[kreuzberger]

An insulting missive, directly from Stockholm case notes.

Seventeen years after the red-braces-brigade crashed the global economy and for which the cash printing presses were fired up, rather than the opening of the greatest opportunity ever for the gallows industry, working-class people are still being presented with forever-bills.

This is an epic con which was and is still being perpetrated on an epic scale, and one which very few thought would be so easy.

Seventeen years later, and we (not the bastard offspring of Patty Hearst, obvs) are still politely asking the blisteringly wealthy to chip a couple of quid.

"It is a world of common good with mutual investment; a vision of socialism without get-out clauses."

[The Weeping Angel]

Whatever, but if you want functioning public services then you're going to have to pay your bit. I mean, there's an irony that ifReeves raises income tax since Denis Healey and the response of a lot of left-wingers has been to say tax is theft and can't somebody else pay for it. Talking of Healey.

Contrary to what people think, the wealthy don't have all the wealth hidden in a vault like Scrooge McDuck.

[Abernathy]

Good piece in the FT :

Starmer and Reeves appear to have taken the view that things are so bad already — Labour support in the polls has dipped below 20 per cent and only one in 10 people thinks the chancellor is doing a good job — that they might as well do really unpopular stuff now.

“If you’re asking what comes first, the national interest or political expediency, it’s the national interest every single time for me and it’s the same for Keir Starmer too,” Reeves said this week.

But they also have few alternatives. Anthony Wells, director of political polling at YouGov, argues that Reeves faces a choice between “two incredibly bad scenarios”: breaking the income tax promise or trying to simply patch up the public finances, leaving the country constantly on the fiscal edge with deteriorating public services.

But he argues that breaking a manifesto promise per se is not Reeves’ biggest problem. “It’s the action that people care about, not the promise. The problem is that people don’t like tax rises.”

https://www.ft.com/content/9e5655f7-85f ... 9c238efa77

[Youngian]

Voters like the sound of tough measures in order to produce jam tomorrow as long its someone else's welfare perks cut and taxes going up. Voters are full of shit.

[The Weeping Angel]

I've heard they're going to take 2p off NI as well.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The rules are that Labour are not allowed to raise taxes, nor make any cuts. Everything is either unpopular with the electorate or unpopular with Labour's core voters. And some think tank/ lobbying group for mostly bad ideas will be on hand to claim that they've found £50bn of "subsidies" or "loopholes". And anyway "just rejoin FFS".

[The Weeping Angel]

I've heard they're going to take 2p off NI as well.

More on that here.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Oh yeah, everything has to be approved by Martin Lewis too.

[The Weeping Angel]

Of course, if you're an FT journalist, you can kick them two ways for having the pledge and then breaking it.

[Youngian]

Maybe Lucy Powell's criticisms are co-ordinated. Setting the path for a sunnier candidate who can do popular things thanks to boring unpopular Rachel and Keir haven taken the unpopular decisions. Like Italy sticks up a sober technocrat to make reforms.

[The Weeping Angel]

[Yug]

Who is Brynley Heaven when he's at home? He's obviously some kind of idiot because he obviously doesn't understand that "not affordable right now" is not the same as 'it will never ever ever get done".

[Tubby Isaacs]

There's another goon btl who does "Rachel from accounts" and "growf". Yeah, bastard Chancellor, being a woman from Kent.

In terms of growth you probably wouldn't fund rail electrification. The (presumably now out of date) Network Rail page on Midland Mainline Electrification says

Why are you doing it?
Electric trains are better for the environment than diesel trains, and they’re quieter for both those on board the train and those living close to the railway. We’re making it possible for electric trains to travel on more areas of the rail network by electrifying railway lines that only diesel trains can run on at the moment.

No mention of growth or significant extra capacity.

But this would be much better than freezing fuel duty again.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I assume Brynley Heaven is a rail guy. Probably a case of "government needs to spend a lot more on the area I'm most interested in" commentators. At least rail actually still exists, in part because successive government have made passengers pay a larger share of the costs, so there's a funding stream there. Some things that traditionally come under local government like youth services don't.

[Tubby Isaacs]

More advice for Reeves. I hope she does this. A reminder of how useless Corbyn was that nobody even spotted this massive regressive perk sitting there in plain sight.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Maybe Lucy Powell's criticisms are co-ordinated. Setting the path for a sunnier candidate who can do popular things thanks to boring unpopular Rachel and Keir haven taken the unpopular decisions. Like Italy sticks up a sober technocrat to make reforms.

I think Powell's simply playing the populist.

I wonder if the plan's for Reeves and Starmer to do the hard work then step aside. That didn't work for John Major, who replaced Lamont with Kenneth Clark after the very unpopular tax raising budget in 1993.

[Youngian]

Ken Clarke wasn't replacing the PM. Starmer still scores over Badenoch and Farage in a run off but we have to learn from Gordon Brown that a serious big beast won't win over an obviously transparent light weight.

[Tubby Isaacs]

True, Major stayed on. Add Zack Polanski to that list of lightweights, if he's competitive. I think he'll have blown a fair bit of support with his Defence nonsense, but maybe not.

Interesting article here on payments to the EU, which are likely to go up with greater cooperation. This is good value for money, but obviously a political challenge, as it'll sound like a lot of money to lots of people, especially in a tough budget environment. Something that the "the public supports rejoining FFS" lot don't really take into account.

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-sleeping-dog- ... -finances/

[Tubby Isaacs]

Talking of which. Quite encouraging to see Britain supported by Germany and the Netherlands. The SPS deal will be a fairly tangible benefit, once it's agreed. How many people who at the moment say they support Reform or the Tories will actually support tearing it up?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Sounds from what Reeves said to Radio 5 Live that she'll put up one of the taxes she said she wouldn't. This is the right thing to do, then again so was restricting the winter fuel allowance.