OT Tax cut madness

[ramAnag]

I've been suggesting a need for centrist coalition for years

See...I knew we shared some common ground. You can fix my ‘broken clock’ and I’ll repair you moral compass.

[MadAmster]

Prop rep can be both good and bad. It depends on how you organise it.

Over here, you vote for the party. You can put your cross against any of the names (preferential vote) in that party's list. If a party gets, for instance, 15 seats (of the 150) then, in principle, the top 15 on the list become MPs. Unless that is one or more individuals further down the list got more than a certain number of "preferential" votes in which case that lower placed person gets the seat of number 15 on the list (14,13 etc if there are more preferential "winners"). However, if an MP falls out with their party then they may take their seat with them and either join another party OR they can start a new party. Since the last election we have had some falling outs. In the election some 14 or 15 different parties won seats. Splits have seen that number rise to 20 parties in Parliament. The rules need changing so that if you leave the party, the party retains that seat, not the individual, with the possible exception of those who got in on "preferential", personal votes.

That many parties is making debates unwieldy. All 20 want to have their say and they do. They want to up their profile with a view to getting more seats next time around. If all these 1 and 2 seat splinter parties do gain more seats at the next election then the larger parties will likely get less. that would mean needing even more parties in the coalition. This Parliament saw a new, 4 party, coalition agreement 9 months after the election. If you would need 7 or 8 parties then it could take longer. Basically, this 4 year Parliament has been reduced to 3 years. Not good for getting things done.

[ramAnag]

Brilliant! Even that well known left wing think tank...the IMF...has hammered Kwesi’s ‘mini budget’ now. At what point do he and mini Thatch accept that they’re hopelessly wrong and out of their depth?

[Geoff Parkstone]

Brilliant! Even that well known left wing think tank...the IMF...has hammered Kwesi’s ‘mini budget’ now. At what point do he and mini Thatch accept that they’re hopelessly wrong and out of their depth?

Bear inn mind they probably had little to do with setting the policies themselves

[ramAnag]

Bear inn mind they probably had little to do with setting the policies themselves

So who’s actually dreamed it all up and what, as I’ve asked before, is the ‘endgame’? How does that help anyway?
They’re delivering them, the former then declining to comment on the ‘market’...and the latter grinning inanely and doing her ‘nodding dog’ impression behind ‘her’ Chancellor last Friday.

You, Martin Lewis (sorry!), the vast majority of economic commentators and now the IMF can’t all be wrong can you?

[Geoff Parkstone]

I imagine some experts behind the scenes will have been working on this policy for a couple of months and believe it will work by achieving growth, higher employment levels etc to offset the immediate downside. They probably underestimated the market backlash.

To blame the politicians who delivered the policy is like blaming the milkman for delivering sour milk... Bad policy could be delivered by anyone, those to blame are those who created that policy and a Chancellor who has only been in office a few days can hardly have been centrally involved in dreaming this up.

That said the deliverymen take the rap for it, same as Johnson took the kudos for the vaccination rollout. They are the figureheads who live and die by it politically, but let's not pretend they thought it up.

Let's not confuse policy and personality. This IMHO is bad policy, I don't care a **** about the personality trying to sell it - whereas you clearly do.

In the same way you disapproved of BJ taking credit for Vax rollout when it was the work of thousands of support workers, it is perhaps inappropriate the slaughter Kwasitruss for this disaster when they undoubtedly didn't formulate the concepts.

[Andy_Faber]

Let's not confuse policy and personality. This IMHO is bad policy, I don't care a **** about the personality trying to sell it - whereas you clearly do.

In the same way you disapproved of BJ taking credit for Vax rollout when it was the work of thousands of support workers, it is perhaps inappropriate the slaughter Kwasitruss for this disaster when they undoubtedly didn't formulate the concepts.

Well said, immediately attacking new incumbents is off beam (as is infantile name calling), but I guess messengers are there to be shot. IMO this approach looks implausible though. Fingers crossed

[ramAnag]

Oh come on you two...not this bollux again.

You can’t blame the ‘new incumbents’...and ‘don’t shoot the messengers’. WTF else are we to blame then?

This isn’t me indulging in ‘personality politics’...the facts are that Truss is, in case neither of you had noticed, the PM...and Kwarteng is the Chancellor.
Throughout my life I’ve always believed that politicians live and die by their actions. The actions of Kwarteng (and by implication Truss who put him in position) have been universally condemned by people, including you GP who actually started the thread, who all know more about economics than I do.

Now suddenly it’s...you can’t blame them...they’re new, and it’s not them that make these decisions...they’re just the ‘deliverymen’.
Seldom have I heard such tommyrot...they are the Prime Minister and the Chancellor...if they’re not to blame, who is...and why have we never heard this weird ‘figurehead’ defence before?

Even I didn’t expect things to unravel quite so quickly but let’s face it...they have and you, GP, were the first one to call them out over it.

[MadAmster]

We can, IMO, blame Toraidh party members for voting in an incompetent Jockstrap as PM.

We can blame an incompetent Jockstrap for choosing KamiKwasi as Chancellor when it is abundantly obvious that he ain't up to the job.

Unfortunately, the Red Toraidh are no better. The opposition should not simply oppose everything. In fact, if they agree something is good they should support HMG. Problem is there is very little known about Red Toraidh policy as they haven't published it.

Whichever colour, the Toraidh parties are incompetent.

[MadAmster]

A little aside..... OK, so it is from thelondoneconomic.com but it did raise a smile.....

More Brits believe the earth is flat than believe Truss will make a good PM.