Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Guest]

I'm sure that, like me, @Strokes can't wait for the day that our rich-man financed tory government implement laws that deal even more robustly with tax workarounds than the EUs.

 

Accountants and lawyers ‘must report’ aggressive tax avoidance schemes

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/13/accountants-and-lawyers-must-report-aggressive-tax-avoidance-schemes?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

 

Edited 13 March 2018 by Guest

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Foxin_mad said:

Its unlikely that a western developed nation would see growth figures like that. Even powerhouse economies like Germany only see 4-5% growth in boom periods. I dont think there is a precendent for growth figures like that except in developing nations like China/India.

 

I believe in the country more than anyone but if we want sustainable long term growth the a rich hating, britain hating, anti business, far left government is not going to achieve that in any way shape or form.

 

A government that believes in big state and high taxation for all workers is hardly going to drive productivity or growth.

It might surprise you to learn that I'm nowhere near as far left as you might suppose but this anti business thing you keep pushing is ridiculous. Taking corporation tax to where it was in 2014 is hardly ripping down the walls of the private sector is it?

 

That powerhouse economy of Germany? Corporation tax far, far higher than ours.

 

Edited 13 March 2018 by Guest

[AlloverthefloorYesNdidi]

19 minutes ago, toddybad said:

It might surprise you to learn that I'm nowhere near as far left as you might suppose but this anti business thing you keep pushing is ridiculous. Taking corporation tax to where it was in 2014 is hardly ripping down the walls of the private sector is it?

 

That powerhouse economy of Germany? Corporation tax far, far higher than ours.

 

Also free tuition

 

And s**t loads of renewable energy

[Guest]

Tories pushed through cuts to free school meals after bribing the DUP to vote for cuts in England by not cutting them in n.Ireland.

 

They wanted to also scrap childcare vouchers but labour have forced them to hold that measure up.

 

Who exactly benefits from these cuts?

Edited 13 March 2018 by Guest

[Guest Kopfkino]

23 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Tories pushed through cuts to free school meals after bribing the DUP to vote for cuts in England by not cutting them in n.Ireland.

 

 

 

This has actually been as close to blatant lies from the Labour Party, bizarrely generated by a charity. I shouldn't be surprised when the leader decided to play party politics immediately after a statement about the use of chemical weapons by a foreign government on our own soil. But at least there he had a bit of a point to make, this has just been blatant lies.

 

The fact is, no child currently entitled will lose that entitlement, and in fact 50000 more children will be entitled. What Labour have done (shamefully in my opinion) is decided that hypothetically 1.8m children would have received free school meals (based on numbers on UC) but in fact it will only be 650000 and decided that means cutting 1m free school meals. 

 

This isn't even spin, its lies and its shameful.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Kopfkino said:

 

This has actually been as close to blatant lies from the Labour Party, bizarrely generated by a charity. I shouldn't be surprised when the leader decided to play party politics immediately after a statement about the use of chemical weapons by a foreign government on our own soil. But at least there he had a bit of a point to make, this has just been blatant lies.

 

The fact is, no child currently entitled will lose that entitlement, and in fact 50000 more children will be entitled. What Labour have done (shamefully in my opinion) is decided that hypothetically 1.8m children would have received free school meals (based on numbers on UC) but in fact it will only be 650000 and decided that means cutting 1m free school meals. 

 

This isn't even spin, its lies and its shameful.

 

There's actually truth in both positions to some extent (as was ever the case). The DUP bribe is shameful though.

 

It is supposedly true that, as you say, once the new system rolls out the tories claim that around 50,000 more pupils ('students') will be covered than under the last labour government. Whether that's because of the terms of qualification or increases to school populations I don't know.

 

As it stands, however, the introduction of universal credit brought about a government decision to make UC the qualifying criteria for free school meals. This actually increased the numbers qualifying. Everybody currently qualified is apparently protected from the changes.

 

However, the labour position is also true as the changes being implemented to the qualifying conditions will mean that very significant numbers of UC claimants will not qualify in the future, so the new system is most definitely a cut on what is currently in place. 

 

Granted, I probably hadn't read up on it enough and the Tories can probably defend the cuts (though not the bribe). To call the labour position lies appears to be entirely false, however.

 

A central point thigh, is that cuts are being made that affect people on UC whilst the corporation tax rate continues to drop like a stone. We shouldn't be surprised:

 

Austerity will have cast an extra 1.5m children into poverty by 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/14/austerity-will-have-cast-an-extra-15m-children-into-poverty-by-2021?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

 

[Rogstanley]

Same as the childcare vouchers thing as well, anyone currently getting them won’t be worse off, but the new system is vastly worse for most people. Ultimately it’s a severe cut to support for childcare at a time childcare costs are going through the roof due to cuts to local council funding.

 

It’s just one ideological cut on top of another while all the supposedly ‘saved’ public money flows into the hands of big business. Bog standard Tories.

[Strokes]

10 hours ago, toddybad said:

I'm sure that, like me, @Strokes can't wait for the day that our rich-man financed tory government implement laws that deal even more robustly with tax workarounds than the EUs.

 

Accountants and lawyers ‘must report’ aggressive tax avoidance schemes

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/13/accountants-and-lawyers-must-report-aggressive-tax-avoidance-schemes?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

 

If it works great, we need international cooperation to get this resolved so I’m pleased the EU are finally waking up.

[Strokes]

6 hours ago, Kopfkino said:

 

This has actually been as close to blatant lies from the Labour Party, bizarrely generated by a charity. I shouldn't be surprised when the leader decided to play party politics immediately after a statement about the use of chemical weapons by a foreign government on our own soil. But at least there he had a bit of a point to make, this has just been blatant lies.

 

The fact is, no child currently entitled will lose that entitlement, and in fact 50000 more children will be entitled. What Labour have done (shamefully in my opinion) is decided that hypothetically 1.8m children would have received free school meals (based on numbers on UC) but in fact it will only be 650000 and decided that means cutting 1m free school meals. 

 

This isn't even spin, its lies and its shameful.

Don’t forget to mention that in the 13 years Labour spent in power, it was only parent on full time benefits who’s kids got free meals, and they were only getting turkey twizzlers every day.

[Webbo]

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-labour-arent-telling-the-full-story-about-free-school-meals

[Buce]

Austerity will have cast an extra 1.5m children into poverty by 2021

Lone-parents, disabled children and ethnic minorities will be among worst-hit, says EHRC

 

An extra 1.5 million children will have been pitched into poverty by 2021 as a consequence of the government’s austerity programme, according to a study of the impact of tax and benefit policy by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The EHRC study forecasts dramatic increases in poverty rates among children in lone parent and minority ethnic households, families with disabled children and households with three or more children.

There are clear winners and losers from austerity tax and benefits changes since 2010, the study says. The regressive nature of the policies means that low-income families have been hit hardest: the poorest fifth will lose 10% of income by 2021, while the wealthiest fifth will see little or no change.

 

David Isaac, chair of the EHRC, said: “It’s disappointing to discover that the reforms we have examined negatively affect the most disadvantaged in our society. It’s even more shocking that children – the future generation – will be the hardest hit and that so many will be condemned to start life in poverty.”

The commission called on the government to reconsider existing policies that hit the most disadvantaged groups hardest, and to review social security benefit levels to ensure they provide an adequate standard of living.

The study says the negative financial impacts are largely driven by the four-year freeze on working-age benefits from April 2016, cuts to disability benefits and reductions to work allowances in universal credit.

The findings include:

• Children in 62% of lone parent households will be in poverty in 2021, compared to 37% in 2010. Lone parent households will lose an average of £5,250 – a fifth of their income.
• The largest increases in child poverty measured by ethnic group will be in Pakistani families (up almost a fifth), while Bangladeshi households will lose £4,400 on average.
• Households with a disabled adult and a disabled child will shoulder annual cash losses of just over £6,500, equivalent to 13% of their net income. Disabled lone parents with a disabled child stand to lose £10,000 a year.

The study, which was carried out by the economists Jonathan Portes and Howard Reed, examined the cumulative impact on different groups of changes to income tax, VAT, national insurance, social security benefits, tax credits, universal credit and the national living wage.

It concludes that although changes to taxes and benefits were a clear consequence of the government’s commitment since 2010 to reduce the deficit, it was not inevitable that the most vulnerable groups would bear the heaviest burden, and that the precise mix of changes was a political choice.

A government spokesperson said the report did not take into account many changes made since 2010. “Automatic enrolment pension saving and near record employment are just two issues which contribute enormously to people’s lives but are not reflected in the analysis,” they said.

[Guest Foxin_mad]

12 hours ago, toddybad said:

It might surprise you to learn that I'm nowhere near as far left as you might suppose but this anti business thing you keep pushing is ridiculous. Taking corporation tax to where it was in 2014 is hardly ripping down the walls of the private sector is it?

 

That powerhouse economy of Germany? Corporation tax far, far higher than ours.

 

Its very anti business in my view but you are welcome to disagree of course. The corporation tax reforms are bringing in more tax receipts than ever, why break something that isn't broken? We can do more to ensure awful companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Apple, Dell, Facebook, Google etc. pay their share in the country where the money is made of course. Funny though that most pseudo socialists are seen updating their Facebook on an iPhone oh the irony! I welcome the governments plans to push for global agreements on corporation tax of multinationals.

 

The powerhouse economy in Germany is extremely different to us in many ways. One they are a high quality manufacturing economy, a massive exporter and they are currently running a budget surplus and have a national debt about 20% lower than ours. All in all they are nothing like the brave new world that Corbyn suggests.

 

Perhaps higher tax is sustainable with manufacturing economies, unfortunately we don't have one. We have a London centric service economy which is a lot easier to relocate. If they can relocate due to Brexit which many here say they will then I would imagine they would relocate under a hard left government.

 

The good news is that manufacturing is at its strongest for quite some time in the UK, under the last Labour government manufacturing declined every year.

[Guest Kopfkino]

4 hours ago, toddybad said:

 

There's actually truth in both positions to some extent (as was ever the case). The DUP bribe is shameful though.

 

It is supposedly true that, as you say, once the new system rolls out the tories claim that around 50,000 more pupils ('students') will be covered than under the last labour government. Whether that's because of the terms of qualification or increases to school populations I don't know.

 

As it stands, however, the introduction of universal credit brought about a government decision to make UC the qualifying criteria for free school meals. This actually increased the numbers qualifying. Everybody currently qualified is apparently protected from the changes.

 

However, the labour position is also true as the changes being implemented to the qualifying conditions will mean that very significant numbers of UC claimants will not qualify in the future, so the new system is most definitely a cut on what is currently in place. 

 

Granted, I probably hadn't read up on it enough and the Tories can probably defend the cuts (though not the bribe). To call the labour position lies appears to be entirely false, however.

 

A central point thigh, is that cuts are being made that affect people on UC whilst the corporation tax rate continues to drop like a stone. We shouldn't be surprised:

 

Austerity will have cast an extra 1.5m children into poverty by 2021

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/14/austerity-will-have-cast-an-extra-15m-children-into-poverty-by-2021?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

 

 

I'd go with it being a lie. It was a 'temporary measure' to ensure people moving over to universal credit in the early stages did not lose out whilst they sorted out how to means-test it to those most in need. It isn't taking anything away and is completing a process that was always to happen. Maybe I'll call it wilful disinformation, done to cook up a social media storm (It highlights so many melts on twitter, its great).

 

 

Also:

The study says the negative financial impacts are largely driven by the four-year freeze on working-age benefits from April 2016

 

which the Resolution Foundation said Labour's manifesto showed they would keep those benefit reductions.

Edited 14 March 2018 by Kopfkino

[Guest Foxin_mad]

2 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

 

I'd go with it being a lie. It was a 'temporary measure' to ensure people moving over to universal credit in the early stages did not lose out whilst they sorted out how to means-test it to those most in need. It isn't taking anything away and is completing a process that was always to happen. Maybe I'll call it wilful disinformation, done to cook up a social media storm (It highlights so many melts on twitter, its great).

Exactly what Labour and their marketing department thrive on.

[Rogstanley]

1 hour ago, Foxin_mad said:

Its very anti business in my view but you are welcome to disagree of course. The corporation tax reforms are bringing in more tax receipts than ever, why break something that isn't broken? We can do more to ensure awful companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Apple, Dell, Facebook, Google etc. pay their share in the country where the money is made of course. Funny though that most pseudo socialists are seen updating their Facebook on an iPhone oh the irony! I welcome the governments plans to push for global agreements on corporation tax of multinationals.

 

The powerhouse economy in Germany is extremely different to us in many ways. One they are a high quality manufacturing economy, a massive exporter and they are currently running a budget surplus and have a national debt about 20% lower than ours. All in all they are nothing like the brave new world that Corbyn suggests.

 

Perhaps higher tax is sustainable with manufacturing economies, unfortunately we don't have one. We have a London centric service economy which is a lot easier to relocate. If they can relocate due to Brexit which many here say they will then I would imagine they would relocate under a hard left government.

 

The good news is that manufacturing is at its strongest for quite some time in the UK, under the last Labour government manufacturing declined every year.

Corporation tax receipts have increased because business profits have increased. Business profits have increased in part because wages have and are continuing to nosedive. The increased tax take isn't being spent due to austerity which is primarily aimed at increasing business profits even more. So effectively what you are championing here is the transfer of wealth from ordinary people into the hands of big business, with part of that being diverted to the government and then back to big business.

 

How that is supposed to be a good thing for ordinary people is still a mystery to me, but you lot show no signs of letting up in your worship of big business and willingness to sacrifice your own prosperity in favour of further adding to their already bulging pockets.

[Buce]

UK will need to impose tax rises of £30bn to balance budget – IFS

Chancellor will fail to cut deficit by 2025 without extra taxes, Institute of Fiscal Studies says

 

Philip Hammond will need to impose tax rises worth at least £30bn to reach his target of balancing the public finances by 2025, undermining hopes that the chancellor will go into his autumn budget with plenty of spare cash to ease austerity, according to a leading economic thinktank.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the government could need to find up to £41bn in extra taxes by the middle of the next decade once the costs of Britain’s ageing population are taken into account.

The gloomy outlook is expected to put a dampener on Hammond’s assessment of the public finances, which he said in his budget speech allowed him to consider increases in spending in the autumn budget.

In an upbeat account of forecasts by the Treasury’s independent forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the chancellor said he felt “Tiggerish” in contrast to the Eeyores on the Labour benches and said he would take a “balanced approach” to planned public spending cuts.

 

Hammond said: “If in the autumn the public finances continue to reflect the improvements that today’s report hints at, then in accordance with our balanced approach … I would have the capacity to enable further increases in public spending and investment in the years ahead.”

 

But Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, said to reach the deficit target without further cuts to public spending from the middle of the parliament, the government would need to find £14bn and another £18bn in extra taxes from 2023 to 2025.

“Put these two together and on current forecasts, just keeping spending constant as a fraction of national income beyond 2019–20 and reaching budget balance by the mid-2020s would require tax rises of £30bn a year.

“And that’s before additional demographic pressures which could add another £11bn a year to the money the government would need to find from somewhere in 2025 if it wants to cover the additional demands for health, pension and social care spending,” he said.

Johnson said the pressures on public services were “undeniable” and it was likely that the government would need to address many of them in the short term.

“Many of the public services are struggling in a way that they were not two or three years ago. Safety in prisons is being compromised. The NHS is visibly failing to cope as well as it was. Local government, having done a remarkable job of coping with cuts, is showing the strain.”

He said the government could also face a backlash once “further substantial cuts in the generosity of working age benefits” were imposed from April.

Extra taxes on the self employed, who pay lower national insurance than employed workers, and owner managed businesses who pay themselves in dividends, were included in Johnson’s list of potential tax rises.

Yet Johnson had a warning for Labour, saying that it would be dangerous to use extra borrowing to boost public sector spending.

“The reality of the economic and fiscal challenges facing us ought to be at the very top of the news agenda. And I mean the reality, not the spin and bluster of politicians on all sides pretending there are easy solutions, that the promised land is just around the corner, or that they can reinvent the laws of economics. There aren’t. It isn’t. And they can’t,” he said.

Edited 14 March 2018 by Buce

[Guest Kopfkino]

Thank **** the leader of the opposition is just the leader of the opposition. May rightfully furious with him.

 

Still he's got a job as Sergey Lavrov's parrot if he wants it. 

 

 

[Beechey]

Jeremy Corbyn actually just parrotted the exact demands of the Russian Foreign Ministry across our Parliament to our Head of Government. The man has no common sense whatsoever. Conservative MPs are absolutely furious and Labour MPs utterly silent.

Edited 14 March 2018 by Beechey

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

Thank **** the leader of the opposition is just the leader of the opposition. May rightfully furious with him.

 

Still he's got a job as Sergey Lavrov's parrot if he wants it. 

 

 

 

45 minutes ago, Beechey said:

Jeremy Corbyn actually just parrotted the exact demands of the Russian Foreign Ministry across our Parliament to our Head of Government. The man has no common sense whatsoever. Conservative MPs are absolutely furious and Labour MPs utterly silent.

TM did an okay job of showing as much resolve as we can muster.

I haven't seen or heard Corbyn's response but from what I've read it doesn't appear to have been the response that was needed. 

 

 

[Carl the Llama]

Don't know what you guys have been watching but I just watched a clip on BBC of Corbyn condemning Putin's human rights record and corrupt Russian oligarchs.  If he's a Russian puppet he isn't a very good one...  I think people are looking to be offended by the one line about providing samples to Russia which tbh would be a good way to make it absolutely clear to them that we know it was them, so unless I've missed something I'm a bit surprised by the rancour.  As for silent Labour MPs, clearly you're just ignoring them when they say they support May's response because it doesn't give you anything to get outraged over.

[Guest Kopfkino]

8 minutes ago, toddybad said:

 

TM did an okay job of showing as much resolve as we can muster.

I haven't seen or heard Corbyn's response but from what I've read it doesn't appear to have been the response that was needed. 

 

 

 

Probably better to watch the responses from an Blackford and some of Labour's MPs, basically anyone that hasn't been in contact with Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray. Poor Attlee will be turning in his grave.

 

I'm sure the paranoid conspiracists are already working on this but it couldn't have come at a better time for May. Corbyn's responses show that Soubry&co would not vote this government down. 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

7 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Don't know what you guys have been watching but I just watched a clip on BBC of Corbyn condemning Putin's human rights record and corrupt Russian oligarchs.  If he's a Russian puppet he isn't a very good one...  I think people are looking to be offended by the one line about providing samples to Russia which tbh would be a good way to make it absolutely clear to them that we know it was them, so unless I've missed something I'm a bit surprised by the rancour.  As for silent Labour MPs, clearly you're just ignoring them when they say they support May's response because it doesn't give you anything to get outraged over.

Why would we give Russia samples when all they would say once they've 'analysed' them is, "Sorry, not one of ours, you must be mistaken."?

[Carl the Llama]

Just now, SouthStandUpperTier said:

Why would we give Russia samples when all they would say once they've 'analysed' them is, "Sorry, not one of ours, you must be mistaken."?

My answer is what you've quoted there.  Unless I've missed something I understood Corbyn to be saying he supported May with a few caveats thrown in about due process and rule of law.

[Guest Foxin_mad]

3 hours ago, Rogstanley said:

Corporation tax receipts have increased because business profits have increased. Business profits have increased in part because wages have and are continuing to nosedive. The increased tax take isn't being spent due to austerity which is primarily aimed at increasing business profits even more. So effectively what you are championing here is the transfer of wealth from ordinary people into the hands of big business, with part of that being diverted to the government and then back to big business.

 

How that is supposed to be a good thing for ordinary people is still a mystery to me, but you lot show no signs of letting up in your worship of big business and willingness to sacrifice your own prosperity in favour of further adding to their already bulging pockets.

Wages are nose diving as you put it due to the import of cheap unskilled foreign labour, so you should be pleased to hear then that Brexit should start to reverse this trend. Obviously if there are a lot of people coming into the economy who will do a job for less it will keep wages down, once we have high employment and the cheap labour supply dries up wages will increase, there are already signs of that happening. 

 

You want higher wages, high taxation all that will lead to is more unemployment and more reliance upon the state. How is that a good thing for ordinary people? If you increase the tax and wage burden on business they will protect profits by cutting staff. 

 

The increased tax take isn't being spent because we are still paying off Labours deficit, of course we know that you would like some more spending and more debt, maybe some hyperinflation. Something for our grandchildren's, children's, children to pay off.  

 

How that is supposed to be a good thing for ordinary people is still a mystery to me, but you lot show no signs in letting up your worship of a failed policies that will make everyone in the country poorer and only serve the twisted egos of a few far left zealots. 

[Carl the Llama]

Just seen a tweet claiming Corbyn doesn't believe there's proof that the nerve agent is linked to Russia which if true (from the Sun) is a 100% valid reason for being upset with the guy, but I haven't seen anybody mention that in here so it's clearly not what's sparked the angry reaction from a couple of posters above which I'm still a bit confused about.  If @Kopfkino or @Beechey could clarify what they're responding to I'd appreciate it because clearly I'm missing something.

Edited 14 March 2018 by Carl the Llama