In the news

Two great news stories in succession

Followed by news Truss is planning on moving the UK embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Has there been a single policy she's announced so far that has actually been about making anything better, or has it all just been whatever the polar opposite of virtue signalling is?

It's still virtue signalling if your virtues are a dumpster fire and your audience are cunts.

Donald Truss

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/liz-truss-could-follow-donald-trump-move-british-embassy-israel-jerusalem

Such a stupid proposal
At any time

Ha!

Vice signalling?

Resolution has also worked out that almost half of the personal tax cuts confirmed today will go to richest 5% of the population, who will be £8,560 better off.

Don't understand what's going on. On one hand you have people upset that ambulances are taking hours to arrive, but the same people happy to be contributing less to the upkeep of these vital services....

Its even more confusing than that. Pretty sure I saw some polling last year showing that a majority of brits wanted to see tax increases to pay for public services.

Edit: HEre we go https://www.ft.com/content/bc07381f-fa73-4552-860e-576d640cb90e

a majority of brits wanted to see tax increases to pay for public services

Of course they do, as long as it's a tax on someone else (CitY fAt CatS). A majority of Brits also consume more in public services than they pay in tax (per FullFact I think the average person covers about 90% of what they receive).

A revealing interview from 2012 of the current Chancellor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie6XOokLqYQ

Usual cliches of blaming everything on welfare claimants, suggesting that British people should be willing to work long hours for low pay like immigrants.

At 2:30 he expresses admiration for the working pattern of Chinese factories:

they time absolutely every single thing that you could ever do. They have to do a certain job in an hour, and if they do it in 58 minutes, they get two free minutes.

This is the gist (the entirety in fact) of the political ethos that he, Truss, and others put out in that pamphlet in 2012.

I'm not sure share your cynicism. I only have anecdata from what I do for a living but a lot of the rich people I work with are pretty adamant that they should be required to pay more tax. A lot of the middle earners too.

But maybe you're right. I'd love to see the same poll but split by income levels and with more specific questioning around their own taxation.

a lot of the rich people I work with are pretty adamant that they should be required to pay more tax

That tallies with what people have been saying to me this morning, but assuming the poll was from a representative sample then there will have been very few 45p ratepayers in it.

FT commenter summed it up well (and got in a brag about being on £250k):

I'm don't understand the justifications you'd have to try to make as to how you could possibly arrive at the solution of giving wealthy people an extra few grand will help the the economy.

Are they going to spend it all? In which case, a small percentage of people spending a small percentage more this year isn't going to help much.

Are they going to save it? In which case it won't do anything

Are they going to start a new business with it? No, because they're presumably already busy with whatever it is that's earning them >£150K.

Are they going to spend it all

This seems to be one of the (many) problems. You would think most of it will get saved, put in pensions or spent on holidays outside the UK. Maybe a bit goes into the fund to buy something nice in Cornwall now there's £2.5k less SDLT to pay.

The whole policy is a facepalm.

Are they going to spend it all?

Two main outcomes I think:

The tax savings will be used to cover the eye watering increases to their monthly mortages.

OR

They will just by securities during the recession to cash in later.

The full thing is a disaster, but its the same with everything tory now. They really are just looking after themselves.

I seen someone on twitter moaning about struggling to make ends meet with 40k salary and someone replied saying they should be wasting there money if that's the case. 40k is bloody buttons now the way things are going, and its even worse for the majority of people on 20 ish

The full thing is a disaster, but its the same with everything tory now. They really are just looking after themselves.

Are the people who benefit from this going to vote Tory though, which is the goal?

That FT post suggests the answer is no - people would prefer not to lie on the floor of their bathroom for 9 hours before the ambulance arrives.

Are the people who benefit from this going to vote Tory though, which is the goal?

It's just such a tiny demographic though. According to gov stats there are only 630k additional rate taxpayers in the entire country, presumably concentrated in a small number of London (safe Lab) and Home Counties (safe Con) constituencies? Very few in the traditional Middle England battlegrounds, you would think.

It's so puzzling. I could have understood giveaways to the red wall or whatever, but this must be ideologically-driven, i.e. they think it was "unfair" that Labour raised this rate from 40p to 45p, or somehow it's going to raise more money in the long run by stimulating growth.

I am always reminded of my favourite representation of the Laffer curve in these conversations

they think it was "unfair" that Labour raised this rate from 40p to 45p,

The Tories (well technically coalition) brought in the 45p band (from the previous Labour 50p band).

Deutsche Bank here.

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Sorry, you are quite right. Looking it up now, the top rate was 40p from 1988-2010 and Labour raised it to 50p shortly before the 2010 election. No-one complained about it not being progressive enough through the Blair years, but then I suppose back then there was less income inequality and lower demand for public services.

Could be worse. The highest rate was between 90% and 99.2% in the 40s, 50s and 60s.