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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » TMay’s plan to enshrine the Brexit date in law looks set to fa
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » TMay’s plan to enshrine the Brexit date in law looks set to fail
The big Brexit bill showdown at Westminster looks set to be TMay’s plan to enshrine the precise date and time of the exit in the Bill that’s going through Parliament at the moment.
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That said May did front this amendment her self with a shrill Daily Telegraph article and an email to Tory members. So it's a genuine if largely symbolic defeat for her if she has to pull it.
However if the end it's this the rebels block and not the worst of the Henry VIII powers I suspect the Whips will be privately chuckling.
Sajid Javid gets it, and he gets it much more than the other ‘new generation’ of Tories do. Also, the reaction of the DM (see their front page) is utterly pathetic.
Let’s see what happens though...
I still suspect only a Labour govt would really be committed to addressing this.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2010/feb/11/david-willetts-new-book-society
As for the housing issue there is no easy quick fix solution, if anyone thinks a lab govt will solve that one in its first (and only?) term then they'll believe anything....
1. People aged 45 to 65 – the baby boomers – own more than half of the £6.7tn national wealth. Willetts estimates that they own £3.5tn - £1tn in liquid assets, £1tn in housing, £0.75tn in other physical assets and £0.75tn in pensions. He says the over-65s own £2.3tn and the under-45s own £0.9tn. The main argument of the book is that the baby boomers should share more with the young.
2. Baby boomers have done particularly well out of the welfare state. Those born between 1956 and 1961 are forecast to get from the welfare state 118% of what they will have put into it.
4. Average household size in Britain (2.4) is one of the lowest in the world. Willetts says there is a correlation between average household size and equality. If a couple break up, and the man is working and the woman isn't, the man will be counted as richer in the official figures (because he now does not have family to feed) while the woman will be counted as poorer. "By and large more equal societies have bigger households," Willetts say. The average household size in Sweden is 3.1, which is "one reason why its level of inequality is much lower".
4) is interesting, but not easy to fix. Improving the quality of relationships so that families stick together is not something that is very amenable to government policy. One way is to reduce financial pressures on the young, as finances tend to be a major source of argument. Hence back to tuition fees and related issues.
Increasing household size does make sense as part of an overall housing policy. Encouraging empty nesters to trade down to smaller accommodation, thereby freeing up family size homes for the next generation, should be part of this. The bedroom tax was characteristically ineptly implemented, but right in principle. State owned housing should be allocated on basis of need, and reallocated when those needs change according to socialist principles.
A gradual phasing back in of normal interest rates, which will aid savers and subdue house inflation, is long overdue. As @RCS1000 has pointed out on a number of occasions, a low savings rate leads to a current account deficit.
Never mind Tim Paine, how's this for a stat? Cameron Bancroft played for Gloucestershire last season. Until his final innings (where he scored 206* to lift his average to an even 40) he had scored 479 runs at the princely average of 26, with no centuries and just four fifties.
Players in the squad with a higher average included his opening partner Chris Dent (894 at 42) and David Payne (203 at 33) - who is a specialist fast bowler!
So either what we have been told about the second division of the championship is a load of round objects, or Chris Dent is the answer to our opening conundrum, or the standard of shield cricket and Australian batting generally is so dismal that they see quality in a batsman not fit for the first team in a really struggling English county.
Either way, while I still expect Oz to win, something strange is going on.
The least impractical option - letting councils/RSLs borrow to build and also take the blame for unpopular developments - is the one most objectional to Tory Theology. Though why is beyond me. The only way a future Tory government can sell council houses again to tenants is build some more council houses in the first place.
Basically this is a crisis of Conservative voter creation. If the engine has been switched off by folk being stuck in the PRS for too long that doesn't mean the Super Tanker will stop moving for a long while even if the crew knows the inevitable out come.
Then there is Brexit. Tell me at a psychological, emotional, zeitgeist level did the Tory Shires vote for Brexit to induce massive house building or prevent as they see it the need for it ?
Some welcome supply side tinkering will happen but expect the emphasis on nonsense like HtB and Stamp Duty cuts for first time buyers. Stuff that looks like a good retail offer but does bugger all about supply.
It does work - in Guernsey once a tenant’s income reaches a certain level they have to move on.
https://www.gov.gg/apply
Housing, social care, health and, yes, Brexit, could all benefit from a cross party or Royal Commission approach, but instead are a nightmare because people can’t agree on what the way forward needs to be.
1) Baby boomers like my parents with cash savings rather than index linked pensions.
2) 20 somethings like me looking to save for a deposit.
So with that in mind I can say I'm doing my bit for average household size by still living with my parents.
I would suggest that social housing tenancies should be time limited, then reappraised after that period ends. Tenants should have the right to buy, but not to kerp a subsidy for life regardless of improved circumstances. If people want to retain the place then they should pay full market rents.
We have a housing crisis, at the same time as having a lot of under occupation. We need to address the latter.
That's before we get to the view that the problem with Britain's social housing estates is their are too many working residents and they need more poor people with complex needs.
I would introduce my new policy to new tenants as a condition of commencing tenancy, as they need to be aware for their own planning purposes. I would not evict, but would increase rents on those who could afford it and retain the right to buy. People who have progressed economically could keep their house, but at the cost to themselves rather than taxpayer.
Then there is the Brexit effect. 68% to 70% of Social Housing Tenants voted Leave. There is a reason why all the nonsense you are proposing, which Osborne was doing, was all dropped within months of May taking over.
Tenants who are in social housing, but whose income is found to exceed the relevant income threshold, will be asked to move out of social housing. The formula for determining eligibility takes into account average private sector rents, and therefore any household with earnings in excess of the income threshold can reasonably be expected to support itself in the private sector.
https://www.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=101914&p=0
And is widely supported - social housing should be for those who need it - not a 'right for life'.
Hunting handbags?
The EU will do everything it can to make it impossible for London to continue as the financial capital of Europe post Brexit, so this will no longer be a cash cow for the Treasury and alternative income-generators will need to be developed.
Are we really going to find ourselves in a situation where we won't know from one week to the next what legal system is going to be applicable? The Henry VIII powers will need modification with more oversight and limitations but the product of these are going to be an enormous raft of statutory instruments which will make reference to the "relevant date" for their implementation. Are we really not going to know what that relevant date is until the last minute?
This is really irrational but then most of the debate since the referendum has been. To take a simple example, suppose you have a regulatory system where you currently need sanction/permission/authorisation from an EU institution. This will be changed to a UK institution on the relevant date. Are people not going to know where to make their applications to? Its crazy.
The government needs to man up. Their greatest failing (amongst many) to date has been the lack of preparation for what might arise on the date we leave. They are narrowing down their options by failing to do the basic work. The total lack of preparation for a WTO departure undermines our position in the negotiations and threatens a scenario where the EU overplays their hand. It is time some bricks were being put in the wall. And a relevant date for departure is not even a brick, it is a foundation on which the bricks can be placed.
Ultimately the solution to both the Willetts problem and housing is to make holding property unattractive other than as a primary home, and to redistribute from those holding wealth toward those earning income by taxing the former and lifting the tax burden on the latter.
Tax credit withdrawal 65%
Higher rate of income tax 42%
Child benefit withdrawal at £50-60k can be over 100% for three children or more
Personal allowance withdrawal at £100k 60%
Additional rate of income tax 47%
Was it only yesterday that Leavers were heralding the apparent increase in workers from the EU as some kind of sign of success?
For perspective the income thresholds are:
Single no children: £22k/year, £10k savings
Couple two kids: £43k/year, £22k savings
Not open to previous property owners or evictees for non-payment of rent.....
How would you improve it?
Edit: this one takes NI into account too.
I did wonder whether 'Hunting Handbags' was a euphemism, but Google tells me that there are indeed such items. As for a prism to view these handbags through....at Victoria Station....????
Lady Bracknell, handbag....Victoria station...the Brighton line....
The only way to destroy capitalism is to ensure an ever-growing proportion of the population are denied access to capital and anger them into the bargain. Dacre seems to be doing his best to ensure that trends in this direction are sustained.
House prices are driven by money supply inflation, since when money is lent for mortgages by commercial banks it is new money that increases the money supply and therefore causes inflation.
The 'genius' of central bank policy for 20 years now has been to have massive inflation in the economy but direct it to assets rather than consumer goods.
Inflation in assets is no different than inflation in goods. Both are caused by increased money supply. The only way to stop house prices rising is to restrict the ability of banks to create new money.
I find it impossible to believe that May has made an unnecessary mistake leading to an unnecessary failure.
However that prompts me to mention Universal Credit. The whole philosophy is to remove most cliff edges and reduce the taper rate to about 65%. How does introducing a binary keep/lose your tenancy cliff edge for social housing tenants fit with that ?
@CarlottaVance I don't know. I'd need to look at the Guernsey situation far more closely. But the current UK law re social housing tenancies has been supported by a chain of governments. So on that criterion ' works ' ?
Up to 5,000 people with six-figure salaries – including transport union boss Bob Crow - are enjoying the benefit of paying cheap rents for council homes or properties let by housing associations.
Analysis by the Department for Communities and Local Government suggests that these rich tenants, who are in the top 5 per cent of all earners, are subsidised by about £4,200 each a year through the low rents that they pay.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10641341/Council-houses-go-to-professionals-earning-100000.html
Worried about their 'cliff edge'?
"Please, please, please give us a great deal, please..."
And the EU response
"You already have the greatest deal available. WTF are you talking about?"
The UK is a white Protestant Christian state and the influx of too many people with different values raises understandable hackles. WASPs sting if disturbed. This is not new - the Aliens Act of 1905 was passed because of similar attitudes, incidentally by the antisemitic Balfour who is so lauded by the Zionists.
Please note that I am not supporting/advocating such views, but merely noting them.
The whole system of income tax, national insurance and tax credits is still too complicated though, and - UC introduction aside - has been made deliberately moreso by recent Chancellors. I’d rip it up and start from scratch, but that’s probably another one for the “too-difficult” box at the moment.
Social housing should be let short term to those who would otherwise be homeless. It shouldn’t be for life regardless of circumstances, people should aspire to move out of it.
Some were less tactful:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/16/germany-expects-unconditional-surrender-david-davis-keynote/
On Crow, God rest his soul, would it have been better if he had used RtB and pocketed a huge windfall ? I rather admire a Trade Union leader who stayed in a council house. It was like all the flack Frank Dobbs used to get. A Labour MP in a council house. Shocking !
@theobertram: But the trouble with this plan - no matter how gloriously it is enacted by No10 & assuming that all 27 member states go along with it - is that it was the same plan David Cameron tried & failed with his EU deal in January 2016.
@bbclaurak: Davis warns German audience not to put EU politics ahead of getting a trade deal - 'putting politics above prosperity is never a smart choice.'
The stupidity of the Brexiteers is self-evident
Regardless, I don't discount the possibility we are doing a bad job negotiating. The point, though is you treat anything the other side in negotiations say as fundamental truth, and that makes no sense since they are also trying to get the best deal for their side so will do what they have to to get it, it won't all be unvarnished truth.
Take the bill. Increased to 100 billion at one point, possibly so later on both sides can claim success at 60. Under your logic, because we are dumb and everything EU negotiators say is true, that 60 would in fact be a massive defeat for them, since they would have been totally right, as ever, to demand 100. You make no allowance for even the strongest side to have a vested interest in how it presents the facts.
But I must be off.
The Brexit vote occurred despite the economic consequences eloquently pointed out by the leaders of the liberal establishment such as Cameron/Osborne/Carney/Obama.
Membership is the best deal on offer is a fundamental truth.
That the Brexiteers don't understand that is not my problem.
Brussels does not believe it is possible to strike anything more than a limited Canadian-style free trade agreement with the UK, according to a leaked European Commission document.
The internal discussion paper stated that Britain’s rejection of membership of the single market and the customs union meant that co-operation would have to be restricted.
The paper, leaked to the Politico website, stated that “single market arrangements in certain areas” or the “evolution of our regulatory frameworks” could not be managed within EU law as it stood. It added that the UK would have to be satisfied with a “standard FTA (free trade agreement)”.
The document stated that Britain’s insistence on “regulatory autonomy” and its intention to remove itself from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice would make it “not compatible” as a partner.
Such a model would provide “no direct branching in sectors like financial services”. The documents added that there were only “limited EU commitments to allow cross-border provision of services”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/standard-trade-deal-is-as-good-as-youll-get-brussels-tells-brexit-bound-uk-wqqhbtjdz
Strange
The rules are clear: to obtain the right to moan, you have to vote. And if you want to moan like a dockside hooker taking a podium place at the world moaning championships, we need to see a canvassing record. Sorry, but there it is.