Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

I think the discourse around Johnson in the right-wing press (his natural constituency) is very disconnected from reality which is that he's profoundly unpopular. I've mentioned before the standards investigation into whether he misled parliament. There's hints Truss will whip the party to reject its findings - given this polling I think that'd be a catastrophic decisions:


Similarly there's that Tory peer who has run a campaign to allow Johnson to run in the leadership race or to change the rules in some way. Despite multiple articles in the Telegraph bigging it up ("on the cusp of..." etc), he's got about 8,000 signatures of party members on the petition and he needs at least 10,000 to even propose a change.

I also don't think Johnson would get through the MPs. Johnson probably has strong support of 30-60 MPs which is nowhere near enough and I think they'll remember the way he fought to not be removed as damaging to the party. He's never been popular with MPs and doesn't really have a base - they chose him because he was seen as someone who could win an election to secure Brexit and defeat Corbyn, I'm not sure they'd go for in the next year because I don't think they'd see him as solving their problems. I think if he is seen as causing problems for his successor (which he will) then that will also turn the MPs against him even more.  Plus I think Tories tend to be pretty ruthless - I don't think they'll get nostalgic and go back, I think it's far more likely they look to go for a far younger MP/skip a generation (my money's on Badenoch). Plus he'll be in his 60s soon which I think is now "elder statesman" territory in the UK, especially as an ex-PM.

I think the Tory party are not overly enthused by Sunak or Truss and might possibly wish they'd stuck with Johnson now, but I feel like that's more because of how Sunak and Truss have underwhelmed than any residual sympathy for him.

[Zanza]

Maybe a reason for why the energy crisis seems so bad in the UK: Its houses are much worse insulated than those elsewhere in Europe.



https://www.tado.com/gb-en/press/uk-homes-losing-heat-up-to-three-times-faster-than-european-neighbours

[The Larch]

Liz Truss: 'Jury is out' on whether Macron is Britain's friend or foe

 

[Tamas]

Liz Truss: 'Jury is out' on whether Macron is Britain's friend or foe

 

Hey, if you are a friend you swallow our sewage and like it!

[Josquius]

Liz Truss: 'Jury is out' on whether Macron is Britain's friend or foe

 

There's a bizzare obsession with macron on the populist right.

[The Minsky Moment]

Liz Truss: 'Jury is out' on whether Macron is Britain's friend or foe

 

Jury is in on whether Liz Truss is a fool.

[viper37]

Maybe a reason for why the energy crisis seems so bad in the UK: Its houses are much worse insulated than those elsewhere in Europe.



https://www.tado.com/gb-en/press/uk-homes-losing-heat-up-to-three-times-faster-than-european-neighbours

well, the difference between Belgium and the
UK is marginal.  I doubt that 0,1C is really felt.

But a 3C drop due to bad insulations is, well, bad.  There's a lot of room for improvement there.

[Valmy]

The Lib Dems won't approve of reducing a few inches of green space to improve insulation.

It is interesting that the Med countries would have better insulation, I guess air conditioning is having an impact down there.

[Sheilbh]

On that Telegraph piece, two incredible facts from Robert Colville in the Times:
The average pensioner has a higher income than the average worker.

Yes, there are still poor pensioners, but the poorest fifth are on average £1,500 a year better off than the equivalent workers.



Obviously pensions (and other benefits) will go up by CPI, which I think is fair given the context. But workers are striking over pay offers of, say, 3%|

[HVC]

Voting blocks are a bitch.

[Sheilbh]

Also I just think it's something where our political class and ideas haven't caught up with reality.

I had no idea and I think the huge (in the 90s) issue of pensioner poverty still dominates how we think about older people.

[Tamas]

Also I just think it's something where our political class and ideas haven't caught up with reality.

I had no idea and I think the huge (in the 90s) issue of pensioner poverty still dominates how we think about older people.

To be fair, pensioner poverty will be again a massive issue in just 20-30 years.

[HVC]

How much of old people dole is self contributed vs government bribe/top up?

[HVC]

Also I just think it's something where our political class and ideas haven't caught up with reality.

I had no idea and I think the huge (in the 90s) issue of pensioner poverty still dominates how we think about older people.

To be fair, pensioner poverty will be again a massive issue in just 20-30 years.

Just in time for us. Yay!

To those of you with kids, thanks for the cash.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think the essential problem is that we have a two tier tax system because of the ever increasing importance of national insurance to the state's income. When I started work in the 1970s the basic rate of income tax was 35% but the National Insurance "stamp" was very little; consequently the taxes paid on income by pensioners were broadly similar to those paid by workers. Fast forward 40 years and government after government has reduced the headline rate of tax by reducing income tax rates (now only 20%) while increasing both employers and employees NI. Pensioners are now taxed far more lightly than workers; so much so that retirement can result in increased income for some.

So I suggest that we start levying national insurance on pensioners as well as workers. The poor pensioners will pay very little if anything extra while the rich ones will be making an appropriate contribution. The only problem is that if a party suggested this it would get very few seats.