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kalifire

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  On 1/15/2025 at 3:42 PM, steviewevie said:

Changing fiscal rules to allow much higher borrowing in the hope that will lead to growth is a pretty big gamble, especially after Truss. Having such a small headroom also a big gamble, and could argue so was increasing employer NI 

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I mean, the fiscal rules were made up self-imposed stuff by Brown's juniors when he was chancellor to try and convince the media that Labour weren't the same party as before and had economic credibility. They largely followed Keynesian theory and were fairly suitable for economic understanding of the late 90s/early 00s. They were due for a change because economics, both in theoretical understanding and in the nature of globalisation and how the world clearly functions have moved on. Hell, allowing higher borrowing for investment only isn't even moving away from Keynesian economic theories.

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  On 1/15/2025 at 4:42 PM, steviewevie said:

and maybe you don't think it's left wing or radical enough...because it never is right? But increasing minimum wage and new workers rights, pay deals for public sector workers,  £40bn tax rises on businesses and wealth to spend on NHS. and then increasing borrowing to invest in infrastructure, buildings, industry...is kind of old labour. Not sure what you want, nationalise everything and UBI and co-op farms? Could argue it may well have been too dramatic and it's going to f**k us up.

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I didn't want a radical budget this time. I wanted something along these lines (+ removing the child benefit cap). Boring and stable is good when the media are trying to create panic about Labour's economic credibility. Hence why I'm saying I don't think it was a gamble, and I don't think there's a reason to care about the "pressure" she's supposedly under.

 

I'd like a radical budget from Labour in the future. The only nationalisation that I want to see them commit to that they haven't is the water companies, and that's basically by saying "if you can't handle the infrastructure while maintaining water cleanliness, we'll reclaim it and screw your shareholders". It's not even more left-wing than Rees-Mogg's attitude to them!

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  On 1/16/2025 at 12:26 AM, kaosmark2 said:

I didn't want a radical budget this time. I wanted something along these lines (+ removing the child benefit cap). Boring and stable is good when the media are trying to create panic about Labour's economic credibility. Hence why I'm saying I don't think it was a gamble, and I don't think there's a reason to care about the "pressure" she's supposedly under.

 

I'd like a radical budget from Labour in the future. The only nationalisation that I want to see them commit to that they haven't is the water companies, and that's basically by saying "if you can't handle the infrastructure while maintaining water cleanliness, we'll reclaim it and screw your shareholders". It's not even more left-wing than Rees-Mogg's attitude to them!

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It wasn't boring and stable though...it was a massive load of more borrowing in hope that forecasts would show positive growth and markets would be ok with it, if markets had done what they did with Truss it would have been over for Reeves and her budget pretty quickly. That is the big gamble. In the end the markets didn't react too much until recently, but growth forecasts aren't great, and looks like she will have to cut more or tax more and labour could well lose the next election now.

I wish she'd gone further with reforming taxes, sort out council tax, sort out housing taxes, sort out income taxes. Actually I wish she'd just stop f**king about and just put up income tax and use extra money for all public spending, not just NHS...but then she'd definitely lose labour the next election.

Any radical budget in the future will depend on countries finances, so don't think it's going to happen. Infact because they have got off to such a bad start I think they're already worrying about next election and not what is actually good for country long term.

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  On 1/16/2025 at 12:26 AM, kaosmark2 said:

 (+ removing the child benefit cap). 

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Without wanting to sound pedantic, there is no cap on child benefit. The cap relates to premiums attached to universal credit and/or tax credits. I suspect Labour will remove it over the term of this parliament, probably through a series of adjustments. There is a link to the ‘make work pay’ agenda though so things like increasing the minimum wage also helps with this as does having a high wage growing economy. 

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  On 1/16/2025 at 12:55 PM, Blisterpack said:

Without wanting to sound pedantic, there is no cap on child benefit. The cap relates to premiums attached to universal credit and/or tax credits. I suspect Labour will remove it over the term of this parliament, probably through a series of adjustments. There is a link to the ‘make work pay’ agenda though so things like increasing the minimum wage also helps with this as does having a high wage growing economy. 

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I am aware, but it's valid pedantry. "child benefit cap" is the buzzword phrase that sums up the fairly complex web of the benefits system (including tax credits which are a benefit). I mentioned it in the simple form because most people understand the principle of what I'm getting at, even if they don't know the nuance.

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  On 1/16/2025 at 7:04 AM, steviewevie said:

It wasn't boring and stable though...it was a massive load of more borrowing in hope that forecasts would show positive growth and markets would be ok with it, if markets had done what they did with Truss it would have been over for Reeves and her budget pretty quickly. That is the big gamble. In the end the markets didn't react too much until recently, but growth forecasts aren't great, and looks like she will have to cut more or tax more and labour could well lose the next election now.

I wish she'd gone further with reforming taxes, sort out council tax, sort out housing taxes, sort out income taxes. Actually I wish she'd just stop f**king about and just put up income tax and use extra money for all public spending, not just NHS...but then she'd definitely lose labour the next election.

Any radical budget in the future will depend on countries finances, so don't think it's going to happen. Infact because they have got off to such a bad start I think they're already worrying about next election and not what is actually good for country long term.

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I don't think the markets ever were going to react like they did with Truss though. Most of the borrowing was towards setting up "Great British Energy" and for infrastructure projects, where the investment is started by the government and done with support from big private sector investmentment firms, which aren't things that spook the markets. Investment projects tend to generate growth/tax revenue at some point, so there was never going to be a completely terrified reaction.

 

So I hope that at least some of these "gone further" she/Labour will do within this parliament. Council tax was never going to happen that early because it's so messy and complex, but I agree it needs massive reform. I also agree that putting up income tax should happen at some point.

 

Basically, I think anything radical was never going to happen in a first post-election budget, particularly as most of the time spent in government before then had been attempting to dig information out of the civil service first. A lot of the more complex tax reforms I'd love to see aren't even possible without more work done first. The only simple one is income tax, but as you say, it's an instant political loss next election.

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I think the nuance is important though. Child benefit is paid to millions of people in respect of more than two children, whereas the actual cap affects about 200,000 families and that figure is reducing each year owing to smaller family sizes, increases in pay etc.  I do think labour will address it though, via a combination of increased minimum wage and a relaxation of the limit. Don’t forget, the majority of people getting these credits/benefits are actually in work. 

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  On 1/16/2025 at 5:16 PM, Blisterpack said:

I think the nuance is important though. Child benefit is paid to millions of people in respect of more than two children, whereas the actual cap affects about 200,000 families and that figure is reducing each year owing to smaller family sizes, increases in pay etc.  I do think labour will address it though, via a combination of increased minimum wage and a relaxation of the limit. Don’t forget, the majority of people getting these credits/benefits are actually in work. 

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Yep absolutely the nuance is important. It just wasn't what I was focusing on expressing in the initial post.

 

I think they'll address it at some point as well. The quesiton is basically can they do it in a way where it won't be spinned as a u-turn.

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  On 1/16/2025 at 5:45 PM, kaosmark2 said:

Yep absolutely the nuance is important. It just wasn't what I was focusing on expressing in the initial post.

 

I think they'll address it at some point as well. The quesiton is basically can they do it in a way where it won't be spinned as a u-turn.

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not really a u-turn as wasn't their policy initially...they just said they would keep it for now.

 

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  On 1/19/2025 at 6:36 PM, Skip997 said:

People being arrested/cautioned/interviewed for walking through London.

 

We’re on a very slippery slope here folks and sadly 99% of people either haven’t noticed or are actively in support of such. 

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I got arrested/cautioned/interviewed whilst walking through london with a massive joint once.

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