Thunderbirds? Troy Tempest is the captain of Stingray!!
I am an atheist who has a very dim view of religion in general, and I very much dislike communism.
Burnham the new PM
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Thunderbirds? Troy Tempest is the captain of Stingray!!
I am an atheist who has a very dim view of religion in general, and I very much dislike communism.
He’ll distance himself from Starmer as he can take the London Labor vote pretty much for granted. His prize is the North/Midlands and his tactic is to play to their sense of grievance that the South doesn’t care about the North. He might just do it, because Re form and Re store are essentially southern parties funded by big business
Populism then. All we hear is the left spouting populist this populist farage that but now the left are doing it then thats OK.
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Sounds like levelling up. Oh goody.
So he's Not Starmer, Not Farage, Not Re this or Re that, OK for those.
He can do mayoring, which is a sort of housekeeping job, OK.
Is that enough??
Starmer seemed solid and OK then he made the WFA and PIP and welfare gaffes.
AB hasn't communicated anything yet that I noticed, apart from wanting to redistribute the underperformances.
Has he a vision, and the ability to turn that into real change and be seen doing it?
Is he streetwise and cunning enough to keep everyone on side. Ed Milliband was pathetic, he can't use him. Streeting may be too lefty.
Reeves is actually pretty disciplined, the markets approve, but innovation is needed.
AB's Resilience against scandals, - well we don't know.
He can't borrow to spend, the bond markets won't let him. The UK gets forced to pay more for borrowing.
Simple upping of tax rates, such as aligning CGT with income tax, doesn't always give expected results, and there are bad consequences. Last time Reeves raised CGT, incomes from it reduced for 6 months, before recovering to a modestly higher level. A reduction in incomes was found in the US, too. When our CGT rates were aligned, in 1988 (Lawson) , revenues dropped by 55% in 3 years and 70% after 5 years. Investment collapsed. The Tony Blair Institute, and HRMC, both advise against doing it again.
The "Laffer curve" is often cited.
Tax income drops might be reduced by constraining room for manoeuvre, but there would need to be radical investment incentives.
So he's Not Starmer, Not Farage, Not Re this or Re that, OK for those.
He can do mayoring, which is a sort of housekeeping job, OK.
Is that enough??
Starmer seemed solid and OK then he made the WFA and PIP and welfare gaffes.
AB hasn't communicated anything yet that I noticed, apart from wanting to redistribute the underperformances.
Has he a vision, and the ability to turn that into real change and be seen doing it?
Is he streetwise and cunning enough to keep everyone on side. Ed Milliband was pathetic, he can't use him. Streeting may be too lefty.
Reeves is actually pretty disciplined, the markets approve, but innovation is needed.
AB's Resilience against scandals, - well we don't know.
He can't borrow to spend, the bond markets won't let him. The UK gets forced to pay more for borrowing.
Simple upping of tax rates, such as aligning CGT with income tax, doesn't always give expected results, and there are bad consequences. Last time Reeves raised CGT, incomes from it reduced for 6 months, before recovering to a modestly higher level. A reduction in incomes was found in the US, too. When our CGT rates were aligned, in 1988 (Lawson) , revenues dropped by 55% in 3 years and 70% after 5 years. Investment collapsed. The Tony Blair Institute, and HRMC, both advise against doing it again.
The "Laffer curve" is often cited.
Tax income drops might be reduced by constraining room for manoeuvre, but there would need to be radical investment incentives.
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Why not just stop wasting money, and not have to rely on loan sharks?
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Your knowledge of the role of Mayor is sadly lacking:
The Mayor of Greater Manchester holds a highly strategic role. Rather than managing individual streets or local bins, the directly elected metro mayor focuses on long-term regional planning, broad economic growth, and integrating public services across the ten metropolitan boroughs of Greater Manchester.
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The role of a mayor is totally different to that of a PM. A mayor gets as much money from government as he/she can and spend it on Local infrastructure, running a local area is not the same as running the country. Burnham may well have had successes being a local mayor but that doesnt mean that he will make a good PM running the country.
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Wasting what money?
The HM Government IS the borrower of the money.
EG, you can "buy" UK bonds which will give you back money with a growth (tax free) at some point in the future.
EG, you can lend HMG £95 now and they WILL give you back £100 in Jan 2028, so that's £6 on 95 in a year and a half.
Pension funds like those, they're fixed return. ( works out at 4 point something % - Treasury gilts I've been on about. A Gilt is a bond.)
Foreign investors (notably murricans atm) hold about a third of UK gilts, this is HIGH.
But if inflation spikes, the bond's return rate won't look good, so the Yield from the gilt isn't appealing so people go elsewhere, and want their money back immediately. So Rache has to issue more bonds - more debt. So far she's been restrained, in not doing that.
Them foreigners, hedge funds chief among them, trade those gilts they have in leveraging deals. If gilt prices suddenly drop, those other lenders demand more gilts or more cash NOW. The hedge fund sells more gilts, into a falling market. which pushes gilt prices even lower.
That's part of what caused the Liz Truss near-catastrophe. Millions of pensioners nearly lost their (private) pensions.
If there's one takeaway, it's that the situation is complex, fragile as hell, and things can run away quite quickly. A new thing was introduced called the TECRF, which should act as a brake, but it hasn't been tested yet.
The HM Government IS the borrower of the money.
EG, you can "buy" UK bonds which will give you back money with a growth (tax free) at some point in the future.
EG, you can lend HMG £95 now and they WILL give you back £100 in Jan 2028, so that's £6 on 95 in a year and a half.
Pension funds like those, they're fixed return. ( works out at 4 point something % - Treasury gilts I've been on about. A Gilt is a bond.)
Foreign investors (notably murricans atm) hold about a third of UK gilts, this is HIGH.
But if inflation spikes, the bond's return rate won't look good, so the Yield from the gilt isn't appealing so people go elsewhere, and want their money back immediately. So Rache has to issue more bonds - more debt. So far she's been restrained, in not doing that.
Them foreigners, hedge funds chief among them, trade those gilts they have in leveraging deals. If gilt prices suddenly drop, those other lenders demand more gilts or more cash NOW. The hedge fund sells more gilts, into a falling market. which pushes gilt prices even lower.
That's part of what caused the Liz Truss near-catastrophe. Millions of pensioners nearly lost their (private) pensions.
If there's one takeaway, it's that the situation is complex, fragile as hell, and things can run away quite quickly. A new thing was introduced called the TECRF, which should act as a brake, but it hasn't been tested yet.
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I'm sure you know all about it - you found a quote after all.
To my mind, that Mayorship is more like running a house and farm where you have to balance the books and plan what's going to happen to your workers and fields.
But your money is yours, it doesn't get taken away from under you by some shift in a bond market over which you have little control. You also tend not to have to plan defence against aggressive neighbours, cabinet ministers arguing against you, the whole international energy industry etc etc
by the way
He was Health Minister, which should help. One thing he proposed then was that pensioners should pay into a health insurance scheme. I'd go with that, but it would have to be presented skilfully. Starmer would have ballsed it up.
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Yes. I frequently do support my opinions with quotes.
Like Margaret Thatcher's comparison of the nation's finances to a household budget.
the economic reality for average British households starkly diverged from this rhetoric during and immediately after her premiership.
The main difference is in the lack of relative comparisons.
While the median household saw real-terms income grow, this concealed a growing wealth divide. The proportion of people living in low-income households tripled during her era, and the share of income held by the top 1% nearly doubled.
And the country became reliant on credit, something which nations had been reliant on for long times past.
A mayor does next to nothing.
He happened to be Mayor at a time when Manchester did well. It was also doing well before he was Mayor.
He chose the colour of the new buses, that's pretty much all.
He's just stealing credit from Manchester.
He happened to be Mayor at a time when Manchester did well. It was also doing well before he was Mayor.
He chose the colour of the new buses, that's pretty much all.
He's just stealing credit from Manchester.
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Accusing the new (potentially) PM of stealing?
That's treasonous. I suspect the real patriots (
draped in a flag) will be calling for your arrest at least, I think it's about lock up time so at least everyone will get some peace from this nutterAccusing the new (potentially) PM of stealing?
That's treasonous. I suspect the real patriots (
