news & politics:discussion

[dingbat2]

2 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Yes that’s exactly what a stealth tax. Something Hunt conveniently didn’t mention in his Statement and basically means that in the longer term people will feel no benefit of the NI cut and public services will get less funding. Tories (and their supporters) will try to claim that’s not the case because they don’t want people to see through them. 

To be fair, Labour would have done the same. No party would admit to increasing the tax burden on everyone to fund future social care, pensions, public services. It just wouldn't win votes so best to try and hide it, or leave it for the next lot to sort out out. I didn't see any labour politician come out after the Autumn statement and say they would intend to increase the net tax rate if they come into power, they just dodge the question. They are all as bad as each other

[cellar]

4 minutes ago, dingbat2 said:

To be fair, Labour would have done the same. No party would admit to increasing the tax burden on everyone to fund future social care, pensions, public services. It just wouldn't win votes so best to try and hide it, or leave it for the next lot to sort out out. I didn't see any labour politician come out after the Autumn statement and say they would intend to increase the net tax rate if they come into power, they just dodge the question. They are all as bad as each other

Stealth tax was actually first used against Labour I think. But yeah, freezing income tax thresholds is the best example of a stealth tax I think, as there's no explicit change in the tax (or the threshold), but due to inflation the static threshold results in an impact to real living wages.

Haven't had much chance to read through the OBR report today, but seems fairly positive from the exec summary. Higher growth than expected this year, lots of of the new forecasts looking more positive (inflation being an exception, but looks like there will be some interesting discussion on that in the report).

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, dingbat2 said:

To be fair, Labour would have done the same. No party would admit to increasing the tax burden on everyone to fund future social care, pensions, public services. It just wouldn't win votes so best to try and hide it, or leave it for the next lot to sort out out. I didn't see any labour politician come out after the Autumn statement and say they would intend to increase the net tax rate if they come into power, they just dodge the question. They are all as bad as each other

True they would and have done but Labour don’t claim to be the party of low tax and aren’t claiming to be giving us the biggest tax cuts in history 😉

[dingbat2]

They are also shooting themselves in the foot a bit as well. Most of the media is reporting the NI decrease but then referring to the overall tax burden going up. So all the questions over the next few days will be about the overall tax burden going up, not the drop in NI. They will come across as (even more) disingenuous than they already were!

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, dingbat2 said:

They are also shooting themselves in the foot a bit as well. Most of the media is reporting the NI decrease but then referring to the overall tax burden going up. So all the questions over the next few days will be about the overall tax burden going up, not the drop in NI. They will come across as (even more) disingenuous than they already were!

Rishi Sunak is just bad at politics and doesn’t get optics at all, you could’ve predicted the Statement would fall apart within hours.

As you say people are already pointing out our tax burden will go up and highlighting that the OBR has re-forecasted growth down over the next few years!

[Neil]

59 minutes ago, Rufus Gwertigan said:

I must admit to feeling more than a little worried. I get the LCWA enhancement. At best I can semi function and at worst I have panic attacks, hear voices and self harm. If working from home is an option I am up for that but doing what? I am definitely not tech savvy so will I be filling envelopes?

 

On a brighter note. We have the keys to our housing association place. On Monday we get a delivery of beds and white goods through s resettlement grant. The place is on the 3rd floor which will be a challenge but the location is right near Withington library. Happy as Larry 🙂

glad you're sorted with a new place, i'm a step forwards towards a new place today after i found a social services person who isn't scared of doing some work.

[cellar]

14 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

As you say people are already pointing out our tax burden will go up and highlighting that the OBR has re-forecasted growth down over the next few years!

As far as I could see from exec summary, only the rate was forecast down - overall Real GDP ends up higher in this forecast (because we're starting at a higher point than previously forecast). Unless I've misunderstood or there's something else further down in the report?

But yes overall tax burden the highest post-war burden is a big headline. 

[steviewevie]

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, cellar said:

As far as I could see from exec summary, only the rate was forecast down - overall Real GDP ends up higher in this forecast (because we're starting at a higher point than previously forecast). Unless I've misunderstood or there's something else further down in the report?

But yes overall tax burden the highest post-war burden is a big headline. 

This is what I’m talking about, they have re-forecast GDP growth lower than their previous forecast back in March. 

[cellar]

29 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

This is what I’m talking about, they have re-forecast GDP growth lower than their previous forecast back in March. 

Ah yes, so that's just the rate of growth - overall Real GDP ends up higher in this forecast (Chart 1.2 in the report, just after point 1.7 in exec summary, where they talk about the growth figures in the chart you posted).

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, cellar said:

Ah yes, so that's just the rate of growth - overall Real GDP ends up higher in this forecast (Chart 1.2 in the report, just after point 1.7 in exec summary, where they talk about the growth figures in the chart you posted).

GDP growth will be slower than forecast back in March over the next 5 years but starting from a higher level in their forecast now, leaving real output half a percent higher in 2029 than originally forecast. GDP growth has still been revised down.

[steviewevie]

holy sh*t.

 

[steviewevie]

far right on the rise everywhere.

[steviewevie]

Even worse...

Daryl Hall has taken out a restraining order against John Oates.

[cellar]

1 hour ago, Ozanne said:

GDP growth will be slower than forecast back in March over the next 5 years but starting from a higher level in their forecast now, leaving real output half a percent higher in 2029 than originally forecast. GDP growth has still been revised down.

Yeah, because we had better than anticipated growth this year. Its a more positive forecast than March.

Will hopefully read in full tomorrow, but already seen the snippets about RHDI and big drops in borrowing. Economically, it's better news than I expected.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, cellar said:

Yeah, because we had better than anticipated growth this year. Its a more positive forecast than March.

Will hopefully read in full tomorrow, but already seen the snippets about RHDI and big drops in borrowing. Economically, it's better news than I expected.

No it isn’t. The Tories are now overseeing raising taxes to highest levels, downgrading GDP growth, cutting public services and overseeing the biggest fall in living standards since records began. Thats not good regardless of a .5% higher GDP by 2029 than forecast back in March. 

[cellar]

7 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

No it isn’t. The Tories are now overseeing raising taxes to highest levels, downgrading GDP growth, cutting public services and overseeing the biggest fall in living standards since records began. Thats not good regardless of a .5% higher GDP by 2029 than forecast back in March. 

Have you read it? I can only assume you haven't, because the very first sentence is about how our economy has proved more resilient to the shocks of covid and the energy crisis than anticipated. That's good news, and is much less doom and gloom than the March forecast. As I mentioned, another big positive is around RHDI, which is now forecast to reach its pre-pandemic levels in 27-28, which wasn't even in the March forecast. All of this is in the exec summary.

Also the OBR report is about more than the government, you might be more objective if you tried to approach it a bit more agnostically. It doesn't always have to be about which team you support - there's plenty of factual (and interesting, in my opinion) information in the report to discuss if you chose to read it.

[steviewevie]

[steviewevie]

41 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

No it isn’t. The Tories are now overseeing raising taxes to highest levels, downgrading GDP growth, cutting public services and overseeing the biggest fall in living standards since records began. Thats not good regardless of a .5% higher GDP by 2029 than forecast back in March. 

Yep.

 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, cellar said:

Have you read it? I can only assume you haven't, because the very first sentence is about how our economy has proved more resilient to the shocks of covid and the energy crisis than anticipated. That's good news, and is much less doom and gloom than the March forecast. As I mentioned, another big positive is around RHDI, which is now forecast to reach its pre-pandemic levels in 27-28, which wasn't even in the March forecast. All of this is in the exec summary.

Also the OBR report is about more than the government, you might be more objective if you tried to approach it a bit more agnostically. It doesn't always have to be about which team you support - there's plenty of factual (and interesting, in my opinion) information in the report to discuss if you chose to read it.

Since March they’ve literally downgraded GDP forecasts, increased inflation forecasts, forecast higher interests rates for longer and forecast a higher tax burden on top of the other things I mentioned. None of this is a good and a more resilient economy doesn’t exactly make it easier to for families to pay the bills. If you want to celebrate .5% higher GDP in 5 years then go for it but that doesn’t look like a good picture to me  

 

[steviewevie]

Inflation forecast to be higher for longer too...

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Yep.

 

Indeed. This is the growth that Hunt and the Tories were crowing about earlier. Dreadful. 

[steviewevie]

And they've done some tax cuts now to win an election and put off subsequent spending cuts till next parliament. Shitheads.

[cellar]

1 minute ago, Ozanne said:

Since March they’ve literally downgraded GDP forecasts, increased inflation forecasts, forecast higher interests rates for longer and forecast a higher tax burden on top of the other things I mentioned. None of this is a good and a more resilient economy doesn’t exactly make it easier to for families to pay the bills. If you want to celebrate .5% higher GDP in 5 years then go for it but that doesn’t look like a good picture to me  

 

So you haven't read it, then. One of the earliest things mentioned as well is that there have been revisions - up - to historical ONS data that have fed into these revised figures. These revisions likely have a lot to do with why this is a more positive report.

They haven't "literally downgraded GDP forecasts." They've downgraded the rate of growth. But as noted at the end of 2.28: "However, the level of real GDP is slightly higher in 2027 than 
in March as the weaker growth forecast only partly offsets the upward revisions to historical 
GDP data (see Chart 2.8)"

Yes the tax burden will be the highest its been - if I were to get into my own personal feelings, I would say that I think that the tax burden should be lowered for poorer people, and CGT should be raised. I've said that many times in this thread, you know that. 

I've yet to read the detail on RHDI, but how can you say that this is not an important - and positive - difference from the March forecast?

It just feels like you want to find any reason to be miserable, maybe to use it as a reason to take a pop at the Tories (even though a lot of this report discusses the multitude of factors at play). So if you want to do that, go for it - but at least read it first, eh? 

[Guest]

53 minutes ago, cellar said:

Have you read it? I can only assume you haven't, because the very first sentence is about how our economy has proved more resilient to the shocks of covid and the energy crisis than anticipated. That's good news, and is much less doom and gloom than the March forecast. As I mentioned, another big positive is around RHDI, which is now forecast to reach its pre-pandemic levels in 27-28, which wasn't even in the March forecast. All of this is in the exec summary.

Also the OBR report is about more than the government, you might be more objective if you tried to approach it a bit more agnostically. It doesn't always have to be about which team you support - there's plenty of factual (and interesting, in my opinion) information in the report to discuss if you chose to read it.

Of course he hasn't read it. Anything even vaguely pro Tory or anti Labour is ignored.  Of course anything even vaguely pro Labour is taken as gospel. \

Completely obsessed poor thing.