John McDonnell was again unable to say how much Labour’s spending plans would cost Britain in two further shambolic interviews this morning. Asked on both the Today programme and 5 Live how much extra would be spent on servicing government debt under Labour, a rattled McDonnell was eight times unable to give a figure. He snapped:
“This is a trite form of journalism, that’s why we have iPads and advisors… It’s minimal… I’m telling you, it pays for itself, it pays for itself.”
I heard that interview with Rachel Burden and he really was lost. He became aggressive as he was unable to give an answer anywhere near credible to Rachel's reasonable question.
He is being rumbled
And he is supposed to be the brains of the deadly duo....come back Eddie spheriods all is forgiven! You can say a lot about the cooper-balls, but thick ain’t one of them.
Didn't hear the Humphries Hammond interview this morning. Did hear Macca telling Mishal Husain not top worry her pretty little head about debt servicing. He didn't of course know how much his spending plans would cost.
Is that really what Lab supporters are happy with these days?
McDonnell interviews on BBC last night and 5 live this morning were really poor and he all but lost it on BBC last night.
Coupled with Corbyn's angry shouty budget response yesterday it is beginning to reveal just how poor the last election was in forensic examination of their so called fully costed manifesto and how they get agitated once serious questions are asked of them
I was really concerned before the budget but to be fair to Hammond he played his difficult hand well and the most pathetic response from the broadcast media over the stamp duty change for first time buyers shows that there is little to unravel this time.
The warnings on growth and productivity were stark but perversely this could be a positive for May and Hammond as the Country will not be attracted by policies of excessive borrowings and tax rises put forward by labour.
A week is a long time in politics but who would have thought that in that week we would see Merkel barely hanging on in Germany and May and Hammond looking much more stable and to an extent in control
With five more years of public spending and falling living standards to come (and that's if we end up with a Brexit deal), it really doesn't matter what McDonnell says. People's day to day experiences will be what count.
But do they believe McDonnell and his policies will make them any better off? Tempered with a risk that he will actually make them worse off - by, for example, losing them their job. It will certainly be a topsy-turvy world where the Tories get to play the unemloyment card....
My guess is that the next GE will produce a result pretty much like this one, with Labour maybe making a few gains overall but the Tories remaining the biggest single party. I expect labour to win the election after that by a landslide.
It will likely produce a hung parliament and a Labour minority government at present even if the Tories win most seats. A few years of a Corbyn government post Brexit could then produce a Tory landslide rather than a Labour one.
To get a Labour landslide you probably need a Tory small majority next time and a charismatic Labour moderate to replace Corbyn.
Ed Balls back in a bye-election about a year before the GE?
John McDonnell was again unable to say how much Labour’s spending plans would cost Britain in two further shambolic interviews this morning. Asked on both the Today programme and 5 Live how much extra would be spent on servicing government debt under Labour, a rattled McDonnell was eight times unable to give a figure. He snapped:
“This is a trite form of journalism, that’s why we have iPads and advisors… It’s minimal… I’m telling you, it pays for itself, it pays for itself.”
I heard that interview with Rachel Burden and he really was lost. He became aggressive as he was unable to give an answer anywhere near credible to Rachel's reasonable question.
He is being rumbled
Why wasn't his video of him telling the comrades that if he couldn't win by fair he would win by foul, used in the GE campaign>?~
Didn't hear the Humphries Hammond interview this morning. Did hear Macca telling Mishal Husain not top worry her pretty little head about debt servicing. He didn't of course know how much his spending plans would cost.
Is that really what Lab supporters are happy with these days?
McDonnell interviews on BBC last night and 5 live this morning were really poor and he all but lost it on BBC last night.
Coupled with Corbyn's angry shouty budget response yesterday it is beginning to reveal just how poor the last election was in forensic examination of their so called fully costed manifesto and how they get agitated once serious questions are asked of them
I was really concerned before the budget but to be fair to Hammond he played his difficult hand well and the most pathetic response from the broadcast media over the stamp duty change for first time buyers shows that there is little to unravel this time.
The warnings on growth and productivity were stark but perversely this could
With five more years of public spending and falling living standards to come (and that's if we end up with a Brexit deal), it really doesn't matter what McDonnell says. People's day to day experiences will be what count.
But do they believe McDonnell and his policies will make them any better off? Tempered with a risk that he will actually make them worse off - by, for example, losing them their job. It will certainly be a topsy-turvy world where the Tories get to play the unemloyment card....
My guess is that the next GE will produce a result pretty much like this one, with Labour maybe making a few gains overall but the Tories remaining the biggest single party. I expect labour to win the election after that by a landslide.
It will likely produce a hung parliament and a Labour minority government at present even if the Tories win most seats. A few years of a Corbyn government post Brexit could then produce a Tory landslide rather than a Labour one.
To get a Labour landslide you probably need a Tory small majority next time and a charismatic Labour moderate to replace Corbyn.
Ed Balls back in a bye-election about a year before the GE?
The same Ed Balls who could not even beat Ed Miliband to become Labour leader let alone Corbyn?
I was struck by how chipper the PM seemed yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder if behind the scenes we are a lot closer to an exit deal than all the bluff and bluster suggests.
An exit from Brexit deal with the cabinet.
I didn't get the chance yesterday to follow up on Brexit and Ireland and the reason why both the UK and the EU acting in Ireland's interests should focus on the transition in A50 talks, rather than the eventual trade deal. Ireland desperately wants Soft Brexit, possibly enough to reject a Hard Brexit deal*. The UK is incoherent in its demands, but what it really wants is continuity - for nothing significant to change as it exits from the EU. For a period of time a "transition", in practice an extension, gives both sides what they want most.
Of course we need be seen to be moving towards an end goal, so the Withdrawal Agreement will talk about new relationships. It might include a UK commitment to practical steps to ensure a relatively soft border. The Irish would be allowed a say over those steps before any final deal is agreed. At some point those contradictions will need to be resolved but that's for later, after we have Brexited and after the "transition" has started.
Canada does not count as hard Brexit. A FTA is not hard Brexit to anyone but the most diehard Remainer for whom staying in the single market and leaving free movement in place is sacrosanct
An FTA is a Hard Brexit to the Irish and was a Hard Brexit to the Leave Campaign before they moved the goalposts after winning the referendum. It results in a newly hard border between north and south Ireland when it was soft before. I'm OK with referring to it as Hard Brexit. Definitions need to be useful.
There already is a border between North and South Ireland as neither the UK nor Republic are in Schengen and so you need a passport to enter both. A FTA which largely avoids tariffs between North and South is not hard Brexit
And if that is the way the British government is addressing the issue of the border, no wonder it is getting absolutely nowhere.
Its because no matter what their stance on anything, no one believes the LDs anymore after 2010, and people feel that to get power, the LDs would vote with the Tories.
They would have backed Labour if a) the terms had been right b) Brown hadn’t made such a Horlicks of negotiations c) the Parliamentary arithmetic had been credible.
John McDonnell was again unable to say how much Labour’s spending plans would cost Britain in two further shambolic interviews this morning. Asked on both the Today programme and 5 Live how much extra would be spent on servicing government debt under Labour, a rattled McDonnell was eight times unable to give a figure. He snapped:
“This is a trite form of journalism, that’s why we have iPads and advisors… It’s minimal… I’m telling you, it pays for itself, it pays for itself.”
I heard that interview with Rachel Burden and he really was lost. He became aggressive as he was unable to give an answer anywhere near credible to Rachel's reasonable question.
He is being rumbled
Why wasn't his video of him telling the comrades that if he couldn't win by fair he would win by foul, used in the GE campaign>?~
This last few days have shown how poor Corbyn and McDonnell really are on the economy and just endorses the view that the Conservative GE campaign was so bad in so many ways that a half decent campaign would have seen Corbyn and McDonnell defeated and possibly a move in labour to rid itself of it's militant tendency
I was struck by how chipper the PM seemed yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder if behind the scenes we are a lot closer to an exit deal than all the bluff and bluster suggests.
An exit from Brexit deal with the cabinet.
I didn't get the chance yesterday to follow up on Brexit and Ireland and the reason why both the UK and the EU acting in Ireland's interests should focus on the transition in A50 talks, rather than the eventual trade deal. Ireland desperately wants Soft Brexit, possibly enough to reject a Hard Brexit deal*. The UK is incoherent in its demands, but what it really wants is continuity - for nothing significant to change as it exits from the EU. For a period of time a "transition", in practice an extension, gives both sides what they want most.
Of course we need be seen to be moving towards an end goal, so the Withdrawal Agreement will talk about new relationships. It might include a UK commitment to practical steps to ensure a relatively soft border. The Irish would be allowed a say over those steps before any final deal is agreed. At some point those contradictions will need to be resolved but that's for later, after we have Brexited and after the "transition" has started.
Canada does not count as hard Brexit. A FTA is not hard Brexit to anyone but the most diehard Remainer for whom staying in the single market and leaving free movement in place is sacrosanct
An FTA is a Hard Brexit to the Irish and was a Hard Brexit to the Leave Campaign before they moved the goalposts after winning the referendum. It results in a newly hard border between north and south Ireland when it was soft before. I'm OK with referring to it as Hard Brexit. Definitions need to be useful.
There already is a border between North and South Ireland as neither the UK nor Republic are in Schengen and so you need a passport to enter both. A FTA which largely avoids tariffs between North and South is not hard Brexit
And if that is the way the British government is addressing the issue of the border, no wonder it is getting absolutely nowhere.
It is a perfectly reasonable position from the British government it is Varadkar who just has to make a few noises before the next Irish general election over the border to see off Sinn Fein, like May he is ultimately a pragmatist really.
i thought another own goal with personal allowance increases.
£70 for the MANY
5 times that for the FEW
Will they never learn.
On Topic LDs irrelevant
A genuine question - £70 for the many on personal allowance I can understand but how 5 times for the few
40p rate rise in personal tax allowance benefits higher ratepayers by £340 a year
And the Few - additional rate payers - get nothing
Do they really need anything more ?
No - but there is a psychological issue of not having equal treatment (as well as the additional complexity).
Personally I would increase the 45% rate to 47% (=49% including NICs) and then give them back the personal allowance. I haven't done the math but should make it revenue neutral. There is a pretty hard threshold (perceived fairness) of the government taking more than 50% in total
Didn't hear the Humphries Hammond interview this morning. Did hear Macca telling Mishal Husain not top worry her pretty little head about debt servicing. He didn't of course know how much his spending plans would cost.
Is that really what Lab supporters are happy with these days?
McDonnell interviews on BBC last night and 5 live this morning were really poor and he all but lost it on BBC last night.
Coupled with Corbyn's angry shouty budget response yesterday it is beginning to reveal just how poor the last election was in forensic examination of their so called fully costed manifesto and how they get agitated once serious questions are asked of them
I was really concerned before the budget but to be fair to Hammond he played his difficult hand well and the most pathetic response from the broadcast media over the stamp duty change for first time buyers shows that there is little to unravel this time.
The warnings on growth and productivity were stark but perversely this could
With five more years of public spending and falling living standards to come (and that's if we end up with a Brexit deal), it really doesn't matter what McDonnell says. People's day to day experiences will be what count.
But do they believe McDonnell and his policies will make them any better off? Tempered with a risk that he will actually make them worse off - by, for example, losing them their job. It will certainly be a topsy-turvy world where the Tories get to play the unemloyment card....
My guess is that the next GE will produce a result pretty much like this one, with Labour maybe making a few gains overall but the Tories remaining the biggest single party. I expect labour to win the election after that by a landslide.
It will likely produce a hung parliament and a Labour minority government at present even if the Tories win most seats. A few years of a Corbyn government post Brexit could then produce a Tory landslide rather than a Labour one.
To get a Labour landslide you probably need a Tory small majority next time and a charismatic Labour moderate to replace Corbyn.
Ed Balls back in a bye-election about a year before the GE?
The same Ed Balls who could not even beat Ed Miliband to become Labour leader let alone Corbyn?
You haven’t noticed the support, and it seems to me sympathy, he’s been getting recently in his ‘outside Parliament’ activities.
And, IIRC, he didn’t, indeed couldn’t, stand against Corbyn.
i thought another own goal with personal allowance increases.
£70 for the MANY
5 times that for the FEW
Will they never learn.
On Topic LDs irrelevant
A genuine question - £70 for the many on personal allowance I can understand but how 5 times for the few
40p rate rise in personal tax allowance benefits higher ratepayers by £340 a year
And the Few - additional rate payers - get nothing
Do they really need anything more ?
No - but there is a psychological issue of not having equal treatment (as well as the additional complexity).
Personally I would increase the 45% rate to 47% (=49% including NICs) and then give them back the personal allowance. I haven't done the math but should make it revenue neutral. There is a pretty hard threshold (perceived fairness) of the government taking more than 50% in total
I think that would be fair - the marginal tax take at 100-110k (I think it was !) is over 50% from memory.
John McDonnell was again unable to say how much Labour’s spending plans would cost Britain in two further shambolic interviews this morning. Asked on both the Today programme and 5 Live how much extra would be spent on servicing government debt under Labour, a rattled McDonnell was eight times unable to give a figure. He snapped:
“This is a trite form of journalism, that’s why we have iPads and advisors… It’s minimal… I’m telling you, it pays for itself, it pays for itself.”
I heard that interview with Rachel Burden and he really was lost. He became aggressive as he was unable to give an answer anywhere near credible to Rachel's reasonable question.
He is being rumbled
Why wasn't his video of him telling the comrades that if he couldn't win by fair he would win by foul, used in the GE campaign>?~
This last few days have shown how poor Corbyn and McDonnell really are on the economy and just endorses the view that the Conservative GE campaign was so bad in so many ways that a half decent campaign would have seen Corbyn and McDonnell defeated and possibly a move in labour to rid itself of it's militant tendency
I thoiught Corbyn was awful in his reply to Hammond yesterday. As others have said, shouty. Calm and ‘reasonable’ would have suited the occasion better.
The final paragraph: If he truly is reconciled to increasing investment in infrastructure, a strategic role for the state in the economy, and the need for government to intervene where necessary, this Budget may even be a turning point. Let us hope it really is a Damascene conversion, and not a cynical act of self-preservation.
One does wonder if there's something personal between Timothy and Hammond.
Nick Timothy carries grudges and could start a row in an empty house.
Plus the general election result and campaign proved Hammond right about Nick Timothy and it boils the piss of Nick Timothy.
i thought another own goal with personal allowance increases.
£70 for the MANY
5 times that for the FEW
Will they never learn.
On Topic LDs irrelevant
A genuine question - £70 for the many on personal allowance I can understand but how 5 times for the few
40p rate rise in personal tax allowance benefits higher ratepayers by £340 a year
And the Few - additional rate payers - get nothing
Do they really need anything more ?
No - but there is a psychological issue of not having equal treatment (as well as the additional complexity).
Personally I would increase the 45% rate to 47% (=49% including NICs) and then give them back the personal allowance. I haven't done the math but should make it revenue neutral. There is a pretty hard threshold (perceived fairness) of the government taking more than 50% in total
I think that would be fair - the marginal tax take at 100-110k (I think it was !) is over 50% from memory.
100-120 it's about 60% due to the tapered removal of the personal allowance.
i thought another own goal with personal allowance increases.
£70 for the MANY
5 times that for the FEW
Will they never learn.
On Topic LDs irrelevant
A genuine question - £70 for the many on personal allowance I can understand but how 5 times for the few
40p rate rise in personal tax allowance benefits higher ratepayers by £340 a year
And the Few - additional rate payers - get nothing
Do they really need anything more ?
No - but there is a psychological issue of not having equal treatment (as well as the additional complexity).
Personally I would increase the 45% rate to 47% (=49% including NICs) and then give them back the personal allowance. I haven't done the math but should make it revenue neutral. There is a pretty hard threshold (perceived fairness) of the government taking more than 50% in total
I think that would be fair - the marginal tax take at 100-110k (I think it was !) is over 50% from memory.
i thought another own goal with personal allowance increases.
£70 for the MANY
5 times that for the FEW
Will they never learn.
On Topic LDs irrelevant
A genuine question - £70 for the many on personal allowance I can understand but how 5 times for the few
40p rate rise in personal tax allowance benefits higher ratepayers by £340 a year
And the Few - additional rate payers - get nothing
Do they really need anything more ?
No - but there is a psychological issue of not having equal treatment (as well as the additional complexity).
Personally I would increase the 45% rate to 47% (=49% including NICs) and then give them back the personal allowance. I haven't done the math but should make it revenue neutral. There is a pretty hard threshold (perceived fairness) of the government taking more than 50% in total
I think that would be fair - the marginal tax take at 100-110k (I think it was !) is over 50% from memory.
Yes - it's the allowance withdrawal that does that
It was not just the support of students they lost. But having u-turned on their most prominent commitment the LibDems looked like they would say anything and do anything to get into power. Trust gone overnight.
Hopeless to position themselves as a brake on the Tories after that. No amount of Sorry videos would make a difference.
Tragic. They are done.
I think medium to long term, post-Cable, they are in a good position.
Firstly, they need to gt a new leader before the next election. As there is some uncertainty on when that election may be, it should be sooner rather than later. But - they can't. They are probably going to lose Westmoreland when Farron quits at the next election. They will lose Twickenham if Vince goes. They are on the back foot - whether or not any boundary changes get made. And they have a really, really limited gene pool in Westminter from which to choose Vince's replacement.
Secondly, they need some policies. But that requires the new leader in place to steer the policies he* wants to fight the next election on. If Corbyn is still leading Labour, it could allow them to plug the idea of being the Sensible Left, contrasting Corbyn's crazies with their own measured approach to change.
Thirdly, they need a new trick to get noticed. At the moment, they look like a magician who is at the end of the pier show, playing to four people sheltering from a summer squall - and who all know how the trick works.
* or she
From the perspective of being known, Jo Swinson would be the leading lady from their MPs - but didn't she decline to enter the leadership fray "for now"? Depends when now ends, I guess. Are any of the other three LibDem women MPs realistic candidates for leader? I'd assumed not, but would be interested to know.
I guess any of them are better than odious Ed Davey.
Currently she’s Deputy Leader, so on pole to take over.
I may be misremembering, but fairly sure Vince said when he ran that he intends to stand down in 2-3 years - presumably for Jo.
I was struck by how chipper the PM seemed yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder if behind the scenes we are a lot closer to an exit deal than all the bluff and bluster suggests.
An exit from Brexit deal with the cabinet.
I didn't get the chance yesterday to follow up on Brexit and Ireland and the reason why both the UK and the EU acting in Ireland's interests should focus on the transition in A50 talks, rather than the eventual trade deal. Ireland desperately wants Soft Brexit, possibly enough to reject a Hard Brexit deal*. The UK is incoherent in its demands, but what it really wants is continuity - for nothing significant to change as it exits from the EU. For a period of time a "transition", in practice an extension, gives both sides what they want most.
Of course we need be seen to be moving towards an end goal, so the Withdrawal Agreement will talk about new relationships. It might include a UK commitment to practical steps to ensure a relatively soft border. The Irish would be allowed a say over those steps before any final deal is agreed. At some point those contradictions will need to be resolved but that's for later, after we have Brexited and after the "transition" has started.
Canada does not count as hard Brexit. A FTA is not hard Brexit to anyone but the most diehard Remainer for whom staying in the single market and leaving free movement in place is sacrosanct
An FTA is a Hard Brexit to the Irish and was a Hard Brexit to the Leave Campaign before they moved the goalposts after winning the referendum. It results in a newly hard border between north and south Ireland when it was soft before. I'm OK with referring to it as Hard Brexit. Definitions need to be useful.
There already is a border between North and South Ireland as neither the UK nor Republic are in Schengen and so you need a passport to enter both. A FTA which largely avoids tariffs between North and South is not hard Brexit
The CTA absolutely states that you can pass between the UK and RoI without a passport on any route. That the ferry companies and airlines prefer passport to identify you to them, doesn't mean they insist on it. (Wouldn't you know, using alternative identification on a Ryanair flight from UK to Ireland is a chargeable option!).
I was struck by how chipper the PM seemed yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder if behind the scenes we are a lot closer to an exit deal than all the bluff and bluster suggests.
An exit from Brexit deal with the cabinet.
I didn't get the chance yesterday to follow up on Brexit and Ireland and the reason why both the UK and the EU acting in Ireland's interests should focus on the transition in A50 talks, rather than the eventual trade deal. Ireland desperately wants Soft Brexit, possibly enough to reject a Hard Brexit deal*. The UK is incoherent in its demands, but what it really wants is continuity - for nothing significant to change as it exits from the EU. For a period of time a "transition", in practice an extension, gives both sides what they want most.
Of course we need be seen to be moving towards an end goal, so the Withdrawal Agreement will talk about new relationships. It might include a UK commitment to practical steps to ensure a relatively soft border. The Irish would be allowed a say over those steps before any final deal is agreed. At some point those contradictions will need to be resolved but that's for later, after we have Brexited and after the "transition" has started.
Canada does not count as hard Brexit. A FTA is not hard Brexit to anyone but the most diehard Remainer for whom staying in the single market and leaving free movement in place is sacrosanct
An FTA is a useful.
There already is a border between North and South Ireland as neither the UK nor Republic are in Schengen and so you need a passport to enter both. A FTA which largely avoids tariffs between North and South is not hard Brexit
And if that is the way the British government is addressing the issue of the border, no wonder it is getting absolutely nowhere.
It is a perfectly reasonable position from the British government it is Varadkar who just has to make a few noises before the next Irish general election over the border to see off Sinn Fein, like May he is ultimately a pragmatist really.
Telling the Irish what is best for them is not reasonable - especially when it comes from the British. The next Irish election may not happen until 2021. The best way for Varadkar to avoid one is to stand firm.
The final paragraph: If he truly is reconciled to increasing investment in infrastructure, a strategic role for the state in the economy, and the need for government to intervene where necessary, this Budget may even be a turning point. Let us hope it really is a Damascene conversion, and not a cynical act of self-preservation.
One does wonder if there's something personal between Timothy and Hammond.
Plus the general election result and campaign proved Hammond right about Nick Timothy and it boils the piss of Nick Timothy.
Hammond just as culpable for the GE result with his crap budget then going AWOL.
A solid piece from TSE and very little with which I, as an LD, can disagree.
I'd make a couple of broad points - first, even at the "height" of LD popularity, there were still large parts of the UK which were outside areas of LD activity. Yes, there were areas of significant activity but larger areas where nothing happened at all. In those areas, if you weren't Labour you were Conservative and if you weren't Conservative you were Labour. UKIP were able to break into a number of these areas of LD weakness and take on the "protest vote" mantle.
Second, the Conservatives lost 2,000 council seats in a single night in 1995. Their (and Labour's to an extent) ability to function as a national political party seems less reliant on areas of local activity (probably for the reasons I mentioned above). The Conservatives suffered a much greater hollowing out of their base in the 90s yet by 2003 were once again the leading party in local Government but that means a large Council based with seats to be cropped in the Government mid term.
I'd also add that if you don't have a lot of activists and those who have end up on the Council there's nobody left to run the campaigning operation on the ground.
As I've said before, the Party I joined in 1980 was destroyed by the Coalition and I do appreciate the irony. There is a new LD Party now with a new generation of activists - some of the traditional areas have revived, others haven't while pockets of new activity have emerged. They are learning the old lesson of building national strength from local strength.
Oddly enough, the "breakthrough" of the Alliance came when you had a "national" party like the SDP grafted on to a "local" party like the Liberals. The SDP brought a lot to that and not just money but a way of functioning at national level that had always evaded the Liberals.
The future ? As TSE suggests, the coming rounds of local elections will be interesting - next year in London will we see further Conservative reverses and will these include Richmond and Kingston returning to the LDs ? Not inconceivable though the headlines would be Labour advancing into Wandsworth (the recent Thamesfield by election suggested a solid swing to Labour though whether its enough to take the Borough remains to be seen).
I would be looking at the 2021 County elections for some insight - the Conservatives had a remarkably good round in 2017 and the extent to which those advances can be held may be indicative of prospects for the GE.
Another car crash from McDonnell on Sky news just now.
It is amazing how he falls apart on forensic questioning and it is becoming apparent that as labour come under serious scrutiny they simply do not like it.
The Irish position is that they dislike Hard Brexit* (including a possible Canada arrangement) so much, they are prepared to reject a deal on that basis. They want Soft Brexit. Ultimately, Britain can choose Hard Brexit without a deal, which is even worse for Ireland, but also, Ireland thinks, very bad for Britain. So there's an element of bluff on both sides.
* The British position on Ireland is that Ireland should be happy with Hard Brexit if they call it soft. Unsurprisingly, it's not cutting any ice with the Irish.
Another car crash from McDonnell on Sky news just now.
It is amazing how he falls apart on forensic questioning and it is becoming apparent that as labour come under serious scrutiny they simply do not like it.
Pathetic that the Tories never put them under scrutiny at the election and allowed their incoherent nonsense like a "fully costed manifesto" despite having no clue where money for nationalisations etc were going to come from take hold.
The final paragraph: If he truly is reconciled to increasing investment in infrastructure, a strategic role for the state in the economy, and the need for government to intervene where necessary, this Budget may even be a turning point. Let us hope it really is a Damascene conversion, and not a cynical act of self-preservation.
One does wonder if there's something personal between Timothy and Hammond.
Plus the general election result and campaign proved Hammond right about Nick Timothy and it boils the piss of Nick Timothy.
Hammond just as culpable for the GE result with his crap budget then going AWOL.
For the final time, Hammond didn't go AWOL, Timothy and Hill kept removing Hammond from the public, much to the chagrin of Sir Lynton Crosby.
Another complaint was the lack of Cabinet ministers going on regional visits. Well-known faces such as Justine Greening, Liz Truss and Andrea Leadsom were hidden away. Hammond was allowed one outing. Boris Johnson was deployed to key marginals but rarely on the national stage.
Hill, it is alleged, was purging the campaign of May’s rivals. “Fi would see the names of Cabinet ministers on the Grid [the planning board of regional outings] and she would take them off,” said a campaign official. “Sometimes we would put Philip Hammond on the Grid just to see what we could get away with, but she always removed him.”
I was struck by how chipper the PM seemed yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder if behind the scenes we are a lot closer to an exit deal than all the bluff and bluster suggests.
An exit from Brexit deal with the cabinet.
I didn't get the chance yesterday to follow up on Brexit and Ireland and the reason why both the UK and the EU acting in Ireland's interests should focus on the transition in A50 talks, rather than the eventual trade deal. Ireland desperately wants Soft Brexit, possibly enough to reject a Hard Brexit deal*. The UK is incoherent in its demands, but what it really wants is continuity - for nothing significant to change as it exits from the EU. For a period of time a "transition", in practice an extension, gives both sides what they want most.
Of course we need be seen to be moving towards an end goal, so the Withdrawal Agreement will talk about new relationships. It might include a UK commitment to practical steps to ensure a relatively soft border. The Irish would be allowed a say over those steps before any final deal is agreed. At some point those contradictions will need to be resolved but that's for later, after we have Brexited and after the "transition" has started.
Canada does not count as hard Brexit. A FTA is not hard Brexit to anyone but the most diehard Remainer for whom staying in the single market and leaving free movement in place is sacrosanct
An FTA is a Hard Brexit to the Irish and was a Hard Brexit to the Leave Campaign before they moved the goalposts after winning the referendum. It results in a newly hard border between north and south Ireland when it was soft before. I'm OK with referring to it as Hard Brexit. Definitions need to be useful.
There already is a border between North and South Ireland as neither the UK nor Republic are in Schengen and so you need a passport to enter both. A FTA which largely avoids tariffs between North and South is not hard Brexit
That's not true. Both the UK and the Republic are in the Common Travel Area (CTA) so there's no border between them.
Not being in Schengen means you need a passport to move between the Republic and Schengen, or North and Schengen, it does not mean you need a passport to move between the Republic and North.
Another car crash from McDonnell on Sky news just now.
It is amazing how he falls apart on forensic questioning and it is becoming apparent that as labour come under serious scrutiny they simply do not like it.
He gets really shouty when anyone dares to challenge him about his numbers not adding up, appears to think that his word is gospel and how dare anyone accuse him of lying.
Another car crash from McDonnell on Sky news just now.
It is amazing how he falls apart on forensic questioning and it is becoming apparent that as labour come under serious scrutiny they simply do not like it.
Pathetic that the Tories never put them under scrutiny at the election and allowed their incoherent nonsense like a "fully costed manifesto" despite having no clue where money for nationalisations etc were going to come from take hold.
Same place as the money for the DUP came from I suppose.
So between 1995 and 2010 they'd already lost 25% of their councillors, and since then they've lost 60% of the remainder.
They are down 70% from their 1995 peak, when they held for instance East Hampshire (now 100% Tory), Guildford, Ryedale, etc.
Now they hold only Watford, Cheltenham, Eastleigh, South Lakeland, Eastbourne, Oadby & Wigston, Sutton and Three Rivers.
That's not like-for-like, though, as there are far fewer councillors now than in 1995 as much of the UK has gone unitary.
On a percentage of all councillors, the LDs peaked in 2007.
How would you view a company who's absolute revenues had been declining since 1995 and whose market share had been falling since 2007?
The LDs have been in decline for a decade.
That might change this year, it might not.
But in the general scheme of these things, a decade is actually not that long. Labour councillors (as a percentage) probably fell every year between 1997 and 2010, as did Conservative between 1984 and 1997.
Yes but by and large that was because they were in government and no one likes the government. The Lib Dems started their decline before the Coalition and have not recovered since. If Vince Cable got any coverage out of the budget yesterday I didn't see it which is unfortunate because economic analysis is his stronger suit. They just seem to have nothing to say.
I would expect the LDs to gain councillors in 2018 and 2019, simply because UKIP is fading fast from the scene.
But I doubt they will go anywhere, unless they can find a differentiated leader who people want to hear from.
Vince Cable is not that man.
I think of the Lib Dems like a pet chihuahua: a bit yappy and no one really knows what they are for, but pretty harmless and kind of cute
How ungracious. The Tories persuaded naive, old Libdemia with false promises & sweet nothings to stick by them for 5 years, and now they have their hot call girl from the 17th Century, they sneer at their ex fallen on hard times. Bad form, old sausage.
As I pointed out repeatedly in the coalition years, the LibDems made a huge mistake in their positioning. As we can now clearly see, the coalition was the best government (bar Maggie) for many decades. As such, it should have been presented by the LibDems as a superb vindication of what they had been saying for years: parties should work together, we want an end to adversarial politics, coalitions (and therefore PR|) are a Good Thing, etc etc.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
John McDonnell was again unable to say how much Labour’s spending plans would cost Britain in two further shambolic interviews this morning. Asked on both the Today programme and 5 Live how much extra would be spent on servicing government debt under Labour, a rattled McDonnell was eight times unable to give a figure. He snapped:
“This is a trite form of journalism, that’s why we have iPads and advisors… It’s minimal… I’m telling you, it pays for itself, it pays for itself.”
I heard that interview with Rachel Burden and he really was lost. He became aggressive as he was unable to give an answer anywhere near credible to Rachel's reasonable question.
He is being rumbled
Why wasn't his video of him telling the comrades that if he couldn't win by fair he would win by foul, used in the GE campaign>?~
This last few days have shown how poor Corbyn and McDonnell really are on the economy and just endorses the view that the Conservative GE campaign was so bad in so many ways that a half decent campaign would have seen Corbyn and McDonnell defeated and possibly a move in labour to rid itself of it's militant tendency
I thoiught Corbyn was awful in his reply to Hammond yesterday. As others have said, shouty. Calm and ‘reasonable’ would have suited the occasion better.
I doubt many watch it .However the clip I saw on ITV news at ten last night hit all the right buttons.Most people are not sat watching the full reply .Only the elderly now not working on here get the chance to watch sky news all day.
As I pointed out repeatedly in the coalition years, the LibDems made a huge mistake in their positioning. As we can now clearly see, the coalition was the best government (bar Maggie) for many decades. As such, it should have been presented by the LibDems as a superb vindication of what they had been saying for years: parties should work together, we want an end to adversarial politics, coalitions (and therefore PR|) are a Good Thing, etc etc.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
David Steel said ‘Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government!’ Clegg resurrected it.
Underlines the old saying doesn’t it :’Be careful what you wish for!'
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. The problem is more that it isn't anywhere near enough to solve the affordability crisis. Also, the people that will benefit most from this are the people who are most likely to have access to mortgages and the housing market anyway, ie those with stable jobs, good incomes and parental assistance (ie prospective conservative voters).
As I pointed out repeatedly in the coalition years, the LibDems made a huge mistake in their positioning. As we can now clearly see, the coalition was the best government (bar Maggie) for many decades. As such, it should have been presented by the LibDems as a superb vindication of what they had been saying for years: parties should work together, we want an end to adversarial politics, coalitions (and therefore PR|) are a Good Thing, etc etc.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Only in a sellers market.
Moreover it moves it from upfront cash to something g that can be financed by a mortgage. And the purchaser will be able to capitalise the incremental gain once they sell
It was not just the support of students they lost. But having u-turned on their most prominent commitment the LibDems looked like they would say anything and do anything to get into power. Trust gone overnight.
Hopeless to position themselves as a brake on the Tories after that. No amount of Sorry videos would make a difference.
Tragic. They are done.
I think medium to long term, post-Cable, they are in a good position.
Firstly, they need to gt a new leader before the next election. As there is some uncertainty on when that election may be, it should be sooner rather than later. But - they can't. They are probably going to lose Westmoreland when Farron quits at the next election. They will lose Twickenham if Vince goes. They are on the back foot - whether or not any boundary changes get made. And they have a really, really limited gene pool in Westminter from which to choose Vince's replacement.
Secondly, they need some policies. But that requires the new leader in place to steer the policies he* wants to fight the next election on. If Corbyn is still leading Labour, it could allow them to plug the idea of being the Sensible Left, contrasting Corbyn's crazies with their own measured approach to change.
Thirdly, they need a new trick to get noticed. At the moment, they look like a magician who is at the end of the pier show, playing to four people sheltering from a summer squall - and who all know how the trick works.
* or she
From the perspective of being known, Jo Swinson would be the leading lady from their MPs - but didn't she decline to enter the leadership fray "for now"? Depends when now ends, I guess. Are any of the other three LibDem women MPs realistic candidates for leader? I'd assumed not, but would be interested to know.
I guess any of them are better than odious Ed Davey.
Currently she’s Deputy Leader, so on pole to take over.
I may be misremembering, but fairly sure Vince said when he ran that he intends to stand down in 2-3 years - presumably for Jo.
Then changed his mind iirc. He plans to fight next GE.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. The problem is more that it isn't anywhere near enough to solve the affordability crisis. Also, the people that will benefit most from this are the people who are most likely to have access to mortgages and the housing market anyway, ie those with stable jobs, good incomes and parental assistance (ie prospective conservative voters).
Genuine question....how exactly does the government define a first time buyer? And how can they check that someone claiming to be a first time buyer really is one?
When my wife and I bought our previous house jointly, she was a first time buyer but I was not. Would we still have qualified?
And - this is not an uncommon occurrence I wouldn't have thought - what about immigrants who own property back home but have never bought anything in the UK? Do they qualify for FTB status? And if not how can the authorities know what they own overseas?
From the perspective of being known, Jo Swinson would be the leading lady from their MPs - but didn't she decline to enter the leadership fray "for now"? Depends when now ends, I guess. Are any of the other three LibDem women MPs realistic candidates for leader? I'd assumed not, but would be interested to know.
I guess any of them are better than odious Ed Davey.
The job is Jo's if she wants it. We really don't know whether she is seriously reluctant, or just needs more time. Its not a job any sane person would want, after all.
The last time we had a Jo leading our party, we started to recover well from a very low base.
Longer term Layla Moran is the other female possibility.
Layla Moran's majority is only 816 though.....
We don't really have safe seats. She'll get an incumbency bonus next time, and leaders always get a further boost. So she just needs to get re-elected once.
Good assessment - there are no safe LibDem seats (Vince could lose his again). But really like Layla, but she needs more time to establish herself and build her parliamentary network (which doesn't just involve other MPs from your own side, but sympathetic MPs from all stripes that provide tacit support across the house, and have you down as one of the 'good guys', particularly in this Brexit Age).
There's a more fundamental change afoot in wider society - you are seeing it with Harvey Weinstein, a backlash against Internet-fuelled hate, the need to clear out the stable that is HoC (literally and metaphorically), resisting the risk that popularism metamorphasises into fascism and generally just a realisation that alpha male posturing is not going to get us out of this mess. Layla might not be the fluffy, 'likeable', unthreatening (to men) woman that Nicola Blackwood was, but she's a lot more zeitgeisty, and already developing a reputation as someone who works with other decent, progressive MPs and gets things done.
The Irish position is that they dislike Hard Brexit* (including a possible Canada arrangement) so much, they are prepared to reject a deal on that basis. They want Soft Brexit. Ultimately, Britain can choose Hard Brexit without a deal, which is even worse for Ireland, but also, Ireland thinks, very bad for Britain. So there's an element of bluff on both sides.
* The British position on Ireland is that Ireland should be happy with Hard Brexit if they call it soft. Unsurprisingly, it's not cutting any ice with the Irish.
We should give every reassurance we can on implementation - progressing customs checking only when systems and people are ready, all customs posts dotted remotely from the border (and from Larne for that matter) etc. As discussed before, an FTA gives more cover for that kind of arrangement.
I think we are doing this, but need to make sure we have gone to the fullest extent possible - customs wise, we have a common interest in doing so.
But, if your take on the Irish position is accurate, all that will not be sufficient. For that reason, I'd suggest we also take a leaf out of the divorce bill playbook and stuff Varadkar's mouth with gold - agreement to pay very well companies on both sides to pilot systems, even during the 2019-2021 transition, agreement to pay some costs towards customs implementation in the RoI, agreements to stay or write off any loans made to RoI (e.g. those made during the financial crisis) to ease the trade but they will take from our actions. Perhaps even invest in dedicated Irish truck lanes through UK ports. I think a package to the value of around £5bn should do the trick.
As I pointed out repeatedly in the coalition years, the LibDems made a huge mistake in their positioning. As we can now clearly see, the coalition was the best government (bar Maggie) for many decades. As such, it should have been presented by the LibDems as a superb vindication of what they had been saying for years: parties should work together, we want an end to adversarial politics, coalitions (and therefore PR|) are a Good Thing, etc etc.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
On this you ruin some excellent analysis with one-eyed partisan rhetoric.
The Tories arguably made an even bigger mistake in their positioning. They should have actively tried to ensure that a stable Coalition II with a comfortable majority was the result of GE 2015. Instead of being grateful to their coalition partners for their considerable contribution to the success of that government they chose to trash them and throw them under the bus. The price for smashing up the Lib Dems has been one of the weakest and worst governments of the past 100 years, held to ransom by oddball backbenchers and the DUP, and of course the calamity of Brexit.
As I pointed out repeatedly in the coalition years, the LibDems made a huge mistake in their positioning. As we can now clearly see, the coalition was the best government (bar Maggie) for many decades. As such, it should have been presented by the LibDems as a superb vindication of what they had been saying for years: parties should work together, we want an end to adversarial politics, coalitions (and therefore PR|) are a Good Thing, etc etc.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
On this you ruin some excellent analysis with one-eyed partisan rhetoric.
The Tories arguably made an even bigger mistake in their positioning. They should have actively tried to ensure that a stable Coalition II was the result of GE 2015. Instead of being grateful to their coalition partners for their considerable contribution to the success of that government they chose to trash them and throw them under the bus. The price for smashing up the Lib Dems has been one of the weakest and worst governments of the past 100 years, held to ransom by oddball backbenchers and the DUP, and of course the calamity of Brexit.
They may be oddballs but they're on the shadow front bench now.
The problem with the LDs is that a lot of their ex-voters voted for Brexit. They will never win these voters back while they persist in telling them they are wrong.
Off topic - went to see Ink last night. Was really excellent; won't spoil it for anyone who has not or who is planning to see it. But really enjoyable play turning received wisdom on its head to a certain extent.
An added interesting element to the evening was the presence of the former CotE and current newspaper editor in the audience.
I can also recommend Labour of Love. It's a bit uneven but good overall; superb acting from Martin Freeman, and Tamsin Greig went down very well with the audience although personally I thought she slightly over-played it.
No ex-Cabinet ministers that I could see, but I think the Tory MP at the table next to us at Sheekey's had been to the play.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. The problem is more that it isn't anywhere near enough to solve the affordability crisis. Also, the people that will benefit most from this are the people who are most likely to have access to mortgages and the housing market anyway, ie those with stable jobs, good incomes and parental assistance (ie prospective conservative voters).
Genuine question....how exactly does the government define a first time buyer? And how can they check that someone claiming to be a first time buyer really is one?
When my wife and I bought our previous house jointly, she was a first time buyer but I was not. Would we still have qualified?
And - this is not an uncommon occurrence I wouldn't have thought - what about immigrants who own property back home but have never bought anything in the UK? Do they qualify for FTB status? And if not how can the authorities know what they own overseas?
We have had these incentives in Australia for quite a while. They don't make the slightest difference to housing affordability as prices simply increase to compensate. It is just a way of propping up a housing bubble.
To answer your question, the criteria will be restricted to the UK and depends who was listed on the property register in the past, but generally all buyers need to have never appeared on the register before to qualify.
As I pointed out repeatedly in the coalition years, the LibDems made a huge mistake in their positioning. As we can now clearly see, the coalition was the best government (bar Maggie) for many decades. As such, it should have been presented by the LibDems as a superb vindication of what they had been saying for years: parties should work together, we want an end to adversarial politics, coalitions (and therefore PR|) are a Good Thing, etc etc.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
On this you ruin some excellent analysis with one-eyed partisan rhetoric.
The Tories arguably made an even bigger mistake in their positioning. They should have actively tried to ensure that a stable Coalition II was the result of GE 2015. Instead of being grateful to their coalition partners for their considerable contribution to the success of that government they chose to trash them and throw them under the bus. The price for smashing up the Lib Dems has been one of the weakest and worst governments of the past 100 years, held to ransom by oddball backbenchers and the DUP, and of course the calamity of Brexit.
+1
The Tories simply wouldn't countenance even modest changes to the constitution - killing both AV and Clegg's HoL reforms - and eventually handing Labour's Left its best ever shot at power.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. The problem is more that it isn't anywhere near enough to solve the affordability crisis. Also, the people that will benefit most from this are the people who are most likely to have access to mortgages and the housing market anyway, ie those with stable jobs, good incomes and parental assistance (ie prospective conservative voters).
Genuine question....how exactly does the government define a first time buyer? And how can they check that someone claiming to be a first time buyer really is one?
When my wife and I bought our previous house jointly, she was a first time buyer but I was not. Would we still have qualified?
And - this is not an uncommon occurrence I wouldn't have thought - what about immigrants who own property back home but have never bought anything in the UK? Do they qualify for FTB status? And if not how can the authorities know what they own overseas?
A house for £125k in Cheltenham, Ledbury or Ross-on-Wye?!
This area isn't even 'the south'; it's where Wales, the W Midlands and SW regions meet.
Sorry to be blunt but stuff FTBs and this 'special treatment' which just makes it easier to buy and thereby puts up prices further.
We need to build more for sale and rent. We *are* building more for sale now but at £300k for a 3-bed semi with a small garden and a combined income of £40k/y ... you must be joking.
If prices were to fall rapidly, that stuffs recent buyers. So they can only fall at about the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, couples earning £30-40k/y need a home and would rather not rent from Peter Rachman (see Wikipedia if you're under 60 and don't know who he was.)
Off topic - went to see Ink last night. Was really excellent; won't spoil it for anyone who has not or who is planning to see it. But really enjoyable play turning received wisdom on its head to a certain extent.
An added interesting element to the evening was the presence of the former CotE and current newspaper editor in the audience.
I can also recommend Labour of Love. It's a bit uneven but good overall; superb acting from Martin Freeman, and Tamsin Greig went down very well with the audience although personally I thought she slightly over-played it.
No ex-Cabinet ministers that I could see, but I think the Tory MP at the table next to us at Sheekey's had been to the play.
Excellent thanks will book, subject to the run. I've seen Tamsin Greig in a few things and on the whole I am a fan.
Was v funny to see GO there (with Andrew Mitchell); I'm sure he will have gained a lot of insight into editoring!
Edit: I am only slightly against Tamsin Greig because during God of Carnage there was a group of youngish girls in front of us who were giving an audible running commentary on the play. The moment I told them to shut up was the moment TG looked into the audience, saw me shushing and gave me a disapproving raised eyebrow!!
Another car crash from McDonnell on Sky news just now.
It is amazing how he falls apart on forensic questioning and it is becoming apparent that as labour come under serious scrutiny they simply do not like it.
Pathetic that the Tories never put them under scrutiny at the election and allowed their incoherent nonsense like a "fully costed manifesto" despite having no clue where money for nationalisations etc were going to come from take hold.
Same place as the money for the DUP came from I suppose.
Indeed, but the DUP money was a billion. The utilities money was a hundred billion even before anything else was discussed.
The final paragraph: If he truly is reconciled to increasing investment in infrastructure, a strategic role for the state in the economy, and the need for government to intervene where necessary, this Budget may even be a turning point. Let us hope it really is a Damascene conversion, and not a cynical act of self-preservation.
One does wonder if there's something personal between Timothy and Hammond.
Plus the general election result and campaign proved Hammond right about Nick Timothy and it boils the piss of Nick Timothy.
Hammond just as culpable for the GE result with his crap budget then going AWOL.
For the final time, Hammond didn't go AWOL, Timothy and Hill kept removing Hammond from the public, much to the chagrin of Sir Lynton Crosby.
l
Hammond is weak and lacks internal support ? We knew that.
Did anyone else notice the strong response to the Chancellor from the SNP leader in parliament, Ian Blackford? Much better than Corbyn's response.
He did not just give vague generalisations, he actually dealt with figures. Obviously it was all about spending more but at least he was dealing in numbers and quite detailed.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. The problem is more that it isn't anywhere near enough to solve the affordability crisis. Also, the people that will benefit most from this are the people who are most likely to have access to mortgages and the housing market anyway, ie those with stable jobs, good incomes and parental assistance (ie prospective conservative voters).
Genuine question....how exactly does the government define a first time buyer? And how can they check that someone claiming to be a first time buyer really is one?
When my wife and I bought our previous house jointly, she was a first time buyer but I was not. Would we still have qualified?
And - this is not an uncommon occurrence I wouldn't have thought - what about immigrants who own property back home but have never bought anything in the UK? Do they qualify for FTB status? And if not how can the authorities know what they own overseas?
I asked this yesterday. 95% of the answer is of course that most people are law abiding, and the downside risk if you are caught is significant. I believe both buyers have to be first-time for a joint purchase, but there are myriad other non-standard scenarios, such as people returning from working abroad, people who have owned abroad, people who used to own but have rented for a spell, etc. I remain puzzled as to what mechanisms will be used to police all this; presumably the easiest will be name searches on the UK land registry database?
"We start from a bad position. The budget warned of increased borrowing, dependent on the ‘kindness of strangers’. A Labour government focused on massive nationalisation would make things even worse."
As I pointed out repeatedly in the coalition years, the LibDems made a huge mistake in their positioning. As we can now clearly see, the coalition was the best government (bar Maggie) for many decades. As such, it should have been presented by the LibDems as a superb vindication of what they had been saying for years: parties should work together, we want an end to adversarial politics, coalitions (and therefore PR|) are a Good Thing, etc etc.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
On this you ruin some excellent analysis with one-eyed partisan rhetoric.
The Tories arguably made an even bigger mistake in their positioning. They should have actively tried to ensure that a stable Coalition II with a comfortable majority was the result of GE 2015. Instead of being grateful to their coalition partners for their considerable contribution to the success of that government they chose to trash them and throw them under the bus. The price for smashing up the Lib Dems has been one of the weakest and worst governments of the past 100 years, held to ransom by oddball backbenchers and the DUP, and of course the calamity of Brexit.
Hear hear.
Cameron could have chosen to co-opt the Lib Dems, offer them an electoral pact and turned them into a latter day version of the National Liberals. I think Clegg would have been amenable though no doubt a few Lib Dems (Hughes? Farron?) would have peeled off. This would have enabled Cameron to marginalise the the ultras on his backbenches. But he chose to trash the LDs and appease the ultras with the consequences you describe. A catastrophic error of judgment which may yet ruin both his party and his country.
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Yep, I am a conservative and this stuff is puerile nonsense.
The only way to reduce property prices is to reduce the ability of banks to create the credit that funds the bubble.
Totally agree.
It's highly depressing to see a so-called Conservative government repeatedly and deliberately stoking up house prices whilst at the same time pretending to care about the collapse in home ownership. I remember when Tories claimed to stand for "sound money" but that's the complete opposite of the policies being pursued today. We will not even begin to solve the housing crisis until interest rates are returned to a more sane level.
Did anyone else notice the strong response to the Chancellor from the SNP leader in parliament, Ian Blackford? Much better than Corbyn's response.
He did not just give vague generalisations, he actually dealt with figures. Obviously it was all about spending more but at least he was dealing in numbers and quite detailed.
But did he mention Margaret from Margate or Bob from Bolton in his response...if not, heartless bastard...
And on all this politics stuff I think the LDs are criticised unnecessarily because they had the audacity to actually want to be in power.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
As I pointed out repeatedly in the coalition years, the LibDems made a huge mistake in their positioning. As we can now clearly see, the coalition was the best government (bar Maggie) for many decades. As such, it should have been presented by the LibDems as a superb vindication of what they had been saying for years: parties should work together, we want an end to adversarial politics, coalitions (and therefore PR|) are a Good Thing, etc etc.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
On this you ruin some excellent analysis with one-eyed partisan rhetoric.
The Tories arguably made an even bigger mistake in their positioning. They should have actively tried to ensure that a stable Coalition II with a comfortable majority was the result of GE 2015. Instead of being grateful to their coalition partners for their considerable contribution to the success of that government they chose to trash them and throw them under the bus. The price for smashing up the Lib Dems has been one of the weakest and worst governments of the past 100 years, held to ransom by oddball backbenchers and the DUP, and of course the calamity of Brexit.
The Tories in 2015 got a majority. Hardly a mistake of positioning.
2017 was another matter, of course. That was certainly a catastrophe for the party and for the country.
Another car crash from McDonnell on Sky news just now.
It is amazing how he falls apart on forensic questioning and it is becoming apparent that as labour come under serious scrutiny they simply do not like it.
Pathetic that the Tories never put them under scrutiny at the election and allowed their incoherent nonsense like a "fully costed manifesto" despite having no clue where money for nationalisations etc were going to come from take hold.
They couldn't, because their own plans were equally shaky, with Brexit a discontinuity beyond which they had no plans or projections. Another reason why Hammond was kept in hiding during the GE.
And on all this politics stuff I think the LDs are criticised unnecessarily because they had the audacity to actually want to be in power.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
Personally, my opinion of many Lib Dems went up during their time in power. Given responsibility I thought the likes of Alexander, Webb and Lamb did very well under difficult circumstances.
The Irish position is that they dislike Hard Brexit* (including a possible Canada arrangement) so much, they are prepared to reject a deal on that basis. They want Soft Brexit. Ultimately, Britain can choose Hard Brexit without a deal, which is even worse for Ireland, but also, Ireland thinks, very bad for Britain. So there's an element of bluff on both sides.
* The British position on Ireland is that Ireland should be happy with Hard Brexit if they call it soft. Unsurprisingly, it's not cutting any ice with the Irish.
We should give every reassurance we can on implementation - progressing customs checking only when systems and people are ready, all customs posts dotted remotely from the border (and from Larne for that matter) etc. As discussed before, an FTA gives more cover for that kind of arrangement.
I think we are doing this, but need to make sure we have gone to the fullest extent possible - customs wise, we have a common interest in doing so.
But, if your take on the Irish position is accurate, all that will not be sufficient. For that reason, I'd suggest we also take a leaf out of the divorce bill playbook and stuff Varadkar's mouth with gold - agreement to pay very well companies on both sides to pilot systems, even during the 2019-2021 transition, agreement to pay some costs towards customs implementation in the RoI, agreements to stay or write off any loans made to RoI (e.g. those made during the financial crisis) to ease the trade but they will take from our actions. Perhaps even invest in dedicated Irish truck lanes through UK ports. I think a package to the value of around £5bn should do the trick.
Let's get on and get this thing done.
That's a sensible plan and not necessarily incompatible with my suggestion for the Article 50 Withdrawal Agreement to be concrete on the "transition" arrangement and vague on the final deal. It goes step by step and saves parties calling anyone's bluff.
I strongly believe we will end up with a Soft Brexit, or just possibly with EU membership. Those are the only outcomes that work for Britain as long as the EU is the only game in town in Europe. We are absolutely not on that page currently. We will get there in time. In the meantime I prefer to move in steps rather than precipitate a chaotic break and then have to put the pieces together again afterwards.
As I pointed out repeatedly in the coalition years, the LibDems made a huge mistake in their positioning. As we can now clearly see, the coalition was the best government (bar Maggie) for many decades. As such, it should have been presented by the LibDems as a superb vindication of what they had been saying for years: parties should work together, we want an end to adversarial politics, coalitions (and therefore PR|) are a Good Thing, etc etc.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
On this you ruin some excellent analysis with one-eyed partisan rhetoric.
The Tories arguably made an even bigger mistake in their positioning. They should have actively tried to ensure that a stable Coalition II with a comfortable majority was the result of GE 2015. Instead of being grateful to their coalition partners for their considerable contribution to the success of that government they chose to trash them and throw them under the bus. The price for smashing up the Lib Dems has been one of the weakest and worst governments of the past 100 years, held to ransom by oddball backbenchers and the DUP, and of course the calamity of Brexit.
Hear hear.
Cameron could have chosen to co-opt the Lib Dems, offer them an electoral pact and turned them into a latter day version of the National Liberals. I think Clegg would have been amenable though no doubt a few Lib Dems (Hughes? Farron?) would have peeled off. This would have enabled Cameron to marginalise the the ultras on his backbenches. But he chose to trash the LDs and appease the ultras with the consequences you describe. A catastrophic error of judgment which may yet ruin both his party and his country.
Earlyish in the Coalition it seemed Cameron would have been comfortable doing that. Friendly outriders like Boles wrote articles proposing pretty much what you suggest. But the UKIP surge panicked him, and pretty much all the disasters of the past two years stem from his weakness in not standing up to it.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. The problem is more that it isn't anywhere near enough to solve the affordability crisis. Also, the people that will benefit most from this are the people who are most likely to have access to mortgages and the housing market anyway, ie those with stable jobs, good incomes and parental assistance (ie prospective conservative voters).
Genuine question....how exactly does the government define a first time buyer? And how can they check that someone claiming to be a first time buyer really is one?
When my wife and I bought our previous house jointly, she was a first time buyer but I was not. Would we still have qualified?
And - this is not an uncommon occurrence I wouldn't have thought - what about immigrants who own property back home but have never bought anything in the UK? Do they qualify for FTB status? And if not how can the authorities know what they own overseas?
We have had these incentives in Australia for quite a while. They don't make the slightest difference to housing affordability as prices simply increase to compensate. It is just a way of propping up a housing bubble.
To answer your question, the criteria will be restricted to the UK and depends who was listed on the property register in the past, but generally all buyers need to have never appeared on the register before to qualify.
Interesting thoughts. Son 2 owned a house.... well was buying one..... back in the 90’s. Then he sold it and went abroad. Now it’s just possible he might be coming back. Is he a FTB or not? (probably the latter, I suppose). Grandddaughter Elect is very unhappy. They moved into a £250k house in August, and of course paid stamp duty. Whether the house would have gone up £2k plus in the meantime is of copurse a different matter.
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
I was struck by how chipper the PM seemed yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder if behind the scenes we are a lot closer to an exit deal than all the bluff and bluster suggests.
Canada does not count as hard Brexit. A FTA is not hard Brexit to anyone but the most diehard Remainer for whom staying in the single market and leaving free movement in place is sacrosanct
An FTA is a Hard Brexit to the Irish and was a Hard Brexit to the Leave Campaign before they moved the goalposts after winning the referendum. It results in a newly hard border between north and south Ireland when it was soft before. I'm OK with referring to it as Hard Brexit. Definitions need to be useful.
There already is a border between North and South Ireland as neither the UK nor Republic are in Schengen and so you need a passport to enter both. A FTA which largely avoids tariffs between North and South is not hard Brexit
The current border is between UK/Ireland and the rest of the EU/World - not between the North and South of Ireland.
As I pointed out repeatedly in the coalition years, the LibDems made a huge mistake in their positioning. As we can now clearly see, the coalition was the best government (bar Maggie) for many decades. As such, it should have been presented by the LibDems as a superb vindication of what they had been saying for years: parties should work together, we want an end to adversarial politics, coalitions (and therefore PR|) are a Good Thing, etc etc.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
On this you ruin some excellent analysis with one-eyed partisan rhetoric.
The Tories arguably made an even bigger mistake in their positioning. They should have actively tried to ensure that a stable Coalition II with a comfortable majority was the result of GE 2015. Instead of being grateful to their coalition partners for their considerable contribution to the success of that government they chose to trash them and throw them under the bus. The price for smashing up the Lib Dems has been one of the weakest and worst governments of the past 100 years, held to ransom by oddball backbenchers and the DUP, and of course the calamity of Brexit.
Hear hear.
Cameron could have chosen to co-opt the Lib Dems, offer them an electoral pact and turned them into a latter day version of the National Liberals. I think Clegg would have been amenable though no doubt a few Lib Dems (Hughes? Farron?) would have peeled off. This would have enabled Cameron to marginalise the the ultras on his backbenches. But he chose to trash the LDs and appease the ultras with the consequences you describe. A catastrophic error of judgment which may yet ruin both his party and his country.
Earlyish in the Coalition it seemed Cameron would have been comfortable doing that. Friendly outriders like Boles wrote articles proposing pretty much what you suggest. But the UKIP surge panicked him, and pretty much all the disasters of the past two years stem from his weakness in not standing up to it.
Cameron has a lot to answer for. I suspect history will put him right up there with Lord North and Neville Chamberlain.
On this you ruin some excellent analysis with one-eyed partisan rhetoric. The Tories arguably made an even bigger mistake in their positioning. They should have actively tried to ensure that a stable Coalition II with a comfortable majority was the result of GE 2015. Instead of being grateful to their coalition partners for their considerable contribution to the success of that government they chose to trash them and throw them under the bus. The price for smashing up the Lib Dems has been one of the weakest and worst governments of the past 100 years, held to ransom by oddball backbenchers and the DUP, and of course the calamity of Brexit.
The Tories in 2015 got a majority. Hardly a mistake of positioning. 2017 was another matter, of course. That was certainly a catastrophe for the party and for the country.
Not sure about that. The Conservatives need a strong (even threatening) Lib Dem Party to keep their own hardliners under control. The weakening of the Lib Dems has led to the Conservative Party`s being taken over by an inner-core of extreme right-wingers, and this was surely one of the factors in their failure at the general election this year.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. The problem is more that it isn't anywhere near enough to solve the affordability crisis. Also, the people that will benefit most from this are the people who are most likely to have access to mortgages and the housing market anyway, ie those with stable jobs, good incomes and parental assistance (ie prospective conservative voters).
Genuine question....how exactly does the government define a first time buyer? And how can they check that someone claiming to be a first time buyer really is one?
When my wife and I bought our previous house jointly, she was a first time buyer but I was not. Would we still have qualified?
And - this is not an uncommon occurrence I wouldn't have thought - what about immigrants who own property back home but have never bought anything in the UK? Do they qualify for FTB status? And if not how can the authorities know what they own overseas?
We have had these incentives in Australia for quite a while. They don't make the slightest difference to housing affordability as prices simply increase to compensate. It is just a way of propping up a housing bubble.
To answer your question, the criteria will be restricted to the UK and depends who was listed on the property register in the past, but generally all buyers need to have never appeared on the register before to qualify.
Interesting thoughts. Son 2 owned a house.... well was buying one..... back in the 90’s. Then he sold it and went abroad. Now it’s just possible he might be coming back. Is he a FTB or not? (probably the latter, I suppose). Grandddaughter Elect is very unhappy. They moved into a £250k house in August, and of course paid stamp duty. Whether the house would have gone up £2k plus in the meantime is of copurse a different matter.
Granddaughter Elect should be happy.
Her house has just gone up in value* by about £4,250 (250/300*5000)
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
They are helping the good guys who are able to play in the market, at the expense of the bad guys, whereas the fundamental problem is that the market is beyond reach altogether for very many people. Yes, a model where a minority own and the majority rent might work in economic terms (and indeed is our history), but politically one of the things that makes people look more favourably upon conservative politics as they age is the gathering of responsibilities such as home ownership. The Tories currently offer little to tenants; even the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
Cameron has a lot to answer for. I suspect history will put him right up there with Lord North and Neville Chamberlain.
The problem for Cameron's historical position is that the referendum wasn't a one-off mistake, but the culmination of his entire strategy as an elected politician. He appeased the forces that eventually consumed him and acted as their vehicle to gain power.
On this you ruin some excellent analysis with one-eyed partisan rhetoric. The Tories arguably made an even bigger mistake in their positioning. They should have actively tried to ensure that a stable Coalition II with a comfortable majority was the result of GE 2015. Instead of being grateful to their coalition partners for their considerable contribution to the success of that government they chose to trash them and throw them under the bus. The price for smashing up the Lib Dems has been one of the weakest and worst governments of the past 100 years, held to ransom by oddball backbenchers and the DUP, and of course the calamity of Brexit.
The Tories in 2015 got a majority. Hardly a mistake of positioning. 2017 was another matter, of course. That was certainly a catastrophe for the party and for the country.
Not sure about that. The Conservatives need a strong (even threatening) Lib Dem Party to keep their own hardliners under control. The weakening of the Lib Dems has led to the Conservative Party`s being taken over by an inner-core of extreme right-wingers, and this was surely one of the factors in their failure at the general election this year.
The 2017 election was surely based on personalities rather than politics.
Younger people don't have time to investigate politics and vote on the perceived personality of the candidates rather than their leadership ability or policies - in my view.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. SNIP
Genuine question....how exactly does the government define a first time buyer? And how can they check that someone claiming to be a first time buyer really is one?
When my wife and I bought our previous house jointly, she was a first time buyer but I was not. Would we still have qualified?
And - this is not an uncommon occurrence I wouldn't have thought - what about immigrants who own property back home but have never bought anything in the UK? Do they qualify for FTB status? And if not how can the authorities know what they own overseas?
We have had these incentives in Australia for quite a while. They don't make the slightest difference to housing affordability as prices simply increase to compensate. It is just a way of propping up a housing bubble.
To answer your question, the criteria will be restricted to the UK and depends who was listed on the property register in the past, but generally all buyers need to have never appeared on the register before to qualify.
Interesting thoughts. Son 2 owned a house.... well was buying one..... back in the 90’s. Then he sold it and went abroad. Now it’s just possible he might be coming back. Is he a FTB or not? (probably the latter, I suppose). Grandddaughter Elect is very unhappy. They moved into a £250k house in August, and of course paid stamp duty. Whether the house would have gone up £2k plus in the meantime is of copurse a different matter.
I think that it will be a similar system to determining whether someone is a second home owner for the purposes of calculating SDLT. You sign a declaration to your lawyer saying that you don't own a second home. If you are found to be lying, then you are committing an offence of some sort and would have to pay the money back.
I think 'first time buyer' will be defined as someone who has never owned property in the UK, or anywhere, and if you are a couple, then this applies to both of you.
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
What good does it do to tilt something that is broken? It is no less broken for being tilted one way or the other. The housing market needs to be fixed, not tilted.
The 1997 Labour landslide was fuelled, in no small part, by a delayed reaction to the widespread negative equity and repossessions of the early 90s. I can understand why governments want to prevent collapses in house prices at all costs. But in refusing to allow the housing market to properly correct to a sane level, Brown, Cameron and May have wreaked enormous cumulative damage, especially to the younger generations.
And on all this politics stuff I think the LDs are criticised unnecessarily because they had the audacity to actually want to be in power.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
My guess is that a large part of the 2010 LD vote was composed of people who are now very comfortable voting for a Corbyn-led Labour party in England or the SNP in Scotland. They were never centrists, they were anti-Iraq war left-wingers. For that reason, the LDs were never going to survive contact with the Tories.
Cameron has a lot to answer for. I suspect history will put him right up there with Lord North and Neville Chamberlain.
The problem for Cameron's historical position is that the referendum wasn't a one-off mistake, but the culmination of his entire strategy as an elected politician. He appeased the forces that eventually consumed him and acted as their vehicle to gain power.
Warren Buffet once said that his investment strategy is to buy and keep shares of companies he believes in. He saw the stock market as the same as someone knocking on his door out of the blue and offering to buy his washing machine. There was no reason why he would or wouldn't want to sell his washing machine on any particular day.
David Cameron came knocking on the door of the British public and asked to buy their washing machine. And plenty of people had been waiting to sell theirs for a long time.
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
You might consider £300k "low-end," but to normal people that's a double digit multiple of their pay. You think the market is "massively tilted.. in favour of first-time buyers" ???
Squeezing the interest rate arbers leveraged buy-to-letters out of the market is probably doing them a favour, anyhow.
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
But BTL buyers still have a massive advantage in that they can buy with interest-only mortgages. In the long run this far outweighs the higher stamp duty they have to pay. And Osborne's changes to the tax deductability of interest only apply to individuals. A BTL company, which many landlords use, can still allow 100% of its interest cost against tax. If the government really wanted to create a level playing field it would require all mortgages on residential property to be on a repayment basis and set a maximum mortgage term. But that would cause prices to drop and upset the Tories core support base.
The Irish position is that they dislike Hard Brexit* (including a possible Canada arrangement) so much, they are prepared to reject a deal on that basis. They want Soft Brexit. Ultimately, Britain can choose Hard Brexit without a deal, which is even worse for Ireland, but also, Ireland thinks, very bad for Britain. So there's an element of bluff on both sides.
* The British position on Ireland is that Ireland should be happy with Hard Brexit if they call it soft. Unsurprisingly, it's not cutting any ice with the Irish.
We should give every reassurance we can on implementation - progressing customs checking only when systems and people are ready, all customs posts dotted remotely from the border (and from Larne for that matter) etc. As discussed before, an FTA gives more cover for that kind of arrangement.
I think we are doing this, but need to make sure we have gone to the fullest extent possible - customs wise, we have a common interest in doing so.
But, if your take on the Irish position is accurate, all that will not be sufficient. For that reason, I'd suggest we also take a leaf out of the divorce bill playbook and stuff Varadkar's mouth with gold - agreement to pay very well companies on both sides to pilot systems, even during the 2019-2021 transition, agreement to pay some costs towards customs implementation in the RoI, agreements to stay or write off any loans made to RoI (e.g. those made during the financial crisis) to ease the trade but they will take from our actions. Perhaps even invest in dedicated Irish truck lanes through UK ports. I think a package to the value of around £5bn should do the trick.
Let's get on and get this thing done.
That's a sensible plan and not necessarily incompatible with my suggestion for the Article 50 Withdrawal Agreement to be concrete on the "transition" arrangement and vague on the final deal. It goes step by step and saves parties calling anyone's bluff.
I strongly believe we will end up with a Soft Brexit, or just possibly with EU membership. Those are the only outcomes that work for Britain as long as the EU is the only game in town in Europe. We are absolutely not on that page currently. We will get there in time. In the meantime I prefer to move in steps rather than precipitate a chaotic break and then have to put the pieces together again afterwards.
The problem is sequencing the steps in a way that works.
If we had a national consensus for a soft Brexit today, then it would be achievable, but there isn't one and there won't be one. That makes it very difficult to get from today to March 30th 2019 without answering some existential questions in the meantime.
I wish Nick Timothy would just fuck off, the electorate gave him a spanking and his ideas are crap. I don't understand why any newspaper would give him the time of day, he is completely discredited.
They are helping the good guys who are able to play in the market, at the expense of the bad guys, whereas the fundamental problem is that the market is beyond reach altogether for very many people. Yes, a model where a minority own and the majority rent might work in economic terms (and indeed is our history), but politically one of the things that makes people look more favourably upon conservative politics as they age is the gathering of responsibilities such as home ownership. The Tories currently offer little to tenants; even the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
I don't disagree with that, but as Phil Hammond rightly says there is no magic bullet and this is a long-term problem. The stamp duty change is one measure amongst several. It helps first-time buyers, and is therefore welcome, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem. Obviously increasing supply is ultimately the key requirement, and you don't do that by measures which clobber housebuilders, as some have suggested.
And on all this politics stuff I think the LDs are criticised unnecessarily because they had the audacity to actually want to be in power.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
My guess is that a large part of the 2010 LD vote was composed of people who are now very comfortable voting for a Corbyn-led Labour party in England or the SNP in Scotland. They were never centrists, they were anti-Iraq war left-wingers. For that reason, the LDs were never going to survive contact with the Tories.
Absolutely agree with this, I'd say around half of LD 2010 voters were centrists and the other half were to the left of Labour and saw the Lib Dems as a useful protest vote location
And on all this politics stuff I think the LDs are criticised unnecessarily because they had the audacity to actually want to be in power.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
My guess is that a large part of the 2010 LD vote was composed of people who are now very comfortable voting for a Corbyn-led Labour party in England or the SNP in Scotland. They were never centrists, they were anti-Iraq war left-wingers. For that reason, the LDs were never going to survive contact with the Tories.
How many anti-Iraq left wingers are there in Cheltenham, Truro, Southport, Cheadle, Taunton, Yeovil, St Ives or the dozens of other middle England seats that they lost to the Tories? It was probably a factor in the 10 or so left-leaning university seats the Lib Dems held, and in the many good second places they got in Labour inner city seats in 2010.
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
But BTL buyers still have a massive advantage in that they can buy with interest-only mortgages. In the long run this far outweighs the higher stamp duty they have to pay. And Osborne's changes to the tax deductability of interest only apply to individuals. A BTL company, which many landlords use, can still allow 100% of its interest cost against tax. If the government really wanted to create a level playing field it would require all mortgages on residential property to be on a repayment basis and set a maximum mortgage term. But that would cause prices to drop and upset the Tories core support base.
It strikes me that DIY buy to let has almost been regulated to death. The amount of regulation involved in renting out a house is phenomenal. The industry has been professionalised and it is the middlemen who benefit from this situation. It doesn't stop fools rushing in though.
The real players in this market are major landlords/businesses with economies of scale.
They are helping the good guys who are able to play in the market, at the expense of the bad guys, whereas the fundamental problem is that the market is beyond reach altogether for very many people. Yes, a model where a minority own and the majority rent might work in economic terms (and indeed is our history), but politically one of the things that makes people look more favourably upon conservative politics as they age is the gathering of responsibilities such as home ownership. The Tories currently offer little to tenants; even the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
I don't disagree with that, but as Phil Hammond rightly says there is no magic bullet and this is a long-term problem. The stamp duty change is one measure amongst several. It helps first-time buyers, and is therefore welcome, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem. Obviously increasing supply is ultimately the key requirement, and you don't do that by measures which clobber housebuilders, as some have suggested.
Personally I think the impact of supply (whilst important, given rising population) is over-stated, and the crisis is created by a poisonous combination of cheap credit, low interest rates, easy lending, QE, and a batch of things that make property over-attractive as investment rather than as homes, including lack of tenant protection, unattractive tenancy terms, favourable tax breaks for landlords (credit to Osborne for at least slowly reigning these in), openness to foreign criminalsinvestors, lack of penalties for leaving property empty (noting a small step here yesterday), and a tax burden weighted towards taxing income rather than land or wealth.
As a trivial aside, most UK tenancy agreements prevent a whole raft of things including pet ownership, decorating or other minor improvements, or even putting a picture hook into a wall; in Germany it is illegal for landlords to stop tenants doing many of these things.
We should give every reassurance we can on implementation - progressing customs checking only when systems and people are ready, all customs posts dotted remotely from the border (and from Larne for that matter) etc. As discussed before, an FTA gives more cover for that kind of arrangement.
I think we are doing this, but need to make sure we have gone to the fullest extent possible - customs wise, we have a common interest in doing so.
But, if your take on the Irish position is accurate, all that will not be sufficient. For that reason, I'd suggest we also take a leaf out of the divorce bill playbook and stuff Varadkar's mouth with gold - agreement to pay very well companies on both sides to pilot systems, even during the 2019-2021 transition, agreement to pay some costs towards customs implementation in the RoI, agreements to stay or write off any loans made to RoI (e.g. those made during the financial crisis) to ease the trade but they will take from our actions. Perhaps even invest in dedicated Irish truck lanes through UK ports. I think a package to the value of around £5bn should do the trick.
Let's get on and get this thing done.
That's a sensible plan and not necessarily incompatible with my suggestion for the Article 50 Withdrawal Agreement to be concrete on the "transition" arrangement and vague on the final deal. It goes step by step and saves parties calling anyone's bluff.
I strongly believe we will end up with a Soft Brexit, or just possibly with EU membership. Those are the only outcomes that work for Britain as long as the EU is the only game in town in Europe. We are absolutely not on that page currently. We will get there in time. In the meantime I prefer to move in steps rather than precipitate a chaotic break and then have to put the pieces together again afterwards.
The problem is sequencing the steps in a way that works.
If we had a national consensus for a soft Brexit today, then it would be achievable, but there isn't one and there won't be one. That makes it very difficult to get from today to March 30th 2019 without answering some existential questions in the meantime.
If you can't answer existential questions, don't answer them or waffle and hope you have an answer later. Waffle while minimising change is what's needed now. Waffling is already this government's modus operandi. The problem is they are waffling to the Brexiteers' tune. This is a negotiation with a stronger partner. Their tune needs to be aware of that partner's needs.
But BTL buyers still have a massive advantage in that they can buy with interest-only mortgages. In the long run this far outweighs the higher stamp duty they have to pay. And Osborne's changes to the tax deductability of interest only apply to individuals. A BTL company, which many landlords use, can still allow 100% of its interest cost against tax. If the government really wanted to create a level playing field it would require all mortgages on residential property to be on a repayment basis and set a maximum mortgage term. But that would cause prices to drop and upset the Tories core support base.
Private BTL buyers now have a significant disincentive, in that (almost uniquely) they are now going to be clobbered by not being able to offset interest against tax. That's a pretty nasty measure by any standard. That, togehter with the stamp duty disincentive, tilts the market towards owner-occupiers and first-time buyers in particular.
Prices dropping significantly would be a disaster: supply would be reduced, the housing market would seize up, and mortgages would be heavily restricted (making it harder, not easier, for young people to buy). And of course you'd get the negative equity/repossessions problem. We really, really don't want to go there.
The move to encourage corporate vehicles for letting is a bid to professionalise the market, which pretty much everyone agrees is a good thing. The UK is unusual in not having much in the way of corporate landlords in the housing market. There is a hell of a lot of investment money potentially available for build-to-let, on a large scale, if we can get it right, and that will help the housing crisis enormously.
There is no magic bullet - it's a question of balancing multiple policy nudges.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. SNIP
Genuine question....how exactly does the government define a first time buyer? And how can they check that someone claiming to be a first time buyer really is one?
When my wife and I bought our previous house jointly, she was a first time buyer but I was not. Would we still have qualified?
And - this is not an uncommon occurrence I wouldn't have thought - what about immigrants who own property back home but have never bought anything in the UK? Do they qualify for FTB status? And if not how can the authorities know what they own overseas?
We have had these incentives in Australia for quite a while. They don't make the slightest difference to housing affordability as prices simply increase to compensate. It is just a way of propping up a housing bubble.
To answer your question, the criteria will be restricted to the UK and depends who was listed on the property register in the past, but generally all buyers need to have never appeared on the register before to qualify.
Interesting thoughts. Son 2 owned a house.... well was buying one..... back in the 90’s. Then he sold it and went abroad. Now it’s just possible he might be coming back. Is he a FTB or not? (probably the latter, I suppose). Grandddaughter Elect is very unhappy. They moved into a £250k house in August, and of course paid stamp duty. Whether the house would have gone up £2k plus in the meantime is of copurse a different matter.
I think that it will be a similar system to determining whether someone is a second home owner for the purposes of calculating SDLT. You sign a declaration to your lawyer saying that you don't own a second home. If you are found to be lying, then you are committing an offence of some sort and would have to pay the money back.
I think 'first time buyer' will be defined as someone who has never owned property in the UK, or anywhere, and if you are a couple, then this applies to both of you.
They are helping the good guys who are able to play in the market, at the expense of the bad guys, whereas the fundamental problem is that the market is beyond reach altogether for very many people. Yes, a model where a minority own and the majority rent might work in economic terms (and indeed is our history), but politically one of the things that makes people look more favourably upon conservative politics as they age is the gathering of responsibilities such as home ownership. The Tories currently offer little to tenants; even the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
I don't disagree with that, but as Phil Hammond rightly says there is no magic bullet and this is a long-term problem. The stamp duty change is one measure amongst several. It helps first-time buyers, and is therefore welcome, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem. Obviously increasing supply is ultimately the key requirement, and you don't do that by measures which clobber housebuilders, as some have suggested.
It can be done by forcing private landlords out of the market by forcing yields down. A yearly 3% surcharge would completely decimate the private rental market for all but the highest yielding units (those that require a huge investment or completely newly built). It would force landlords to either give up or invest in new builds and extensive refurbs.
John McDonnell was again unable to say how much Labour’s spending plans would cost Britain in two further shambolic interviews this morning. Asked on both the Today programme and 5 Live how much extra would be spent on servicing government debt under Labour, a rattled McDonnell was eight times unable to give a figure. He snapped:
“This is a trite form of journalism, that’s why we have iPads and advisors… It’s minimal… I’m telling you, it pays for itself, it pays for itself.”
I heard that interview with Rachel Burden and he really was lost. He became aggressive as he was unable to give an answer anywhere near credible to Rachel's reasonable question.
He is being rumbled
Why wasn't his video of him telling the comrades that if he couldn't win by fair he would win by foul, used in the GE campaign>?~
This last few days have shown how poor Corbyn and McDonnell really are on the economy and just endorses the view that the Conservative GE campaign was so bad in so many ways that a half decent campaign would have seen Corbyn and McDonnell defeated and possibly a move in labour to rid itself of it's militant tendency
I thoiught Corbyn was awful in his reply to Hammond yesterday. As others have said, shouty. Calm and ‘reasonable’ would have suited the occasion better.
I doubt many watch it .However the clip I saw on ITV news at ten last night hit all the right buttons.Most people are not sat watching the full reply .Only the elderly now not working on here get the chance to watch sky news all day.
Comments
a) the terms had been right
b) Brown hadn’t made such a Horlicks of negotiations
c) the Parliamentary arithmetic had been credible.
Personally I would increase the 45% rate to 47% (=49% including NICs) and then give them back the personal allowance. I haven't done the math but should make it revenue neutral. There is a pretty hard threshold (perceived fairness) of the government taking more than 50% in total
And, IIRC, he didn’t, indeed couldn’t, stand against Corbyn.
Plus the general election result and campaign proved Hammond right about Nick Timothy and it boils the piss of Nick Timothy.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
A solid piece from TSE and very little with which I, as an LD, can disagree.
I'd make a couple of broad points - first, even at the "height" of LD popularity, there were still large parts of the UK which were outside areas of LD activity. Yes, there were areas of significant activity but larger areas where nothing happened at all. In those areas, if you weren't Labour you were Conservative and if you weren't Conservative you were Labour. UKIP were able to break into a number of these areas of LD weakness and take on the "protest vote" mantle.
Second, the Conservatives lost 2,000 council seats in a single night in 1995. Their (and Labour's to an extent) ability to function as a national political party seems less reliant on areas of local activity (probably for the reasons I mentioned above). The Conservatives suffered a much greater hollowing out of their base in the 90s yet by 2003 were once again the leading party in local Government but that means a large Council based with seats to be cropped in the Government mid term.
I'd also add that if you don't have a lot of activists and those who have end up on the Council there's nobody left to run the campaigning operation on the ground.
As I've said before, the Party I joined in 1980 was destroyed by the Coalition and I do appreciate the irony. There is a new LD Party now with a new generation of activists - some of the traditional areas have revived, others haven't while pockets of new activity have emerged. They are learning the old lesson of building national strength from local strength.
Oddly enough, the "breakthrough" of the Alliance came when you had a "national" party like the SDP grafted on to a "local" party like the Liberals. The SDP brought a lot to that and not just money but a way of functioning at national level that had always evaded the Liberals.
The future ? As TSE suggests, the coming rounds of local elections will be interesting - next year in London will we see further Conservative reverses and will these include Richmond and Kingston returning to the LDs ? Not inconceivable though the headlines would be Labour advancing into Wandsworth (the recent Thamesfield by election suggested a solid swing to Labour though whether its enough to take the Borough remains to be seen).
I would be looking at the 2021 County elections for some insight - the Conservatives had a remarkably good round in 2017 and the extent to which those advances can be held may be indicative of prospects for the GE.
It is amazing how he falls apart on forensic questioning and it is becoming apparent that as labour come under serious scrutiny they simply do not like it.
* The British position on Ireland is that Ireland should be happy with Hard Brexit if they call it soft. Unsurprisingly, it's not cutting any ice with the Irish.
Another complaint was the lack of Cabinet ministers going on regional visits. Well-known faces such as Justine Greening, Liz Truss and Andrea Leadsom were hidden away. Hammond was allowed one outing. Boris Johnson was deployed to key marginals but rarely on the national stage.
Hill, it is alleged, was purging the campaign of May’s rivals. “Fi would see the names of Cabinet ministers on the Grid [the planning board of regional outings] and she would take them off,” said a campaign official. “Sometimes we would put Philip Hammond on the Grid just to see what we could get away with, but she always removed him.”
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/revealed-how-theresa-mays-two-aides-seized-control-of-the-tory-campaign-to-calamitous-effect-a3566796.html
Not being in Schengen means you need a passport to move between the Republic and Schengen, or North and Schengen, it does not mean you need a passport to move between the Republic and North.
Instead they spent the whole time looking like someone who has just had their favourite chihuahua put down, and bitching that the coalition partners they were keeping in government were heartless bastards interested only in helping their rich mates. So they simultaneously managed to alienate those who didn't like the Tories, those who did, and those who might have bought into their vision of coalition politics.
In the circumstances, is it surprising that the electorate decided to take them at their word, and make sure that the LibDems wouldn't be put through this distasteful experience again?
Underlines the old saying doesn’t it :’Be careful what you wish for!'
There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k.
The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties.
I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners.
The problem is more that it isn't anywhere near enough to solve the affordability crisis. Also, the people that will benefit most from this are the people who are most likely to have access to mortgages and the housing market anyway, ie those with stable jobs, good incomes and parental assistance (ie prospective conservative voters).
Moreover it moves it from upfront cash to something g that can be financed by a mortgage. And the purchaser will be able to capitalise the incremental gain once they sell
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/11/09/swallow-the-lot-and-swallow-it-now-britain-is-and-was-deluded-about-its-negotiating-power-with-the-eu/
When my wife and I bought our previous house jointly, she was a first time buyer but I was not. Would we still have qualified?
And - this is not an uncommon occurrence I wouldn't have thought - what about immigrants who own property back home but have never bought anything in the UK? Do they qualify for FTB status? And if not how can the authorities know what they own overseas?
There's a more fundamental change afoot in wider society - you are seeing it with Harvey Weinstein, a backlash against Internet-fuelled hate, the need to clear out the stable that is HoC (literally and metaphorically), resisting the risk that popularism metamorphasises into fascism and generally just a realisation that alpha male posturing is not going to get us out of this mess. Layla might not be the fluffy, 'likeable', unthreatening (to men) woman that Nicola Blackwood was, but she's a lot more zeitgeisty, and already developing a reputation as someone who works with other decent, progressive MPs and gets things done.
I think we are doing this, but need to make sure we have gone to the fullest extent possible - customs wise, we have a common interest in doing so.
But, if your take on the Irish position is accurate, all that will not be sufficient. For that reason, I'd suggest we also take a leaf out of the divorce bill playbook and stuff Varadkar's mouth with gold - agreement to pay very well companies on both sides to pilot systems, even during the 2019-2021 transition, agreement to pay some costs towards customs implementation in the RoI, agreements to stay or write off any loans made to RoI (e.g. those made during the financial crisis) to ease the trade but they will take from our actions. Perhaps even invest in dedicated Irish truck lanes through UK ports. I think a package to the value of around £5bn should do the trick.
Let's get on and get this thing done.
The Tories arguably made an even bigger mistake in their positioning. They should have actively tried to ensure that a stable Coalition II with a comfortable majority was the result of GE 2015. Instead of being grateful to their coalition partners for their considerable contribution to the success of that government they chose to trash them and throw them under the bus. The price for smashing up the Lib Dems has been one of the weakest and worst governments of the past 100 years, held to ransom by oddball backbenchers and the DUP, and of course the calamity of Brexit.
No ex-Cabinet ministers that I could see, but I think the Tory MP at the table next to us at Sheekey's had been to the play.
To answer your question, the criteria will be restricted to the UK and depends who was listed on the property register in the past, but generally all buyers need to have never appeared on the register before to qualify.
The Tories simply wouldn't countenance even modest changes to the constitution - killing both AV and Clegg's HoL reforms - and eventually handing Labour's Left its best ever shot at power.
This area isn't even 'the south'; it's where Wales, the W Midlands and SW regions meet.
Sorry to be blunt but stuff FTBs and this 'special treatment' which just makes it easier to buy and thereby puts up prices further.
We need to build more for sale and rent. We *are* building more for sale now but at £300k for a 3-bed semi with a small garden and a combined income of £40k/y ... you must be joking.
If prices were to fall rapidly, that stuffs recent buyers. So they can only fall at about the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, couples earning £30-40k/y need a home and would rather not rent from Peter Rachman (see Wikipedia if you're under 60 and don't know who he was.)
The only way to reduce property prices is to reduce the ability of banks to create the credit that funds the bubble.
Was v funny to see GO there (with Andrew Mitchell); I'm sure he will have gained a lot of insight into editoring!
Edit: I am only slightly against Tamsin Greig because during God of Carnage there was a group of youngish girls in front of us who were giving an audible running commentary on the play. The moment I told them to shut up was the moment TG looked into the audience, saw me shushing and gave me a disapproving raised eyebrow!!
He did not just give vague generalisations, he actually dealt with figures. Obviously it was all about spending more but at least he was dealing in numbers and quite detailed.
"We start from a bad position. The budget warned of increased borrowing, dependent on the ‘kindness of strangers’. A Labour government focused on massive nationalisation would make things even worse."
Cameron could have chosen to co-opt the Lib Dems, offer them an electoral pact and turned them into a latter day version of the National Liberals. I think Clegg would have been amenable though no doubt a few Lib Dems (Hughes? Farron?) would have peeled off. This would have enabled Cameron to marginalise the the ultras on his backbenches. But he chose to trash the LDs and appease the ultras with the consequences you describe. A catastrophic error of judgment which may yet ruin both his party and his country.
It's highly depressing to see a so-called Conservative government repeatedly and deliberately stoking up house prices whilst at the same time pretending to care about the collapse in home ownership. I remember when Tories claimed to stand for "sound money" but that's the complete opposite of the policies being pursued today. We will not even begin to solve the housing crisis until interest rates are returned to a more sane level.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
2017 was another matter, of course. That was certainly a catastrophe for the party and for the country.
I strongly believe we will end up with a Soft Brexit, or just possibly with EU membership. Those are the only outcomes that work for Britain as long as the EU is the only game in town in Europe. We are absolutely not on that page currently. We will get there in time. In the meantime I prefer to move in steps rather than precipitate a chaotic break and then have to put the pieces together again afterwards.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
Her house has just gone up in value* by about £4,250 (250/300*5000)
Tax free of course
Edit: * of course I mean price, not value
Younger people don't have time to investigate politics and vote on the perceived personality of the candidates rather than their leadership ability or policies - in my view.
I think 'first time buyer' will be defined as someone who has never owned property in the UK, or anywhere, and if you are a couple, then this applies to both of you.
The 1997 Labour landslide was fuelled, in no small part, by a delayed reaction to the widespread negative equity and repossessions of the early 90s. I can understand why governments want to prevent collapses in house prices at all costs. But in refusing to allow the housing market to properly correct to a sane level, Brown, Cameron and May have wreaked enormous cumulative damage, especially to the younger generations.
David Cameron came knocking on the door of the British public and asked to buy their washing machine. And plenty of people had been waiting to sell theirs for a long time.
Note: the MOTHER of all tenuous analogies.
Squeezing the interest rate arbers leveraged buy-to-letters out of the market is probably doing them a favour, anyhow.
If we had a national consensus for a soft Brexit today, then it would be achievable, but there isn't one and there won't be one. That makes it very difficult to get from today to March 30th 2019 without answering some existential questions in the meantime.
The real players in this market are major landlords/businesses with economies of scale.
As a trivial aside, most UK tenancy agreements prevent a whole raft of things including pet ownership, decorating or other minor improvements, or even putting a picture hook into a wall; in Germany it is illegal for landlords to stop tenants doing many of these things.
Prices dropping significantly would be a disaster: supply would be reduced, the housing market would seize up, and mortgages would be heavily restricted (making it harder, not easier, for young people to buy). And of course you'd get the negative equity/repossessions problem. We really, really don't want to go there.
The move to encourage corporate vehicles for letting is a bid to professionalise the market, which pretty much everyone agrees is a good thing. The UK is unusual in not having much in the way of corporate landlords in the housing market. There is a hell of a lot of investment money potentially available for build-to-let, on a large scale, if we can get it right, and that will help the housing crisis enormously.
There is no magic bullet - it's a question of balancing multiple policy nudges.