The Labour Party under Andy Burnham

[Sun Chariot]

Call me crazy simplistic, but - that £22bn black hole Reeves and Starmer told us about? The one we need to pay loads more taxes to fill? Well, I think I've solved it...

Government pledges nearly £22bn for carbon capture projects

Sir Keir Starmer says carbon capture clusters on Merseyside and Teesside will "kickstart growth".

www.bbc.co.uk

BBC article: "Government pledges nearly £22bn for carbon capture projects"

 

[MotCO]

Call me crazy simplistic, but - that £22bn black hole Reeves and Starmer told us about? The one we need to pay loads more taxes to fill? Well, I think I've solved it...

Government pledges nearly £22bn for carbon capture projects

Sir Keir Starmer says carbon capture clusters on Merseyside and Teesside will "kickstart growth".

www.bbc.co.uk

Government pledges nearly £22bn for carbon capture projects

And stop the £11bn going to foreign green projects, and we've not only filled the hole but got a surplus. Tax cuts anyone?

 

[High Dyke]

Call me crazy simplistic, but - that £22bn black hole Reeves and Starmer told us about? The one we need to pay loads more taxes to fill? Well, I think I've solved it...

Government pledges nearly £22bn for carbon capture projects

Sir Keir Starmer says carbon capture clusters on Merseyside and Teesside will "kickstart growth".

www.bbc.co.uk

Government pledges nearly £22bn for carbon capture projects

Needs to stop the hot air expelled by politicians.

 

[brad465]

Call me crazy simplistic, but - that £22bn black hole Reeves and Starmer told us about? The one we need to pay loads more taxes to fill? Well, I think I've solved it...

Government pledges nearly £22bn for carbon capture projects

Sir Keir Starmer says carbon capture clusters on Merseyside and Teesside will "kickstart growth".

www.bbc.co.uk

Government pledges nearly £22bn for carbon capture projects

Capital spending for investment and day-to-day spending can be different.

However, carbon capture is a con and no amount of money should be going towards it, let alone £22bn.

 

[najaB]

However, carbon capture is a con and no amount of money should be going towards it, let alone £22bn.

It's not a complete con, but it would be much more effective to decarbonise in the first place.

 

[edwin_m]

Pretty bad optics to announce as their first major investment something that people who are both concerned and unconcerned about climate change can find reason to disagree with.

 

[ainsworth74]

Pretty bad optics to announce as their first major investment something that people who are both concerned and unconcerned about climate change can find reason to disagree with.

Is that not this Government all over? They appear to have completely failed to employ anyone who understands how to lay the ground work for anything nor indeed the optics of anything that they do or do not do.

 

[takno]

Pretty bad optics to announce as their first major investment something that people who are both concerned and unconcerned about climate change can find reason to disagree with.

I'm not sure there is any sensible position you can take in the space without hitting that problem. Greenpeace are a pressure group who have no need to produce coherent policies, and as a result just oppose everything short of the complete cessation of human economic activity, while you can always find a climate denier who is furious about spending any money if it isn't spent burning oil in open pits. Most people will probably just form their own opinions.

That said, the messaging is pretty chaotic at the moment. I suspect that's partly because the government is suddenly actually doing a lot of stuff because they want to and they said they would. That's quite a change from recent experience of a government which only ever came up with policies or did anything at all because there was a gap in the media grid.

 

[edwin_m]

I'm not sure there is any sensible position you can take in the space without hitting that problem. Greenpeace are a pressure group who have no need to produce coherent policies, and as a result just oppose everything short of the complete cessation of human economic activity, while you can always find a climate denier who is furious about spending any money if it isn't spent burning oil in open pits. Most people will probably just form their own opinions.

That said, the messaging is pretty chaotic at the moment. I suspect that's partly because the government is suddenly actually doing a lot of stuff because they want to and they said they would. That's quite a change from recent experience of a government which only ever came up with policies or did anything at all because there was a gap in the media grid.

I agree with all that. But as they are doing so much stuff, couldn't they have done some less controversial stuff first?

 

[Gloster]

I agree with all that. But as they are doing so much stuff, couldn't they have done some less controversial stuff first?

Get the controversial stuff over early on. Labour has five years and voters’ memories are short: plenty of people have already forgotten the No.10 parties.

 

[edwin_m]

Get the controversial stuff over early on. Labour has five years and voters’ memories are short: plenty of people have already forgotten the No.10 parties.

Yes in principle, but there's also the risk of starting off on the wrong foot and creating a first impression that's difficult to shift. It's completely different from the early Blair years where they managed the PR so that people could see something (usually) worthwhile happening every day.

 

[takno]

Yes in principle, but there's also the risk of starting off on the wrong foot and creating a first impression that's difficult to shift. It's completely different from the early Blair years where they managed the PR so that people could see something (usually) worthwhile happening every day.

Difficult to disagree with that, although Campbell was exceptionally capable, and still drove himself into the ground over a few years. Moreover the internet barely existed, so newpapers spent a lot of money and time developing stories and people tended to fairly consistently read/watch the same news source over weeks and months.

Now you basically try to get an entire message into 10 words, float it off into the ether and hope people read the whole sentence. Even then you're taking a risk because you didn't spend those 10 words responding to whatever fatuous nothing-burger somebody on the internet has decided to swoon over today, and that might be the story that ends up dominating.

Creating a tone or mood in the current environment is basically impossible.

 

[HSTEd]

The problem Labour have is that most of the "controversial", "difficult" decisions they are taking are the ones that don't really achieve anything in the scheme of things.
They seem to be burning up political capital with reckless abandon, whilst not achieving much at all.

Whilst the triple lock remains, Winter Fuel Payment is irrelevant - it has been more or less swallowed up in one year by that!

 

[londonbridge]

Lisa Nandy: “No pensioner will be worse off this winter than last winter”, and “we haven’t taken £300 from pensioners”…..outright lies. Obviously if someone’s income is reduced by £300, then they are £300 worse off. And if they haven’t received £300, but “the government hasn’t taken it”, exactly who HAS taken it or where has it gone if it’s not in the persons pocket or bank account??

 

[takno]

Lisa Nandy: “No pensioner will be worse off this winter than last winter”, and “we haven’t taken £300 from pensioners”…..outright lies. Obviously if someone’s income is reduced by £300, then they are £300 worse off. And if they haven’t received £300, but “the government hasn’t taken it”, exactly who HAS taken it or where has it gone if it’s not in the persons pocket or bank account??

They will have also received an increase in their pension of more than £300, so they aren't worse off. Fuel bills are incidentally also lower. You may disagree with what she say, but it isn't a lie.

 

[londonbridge]

The pensioner has not received £300 that they were expecting to be paid, but “we haven’t taken it”. So I’ll ask again, who HAS taken it then, if not the government??

 

[Vinnym]

They will have also received an increase in their pension of more than £300, so they aren't worse off. Fuel bills are incidentally also lower. You may disagree with what she say, but it isn't a lie.

The pension increase doesn’t come into effect until April, so they will be worse off this winter.

 

[takno]

The pensioner has not received £300 that they were expecting to be paid, but “we haven’t taken it”. So I’ll ask again, who HAS taken it then, if not the government??

I was expecting to win the premium bonds last month. I'd like to know who's taken that as well

 

[Richard Scott]

I was expecting to win the premium bonds last month. I'd like to know who's taken that as well

That isn't a good comparison is it as that's a random selection of a number to win not a dead cert?

 

[Magdalia]

The pension increase doesn’t come into effect until April, so they will be worse off this winter.

The state pension increase in April 2024 was about £900, far bigger than the winter fuel allowance.

That isn't a good comparison is it as that's a random selection of a number to win not a dead cert?

Government financial policy has never been a dead cert either.

 

[Richard Scott]

Government financial policy has never been a dead cert either

No, but the chances that it'll change regularly probably is!!!!!!

 

[davews]

The state pension increase in April 2024 was about £900, far bigger than the winter fuel allowance.

Actual increase for an individual depends on many things. They also always seem to quote figures for the 'new pension' forgetting that anybody born before 1951 (ie most current pensioners) are on the old pension and get significantly less. I have not checked my figures but my increase was an awful lot less than £900.

 

[JamesT]

Actual increase for an individual depends on many things. They also always seem to quote figures for the 'new pension' forgetting that anybody born before 1951 (ie most current pensioners) are on the old pension and get significantly less. I have not checked my figures but my increase was an awful lot less than £900.

Or potentially more. Pensioners on the old scheme either have Additional Pension (e.g. SERPS), or were contracted out and have a larger personal or occupational pension than their individual contributions would normally merit.

 

[SteveP29]

The pensioner has not received £300 that they were expecting to be paid, but “we haven’t taken it”. So I’ll ask again, who HAS taken it then, if not the government??

It wasn't theirs in the first place so it hasn't been taken from them

 

[ainsworth74]

Actual increase for an individual depends on many things. They also always seem to quote figures for the 'new pension' forgetting that anybody born before 1951 (ie most current pensioners) are on the old pension and get significantly less. I have not checked my figures but my increase was an awful lot less than £900.

As @JamesT noted when it comes to the Old State Pension it's fiendishly complex but, boiling it down to its most simple, the weekly rate of the Old State Pension for 2022/23 was £141.85 and that increased to £156.20 for 2023/24 so an increase of £746.20 for the year. If that was a pensioners only income and they had no significant savings/capital (£10,000 or more) they would be able to access Pension Credit to top their income up so that their weekly income was at least £182.60 (2022/23) or £201.05 (2023/24) per week. Only a few quid less than the New State Pension and with passporting to things like 100% Council Tax Reduction, full Housing Benefit, free eye tests, NHS dental, etc.

But, the Old State Pension is a nightmare. Not sure I've ever seen someone who is getting exactly the basic rate!

Also interesting to compare what a working age person would have been getting around the same time. Standard Allowance for someone aged 25 or older under Universal Credit was £77.29 (2022/23) rising to £85.09 (2023/24) per week. An increase of £405.60 for the year and of course these people didn't get any Winter Fuel Payments either but were expected to cope...

 

[davews]

Actual increase for an individual depends on many things. They also always seem to quote figures for the 'new pension' forgetting that anybody born before 1951 (ie most current pensioners) are on the old pension and get significantly less. I have not checked my figures but my increase was an awful lot less than £900.

OK, checked my figures. I actually got a £650 increase in April, rather more than I thought though still of course less than £900. As a single person I think I only got £200 for the winter fuel allowance last year. Being though contracted out for much of my working life I have a rather nice company pension so I tend not to worry about the state pension which I have always viewed as a sort of 'top up'. Can't really complain at losing the WFA....

 

[Falcon1200]

Fuel bills are incidentally also lower.

??? My direct debit for gas and electric has just gone up by £40 a month!

 

[JamesT]

??? My direct debit for gas and electric has just gone up by £40 a month!

How does it compare to this time last year? The cap fell over the summer.

 

[Broucek]

The budget prep doesn't seem to be going well. They ruled out raising all the taxes that are easy to raise, hard to avoid and (if increases are small) have limited unintended consequences.

Things like pensions tax and CGT are more complicated, have less predictable outcomes, take time (pensions) and have significant unintended consequences.

Many of those unintentended consequences are not THAT hard to understand and yet it apparently took the public sector unions to explain the disastrous impact of some pension changes that were proposed.

The last government was hopeless. I was expecting more from this one.

 

[brad465]

The budget prep doesn't seem to be going well. They ruled out raising all the taxes that are easy to raise, hard to avoid and (if increases are small) have limited unintended consequences.

Yes I do think they should have at least reversed the NI cuts Hunt made in his final months as Chancellor; taxpayers were used to the higher rate anyway and covered the size of this "black hole".

One tax that I think is needed, but will take time to actually plan out (so not this budget), is a land value tax that replaces council tax. The latter is based on the value of a house 30 years ago and with band limits leads to some landowners with large land/property sizes paying lesser amounts that many modest homeowners (like Buckingham Palace reportedly paying £1.8k a year). Another advantage is one can't simply move land offshore to avoid it; if they sell it someone else can have it.