CornwallFox

Do you mind me asking.... Where do you generally sit on immigration and politically? There's not much talk of this on here ATM and I'm wondering whether any of our more right wing commentators see this as a positive, or are willing to say it could be. BBC News - UK set to limit refugees to temporary stays - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c231x8rj1zpo

Honestly embarrassed for you that you've written out this load of absolute nonsense.

The BBC's legal letter to him is pretty robust in terms of their defence.

Not if you stop that as well.

I'm not sure it's about replacing. Tax is by it's nature anti inflationary, because it's taking money out of the economy. I don't think it's about fine tuning taxes as such. I think his general point is giving the wealth of the nation to the richest is a political choice and you should have the same team revenue by making different tax choices that target the rich so the poor can keep more and be taxed less.

Apparently anybody normal that could buy if landlords weren't. You seem to have a very dim view of people looking to buy. Do you mind me asking so we understand where you're coming from: are you a landlord yourself?

Not expertise but I have read up on it quite a bit. The starting point is understanding that money and debt are the same thing. Money is only created in two ways: either a central bank creates additional money (and when that money is sent into the economy it becomes a government debt as something has been given out and is repaid when returned), or it's created by banks (who are licensed to literally create money when they lend, they don't have to actually have the money) when borrowed by people or businesses. Again that creates a debt. So all money creates a debt. And so all money is either government debt or private debt. And to grow the economy, more money must be created. Which means government debt and/or private debt must increase, because money doesn't grow on trees, it must be created through creation of debt. Next tax. MMT says that governments with a fiat currency cannot run out of money, they can always create more money, but inflation is an issue - nobody wants a loaf of bread to cost a trillion pounds, so tax is used to dampen the effect of new money entering the economy, which is inflationary. Tax doesn't fund the government. Tax doesn't go into a special fund that's used to pay for things, it just gets removed from the economy. The government simply creates the money it spends and tax is an anti-inflationary device. Where taxation falls in the economy, and therefore where wealth is allowed to accrue, is an entirely political decision. There's lots of other aspects, including around why national debt isn't necessarily a bad thing, but that's the starting point. It's worth watching some Richard Murphy videos on YouTube who is an MMT advocate.

A mate of his wins an award and he's congratulating him. maybe he thinks he should be able to use his social media like anybody else, rather than constantly worrying what football fans think of everything he does. Football is his job and he has a life outside it. Some of us should have too.

Public schools used to be paid for by public endowments hence the name. Eton is technically a public school. They are private schools that are paid for via fees and the term public school is outdated.

Good news, let's hope landlords stop buying them. My mate sold that kind of house on the edge of the city a few years ago. Wanted to sell to a first time buyer of he could. Estate agent basically said it would be impossible because landlords would immediately outbid the first time buyers. They were proven right. Landlordism has wrecked the housing market. We have nearly 3 million landlords. 3 million. That's millions of homes first time buyers couldn't buy. And also millions of additional buyers causing prices to increase.

Most renters want to buy and can't because the bottom of the market is utterly saturated with landlords.

It's quite straightforward. I believe in a meritocracy. I believe in equal opportunity. You didn't be able to buy your kid an advantage. Plus private schools take in the best teachers, taking them away from state education. It's not that I don't want some people to have something, it's that I want everybody to have equity and then their talents decide where they can go. There's no reason state education can't have setting based on ability or even set itself up to have academies for the greatest minds, but it should be based on merit, not a parent's bank balance.

Private schools shouldn't exist.

The point of growth is that you don't need to raise tax levels to raise tax income. So I can accept there may be ways to spend more wisely, to create growth, and I agree we can't add more taxes on working people as cost of living is ridiculous right now. We need to borrow to redirect expenditure, borrow to invest in growth creation and also raise taxes on wealth. They're the only palatable options.

They've done plenty to grow the economy - it's just all in the form of longer term projects like GB energy, nuclear energy commissioning (linked to GB energy), over £100bn in additional capital spend. What they haven't been successful at is shorter term growth, that I would agree with. They need to focus on growth now and cost of living. In economic terms, no public spending is waste. It's true you could spend less, but again that would have a anti growth effect as that will be less money finding it's easy into the economy. There's a difference between quality spend and spend. If you want to cut ineffective spend that's fine but I would prefer to spend it differently rather than cut the spend.

He just needs to tell us, plainly and openly, exactly what the problems are, how big they are, and what the plan and timescale is for fixing them.

These are absolutely not the only options. It's this sort of thinking that has led us to such a terrible place. The Tories had long periods in government where interest rates were almost nil on government debt. They should have been borrowing to invest in capital projects, that was exactly the time to borrow and spend and get the economy growing. Instead they used the false dichotomy that you're promoting to cut spending (compared to where it would have been), dampening growth, leading to the worst wage growth in hundreds of years at one point and causing massive problems in public services. Government spending underpins the entire economy. Virtually every penny spent through public services reaches the private sector. Either through wages (or benefits) being spent, or for maintenance, goods, construction etc. Government spending is the single biggest driving force in the economy. Cutting public spending is bad for the private sector and bad for the whole economy. It is now now difficult to borrow, as interest rates are higher, but cutting spending will not lead to growth. It is anti-growth. Even if you cut taxes on business, unless the government is spending on goods, services, maintenance and construction, there still isn't the work and investment there to support business investment. Businesses might have slightly more money but still not the government business streams that underpins their investment decisions and creates business certainty.

100% agree.

But being the first chancellor in 50 years to raise income tax, in direct contradiction to their manifesto, would obviously be massively unpopular. They don't need to leak that to the papers to discover it would be unpopular. The idea that a fortnight from the budget the biggest single policy is still being test run through the papers sounds ridiculous. I don't buy that for a second.

You have absolutely no idea about that. Before last year's budget all sorts of claims were made about what they'd do and she did none of them. It's just paper talk, honestly embarrassing anybody claims u-turns based on headlines.

We are. We're maybe a decade/decade and a half away from everybody realising it. The effects of global warming are picking up pace. They'll be undeniable within that sort of timeframe. We've already missed 1.5°C. we're pretty much nailed on to miss 2°C. Maybe there's just enough traction to stop before 2.5°C but without the US on board it's uphill. I sorta suspect we'll end up much higher and it'll be truly existential. Even at 2.5°C we're talking large numbers of deaths, swathes of the earth becoming very inhospitable, mass movements of people. Tbh I've long suspected the likes of the US are thinking that we'll see the human population reduce, that they have enough military to stop mass migration inwards.

It's not u turn when it's something that isn't announced and it's just paper headlines. The budget is the budget. Everything before is press noise. Also the economy isn't so binary. You can decide to borrow to try to induce growth. Cutting removes money from the economy and it's counter productive when growth and business investment is your aim.

Not in any form. Assuming this point was made about the football regulator appointment and the fact he had donated to Starmar, the appointment decision was made by the Secretary of state for culture etc, who simply asked starmar if he was content with that appointment, which starmar confirmed he was. Starmar had previously recused himself from decision making regarding the position because of his links to football, but that single exchange was what starmar apologised for as it appears to be a rubber stamp, when actually decision making sat with the secretary of state.

Tommy Watson on loan from Brighton to offer something either at 10 or on the wing.

Nobody has taken a bribe, let's be clear.