In the news

And also from the Ferret. PFIs.. the gift that just keeps giving.

Gordon Brown's real legacy

https://theferret.scot/private-finance-schemes-audit-scotland/

Dear lord. Dorries is so, so awful.

This is as painful as the Prince Andrew interview. A new low, I think, if that's possible.

You beat me to it.

Earlier she told a reporter she had 400,000 staff in her department. (it's 1000).
Desperately cling to the only senior job she'll ever get. In the sea with you Nadine.

Ruth Davidson actually crying with rage/shame.

Link pls

On a usb stick accidentally overwritten by ‘police IT specialists’. Next week.

C4 News live just now. See it again on C4+1.

C4 news.

Shatvent, shurely

https://twitter.com/channel4news/status/1488235127847243780?s=21

Indeed, which is why it's not necessary for houses to increase in prices continuously. That may be a red herring for homeowners but it's not a red herring for people like me who can't afford a house.

I agree completely. There are various reasons why house prices are going up (the double-income trap being one, which might be slightly blunted if people re-prioritise their work/life balance due to Covid). I think the red herring I was referring to was seeing an increase in the value of someone's primary residence as an increase in their realisable assets.

I agree, but shoes and beds are not thought of like investments, and the prices of shoes and beds are probably going down in real terms rather than up at a startling rate. I only support a tax like CGT in its capacity to curb the use of property as an investment and to limit growth to match wages/inflation.

I think houses as primary residences are "Vimes Boots"-type investments. They don't effectively make you ready money, but they greatly reduce your expenditure, while providing you with something you need. The challenge is to find a tax that reflects the fact that a (first) house is a home, rather than just an investment vessel.

You don't need to explain that to me! I feel this pain every month when a large chunk of my salary goes down the drain

With you there! I'm renting at the moment too.

pmsl @ RD. stupid basturt

Crocodile tears. She's a fucking cunt

Two police murdered in Germany; unconfirmed reports suggest it was 'execution-style' and that they were shot in their heads.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/31/police-officers-shot-dead-on-patrol-in-western-germany

Most of the value of my home isn't the bricks and mortar, it's the land it is built on. There is a finite supply of the later and I believe it should be taxed which would encourage people to use as little as possible, use it well etc.

I think the question is "taxed how"? If you make it expensive to buy or own land then it becomes something that only the really rich can do, which plays right into the hands of rentier capitalism, which I think is exactly what we would like to avoid. I agree though that land ownership is a real problem in this country and most people don't realise how few people/organisations own just how much land. There have been various excellent bits of journalism on the subject (Monbiot probably) and campaigns to rectify this.

The wealthy aren't in many situations. They also tend to own more than typical amounts of property so would pay more tax.

Yes, again it would be about developing a tax that has sufficiently laser-like focus to hit that group while leaving owners of normal family homes untouched.

Damn you and your economic literacy

I haven't thought very deeply about it, but surely it would help with generational inequality of boomers living in town houses that they bought for £5k in 1975 and are now valued at £2.5m, while generation rent fork out £2k a month for a shoe box? If they are going to live in relative luxury compared to others, surely fair that they take on a higher tax load to pay for public services that are to the benefit of all?

Is it fair? I suspect most of them just wanted somewhere to live that wouldn't cost them rent. I don't care if my house stalls in value as long as the rest of the housing market does the same.

I agree about generational inequality, but I'm not sure how to get round the basic Catch-22 of tax on primary dwellings, which is that it would tax people on the ownership of an asset that they might have to sell in order to afford the tax that is being levied on it. Essentially (unlike any other asset that I can think of) you're basically telling people "you're not allowed to own that unless you're rich enough to pay an arbitrary cost that the state will impose on you." That's not a complaint against state intervention at some level, I'm just not convinced a primary property tax is it.

That sounds grim, Oliver.

I didn't venture an opinion - just found the link to the bit of the interview that was asked for. Besides, genuine or not, she still took a peerage from him.

Both Liz Truss and Nadhim Zahawi testing positive for Covid today seems remarkably convenient in the timing.

Reminiscent of John Major's tooth operation.

They’ve all done it. Gives them a couple of days to be forgotten whilst one of their colleagues does something hideous.

Didn't say you had. I just proffered mine

Does that get Liz out of the trip to Ukraine?