Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.

[Gloster]

I have no time for Truss, but maybe it is best if she stays away from the Commons. If she was there she would be the centre of attention as everybody would be watching her every movement or breath: keeping away avoids her becoming the story. Whether she is self-aware enough to have made the decision herself or had to be advised is another question.

 

[Busaholic]

I have no time for Truss, but maybe it is best if she stays away from the Commons. If she was there she would be the centre of attention as everybody would be watching her every movement or breath: keeping away avoids her becoming the story. Whether she is self-aware enough to have made the decision herself or had to be advised is another question.

She can do that by resigning as an MP, and give the long-suffering voters of South West Suffolk an opportunity to say ''good riddance'' to her forever.

 

[Gloster]

Well the constituents of West Suffolk are probably hoping to get rid of their MP, but they have to wait until he comes back from Australia to tell him to his face (or at least one of them). Truss is MP for the poor folk of South-West Norfolk.

 

[Busaholic]

Well the constituents of West Suffolk are probably hoping to get rid of their MP, but they have to wait until he comes back from Australia to tell him to his face (or at least one of them). Truss is MP for the poor folk of South-West Norfolk.

Thinking Norfolk, writing Suffolk. I blame my age.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Yes, one of my pet hates, companies hiding themselves behind walls and making it difficult to get through to a real person. Strangely I find small businesses, who one would think would be more financially stretched and thus more likely to be forced to cut costs, are the ones who can be bothered to provide a personal service and ready, accessible help. My ISP for instance, who are small, rather expensive, but good.

That's probably most people's pet hate

I would suspect the reason why you can get through to a real person more easily at small companies is twofold:

1. Small companies tend to be less complex/do fewer things. That means it's easier for a phone operator/receptionist to know about everything that the company does, and therefore be able to answer any reasonable query - so it makes more sense for all phone calls to be routed straight away to a person. For a larger company where there's a lot more to know about the company, it's more likely that any one person can only answer queries about a certain thing, so it makes more sense to have automated systems to try to direct callers to the right person. (Even though those systems are unpopular with customers)
2. Automated phone answering systems save money in staff costs, but might have high costs to install and customize for that company in the first place. The larger the company and therefore the more phone calls the company receives, the more likely it is that that initial outlay will quickly produce financial savings in staff costs.

 

[takno]

That's probably most people's pet hate

I would suspect the reason why you can get through to a real person more easily at small companies is twofold:

1. Small companies tend to be less complex/do fewer things. That means it's easier for a phone operator/receptionist to know about everything that the company does, and therefore be able to answer any reasonable query - so it makes more sense for all phone calls to be routed straight away to a person. For a larger company where there's a lot more to know about the company, it's more likely that any one person can only answer queries about a certain thing, so it makes more sense to have automated systems to try to direct callers to the right person. (Even though those systems are unpopular with customers)
2. Automated phone answering systems save money in staff costs, but might have high costs to install and customize for that company in the first place. The larger the company and therefore the more phone calls the company receives, the more likely it is that that initial outlay will quickly produce financial savings in staff costs.

I mean that's possible, but every time I try to deal with Amazon's customer service they seem to try to trap me into making one of three or four statements, none of which are true. The only way to get through to them is to request a callback and keep saying nonsense until it gives up, which isn't an option on the chat bot.

You're welcome to believe this is an attempt to route your call, but from talking with vendors and consultants in the space I'm absolutely certain it's designed to not only prevent you from obtaining customer service, but also to make you feel bad so that you don't hold the lack of customer service against them.

 

[DustyBin]

My solution to this would be to raise the minimum wage, but compensate small business owners somehow by a change to their own taxes. Maybe a reduction on the Employers National Insurance rate for firms with less than 100 employees? Bigger companies can probably afford the increase so any 'compensation' for higher wage bills should be targeted at small businesses.

Something like that could work I suppose. There’s an increasingly fine line between making work pay for the individual and also allowing small businesses to operate profitably. Unfortunately this has been brought about by other factors which have increased overheads; it’s a perfect storm really.

I also wonder if it's time to think about reintroducing the 10p tax rate band somewhere? There needs to be a balance between protecting low earners, and people contributing to the cost of public services.

I think there’s a problem when nearly 40% of adults in the UK pay no income tax, especially with the decline of the traditional family model (by that I mean a breadwinner and a homemaker). That’s a lot of people out of work or not earning enough to pay tax (although this includes pensioners).

 

[AM9]

I think there’s a problem when nearly 40% of adults in the UK pay no income tax, especially with the decline of the traditional family model (by that I mean a breadwinner and a homemaker). That’s a lot of people out of work or not earning enough to pay tax (although this includes pensioners).

The inability to collect tax from a large proportion of the population sounds more like a problem of a large number of people being on or near the breadline. If there was less income equality in the UK, more of the population could afford to contribute to, and have a stake in the public purse.

 

[yorksrob]

The economic establishment can't make up their minds on whether there's not enough money to go around - hence the recession, or there's too much money to go around, "hence inflation".

Answer - it's the former - they need to encourage it to stay in the country and not leak out in the form of imported inflation on energy etc.

 

[Phil56]

I also wonder if it's time to think about reintroducing the 10p tax rate band somewhere?

It was a brilliant idea, but Brown beggared up it's introduction etc., so didn't last long. Just like he beggared up tax credits at first. He was definitely an "ideas" man and often right on the money, but time and time again, the way he announced/introduced things was cack handed.

Like the way he brought in first the 10% corporation tax band and then the 0% corporation tax band, and was shocked when huge numbers of sole traders (window cleaners, dog walkers, etc as well as tradesmen, shops, etc) converted to limited companies! What did he expect would happen when he introduced lower rates for limited companies than sole traders? Doh! His Paymaster General, Dawn Primarolo, is on record in Hansard for saying that she didn't think small businesses would convert to limited companies "just to save tax". What planet are they on? Also his botch up of changing dividend tax rules that also caused a stamped of incorporations and caused untold damage to pension schemes.

It was that kind of thing that overshadowed Brown's good ideas, and ultimately led to the end of both the 10% income tax rate and 0% corporation tax band. Both things that would be very valuable and useful in recent years. If Brown had thought them through properly, and introduced them in a more sensible manner (i.e. aligned the changes for both sole traders and small limited companies at the same time), it could have been a success and moulded future tax rates/bands for lower incomes.

 

[JamesT]

The economic establishment can't make up their minds on whether there's not enough money to go around - hence the recession, or there's too much money to go around, "hence inflation".

Answer - it's the former - they need to encourage it to stay in the country and not leak out in the form of imported inflation on energy etc.

A recession is not that there isn’t enough money to go round, but that economic activity is falling. You can have both a recession and high inflation at the same time, it’s called stagflation.

As the inflation seems to be mostly driven by imported food and energy, what hitherto untapped domestic sources of these would you suggest that would allow economic activity to keep going?

 

[philosopher]

I would argue yes. It is causing the loss of jobs, and while it might be seen as acceptable to the government if profits increase, I would argue that such mechanisation of jobs is a bad thing.

Additionally, it's not that customer friendly either. I have encountered mechanisation of this nature in eating places I frequent recently, and the software is frequently buggy with poor usability, and wait times for food are longer overall.

Likewise in Boots. They've mechanised and queue times have increased. Loss of jobs too. Win-win for the company, lose-lose for customers and employees.

Self checkouts are good from the customer perspective if they benefit the customer in some way, such as reduced wait times or cheaper products. In supermarkets therefore I think they are definitely a benefit as they do seem to considerable reduce queuing from what it was like before they existed.

I have noticed they are creeping into fast food places and coffee shops too. Here I think they are less or not beneficial to the customer. What I find is that it takes longer to place to your order as you have to go through the menu system and it is less personal. In these places a personal service I find is more of a benefit than in a supermarket. The only way they may benefit customers if places with them are able to hold down prices more than those without self checkouts.

 

[Yew]

As the inflation seems to be mostly driven by imported food and energy, what hitherto untapped domestic sources of these would you suggest that would allow economic activity to keep going?

Maybe we would be more resilient to energy prices if we still had coal mines, and had established a Sovereign Wealth fund from the profits of North Sea gas?

 

[Lost property]

We may have thought Nadine was irreplaceable.....seemingly not.

Tory MP challenged on UK growth claim

Ms Ford, who is MP for Chelmsford claimed the UK had better economic growth than the US and Canada.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[yorksrob]

A recession is not that there isn’t enough money to go round, but that economic activity is falling. You can have both a recession and high inflation at the same time, it’s called stagflation.

As the inflation seems to be mostly driven by imported food and energy, what hitherto untapped domestic sources of these would you suggest that would allow economic activity to keep going?

If, as you say, there is enough money to go around, the answer surely is to stimulate the domestic service economy so that more value can be directed to useful economic activity that is less dependant on imported energy and food.

If you take a pub, or a hotel or even a restaurant, a greater proportion of value will still go back to the economy via wages, domestically produced food etc, than imported inflation.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2022 ==

Maybe we would be more resilient to energy prices if we still had coal mines, and had established a Sovereign Wealth fund from the profits of North Sea gas?

The second is most definitely true.

 

[najaB]

I have noticed they are creeping into fast food places and coffee shops too. Here I think they are less or not beneficial to the customer. What I find is that it takes longer to place to your order as you have to go through the menu system and it is less personal. In these places a personal service I find is more of a benefit than in a supermarket. The only way they may benefit customers if places with them are able to hold down prices more than those without self checkouts.

They often have two or more kiosks so multiple customers can place their orders at the same time. More importantly though to the company is the fact that they can display pictures of the food - "Would you like fries with that?" doesn't work as well as a picture of fries to get the upsell.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With talk of the 10p band, an interesting idea would be not to have bands, but to design an exponential mathematical function that calculated the amount due, with a smoother "the more you earn the greater a proportion you pay" up to a ceiling.

 

[takno]

They often have two or more kiosks so multiple customers can place their orders at the same time. More importantly though to the company is the fact that they can display pictures of the food - "Would you like fries with that?" doesn't work as well as a picture of fries to get the upsell.

I'm far more likely to buy fries if I don't see them first. The main issue in fast food places is that there's no queue for the kiosk but then there's no way of judging what your wait time for the food will be. The whole experience is certainly never quicker.

This is, however, one of the few things I can't bring myself to blame Rishi Sunak for

 

[DustyBin]

The inability to collect tax from a large proportion of the population sounds more like a problem of a large number of people being on or near the breadline. If there was less income equality in the UK, more of the population could afford to contribute to, and have a stake in the public purse.

I presume you meant to type inequality in which case you’d be correct. I’m not sure what the answer is though. We actually have low unemployment, so the issue appears to be that many people on minimum wage (or thereabouts) simply aren’t working enough hours to pay income tax.

This raises a few questions.

1. Is there simply a lack of full time jobs?

2. Are we disincentivising full time work (UC etc.)?

3. Are there other reasons why people are unwilling or unable to work full time?

These are at least some of the fundamental questions that need to be addressed as I see it. Unfortunately the problems we face have been decades in the making, and are in many cases intertwined with deeper societal issues, so there are no easy solutions.

 

[yorksrob]

I presume you meant to type inequality in which case you’d be correct. I’m not sure what the answer is though. We actually have low unemployment, so the issue appears to be that many people on minimum wage (or thereabouts) simply aren’t working enough hours to pay income tax.

This raises a few questions.

1. Is there simply a lack of full time jobs?

2. Are we disincentivising full time work (UC etc.)?

3. Are there other reasons why people are unwilling or unable to work full time?

These are at least some of the fundamental questions that need to be addressed as I see it. Unfortunately the problems we face have been decades in the making, and are in many cases intertwined with deeper societal issues, so there are no easy solutions.

Too much work doesn't cover the true cost of living (in terms of keeping a roof over your head).

 

[DustyBin]

Too much work doesn't cover the true cost of living (in terms of keeping a roof over your head).

Sorry you’ll have to elaborate on that!

 

[yorksrob]

Sorry you’ll have to elaborate on that!

If you're a single person working in one of the service industries, I can't imagine how one would be able to afford a mortgage or even rent.

 

[DustyBin]

If you're a single person working in one of the service industries, I can't imagine how one would be able to afford a mortgage or even rent.

Ah ok I see what you mean now. A quick calculation reveals that if you're paid minimum wage and work 37.5 hours per week, your monthly take home pay would be £1,378.75. That's not enough to live a life of luxury, but should cover rent or even a modest mortgage* and allow for all essentials, although this will obviously depend heavily on location.

*I appreciate you also need to save a deposit.

 

[yorksrob]

Ah ok I see what you mean now. A quick calculation reveals that if you're paid minimum wage and work 37.5 hours per week, your monthly take home pay would be £1,378.75. That's not enough to live a life of luxury, but should cover rent or even a modest mortgage* and allow for all essentials, although this will obviously depend heavily on location.

*I appreciate you also need to save a deposit.

Even in an area of affordable housing, one would have to live like a hermit.

 

[DustyBin]

Even in an area of affordable housing, one would have to live like a hermit.

I had the misfortune to graduate from university during the last recession, and as such had the "pleasure" of walking into a job that paid just over the then minimum wage (it worked out a little over £14k at the time). It was actually manageable; I didn't live like a hermit although it wasn't comfortable by any means. I accept that proportionally the rise in cost of living may have outstripped the increase(s) to the minimum wage in the intervening period.

 

[edwin_m]

A recession is not that there isn’t enough money to go round, but that economic activity is falling. You can have both a recession and high inflation at the same time, it’s called stagflation.

As the inflation seems to be mostly driven by imported food and energy, what hitherto untapped domestic sources of these would you suggest that would allow economic activity to keep going?

The alternative is not to tank the currency so imports will be cheaper, and to reduce the disruption and costs that importers are facing.

If, as you say, there is enough money to go around, the answer surely is to stimulate the domestic service economy so that more value can be directed to useful economic activity that is less dependant on imported energy and food.

If you take a pub, or a hotel or even a restaurant, a greater proportion of value will still go back to the economy via wages, domestically produced food etc, than imported inflation.

If the pub can get more customers and still charge enough to make a profit after paying for food energy and wages, then it still has the challenge of getting the staff to serve them.

Sorry to bring Brexit up again ... but most of the measures the government could take to encourage growth would involve reversing aspects or consequences of Brexit. Yes we are also suffering from the war and the after-effects of Covid, but we can't do much about either, so it makes it all the more necessary to focus on things that can be changed. But that would involve the Tories admitting they were wrong on their flagship policy of the last 6 years.

 

[Typhoon]

If you're a single person working in one of the service industries, I can't imagine how one would be able to afford a mortgage or even rent.

I can't see how many people can even get a mortgage. I've looked at a mid-twenties on middle income for that age. The amount of mortgage they could get with a leading provider is less than £60k. We have beach huts nearby that cost more than that. The only property type they will be able to get is a park home (and I bet lenders are sniffy about them). And that is now. My concern is for the next generation. Zero hours contracts are not going away. I have a relative who is on her third job, under 20 - one business went bust, for the other, she was an apprentice, no-one taken on, new apprentices hired. I don't know how many are going to get by. For many, there will be no 'Bank of Mum and Dad', they are struggling, themselves.

 

[nw1]

Well the constituents of West Suffolk are probably hoping to get rid of their MP, but they have to wait until he comes back from Australia to tell him to his face (or at least one of them). Truss is MP for the poor folk of South-West Norfolk.

Are they adjacent? I would guess so.

As for comparing the two, Truss is worse than Hancock but right now, focusing on either is a distraction. The pair of them are just backbench MPs, and unlikely to push for anything too outrageous.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Nov 2022 ==

I can't see how many people can even get a mortgage. I've looked at a mid-twenties on middle income for that age. The amount of mortgage they could get with a leading provider is less than £60k. We have beach huts nearby that cost more than that. The only property type they will be able to get is a park home (and I bet lenders are sniffy about them). And that is now. My concern is for the next generation. Zero hours contracts are not going away. I have a relative who is on her third job, under 20 - one business went bust, for the other, she was an apprentice, no-one taken on, new apprentices hired. I don't know how many are going to get by. For many, there will be no 'Bank of Mum and Dad', they are struggling, themselves.

This has been the case for a while. I am GenX and have been continuously employed since the late 90s, but was unable to afford the costs of buying a flat until almost 40 (the deposit being the killer, rather than the mortgage payments). Inflated house prices seems to have been a thing since the late 90s, and consequently, I suspect many people born after about the late 60s will have had to wait a while unless they were lucky enough to land in a highly-paid job early in life.

 

[yorksrob]

The alternative is not to tank the currency so imports will be cheaper, and to reduce the disruption and costs that importers are facing.

If the pub can get more customers and still charge enough to make a profit after paying for food energy and wages, then it still has the challenge of getting the staff to serve them.

Sorry to bring Brexit up again ... but most of the measures the government could take to encourage growth would involve reversing aspects or consequences of Brexit. Yes we are also suffering from the war and the after-effects of Covid, but we can't do much about either, so it makes it all the more necessary to focus on things that can be changed. But that would involve the Tories admitting they were wrong on their flagship policy of the last 6 years.

I'm of two minds. Yes, a more flexible immigration policy would alleviate this bottleneck - isn't that something both Truss and Sunak want/ed to do ?

Also, if said businesses have more headroom to pay better wages, they should get better take up of jobs. This is good overall because it will mean more money going into the active part of the domestic economy.

Perhaps it needs a bit of both.

I can't see how many people can even get a mortgage. I've looked at a mid-twenties on middle income for that age. The amount of mortgage they could get with a leading provider is less than £60k. We have beach huts nearby that cost more than that. The only property type they will be able to get is a park home (and I bet lenders are sniffy about them). And that is now. My concern is for the next generation. Zero hours contracts are not going away. I have a relative who is on her third job, under 20 - one business went bust, for the other, she was an apprentice, no-one taken on, new apprentices hired. I don't know how many are going to get by. For many, there will be no 'Bank of Mum and Dad', they are struggling, themselves.

Exactly. This is a massive problem.

 

[DustyBin]

I can't see how many people can even get a mortgage. I've looked at a mid-twenties on middle income for that age. The amount of mortgage they could get with a leading provider is less than £60k. We have beach huts nearby that cost more than that. The only property type they will be able to get is a park home (and I bet lenders are sniffy about them). And that is now. My concern is for the next generation. Zero hours contracts are not going away. I have a relative who is on her third job, under 20 - one business went bust, for the other, she was an apprentice, no-one taken on, new apprentices hired. I don't know how many are going to get by. For many, there will be no 'Bank of Mum and Dad', they are struggling, themselves.

I agree, and it's getting increasingly difficult, and in some areas of the UK home ownership is a pipe dream for many. However this is where being a couple in a stable relationship is hugely advantageous. I realise that may sound like stuffy old traditional values to some(!) but it's a fact. Again though, we're touching on wider societal issues here.