POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

I have just lost a ten minute rant by hitting the wrong key! Curses.
I am not going to go foe a rewrite....
Thanks David for reminding me of Orwell in '1984'.
Thanks Ken for a succinct and accurate summary of the economic situation.
I hear that Osborne is 'advising' Hunt. God help us. They are going to make the same mistake that Tories always fly to when things get tough. Suck money out of the economy where it can circulate and do good and put it in the Treasury Piggy Bank so they can crow about 'sound money'. Same mistake as 1920 and 2010. Austerity is as wrong as Trickle Down but they haven't grasped that yet.
Sunak is keeping a low profile, at the moment Hunt and Raab are his human shields with Hancock as a back stop.
Expect a constant flow of dire predictions during the week to soften us up for the assault on our pockets on Thursday. Gone are days of purdah for the Chancellor in the run up to a budget with resignation as the penalty for any leaks.... It's all so wrong and predictable.
Could they please read the history and then read Piketty?

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report of the retention of the Senate by the democrats by winning in Nevada. They have also improved their position in the House of Representatives.
Trump accuses the Democrats of falsifying the vote in Nevada.

[plaques]

The rhetoric on 'illegal' (asylum seekers) immigrants is being turned up another notch. Robert Jenrick MP Minister of State for Immigration is talking about 'Hotel Britain' with the government paying to house asylum immigrants in expensive hotels. Accusing them of 'Asylum shopping' as though they have been studying their travel brochures picking out the best place to stay. The implication is that the UK is a soft touch and should make 'temporary accommodation worse that what other countries are offering. So while waiting to board their plan to Rwanda, which he is in favour of expanding, they should suffer hostile environment to teach others a lesson. Polls are showing that this is going down well with the Conservative voters who see this as a problem of a magnitude approaching that of the collapsing economy.
Meanwhile back at the ranch Jeremy Hunt is making 'horrible decisions' to sort out the previous horrible decisions that the government has been making over the last 12 years not to mention Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng in the last few months. We now have... tough, eyewatering and horrible decisions describing what they intend to do in the next budget statement which will pull the UK out of the abyss in 2025 and lead to the the sunlit uplands where unicorns graze .

[Stanley]

"The implication is that the UK is a soft touch and should make 'temporary accommodation worse that what other countries are offering."
Exactly the same principle that is embedded in the benefit system, that a person on benefits should not be better off then a worker.
I have no time for Jenrick. He demonstrated he was a chancer when he was caught having cosy lunches with a developer and was forced to admit he had acted illegally in granting permission for developments.
He is the human shield for Braverman at the moment. Sunak doesn't want any more incoming about her!
Hunt is all over the media letting slip sly hints about what we are going to get on Thursday. He ignores the last 12 years as you say Ken and obtusely lays the blame on Truss/Kwarteng economics. At the same time his is duplicating the mistake that they made. She nailed her flag to the discredited 'Trickle Down' theory and crashed and burned when it was exposed to the realities of the market. Hunt has nailed his flag to another universally derided economic school of thought, Austerity. He even has Osborne as his adviser....



The basic mistake that makes austerity such a bad idea is that it take money out out the economy and sterilises it in the Treasury vaults where it can't enjoy the Multiplier Effect. We will see that this Xmas.... There is going to be a blood bath on the High Street.
Take the opposing case. The reason why the 1945 Labour Government was able to set up a successful housing programme and the NHS despite being bankrupt after WW2 was that they adhered to Keynesian principles and used deficit financed spending. That's what we should be doing now, not strangling the economy by sucking all the money out of it into the Treasury on the grounds that we need 'Sound Money. Hunt actually used that phrase yesterday, exactly what the Tories were arguing for in the 1920s when they went back on to the Gold Standard and plunged us into the Great Depression.
I shall stop, it gets boring! Yes, you're right, I'm angry.

[plaques]

Take control of our borders. Suella Braverman is in the process of signing an agreement with France which is being sold as restricting asylum movement but in reality does nothing to solve the problem but sounds good in the Daily Mail and Express. .

The amount the UK pays France to cover the cost of increased patrols at their end will go up from about £55m a year to £63m, under the revised agreement.

Not spoken about when discussing immigration is the UK's withdrawal from the Dublin agreement. Basically an agreement with all the EU members that allowed any failed illegal immigration to be returned to the country from where they came. ie: if they set off from from France to cross the channel to the UK the UK could return them to France as per agreement. By leaving the EU the UK also left the Dublin agreement and didn't bother to replace it with any other mechanism. The result is that even if 20% are just economic migrants not asylum seekers they are illegal and could have been returned immediately. Not now we are stuck with them because we don't want them to work or become useful citizens they cost the country £Millions soaking up even more tax payers money. Another Brexit benefit? I think not.

[Stanley]

Exactly Ken, the present numbers crisis is largely because the migrants realise the UK can't send them back and so far the Rwanda option is a busted flush.
See THIS BBC report on Sunak 's view on the economy.
"The UK economy has "clearly" stabilised, Rishi Sunak has said, as he vowed to deliver on market expectations of shoring up the public finances. The prime minister said this week's autumn statement would "put our public finances on a sustainable trajectory"."
This makes crystal clear that the budget this week is designed to placate the market and make it easier to borrow the massive amounts needed to keep the UK going. I would suggest that what was needed was not a concentration on what used to be called 'The Gnomes of Zurich' but the clear and present needs of the electorate. Not a word about the length of the recession or how long our descendants will be paying for this quick fix. We keep hearing about mending the Tory's reputation for sound money management. That belief is a myth and always has been, fostered by the Conservatives to contrast their tp hatted members with the cloth caps of the others.
BTW. It was Suella who talked about there being no silver bullet as soon as she had signed the agreement with the French.

[plaques]

Suella Braverman has paid 10% more for land based and drone patrols that have produced only invisible results that can't be measured. Now the UK is paying £Millions extra for something that has no tangible end result but judging by the numbers crossing it isn't working but already being claimed as a success. The French can only patrol the beaches once the boats get into the water its nothing to do with them. Psst, Suella do you want to buy the Eiffel Tower.

Its been pointed out by numerous economist that no country has ever imposed austerity on itself as a way of increasing investments and GDP. Usually austerity is imposed by outside authorities like the IMI in exchange for loans. The resulting price is usually a severe drop in living standards and the loss of nationally owned infrastructure to foreign companies. So here we are reducing our standard of living selling off anything that hasn't already been sold off in the misguided hope that these foreign companies will pay their taxes to the UK to give us better services. This comes out of the same drawer as the Trickle Down theory. The Black hole must be plugged is the mantra. No. say others just make sure that the money markets can see what you are doing to get back to normality and increase investment along with GDP and the markets will be happy. Not good enough claim our raving loonies. Lets place the country in the deepest longest recession for decades shrink the state (services) until they no longer exist then we are free from all the problems of running a country. Remember Sunak is the next best choice after Truss and we all know what happened there.

[Stanley]

"then we are free from all the problems of running a country."
You are quite right Ken and this is one of the key factors. As running the country gets more and more complicated successive governments have resiled from positions of authority or control over large slices of the economy. A very early example on a small scale was the Blair government being so keen to outsource things like hospital cleaning. We outsourced building the Channel Tunnel high speed rail link to the French and now we are outsourcing vast nuclear installations.
As I boringly remind everyone over and over again, Nye Bevan was right, we have to keep control of the commanding heights of the economy. Instead we have opted out and as Harold Macmillan put it, 'Sold off the family silver'.
The phrase 'sound money' resounds through the treasury once more. It was that clarion call for 'common sense' that triggered the Inter War Recession. Churchill was Chancellor and he was advised by the experts that the best way to ensure 'Sound Money' was to go back to the pre WW1 'Gold Standard'. (Cue patriotic songs about dominance at sea and round the Empire!) Result, disaster and poverty stricken workers dying of malnutrition and neglect. Eventually it was that reality that triggered Beveridge to bring in his report, basically he was saying 'never again'. And here we are doing exactly the same thing.
Let's not forget Brexit and its role in all this. There was another set of clarion calls about a mythical 'Sovereignty'. Well we have it now and one of the results apart from a catastrophic drop in exports is that we have lost the most efficient way of keeping incoming asylum seekers down.
Why is this all so clear from my seat at the kitchen table when it is too complicated for the 'experts' in Westminster to comprehend?

[plaques]

Inflation hits the headlines again. The overall inflation rate now stands at 11.1% the highest rate since 1981. Hiding inside this rate is food at near 15% and energy approaching 80% ( nobody really knows since bills are variable month to month). For people whose majority income is spent on these items 11.1% would be looked on with envy. Hunt is already positioning himself that these difficult and eyewatering decisions that he is making aren't really his fault.
“It is our duty to help the Bank of England in their mission to return inflation to target by acting responsibly with the nation’s finances.

Don't blame me blame them.

Oh and by-the -way the cuts in services will impinge on local councils to maintain their statuary services for this reason we are allowing them to increase council taxes to meet this demand. This is another Baldrick cunning plan smokescreen to move taxes paid by all all levels of income earners downwards onto those at the lower income level shifting the inflation downwards towards the bottom end payers.

[Tripps]

From Harry Cole twitter.

Mr Raab as Deputy PM is doing PMQ's. . . .

"Raab formal complaints made now - refers himself to non existent independent standards investigation 2 hours before PMQs.
Problem is PM hasn’t appointed a standards adviser yet"

All so he can claim at PMQs that he can't discuss an ongoing (fantasy) investigation.

Reminds me vaguely of the Jewish joke "here's that fifty quid I owe you" You'll get it if you've been keeping up for the last ten years. or so.

[Stanley]

Indeed, Hunt will do his duty today and squeeze everone. Problem is that some are less equipped to withstand the squeeze than others.
Ken is quite right about the Council Tax 'concession'. It's a cunning plan to drag in the lower 50 percentile into paying for the things that Councils have to finance that should really be the responsibility of central government.
I think we all know what's coming....
As for Raab.... Par for the course for a Deputy PM for this lot. Notice that Sunak is leaving Hunt and the Treasury swinging in the breeze. When it all goes wrong (As it surely will.) he can throw his hands up and say "Not me Guv.!"
Honestly.... what a bloody mess!

[plaques]

Sunak is digging the foundations for a strong economy. One would have thought that after 12 years the foundations would be in and the walls reaching the second story or higher. Hunt promising hard decisions and eyewatering cuts but confesses to spending a lot of time thinking about the NHS. I'll bet he does. Remember the cuts to nurses salaries, increasing the hours of junior doctors to a point where they left the service. On and on it goes, more money will be promised as long as its spent feeding the private companies with nice little earners.
The BoE is forecasting two years of deep recession. Nobody seems to be questioning why it is two years or why its so deep. Most pundits would say the war in Ukraine where Russia has sent the gas prices rocketing. But wars of this magnitude tend to last for 5 years or longer so it looks like the BoE is being over optimistic. Similarly the governments fiscal rules look to be stretched over a longer period of 5 years. The indications being that austerity Mark II will probably last another 5 years that is if the Conservatives are re-elected. Buried within the weasel words is the threat that wages must be kept down or things could get worse. Can someone explain how having less money to spend will increase the GDP?
Great play will be made of pensions and benefits rising at the rate of inflation. Forget that pensioners lost out last year with 3% instead of the 7% wage increase of the triple lock. Benefits are set at below the poverty level. So given that those on benefit are seeing their personal inflation rate rising north of 15% a 10% rise put them 5%+ deeper into poverty.

Expect lots of donkey braying from the Conservatives in support of the wage freezing and cut backs then off they will go to their subsidised canteens and watering holes.

[Stanley]

Bitter Ken but accurate and yes they deserve criticism.
This is a political budget, they are trying to salvage the wreck of the Conservative Party.
On a local level, just had a note from Barlick Labour Party about the Yorkshire Bank planning application. I have just put my objections in. Namely:
lack of parking - both onsite and on street
difficulties with access for disabled people
size - the proposal is for three "clinical rooms" with no room for expansion
no future planning for the growing population due to the large number of houses being built locally
I encourage others to do the same.

[Stanley]

Have a look at this.....

[Stanley]

'The Party that understands finance' has spoken. J Hunt has announced measures that reinforce the already inevitable drop in living standards. Regardless of what he says the poorer you are the worse you are affected. Guesses measure it as ten to fifteen years of progress lost. What is certain is that it can no longer be argued that we aren't in recession. We have been for much of this year and it will be 2025 before we can hope to see any start to an improvement.
This statement/budget is purely political. The factor that influences it most is the date of the next General Election in 2024. The aim was to avoid as much immediate pain as possible for the 'Squeezed Middle' and the wealthy and lay the maximum amount of booby traps for Labour and the Opposition. It is cynical and hard politics.
The reality is that we now enter the bonfire of the High Street that is the Xmas season and the effects of Brexit, staved off for so long by delaying tactics on N Ireland will have to be faced. Public services are in melt-down and we can expect strikes and social protest to increase.
The standard departmental excuse that is wheeled out to answer every criticism of failed service; "The department has invested £XBn/Mn this year" will no longer answer. Reality will have to be faced as we sink into penury.

[plaques]

Too early to make any detailed judgement on Hunt's "I've got a plan". The BoE is forecasting two years of deepening recession then we should be climbing out of it. The OBR's projections are in line with the BoE which is expected since they both use the information supplied by the government. But as we have seen over the last months a single line forecast can change dramatically as circumstances change and since the 'plan' is spread over five years the end result is far from certain. What is obvious is that there will be no immediate change to the rate of inflation but which could get higher next April when the big bills roll in. Also the allowances already granted to the various services will have been eroded by the current inflation resulting in cuts that fall under the radar. Part of the forecast is higher unemployment which since there isn't enough people to fill existing vacancies points to a contraction in manufacturing/services possibly affecting zero hour and Gig economy workers.
The big excuse is that we are being hit by headwinds over which we have no control totally forgetting that its the governments job to look ahead and try to secure the economy against unknows and not to weaken it like we have done with the Brexit fiasco.

[Stanley]

Two things strike me. The frequency of the use of the expression 'Sound Money'. (This from the same people who when they needed money they hadn't got simply printed more..... They called it quantitative easing to try to hide the fact they were doing it.) and ' Global Headwinds'.
I seem to remember Sunak as Chancellor continually telling us that we had the soundest economy in the G7. What happened to that?
Read THIS and weep. This is just a small part of the damage these jerks have caused.
"A woman at risk of selling her home to support her husband's care has said she is "sickened" by the chancellor's plans to delay a cap on care costs. "
See THIS and note Sir Andrew Dilnot's comment.
"Dilnot was more direct in his criticism of the decision to delay implementing the social-care cap. “It’s a tragedy,” he said, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We have breached a promise that we made to people, but we’re doing nothing about the long-run balance between tax and public spending. This can’t help the government’s long-run financial position at all.” Dilnot noted that the Autumn Statement had been framed as “protecting the most vulnerable” and “demonstrating the British value of compassion”. He said the care-cap decision was at odds with those sentiments. “We wouldn’t dream of saying to someone diagnosed with a terrible cancer that they were on their own until they’d spent the last £23,000 of their assets,” he said. “We wouldn’t dream of saying that to someone with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder who needed healthcare. Why on earth should we say it to people who need social care? It seems inhumane.”"
Quite!

[plaques]

Hunt's Autumn statement is just that 'a statement of intent' until he releases the detail we are only in skirmishing mode. What would you have done different, would you increase taxes, would you cut services. Elephant traps for the Labour politicians. The one thing that is clear is that inequality is on the rise with those at the top getting a bigger slice of a shrinking cake. Pips are already squealing " look what you've done I'm only on £125,000 a year and now being asked to pay an extra 1.3% more in tax"'. The two things the electorate need to understand is that to have a proper caring society taxes need to rise and loopholes need to be closed. The cry is up that we have the highest taxed economy since the war but are still positioned well down the list compared to other advanced countries who live with higher tax rates but spend it wiser growing the economy rather handing it out to their pals.
On GDP growth Hunt pumped out the usual smokescreen of expanding into global markets but gave an almost invisible acknowledgement that trade with the Common market could help GDP but only on our terms of course. The tide seems to be turning on Brexit but still viewed in the media as something God-fearing people shouldn't be talking about.

[Stanley]

That's a timely warning Ken and I would add that the cunning plan is that the worst of the cuts don't fully kick in until after the next election. Whoever wins that will have a bleak future managing a crippled economy.
I heard someone defending 'Non Dom' status yesterday. We will know when things are really bad when that and brass plate companies or the ploy of artificially lowering profits by paying exorbitant interest to an off shore owner are efficiently attacked. At the moment there is so much outward flowing capital that doesn't attract any attention.
"The cry is up that we have the highest taxed economy since the war but are still positioned well down the list compared to other advanced countries who live with higher tax rates but spend it wiser growing the economy rather handing it out to their pals. "
That sentence jumped out at me. That's the sort of truth that the voters need to understand clearly when choosing who they want governing them.
THIS is worth a read. Laura Has a pretty good handle on what is happening now and what's to come. The cumulative weight of 15 years of austerity is going to become clear by 2025, we think service cuts are bad now but you ain't seen nothing yet!
On the whole, getting deep down under the duvet looks like a good plan!

[plaques]

How many ways is there to describe a dogs dinner? BoE still threatening rate rises which will push mortgages up, add to the cost of borrowing and increase the payback amounts on long term loans such as cars and other big ticket items. If the money markets think that in two years time the government of the day will renege on the cutbacks the picture may change completely. Why is this a factor at all? First the Tories since they are rather good at kicking things into the long grass and second Labour because they must conserve the NHS and social care to have any credibility about staying in power. The result bond rates will rise creating more inflation. Even without going into this unknown territory the country is expected to contract by 7% with the best forecasts predicting that in 9 years time we may get back to pre-covid levels. So where do people stand on the 'pip squeaking' scale? Clearly those in the food bank queue already know where they stand the question becomes how many more are going to join them?

[Stanley]

And can the food banks themselves stand the pressure? We are told that many Village Halls cannot stand the inflationary increases. Farming Today reports that Community Farming initiatives are in danger of closing and we haven't yet seen or heard exactly what service cuts are coming as Local Councils cut back on their outgoings.

In the same vein of thought as that which acts against 'economic migrants'. Suppose they regarded anyone who needed benefits as an economic liability. Could they not send them to Rwanda?

[Stanley]

See THIS account of what The Health Secretary has to say about Social Care funding.
One of the phrases I use most often about this type of report is 'defending the indefensible'. Somewhere, buried deep in the cellars of Whitehall the Tories are running a school that teaches nothing but how to address questions like this. No wonder Sir Andrew Dilnot is feeling sickened by the delays.....

[plaques]

Are we seeing the tide of the Brexit narrative changing direction? The 'B' word had taken over from the Scottish 'M' word not to be uttered unless a terrible fate would fall on you. The first whiff of a change was Jeremy Hunt suggesting more trade with the EU was possible under our conditions. Yesterday the 'Times' had an article quoting the possibility of a Swiss type EU agreement where the UK paid a joining fee for limited trading access. This was immediately denied by No10. The speculation is that this was some tester type leak to gauge the publics reaction. The right-wingers went into overdrive with 'its not what the people voted for', 'if it was done correctly we wouldn't be having these problems' any excuse other than admitting it was a mistake and is one of the root causes of our bad trading position. Unfortunately Rishi Sunak daren't rock the ERG boat or that would be the end of his Premiership and the Conservative party.
Just for good measure the CBI is saying that the Autumn Statement does nothing to stimulate GDP growth. From this the implication is that removing the cap on chief executive officer (CEO) bonuses is not helping growth. So why do it?

[Stanley]

I think you're on the money here Ken. I too have noted the increasing number of voices citing Brexit as one of the factors that is making trading difficult. Some examples are hauliers and forwarding agents on the pitfalls of documentation, (not to mention the NI Protocol). I seem to remember Rees Mogg poo-pooing any suggestion it was a problem because by the time we reached that point advanced computer programmes would be dealing with the complications, if any. Then there are the businesses, particularly in the leisure sector, that are desperate for staff willing to work for minimum wage (we Brits are evidently not willing to do it). They call for 'sensible adjustments' to entry requirements and more short term work visas. Even the Treasury and the BofE admit that there is a Brexit penalty. People like the ERG immediately say that it is worth paying that price to maintain 'sovereignty'. (Can someone show me what 'sovereignty' is and how it works? I think it's just shorthand for having a hostile attitude to all foreigners.)
One person who is keeping very quiet on this subject is The Buffoon Himself. He has entered a phase in his life where he can't afford to be associated with failure. At the moment he is blagging speaking engagements and freebie trips to conferences on the grounds that like COP27 he is the policy maker. This is going to dry up and eventually he will have to try to get back to journalism. He is short of chums in that area now.
I can't help thinking that Northern Ireland is going to be key to this. Pressure quietly builds across the Irish Sea as they drift rudderless towards unification with the south. How will the ERG defend that one when it hits the fan?

[plaques]

Pressure is rising in the rejoin EU debate. The Conservatives are on the back foot denying that there is any advantage in trading with the EU when there is the possibility of striking lucrative deals with the rest of the world, In a recent TV interview Robert Jenrick Mp (Con) Minister of State for Immigration, when asked about the change in the publics attitude towards Brexit gave the standard glib answer..."well these are only polls what really matters was the vote in 2016". How much longer can they keep up with the pretence that it wasn't a mistake?
Unfortunately Starmer is adopting the 'don't mention the 'B' word stance. This may be tactical in avoiding a possible two year long debate and finish up with the public voting for it again just to shut it down or it could be that the EU would not be too keen to let us in again if the prospects of a another Tory government would turn it on its head again.
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