[mattomac]

Let's prop up house prices.

I’m sure this policy keeps getting announced.

[Youngian]

State freebies for first time buyers don’t go well with those that already are and missed out. Or with an even bigger group that will still have no hope of becoming one.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I declare an interest here, but this looks surprisingly like a sensible policy. Won't happen, surely?

[Dalem Lake]

Far too little, far too late. It was predicted over a decade ago what would happen when Osborne originally lowered it to 30% and to add icing on the shitcake they kept on freezing it while rents were shooting up, the most recent done by a certain Rishi Sunak. Cunts.

[Crabcakes]

I’m pretty sure everyone recognises a pre-election bribe, and only the dumbest or most desperate will fall for it and not realise that if the Tories won it’d be whisked away post election because savings needed to be made, while the tax breaks for the super rich would mysteriously remain.

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/ ... r-the-rich

On Saturday night, it emerged, however, that Hunt may at the 11th hour be considering cutting income tax – possibly by unfreezing thresholds – or national insurance, in ways that could benefit people across the income scale.

I think it's nailed on that he doesn't do inheritance tax cuts, without recouping them from reducing the reliefs that some of the very richest use (they aren't really loopholes, they're doing what the reliefs are intended to do, reduce the effective rate of inheritance tax for people who can claim them).

Only trouble is that income tax and NI raise much more than inheritance tax, and are much more expensive to cut in a way that people meaningfully notice. Can he afford that?

[Tubby Isaacs]

So it wasn't a silly plan to kick out administrators ("protect the frontline") then. It was all part of a long term masterplan that's going to be vindicated by AI.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/ ... r-the-rich

On Saturday night, it emerged, however, that Hunt may at the 11th hour be considering cutting income tax – possibly by unfreezing thresholds – or national insurance, in ways that could benefit people across the income scale.

I think it's nailed on that he doesn't do inheritance tax cuts, without recouping them from reducing the reliefs that some of the very richest use (they aren't really loopholes, they're doing what the reliefs are intended to do, reduce the effective rate of inheritance tax for people who can claim them).

Only trouble is that income tax and NI raise much more than inheritance tax, and are much more expensive to cut in a way that people meaningfully notice. Can he afford that?

He doesn't need to. This is about saving some of the blue wall seats. As for affordability, that's a Reeves problem.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

They've ploughed the fields and now they are sowing them with salt.

[Youngian]

Extra free money for the wealthy through inheritance tax cuts has to be paid for. Make the layabouts pay for their free crutches

Jeremy Hunt warns benefits ‘coasters’ they will lose free prescriptions if they refuse to take a job https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 48612.html

Jeremy knows all about wheezes to get something for nothing. Thanks to a bulk discount you can lower the price to avoid stamp duty threshold.

Jeremy Hunt received a “bulk discount” on seven flats bought from a Conservative donor, the Guardian can disclose, as parliament’s watchdog opened an investigation into the health secretary’s admission that he breached money laundering rules.

Neither Hunt nor Roach agreed to disclose the value of the deal but a source close to the health secretary said he had received a “bulk discount” for buying multiple apartments.
A spokesperson for Roach said that all sales at Alexandra Wharf were at “open market value”, adding that the businessman’s political donations had been properly declared on the Electoral Commission website.
They added that the pair had known each other for “several years” but had no business relationship beyond the purchase of the flats.

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... xury-flats

The Daily Telegraph said Hunt failed to notify Companies House of his 50% interest in Mare Pond Properties Limited – something that took him six months to rectify.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “Jeremy has rightly apologised for an administrative oversight, and as the Cabinet Office have made clear there has been no breach of the ministerial code.

“We consider the matter closed.” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ase-errors

[Youngian]

The Chancellor’s bulk buy luxury flats have proved to be a nice little earner after jacking up rents by an inflation busting 18% this year

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... t-illusion

John Crace is pretty scathing about Hunt.

Because they want to believe. Worse, they need to believe. It would shatter their idea of the world order not to believe. The idea that the Conservatives might not just have wrecked the economy over the last 13 years, but could be hellbent on making it worse, is just too unbearable. A category error. They’ve been indoctrinated to believe that only the Conservatives can be trusted with the economy.

Men and women – mainly Oxbridge-educated – who have been brought up to believe that they are the best and that they know best for the little people. The certainty that comes of ruthless entitlement. They can do what they like. Worse still, they are prepared to actively make things worse in the knowledge that they won’t be around to fix it. Leave Labour an impossible task, so the Tories in opposition can blame them for failing to fix it.

Jezza just can’t help himself. When he begins a sentence he has no idea how or where it is going to end. He just burbles nonsense.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Oh dear.

Best thing they could do at this stage is create some "fiscal headroom" by relaxing the fiscal rule. They'll probably do prioritise political traps though.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Didn't they say this would cost money, not raise it?

[Andy McDandy]

It's another "Corbyn says nationalise the railways" situation. Different when we do it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Tax Justice guy here. I really don't get this. Labour doesn't seem like the one that's got itself into the corner.

The OBR report must be dire. Labour's problem is the fiscal rule, which is both the loosest we've ever had and incredibly tight given the shit we're in. The latest from Hunt is an opportunity to reframe that. And anyway, there may be more taxes planned- if you annouce capital gains tax, for instance, is going up further, people and firms will cash in now, at the lower rate.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Which Jeremy is this? Hunt or Corbyn?

[mattomac]

All this to offer tax cuts, the last tax cut has just been wiped out by a rent rise for me.

As for traps, Labour can do what it wants in government.

[Watchman]

Gone are the days when everyone had to wait for the actual Budget statement in The House. I’m guessing all the “nice” things have been leaked beforehand because;
a) in the grand scheme of things, they are not all that great
b) and it needs to hide the real shit of cuts to public services etc

[Abernathy]

Another cut in National Insurance is, in essence, a cut to the funding of the National Health Service (NI was invented as a hypothecated tax to fund the NHS, even if it has long since been effectively subsumed into general taxation).

I trust Labour will be pointing that out . Repeatedly.