Mailwatch(ed) Forum

There's a lot of trade expertise and diplomatic experience on Bluesky, but that chap just seems to be a fairly standard lecturer in European Studies. He's a great one for the "everyone can see Starmer/Britain is deluded" sort of takes. Starmer seems to get on well enough with EU leaders, as far as I can tell, albeit more naturally over Defence than Trade.

I see Starmer didn't commit to keeping the fiscal rules till the end of the Parliament, but did commit to not raising the taxes income tax, employees' NI and VAT. That seems a bit rash. What else is there? They can't do employers' NI again. I don't think you're going to get the money by eg taxing large partnerships differently, though that might be useful. More immigration than was planned? I see they've postponed announcing the policy because of Cabinet disagreements.

I suppose there's fuel duty, but believe that when I see it.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Apr 07, 2025 7:34 pm I see Starmer didn't commit to keeping the fiscal rules till the end of the Parliament, but did commit to not raising the taxes income tax, employees' NI and VAT. That seems a bit rash. What else is there? They can't do employers' NI again. I don't think you're going to get the money by eg taxing large partnerships differently, though that might be useful. More immigration than was planned? I see they've postponed announcing the policy because of Cabinet disagreements.

It does they seem at times to let what happened to Truss guide them too much.

It was a different problem Truss had. She wanted tax cuts and spending rises. Labour just wants the spending rises. See how things go, but I'd say at some point there's some scope for a "Putin tax". Or a Trump tax, but you couldn't call it that.

It was a different problem Truss had. She wanted tax cuts and spending rises. Labour just wants the spending rises. See how things go, but I'd say at some point there's some scope for a "Putin tax". Or a Trump tax, but you couldn't call it that.

I was interested to read someone on the Guardian (who's admittedly a bit of Starmer fan) who said liberal opinion of Starmer in the US seems to be much more positive than lots of what he gets here. Sure, most people would look good if you had Trump, but he gave some examples that were very warm.

Earlier tonight, I came across a Reuters story on Starmer's speech today. It didn't say idiot wants to appease Trump and won't turn to the EU". Here it is.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/donald ... 025-04-07/

UK's Keir Starmer vows to cut trade barriers with key partners

Bit more positive, isn't it? But will it lead anywhere? Who knows?

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Apr 07, 2025 8:18 pm It was a different problem Truss had. She wanted tax cuts and spending rises. Labour just wants the spending rises. See how things go, but I'd say at some point there's some scope for a "Putin tax". Or a Trump tax, but you couldn't call it that.

Sam Freedman argued the government should impose a defence levy.

You'd never guess from this stuff that the it's very easy to find experts who say clearly don't rejoin the customs union (Anna Jerzewska, UK in Changing Europe, Derrick Wyatt I've come across without looking specifically for such people- can't recall one saying we should). Is there another customs union available? Jez thought there might be in 2019 (would have been his Leave option in the second referendum), Ed Davey thinks so now, but is there? What conditions would it come with?

Anna Jerzewska is btw more critical of what seems to be lack of strategy for the May reset. We'll see how that goes, but she may well have a point.

Reuters got from Starmer's speech that he wanted to improve trade relations with other partners. I don't think this Continuity Remain stuff is particularly helpful to fair reporting.

Seems like student visas are going to be made less attractive. I get that they don't want to be treading on toes building houses if immigration numbers basically wipe out most of the extra capacity they've built, but this is McSweeney bollocks. Nobody really cares about students paying a lot of money for courses.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 10:33 am Seems like student visas are going to be made less attractive. I get that they don't want to be treading on toes building houses if immigration numbers basically wipe out most of the extra capacity they've built, but this is McSweeney bollocks. Nobody really cares about students paying a lot of money for courses.

The problem comes with overstayers. Former students are one of the biggest demographics of illegal immigrants.

Angry people busting a blood vessel portraying legal asylum claimants as illegal immigrants don't seem to be bothered about real illegals (visa overstayers). Despite the numbers being far higher.

I don't think most of them know about it. Even Farage doesn't go for it like you'd think he would. It's strange.

In other news, this sounds very drastic.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... utting-nhs

Hospitals in England could shed 100,000 jobs in response to cost-cutting orders

Exclusive: Scale of looming job losses prompts NHS leaders to ask Treasury to cover costs

The Good Law Project yesterday were talking about one of Streeting's donors, who has an interest in personnel. My guess is that the private sector takes over a lot of the back office functions. Though that's borderline corrupt, I'm not particularly opposed to that. It doesn't seem to be hard to find NHS staff who are pissed off with covering for somebody who's always off sick. Stats about administration being efficient aren't, in my view, quite the slam dunk for the NHS they seem. The taxpayer funding is what's efficient, which means a lot less chasing co-payments and insurance companies. That shouldn't be changed, and I see no suggestion it will be.

I suppose it's the job of the NHS Confederation to make the case, but I don't think the Treasury should cover the redundancies.