02 my bad, thought it was 2000.
And yeah, they did, which is why I mentioned them. I remember Picaddilly Station from before then, it wasn't pleasant...
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UK PoliGAF thread of tell me about the rabbits again, Dave.
- Thread starter Chinner
- Start date
02 my bad, thought it was 2000.
And yeah, they did, which is why I mentioned them. I remember Picaddilly Station from before then, it wasn't pleasant...
wish I could say the same for Glasgow
I went about a month back and, man, it's a bit of a shit-tip. The necropolis was super cool though.
frankie_baby
Member
manchester pre the bomb was vile, cant believe that was 17 years ago though
Unless the budget is leaked or very well trailed it's very difficult to discuss the details to something you've just been given the cliff notes to. Balls tried it last year, but slipped up on the details and got hammered for it.
This budget is especially slippy as the revenue neutrality of it is based almost entirely on specific figures they hope to get from a clamp down on tax avoidance and efficiencies. Now they almost certainly won't meet those targets but it's pretty difficult to argue against.
Ultimately the government get months to go through the budget, the opposition have to respond immediately when the chancellor sits down. It's not the time for specifics.
radioheadrule83
Banned
Amen.
The concentration of wealth in the south and specifically within the M25 is disgusting IMO. Having lived in cities both North and South, the idea of this being a meritocracy or an equal society is forever lost to me. I've been able to leave home and find work elsewhere, purely because I'm from a reasonably safe middle class family unit. I've had the support that could help me facilitate some change and sustain it. Other people don't have those kind of opportunities.
So I'm all for strengthening localised economies. I'd like to see cities like Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds (and the towns and cities around them) develop closer ties and partnerships, to develop their own infrastructure projects, and transport links, and to help create more strength and opportunity in the North. Our labour shouldn't pay for more routes that just funnel more money into the capital, but that's exactly what happens with DfT in charge of all the big projects. Please don't try and tell me that money flows up the track the other way. It only improves the lives of those fortunate enough to land a job worth commuting for. If huge businesses move in to Birmingham / the Midlands or the North in a meaningful way, I'll eat my words -- but for now I'll stand by them. I don't think anything announced so far is going to do much good for the average working man up here.
Your quality of life in this country starts as a post-code lottery... good for you if you're a winner or if you do alright, if you lucked out and got the opportunities to escape an otherwise disappointingly mediocre life. That's great... if there was some secret to your success, share it with others. This country needs to start improving the runners up prizes so we have a less socially dysfunctional shithole. We have one of the worst rich poor divides in the world.
A huge opportunity for cities to begin to wield more authority over their development were the mayoral elections a few years ago. I think Boris and Ken have demonstrated that city mayors can play a huge part in the development of their city and the London assembly are demanding greater control over their own affairs. Unfortunately many cities voted down devolution to locally elected mayors and preferred to let Westminster make local decisions which baffles me. Its such a missed opportunity. If I remember correctly Bristol was the only city that voted in favour :/
kurtrussell
Banned
Fantastic CON budget today. Whilst offering tax cuts to the poor and tackling some really important issues such as fuel taxation, they also showed signs that they are getting the Labour debt under control. I don't think anyone could realistically ask for more.
PJV3
Member
Is there a graph showing the predictions of the OBR versus reality, how are they performing? they seem to spend half the time adjusting their own figures.
Also interesting to see impact figures were kept out of the statement, the bottom 40% being clobbered and the fact that the poorest of the population haven't seen any relative income rise for almost 50 years. The social/economic pyramid is way out of whack.
Also interesting to see impact figures were kept out of the statement, the bottom 40% being clobbered and the fact that the poorest of the population haven't seen any relative income rise for almost 50 years. The social/economic pyramid is way out of whack.
Wait, what?
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
CHEEZMO;50847030 said:
I would like the constituencies bordering Wales (including mine) to have the option to opt into Wales and out of Westminster.
That would have two impacts: first, competitive efficiency of the Civil Service (like the way Wales blasted through farm payments the other year while Whitehall kept saying it was impossible to do the same thing for England) and second, loosen the grip of the Welsh language nuts on the Assembly.
Ignore him, he only posts far right rhetoric and never actually engages in debate.
Ed's speech just contained all the same soundbites he says every week.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Would have more credibility if he welcomed some of the good stuff (like the tax threshold) before ripping in on the opposition spiel. As it is, it sounds like he is against everything including the good stuff, which I don't think does him any good at all.
Even if I could economically do that I wouldn't. I have a basic precept that honest dealing and honest accounting is essential to our wellbeing. I should not have to cheat because everybody else does. Dammit, at the current scale of my business I shouldn't even need an accountant, but it is all so complicated that I do.
My very first job when I was 17 was in a biscuit factory, we made those iced gem things amongst a whole load of other stuff. And what we did with them was make the biscuit base, export it to Holland as biscuits, get the icing (which we also made) put on top of the biscuits in Holland and re-import it as confectionary. Completely bonkers, as we had a perfectly good but idle machine in the factory for putting the one thing on top of the other, but all done for differential tax breaks. That just makes no sense at all in any universe except one with stupid tax systems.
kurtrussell
Banned
I'm sorry, what exactly did you object to in my brief analysis of the budget?
- It gave the poorer a tax break (which is actually a better deal for the working class than Ed Milliband's proposed re-introduction of the 10p rate)
- It scrapped a planned Labour rise in fuel duty, tackling a huge expense that affects the vast majority of the population
- It extended a housing purchase scheme to include more than just first time buyers, effectively meaning that the government will underwrite mortgages to stimulate lending and allow more people to buy a new home
- It outlined how our record-high borrowing we inherited from Labour is falling and will continue to do so
Also, to quote from another post:
So you can hardly say this was a budget for the rich.
All in all, budget delivered the majority, if not everything that the man on the street was asking for. What specific problem do you have with it? Have you even checked to see if you'll be better off?
TBF, I think he'd have more credibility if he actually had a cohesive vision, pledges and a manifesto.
I have no real issue with the budget, you as a poster however I do, you never really debate or post much but rather do drive by partisan sniping.
Okay, the biggies first: Growth forecasts have been slashed again (the most consistently over-optimistic forecast ever, the OBR is a total sham based on this single measure alone), the 'deficit reduction' plan is totally stalled and the BoE have been given even more wriggle room to not have to worry about inflation massively outpacing wages.
This government, and Osborne in particular, are incompetent on the really big economic issues.
And the rest:
A bunch of tax cuts for business, which are ill targeted (business has plenty of money, it just refuses to invest due to lack of demand) and are unlikely to spur meaningful growth.
Well, the NIC exemption looks like a free £2000 to anyone rich enough to employ a nanny or a butler, which is troubling. Not sure how you avoid that while still giving legitimate incentives to small businesses. I'm not opposed to the policy, just the obvious loopholes for the richest to exploit.
The extended home buying scheme is similarly a good idea, which is just going to be exploited by a bunch of buy-to-let greedy landlord bastards. Again, this is a fine policy, but its going to mostly benefit the already well off. On top of that, it carries the risk of creating another housing bubble, and the last one hasn't even properly burst yet.
"4p" off a pint of beer is headline grabbing but utterly meaningless.
Income tax allowance raised to £10k, wahey. Would have liked to have seen this made revenue neutral with some movement on higher tax bands, but whatever, no real complaints.
"The greenest government ever" was always a bullshit soundbite, and is now more bullshit than ever before. Fuck the ice caps, no votes there I guess.
Overall, a much better budget than last year's, but that's a very low bar.
Miliband's response was funny, but at this point in the cycle you need credibility more than hilarity. Labour need to start setting out some serious economics over the next year.
This government, and Osborne in particular, are incompetent on the really big economic issues.
And the rest:
A bunch of tax cuts for business, which are ill targeted (business has plenty of money, it just refuses to invest due to lack of demand) and are unlikely to spur meaningful growth.
Well, the NIC exemption looks like a free £2000 to anyone rich enough to employ a nanny or a butler, which is troubling. Not sure how you avoid that while still giving legitimate incentives to small businesses. I'm not opposed to the policy, just the obvious loopholes for the richest to exploit.
The extended home buying scheme is similarly a good idea, which is just going to be exploited by a bunch of buy-to-let greedy landlord bastards. Again, this is a fine policy, but its going to mostly benefit the already well off. On top of that, it carries the risk of creating another housing bubble, and the last one hasn't even properly burst yet.
"4p" off a pint of beer is headline grabbing but utterly meaningless.
Income tax allowance raised to £10k, wahey. Would have liked to have seen this made revenue neutral with some movement on higher tax bands, but whatever, no real complaints.
"The greenest government ever" was always a bullshit soundbite, and is now more bullshit than ever before. Fuck the ice caps, no votes there I guess.
Overall, a much better budget than last year's, but that's a very low bar.
Miliband's response was funny, but at this point in the cycle you need credibility more than hilarity. Labour need to start setting out some serious economics over the next year.
CyclopsRock
Member
I am both shocked and amazed the second most right wing guy in the thread needed to defend him.
CyclopsRock
Member
Eh? I have literally no idea who this person is. I'm not here to defend anyone. I just thought the incongruity between your two posts was funny.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Most people in those service positions get paid by an agency or by cash, they won't be employed directly by the home owner.
We don't have much detail yet, but it looks like the higher rate tax band is being reduced to make it fiscally neutral for the middle classes. They did it last time as well.
Apologies. And yes, I don't doubt I am inconsistent in this case, human fallibility is a bitch.
As someone looking to buy for the first time, the problem with this scheme (and any similar scheme that's been in practice in the last few years) is that it's for new build properties only. New build homes are mostly built to a worse standard and are way, way overpriced. I could buy a decent enough house for the price of a new flat. As a scheme, it pretends to want to help the struggling buyer, but looks like it really just wants to help the housing developers sell more than anything, regardless of who to.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
Maybe I'm way off here (I've never bought a house) but aren't new build houses typically more energy efficient in their design than older houses? How are they built to a worse standard?
Yes, they're more energy efficient, but this is possibly helped by the fact that room sizes tend to be smaller nowadays. You're also limited in where you can buy, as most new houses will be in developments on the edge of town - which also leads to you living on a building site for a few years and potentially having relatively poor access to amenities. I'd much rather buy an exisiting house in a town somewhere for a lower price.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Well, speaking only for my own town, we've had a whole load of new build stuff here over the last few years and none of the local builders would touch them. They were slung up fast sometimes with inexperienced builders, little supervision, varying (to put it politely) attention to basic things like bridges of mortar across the cavity, misaligned damp courses and so on and so forth. More than several of them have had to be ripped down and started over.
Meanwhile the rest of the town, which is mostly late Victorian, is still happily standing with the odd bit of maintenance and work by the local guys.
My dad was a builder for 40 years and told me not to buy a new house nowadays. All i need to know, really.
Ditto on the Victorian houses btw. Bit of a cliche, but they knew how to build stuff back then. Those things last.
Ugh, modern spec builds are the worst. Everything is built to the letter of the law to ensure it qualifies for whatever the latest bullshit scheme may be - livability be damned.
To be fair I'll bet victorian builders would advise against their houses too.... I deal a lot with older houses and there is some glaring design flaws in them, they tend to be damp, draughty and fiercely thermally inefficient.
Some of the early homes that used cavity wall construction many years ago used cast iron wall ties and the cavities got full of damp...
Captain_Spanky
Member
That's fuckin' impossible the Taffia are everywhere. Hell I'd settle for them stopping wasting money on double printing everything in a futile effort to "preserve the language" and used it to offer free Welsh lessons to those who want it. As it stands if you want to work in an local Government and you're up against someone less qualified who speaks Welsh you're probably fucked. It's a terrible system driven, as a lot of politics in Scotland is at times, as more of a middle finger to some slight the English did in the mists of time. Get the fuck over it.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
The mists of time in this case aren't all that long ago. Certainly within my memory. And I understand to an extent where they are coming from. I love, for example, the double-signage everywhere - the way you know you are home not just because it says "Welcome to Wales" on a roadsign but that it has "Arafwch Nawr" spattered all over the roads - when in Wales I look for the Allan rather than the exit. It's a resurgence I am proud of (and in a very small way contributed to when I was a member of the Blaid back in the 1970s).
But it's all wrong to make speaking Welsh either an exclusive or a preferential way of allocating jobs. For starters it excludes all those over a certain age when there was no teaching of Welsh anywhere in the south. Like me for instance.
PJV3
Member
One of the negatives of fixed term parliaments is the opposition not needing to get semi-serious about policy til nearer the election. And frankly they would be barmy to bother putting in the work yet, well at least announcing anything. Things are far too volatile and would be out of date within 6 months.
CyclopsRock
Member
Yup. But at the same time, it hampers their ability to provide genuine opposition for the first 4 or so years, which isn't good for anyone.
I went to an event run by the Spectator tonight reacting to the budget. Good fun. The bar was sponsored by a large financial institution, so I drank my fill. Please, don't call me a hero. I'm just doing my bit.
Yeah, as with pretty much every budget we're going to have to wait for the details on a lot of this stuff. Those details are going to be the difference between some of these measures looking pretty good, and those same measures turning into an absolute trainwreck.
Captain_Spanky
Member
I was referring to the attempt by the English to eradicate the Welsh language and punishing children who spoke it, I believe that was the 1800s?
I've only lived in Wales for a few years anyway, Scotland before that. I think national identity and pride is great, but it so often gets phrased in a way that's less "yay us" and more "boo them". Although currently I am for Scottish Independence. Seen better evidence for that so far. *shrug*
But yeah I'd totally learn Welsh if classes and support were freely available, as it's a prerequisite for so much stuff here. The two language signs are nice, and a cool cultural symbol, I'm more talking about the wasted paper.
PJV3
Member
I agree, there was always the possibility of snap elections which kept the opposition on its toes, then again I recognise the benefits of fixed terms stopping governments playing the timing game.
Ha, Brown even fucked that up, he was popular til that point and was viewed as weak and indecisive after not going through with the election.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
So was I, and it may have been the 1800s when it started but it was still around in the 1940s/50s and still there passively as a result through the 60s/70s and even 80s probably.
The way I look at it, any country where Rugby is a religion, choral harmony is the normal mode of singing and poetry is a competitive sport has something very special going for it.
Captain_Spanky
Member
I did not know that. That's a massive shame. Makes a bit more sense now overall.
And I agree on your other points. Hell I love living here.
CyclopsRock
Member
Not being funny but that pic regarding floor space for new builds is a just something with ties in to population density. Here are the countries listed in the pic as per number of people per mi²
USA - 89
Australia - 8
Denmark - 337
France - 303
Spain - 243
Ireland - 168
UK - 673
In short there are far too many people crammed into this tiny island
Deaf Spacker
Memb
Why would it be a hoax?
This is one of the very few changes that I agree with, if you're in social housing and your rent etc is being paid by benefits then why should you have more bedrooms then you need? Obviously some households do need the extra bedroom but most don't.
Take me and my girlfriend for example, we are in social housing as I needed to get out of my parents house due to my disability and there are no adapted bungalows available by private rent. We work so we pay the rent, council tax and all of the bills. We have one bedroom.
My neighbour is also in social housing, he doesn't work so he doesn't pay the rent or council tax etc himself. He has two bedrooms and he only needs one as he only lives there, I raised the prospect of swapping with him as he'll be losing money soon but he'd want stupid money to move to my one bedroom property. How does that work? It's not his property yet he wants four or five figures to move!
It's not that simple. Firstly, family sizes are dynamic. One month you might need 4 bedrooms, the next you might need 3. Especially if children go away to study, are away on holiday etc. Secondly, waiting times for council properties are sometimes atrociously long, so people take what they can get in the order of waiting list. If you only need a 2 bedroom place for now, but will likely need 3 in a few months, and find the wait for a 2 beder could be well over a year whilst the wait for a 3 beder is just 3 months, obviously you'll take the latter.
QuicheFontaine
Member
Apparently, I'm going to be £280 better of next year. Not too shabby.
Is there anyone ITT who is going to be worse off? Everyone posting has been better off so far.
Is there anyone ITT who is going to be worse off? Everyone posting has been better off so far.
I think most people are going to be roughly this much better off considering the threshold before tax applies, has been increased by about that much (from 2013's anyway). Not sure if the other brackets have been increased or lowered though. I think the last budget dropped the £35k bracket down some (from £36k to £34k or something like that), which negated the tax advantage from the higher initial threshold limit.
EDIT: Looks like the new budget further drops the middle bracket down from £34k (from a previous £37k) to now £32k. Bit annoying, since it's this middle bracket that are usually the one's aspiring to be new business owners, entrepreneurs, home owners etc. But hopefully that's offset by the new threshold limit.
Budget 2013: nearly 3m freed from income tax but 2m more pay higher rate tax
EDIT 2:
It does seem like in most instances the drop in other brackets is offset by the increased initial threshold mind.
Budget 2013: how it affects you
Miles Quaritch
Member
In real terms? I doubt you'll actually feel £280 better off what with inflation, cost of living all set to rise. That £280 will probably be eaten away without you even realising it.