The Labour Government

[bluenova]

Of course she misses out because of labours decisions. Her circumstances are entirely irrelevant to that.

It’s staggering how quickly the “caring left” have turned in to nasty spiteful fuckers.

I think the mention of "misses out", was because the article says she "misses out by just £3".

That's obviously not true. We don't know her exact circumstances, but if she had an average teacher's pension, she'd miss out by £183 a week.

There are certainly lots of people out there who are living on just the state pension, and who do get caught in that particular benefits trap. It's doesn't take a "nasty spiteful fucker" to point out that she isn't one of them, and I think that comment might have been a little much in the circumstances.

 

[Kompany Car]

It’s not incorrect at all.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-firms-plan-raise-prices-cut-employment-after-tax-hike-boe-survey-shows-2025-01-09/

To your point firms may go out of business I suppose if people no longer buy their products. Not really an ideal outcome for the workers or anyone really but especially a chancellor determined to see growth - I’d hate to see her come up with a budget that wasn’t focused on growth.

I concur, we have already scaled back recruitment to a minimum and reducing staffing levels via natural wastage. Graduate recruitment is in the low tens rather than hundreds that we normally recruit each year.

This is mostly due to uncertainty around infrastructure investment in the UK (taking too long to agree budgets and sanction the work) and the rise in NI contributions. What people seem to forget is that the UK for international companies is just one market. If that market becomes too expensive to operate in and there are insufficient projects with reasonable margins, they will just decide not to bother and move to other markets where there are better gains to be made. Its a fine balance.

 

[BrianW]

Once you start means-testing benefits, someone will always miss out by a few pounds. The pension credit thing is particularly hard on those 'just' above the qualifying line who do not also have a private/occupational pension.

This is why I believe in universal benefits. I know some will find that shocking, but here I am, and I am consistent about it in that I don't just think about pensioners.

Of course, I recognise this would mean higher taxes. Particularly for the well-off. It might also cause some people to be disincentivised. On the other hand, it massively simplifies administration, removes any chance of fraud and avoids the perceived injustice of 'cliff edges'.

Bottom line - you can't have it all ways.

 

[metalblue]

I think the mention of "misses out", was because the article says she "misses out by just £3".

That's obviously not true. We don't know her exact circumstances, but if she had an average teacher's pension, she'd miss out by £183 a week.

There are certainly lots of people out there who are living on just the state pension, and who do get caught in that particular benefits trap. It's doesn't take a "nasty spiteful fucker" to point out that she isn't one of them, and I think that comment might have been a little much in the circumstances.

You’re right we don’t know her exact circumstances.

When someone posts she misses out because she was scammed out of £300k you know blames the victim, I’m quite happy to call them a nasty spiteful fucker. Although I’ll concede spiteful was misplaced so I’ll settle at nasty fucker.

 

[Damocles]

It’s not incorrect at all.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-firms-plan-raise-prices-cut-employment-after-tax-hike-boe-survey-shows-2025-01-09/

To your point firms may go out of business I suppose if people no longer buy their products. Not really an ideal outcome for the workers or anyone really but especially a chancellor determined to see growth - I’d hate to see her come up with a budget that wasn’t focused on growth.

It is absolutely incorrect and your link agrees with me

 

[bluenova]

You’re right we don’t know her exact circumstances.

When someone posts she misses out because she was scammed out of £300k you know blames the victim, I’m quite happy to call them a nasty spiteful fucker. Although I’ll concede spiteful was misplaced so I’ll settle at nasty fucker.

I sincerely hope something else has put you in a bad mood, because that's a huge exaggeration of what he said.

The article is clearly bullshit, unless you want us to believe that they tell us multiple times she's an ex-teacher, and even refer to her teacher's pension, despite the fact that her teacher's pension would have to be about 50p to make the make the article true.

I don't think anyone suggested that she wrote the headline, or the article, and she has no control over how she's being represented. It's the Telegraph that's lying, and that's what the poster pointed out.

 

[Hertzblue]

I concur, we have already scaled back recruitment to a minimum and reducing staffing levels via natural wastage. Graduate recruitment is in the low tens rather than hundreds that we normally recruit each year.

This is mostly due to uncertainty around infrastructure investment in the UK (taking too long to agree budgets and sanction the work) and the rise in NI contributions. What people seem to forget is that the UK for international companies is just one market. If that market becomes too expensive to operate in and there are insufficient projects with reasonable margins, they will just decide not to bother and move to other markets where there are better gains to be made. Its a fine balance.

Exactly that .Unfortunately our Chancellor and her followers seem to believe that when she increases costs to business that business leaders and owners simply shrug their shoulders , pay her additional taxes out of profits and carry on as before . The level of naivety beggars belief.

 

[Brewster's millions]

It is absolutely incorrect and your link agrees with me

How on earth do you draw that conclusion from the results of that survey?

Do you think that all companies in the UK operate in a form of neoclassical perfect competition, with homogeneous products and zero pricing power, and that they still intend to implement price increases even though they know demand for their products will fall as a result?

The Budget will increase prices across the economy. The evidence is very clear.

 

[M18CTID]

It's 'odd' because it's not true.

"Ms Emm receives the full new state pension, which is £221.20 a week, just £3 above the cut-off for winter fuel allowance. She is also in receipt of a teacher’s pension. However, in 2023 she lost her life savings after being targeted online. She lost a staggering £200,000."

They go on to say "Ms Emm only just misses out on the £200 support." and "She lives off her state pension, which goes almost entirely on bills and food.", both of which would appear to be untrue.

What's truly bizarre is that the Telegraph couldn't find someone who is just on the state pension for this article. There clearly are people who don't have private pensions, and who haven't lost £200k in a scam. It's a bit like the family who can't afford to retire because of their 60 houses, or the woman last week who sends her kids to private school, because in a state school they'll be bullied for being poor.

I wonder if they do it deliberately, because their readership wants to relate to the article, but also feel hard done to?

Yeah, surely the bigger story is that she got scammed - and I have every sympathy for her on that - out of a huge amount of money and that's hardly Labour's fault. Or the Tories for that matter. If she hadn't been scammed then she wouldn't have any issue sticking the heating on during the winter. And that's before we get onto the teacher's pension she's drawing in addition to her state pension.

 

[Damocles]

How on earth do you draw that conclusion from the results of that survey?

Do you think that all companies in the UK operate in a form of neoclassical perfect competition, with homogeneous products and zero pricing power, and that they still intend to implement price increases even though they know demand for their products will fall as a result?

The Budget will increase prices across the economy. The evidence is very clear.

Because you and metalblue aren't reading what I wrote and are arguing a different point.
The OP said that these costs will be passed directly to consumers. I said no they won't and businesses will absorb these costs to varying degrees and anybody who passes them all to consumer will lose all their custom to people who dont. The link agrees with me, businesses by and large are absorbing the costs rather than directly passing onto consumer.

I can't argue with you on a point I didn't make. If you wish to address something I've said then that's fine but if I have to defend things I've not said, then I fear that could take a while.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

It's 'odd' because it's not true.

"Ms Emm receives the full new state pension, which is £221.20 a week, just £3 above the cut-off for winter fuel allowance. She is also in receipt of a teacher’s pension. However, in 2023 she lost her life savings after being targeted online. She lost a staggering £200,000."

They go on to say "Ms Emm only just misses out on the £200 support." and "She lives off her state pension, which goes almost entirely on bills and food.", both of which would appear to be untrue.

What's truly bizarre is that the Telegraph couldn't find someone who is just on the state pension for this article. There clearly are people who don't have private pensions, and who haven't lost £200k in a scam. It's a bit like the family who can't afford to retire because of their 60 houses, or the woman last week who sends her kids to private school, because in a state school they'll be bullied for being poor.

I wonder if they do it deliberately, because their readership wants to relate to the article, but also feel hard done to?

Another day, another featured person in the Telegraph whose circumstances don't seem to stand up to scrutiny. File that alongside the woman on benefits who sends her kid to a private school that's half the price of the cheapest fees of of any known private school in the country.

 

[Brewster's millions]

Because you and metalblue aren't reading what I wrote and are arguing a different point.
The OP said that these costs will be passed directly to consumers. I said no they won't and businesses will absorb these costs to varying degrees and anybody who passes them all to consumer will lose all their custom to people who dont. The link agrees with me, businesses by and large are absorbing the costs rather than directly passing onto consumer.

I can't argue with you on a point I didn't make. If you wish to address something I've said then that's fine but if I have to defend things I've not said, then I fear that could take a while.

I am directly responding to your posts, the latest one and your original.

In the first paragraph of your original post you stated that it was wrong to say that increased costs from NI means that consumers pay more. The survey suggests that consumers will pay more, whether it’s the full impact of the NI hike or some proportion of it, or some large proportion of companies changing their pricing or all of them.

It’s actually unusual for these surveys to show such a large and immediate proportion of businesses changing their pricing in response to a single event like the Budget.

 

[Kompany Car]

Because you and metalblue aren't reading what I wrote and are arguing a different point.
The OP said that these costs will be passed directly to consumers. I said no they won't and businesses will absorb these costs to varying degrees and anybody who passes them all to consumer will lose all their custom to people who dont. The link agrees with me, businesses by and large are absorbing the costs rather than directly passing onto consumer.

I can't argue with you on a point I didn't make. If you wish to address something I've said then that's fine but if I have to defend things I've not said, then I fear that could take a while.

To be fair it depends on the market, the products/services involved and the time duration.

What you tend to find in sectors where the margins are small, you will either see a rise across the whole sector or some that hold back the rise and undercut to deliberately bring in new customers but then raise their prices later. Short term yes there may be a movement of customers but in the medium term prices will inevitably settle at a higher price point.

Where margins are much higher and they are independent of pressure from shareholders, then yes they may absorb some or all of the cost.

 

[Palerider]

Labour and the country are in an absolutely awful position and we seem out of realistic ideas.

1) Keep the Status Quo - Seemingly Labour's current favoured position but hardly 'Change' and basically coming across as managed decline.

2) Tax the rich - short term gain for long term decline. Looks great on paper but has never worked anywhere at anytime.

3) Borrow - Great, let our children and grand children pay for our folly. May work if we can turn borrowing 1 Trillion into 2 Trillion but about 45% of all businesses (all great ideas where money was borrowed on a cast iron business plan) fail inside 5 years! Would you trust a trillion to our politicians?

4) Ideologies - Lets get full on Communism, Socialism, Capitalism or Fascism. Every single one has failed and every single one will continue to fail. Not enough people believe in any of them to make them viable for all but a short term.

For me, I think I would do away with governments and just have committees, similar to the one that sets the interest rates. Non political, non ideology driven common sense committees that can focus on long term planning rather than short term re-election.

 

[Hertzblue]

Well done Sarah Champion .

 

[metalblue]

I sincerely hope something else has put you in a bad mood, because that's a huge exaggeration of what he said.

The article is clearly bullshit, unless you want us to believe that they tell us multiple times she's an ex-teacher, and even refer to her teacher's pension, despite the fact that her teacher's pension would have to be about 50p to make the make the article true.

I don't think anyone suggested that she wrote the headline, or the article, and she has no control over how she's being represented. It's the Telegraph that's lying, and that's what the poster pointed out.

I don’t think we will agree on what he meant - he rarely knows himself so pointless anyone trying to second guess.

I’ve not read the article as it’s the telegraph and going to be behind a paywall. Do we have all the facts and figures - eg how long she worked, how much stamp she paid, etc etc to be able to draw any conclusions as to her income?

 

[metalblue]

Yeah, surely the bigger story is that she got scammed - and I have every sympathy for her on that - out of a huge amount of money and that's hardly Labour's fault. Or the Tories for that matter. If she hadn't been scammed then she wouldn't have any issue sticking the heating on during the winter. And that's before we get onto the teacher's pension she's drawing in addition to her state pension.

This ^^^

Some absolute cunts walk this planet.

 

[hampshireblue]

Exactly that .Unfortunately our Chancellor and her followers seem to believe that when she increases costs to business that business leaders and owners simply shrug their shoulders , pay her additional taxes out of profits and carry on as before . The level of naivety beggars belief.

I guess increased costs to a company be it in the form of NI being raised or being forced to restructure following a referendum are pretty similar in that some of those increased costs are inevitably passed onto the consumer. Just saying...

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

I sincerely hope something else has put you in a bad mood, because that's a huge exaggeration of what he said.

The article is clearly bullshit, unless you want us to believe that they tell us multiple times she's an ex-teacher, and even refer to her teacher's pension, despite the fact that her teacher's pension would have to be about 50p to make the make the article true.

I don't think anyone suggested that she wrote the headline, or the article, and she has no control over how she's being represented. It's the Telegraph that's lying, and that's what the poster pointed out.

They’ve had to state that she ‘Lives off her state pension’ only, to even make it a story.

Manufactured bullshit to serve their means. The real story is how this poor woman lost her life’s savings.

 

[metalblue]

I am directly responding to your posts, the latest one and your original.

In the first paragraph of your original post you stated that it was wrong to say that increased costs from NI means that consumers pay more. The survey suggests that consumers will pay more, whether it’s the full impact of the NI hike or some proportion of it, or some large proportion of companies changing their pricing or all of them.

It’s actually unusual for these surveys to show such a large and immediate proportion of businesses changing their pricing in response to a single event like the Budget.

He’s correct in the sense that they likely won’t pass on 100% of the costs to customers. I’m not sure what real difference it makes if businesses pass on some or all of the costs however - the economic impacts that brings (not necessarily all negative) will be the same, just the shape of the curve varies.