All those who are trying to stop working from home, including most prominently Jacob-Rees Mogg, clearly don't believe in the Tory value of free markets if they don't like companies/institutions allowing working practices they don't like. I was not a fan of most covid restrictions, but working from home was one of the main benefits.
Fair enough, we'll see what becomes of it. Interestingly they did actually do something today that is fitting in with free market values somewhat, delaying the ban on junk food adverts and multi-buy deals.
Depends on the type, the tax gap as reported by HMRC has been coming down, so there must be improvements somewhere, however there are still issues around non-dom status and the fact we have a catalogue of tax havens as British Overseas Territories (although I concede no Government of any colour has sought to do anything about that last one, and it's probably very complicated to deal with anyway).
''Tories'' is no more a nickname than ''Conservatives'', if you wish to be pedantic. The Tory Party was the forerunner to the Conservative Party, or to give it its full and proper name the Conservative and Unionist party. Doubtless there are some e.g. Jacob Rees-Mogg who might like a return to the days of Tories and Whigs, although as his mother's father was a lorry driver he might be surprised at what his place in society might have been 'back in the day.'
There is also a clear body of evidence that investment in infrastructure stimulates economic growth, particularly in areas with under-employment. That's before we consider that economic growth is a poor proxy for the financial wellbeing of working people.
The vast majority of tax increases have been on things that normal working people consume. Since they have been in power, the Tories have increased tax on:
They certainly haven't been effective, large corporations regularly avoid paying hundreds of millions. The Conservative party's approach can at best be described as lip service; typically they just obsess over chump change from small businesses. That's before we consider Non-doms, though that might put Rishi in his wife's bad books.
If there was a chance of Rees-Mogg turning up at my office, that would be a pretty good reason to work from home.
And yet this government was quite happy to implement a hard Brexit that has hit economic growth hard.
At some point though growth in this way is going to be impossible to achieve, ignoring the role infinite growth plays in climate change, the resources to bring it about will eventually run out, and it also requires infinite population growth (or high immigration where fertility rates are low) to keep achieving a labour force that increases in size to drive both production and consumption. Sure, technology will help somewhat, but it's not a silver bullet, and we shouldn't rely on certain technology being available in time (or at all) either. Economic growth achieved through bulldozing/concreting over more of our countryside to develop on, regardless of where in the country it is, certainly doesn't strike me as appealing.
I agree, but it is possible (and highly likely given conservative policies), the economy can grow, but the amount of money in peoples pockets does not.
Alcohol and tobacco duty forms a larger percentage of disposable income spend for lower income families. For example, the ONS found that: "
And how does that scale for large businesses with multiple employees? Forgive me for not trusting your small business as an analaogy for large multinationals.
Since the rise of Neoliberalism under Margret Thatcher, the GINI coefficient of income equality has risen to around 35%, beforehand it was at around 20.
The latest move to try and tackle the cost of living seems to be to cut 90,000 jobs from the civil service to bring numbers back to 2016 levels (the lowest since WW2), with funding tax cuts a possible use of projected savings:
Boris Johnson wants to cut up to 91,000 civil service jobs
Boris Johnson's plan to save money aims to see staffing return to 2016 levels within three years.www.bbc.co.uk
Perhaps, but that still leaves us with one of the lowest rates of Corporation tax in the G7.
I am all for people being able to work and improve themselves, but let us remember that financial success is not simply a function of work; a wealthy family able to support an individual often gives a significant head-start. I would not advocate moving towards a GINI index of zero, but it seems to me that we're too high on the scale, 0.35 is remarkably close to the threshold you spoke of.
You may be right and they may only be required in the short term, however Brexit is still not 'done', we have this debate about the Northern Ireland Protocol (and all sorts of paper work) which must be exercising civil servants. I also suspect that the Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency is not devoid of secretarial assistance,
Would this be an incentive for overseas companies to set up in Britain?
If they were looking to minimise their tax burden, there are more effective places.
With Brexit not being "done", international companies have no certainty about the terms on which they can export from the UK to the principal markets of Europe. The latest example is the risk of the EU cancelling the Brexit deal if the UK unilaterally reneges on the NI protocol. So it's highly unlikely an international business would choose to invest in the UK.
I'd suggest that invest isn't quite the right word, but I can't think of a good one for "base themselves in the UK to take advantage of tax laws.
I suspect actually the corporation tax rate (which is mainly what we are talking about here) make very little difference to where a business locates itself physically, as a tax rate can always be changed. Multinationals will try to use internal accounting processes to ensure that profits appear in countries where they are taxed the least. The low-tax country may get more tax income that way, but most of the jobs will remain wherever the company can most efficiently carry out its activities.
Growth is not a ‘system’ but the default of interactions where people strive for efficiency and improvement. This cannot be prevented in a globalised market regardless of whether individual countries try to opt out from this.
Mark Spencer has subsequently stated that the General Election will be in 2024. Mind you, they can still change their mind (Theresa May style) or may be trying to deflect attention away from an intention to call it this autumn.
www.standard.co.uk
You make some fair points. I wasn't suggesting we give up all the improvements on our standard of living, but maybe get more out of what we have done. The main thing we can and should be doing is focusing on quality, not quantity, particularly in the world of retail. If higher quality goods lasts longer, then it needs replacing less, in turn using less resources; there have been theories that in certain sectors quality of products has got worse over the years, in particular white goods. Repairing goods needs to be encouraged more than replacement, including a drive to more affordability of repairs. What doesn't help though is, as an aside to GDP focus, retail sales are a regular statistic reported by both the ONS and consumer groups, and they focus too much on quantity, when I think more focus on quality, including longevity and how locally sourced they were, should be considered more.
