I find it curious that the Chancellor tells us he is a lower tax Chancellor when all he seems to do is put the taxes up. I would like to believe him, as he is right in thinking lower tax rates would be good for growth and the economy. I will give enthusiastic support when he announces the lower taxes.
Unhelpful briefing implies the higher taxes like National Insurance, Corporation Tax and frozen Income tax allowances are some kind of punishment for the PM wishing to increase spending. The polite on the record rationale is they need these rises to get the deficit down post the pandemic spending bulge.
None of this makes any sense. The Treasury has just had to slash its deficit forecast by £50 bn for this year thanks to the surge in growth, with no tax rises yet imposed. The evidence shows if you keep rates down and go for growth the deficit falls. The danger now is the big tax rises will do the opposite. They will slow growth going into the next financial year as the rates bite, leading to a higher deficit.
I urge the Chancellor to do what he says he believes. set lower tax rates to boost jobs, incomes and investments.There is nothing stopping him getting more spending control into areas like railways and test and trace where there have been large increases.
November 29, 2021
Time and again, throughout the history of sophisticated States, government-imposed taxation grows in complexity and volume until the point that some kind of combustion occurs between the rulers and the ruled.
While I understand the frequent complaint among posters here about Ministers having little or no scientific knowledge, I can’t help wishing that both Treasury Ministers and staff were given some serious history lessons on the haphazard and ruinous belief that governments can just keep increasing the tax burden without incurring a very severe reaction.
November 29, 2021
This is not a conservative government it it a quasi lib dem outfit.
The aim is to get everyone beholden to the state and when we die they confiscate everything.
It’s socialism in its purest form.
Without a major pushbike from the electorate nothing will change.
We have 3 colossal failures today.
NIP no guts to walk away.
Boat people. Unable to defend our Island.
Energy. Power cuts imminent due to school boy enthusiasm for victorian technology.
November 29, 2021
First cold day and we are running 2 gigawatt of coal fired stations and open cycle gas turbines.
We have absolutely nothing left in the locker only some polluting STOR diesel generators.
What a mess.
November 29, 2021
Anyone numerate (scientific or otherwise) can surely understand why high taxes at these levels do so much damage (see the four types of money by Milton Freedman). Tax borrow and piss down the drain is a disaster. Current government spending/wasting is double what it should be and for so little of any value. Dire, misdirected and declining public services. Thousands dying do to delays and non treatment by the NHS as is very clear indeed for example.
The tax increases we have had from Sunak are massive (both front door and back door). His first action (even before Covid) was to cut entrepreneur’s CGT relief by 90%. Denis Healey gave us 97% income taxes but under Sunak we have over 100% for landlords and on capital gains without indexation. Then we have the expensive energy and net zero lunacy on top of all this too. Economic and political insanity from this government (but the opposition Labour/SNP would be even worse. It is all rather depressing.
November 29, 2021
Nick Timothy, today in the Telegraph:- Wobbling Tories should stick with the PM’s bold interventionist vision. The solution to the party’s woes is to fulfil promises on levelling-up, migration and widespread wokery.
Well yes, but he is alas doing none of the above is he? Also he has ratted massively on the tax promises and has gone totally mad with his insane, job destroying war on Carbon Dioxide plant, tree and crop food and his expensive intermittent energy agenda. Plus his counterproductive over reaction to Covid. Can we have the old pre Covid/Carrie Boris back please?
November 29, 2021
‘I find it curious that the Chancellor tells us he is a lower tax Chancellor when all he seems to do is put the taxes up. I would like to believe him, as he is right in thinking lower tax rates would be good for growth and the economy.’
As Sir John Redwood is well aware, many senior politicians become well versed in the art of doublespeak.
If you just keep telling people you are a party of low taxation many will continue to believe it.
November 29, 2021
JR, give us break. We heard this rot from your party and govt for 11 long years. At the same time excuses for why it is necessary. Cameron, May and Johnson bear the responsibility for highest taxation I. 70 years! This is not an accident or necessary imperative it is a socialist choice. Big state, big spend, huge welfare are the preferred choices of your party and govt despite what lies are written in your manifesto!
November 29, 2021
Indeed. Can’t believe a word from the Consocialists!
November 29, 2021
Good morning.
If you tell a lie often enough, people will come to accept it to be the truth. Can’t remember who said it though 😉
No government ever got elected of higher and more tax rises and, whilst the alternative is perceived as being even worse this raid on all our wealth shall continue. Oh for a low tax, low spend, low waste government !
November 29, 2021
@ Mark B
…and you can get away with the lie so long as people are protected from the consequences of the lie. That time is passing or has now passed for many
November 29, 2021
Which is why I say: bring on the masks, bring on the lockdown.
Not one person has been hospitalised anywhere in the world with the new variant.
It’s about time the people got angry.
November 30, 2021
We don’t need to, NLA – you do that for everyone.
November 29, 2021
We will cut immigration to tens of thousands! Once out of the EU we will take control of our borders! Oven ready deal, we will leave as one nation, no border down the Irish Sea.
Come on is there anyone on this site who still believes this dishonest party and govt? Christmas will not be cancelled- small print only Boris and Carrie with her BFF can carry on.
November 29, 2021
*People like leave voters will accept it as the truth.
November 29, 2021
@Mark B +1
November 29, 2021
Hear, hear
This administration’s economic and energy policies are confused, contradictory and incoherent
We need a change of direction and Leader
November 29, 2021
The make up of the now essentially socialist Tory party’s MPs is such that any new leader would almost certainly be even more of a deluded green crap pushing, lockdown pushing, high tax pushing socialist than Boris has become. Can we just have the pre Covid, pre Carrie, Boris back please?
November 29, 2021
Change of direction certainly but what new leader would we get and would they be any better than Boris I doubt it, the MPs gave us Theresa May last time so moronic is the average Tory MP!
November 29, 2021
It is hard to imagine the consequences of a government really, really getting on top of what they waste and the subsequent impact on the taxation of the rank and file.
But as we find out from ministers so often, talking about it is the easy bit.
November 29, 2021
Good Morning, Sir John.
Since you mention ‘test and trace’, I feel a comment about the Government’s response to the latest variant could be justified. Why the draconian measures re. mask-wearing in shops and on public transport to combat it?
Coetzee, the South African doctor who discovered Omicron, told Andrew Marr yesterday that she thought our government was ‘panicking unnecessarily’.
I will not be wearing a mask. Studies show that they do not work and that they are bad for our health. So it’s back to walking mask-less into the supermarket (admittedly feeling a little anxious – I’m not as brave as those who stood against tyranny last century), but I will not be complicit in this totally unreasonable and frankly sinister new rule. If I am fined I won’t pay. Our small business was one of the casualties of this whole debacle.
Not resisting this could ultimately lead to the segregation of the ‘vaccinated’ from the ‘unvaccinated’. Already the Government’s continued over-reaction to covid has divided families and friends. (I speak from experience.)
It’s already been noticed that Omicron is an anagram of moronic. Hardly accidental. One can’t help feeling that, like Muttley, the committee members of the WHO are sniggering behind their paws at our gullibility.
November 29, 2021
Well said Mary M
November 29, 2021
Aren’t you clever? The usual rubbish. Plenty of evidential based reports that mask wearing reduces the transfer of the virus especially if worn by both the transmitter and receiver.
November 29, 2021
Not cloth masks Nig1.
Grubby cloth masks are likely to harm the wearer but do act as a confidence boosting placebo.
November 29, 2021
Please point me to that evidence.
November 29, 2021
@ Nig 1 – true except where negated (as is too typical) where masks are of inadequate quality (many are insufficiently fine to prevent passage of Covid particles) or where user protocols are poor (fit, removal and cleaning). Mandating mask use is perhaps more about psychology (hoping people will take Omicron seriously) than airborne transmission.
November 29, 2021
Sure – like catching air born dust particles in a net with holes the sizes of a tennis court. Even if they did work it would only delays matters. The breath merely goes through and around the mask.
November 29, 2021
Try breathing outdoors in this cold weather with your mask on and watch the water vapour emerging in every direction in a mirror.
November 29, 2021
Look at vaping through a mask videos of ungraded and surgical masks. Next to no protection at all. The only ones that work are N95s and very few are wearing those. All the others shove it out of the sides and back which is the very worst to be wearing on a train.
Tubular buffs do nothing at all and are the same as breathing normally. Yet they are the difference between being legal and illegal.
In 1939 the government issued respirators to every man,woman and child – in 2021 they haven’t even bothered issuing paper N95s and I feel awkward about using traditional nouns… which is an indication of what this naked oppression is all about.
Not one person has been hospitalised anywhere in the world by this new variant btw.
Further proof that you masks are political and not about keeping people safe.
November 29, 2021
Nig1
You’re obviously unaware of Dr Mike Yeadon’s (founder of a biotech company and ex-deputy head of Pfizer) views on masks, he compares them with trying to stop a mosquito with a chain link fence
November 29, 2021
Is it my imagination or has my comment escaped moderation?
November 29, 2021
It is actually worse than that more like catching dust with mask holes the size of tennis courts.
November 29, 2021
But all that evidence presupposes surgical quality masks, applied and worn correctly by people who do not touch their face or mask with their hands. Have a wander around your local supermarket and see if anyone’s mask wearing meets that standard.
Instead most people, you will find, are walking around with thin viral reservoirs over their mouth and nose.
November 29, 2021
The only serious study of mask wearing resulted in it being slightly beneficial NOT wearing a mask, but the result was not statistically conclusive. Your plenty of reports is wishful thinking.
November 29, 2021
Please send a link. I can’t find any breakthrough study that caused the change of advice on masks 18 months ago. The only randomized control trial I know of where mask wearing was the sole variable could find nothing conclusive. All other “evidence” either either relates to surgical masks (which hardly anybody wears) or is based on studies that don’t eliminate other possible causes on differing infection rates. I would have thought a good bit of evidence would be to compare two similar populations in the same geography where mask mandates were the only legislative variable. England and Wales, say. Oh hang on….
November 29, 2021
That question has been studied for years, Nig L, before thanks to Covid it became politicised. There was no reliable evidence that surgical facemasks stop or restrict the transmission of a virus. There still isn’t, only a surmise that it might be ‘precautionary’. Even the BBC Newsnight programme reckoned the mask rule last July was brought in for ‘political’ reasons.
November 29, 2021
Not rubbish. Our chief medical team said at the beginning it only provides slight protection from droplets and sprays. It does not stop aerosols. Many national studies show this. Look at the variance of mask quality FFS.
November 29, 2021
Other reports say there is minimal effect. But the elephant in the room is that in England we are not obliged to wear masks, only ‘face coverings’. Which can be anything you like. So what you are left with is ‘covid theatre’, intended to keep the populace scared enough to give free rein to the politicians.
November 29, 2021
Last time masks were legally obligatory, the various proprietors and managers said they weren’t going to enforce; the police must. So naturally the Government repealed the measure as soon as decently possible. Here we go again…
November 29, 2021
If you fart in your trousers it still gets out. A mask analogy!
November 29, 2021
thats what I enjoy about this blog – a decent informed set of views.
November 29, 2021
It is indeed a futile gesture – the prevailing characteristic of the Johnson government. Unfortunately we all suffer from them. It is time for him to go.
November 29, 2021
To be replaced by whom? Liz Truss is perhaps the only vaguely better person (who has any chance of winning that is). Last time we got the appalling net zero Theresa May & before that the party even voted for (and then even retained) John ERM Major – to bury the party for many terms and make us suffer the disaster Tony Blair and Brown.
November 29, 2021
Be careful what you wish for, Oldtimer. Look at what’s going on in other countries in Europe and elsewhere. Hard though it is for me to say it, before long we might miss him.
November 29, 2021
It might be time for the Johnson government to go if the actual alternative (Starmer) were not even worse. What we really need is electoral reform, not of the PR kind the Liberal Democrats want but one that gives the ordinary voters some actual power, that is to the American system of primaries. Then Conservative and Labour voters, not a small number of people within the existing Conservative and Labour establishments, would decide who their parliamentary candidates and the Members of Parliament are going to be. Then our M.Ps may listen to their voters rather than the government whips and we might get some changes such as the taxation ones Sir John Redwood wants which would be popular with ordinary Conservative voters even if the Conservative leadership, too beholden to their Civil Service advisers don’t want to contemplate them. Perhaps there is also something to be said for the American system wherein each new administration nominates its own civil service.
November 29, 2021
@Mary M
What a selfish post. The whole point of wearing a facemask is to reduce droplet transmission from yourself to those around you. Because you might have the virus unknowingly, you could be acting as a superspreader and so contaminate hundreds of people. By wearing a mask you are showing others that you respect them and are doing your best to protect their health.
As you are not prepared to do that, you are saying that you don’t give a kippers’ dick about the rest of us. Shame on you.
November 29, 2021
So SG as the virus is endemic and will be us forever like many other coronaviruses, then masks are with us forever by your logic because there will always be a potential superspreader by your logic. And by your logic, we should have been wearing them since Adam which, of course, you never did, did you?
Look at the many RCTs conducted on the subject of mask use with regards to respiratory diseases (and COVID 19 isn’t that novel and spreads in exactly the same way) before Year Covid and the many pronouncements of Van Doom, Harries, and Whitty et al which clever reflected the evidence of those studies.
This is all clearly political to anyone with a brain cell. Can’t we call it the Nu or Xi variant? No? Why not?
Take a few steps back and think again.
Zorro
November 29, 2021
But Sakira they do not work, how could they work and by what mechanism. They might well even make things worse.
November 29, 2021
Whereas the virus is mainly being transmitted by aerosol (and not by droplet).
If people outside were throwing marbles at your windows, would you think it made precautionary sense to erect scaffolding around your house?
November 29, 2021
Well said Mary. I shall do likewise.
There are numerous clips on YouTube of Whitty, Vallance and various Ministers in the spring/early summer of 2020 telling us that there was no evidence that the wearing of masks would be beneficial and they didn’t recommend it.
They then did a complete volte face – in the middle of summer! – it would seem as part of the Government’s PsyOps campaign to keep the fear-levels high. And that’s all it is now; they know the masks do nothing …… it’s part of the theatre of Covid and intended to ramp up fear.
November 29, 2021
And some people wonder why nobody trusts this government!
Zorro
November 29, 2021
And don’t those darned Chinese, who cleaned up at CON26 also control the WHO?
November 29, 2021
Mary M, +1, you’ve certainly struck a chord there, excellent comment with the weight of real experience and the modest understatement in your determination. Well said.
November 29, 2021
@Mary +1
November 29, 2021
Next time please add your qualifications in epidemiology to verify your comments. Haven’t got any?
I might as well listen to my parrot.
November 29, 2021
Just listen to the evidence or look it up if you can be bothered and stop throwing around ad hominem comments.
Zorro
November 29, 2021
Where are yours chum?
Zorro
November 29, 2021
I know quite a lot of people with loads of qualification who are a daft as a brush and quite a lot of bright people who have none. Many of the former even idiotically think a war of CO2 makes sense, or supported Blair’s idiotic wars or thought that joining the ERM/EURO was a great plan for the UK.
November 29, 2021
Do they? If I am cutting up a piece of wood, I wear a mask. I am quite happy to pop a mask on for the few minutes I am in a shop – I’ve known since I was a kid that you can ‘catch a cold’ from being close to other people.
In fact, walking back from town the other night I walked into some rather acrid smoke. I am aware that some morons will burn anything on a bonfire, so I thought ‘that’s handy, I have a mask with me’. And I put it on.
Seems good for my health. I note people who spray paint – very fine particles – wear masks. What would you do if this virus was even more serious – killing, say, half the people who got it? Would you still be stamping your foot and refusing to take simple measures that might help to prevent the spread?
November 29, 2021
Which is bigger: a viral particle or a piece of sawdust?
November 29, 2021
The new variant has not hospitalised a single person, not anywhere. Not anywhere in the world.
Nottingham Lad Himself tells us we must mask up again to stop ruining “more than” someone else’s Christmas but why should I give up fundamental freedoms with stats like these ? :
2/3rds of hospitalised Covid patients refused the jabs
most of the remaining had known co-morbidities that could have been protected with the selective issue of fitted N95 masks
I’ve done my bit by having three jabs that I was scared of having . The promise was that this would disconnect the death rate from the infection rate (which it has) and the promise was that if it did so then we would be free.
This is proving to have been a lie.
Nottingham Lad Himself says yesterday “No-one wants to see the NHS overwhelmed with patients, it really is that simple” (to that effect) on why we should be wearing provably useless ungraded masks and scarves and suffering restrictions.
NLH is of the Left and they do not want the Tories to succeed.
Nor do I now.
Bring on the masks. Bring on the lockdown.
Tories out !
November 29, 2021
I didn’t write those words.
I said that no one wants restrictions, and that includes me.
I explained why polls perhaps give the results that they do on such things, no more.
We’ll see how things go, but so far it is encouraging that there is some evidence that this new variant, omicron, might just be significantly less harmful than others to date.
November 29, 2021
*to mean what your selective quote would perhaps suggest.
November 29, 2021
Paramedics should be told to ask /check for proof of vaccinations. If no jabs – no treatment….
QED.
December 2, 2021
MT, +0.5: if no jabs for no proper medical reasons => no treatment.
November 29, 2021
I wonder that they don’t test for TB and smallpox while they’re at it.
Yes…PCR tests can be used for both! Hooray!
They’d have great fun with that.
BTW…do we each get a share of the dosh made by flogging our swab DNA?
November 29, 2021
In some parts of London it is said the TB is once again on the rise. If so, I would consider that to be a far greater risk to our health than some minor virus.
November 29, 2021
That’s what the swabbing companies are doing through their small print.
Zorro
November 29, 2021
MARY M
You are quite right not to wear a mask. There is not a single study, nor evidence from anywhere that shows that wearing a mask serves any purpose in prevention of virus transmission. Yes, they are bad for your health.
November 29, 2021
Jenny Harries admitted the potential for viral contamination.
Zorro
November 29, 2021
+1
Dear lady.
+1
November 29, 2021
State reform involves conflict with a more powerful enemy capable of inflicting existential damage upon the Tory party. Far easier in party political terms to abuse the weaker enemy that is the private sector taxpayer
The two party duopoly revels in the current arrangement. Abuse the private to sustain the political status quo
November 29, 2021
And the only way to beat the duopoly is for enough voters to turn up and spoil their paper. That will encourage other parties to rise.
At present with voters, putting an X in the least worst option, the duopoly will prevail.
November 29, 2021
Is the never-ending CV19 agenda driven by public sector unions and other taxpayer dependent organisations that seek easier working conditions ie the working from home scam and attempts to distant itself from the clammy presence of the public?
One does wonder if what we are seeing is an embedded dependent class using all reasons however meagre and pathetic to solidify their powerful position and sustenance
Something will eventually snap and there’ll be political casualties
November 29, 2021
Per the Health Secretary – “there is no reason to work from home”. I agree and downed tools the moment I heard his words and have been at leisure since. Good old Saj!
November 29, 2021
+1
November 29, 2021
+1
I’ve wondered that too.
Much union action ( I think) was hidden during 2020. And they got pay rises?
What if the policies supported and promoted by the unions which have led to an extremely overcrowded island have also rendered jobs absolutely undoable.
And every day more patients and pupils arrive.
Yet the left just can not admit that 5 x 600g cakes will not feed 1,000 adequately, forever, if at all.
Really the situation is impossible.
November 29, 2021
The only political casualty will be the Tory Party. But alas, they cannot see what is being done to them as they are surrounded by enemies on all sides, some even offering so called professional advice.
November 29, 2021
Higher tax (from our self proclaimed low tax Chancellor) is no surprise. No surprise at all. I think Rishi and Boris have a death wish on behalf of the UK, its economy and its people. If they think a tax reduction just before the next GE will mean all is forgiven, they are wrong. Everything they touch (or deliberately ignore) seems to damage the UK. I thought the EU made lots of bad judgements, but Boris beats them hands down. If your party is to survive, get rid of Boris and put a Conservative in charge although the damage and loss of trust may already be too great for any recovery.
November 29, 2021
+1
November 29, 2021
So presumably you will vote for the Labour Party whose policy is, let me thing, er higher taxes in perpetuity.,
Very sensible.
November 29, 2021
@ Nig 1 – it might be “very sensible” since as we see voting Conservative does nought but deliver Labour policy. By voting Labour to get Labour policy one might then induce the Conservatives to mount an effective opposition, developing an alternative to the Labour approach and offering same at the subsequent election. Continuing as we have been seems specially futile.
November 29, 2021
The Reform Party UK.
It is to be hoped that one day Sir John will join this party. He seems to believe in the same traditional Conservative values.
The results of the Old Bexley and Sidcup by election will at least give the present Conservative Government something to reflect upon.
November 29, 2021
You presume wrong, as usual.
November 29, 2021
Why do you believe the Tories are different. Please start living in the real world. I was a Tory supporter once, way back. I pounded the streets for a man who was elected MP and later became a senior minister, but not any more. I don’t like being lied to, deceived and taken for granted.
November 29, 2021
That is indeed the problem and worse still it would be Labour/SNP. What sensible English person wants that? But there comes a point where Boris/Carrie and the fake Tories need to be brought back to reality.
November 29, 2021
I do not presume to answer for Shirley but for my part I shall be voting for Reform UK who have very sensible policies. If this means that Labour get in then … so what? They CANNOT be worse than Boris the Traitor. He has failed on the economy, he has failed to deliver a full Brexit, he has failed to control immigration, he has failed on EVERY issue. Of course Labour will fail too, but failure is failure, and Labour failure is no better and no worse than Tory failure. If the Tories lose then Boris will be out (he was only elected as leader because he is thought a ‘vote winner’) and maybe, just maybe, we will get a REAL Conservative in charge of the party. Come on Sir John, your party and country need you!
November 29, 2021
+1
November 29, 2021
A bit like the Boris’s energy policy, gets rid of jobs and manufacturing in the UK to send east!
November 29, 2021
Indeed it has. After all his lies. Most listed above. The green stuff will hit the fan when the energy Bill’s and power cuts arrive.
November 29, 2021
Shirley
But this is the price of Leveling Up ! Take from those that have and give it to those that have not. Sounds familiar ?
November 29, 2021
It’s the reason we call your party the fake Conservatives.
More helpful if you can find the reason why, with your colleagues, you go along with this chicanery. Is it just fear of dsirupting the largely left wing Establishment or a genuine belief that having hoodwinked us at the GE they can carry on doing so?
November 29, 2021
If you want low taxes stop spending our money. Close to half of our taxes are spent on old people – who largely vote Tory. Their pensions. Their extra healthcare. Their social care. Their bus passes and heating and so on.
You refuse to tell them that their handouts need to be cut if they want tax cuts for the rest of us. Why is this Mr Redwood?
The foreign aid bill is negligible and cutting it will not enable you to cut taxes. The pensions bill is huge and cutting that would enable taxes to be slashed.
November 29, 2021
@ Andy “If you want low taxes stop spending our money.” – this implies government spending relies first upon raising tax revenue and that is not true.
(Note also the foreign aid bill for England is the world’s largest when properly accounted for by including the £15 billion per year subsidy to Scotland. What would you rather have, tax cuts for hard working families or Scotland as shaped by the vile S.N.P.?)
November 29, 2021
If you want low taxes stop spending our money.
Close to half of our taxes are spent on young people who largely vote Labour. Their free child benefits, their free education, their free health care, their free social care, Police, probation, courts. Their bus passes and cheap travel.
PS
You are again totally wrong on the “half” young Andy.
Taxes raise £800 billion Pensions cost £100
PPS
“old people” (never defined, do you notice) also pay billions in taxes.
November 29, 2021
Andy
How do you know old people largely vote Tory ?
November 29, 2021
Surely, having handed over half our income to the government all our working lives, we are due something back. Otherwise, what the **** do we pay all that money for?
November 29, 2021
You haven’t handed over half your income unless you were a top rate taxpayer. And you weren’t.
November 29, 2021
Add basic rate income tax to NI
Then add VAT on your purchases.
Then add taxes on your insurance policies.
Then add taxes on your fuels.
Then add taxes on your alcohol and tobacco
Then add taxes on your flights.
Then come back to us young andy
November 29, 2021
+1
And the last one they take even when they can no longer tax the air that you breathe inheritance tax
November 30, 2021
I’ve been a higher rate taxpayer for about half of my working life. But, even if one does not pay higher rate tax, if you add up income tax, national insurance, VAT, council tax, duties on fuel, car tax, tax on savings, parking charges etc. and throw in the occasional chunk of stamp duty – even lower rate taxpayers on average wages hand half their money to the government.
It was even worse when I ran my own company. I had to pay the Employers NI too.
When I was young the lowest tax rate was 33%.
You are, as always, spouting inane nonsense.
Now I am retired I pay no income tax at all.
November 29, 2021
Yes – and “high” is a relative term.
People in Scandinavian and in other countries pay very high levels of tax by Sir John’s measure, but they are generally content because in return they get an orderly society with good public services such as health, education and infrastructure.
I have a cottage in the rural North. Since 2011 power cuts have become increasingly frequent – about once every three weeks on average for an hour or so at a time. We all know about the billions of litres of raw sewage going into our seas and rivers, and the problems re healthcare and of the elderly are not all due to covid19 by any means.
Ultimately these are all the responsibilities of the Government, despite Sir John’s attempts to blame civil servants and others.
There seems to be a general picture emerging, doesn’t there?
November 29, 2021
It’s called value for money NHL
Taxes versus services.
November 30, 2021
The main benefit of the high taxes paid in Scandinavian countries is a decent pension.
November 29, 2021
Andy is advocating discrimination against the elderly which is against the law per the Equalities Act 2010.
November 29, 2021
Erm, it is discriminatory to give old people – and only old people – handouts on the basis of their age. Why should I pay for granny’s bus pass? Pay yourself if you want it.
November 29, 2021
Granny is hoping to have a Tesla, but people like you head the queue.
November 29, 2021
Young people get cheap travel too.
Any complaints about that?
November 29, 2021
Rubbish from you as usual – Child benefits!
November 29, 2021
@Andy; “The foreign aid bill is negligible and cutting it will not enable you to cut taxes. The pensions bill is huge and cutting that would enable taxes to be slashed.”
Is trolling this site your hobby Andy?! In any case what you suggest would likely require yours and younger generations to pay increased tax rates due to the number of pensioners who would be qualifying for DHSC/DWP (means-tested) assistance, given such people have paid into their NI account all their working lives, unlike your generation -or was that what you meant, stopping all future pensions and benefits etc for yours and younger generations; the only other conclusion is, you expect elderly people to quite literally work until they drop dead…
November 29, 2021
No. What I suggest would require most old people to sell their expensive detached and semi-detached homes – and move somewhere smaller and cheaper instead. You can then use the hundreds of thousands of pounds of equity most of you have to support yourselves – rather than relying on us to fund your lifestyle. This would have the added advantage of easing the housing crisis.
Pensions are unsustainable. The vast majority of you take more out than you ever put in – and that is a major problem as you are asking today’s workers to fund the shortfall.
And we know we will never get state pensions in the way you do. Your generation has gladly lived off handouts, discounts and perks throughout your lives. All of which you have taken away from subsequent generations.
November 29, 2021
Hate speech
November 29, 2021
Well, Im an old person (82) and I pay a lot of tax every month. It goes on, asylum seekers, lone parents, long term unemployed, politically correct initiatives etc.
I have no say in any of this. Ive never been on benefits. Such as me have to stump up and shut up.
I know its pointless in explaining this to such as you, Andy, but Ive had enough of people like me being blamed for all the ills of the World.
November 29, 2021
My family pays more than £250,000 in income taxes each year. Well over £100,000 of it goes on the elderly.
Next to nothing goes on the other groups you mention.
What do we get from all of you in return for our £8.5k a month? This, incidentally, is by far our biggest monthly expense.
November 29, 2021
Im assuming that your family does not include any elderly people, who may be in receipt of the ‘benefits’ ie: State Pension, that you talk about.
And what do you mean ‘next to nothing goes on the other groups you mention’.? Where does the money come from then? Please remember that the Government has no money, save what it gets from the taxpayers. Taxpayers money pays for the groups I mentioned, some of whom have paid no tax.
What you get from us, is the sacrifices many of us made in the past, so that you could grow up in a decent Country, with a decent standard of living. You don’t know you’re born, if you think you are hard done by.
November 29, 2021
Ridiculous use of statistics young andy
Total tax take is over 800 billion
Pensions 100 billion
Mainly funded by National Insurance payments over more than 30 years.
November 29, 2021
Putting road taxes on ev’s, extra tax on their owners to make up for loss of road fuel tax to make them commensurate with ICE vehicles (as will happen in due course when the majority have them) stop the subsidies on their purchase, stop the subsidies to foreign companies for wind and land owners, stop all greencrap taxes on our fuel bills. Much more sensible and helpful to all.
November 29, 2021
Andy, I wonder if your friends find you as boring as we do? That’s if you have any friends of course.
November 29, 2021
thats not totally true or fair…..there are many times, mostly when he switches from OAP hating, to something else when he gives me a bloody good laugh, surely others welcome the bizarre certain to be found on here?
November 29, 2021
Well I find it boring.
November 29, 2021
So give us the details Andy?
How much have the people paying into the UK’s national insurance scheme, most people from the age of 16 and the contributions from their employer, even at 7% employee, 11% employer with the other half going to the health service contributed until they’re 66 or 67 years of age? If that had been invested in a private scheme how much would an average earner get in a pension.
Now compare that with the public sector pension, how much they contributed, their employer contribution just to their defined benefit pension is around 25% just for that workers personal account but this isn’t taken into account when poor pay is discussed, we should free up public sector workers to just have nest and give them the rest of the contribution in pay today uplift, most of it will come back in tax anyway.
November 29, 2021
The pensioners have paid for their pensions; they are not a gift. Foreign aid is a gift, usually to the rulers of the receiving country.
November 29, 2021
Whatever pensioners paid during their working life was spent in every year the tax was collected. Nothing was put by for the future, and the government of the day almost invariably had to borrow more to bribe the electorate.
November 29, 2021
Taking taxes from poor people to give to rich dictators. Still taking in 1000’s of illegals so foreign aid is pointless.
November 29, 2021
Whatever the subject, two responses are guaranteed: Nicola Sturgeon will claim it justifies another Scottish Independence referendum and Andy will blame old people.
November 29, 2021
Play it again John. Simple really, reduce spending and reduce taxation. As to the amount borrowed , dig out the lamp and give it a rub, on the basis that what can create it can make it go away.
November 29, 2021
Quite. Print the debt, wipe it out and then pass a law that all future expenditure (including pensions and health care) must be paid for out of that year’s income. A balanced budget.
Governments would then need to justify to the taxpayer electorate any increases in spend and take in percentage terms.
November 29, 2021
Recently the UK has been doing more Covid tests per day than the rest of the EU combined. For once we should follow Andy’s advice that everything the EU does is perfect and reduce testing massively thus saving money and disrupting schools less.
November 29, 2021
I don’t say everything the EU does is perfect. What a silly characterisation.
It isn’t my fault your Brexit is so embarrassingly bad. I did warn you.
Still – you can get to celebrate your Brexit victory with all your new dinghy friends who, it turns out, are harder to deport because of Brexit. Good job you knew what you were voting for.
November 29, 2021
I’ve suggested coachloads be directed to Amersham/Chesham …..what do you think Andy?
A proper welcome in the leafy lanes country?
November 29, 2021
I saw a flight-review on YouTube yesterday. The reviewer waas passing through Changi and, predictably, there was a mass of public health workers doing their public health stuff. I suspect that at UK airports there were no workers on hand to scan passengers for the high-temperature that is one of the major symptoms of COVID. And that any infected passengers would have been able to get on a train and do some spreadin’.
P.S. I support the reintroduction of masking-up. The government was wrong to have done away with it on ‘Freedom Day’.
December 1, 2021
SW I wear decent FP2 masks indoors but I’m not reassured they work, this variant still got out and spread in Glasgow even though they have a full mask policy.
November 29, 2021
Expats in Spain are bringing bagfuls of free NHS testing kits from the UK because they cost 25 euros plus here. It’s very difficult to get a COVID test in Spain which is why their figures look so good.
Also why has the lateral flow test for travellers to the UK been stopped? Does it not work or is it a ploy to charge more and deter families from taking foreign holidays?
November 29, 2021
Christine
Agree with you with regards to testing before anyone gets on a plane to come here, then if positive they could be refused a flight, would stop the risk of contamination of others on the flight, in the airport lounges, and for a few days or more whilst in the UK.
Cannot understand the logic of testing two days after you have arrived, and then travelled home, its just a bloody farce. !
November 29, 2021
The UK has because it has that multiple of people with suspicious symptoms or who have been in contact with such people.
It’s not a badge of honour.
November 29, 2021
Even for you, lad, this is priceless. Covid ‘cases’ are skyrocketing on the continent, not in Britain. And you hadn’t noticed, because you’d rather be able to say whatever you like.
November 29, 2021
It’s hard to see how the infection rate in the UK could be much higher.
However, as to your claim:
This is the number of tests conducted in the most recent day, relative to the population.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control produces a weekly rate of testing which, once again, the UK does well on.
In the week ending 20 September:
UK – 27 tests per 1,000
France – 17 tests per 1,000
Germany – 13 tests per 1,000
Spain – 16 tests per 1,000
However, once again it is beaten by the same four nations: Malta, Cyprus, Lithuania and Denmark.
If you have more recent data then please publish it, but this does not support your claim at all.
November 29, 2021
And count our deaths in the same way as Germany.
November 29, 2021
Sir John seems – surprisingly – to be a latecomer to the philosophy “ignore what they say; watch what they do.”
I adopted it many years ago, which is why I stopped voting Conservative for many years after the Maastricht treachery.
Sunak possibly has a slight excuse for his perfidy since the deal he made with Johnson/Cummings when he was offered the post of Chancellor was that he had Treasury Advisors approved by them ….. ie Johnson would be exercising his role as First Lord of the Treasury. Sunak is undoubtedly far less independent than, say, Dominic Lawson was.
I suspect that spending like a drunken sailor is yet another consequence of Cummings departure and Johnson “coming out” as a left-wing, Eco Loon …..who secretly admired McDonnell’s plans to bankrupt the country.
November 29, 2021
@Donna +1 spot on!
November 29, 2021
Indeed. It was the week after Maastricht that – an already multicultural but stable – London was invaded by squeegie gangs intimating us at traffic lights.
It was almost as though the Tories had been giving the nod and the wink to criminal gangs even then. Like there’d been some secret deal done behind the backs of the British people.
November 29, 2021
*intimidating*
November 29, 2021
Nigel!
November 29, 2021
“None of this makes any sense. “ – true, and things do not have to be this way. As you have shown hitherto, we can have a very much more attractive offer from the Exchequer than that we are getting. Does that await first a taxi for Mr. Sunak?
Is the Chancellor perhaps obeying the French minister who urges the U.K. to make itself less economically attractive a destination for illegal immigrants? Perhaps his civil servants have decided that?
November 29, 2021
Reported today that the Government have given 90000 pounds of taxpayers’ money to the far-left Open Borders charity ‘Migrants Organise’. But of course they are committed to stopping illegal immigration.
November 29, 2021
The other day, out of curiosity, I checked the growth of the FTSE 100 index over the past five years. From mid November to mid November it was up just 14% over those 5 years, a rubbish rate of return. If you own assets above the IHT threshold your estate pays tax of 40% of the value. More and more people are falling into that category. It means that an asset needs to grow by c1.7x just to return to its original value after 40% tax. Such is the extortionate rate of tax imposed. It is but one example of penal impact of UK taxes. And Johnson wants people to invest in his hare brained schemes.
November 29, 2021
Notable that the Chancellors additional tax raid is targeted at the captive PAYE serf market. Benefits claimants taking home over £30K per year, those with second incomes or earning £8K as a hobby and of course self assessment and self employed are all able to avoid paying for your Prime Minister’s largesse.
It’s always the PAYE serfs who suffer, no government can resist plucking an extra feather from the golden goose.
November 29, 2021
Fully agreed.
November 29, 2021
That is a message We should all repeat — it is what should be happening, but we seem to be in the world of double-speak with this Chancellor.
Is there any chance that he will actually read this diary – he’d really pick up some good tips if he did, but I suspect his civil servants don’t select, for his reading matter, anything that goes against their agenda.
November 29, 2021
Sunak hopes to push Johnson into a more logical leadership, spend more, he will tax more. As a result Johnson will be less popular, but ask yourself can he be less populat?
November 29, 2021
Its not just the ridiculous high taxation, its the high, very high level of waste.
The sacrifice on the PM’s high alter going green(what ever that really means) is a doctrine of extreme taxpayer money being thrown away. This UK Government will furnish the Nationalised Industries coffers of the likes of China, Denmark, & France, so the can erect the virtual signal of ‘green’ credentials. What it point blank refuses to do is offer a similar amount of money to UK Industry to do the same job.
Every part of the UK Government Plan appears to subsidies Foreign Nationalised Industries with UK taxpayer money for the supply and building of our infrastructure. Then in the same breath commit to onward subsidies of these other nations in higher prices to the UK taxpayer.
We have a Government needing to create ever higher taxes due to it’s refusal to invest in the UK, refusal to support a resilient reliant UK, refusal to invest in the UK’s future.
Money is a resource, something most Nations understand. If it is invested for a return and not as this Government does just ‘give it away’, you start to build. Our Government ‘giving’ UK taxpayer money to nationalised industries around the globe is not one that working for the future of the UK.
November 29, 2021
Does this rather sum it all up?
From R. Partington writing in The Guardian 8.9.21
“It has been billed in the press as the “death knell for Conservatism”. Culminating in Tuesday’s manifesto-busting national insurance rise, Boris Johnson’s Tories have used the past six months to announce £36bn a year in extra taxes – a bigger rise than in any budget since the mid 1970s.”
And after all….ALL taxation is theft..especially when,as many say on here, the money is given to chums or frankly wasted on idiocy.
November 29, 2021
What do you think inflation is especially when its calculated to be lower.
Whats the average increase in Council taxes? or Service Charges or ground rent?Passport fees, TV licence etc
Still i expect we will be bailing the bets on China , once the property fallout materializes.
November 29, 2021
@Nota# The idea this Government keeps spinning is that if there is assembly of foreign components that we can easily manufacture ourselves, they have a win-win situation or at least headline. Foreign purchases, going to foreign businesses in the UK also mean that the fudge of management fees paid to foreign domains is that there is no tax paid in the UK. Meaning the funding for future projects, infrastructure(health, education and so on) can only come from ever higher taxes.
We have a Government that gives the appearance of deliberately and maliciously destroying the very fabric of the UK
November 29, 2021
The Conservative Party is now the party for big business and bureaucracy. The Treasury number crunchers have theirs eyes on the small BTL investor who has so far beaten the system since Mrs T started the revival of private rentals, crushed by rent control and permanent tenancies. The huge rise in house prices, driven by money printing by government, has lowered returns but increased capital. Brown reduced CGt rates but removed the inflation allowance, pretending that this simple calculation was too complicated. Cameron put the rate up and Sunak may akso. The real rate is now over 60% for older properties. Government prefers banks to be landlords. A very expensive regulation is being applied to the private rental sector which will require additional insulation and heat pumps or solar panels. Many small landlords will be forced to sell up. There will be a very large tax grab and tenants will be forced into the hands of the banks, as per the Davos reset.
November 29, 2021
One bit of irony came up over the weekend from the MsM – the UK taxpayer is funding a boots on the ground charity to instruct those that wish to force their way into the UK illegally how to do it, what to expect and how to be rewarded. The Charity organisers of course get to reward themselves handsomely and help create business for the human trafficker’s – all with thanks to the support of the UK taxpayer
November 29, 2021
Afraid the consequences of spending a lot, is taxing a lot, the more you spend the more you need to raise in tax.
There is an old saying, a fool and his money are soon parted, unfortunately Boris has taken that step one further, and spent our money for us, indeed not so much spent, but p….d down the drain in many cases.
Aware that the pandemic has not helped matters, but there are plenty of many other examples, with Green Scheme type crap policies, and subsidies galore, the Foreign aid programme (50 years of failure)
If you are not taxed, then you are fined, just look at the so called Congestion & Emission charges, the range of VED Duty, Bridge and Tunnel tolls, the extension of VAT, Fiscal drag on all allowances, the list is endless and depressing.
November 29, 2021
Alan. Portsmouth is the latest city to introduce the stupid clean air tax on drivers. I only said to my husband this evening that it’s tax, tax, and more tax.
November 29, 2021
Agreed the problem is all of these so called zones all have different rules and charges, the more Towns and Cities that introduce these schemes, the more complicated it all gets, even the payment systems are different, add that to what is ok in one jurisdiction, fails in another, and you feel like giving up, which is probably the way they want it.
Portsmouth different to proposals in Southampton, which is different to London, which is different to Bath and so it goes on.
The UK has gone mad !
November 30, 2021
The extension of the ULEZ zone in London has produced an improvement in air quality which is just about measurable on a good day. The whole campaign is based on research in the USA which is disputed there and with different fuels and engines.
November 29, 2021
Omicron – “Every cloud …” “It’s an ill wind …”. Perhaps the BoE will get cold feet about increasing the interest rate in December?
November 29, 2021
Dear Sir John, I hope that you find kindred spirits in your party, or the next election will doom us all.The fate of the USA in the hands of unleashed lefties shows that my language contains no hyperbole…
November 29, 2021
Indeed so. I wonder what the latest covid scare will do to Sunak’s growth forecast?
November 29, 2021
Before talking about tax we need to sort out more pressing issues. But. I’m confused.
Do I open a window to let covid out so I dont die from a cold that the South African doctors say has mild symptoms ? or do I do what Boris wants us to keep our houses insulated and warm so I can save the planet don’t die from rising sea levels?
Perhaps I ought to simply vote for a political party that is not completely BONKERS.
November 29, 2021
I see it’s being reported in the papers today that Germany is actually sending migrants to France now in order to facilitate their journey to the UK. How jolly decent of them. I presume at this rate taxes will have to increase further to pay for them all?
November 29, 2021
Oh no!!
Johnson wants to ditch ‘Uman Rights and come up with a new Bill of ..um “Rights”.
Imagine that!
November 29, 2021
Like a well worn scratched record, we keep trotting out all the proper Conservative values and policies…. the lights may be on in Downing St, but is there anyone there listening, not of a lefty persuasion?
I would add to the tax U turns, the progressive nationalisation of the railways and latterly Bulb Energy, albeit claimed as a temporary solution… because successive governments haven’t sorted out UK energy security. The increase in IR35 rules effectively outlaws contractors in almost any company and treats them as employed without paid training, sick pay, holiday pay, pension contributions et al, but with all the employee & employer PAYE/NI if a limited company… a double whammy and patently unfair!
Finally on taking back control of our borders (mandated from the Referendum and last Election) it’s blatantly clear now the EU, Germany and France are operating in collusion, along quite similar lines as Russia/Belarus, to assist illegal migrants to make their way across Europe and dinghy their way from France to our shores. Imvho these illegals are de facto FRENCH migrants as they are already in a safe haven country if the EU elect to permit schengen travel to them… Omacron says it’s our problem – I agree – it’s up to us to stop them and if necessary push them back into the 6 mile limit of French waters…. Everytime we opt to rely on France, we are always left wanting. Ditto at the EU level. Why won’t Boris get tough?
November 29, 2021
Your analysis is spot on, Sir John, and yes, the chancellor is being completely illogical, both in theory (we know that lower taxes produce higher revenues) and in practice (the £50bn lower deficit). BUT, if you were completely honest with yourself, you would have to admit that YOUR actions too are completely illogical, in that you approved the second reading of the Finance Bill which you do not agree with and will probably vote in favour of it on Wednesday!!
Reply I voted against the National Insurance hike which they pre legislated.
November 29, 2021
Rather than increase taxes or cut spending I believe we need to re-introduce conscription.
Not military conscription as we had before but social conscription and for all young people.
They should be taken out of the clutches of the largely Marxist educational establishment, introduced to the real world, given training in valued skills and trades and usefully employed giving assistance wherever it is needed.
November 29, 2021
The Scottish child payment will increase to £20 per week from April, Nicola Sturgeon has announced.
The first minister said more than 100,000 children under the age of six would benefit from the payments. The Scottish government is aiming to expand the payment to all under-16s by the end of 2022, with more than 400,000 children and their families eligible.
Ms Sturgeon said the move was “the boldest and most ambitious anti-poverty measure anywhere in the UK”. She told the SNP conference that it would involve “hard choices elsewhere in our budget”, but said eradicating child poverty was “essential” to Scotland’s future.
Well Sunak – are you going to match it, or leave Scottish families better off than English?
November 29, 2021
It’s called State dependency politics. Make individuals dependent on the largesse of the political State thus affording the State huge leverage over peoples lives. It ain’t difficult to understand. It’s sinister and it rejects Thatcher’s culture of self-reliance and personal responsibility. Free-lunch fascism at its best
November 29, 2021
It is also a safety net when the State decides to punish the poorer citizens for the largesse of the richer,.
November 29, 2021
Apologies for not posting this yesterday, but here is an interesting statistic: If you take all the greenhouse gases combined (CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and the fluorinated gases) the UK is responsible for just 0.9% of global emissions (in 2018, the most recent figure I have) – less than the amount caused by China’s rice farming alone!
Yes, a little known fact is that rice farming is a major producer of methane, which is 25 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. A third of the world’s rice is produced in China, and rice farming alone is responsible for 12% of the world’s methane production and 3% of the world’s global warming (assuming this is caused by anthropogenic gases, as the greenies believe) – so China’s rice farmers alone produce more greenhouse gases than the whole of the UK! And that’s not even taking into acount the fact that rice farming also produces nitrous oxide – which is almost 300 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhous gas – but the statistics for that are less well known.
I wonder if this was even considered at FLOP26? The point is that the UK’s relevance to global warming – even if you believe this is caused by man – is so minuscule that all our sacrifices are utterly pointless. Boris is either a complete moron or clinically insane.
November 29, 2021
Johnson knows exactly what he is doing. He’s neither insane nor moronic, merely calculating. A deeply unpleasant character. He hides it well behind that buffoonish demeanour
Look around you and ask yourself, is this the UK we once we knew and loved? No. It’s been trashed from within and that trashing will continue until they have drove it into the Socialist abyss
I see the BBC has now become a pure bred political organisation that carries out Showtrials and denunciations ala Stalin.
We have all become Michael Vaughn. His denunciation applies to all those who share similar racial, gender and sexuality characteristics
These are indeed evil times
November 29, 2021
The late Labour MP Gerald Kaufman described his party’s 1983 election manifesto as “the longest suicide note in history”.
This accolade now goes to the Conservative Party’s “Net Zero Strategy” where there is no plan or costings on how to produce all the electrical energy required from renewables and the technology on how to deal with their intermittency with non-fossil fuel energy sources does not yet exist.
It remains to be seen whether this unilateral net zero implementation will be the suicide of the Conservative Party or of the whole country.
November 29, 2021
I understand that Whitehall wants the country to become another Cuba.
Problem is, apart from the damage to the economy, there is no point in the government taking over activities when it is not very active.
I mean most government departments I’ve dealt with can’t even answer a phone.
November 29, 2021
A government that issues its own currency has the fiscal and monetary policy space to spend enough to get the economy to full throttle and to set its interest rate target where it wants.
For a sovereign currency issuing nation, “affordability” is not an issue, it spends by crediting bank accounts with its own monopoly money, that are actually tax credits; something it can never run out of. If there is unemployed and underused resources, government can always afford to hire / buy them. Taxation has to be paid in the government’s own monopoly money, so practically everyone needs to get some of it. Any attempt to keep a budget deficit below some specific ratio to GDP is nonsense and needs the question to be asked; why are people saving the governments monopoly money and not spending it.
Likewise, there is no magic debt to GDP ratio other than one consistent with achieving the desired interest rate target. If governments needlessly issue debt to match spending, it may over reducing the reserves and cash in the economy below that which it needs to grow. The solution is for the treasury to stop selling bonds under its “full funding rule”; allowing the overnight base rate to fall, as banks obtain more reserves and the public gets more cash and hopefully the confidence to spend and/or invest it making stuff the world wants to buy.
If inflation appears in any part of the economy, and it will, the best way to stop the economic engine from overrevving is the fiscal brake pedal; VAT, not monetary central bank interest rates.
November 29, 2021
Speechless
November 29, 2021
So what went wrong in say, Zimbabwe where they tried all this ?
November 29, 2021
Off topic, maybe Boris Johnson will have to ask you to vote for a short Bill expressly confirming that you want the Act of Union 1800 to be amended:
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2021/11/30/news/court-of-appeal-hears-ni-protocol-challenge-2522261/
“Court of Appeal hears NI Protocol challenge”
November 30, 2021
I don’t know why you’re so against the NIP.
Most of the people of balanced mind, and certainly the businesses of NI are not.
As the IT write:
“The economy of Northern Ireland has largely recovered from the hit of the Covid-19, marking the best performance across all UK nations and regions, according to experimental official statistics that point to it prospering under the Northern Ireland protocol.
Economic output in Northern Ireland in the third quarter was only 0.3 per cent below that of the final quarter of 2019, before the pandemic, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics on Monday.
The region performed better than any other in the UK and surpassed the country’s overall economic recovery, which fell 2.1 per cent over the same period.”
I don’t suppose that the brexitians like objective evidence, that membership of the SM and CU are good things though.
November 29, 2021
Beresford above: £90.00o to the ‘migrants organise’ charity – They have a good website. I think we all realise by now the UK’s generosity knows no bounds. A news media article in September – easy to locate on line, reports a borough council offering to house four (recent arrivals ed) in four adjoining mews properties close to Portobello Road and its antiques market in west London. These are £1 million homes located in Britain’s richest borough which would ordinarily rent out privately for around £2,500 a month. Difficulties were anticipated in finding suitable homes as families large, also confirming that around 500 migrants had already been accepted, including Afghans and many others “fleeing the Syrian civil war” with up to that point many having been living in hotels for over 12 months while awaiting processing of asylum claims.
November 29, 2021
High taxes be damned -This conservative government once again clambering to close down Britain in the face of a virus variant which by all reports is no worse than a 24 hr sniffle
November 29, 2021
The Chancellor looks like a hostage of the Treasury to me. His final statement in the last budget statement gave us a desperate clue to what he would rather do if he were not held prisoner. Think about it: ten thousand powerful permanent remainiacs up against a handful of temporary, insecure ministers, just as at the Home Office.
The Treasury wants this government defeated and an EU friendly one put in its place. The best way for them to do that is to wreck the economy with high taxation which at the same time keeps us under the Maastricht rules and ready for return to the Bloc.
November 29, 2021
PS Is it possible to post your conversation with Dale?
Reply Not recorded
November 30, 2021
Rose, your last paragraph reflects what some others on here have intimated for quite some time now. At first I generously dismissed such suggestion, I’m not into conspiracy theories but increasingly I am of the same mind as it’s become so plain. What seems obvious & sensible to many on here far more economically literate than myself, is just allowed to lie there on the shelf gathering dust with nobody listening or daring to do anything with it. For fear of what or whom exactly ? ‘Radical’ has many interpretations but isn’t that what many are looking for in some measure from this government, certainly not what we are seeing to date.
November 29, 2021
Dear Mr Sunak
If you permit us to keep a higher % of what we make, we will be more inclined to work harder, to work longer hours, to work smarter and to be more entrepreneurial.
Don’t forget that VAT is a regressive tax. It affects the less well off more than it affects the rich because the less well off spend a greater proportion of their income.
Yours sincerely etc
November 29, 2021
All correct – but how exactly are you “urging the Chancellor”?
Since you are an MP, presumably you can have a conversation with him – what does he say when you ask him?
November 30, 2021
Well JR, it doesn’t really matter because your moronic government is continuing to DESTROY the economy for no good reason. Low or high tax doesn’t matter when there won’t be anything left to tax. Useless, pathetic, spineless, incompetent, cretinous government which should be terminated – completely beholden to CARD CARRYING COMMUNISTS.
How can you expect this cowardly, useless government to improve the economy when they are so ridiculously risk averse!!
Zorro
November 30, 2021
The Communist Party of Britain only has around 1,500 members, and I don’t know if they all carry their cards with them.
I doubt it.
November 30, 2021
They are under your bed NHL
Take a look.