UK Politics

That budget today is just weird. £40bn more in taxes from an already high level and it doesn't really seem to be going anywhere meaningful? The OBR saying it won't help growth and business investment falling, farmers getting stiffed, gilt markets rising.

Even The Guardian live blog isn't exactly overflowing with positivity....https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/oct/30/autumn-budget-2024-tax-rachel-reeves-labour

 

Farage responds to Labour's Budget

 

With the garden waste collection we will probably still pay the extra as going and queuing at Midland Road on a weekend is a nightmare and wastes hours of my day that I value more than the extra cost.

rest of it seems madness as you and others have said. If there is so much over spending that can be cut why was it there for so long? The savings coming from Children services is dependent on the number of children in care dropping but the council have no control over that so it is a guess and a hope.
As for the fining poor driving it would be ok if they actually did across the whole City but we know it will be targeted to easy targets like the parking tickets handed out round VP but not onManningham Lane that the wardens will have passed to get to VP

 

Did you read the article?

It literally says that they're told what to say to get approval rather than it being true religious persecution. It's nothing to do with what country they come from.

 

Well, yes, but thats guess work isn't it? You're imagining that they have a genuine reason for asylum that they just aren't telling. I see no reason to go down that path.

If there's an article saying that the gangs are guiding people to lie to get into the country under false pretences so that they can be used for criminality, I see no reason not to just take that at face value rather than making it say something it doesn't.

Basically the same situation happened with Albanians last year. It's hardly beyond comprehension that they gangs are playing the system to exploit loopholes and the people involved is it?

 

But they do.....you're reading an article that tells you that from the horses mouth.

Of course more people from Vietnam could. Equally some people from Vietnam could claim genuine asylum. But that's not the article you are reading. It might be ridiculous but people with knowledge of the situation are telling a reputable news source that it is happening? Why are we assuming that their words are irrelevant?

 

I notice this restriction on the right to protest hasn’t had much coverage even though it comes in tomorrow.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v3dlld58qo

thin edge of the wedge maybe or just protecting vulnerable people?

 

Spoke to 2 clients today, both of whom run modest businesses. One in the manufacturing sector, the other in the care sector. Both conversations went something like this:

Me: How are you?"

Client: "Yeah not bad, apart from that sorry excuse of a budget. It is going to cost my business in the region of £120,000 per year in extra NI contributions, virtually wiping out a reasonable profit, and ultimately meaning pay rises next April will be either extremely meagre, or simply forfeited completely. And then the forced pay rises to those on "national living wage" means that my valuable skilled/higher paid workers will be extremely pissed off as they didn't get a payrise, and the unskilled young 'uns will close the gap further on them. Then to add insult to injury, they will give away even more of our billions to foreign aid, and an inflation increase to everyone claiming benefits, as well as caving into the teachers/doctors/nurses unions... awful situation they have put us in"


Starmer, Reeves and Co are so out of their depth, it is untrue. The damage they are doing to regular folk is a disgrace

 

How big are these companies and how many employees do they have? I've been crunching the numbers (as part of my job) and worked out that the gain loss threshold is very low. It's about 6.5 employees where the NI ER threshold being lowered and 1.2% being put on top starts to cost money when offset against the NI ER allowance.

Drop of NI ER threshold from 9,100 to 5,000 = 4,100 x 15% = £615 per employee.

So 6 x £615 = £3,690 with say these 6 employees earning £30k per year so 1.2% on £20,900 (amount over the current allowance) = £250.8 x 6 = £1,504.8 + £3,690 = £5,194.80 which just fits under the new allowance. Anything over 6 employees and you can see how that allowance is gone.

However to get to £120k in NI ER you are looking at 100 employees earning £57,850 per year each. I presume this is more than a modest business and a fully audited medium company with turnover in the £10s of millions.

 

You mean ‘paying these valued essential public servants a decent wage rise for the first time in years (which still leaves their real wage levels lagging well behind what they were ten years ago) thereby ensuring that there is some hope of stopping the exodus of experienced staff and attracting new recruits to these essential professions’.

 

Think for companies that size the owners/ceo would be moaning no matter what Labour did in their first budget as it was never going to be as business friendly as a Tory budget that they have got used to over the past decade.

So maybe if that is all they are saying it shows Starmer, Reeves and Co are actually getting it right becasue if they had pushed further then the moans and complaints would have been a lot worse than that

 

Nah the threshold is very very low. Realistically it should have not really kicked in as it does till they are over 10 employees. After all companies houses definition of micro is up to 10 employees.

A reduction to £5k also brings in a wave of part time staff to be charged NI ER for, so part time bar work, etc which isn't really what they need to be hitting.

Charging people to be employed seems counter productive, I mean it costs more when they are unemployed and if this is the difference between employing someone and not it is counter productive.

Someone could have been earning about £90 a day working 2 days a week part time before their employer had to pay NI ER, now they are hit with 15% to employ them that second day.

 

This guy absolutely spot on. As good an example of politics in the UK summed up in 90 seconds. Doesn't matter where you sit on the political spectrum, this is what politics is, a bunch of self congratulating halfwits not fit to run a bath. Thankfully i haven't watched the utter joke that is question time for donkeys years, this just came up on my timeline.

 

Another on my timeline, i didn't realise QT had people on with sense and intelligence. A simple explanation as to how economies grow and tax revenue is raised as a result of hard working people willing to take risks. No economy has ever grown by raising tax thresholds.

 

Darren Jones looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights

 

Well said that man !!
The NHS isn't particularly under funded, just very badly managed by people who have absolutely no idea how to run a tombola never mind a public service. I see on a daily basis just how much money and time is wasted by just one trust its scandalous really, suggesting different ways of spending to save them money is met with total disinterest as it would break the robotic malfunctioning practice currently employed
These people wouldn't last a week in the harsh world of privately owned businesses that is a certainty
His definition of insanity certainly applies to the NHS and probably a large percentage of government funded organisations
As always it's the private businesses who suffer paying more and more for less and less like the honest motorist caught for speeding 5mph above the limit an easy target !!!!
Sadly I believe nothing will change in the near future

 

Pretty much all politicians are economically illiterate. You don't see someone with a background from accountancy or former CEOs end up as chancellors or in charge of large budgets.

This is both nationally and locally.

What did Tracey Breadbin do as an actress on Corrie that sees her capable of running the Budget as Mayor of West Yorkshire.

What business knowledge background has Susan Hinchcliffe got to run Bradford Council.

What does Alex Ross Shaw know about regional development?

It's no wonder everything is falling appart as we are being run by a circus.

I see Ma Hinchcliffe's first thought about £40bn in tax rises was how much Bradford would get and how quickly she could spend it. No concern about businesses or residents who are gonna have to suck it up.