Wonderful as usual. ‘Sounds like a scousers charter” ..brilliant. I started a business 20 years ago, 15 employees now, I hate it. There’s no way I’d start it again now, red tape and regulations have ruined what used to be enjoyable. We turnover just over £1m around half of which ends up back in the hands of the government in one form or another, thats turnover not profit! And the government hates us for it. Every policy seems to target those trying to get on, second home owners, small businesses, white van man. If I could find a buyer I’d sell the lot and retrain as a train driver, the thought of trundling along whilst listening to podcasts all day without a care in the world really appeals. And if that gets boring I could develop a back injury and get a couple of years at home on full pay…
Thanks for the insight Tom. I’m just one man band. A little company. And my costs and paperwork, taxes etc are onerous. I can only imagine what it must be like for you. Best of luck!
> And my costs and paperwork, taxes etc are onerous.
Not to question your Lived Experience LSO, but when I ran a business my Lived Experience was basically ... well yes, basically zero paperwork and bureaucracy -- we had to pay our taxes and ... hmmm ... well OK, not exactly 'zero' but ... When we built something there was the Building Inspector to contend with, but ... hmmm ... once, I recall we had to put some fire protection behind a wood stove, other than that it was basically he shows up, looks around, says 'that's fine' and that's that. Zero paper. Basically the Government didn't give a damn how we conducted our business. Dunno, maybe that was just us.
And this is in the North Korea of the Americas: Canada. Now, I rant and rave, same as you, when I read the horror stories. It's a bit conflicting, being a prole and a Tory at the same time (I don't mean 'your' Tories, I mean a Tory mindset). But I do wonder sometimes if the rich whine a bit too loudly about their travails.
I think anyone who works for themselves is likely to have a “Tory” attitude, it kind of goes with the territory. Running a small business requires a whole lot more work, responsibility and risk than being an employee. The tax system used to recognise this, but now it doesn’t. Previously a small plumbing business would pay no corporation tax on the first £10k profit and then standard rate after that, then he could pay himself a salary up to the tax threshold and then he could take dividends tax free until he hit the higher threshold. Now he has to pay 19% (soon to go up) corp tax on all his profits and then 8.5% on his dividends. So he’s paying a similar amount to what he would pay as an employee.
If the tax system doesn’t reward enterprise the we’ll see less enterprise. We need a constant stream of small businesses starting up so that the odd one will become a big business and pay lots of tax. There’s no incentive to start these days, and growing a business is a massive headache. I just don’t see why you’d bother when you can pay the same rate of tax without all the hassle by working for someone else. In the long run this will be terrible for the economy.
Yes Tom. It’s a spiral. Also. The figures you make me realise how much worse off I am now than I would have been in the past. Back in the 99s I used to justify paying less tax because I got no holiday pay and had no job security. Nowadays working for myself just makes me greedy apparently. That’s what IR35 seems to assume anyway.
You get leftie socialist types telling horror stories of Corporate Greed. And you get plutocrats telling horror stories of what those rotten proles will get up to if we let them. Seems to me most of the horror stories should be put to bed. What makes sense for real, productive people? We dolphins don't have a welfare system (we do share but we don't tolerate bums either) but neither do we like sharks. We have lower class parasites, absolutely true, but I'd bet the plutocratic parasites get the lion's share.
Sure, I can't disagree with any of that. But then again I make a distinction between 'real' businesses that generate real goods and services with banksterism and rentiers, and I also note the difference between the local plumber and Amazon. Having been a small businessman I truly 'get' what you're saying. Yet when we have Bezos feeling sorry for himself my attitude changes.
I ran a small business in the 80's, employed a lot of people who earned good money, they enjoyed the work, we all did well. And Maggie Thatcher's government was on our side. But ever since, every government has just seen the Private Sector as a cow to be liked dry to fund their ridiculous Public Sector salaries...that they would NEVER, EVER be worth in the Private Sector.
That’s a hugely important point Mrs B. Public sector wages, especially it seems at the top level, seem vastly inflated. I want working people to earn a decent wage obvs. But there seems to be an entire layer, or three, where as you say, people are enjoying wages which would never withstand contact with the market.
When I had my first job as a software engineer, in the late '80s to mid '90s, then whenever I looked at the job ads in Computer Weekly, those in the back pages, for the public sector, would have noticeably lower salaries. (This was for skilled technical jobs in IT support, programming and analysis -- not management).
Back then, the trade off was that the public sector provided job security, flexibility in working arrangements, incremental pay rises with time served, reasonable prospects of career progression, and a good pension at the end.
Nowadays, the public sector still has all those benefits, but the starting salaries seem to be comparable with the private sector. In particular, the pensions are reckoned to be worth an extra third on top of the salary.
Whenever I read about nurses, teachers or junior doctors agitating for higher pay, I always think the problem is more likely to be the toxic nature of the NHS or state education sector -- not the level of pay itself.
I think that’s right Geoff. I always used to think it was the long slow boring road of incremental advantage vs the exciting world of the private sector. Not anymore. All the money seems to be in the public sector or the world of charities. I was in a coffee shop here in the West of London before the lockdowns and I realised everyone around me was having meetings about driving engagement with their various charities. I mean genuinely.
Having been Public Sector for most of my life, our attitude was wanting a respectable living -- frankly, irrespective of The Market. Union thinking I know. Postal workers always were the very paradigm of the Greedy Union. In 30 years I accumulated a Grand Total of 15 days on strike -- rampant anarchy, I know. Mostly what we wanted was to keep up with inflation -- my adjusted salary at the end of my career was about identical to that when I started. Seems to me all the fighting was like the Western Front -- mostly for nothing. Yer basic mailman had the idea that 'I signed up for this amount of pay and that's what I'm good for' -- but if it starts to inflate-away, we'll be wanting a raise.
... mind, the 'professional class' ... be it public or private ... them's a different story. CEO's making a million dollars an hour and their counterparts in the 'public service' making equally ludicrous sums -- gotta stop.
Just to add to the gloom, there is another factor at play. The cost - physical, emotional and financial - on the conscientious and productive parts of society grows ever greater. Every traffic jam, every wait in A&E, every cancelled appointment, every delay in getting somewhere or doing something is a cost that we all bear, in being less productive and working harder to stand still.
Which is why Reform COULD BE/SHOULD BE flying high, way ahead...but they're not because Farage, though very good, is useless at delegating. Reform SHOULD HAVE numerous spokesmen and women, new, young, keen faces, specialist in their fields, eg Economics, Crime, Education, Immigration (obvs) why not a 'Shadow Spokseman' for UNCLOGGING THE ROADS? And a Shadow 'Reform the Police' spokesman, focused on real crime and kicking out of their cushy jobs the utter tw*ts at the top of the Police 'service'. There are so many delicious targets to attack under Labour, they should be destroyed by Christmas.
Agree completely. I can see the need for caution and self-analysis given the power of the establishment and media to neutralise any opposition. I think the next few weeks with the conference will be critical if Reform is to maintain its momentum and at least try to be a proper party.
Yup. Let's get back to worrying about productive people. Yes, we love our freaks and our perverts and our Victims and our parasites of all colors and genders and preferences and we weep for their Oppression. But what about the taxpayer? The guy Privileged with paying for it all?
Serious point there. If we look after the majority - the productive, economically and culturally, the outliers aren’t a problem. A functioning society can manage its eccentrics, waifs and strays. A society that puts its margins at the centre, as ours does, will fall apart fairly quickly.
Serious point there. If we look after the majority - the productive, economically and culturally, the outliers aren’t a problem. A functioning society can manage its eccentrics, waifs and strays. A society that puts its margins at the centre, as ours does, will fall apart fairly quickly.
Bullseye. It's the same with political outliers -- if a society is strong enough there's no need to 'do' anything with the Nazis and the Trotskyists and the Flat Earthers -- they will mostly all be ignored because the center is strong enough to just shrug them off with a smile. Sorta the way FDR just ignored the American Nazis. Strengthen the center, and we'll be happy to have a few weirdos and losers along for the ride.
Indeed. The tiny but noisy minority should be ignored by a sane society, rather like Spode’s Blackshorts. Likewise, a confident majority can manage to accommodate other cultures, on a basis of mutual respect - especially for the host.
I always eagerly look forward to your posts, LSO. They are a sanity saver! Bi-weekly just makes them all the more precious. I sit down with a nice cup of coffee, read and often reread, laugh, (almost) cry and think. I read every single comment, too, and find many of them thought-provoking and informative (as well as funny) Thank you for your fantastic work!
I didn't know about the Next ruling - I cannot bear to read or hear the news so all I get is what drifts into my inbox - and that must surely be one of the final nails in the coffin of the UK. Two Tier and his mates will be OK because they can just tax us more when they want another luxury.
Here's a Kafkaesque tale of modern Britain: I am required to submit an income tax return annually, on pain of a fine of around £1000 if I am late. I ring up the authorities and ask for a form to be sent. OK - it will arrive in 7-10 working days. It doesn't. After six weeks I ring again. Both times incidentally I am kept waiting about 20 minutes before anyone answers the phone. I request the forms again. There followed five minutes of further confirmation of one's UTR (more important than a name nowadays - we are all just numbers) and ferreting around on the Tax Office's computer system. Then, "I'm sorry - I cannot send you the forms". Why not? "You are blocked" What do you mean? You want me to submit the forms but you won't give them to me? "I cannot give them to you - you are blocked by the system. I don't know why - I just arrange the sending of the forms." So you will fine me for not submitting the forms you are refusing to give me? (Silence) Please send me the forms. "I cannot - the system will not allow it". So this is the tax office way of ensuring I am fined? "You could try ringing another number to find out why you are blocked" I have wasted over an hour of my time so far and you want me to waste even more time chasing after some unknown person who typically will not know anything and will keep passing me on to somebody else? No thanks. Just send me the forms. I have noted the dates and times of my phone conversations with you people at the tax office. I slammed the phone down (well - just clicked the red button - one cannot even vent one's rage properly with modern technology).
I know there are those who will say just do it online. But I don't want to do it online and there is nothing in law to make it compulsory. We are allowed to submit paper forms. Until this year, one could download the forms, print them out, complete them and post them back. But now the downloads have been stopped. The Tax Office is trying to force us all online, against the letter of the tax legislation.
An absolute nightmare Jos. What will you do in the end? I expect you’ll do them online. Which I suspect was what they intended to force you to do, by keeping you on the phone, in first place.
I will write a letter (in my shaky post-Covid hand) itemising my attempts to obtain the form, and submitting the information I think they want based on previous year's tax forms. It won't be easy to read - my handwriting has always been poor even before Covid - and it won't be in the easily assimilated format of a printed form. They b****** me around and they'll find that two can play that game. But I will give 'em another two weeks to get the forms out, though I am fairly sure no one there gives a damn anyway.
That’s the problem with fighting a bureaucracy. It’s like kicking an oil tanker. Sort of pointless and you do yourself an injury. But good luck anyway Jos.
I'm wondering if I could move to Mississippi? It would be like going Interrailing to Greece or Italy in the 70's when even though you were a student with only an end of year overdraft in your wallet, you could afford to eat in restaurants and stay in little hotels and buy t-shirts and sandals and the sun shone every day! Bonus of not being locked up for sharing a facebook post 🤩
Interview with Douglas Carswell is interesting. He lives there now and he makes the point that it’s getting wealthier, and heading in the right (ie correct) direction. Unlike this country.
(Not sure if link works, but it’s Winston Marshalls show). The point that Carswell makes is that Mississippi is receptive to his ideas and has a sense of optimism and ‘things can get better’ dynamism, so the opposite of here.
Samuel Clemens grew up in a small town, Hannibal,In Missouri that was situated on the Mississippi River. He lived in a time when riverboats were the king of said river. He became a river boat pilot to chase the romantic dream of adventure. Alas, his dream probably was hit with reality of a mighty dangerous river to navigate as Mother Nature ruled its water depths.
I grew up on the other side of the Mississippi but south.
The state of Mississippi is very poor and for all intents and purposes forgotten. Sad
Margate was over run by London hipsters five years ago. Not to "be the meme" but they did open some decent cafes and resturants. I can recommend The Greedy Cow.
Yes I hear it’s been gentrified in parts. A few friends toyed with buying ‘a little place’ down there. Not sure how that squared with their left wing principles. I thought second homes were verboten now.
It's an interesting thing - being old and commensurately grumpy, I don't feel like waiting five years for this bunch of Gramscian/Marxist zealots to be removed from office (if, indeed, they don't suspend General Elections altogether for the good of the State). If you're young enough, as I was in the Wilson/Callaghan years, you can afford to wait it out until some semblance of order is restored but when your allotted span is at the nether end it's a bit of a pain.
In the good old days the military could be relied upon temporarily to remove the traitors from power and arrest those who have been eagerly making things worse for Joe Public. But these days, alas, I suspect every commissioned officer has had his head filled with woke nonsense and similar tarradiddle so we will have to look elsewhere.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable - according to a young president back in the day.
Yes important. I too feel I might be around to see sanity restored. On the other hand they are launching so headlong into this nonsense that the Accelerationists might be about to proven correct.
I could write a full blown essay here as I work in employment law supporting small businesses but I'll just say this: there are ways around most of the things Labour is suggesting ( they've not even produced the draft Employment Bill yet). Most "Zero hours" contracts are not technically zero hours but variable hours so will be unaffected but if they ban them there will be no party conferences as the security/event industry runs on them. So that would be a good result. People can already ask to work 4 days per week but most people don't want to do it because working 4 x 10 days is harder than they want to work. As for Unfair dismissal rights from day 1, if - and it's a big if as it will collapse the Employment Tribunal system - if they do this, there will be ways around it such as longer probation periods, temp contracts etc. But the bigger issue at present as all this scaremongering (pushed by the dodgy HR service firms who want to frighten people into signing up) is having a chilling effect on recruitment and employment. So bad for the economy. Not that Labour cares about the economy - if they did, they would have had a draft employment bill ready to go or would have come out and said exactly what they're going to do instead of changing their minds every 5 minutes as they have done for the last year. Rant over. Wish I could retire and avoid all this but sadly I'm just a pleb who has to wade through this stuff in order to earn a living.
Absolutely fascinating insight Pilgrim. Thanks for that. I assumed it wasn’t as simple or straightforward as I was making out in the piece. But again, it’s all about people/companies having to spend time and energy mitigating and avoiding this stuff. It’s just such a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Hang in there ACP we appreciate you!
Yes Martin. There seems to be an effort to eliminate the little guys and only leave the big players. It’s more efficient for the technocrats if they only have to deal with a few corporations I guess.
Labour have a landslide majority based upon only 20.4% of registered voters actually having supported them. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and who cares about votes when you don't have that many to start with? The direction Labour are taking in almost every aspect of their administration is diametrically opposed to the views of nearly 80% of the country. Welcome to Belarus et al indeed!
Yes Michael. They do seem very much on a mission. Still you can’t really blame them. The electorate are usually too smart to vote them in, but they’ve seized this opportunity and are going hell for leather before they get kicked out again. If that ever happens. They might change the law so voting Tory or anyone else becomes a hate crime….🤣
Whilst Labour are likely to be rather more subtle in defining a hate crime in the way you suggest, we actually have a further really serious problem. The moderate centre of British politics has all but disappeared through moral weakness and cowardice in the face of the onslaught of absurd beliefs. This is what happened to the Weimar Republic in the twenties. Of course, we are British not German, let us therefore hope and pray this fact will be significant. BTW thank you for responding to my comment.
> diametrically opposed to the views of nearly 80% of the country.
Yabut ... *any* party else would have even less. It's not quite fair to say 'diametrically opposed' is it? Consider a country with proportional rep. that has 20 parties, none of which have more than 10% of the vote. Yet, some party comes first and they form a coalition, yes? Would it be accurate to say that the supporters of each of those parties are 'diametrically opposed' to all the others? That's a lot of diametrics, no? Isn't it more like picking the very closest match to your own way of thinking? Like your LibDems, are they diametrically opposed to Labor or more like mildly different?
I appreciate the points you make, However I am not proposing PR as a better electoral system. With PR you end up with a horse trading process resulting in a government no one voted for. There is, of course, no such thing as a perfect electoral system. FPTP usually results in a party of government achieving at least 40% of the votes cast. This time 40% would only have been 24% of the total electorate on account of the worryingly abysmal turnout of below 60%. On reflection I concede it may not be true that 80% of the electorate are "diametrically" opposed to Labour, but nonetheless by failing to support them they cannot be too keen on what they stand for. Either way they are going to experience doctrinaire policies shoved down their throats.
I wonder if the electorate will ever stop voting Tory and Labour? How many Tory tribalist terrified of Labour go and flip flop back to the Tories again?
I'm as sick of people as I am politicians.
I'm a tea drinker but I'll get you a cuppa. You'll have to imagine the cheap biscuit I'll buy for you as we're poor and can't afford Fox' or M&S chocolatey range. Think Farmers Boy or some other cheap crap we have to get used to. Welcome to the good old days.
My favourite employer bashing nonsense is the combination of rights from day one with raising minimum wage to the same level for all ages. You would have thought that anyone with a positive IQ could work out that this means nobody will ever employ school leavers. Why would you take a risk on a completely unknown quantity, who is quite likely not going to bother even turning up for work on day one? They will no doubt work out that they can manage quite happily in a bedroom in their parents' home, playing computer games all day, claiming perpetual benefits/sick pay for anxiety at the thought of ever having to do a day's work.
Of course all those people who actually have done a day's work for the last ten years on minimum wage will demand a pay rise to reinstate the differential between themselves, and those school leavers nobody will employ.
I just have to agree with pretty much everything you've written.
The key question I have is why do the socialists want to make us poorer? With the initiatives that we know about - it's night follows day that it's anti growth, protectionist & a race to the bottom.
I'm guessing it's all about control with a large dollop of spite.
When you're dependent on the government - you really are controlled by government. These people aren't, for the most part stupid ( ok, Rayner maybe is both "stoopid" and spiteful).
So what am I missing? Maybe the usual envy of socialism?
Thanks John. I just think the machine is sort of geared to reward this sort of thing. There’s no massive conspiracy like some think, if you get rewarded for creating bureaucracy then bureaucracy is what will be created. The poverty is just a side effect I think maybe…
Bureaucracies should be thought of as living organisms -- it is natural for them to grow and to reproduce. If mice had their way the entire biomass of the planet would be mice. Bureaucrats have the same aspiration.
It's hard to put this into words but we should not be shocked and appalled when bureaucracy gets too big, too slow and too stupid. It is absolutely normal and natural that this should happen. An overfed porch dog is just the same. Nope, keeping one's bureaucracy fit for purpose is a daily chore, an ongoing necessity, rather like taking a bath or taking out the garbage. Don't be shocked and appalled, if you've slacked off on that. If my garden is overrun with weeds I'm not shocked an appalled, I've merely been lazy and the fault is not with the weeds but myself.
Ah conspiracy which just a group of like minded people gathered to perform an subversive or illegal act. Have you ever read the 2030 reset directives from the world economic forum? A group of like minded billionaires and politicians gathering together to implement what the masses are allowed to do? They don’t hide their intentions and is available for all to see. Starmer is a member as is Trudeau, Clinton,Obama and all members of eu you know all the big power brokers leading the rest of us down the road paved in hell.
Conspiracy? Nah to call it that would make me crazy.
Tolerance has become way overrated and dangerous to our health.
It's really puzzling why more people aren't outraged about this or why an investigation isn't made as to how the WEF actually manage to get their flunkies elected as leaders all over the West.
Ultimately the aim is the destruction of Western Capitalism. That is the aim of the eco-loons for instance. It's not about saving the planet from Climate Change. High immigration? The same. Transgender theory? The destruction of the nuclear family. Etc etc...... I don't think it's centrally planned, but every single one of these Lunacies has the same outcome.
There are profound points emerging there - the urge to destroy our own civilization is so daft it is almost as if something - or someone - is really working hard.
All variants of Marxism are cult religions of affirmation for the idle and inept. There’s zero logic there, just a framework of emotional hooks that leverage individuals’ propensities for joining group actions.
> to revivify every failed economic experiment from the socialist 1970s
Funny tho, I remember the 70's as Good Times. Even a working guy was still expecting to be able to afford a house, get married and possibly have offspring. I remember the rants then too -- same as the rants now and the rants of the Robber Barons and the rants of the Victorian slum lords and factory owners: "Those layabout workers want a 14 hour day! What next? More than 10 minutes for lunch? Where does it stop? They'll ruin the economy. Call out the army and have these commies put down hard ... for their own good!"
Yes yes yes, there are the horror stories but I wonder if they are overplayed. As a 30 year unionized government employee I've seen the excesses up close and personal, OTOH I also know that what employers want is what they now have more of ever day -- a return to the Good Old Days when a working person hovered on the brink of poverty for his whole life. Working people are going downhill fast but the plutocrats still say it's not fast enough. Got to keep the rabble in line, they say. Meanwhile the globalist plutocrats have wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Wealth that would make Rockefeller's eyes pop out. But I read what I've always read, namely that the problem is the greed of working people.
Yup, they were good times though I was as poor as the proverbial church mouse. It was because I was young, madly in love, and money was hardly the top of our agenda. I do remember getting vacation jobs working for a government organisation doing soil sampling, experiments on farms, as well as giving advice to farmers (though I didn't do the latter, of course). I was pulled up by my superiors for WORKING TOO HARD. "If Head Office sees what you can do, they'll expect the same of us!". Then there was the unionised dockyard in Devonport where we were prevented from working, not by the foreman, but by the union boss in our gang. That was the 60s. But ... I always found I could walk out of one job and straight into another. And I could get digs or accommodation anywhere, quickly, and within my budget. It was a flexible economy with no red tape as far as I was concerned.
Not to argue ... well, to be frank, *just* to argue: Yeah, there has always been that trope of the union job where they order you to slow down. My brother worked at one of those -- he quit out of frustration, he's just not good at fucking the dog. And yet. And yet, somehow the wealth was there. Somehow you could buy a house and feed a family.
As the dolphins say, you can't eat a fish until you catch it and if you caught it, then it must have been there to catch. And we ate well, did we not? The houses were there, the food was there.
Now, we're told that productivity is three or four times greater than it was then, but somehow working people are poorer. So either 3/4 of the increase in productivity is taken to the middle of the ocean and dumped, or -- as I suspect -- what's happened is that productive people are now so parasitized that 3/4 of what they produce goes to the parasites. It's only a guess but I'd estimate 20% of it goes to the parasites below, and 80% goes to the parasites above.
Are working people poorer? They have far more than ever I had as a young working man - all their tech stuff, telephones (I could not afford one in my house until I emigrated in the 80s), dishwashers, their holidays abroad (sometimes several), their much shorter working week (44 hours, I recall, for £11 in the mid 60s). No - on average they are not poorer materially. Manufactured goods have generally become cheaper in real terms. Housing? I got my first mortgage at 35 years of age. I saved for years. Do people want to go without for a while in order to get their foot on the housing ladder? I have a grandson, only just 21, who does farm work, driving machinery on a large arable farm. He has been doing it for three years after leaving grammar (!) school. He has saved up enough for a house deposit, has a mortgage offer, and expects to be in his own house within a couple of months. It can be done.
If one wants to blame someone else for one's failings, it's too easy. There are plenty of rich people out there who inherited money, who had connections, or who were ambitious. But a better target for one's bile would be the millions who get paid a not-bad salary for doing damn-all. These are the real drag on society and you will find them throughout government offices, institutions & QANGOS. They cost everyone a fortune, and not just in what they receive financially but in the brake they impose on everyone else by their inactions (or stupid actions).
And lawyers. But I had better not start off on that route!
There's no simple answer, but if I had to pick I'd still say 'yes'. Yeah there's all the gadgets. I guess it's nice to have a smartphone to keep you distracted as you sit in your cardboard box on the sidewalk and have no chance of sleeping anyway.
> If one wants to blame someone else for one's failings, it's too easy.
That is also true, nevertheless the well-off have been saying that about working people since forever. It's now amusing reading 'the poor have no one to blame but themselves' stuff from 1900. Ah, for Victorian times! I forget the rates -- for two pence you could lay down on the floor, for a penny you hung yourself over a rope and tried to sleep that way. Market Forces.
> But a better target for one's bile
I find it distracting trying to decide is the idlers in government offices are a bigger drag than the banksters who attempt to crash entire economies. I step back and wish all of them good night. There are enough workers needed in the fields to employ all of them gainfully. Yes, I'd like to see the CEO of Americorp picking apples right beside some drone from some bureaucracy right next to some former professional Victim right next to some bum who thought he was entitled to live at my expense. I'm not playing favorites, I don't like *any* parasites.
You are obviously talking about your US/Canadian experience. I am talking about the UK. Even so, it is a mistake to think the working class are one group and "bankers" (why choose this small group?) another. People move between classes during their lifetimes. There is a ladder, you know. And the working class (those who do manual work) has shrunk immeasurably since the 1960s when I joined the work force. Moreover, many of those workers now command far higher incomes than the middle class sitting at their desks in a a more comfortable environment. One must look at facts and not fall victim to one's long-held prejudices.
BTW, the US has always had far greater income inequality than the UK and other western democracies. It has also had far higher average incomes than the rest. There is a trade-off.
> it is a mistake to think the working class are one group and "bankers" (why choose this small group?) another
Naturally. Surely we predicate all these sorts of comments with the understanding what we are waving a stick in the general direction of something undesirable not trying to draw clean distinctions. I consider 'Bankster' to be a useful term to describe those who make their money manipulating the economy rather than producing anything useful themselves. Of course it's a bit fuzzy at the edges.
> One must look at facts and not fall victim to one's long-held prejudices.
Actually my long held prejudices are rather right wing. It's my lived experience and that of the people around me that motivate my left wing sympathies -- that being the paleo left of course, I detest the woke left.
> It has also had far higher average incomes than the rest.
I'm not sure there's a simple cause and effect there. I don't think greater inequality is the engine that drives higher average incomes. I think all of us who are not communists understand that there must be some inequality, a CEO will make more money than his apprentice janitors, but the 'healthy' inequality is long gone. What we see now is grotesque.
If we look at the opportunity cost of modern ‘regulations’ vs the ‘man hours’ lost to unions in the 70s I’d guess that regulations have a higher opportunity cost.
And unions also had the benefit of stopping all the pain of inflation being dumped on workers in the form of lower wages.
Thats some of the reason why I think. At least in part that we are ‘more’ productive. And yet poorer.
There's no one culprit any more than a carcass on the Serengeti is eaten by only one scavenger. No doubt some people are being suffocated by regulations. One of the reasons for the housing shortage is that the bureaucratic burden on builders is so crushing that it drives people out of the trade and few dare enter it. Or so I hear. Yet I myself built a few houses with next to no red tape. I myself aim my first bullets at the plutocrats tho. Banksters and rentiers first. Then a few clips spent thinning out the upper echelons of the bureaucracy, to be sure.
I've got 'em on a list, I've made a little list ...
You’ve definitely been around Jos! So fascinating. I’ve felt the encroachment of all this -let’s just call it red tape for ease- but it’s not such a day and night change for me.
The trouble is that most Labour voters are too young to remember the 20th century and they certainly aren't taught any history in school, apart from how evil the British Empire was. Oh, and slavery was all our fault then, and it is now. And that Hitler was 'FAR RIGHT' despite being heavily into state control. Also, absolutely everyone you've ever heard of throughout history was actually black, homosexual or transgender - literally, everyone - how did you not know?
My Bulgarian friend is horrified that discredited socialist ideas have the popularity that they have in Britain. (Coming from an ex-communist country, she is hyper-sensitive to the failed ideas and dogmas of the past). I tell her that anyone younger than me (I am 58) will not remember how things were in '70s Britain -- and therefore, every couple of generations, we are doomed to 'give socialism a try' so that people who do not pay attention to politics can find out for themselves why it never works.
*sigh* I’m also 58 Geoff. It’s like we’re the ‘youngest’ people who can remember any of this. Sadly that means we’ll suffer twice because of failed British experiments with socialism.
So true! I have commented before that before the Berlin Wall came down, we at least had a cautionary tale on our doorstep. Now, young people think the crony corporate fascism we have endured for decades can be cured by a dose of socialism, failing to understand that government of any stripe is ALWAYS the problem, never the solution. How long does this see-sawing reality check have to continue before we develop some kind of collective memory?
Never gonna happen Bettina. Great point about the Berlin Wall. When ‘half’ the world was desperate for jeans and Macdonald’s you knew you were better off than they were. Now it’s just going to take one more tax rise, one less non dom and we’ll all be equal, rich and happy.
Due to IR35 changes I fully expect as many had foreseen that companies will reduce permanent employees and make them work through an umbrella. Zero hours is still through your company but umbrella means payroll through another. But it also means more tax. So employees will be paid the same gross but have to pay employer’s NI and the apprenticeship levy.
Those same employees who laughed when contractors got hit with IR35 changes.
"No Sir Keir. Things are worse than WE ever imagined. Because you and your joyless band of authoritarian scolds have only been in charge for a few weeks, and yet you have already contrived to turn Britain into a dystopian hellscape. "
A slight quibble. You said "richest economy" but compared GDPs per capita, which would be "most productive" not richest. In terms of actual wealth production of these entities the U.K. is currently around 3.5T, which is bigger than California's by a little bit, and astronomically bigger than Mississippi's. So what your numbers are really showing is that the U.K.s workers are only slightly more productive than Mississippi's. But that at 65 million, you have a lot of them.
Hi Jeff. Of course the figures can be read in many ways. I’m sort of basing my point on a well known article that Fraser Nelson wrote in, I’m guessing, 2016. He found we were slightly richer than Mississippi I think. But it’s not meant to be an ironclad assertion, just something that puts the uk economy into some kind of context. I mean, where would we be if we made less in the figures of GDP and more of our debt?. Scary numbers! 😱
I haven't read his article, but I doubt if he said "slightly richer" using those numbers, because per capita numbers aren't talking about wealth, they are talking about productivity. If he did, then he didn't understand what he was saying or using words in a misleading way.
Thank you. Yes - I can read it. It appears he isn't very bright. Sigh. A moments thought should convince anyone that GDP per capita says nothing about wealth or poverty of a nation. I'm not even sure pure GDP does, really. For example, a nation of elite people who were fabulously wealthy but produced almost nothing could have a low GDP but still be a very wealthy nation. And conversely, A high GDP nation (such as the U.K.) might still be relatively poor when the proceeds from the sales of their domestic product is divided up among a large population. (Or not). Curiously, the most productive "state" in the Union is Washington D.C. More than twice as "productive" (GDP/capita) as the next highest - New York. Who would have thought politicians were so productive? ;-)
In terms of what seems to me can be said about comparing the U.K.'s GDP/capita with states in the U.S., it is rather striking - as you reported - that the U.K. is only slightly "better off" than Mississippi, one of the least productive states in the Union. Mississippi may be ranked 15th lowest by GDP, but the the lowest ranked by wealth (GDP) is Vermont.:
It's somewhat dismaying to see how many articles seem to confuse wealth with productivity. When I was searching for a table of states by GDP I ran across countless articles just like Fraser's.
Just to add to this, even GDP per person may not reflect average purchasing power or living standard. We have an excellent example right on our doorstep - Ireland. Commentator after commentator refers to the high Irish income per head - much higher than the UK's - and they conclude the Irish have more money. In fact, they don't. Their national GDP figure is inflated by the receipts from multi-national organisations (Microsoft, Apple etc) who have based their head offices for European business in Ireland because of the favourable corporate tax rate (and, at one time, subsidies). That money goes into Ireland, and leaves almost as fast. Ireland's GDP is far higher than its GNP. Gross as opposed to net. But everyone is too lazy to report GNP as its a bit more difficult to calculate.
And then one should really take into account purchasing power parity. It is all mostly guesswork in the end, but of the "educated" sort. The data indicate approximate rankings only.
Yes Jos. They keep telling us that Ireland is rich. Doesn’t look like it from here! And they have many of the same problems we do. An overpaid elite lording it over the little people and calling anyone racist if they complain about the massive sudden changes being imposed on their society.
Well thanks for that Jeff. I also noted how well Washington DC seemed to be doing when it produces very little but guff. Anyway. As I said. It was just the article equivalent of an icebreaker- so if it promoted such an interesting response then thanks to Fraser for writing it ten years ago!
Wonderful as usual. ‘Sounds like a scousers charter” ..brilliant. I started a business 20 years ago, 15 employees now, I hate it. There’s no way I’d start it again now, red tape and regulations have ruined what used to be enjoyable. We turnover just over £1m around half of which ends up back in the hands of the government in one form or another, thats turnover not profit! And the government hates us for it. Every policy seems to target those trying to get on, second home owners, small businesses, white van man. If I could find a buyer I’d sell the lot and retrain as a train driver, the thought of trundling along whilst listening to podcasts all day without a care in the world really appeals. And if that gets boring I could develop a back injury and get a couple of years at home on full pay…
Thanks for the insight Tom. I’m just one man band. A little company. And my costs and paperwork, taxes etc are onerous. I can only imagine what it must be like for you. Best of luck!
> And my costs and paperwork, taxes etc are onerous.
Not to question your Lived Experience LSO, but when I ran a business my Lived Experience was basically ... well yes, basically zero paperwork and bureaucracy -- we had to pay our taxes and ... hmmm ... well OK, not exactly 'zero' but ... When we built something there was the Building Inspector to contend with, but ... hmmm ... once, I recall we had to put some fire protection behind a wood stove, other than that it was basically he shows up, looks around, says 'that's fine' and that's that. Zero paper. Basically the Government didn't give a damn how we conducted our business. Dunno, maybe that was just us.
And this is in the North Korea of the Americas: Canada. Now, I rant and rave, same as you, when I read the horror stories. It's a bit conflicting, being a prole and a Tory at the same time (I don't mean 'your' Tories, I mean a Tory mindset). But I do wonder sometimes if the rich whine a bit too loudly about their travails.
I think anyone who works for themselves is likely to have a “Tory” attitude, it kind of goes with the territory. Running a small business requires a whole lot more work, responsibility and risk than being an employee. The tax system used to recognise this, but now it doesn’t. Previously a small plumbing business would pay no corporation tax on the first £10k profit and then standard rate after that, then he could pay himself a salary up to the tax threshold and then he could take dividends tax free until he hit the higher threshold. Now he has to pay 19% (soon to go up) corp tax on all his profits and then 8.5% on his dividends. So he’s paying a similar amount to what he would pay as an employee.
If the tax system doesn’t reward enterprise the we’ll see less enterprise. We need a constant stream of small businesses starting up so that the odd one will become a big business and pay lots of tax. There’s no incentive to start these days, and growing a business is a massive headache. I just don’t see why you’d bother when you can pay the same rate of tax without all the hassle by working for someone else. In the long run this will be terrible for the economy.
Yes Tom. It’s a spiral. Also. The figures you make me realise how much worse off I am now than I would have been in the past. Back in the 99s I used to justify paying less tax because I got no holiday pay and had no job security. Nowadays working for myself just makes me greedy apparently. That’s what IR35 seems to assume anyway.
You get leftie socialist types telling horror stories of Corporate Greed. And you get plutocrats telling horror stories of what those rotten proles will get up to if we let them. Seems to me most of the horror stories should be put to bed. What makes sense for real, productive people? We dolphins don't have a welfare system (we do share but we don't tolerate bums either) but neither do we like sharks. We have lower class parasites, absolutely true, but I'd bet the plutocratic parasites get the lion's share.
Sure, I can't disagree with any of that. But then again I make a distinction between 'real' businesses that generate real goods and services with banksterism and rentiers, and I also note the difference between the local plumber and Amazon. Having been a small businessman I truly 'get' what you're saying. Yet when we have Bezos feeling sorry for himself my attitude changes.
I ran a small business in the 80's, employed a lot of people who earned good money, they enjoyed the work, we all did well. And Maggie Thatcher's government was on our side. But ever since, every government has just seen the Private Sector as a cow to be liked dry to fund their ridiculous Public Sector salaries...that they would NEVER, EVER be worth in the Private Sector.
That’s a hugely important point Mrs B. Public sector wages, especially it seems at the top level, seem vastly inflated. I want working people to earn a decent wage obvs. But there seems to be an entire layer, or three, where as you say, people are enjoying wages which would never withstand contact with the market.
When I had my first job as a software engineer, in the late '80s to mid '90s, then whenever I looked at the job ads in Computer Weekly, those in the back pages, for the public sector, would have noticeably lower salaries. (This was for skilled technical jobs in IT support, programming and analysis -- not management).
Back then, the trade off was that the public sector provided job security, flexibility in working arrangements, incremental pay rises with time served, reasonable prospects of career progression, and a good pension at the end.
Nowadays, the public sector still has all those benefits, but the starting salaries seem to be comparable with the private sector. In particular, the pensions are reckoned to be worth an extra third on top of the salary.
Whenever I read about nurses, teachers or junior doctors agitating for higher pay, I always think the problem is more likely to be the toxic nature of the NHS or state education sector -- not the level of pay itself.
I think that’s right Geoff. I always used to think it was the long slow boring road of incremental advantage vs the exciting world of the private sector. Not anymore. All the money seems to be in the public sector or the world of charities. I was in a coffee shop here in the West of London before the lockdowns and I realised everyone around me was having meetings about driving engagement with their various charities. I mean genuinely.
It always used to be the case that Public Sector workers got paid less than Private Sector workers, but their benefits and retirement were much higher
Yes Nicholas. Now it seems they get all the money, AND all the benefits. While we, the greedy selfish people who pay for it all, just get rinsed.
Having been Public Sector for most of my life, our attitude was wanting a respectable living -- frankly, irrespective of The Market. Union thinking I know. Postal workers always were the very paradigm of the Greedy Union. In 30 years I accumulated a Grand Total of 15 days on strike -- rampant anarchy, I know. Mostly what we wanted was to keep up with inflation -- my adjusted salary at the end of my career was about identical to that when I started. Seems to me all the fighting was like the Western Front -- mostly for nothing. Yer basic mailman had the idea that 'I signed up for this amount of pay and that's what I'm good for' -- but if it starts to inflate-away, we'll be wanting a raise.
... mind, the 'professional class' ... be it public or private ... them's a different story. CEO's making a million dollars an hour and their counterparts in the 'public service' making equally ludicrous sums -- gotta stop.
Just to add to the gloom, there is another factor at play. The cost - physical, emotional and financial - on the conscientious and productive parts of society grows ever greater. Every traffic jam, every wait in A&E, every cancelled appointment, every delay in getting somewhere or doing something is a cost that we all bear, in being less productive and working harder to stand still.
Which is why Reform COULD BE/SHOULD BE flying high, way ahead...but they're not because Farage, though very good, is useless at delegating. Reform SHOULD HAVE numerous spokesmen and women, new, young, keen faces, specialist in their fields, eg Economics, Crime, Education, Immigration (obvs) why not a 'Shadow Spokseman' for UNCLOGGING THE ROADS? And a Shadow 'Reform the Police' spokesman, focused on real crime and kicking out of their cushy jobs the utter tw*ts at the top of the Police 'service'. There are so many delicious targets to attack under Labour, they should be destroyed by Christmas.
Agree completely. I can see the need for caution and self-analysis given the power of the establishment and media to neutralise any opposition. I think the next few weeks with the conference will be critical if Reform is to maintain its momentum and at least try to be a proper party.
Yup. Let's get back to worrying about productive people. Yes, we love our freaks and our perverts and our Victims and our parasites of all colors and genders and preferences and we weep for their Oppression. But what about the taxpayer? The guy Privileged with paying for it all?
Serious point there. If we look after the majority - the productive, economically and culturally, the outliers aren’t a problem. A functioning society can manage its eccentrics, waifs and strays. A society that puts its margins at the centre, as ours does, will fall apart fairly quickly.
Absolute game changing point Martin. You have just explained so much.
Serious point there. If we look after the majority - the productive, economically and culturally, the outliers aren’t a problem. A functioning society can manage its eccentrics, waifs and strays. A society that puts its margins at the centre, as ours does, will fall apart fairly quickly.
Bullseye. It's the same with political outliers -- if a society is strong enough there's no need to 'do' anything with the Nazis and the Trotskyists and the Flat Earthers -- they will mostly all be ignored because the center is strong enough to just shrug them off with a smile. Sorta the way FDR just ignored the American Nazis. Strengthen the center, and we'll be happy to have a few weirdos and losers along for the ride.
Indeed. The tiny but noisy minority should be ignored by a sane society, rather like Spode’s Blackshorts. Likewise, a confident majority can manage to accommodate other cultures, on a basis of mutual respect - especially for the host.
I always eagerly look forward to your posts, LSO. They are a sanity saver! Bi-weekly just makes them all the more precious. I sit down with a nice cup of coffee, read and often reread, laugh, (almost) cry and think. I read every single comment, too, and find many of them thought-provoking and informative (as well as funny) Thank you for your fantastic work!
What a kind thing to say! Thank you Through! I’m very lucky to have such great and well informed commenters.
I didn't know about the Next ruling - I cannot bear to read or hear the news so all I get is what drifts into my inbox - and that must surely be one of the final nails in the coffin of the UK. Two Tier and his mates will be OK because they can just tax us more when they want another luxury.
Here's a Kafkaesque tale of modern Britain: I am required to submit an income tax return annually, on pain of a fine of around £1000 if I am late. I ring up the authorities and ask for a form to be sent. OK - it will arrive in 7-10 working days. It doesn't. After six weeks I ring again. Both times incidentally I am kept waiting about 20 minutes before anyone answers the phone. I request the forms again. There followed five minutes of further confirmation of one's UTR (more important than a name nowadays - we are all just numbers) and ferreting around on the Tax Office's computer system. Then, "I'm sorry - I cannot send you the forms". Why not? "You are blocked" What do you mean? You want me to submit the forms but you won't give them to me? "I cannot give them to you - you are blocked by the system. I don't know why - I just arrange the sending of the forms." So you will fine me for not submitting the forms you are refusing to give me? (Silence) Please send me the forms. "I cannot - the system will not allow it". So this is the tax office way of ensuring I am fined? "You could try ringing another number to find out why you are blocked" I have wasted over an hour of my time so far and you want me to waste even more time chasing after some unknown person who typically will not know anything and will keep passing me on to somebody else? No thanks. Just send me the forms. I have noted the dates and times of my phone conversations with you people at the tax office. I slammed the phone down (well - just clicked the red button - one cannot even vent one's rage properly with modern technology).
I know there are those who will say just do it online. But I don't want to do it online and there is nothing in law to make it compulsory. We are allowed to submit paper forms. Until this year, one could download the forms, print them out, complete them and post them back. But now the downloads have been stopped. The Tax Office is trying to force us all online, against the letter of the tax legislation.
An absolute nightmare Jos. What will you do in the end? I expect you’ll do them online. Which I suspect was what they intended to force you to do, by keeping you on the phone, in first place.
I will write a letter (in my shaky post-Covid hand) itemising my attempts to obtain the form, and submitting the information I think they want based on previous year's tax forms. It won't be easy to read - my handwriting has always been poor even before Covid - and it won't be in the easily assimilated format of a printed form. They b****** me around and they'll find that two can play that game. But I will give 'em another two weeks to get the forms out, though I am fairly sure no one there gives a damn anyway.
That’s the problem with fighting a bureaucracy. It’s like kicking an oil tanker. Sort of pointless and you do yourself an injury. But good luck anyway Jos.
I'm wondering if I could move to Mississippi? It would be like going Interrailing to Greece or Italy in the 70's when even though you were a student with only an end of year overdraft in your wallet, you could afford to eat in restaurants and stay in little hotels and buy t-shirts and sandals and the sun shone every day! Bonus of not being locked up for sharing a facebook post 🤩
Sounds perfect Bettina. A bit like Margate then.
Interview with Douglas Carswell is interesting. He lives there now and he makes the point that it’s getting wealthier, and heading in the right (ie correct) direction. Unlike this country.
Yes. It was interesting that’s where he went. As opposed to a bigger/richer state-I guess that was the point.
Worth a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-winston-marshall-show/id1727337401?i=1000665162664
(Not sure if link works, but it’s Winston Marshalls show). The point that Carswell makes is that Mississippi is receptive to his ideas and has a sense of optimism and ‘things can get better’ dynamism, so the opposite of here.
With Mark Twain instead of Tracey Emin. Looking better and better.
Join the exodus - it's a hard decision after a certain age but your gut instinct probably tells you where you have greater chances of survival?
Samuel Clemens grew up in a small town, Hannibal,In Missouri that was situated on the Mississippi River. He lived in a time when riverboats were the king of said river. He became a river boat pilot to chase the romantic dream of adventure. Alas, his dream probably was hit with reality of a mighty dangerous river to navigate as Mother Nature ruled its water depths.
I grew up on the other side of the Mississippi but south.
The state of Mississippi is very poor and for all intents and purposes forgotten. Sad
Margate was over run by London hipsters five years ago. Not to "be the meme" but they did open some decent cafes and resturants. I can recommend The Greedy Cow.
Yes I hear it’s been gentrified in parts. A few friends toyed with buying ‘a little place’ down there. Not sure how that squared with their left wing principles. I thought second homes were verboten now.
Lol "left wing principles"
Now I think about it, more like ten years ago. Five years is almost 2020 and it was long before covid when the trendy neckbeards were migrating.
It's an interesting thing - being old and commensurately grumpy, I don't feel like waiting five years for this bunch of Gramscian/Marxist zealots to be removed from office (if, indeed, they don't suspend General Elections altogether for the good of the State). If you're young enough, as I was in the Wilson/Callaghan years, you can afford to wait it out until some semblance of order is restored but when your allotted span is at the nether end it's a bit of a pain.
In the good old days the military could be relied upon temporarily to remove the traitors from power and arrest those who have been eagerly making things worse for Joe Public. But these days, alas, I suspect every commissioned officer has had his head filled with woke nonsense and similar tarradiddle so we will have to look elsewhere.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable - according to a young president back in the day.
Yes important. I too feel I might be around to see sanity restored. On the other hand they are launching so headlong into this nonsense that the Accelerationists might be about to proven correct.
I could write a full blown essay here as I work in employment law supporting small businesses but I'll just say this: there are ways around most of the things Labour is suggesting ( they've not even produced the draft Employment Bill yet). Most "Zero hours" contracts are not technically zero hours but variable hours so will be unaffected but if they ban them there will be no party conferences as the security/event industry runs on them. So that would be a good result. People can already ask to work 4 days per week but most people don't want to do it because working 4 x 10 days is harder than they want to work. As for Unfair dismissal rights from day 1, if - and it's a big if as it will collapse the Employment Tribunal system - if they do this, there will be ways around it such as longer probation periods, temp contracts etc. But the bigger issue at present as all this scaremongering (pushed by the dodgy HR service firms who want to frighten people into signing up) is having a chilling effect on recruitment and employment. So bad for the economy. Not that Labour cares about the economy - if they did, they would have had a draft employment bill ready to go or would have come out and said exactly what they're going to do instead of changing their minds every 5 minutes as they have done for the last year. Rant over. Wish I could retire and avoid all this but sadly I'm just a pleb who has to wade through this stuff in order to earn a living.
Absolutely fascinating insight Pilgrim. Thanks for that. I assumed it wasn’t as simple or straightforward as I was making out in the piece. But again, it’s all about people/companies having to spend time and energy mitigating and avoiding this stuff. It’s just such a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Hang in there ACP we appreciate you!
Point is that it’s harder to stand still and larger companies with HR staff will manage, but it’s all a cost that someone ends up paying for.
Yes Martin. There seems to be an effort to eliminate the little guys and only leave the big players. It’s more efficient for the technocrats if they only have to deal with a few corporations I guess.
Labour have a landslide majority based upon only 20.4% of registered voters actually having supported them. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and who cares about votes when you don't have that many to start with? The direction Labour are taking in almost every aspect of their administration is diametrically opposed to the views of nearly 80% of the country. Welcome to Belarus et al indeed!
Yes Michael. They do seem very much on a mission. Still you can’t really blame them. The electorate are usually too smart to vote them in, but they’ve seized this opportunity and are going hell for leather before they get kicked out again. If that ever happens. They might change the law so voting Tory or anyone else becomes a hate crime….🤣
Whilst Labour are likely to be rather more subtle in defining a hate crime in the way you suggest, we actually have a further really serious problem. The moderate centre of British politics has all but disappeared through moral weakness and cowardice in the face of the onslaught of absurd beliefs. This is what happened to the Weimar Republic in the twenties. Of course, we are British not German, let us therefore hope and pray this fact will be significant. BTW thank you for responding to my comment.
> diametrically opposed to the views of nearly 80% of the country.
Yabut ... *any* party else would have even less. It's not quite fair to say 'diametrically opposed' is it? Consider a country with proportional rep. that has 20 parties, none of which have more than 10% of the vote. Yet, some party comes first and they form a coalition, yes? Would it be accurate to say that the supporters of each of those parties are 'diametrically opposed' to all the others? That's a lot of diametrics, no? Isn't it more like picking the very closest match to your own way of thinking? Like your LibDems, are they diametrically opposed to Labor or more like mildly different?
Just sayin'.
Hello Ray! 👋
I appreciate the points you make, However I am not proposing PR as a better electoral system. With PR you end up with a horse trading process resulting in a government no one voted for. There is, of course, no such thing as a perfect electoral system. FPTP usually results in a party of government achieving at least 40% of the votes cast. This time 40% would only have been 24% of the total electorate on account of the worryingly abysmal turnout of below 60%. On reflection I concede it may not be true that 80% of the electorate are "diametrically" opposed to Labour, but nonetheless by failing to support them they cannot be too keen on what they stand for. Either way they are going to experience doctrinaire policies shoved down their throats.
Yes boss :-)
I wonder if the electorate will ever stop voting Tory and Labour? How many Tory tribalist terrified of Labour go and flip flop back to the Tories again?
I'm as sick of people as I am politicians.
I'm a tea drinker but I'll get you a cuppa. You'll have to imagine the cheap biscuit I'll buy for you as we're poor and can't afford Fox' or M&S chocolatey range. Think Farmers Boy or some other cheap crap we have to get used to. Welcome to the good old days.
Thanks Elizabeth! A biscuit is a biscuit thanks. Delish.
Thank you LSO, on point as always.
My favourite employer bashing nonsense is the combination of rights from day one with raising minimum wage to the same level for all ages. You would have thought that anyone with a positive IQ could work out that this means nobody will ever employ school leavers. Why would you take a risk on a completely unknown quantity, who is quite likely not going to bother even turning up for work on day one? They will no doubt work out that they can manage quite happily in a bedroom in their parents' home, playing computer games all day, claiming perpetual benefits/sick pay for anxiety at the thought of ever having to do a day's work.
Of course all those people who actually have done a day's work for the last ten years on minimum wage will demand a pay rise to reinstate the differential between themselves, and those school leavers nobody will employ.
A great point Jeremy. Your last para absolutely points to the nonsense spiral this will cause.
I just have to agree with pretty much everything you've written.
The key question I have is why do the socialists want to make us poorer? With the initiatives that we know about - it's night follows day that it's anti growth, protectionist & a race to the bottom.
I'm guessing it's all about control with a large dollop of spite.
When you're dependent on the government - you really are controlled by government. These people aren't, for the most part stupid ( ok, Rayner maybe is both "stoopid" and spiteful).
So what am I missing? Maybe the usual envy of socialism?
Thanks John. I just think the machine is sort of geared to reward this sort of thing. There’s no massive conspiracy like some think, if you get rewarded for creating bureaucracy then bureaucracy is what will be created. The poverty is just a side effect I think maybe…
Bureaucracies should be thought of as living organisms -- it is natural for them to grow and to reproduce. If mice had their way the entire biomass of the planet would be mice. Bureaucrats have the same aspiration.
A perfect analogy Ray.
It's hard to put this into words but we should not be shocked and appalled when bureaucracy gets too big, too slow and too stupid. It is absolutely normal and natural that this should happen. An overfed porch dog is just the same. Nope, keeping one's bureaucracy fit for purpose is a daily chore, an ongoing necessity, rather like taking a bath or taking out the garbage. Don't be shocked and appalled, if you've slacked off on that. If my garden is overrun with weeds I'm not shocked an appalled, I've merely been lazy and the fault is not with the weeds but myself.
And Dickens recognised this 170 years ago when he described the Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit.
Ah conspiracy which just a group of like minded people gathered to perform an subversive or illegal act. Have you ever read the 2030 reset directives from the world economic forum? A group of like minded billionaires and politicians gathering together to implement what the masses are allowed to do? They don’t hide their intentions and is available for all to see. Starmer is a member as is Trudeau, Clinton,Obama and all members of eu you know all the big power brokers leading the rest of us down the road paved in hell.
Conspiracy? Nah to call it that would make me crazy.
Tolerance has become way overrated and dangerous to our health.
It's really puzzling why more people aren't outraged about this or why an investigation isn't made as to how the WEF actually manage to get their flunkies elected as leaders all over the West.
Ultimately the aim is the destruction of Western Capitalism. That is the aim of the eco-loons for instance. It's not about saving the planet from Climate Change. High immigration? The same. Transgender theory? The destruction of the nuclear family. Etc etc...... I don't think it's centrally planned, but every single one of these Lunacies has the same outcome.
Yes. It’s like a virus. As Ray says above, it’s a living organism.
There are profound points emerging there - the urge to destroy our own civilization is so daft it is almost as if something - or someone - is really working hard.
All variants of Marxism are cult religions of affirmation for the idle and inept. There’s zero logic there, just a framework of emotional hooks that leverage individuals’ propensities for joining group actions.
Superbly summarised!
I'm feeling very Che this morning:
> to revivify every failed economic experiment from the socialist 1970s
Funny tho, I remember the 70's as Good Times. Even a working guy was still expecting to be able to afford a house, get married and possibly have offspring. I remember the rants then too -- same as the rants now and the rants of the Robber Barons and the rants of the Victorian slum lords and factory owners: "Those layabout workers want a 14 hour day! What next? More than 10 minutes for lunch? Where does it stop? They'll ruin the economy. Call out the army and have these commies put down hard ... for their own good!"
Yes yes yes, there are the horror stories but I wonder if they are overplayed. As a 30 year unionized government employee I've seen the excesses up close and personal, OTOH I also know that what employers want is what they now have more of ever day -- a return to the Good Old Days when a working person hovered on the brink of poverty for his whole life. Working people are going downhill fast but the plutocrats still say it's not fast enough. Got to keep the rabble in line, they say. Meanwhile the globalist plutocrats have wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Wealth that would make Rockefeller's eyes pop out. But I read what I've always read, namely that the problem is the greed of working people.
Yup, they were good times though I was as poor as the proverbial church mouse. It was because I was young, madly in love, and money was hardly the top of our agenda. I do remember getting vacation jobs working for a government organisation doing soil sampling, experiments on farms, as well as giving advice to farmers (though I didn't do the latter, of course). I was pulled up by my superiors for WORKING TOO HARD. "If Head Office sees what you can do, they'll expect the same of us!". Then there was the unionised dockyard in Devonport where we were prevented from working, not by the foreman, but by the union boss in our gang. That was the 60s. But ... I always found I could walk out of one job and straight into another. And I could get digs or accommodation anywhere, quickly, and within my budget. It was a flexible economy with no red tape as far as I was concerned.
Not to argue ... well, to be frank, *just* to argue: Yeah, there has always been that trope of the union job where they order you to slow down. My brother worked at one of those -- he quit out of frustration, he's just not good at fucking the dog. And yet. And yet, somehow the wealth was there. Somehow you could buy a house and feed a family.
As the dolphins say, you can't eat a fish until you catch it and if you caught it, then it must have been there to catch. And we ate well, did we not? The houses were there, the food was there.
Now, we're told that productivity is three or four times greater than it was then, but somehow working people are poorer. So either 3/4 of the increase in productivity is taken to the middle of the ocean and dumped, or -- as I suspect -- what's happened is that productive people are now so parasitized that 3/4 of what they produce goes to the parasites. It's only a guess but I'd estimate 20% of it goes to the parasites below, and 80% goes to the parasites above.
Are working people poorer? They have far more than ever I had as a young working man - all their tech stuff, telephones (I could not afford one in my house until I emigrated in the 80s), dishwashers, their holidays abroad (sometimes several), their much shorter working week (44 hours, I recall, for £11 in the mid 60s). No - on average they are not poorer materially. Manufactured goods have generally become cheaper in real terms. Housing? I got my first mortgage at 35 years of age. I saved for years. Do people want to go without for a while in order to get their foot on the housing ladder? I have a grandson, only just 21, who does farm work, driving machinery on a large arable farm. He has been doing it for three years after leaving grammar (!) school. He has saved up enough for a house deposit, has a mortgage offer, and expects to be in his own house within a couple of months. It can be done.
If one wants to blame someone else for one's failings, it's too easy. There are plenty of rich people out there who inherited money, who had connections, or who were ambitious. But a better target for one's bile would be the millions who get paid a not-bad salary for doing damn-all. These are the real drag on society and you will find them throughout government offices, institutions & QANGOS. They cost everyone a fortune, and not just in what they receive financially but in the brake they impose on everyone else by their inactions (or stupid actions).
And lawyers. But I had better not start off on that route!
> Are working people poorer?
There's no simple answer, but if I had to pick I'd still say 'yes'. Yeah there's all the gadgets. I guess it's nice to have a smartphone to keep you distracted as you sit in your cardboard box on the sidewalk and have no chance of sleeping anyway.
> If one wants to blame someone else for one's failings, it's too easy.
That is also true, nevertheless the well-off have been saying that about working people since forever. It's now amusing reading 'the poor have no one to blame but themselves' stuff from 1900. Ah, for Victorian times! I forget the rates -- for two pence you could lay down on the floor, for a penny you hung yourself over a rope and tried to sleep that way. Market Forces.
> But a better target for one's bile
I find it distracting trying to decide is the idlers in government offices are a bigger drag than the banksters who attempt to crash entire economies. I step back and wish all of them good night. There are enough workers needed in the fields to employ all of them gainfully. Yes, I'd like to see the CEO of Americorp picking apples right beside some drone from some bureaucracy right next to some former professional Victim right next to some bum who thought he was entitled to live at my expense. I'm not playing favorites, I don't like *any* parasites.
You are obviously talking about your US/Canadian experience. I am talking about the UK. Even so, it is a mistake to think the working class are one group and "bankers" (why choose this small group?) another. People move between classes during their lifetimes. There is a ladder, you know. And the working class (those who do manual work) has shrunk immeasurably since the 1960s when I joined the work force. Moreover, many of those workers now command far higher incomes than the middle class sitting at their desks in a a more comfortable environment. One must look at facts and not fall victim to one's long-held prejudices.
BTW, the US has always had far greater income inequality than the UK and other western democracies. It has also had far higher average incomes than the rest. There is a trade-off.
> it is a mistake to think the working class are one group and "bankers" (why choose this small group?) another
Naturally. Surely we predicate all these sorts of comments with the understanding what we are waving a stick in the general direction of something undesirable not trying to draw clean distinctions. I consider 'Bankster' to be a useful term to describe those who make their money manipulating the economy rather than producing anything useful themselves. Of course it's a bit fuzzy at the edges.
> One must look at facts and not fall victim to one's long-held prejudices.
Actually my long held prejudices are rather right wing. It's my lived experience and that of the people around me that motivate my left wing sympathies -- that being the paleo left of course, I detest the woke left.
> It has also had far higher average incomes than the rest.
I'm not sure there's a simple cause and effect there. I don't think greater inequality is the engine that drives higher average incomes. I think all of us who are not communists understand that there must be some inequality, a CEO will make more money than his apprentice janitors, but the 'healthy' inequality is long gone. What we see now is grotesque.
I think there’s a lot in this Ray.
If we look at the opportunity cost of modern ‘regulations’ vs the ‘man hours’ lost to unions in the 70s I’d guess that regulations have a higher opportunity cost.
And unions also had the benefit of stopping all the pain of inflation being dumped on workers in the form of lower wages.
Thats some of the reason why I think. At least in part that we are ‘more’ productive. And yet poorer.
There's no one culprit any more than a carcass on the Serengeti is eaten by only one scavenger. No doubt some people are being suffocated by regulations. One of the reasons for the housing shortage is that the bureaucratic burden on builders is so crushing that it drives people out of the trade and few dare enter it. Or so I hear. Yet I myself built a few houses with next to no red tape. I myself aim my first bullets at the plutocrats tho. Banksters and rentiers first. Then a few clips spent thinning out the upper echelons of the bureaucracy, to be sure.
I've got 'em on a list, I've made a little list ...
You’ve definitely been around Jos! So fascinating. I’ve felt the encroachment of all this -let’s just call it red tape for ease- but it’s not such a day and night change for me.
If only there were some points back in history that we could look back too for guidance and learn lessons from??..
I dunno maybe other countries that have tried this, or maybe even our own country??
Nope. This brave new world approach is completely unchartered territory.
The last two labour governments went well didnt they??..
Unless you wanted your bins collected and your dead buried of course.. in the late 70's..
Maybe we enjoyed queuing outside closed banks trying to get our cash back in the middle of a working weekday?? Alright I suppose if the weathers nice?
Or standing in a high street with a crowd to pay our respects to yet another dead young soldier kid??
Those decisions were not the fault of anyone in power at the time of course not..
They should all retire as millionaires from the taxpayer with knighthoods... quite right!
The trouble is that most Labour voters are too young to remember the 20th century and they certainly aren't taught any history in school, apart from how evil the British Empire was. Oh, and slavery was all our fault then, and it is now. And that Hitler was 'FAR RIGHT' despite being heavily into state control. Also, absolutely everyone you've ever heard of throughout history was actually black, homosexual or transgender - literally, everyone - how did you not know?
My Bulgarian friend is horrified that discredited socialist ideas have the popularity that they have in Britain. (Coming from an ex-communist country, she is hyper-sensitive to the failed ideas and dogmas of the past). I tell her that anyone younger than me (I am 58) will not remember how things were in '70s Britain -- and therefore, every couple of generations, we are doomed to 'give socialism a try' so that people who do not pay attention to politics can find out for themselves why it never works.
*sigh* I’m also 58 Geoff. It’s like we’re the ‘youngest’ people who can remember any of this. Sadly that means we’ll suffer twice because of failed British experiments with socialism.
So true! I have commented before that before the Berlin Wall came down, we at least had a cautionary tale on our doorstep. Now, young people think the crony corporate fascism we have endured for decades can be cured by a dose of socialism, failing to understand that government of any stripe is ALWAYS the problem, never the solution. How long does this see-sawing reality check have to continue before we develop some kind of collective memory?
Never gonna happen Bettina. Great point about the Berlin Wall. When ‘half’ the world was desperate for jeans and Macdonald’s you knew you were better off than they were. Now it’s just going to take one more tax rise, one less non dom and we’ll all be equal, rich and happy.
Due to IR35 changes I fully expect as many had foreseen that companies will reduce permanent employees and make them work through an umbrella. Zero hours is still through your company but umbrella means payroll through another. But it also means more tax. So employees will be paid the same gross but have to pay employer’s NI and the apprenticeship levy.
Those same employees who laughed when contractors got hit with IR35 changes.
Rates will eventually go up but not right now.
"No Sir Keir. Things are worse than WE ever imagined. Because you and your joyless band of authoritarian scolds have only been in charge for a few weeks, and yet you have already contrived to turn Britain into a dystopian hellscape. "
Perfectly put!!!!!
Ha! Thanks Alexei!
You managed to make me smile again.
Thanks Richard. Job done!✔️
A slight quibble. You said "richest economy" but compared GDPs per capita, which would be "most productive" not richest. In terms of actual wealth production of these entities the U.K. is currently around 3.5T, which is bigger than California's by a little bit, and astronomically bigger than Mississippi's. So what your numbers are really showing is that the U.K.s workers are only slightly more productive than Mississippi's. But that at 65 million, you have a lot of them.
Hi Jeff. Of course the figures can be read in many ways. I’m sort of basing my point on a well known article that Fraser Nelson wrote in, I’m guessing, 2016. He found we were slightly richer than Mississippi I think. But it’s not meant to be an ironclad assertion, just something that puts the uk economy into some kind of context. I mean, where would we be if we made less in the figures of GDP and more of our debt?. Scary numbers! 😱
I haven't read his article, but I doubt if he said "slightly richer" using those numbers, because per capita numbers aren't talking about wealth, they are talking about productivity. If he did, then he didn't understand what he was saying or using words in a misleading way.
I was paraphrasing Jeff. Here’s the original article if you can read it I don’t know. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-britain-is-poorer-than-any-us-state-other-than-mississippi/
Thank you. Yes - I can read it. It appears he isn't very bright. Sigh. A moments thought should convince anyone that GDP per capita says nothing about wealth or poverty of a nation. I'm not even sure pure GDP does, really. For example, a nation of elite people who were fabulously wealthy but produced almost nothing could have a low GDP but still be a very wealthy nation. And conversely, A high GDP nation (such as the U.K.) might still be relatively poor when the proceeds from the sales of their domestic product is divided up among a large population. (Or not). Curiously, the most productive "state" in the Union is Washington D.C. More than twice as "productive" (GDP/capita) as the next highest - New York. Who would have thought politicians were so productive? ;-)
In terms of what seems to me can be said about comparing the U.K.'s GDP/capita with states in the U.S., it is rather striking - as you reported - that the U.K. is only slightly "better off" than Mississippi, one of the least productive states in the Union. Mississippi may be ranked 15th lowest by GDP, but the the lowest ranked by wealth (GDP) is Vermont.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP
It's somewhat dismaying to see how many articles seem to confuse wealth with productivity. When I was searching for a table of states by GDP I ran across countless articles just like Fraser's.
Just to add to this, even GDP per person may not reflect average purchasing power or living standard. We have an excellent example right on our doorstep - Ireland. Commentator after commentator refers to the high Irish income per head - much higher than the UK's - and they conclude the Irish have more money. In fact, they don't. Their national GDP figure is inflated by the receipts from multi-national organisations (Microsoft, Apple etc) who have based their head offices for European business in Ireland because of the favourable corporate tax rate (and, at one time, subsidies). That money goes into Ireland, and leaves almost as fast. Ireland's GDP is far higher than its GNP. Gross as opposed to net. But everyone is too lazy to report GNP as its a bit more difficult to calculate.
And then one should really take into account purchasing power parity. It is all mostly guesswork in the end, but of the "educated" sort. The data indicate approximate rankings only.
Great example.
Yes Jos. They keep telling us that Ireland is rich. Doesn’t look like it from here! And they have many of the same problems we do. An overpaid elite lording it over the little people and calling anyone racist if they complain about the massive sudden changes being imposed on their society.
Well thanks for that Jeff. I also noted how well Washington DC seemed to be doing when it produces very little but guff. Anyway. As I said. It was just the article equivalent of an icebreaker- so if it promoted such an interesting response then thanks to Fraser for writing it ten years ago!