The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[peterms]

11 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

and neglects more 'behavioural dynamics'

Could you expand on that?  I'm not sure what you are getting at.

[blandy]

10 hours ago, peterms said:

No, they are not the same thing. 

Taxation for the purpose of redistribution is curtailing the spending power of one group in order to enhance the spending power of another group.

This is most often done by changing the rates of various taxes.  This can be achieved without any "spending" by government.  Raising VAT would be one example.  Cutting income tax rates differentially across income bands, another.

You seem to use the analogy of governments gathering money in, like a mediaeval bailiff collecting tithes, and doling it out, as though collecting cash prededes spending it, like a child with pocket money.  That's not how it works these days, or has done for many years.

When the government takes in tax and then when the government pays benefits that is  an example of redistribution of taxing and spending.

taxation does not “enhance” the spending power of any group Unless revenue is shared with another group.

income tax rates affect the amount of money people receive relative to each other, which can be called redistribution, yet the proceeds, and they are there, whether you think they’re medieval or not, are then passed back by government to workers, businesses, services and so on. Or redistributed, or spent.

You can see from charts of tax and spending, for example https://www.ukpublicrevenue.co.uk that the Gov'ts have chosen, somehow, to spend and tax at levels which in the big scheme of things rather match(ish). Revenue has been redistributed (spent).

  

 

Edited August 7, 2019 by blandy
charts added

[welnik]

Hang on a minute. According to the data you posted, public spending has increased year on year. Your data is wrong, we've been subjected to massive tory cuts this last nine years! 

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, welnik said:

Hang on a minute. According to the data you posted, public spending has increased year on year. Your data is wrong, we've been subjected to massive tory cuts this last nine years! 

I think you'd have to go down a few levels and see where it was spent

[HanoiVillan]

For years, Conservatives (and Lib Dems) have raised the tax-free allowance. Which seems generous! Until, I guess, people suddenly decide that anybody who doesn't pay income tax deserves 'less of a say' in how the country is run:

 

[VILLAMARV]

Brexit has made this sort of drivel fairly common-place I have found. "these people are too stupid to vote" and all that.

Be good for all the corporations/billionaires if they can do away with the need for all that lobbying though eh?

 

[snowychap]

46 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

For years, Conservatives (and Lib Dems) have raised the tax-free allowance. Which seems generous! Until, I guess, people suddenly decide that anybody who doesn't pay income tax deserves 'less of a say' in how the country is run

It is and was absolutely part of the purpose.

'Tax' and 'Income tax' have always been worryingly synonymous when a group with a particular bent has looked at talking about them.

[Xann]

Quote

 

'Innocent people caught up' in UK welfare state surveillance system

UN investigator’s warning comes as disabled rights activists claim police and DWP are sharing data on protesters

Activists claim demonstrators with disabilities protesting against austerity cuts are having their information passed by police to the Department for Work and Pensions.

The UN’s investigator into global poverty has said innocent people are being caught up in the mass surveillance system used by the UK’s welfare state to combat benefit fraud.

His warning comes as disabled rights activists in the north-west claim that demonstrators with disabilities protesting against austerity cuts are having their personal information passed by police to the Department for Work and Pensions.

Both warnings came before a conference in Belfast on Wednesday on the use of surveillance powers and its impact on social security recipients and asylum seekers.

Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty, described it as a tragedy that people imagined that “the ever-more intrusive surveillance system by the UK welfare state” was used only against alleged welfare cheats.

“It’s not. It will soon affect everyone and leave the society much worse off. Everyone needs to pay attention and insist on decent limits,” he said.

 

Grauniad

Obviously this level of 'transparency' isn't suitable for the financial dealings of the wealthy.

[snowychap]

I see that Johnson is playing the Michael Howard card today (Prison works) and very much playing up to the right of the party with the announced increase to S.60 powers (appparently 'Stop and Search works' is the new line echoing precisely the aforementioned soundbite from Howard).

He's announced an increase in police numbers (not really an increase but a return to levels seen not that long ago) and now an increase in prison places (is it much new stuff, really?), one wonders whether he might twig that there's a process between the policing bit and the prison bit - and that there's a process after the prison bit for trying to keep people from returning to crime and prison.

 

[HanoiVillan]

23 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I see that Johnson is playing the Michael Howard card today (Prison works) and very much playing up to the right of the party with the announced increase to S.60 powers (appparently 'Stop and Search works' is the new line echoing precisely the aforementioned soundbite from Howard).

He's announced an increase in police numbers (not really an increase but a return to levels seen not that long ago) and now an increase in prison places (is it much new stuff, really?), one wonders whether he might twig that there's a process between the policing bit and the prison bit - and that there's a process after the prison bit for trying to keep people from returning to crime and prison.

Potentially a sign that an election is coming? One of the many areas they struggled with in the last election campaign was countering Labour's pledge to increase the number of policemen. This strikes me as possibly aimed at preempting any criticism of being 'soft on crime' in an election campaign. 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

He's announced an increase in police numbers (not really an increase but a return to levels seen not that long ago)

Its not even that from what I can work out. I can't remember the figures but say we've lost 20k police, he's going to recruit 20k new police. Sounds good until you realise that in the timeframe he was talking about, 20k police are also due to retire.

He didn't mention the word extra, he didn't mention the numbers he was taking it up to.

It's one huge con job, he's keeping police numbers the same

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

Potentially a sign that an election is coming? One of the many areas they struggled with in the last election campaign was countering Labour's pledge to increase the number of policemen. This strikes me as possibly aimed at preempting any criticism of being 'soft on crime' in an election campaign. 

Possibly. Prison works didn't go well for Howard*. I hope 'Stop and Search works' goes just as well for Patel and Johnson.

But my point was more that it ignores the part in between the police and prison, i.e. the court system - the one that appears to be utterly on its arse but that people don't really care about. That's before one goes in to how effective (or even how real) the actual things they have announced are/will be.

Edit: *I know he originally said it in '93 but it was still largely underlying his policy on crime when he became leader.

Edit 2: We'll know an election is imminent when they start pledging to bin the HRA again.

Edited August 11, 2019 by snowychap

[snowychap]

Grauniad

Quote

A group of rough sleepers who describe themselves as the parliamentary “night shift”, moving into an underpass leading to the parliamentary estate after MPs have left for the day, have been barred from accessing their relatively safe bed space underneath the street.

The group of about 10 rough sleepers formed a distinct community with rules of conduct. They made themselves invisible from MPs and parliamentary workers and visitors during the day and only emerged after 11pm to lay out their cardboard, newspaper and sleeping bags in the exit 3 underpass from Westminster tube station to the parliamentary estate.

None of the group were involved in begging, substance abuse or rowdy behaviour and those who joined had to abide by the group’s informal code of conduct, especially being willing to get up before 6am to vacate their nocturnal space before parliament’s daytime business begins and leaving the tunnel clean and tidy with no newspaper, cardboard or food and drink waste left behind.

...more on link

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by snowychap

[peterms]

11 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Potentially a sign that an election is coming?

Very clearly, his little gofer is putting in place all the textbook signifiers that will appeal to the white, right, and shite section of the electorate.

Whether to call it will depend on the (often wrong) polls, but the effort is obviously being put into (electoral) war footing.

[HanoiVillan]

9 hours ago, peterms said:

Very clearly, his little gofer is putting in place all the textbook signifiers that will appeal to the white, right, and shite section of the electorate.

Whether to call it will depend on the (often wrong) polls, but the effort is obviously being put into (electoral) war footing.

Hmm.

21/05/2019:

Sajid Javid to scrap plans that recommended EU migrants must earn £30k to work in Brexit Britain

'SAJID JAVID is ripping up Theresa May’s post-Brexit plans for a £30,000 minimum salary threshold for EU migrants, The Sun can reveal.

The Tory leadership hopeful wants a powerful committee to look into lowering prospective wage bands in a move that will enrage Tory Eurosceptics.

In an explosive letter, he instructs the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to consider allowing firms to pay the “going rate” for foreign recruits after Brexit – and to look at regional wage limits.

He also wants them to study exemptions for a range of professions, and whether “new entrants” or inexperienced workers can be paid less.'

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9125478/sajid-javid-scrap-eu-migration-plans/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11/08/2019:

All migrants must earn at least £36k a year if they want to live in the UK after Brexit, Home Secretary Priti Patel told

'PRITI Patel will be challenged this week to honour her promise to restore "integrity" to Britain's immigration system by insisting all immigrant workers must earn at least £36,700 after Brexit.

The Home Secretary will be urged to raise the proposed £30,000 minimum salary threshold for all new foreign workers to protect lower-paid British workers.

At the moment the restriction only applies to non-EU migrants but it's expected to be extended to EU workers after Brexit.

The Centre for Social Justice, co-founded by Iain Duncan Smith, is making the call to increase the threshold.'

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9699349/migrants-salary-threshold-brexit-priti-patel/

Certainly seems to be much toughening going on. 

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Certainly seems to be much toughening going on. 

Adjusted for the fall in the pound,nothing to see here ... oh

[Dr_Pangloss]

It's hard to find many who are more odious than Priti Patel, she's a truly disgusting human being. The moment Ian Hislop slaughtered her on Question Time over bringing back the death penalty should have been the end of her career.

Edited August 12, 2019 by Dr_Pangloss

[bickster]

40 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

It's hard to find many who are more odious than Priti Patel, she's a truly disgusting human being. The moment Ian Hislop slaughtered her on Question Time over bringing back the death penalty should have been the end of her career.

In times gone buy no one in this cabinet would ever have been allowed back to front bench politics, they've nearly all had at least one career ending moment, some many more

Even Liz Truss is in a position of power after being lobotomised

[ml1dch]

Damien Hinds accidentally shares a screenshot of his inbox, suggesting that the claims of there being no 2019 General Election planned might be fibs...

[desensitized43]

2 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Damien Hinds accidentally shares a screenshot of his inbox, suggesting that the claims of there being no 2019 General Election planned might be fibs...

Lies that no one actually believed anyway.

If a member of this government announced the sky was still blue I'd go outside and fact-check them.