: fastest growth in G7, cut NHS waiting lists, stopping the boats, Ā£300 off my fuel bill. Let’s see, I expect it will turn out these weren’t promises at all but merely ambitions. As to when the inevitable crisis comes I am not sure but they are rather relying on it not being a very cold winter.
September 25, 2024
What a pity we don’t have an opposition party to hold them to account. The Conservative Party are nowhere to be seen. The only opposition calling them out has been the Reform Party.
September 25, 2024
One “policy” which will undoubtedly make this country far, far worse is the UN Pact for the Future.
https://www.un.org/en/summit-of-the-future/pact-for-the-future
Globalist Acronym Organisations and representatives of governments (including supposedly democratic ones) gathered together to create global policies, without the consent of the governed, which will be imposed by people who are safely immune from any democratic control. The puppet politicians who implement them against their own people will be allowed to join the club and be “protected” from any consequences by promises of future employment/riches. And as we all know, the likes of Starmer love “a freebie.”
The British Establishment/government has obviously been preparing to participate in this stitch-up for some considerable time (ie during the last administration), but there’s been not a word said about it in the MSM or Parliament, either before or after the event.
As Neil Oliver says in his latest monologue, we are being deliberately distracted by nonsense whilst the conspiracy goes ahead under the radar and the policies of command and control are being put in place.
Perhaps Sir John would like to comment on the UN Pact for the Future and the previous administration’s involvement?
September 25, 2024
Labour is better at comms – they have been knocked off their perch by the revelations of how grasping their shadow ministers are and how willing they are to overlook the motivations for donations – but the work of “doing good” and “doing something” in an authoritarian manner reassures the electorate.
Conservatives and Reform need to shift the Overton window away from cradle tot he grave support towards personal responsibility. Starving children to misquote Jesus will always be with us, maybe it is better to discourage procreation than to try and solve it.
September 25, 2024
This Lord Ali business is getting weird now. He lets Labour people use his penthouses in NY and London at the drop of a hat.
I remember we were all told how grabbing Boris was for his freebies, but they’re all at it. The hypocrisy is high.
September 25, 2024
Learning at the feet of the master?
September 26, 2024
“Twenty four years ago a Labour opposition exposed the sleaze engulfing the Conservative Party, and Labour governments legislated to clean it up:
The Political Parties, Elections, and Referendums Act.
The Electoral Commission.
A Ministerial Code.
Public registers of donations to political parties.
The Freedom of Information Act.
Transparency was the key and sunlight the best disinfectant.”
Angela Rayners speech 29/11/2021
September 26, 2024
No self respect or personal pride nowadays, seems like you grab what you can, when you can, no matter how much you earn or what your position is.
Let another man purchase clothes for your wife, how much more bloody embarrassing can that be.
Borrow the use of a penthouse for GCSE studies when you already live in a 4 bedroom house in London.
Own house good enough for the previous 16 years of study it would seem, but not now !
Sickening.
September 26, 2024
Now she’ll receive free loan outfits they won’t have to declare, and designers lining up to get their dresses in the best magazines. They won’t have to declare them as they’re loaned and can be returned after the season ends. There’s always a way around the rules for socialists.
September 25, 2024
John McDonnell, Corby’s shadow chancellor is quoted as saying:
“I was elated, absolutely elated when Labour was elected, and you know in those first weeks Iāve been encouraged. If you look at the stuff and Keir mentioned some of it today: rail renationalisation, the bus regulation, the restoration of trade union rights ā all drawn actually from manifestos in 2017 and 2019. But we mustnāt say that.ā
Perhaps that is why there wasn’t much said, or needed to be added, in the 2024 manifesto. It had already been said before If you possess skills in demand, or possess the “wealth” that is about to be removed from you, then it is time to vote with your feet and wallet and move to more tax friendly climes.
September 25, 2024
Strangely enough I rather admire Labour for wasting no time in implementing their version of modern socialism, in sharp contrast to the absence of commitment from the Tory government post EU Referendum. Theyāre enjoying it too – winding up people like Messrs Redwood and Lifelogic by saying the state is ātaking back controlā!
September 25, 2024
I know what you mean MPC, all we’ve heard is we can’t do this, that or the other because of The Lords, the Supreme Court, the ECHR, one excuse after another. The Labour Party and their union paymasters are the State though and they’re demonstrating quite clearly the difference.
September 25, 2024
In reponse to Sir John’s request concerning info on renewable electricity pricing, here is a brief on why renewable electricity is cheaper than fossil fuel electricity. Unfortunately, this is a complex subject which requires a longer post.
Under the current āmarginal cost pricing systemā, the wholesale price of electricity is set by the most expensive method needed to meet demand (usually burning gas). However, the costs of renewable generation have significantly decreased over the past decade and the proportion of electricity generated from the different sources has changed over time in favour of renewables. Renewable electricity generation has become increasingly cheap, with prices declining as capacity and wind turbine efficiency increased.
The UK is part of the European electricity grid. Marginal cost pricing is the mechanism by which electricity is priced, usually over half hour periods, and is mainly dependent on electricity demand.
Between 2010 and 2021, the global average cost of electricity generation for a renewable generator over its lifetime (including building and operating costs) declined by 88% for solar photovoltaic (solar panels), 68% for onshore wind and 60% for offshore wind (source; https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/why-is-cheap-renewable-electricity-so-expensive/)
The last government said it will investigate how to separate electricity prices from gas prices with it’s “Review of Electricity Market Arrangements” – creating separate markets for renewable and fossil-fuel generated electricity, so renewable energy prices can be set independently from gas. It also wanted reform of the capacity market to increase low-carbon flexibility technologies that are more responsive to changes in demand and supply, such as electricity storage.
The cheapest and most efficient electricity storage system by far will be the projected large number of EVs (5 million is spoken of) connected to the grid.
Reply Once again you fail to deal with the full and true costs. we can only use wind and solar because we have a whole fleet of gas power stations on stand by. It is obviously dearer to only use your gas power stations when wind and sun let you down. You also need more grid capacity for interruptible wind power produced out at sea or far from the main centres of use. Gas prices per unit of power used are far cheaper than electricity which is one of the reasons why people keep the gas boiler. The cost of stand by power is a cost of renewables. The renewables have also been given subsidies, with high taxes on fossil fuels.
September 25, 2024
@Sir John – reply to reply
So lets discuss how renewable energy projects are funded, who pays and whether there are any “subsidies” involved
Contracts for Difference (CfDs) have emerged as the primary tool for driving the transition to renewable energy, by providing long-term revenue stability and incentivizing investment in low-carbon electricity generation.
The CfD scheme operates through a competitive auction process, known as an āallocation round,ā where eligible renewable projects bid for CfDs. During an allocation round, renewable generators submit sealed bids indicating the strike price they require. The strike price represents the pre-agreed price that the generator will receive for each unit of electricity they produce. It provides long-term revenue stability for the generator, reducing the risk associated with renewable generation and a guaranteed price that protects the taxpayer
The “reference price” is the average market price for electricity, acting as a benchmark for comparison. If the market price for electricity falls below the reference price, the generator is paid the difference, bridging the gap and ensuring revenue stability. On the other hand, if the market price exceeds the reference price, the generator pays back the excess. (source: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/contracts-for-difference)
Consider Auction Round 3 in 2019 – five years ago. The average price struck was Ā£39.5/MWh. (Source https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f566aff8fa8f5107025c055/cfd-ar3-results-corrected-111019.pdf) In Jan 2024 the average wholesale electricity price was fluctuating around Ā£75/MWh. This means that those early renewables producers are paying a substantial difference back to the Treasury – about Ā£35.5/MWh produced
Private, not public, money is employed to build and operate the renewable resource. The taxpayer is only exposed should the wholesale price of electricity fall substantially below the strike price for a long period of time. Burning gas to make electricity even in modern CCGT is at best only 50% efficient. The other 50% is “waste heat” This is why renewable electricity will always be cheaper than fossil fuel electricity
Reply You are outrageous. No mention of the Ā£149 levy on a standard Ā£881 electricity bill last quarter as set out by Ofgem, including Ā£86 renewables levy, and still no recognition of high costs of back up power.
September 25, 2024
Perhaps SG might like to explain why my domestic gas prices are 3 or 4 times less per Kwh than electricity prices.
September 26, 2024
@Sam
Firstly, because non-renewables electricity is produced by running expensive CCGT plant that is only ever 50% efficient. The “waste heat” is vented to the atmosphere, contributing to global heating and the CO2 produced as part of the burning process exacerbates the heating effect
Secondly the “standing charge” scam on gas supply is ridiculously in favour of the energy supply companies, who make huge profits from it
September 26, 2024
SG
Thanks for your reply
I was talking about the unit price so it has nothing to do with standing charges.
I think it may be that a lot of electricity is created by burning gas and so electricity is a secondary energy source and will inevitably be more expensive.
Plus renewables which are currently heavily subsidised add further to the price difference between gas and electricity.
September 25, 2024
The projected large numbers of EVs isn’t materialising though is it. People are refusing to buy them.
And they may well also refuse to act as battery storage when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
September 25, 2024
So far, our shiny new government look as incompetent as the rusty old last one. Who’d a thought it ……..
September 25, 2024
Hi sir John
There seemed a lot of people hand clapping and cheering for the labour party , why are there no protests out side the labour conference? Every government it seems has to repair the damage done by the previous government BUT it’s the hard working people of this country that have to pay and suffer for it.
Seems like the one putting nothing in but doing all the taking are better off
There are never any good times it been the same all my life and at 78 years old like thousands of others we are getting a bit weary of it
God help our grandchildren and their children thank you
September 25, 2024
Sensible people from the right side of politics have very rarely demonstrated. Most of us have better things to do with our time than go on marches and demonstrations. Even at the Labour Conference you will find demonstrators are from the wilder reaches of the Left, not the right. It is a pity because because a demo makes good copy for the media.
September 25, 2024
Don’t worry, Michael, when they move everyone up a Council Tax band, that’s an extra Ā£250 per year below D, Ā£500 pa more above D and a whole set of new bands to draw down an extra Ā£1000, Ā£2000 per posh home, people might be more vocal. I know pensioners are panicking about this already.
September 25, 2024
In England the reference for the tax bands was the price of properties on 01/04/1991, ie 32 years ago. According to the Nationwide calculator, over the period the average increase in property prices in the South East outside London has been 416.7% (eg a Ā£100k property in 04/1991 is now worth Ā£517k). Given the actual tax band limits (the H band is for all properties that would have been sold in 04/1991 for more than Ā£320k) the properties that have seen the minimum increase in council taxes are the most expensive ones.
The successive governments whatever their colour have shied away from revising this way of defining the council tax, something which is eg done every 3-5 years in continental Europe.
Iām pretty sure that people with a property worth Ā£1+ m can afford the extra Ā£1 or Ā£2k.
The same way that the pensioners in those homes can lose their WFA.
Reply A suitably nasty contribution from you trying to scare people about unacceptably large tax rises because they scrimped and saved to buy a decent home.
September 26, 2024
Proportionality stretches across, so it shouldn’t matter; the band A home has also increased in value and may have had an extension and each band is probably based on the number of rooms/sq ft.
How do you think new homes have been banded since 1991? They’re not all in H by value. They are in the relevant band for the size of the house.
The council tax charge is supposed to be for local services. However, the definition is getting wider and wider to include speculative investments in buildings and wind farms. Perhaps the locals will start getting a lot more interested in what highly paid Council officials are gambling on.
September 27, 2024
Indeed, proportionality stretches across: thatās not the point. It is that in the UK there are only eight bands and that the eighth band covers a huge range of property prices.
Compare that, say, to Germany where depending on the size of towns the rate is 0.5% (towns above 1000k inhabitants), 0.6 % (between 25k and 1000k) or 0.8% (less than 25k inhabitants) of the price of the property. Next valuation of German property prices for local tax purposes is to be held in 2025.
So the German equivalent of a Ā£500k property in a mid-sized town is now Ā£3000.
In London a band H property pays Ā£2435.78 of basic council tax whether it is a Ā£1m flat or a Ā£70m mansion.
So the proportionality argument is a fallacious one.
September 25, 2024
A Tracy
My Wokingham council tax is already 30% of my State Pension. !
September 26, 2024
I get it, Alan. My parents are only in band B, but my dad is convinced they will move him up a band to C to get extra money off pensioners as everyone is a sitting duck for council tax.
September 25, 2024
The Hunt failed then the Sun went down.
Old lions were left shivering in draughty cages, unable to eat; unable to reach a vet.
Then a Labourer took over the zoo as head keeper, claiming to change things.
The new keeper paid angry vets all they wanted but cruelly cut old lionsā winter.
He released dangerous animals, claiming the old lions need not fear.
His trainers allow young cubs to be whatever they like, whether a lioness or a mouse.
He says heāll build the zoo into a vast concrete jungle where all can roam in freedom, including more entrants from exotic places overseas.
The old lions roar in pain. They wanted reform, not wet red paint stuck on their fur.
September 25, 2024
Sir John
All very interesting, and yes factual. We have a smoke screen of lies (and where did that originate?)
Make a lot of pronouncements in a glorified way, as if a pronouncement was real return resulting action for improvements. But none of it is true, not even the āblack holeā. Letās get real we have a high overtaxing and over borrowing administration at our core, the same as the last one. They want to grow the State, basically protected their buddy network, just as the old regime.
What is not on the table is structures to control spending for results, what is also seen as basic enterprise management. What is not on the table is to work āwithā the people that empower them and pay their wages.
They want to interfere; one can image the only creed is for look for a look at me āI am greatā ego all just for personal self-gratification. Where they as with the last shower have no comprehension is that the market can deliver every single service, commodity that will improve lives 100% more efficiently and effectively than any top-down diktat ā that has been proven.
Labour and the Socialist ideal (also when followed by the faux Conservatives) has brought us the NHS, British Steel, British Leyland and many more all consuming massive amounts direct from the taxpayer, because Socialism doesnāt earn it spends. They want to add to their list of failures, and the only ones paying are the UK People.
The them and us, if they where so right why the need for 2TK for protect himself, from dissentious, from the Taxman, while at the same time think, those that give him personal things will not get a personal direct benefit in return.
September 25, 2024
I may have missed the reference yesterday but did Starmer actually complete his speech without mentioning that his dad was a toolmaker?
September 25, 2024
Like most I suspect your eyes got tired, drooped and you succumbed to at least 40 winks.
The rousing claps probably spoilt that reverie.
September 25, 2024
When will they be a government for the people of the UK instead of a dogmatic machine re-hashing old battles and operating on past defeats and hatreds.
If they are working on present time issues why do they sound as though they are from another time?
Once again, and so early into their term, labour demonstrate quite forcibly how unfit for purpose they are. If their aim was to show how similar they were to the Conservatives then they have over-achieved on that target. Now they trample with heavy boots in places even the Tories couldn’t go.
September 25, 2024
āThe government says it brings change. It wants national renewal without describing what this looks like or how it happens.ā
The UN and the fifth column Marxists in the UK government, Parliament, Civil Service, quangos, ācharitiesā, institutions, regulators, academia and the judiciary and elsewhere know the path to control is through causing chaos and impoverishment.
The perfect vehicle to achieve this is using the UNās false claim of a climate crisis and the Net Zero āsolutionā applied only to the West.
Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security & Net Zero and Chris Stark, Head of Mission Control Centre for Clean Energy, have written an āSOSā letter to Fintan Slye, Executive Director of the National Grid ESO, to ask how net zero CO2 emissions for electricity by 2030 can be achieved with options and costings as this was a manifesto pledge.
Fintan Slye has replied that he needs first a government definition of Net Zero as he well knows that it is totally impossible if at the same time the definition has to include the words āaffordableā and āreliableā. So neither the Government, nor the National Grid know how it can be achieved.
Not that these two words will matter to Ed Miliband. He is so desperate to achieve his āGreat Leap Forwardā to the UK becoming a āClean Energy Superpower by 2030ā that we can expect all hydrocarbon electricity generation to be closed down by 31/12/2029 to bring the chaos and impoverishment required.
Unfortunately there will be no opposition from the Conservative Party, the official “Opposition”, as they are all fully on board the Net Zero Titanic.
September 25, 2024
There is only one way the UK is stopping boats, and that’s drones in the sky and the Navy on the border with guns keeping people in French waters and forcing them to retreat. The Conservative Party spent last year spreading immigrants around so people don’t notice whole swathes of London are becoming a different Country.
September 25, 2024
During the election campagn in July, Labour were severely criticised for setting out few policies and those mentioned, contained no detail. The non-existent “policy” on dealing with the boats was the perfect example.
It was equally obvious from Starmer’s Sausage speech yesterday that they still have almost no detailed policies and it is now three months into their period in office.
Mrs Balls’ speech yesterday was nothing more than a rant and equally unproductive :
It is blindingly obvious that she still has no workable policy to solve the small boat problem, and Starmer cancelled the only one with a chance of working on their very first day in office !
This is a government already bankrupt of any ideas other than to waste billions paying exaggerated wage claims in the public sector demanded by their trade union mates, and they intend to pay for it by robbing Pensioners.
September 25, 2024
One good policy I approve of is putting 1000 GPs on the front line (they were quoting Wes S “bizarrely unemployed at the same time patients are unable to find a GP” why was that?)
The Conservative Party was the one putting lots of Diversity Managers into the NHS; they were allowing the NHS Management team to choose to make qualified nurses into administrators at desks. The Party was also limiting the training places of UK-born nurses and doctors (or were they?). The party allowed some hospitals not to operate at weekends or undertake overtime whereas Labour says they will, with money savings from not using the private sector hospitals. The Tories are the party who seems to have found it impossible to get NHS A&Es to bill foreign travel insurance, the people directly without travel insurance, when I saw a GP in the States they took my credit card before he’d see me. In Spain they took a relatives travel insurance details before treatment.
September 25, 2024
Itās the same in France. In absence of a Ā“Carte Vitaleā (that one can only get if properly registered in France, so tourists donāt have one) the GP receptionist will ask you how you intend to pay the ā¬26.50 for a basic visit before you see the GP. The only difference is that one can pay cash.
Whether the new GHIC or the old EHIC card is accepted or not depends very much on how the locals know about what the GHIC card is. I guess that outside major hospitals in areas with a lot of British tourists they donāt.
On request one is usually given a āfeuille de soins-mĆ©decinā and possibly one from the pharmacy (if any medicine has been prescribed).
Then it is āgood luckā to have these expenses (partly) covered by the NHS or even by oneās private medical insurance (PMI).
With UK PMI the usual excuse not to reimburse is that the person should have required a āmagic reference numberā before going to see a GP or get some treatment. As if people had thought of getting such a reference before going to A&E in case of an accident!
I donāt have experience with the French health system before Brexit, so it might have been as bad in those days. But in 2024 it can be rather dismal.
September 25, 2024
The problem with charging those not entitled to “free” treatment is that NHS staff from nurses to the most senior doctors regard the mucky business of asking for proof of ability to pay as quite beneath them. They would rather see people treated for nothing with us taxpayers picking up the bill.
This simply HAS to stop. It’s why we deperately need ID cards as proof of entitlement and no visas should be granted for people to come to the UK without proof of private medical insurance.
September 27, 2024
I’d tell them, Chris, that’s how we can pay for your big rewards that you personally require. This is a quick way that the NHS can bring in millions of extra Ā£s and I really don’t understand why they can’t do it. A charge from A&E equivalent to what a European hospital would charge, they have charge lists if our dense Managers can’t figure it out. It is easy to take payment now by travel insurer or debit card, people can receive payment on a phone so the admin to set it up wouldn’t cost too much, although anything public sector immediately quadruples the cost. Or the private hospital wards/doctors attached to many British hospitals should process the visitors.
Doctors don’t personally want to do the ‘freebies’; they want the rest of them to pay for them.
September 25, 2024
While TATA Shut Port Talbotās Blast Furnace, They Have Commissioned One Twice The Size In India
https://www.tatasteel.com/media/newsroom/press-releases/india/2024/tata-steel-commissions-india-s-largest-blast-furnace-at-kalinganagar/
September 25, 2024
So we didn’t close Talbot to save the planet
September 25, 2024
No, but take comfort from the fact it helps maintain the economy of India, China, etc.
September 25, 2024
Agree with today’s good/bad policies as one day Reeves paints looking forward to the green sunlit up!ands only for Starmer to trample all over them with pylons while “Launching the Great British Energy company” aka HMS Titanic another half-baked Miliband idiotic mega black hole to drain and strain our precious taxes.
The dominoes will fall big time.
Putting this Labour’s genius genie idea back in the bottle will be extremely difficult and expensive. Meanwhile we will pay a heavy price for this madness.
September 25, 2024
2TK’s speech reported in the Telegraph
‘Sir Keir Starmer has said the state will take more ācontrolā in peopleās lives.’
then – ‘We work hand-in-hand with business.’ …?
Then says – āBut markets donāt give you control ā that is almost literally their point. So if you want a country with more control, if you want the great forces that affect your community to be better managed ā whether thatās migration, climate change, law and order, or security at work ā then that does need more decisive government, and that is a Labour Government. ”
āTaking back control is a Labour argument.ā
Proof if any was needed as to the corruption, naivety and stupidity of our Political Class
The People want to be released from the dogma, the ego and yoke of personal ideology created for just personal esteem. The assumption the State and Politicos know best in all situations in all corners of our lives is absurd, lunacy even.
September 25, 2024
Why do socialists always think their way is the only way? It has become so obvious now that they are using their dubious excuse of the unproven ‘Ā£22B Black Hole’ left by the Tories, merely to cover their own rash expenditure. It’s a contradiction to state they need to tax us more because of the Tories when they actually go ahead and spend more themselves.
They’ve cancelled Rwanda, which had been given Ā£300M to set up reception centres for our deported immigrants yet they now consider Albania as an alternative and have given Italy Ā£4M in the process. Meanwhile, the Germans might take over in Rwanda for free! Thanks to this naive government.
However, they have been aided by the Tories themselves. Why are Conservatives taking so long to elect a new leader? And why is ex-PM Sunak, acting leader, not challenging the Government on a daily basis? If the Conservatives really are the ‘Opposition’ they must start opposing all of these wastes of taxpayers money.
September 27, 2024
Sunak was always a complete waste of time. His job was to pass over to Starmer.
September 25, 2024
Starmer has “insisted the Government would plough on with the policy” of cutting winter fuel payments to pensioners….
When in a hole don’t keep digging …
Ignorance of repeating and doing the same mistake is insanity.
The cost of bureaucratic administrating the means test both for the recipients and the govt will outweigh any savings.
One thing the Lib dems got right for Cameron a decade ago was to raise the basic minimum taxpayer income threshold to avoid millions being wasted administering silly petty claims clogging up HMRC. Fiscal drag has now caught millions of poor people again.
Labour postponed the Unions revolt vote from several days ago to avoid Starmer being red faced yesterday. Today they have still embarrassed him!
September 26, 2024
Not very difficult to embarrass him!
He has been clothed by a millionaire supporter, his wife has been dressed by the same.
His spectacles must be expensive if he needs to seek others to pay.
Members of his Cabinet have been given funds for whatever purpose.
His family took advantage of a penthouse ‘ to enable his son to study’ advantages hundreds of thousands other students didn’t get.
Other political insiders have enjoyed free holiday accommodation.
He and his wife have been among the higher paid for years and years. He has no shame to agree to pensioners having winter fuel support being snatched away.
Yet he sticks to bravado as if ‘why not have others pay?’!’
September 25, 2024
Both the Conservatives and Labour make things worse.
The OBR gave a qualified cost of Ā£500,000 for each low income immigrant over a lifetime. You can double that if it was invested or borrowed. Thatās a Ā£ million per low income migrant.
Assuming there are 2 million low paid migrants thatās Ā£2 TRILLION pounds of latent costs. I guess there are multiples more low paid migrants, only politicians are too scared to tell the public what the jittery bond markets already know.
To paraphrase, The country is a sunk ship floating.
September 25, 2024
Interesting figure in DT last fri –
Britons saving more / saving ratio 5.5% before pandemic to about 8.5% now means loss of Ā£40bn to Ā£50bn a year in spending
So now ,confidence , is a major issue for the consumer before spending more but – confidence has sunk due to government talking down many aspects .
September 27, 2024
Perhaps they’re saving up to leave.