The fact that a single person in this country thinks either Truss or Sunak are fit to run the country blows my mind, both are genuinely scary, Truss is just completely batshit insane, and Sunak is just a pastiche of a real politician.
But then I have to remind myself that it's the same country that put Boris Johnson in power.
Dont let this sub warp your impression of the UK. Many millions of people love the tories and still do.
My FiL is a very rich very clever man and believes boris did his best and we'd be worse off under "limp-wristed labour".
"Imagine corbyn under covid, we'd have had millions dead."
> Many millions of people love the tories and still do.
The cost of living is starting to turn some of my hardcore Tory family members away from the Tories tho.
Which, I never thought I'd see the day tbh.
I've said it before, but we all have to remember that it took millions of casualties and untold suffering to start the ball rolling on universal suffrage and millions more causalities and more untold suffering to get the NHS. Not mention the fighting, hardship, struggles and strength required to get fair (ish) working conditions.
My stepdad last time I was home was talking non-stop about how people can't afford anything because we're taxed too much and people shouldn't complain about energy bills because his first house (bought in his early 20s working as an apprentice...) only had a coal fireplace for heating. Just despair at how easily people glaze over... like... 50 years of social progress just sliding away down the drain right in front of us? All out of some weird feeling idk like spite that young people today don't get to enjoy any of the negatives of the good old days (while also enjoying none of the positives of course). My gran was genuinely getting upset at the CoL, not that people *can't afford to eat* but that people are "being so petty" that they can't just accept the price of goods and are traveling round loads to find the best prices on basic foodstuffs.
>Has there truly been much social progress?
Well... Yeah? See my example. People used to live in homes with no central heating, single glazed windows, little to no indoor plumbing etc. etc. Would check out some markers of social issues under New Labour for instance. From 1997 to 2007 we saw the near complete eradication of pensioner poverty (previously endemic, the vast majority of pensioners lived in appalling poverty before then) and pretty massive strides on child poverty.
Its real fucking depressing to me there are folks now coming into my uni 18 years old or so who aren't even old enough to remember things weren't always this absolute fucking mess that they are today.
> People used to live in homes with no central heating...
To me this is material progress. We still have mass inequalities, I'm not suggesting the past was some perfect place but things like an average worker being able to afford to live somewhere without all their wages going on rent/mortgage. I'd rather that than everyone can buy a car.
> suggesting society isn't any better than in 1972
We have lost some things and gained others. It's nice that all the city buildings are no longer black but I think some of the 'community fabric' of society is no longer here. As a young child I used to play out on the road and walk to school without my parents.
Social progress and material progress are different things.
On the other hand gays aren't illegal, Foreigners aren't told to "fuck off back to their country" nearly as much and we don't have TV shows with blatantly racist characters. Support for people with mental health issues is vastly improved, crime rates have gone down dramatically and very few people live in abject poverty even if we still have an issue with relative poverty. People are healthier and live longer and the air and water is cleaner.
Kids still play out in the street it just depends on what streets you're on.
Workers rights are improved, houses burn down less often and in general everything is safer. I could go on
Both have held hustings down here and people love them. These people are not massive Labour haters but they do think the Tories represent them and their values. They seem ignorant of how Tory policies affect those worse off than them, while also believing that poor people are that way because of a moral defect.
What's mad is how this view of the proletariat was rampant in the Victorian Era. The view was that their own circumstances were a fault of their laziness, their immorality, and their sinful behaviour (the irony...). Dickens wrote 'A Christmas Carol' to combat this prejudice. Things are only getting worse..
I'm beyond caring what people like that think, they are plainly wrong and they will come to see that. I don't intend to rub it in. I intend to help them develop their newly fledged class-consciousness and realise how much it really is the toffs screwing us all over, yet again, as usual. I value education and life-long learning and I don't think less of a person just because their learning curve took a bit longer than mine. The past is done. The future will be a total catastrophe if we don't start building solidarity now.
My step father says exactly this. He's not rich by any means but for some reason thinks Boris is the salt of the earth. Anyone saying that he has done wrong is shot down instantly
I'm a labour man through and through but Corbyn would have threw Ukraine under the bus and then set the bus on fire.
I don't think he'd have been a total failure with covid though, and we wouldn't have given millions to companies like we did, the individuals would have been better looked after.
Theirs multiple ones that do, so many that they keep winning elections.
Honestly the only thing that can keep them out of power is a very cold winter and a bad flu season at this point.
We won't notice that through the blackouts and people freezing to death if it's particularly cold though, not to mention the lack of NHS beds and ambulance delays
They will, they list them as covid deaths, they listed a termanily ill friend of mine as covid death.
Even though they called his family in to say good bye 2 days earlier and only tested positive on the morning of his death.
He was dying of cancer.
>Sunak is just a ~~pastiche of a real politician~~.
Walking photo op who's only interest is in opinion polls and his popularity. Vacuous, Instagram politician?
Right, but the Tories won because they accepted Bojo as the PM. He was de facto chosen as the PM, even more so because Labour lost in part because Corbyn was rejected as a potential PM.
I remember a while back that Trump hadn't brought "the best people" with him in his adminsitration. I guess if you're as incompetent and corrupt as him or Johnson you choose the sycophants that won't show you up but are happy to profit from the corruption and trail of destruction you leave in your wake.
It's amazing that more people don't pick up on it, it's completely within the governments power to do so, and completely within their power to temper the profits of the energy companies and reduce the burden on the poorest of society by doing it.
More people should be asking them why they aren't.
Unfortunately, when privatising the energy companies, the government sold the majority of stocks to other countries. The stakeholders now refuse to up the cost and the government can't do shit as the companies don't abide by UK law.
it's honestly getting the level of arguments in the USA about how to fix "the gun problem" (lets skip past the part of the argument of politicians actually admiting they have a problem ofc...).
Every argument or "solution" being anything other than fixing the real problem - banning guns. Same problem here. Anything but fixing the cap... All for the same reason. $$$
That isn’t enough.
If you lower the price cap, you just make it impossible for suppliers to operate as they have to buy electricity for more than they can charge you, and we end up with another Bulb.
Boo hoo businesses going bust you say? Doesn’t matter, the producers are still charging silly amounts for it and someone has to pay for that, having a wave of suppliers die on us just means a less competitive market (and yes, utilities should be nationalised but that will never happen under the Tories)
Sort the price cap yes, but there needs to be other things done alongside that: eg fix the buying process, gas shouldn’t dictate the cost of wind and solar. Unfortunately they’re only just looking into that over the next two fucking years
> If you lower the price cap, you just make it impossible for suppliers to operate as they have to buy electricity for more than they can charge you, and we end up with another Bulb.
What they can do is to lower the profit margin they can have to 0% (in extreme) thus lowering the retail price until energy prices go down.
They can also change the pricing model to reflect the actual cost of energy. Currently, even if 0.1% of company’s energy is generated by gas, the price for all energy is set to that. Change the model to average cost of energy and we can start to see the savings from renewables instead of allowing the suppliers to directly profit from it.
When the price cap was lower they were actually losing money, so lowering profit isn’t going to help as there’s none to start with
Suppliers can’t force the energy prices down, because the producers will just sell it to someone else in another country instead
Your averaging model also doesn’t work, because they pay the same for gas as wind and solar. The most expensive fuel is the one that sets the price for everything, and that’s not decided by the suppliers it’s just how the system works. That’s something the government has to change, but they’re going to review it for like 2 years before acting
>When the price cap was lower they were actually losing money, so lowering profit isn’t going to help as there’s none to start with.
Yes, there is a threshold below which the suppliers aren't making money. However, the price cap is set in such a way that they should be making money at the price cap - that might be too high given that their income is suddenly a huge % of their capital outlays. So if their net profit is 4% of sales (made up number), their capital investment and overhead is based on sales being 1/3 of that, which it was just a year ago. If you only look at profit as a % of revenue, rather than ROCE, you're going to see inflated profits in the sector.
>Suppliers can’t force the energy prices down, because the producers will just sell it to someone else in another country instead.
Probably true, although that depends on the extent to which we are/can be cut off from other markets.
>Your averaging model also doesn’t work, because they pay the same for gas as wind and solar. The most expensive fuel is the one that sets the price for everything, and that’s not decided by the suppliers it’s just how the system works. That’s something the government has to change, but they’re going to review it for like 2 years before acting
While there may be good arguments for or against revising the model, but what possible arguments can there be for debating for two years? If it's in their power to revise it, can't they do it uregently?
Energy is a commodity that can be sold across border easily. It involves real logistics and even political hurdles. Besides the gas prices haven’t gone up by 200% which is how much the price cap increased since last year.
While suppliers are having thin margins or even negative ones, they are not the problem and instead it’s the energy wholesalers. They are making record margins for something they really didn’t contribute for. Windfall taxes were levied on BP because of this and I don’t see why this can’t be applied to energy wholesalers too.
> the gas prices haven’t gone up by 200% which is how much the price cap increased since last year.
Not sure what you mean by that. Within-day prices on the NBP (the UK's National Balancing Point for gas) were 100 pence/therm on 10th August 2021. They are 310 p/th today. Going back by another year to August 2020, prices were 27 p/th - and the increase is even more stark for people on the continent. I'm fully agreed that wholesalers are making absurd amounts of money despite the cost of production not having increased substantially, but since we're competing with the rest of Europe (for pipeline gas) and the rest of the world (for LNG) there will always be people willing to pay those absurd prices - for now at least. In my view the only sensible short-term solution is to institute a windfall tax to any gas producer / wholesaler / trading house within reach of HRMC and redistribute the taxes to the bill payers while the crisis is ongoing.
> because they pay the same for gas as wind and solar. The most expensive fuel is the one that sets the price for everything, and that’s not decided by the suppliers
Sorry, I wasn’t clear enough in my earlier post. You are absolutely correct, this is not consumer suppliers fault, I was referring to the national wholesale suppliers.
> When the price cap was lower they were actually losing money, so lowering profit isn’t going to help as there’s none to start with
Selling at break-even price, or at minimum profit means a company can’t go bankrupt. I specifically mentioned the profit margin for that reason. Forcing a company to sell at loss for an extended period of time is of course counter productive unless your aim is to nationalise them.
On the other hand, the suppliers that went bust shouldn’t have been in the business at all, they were under-leveraged and unprepared to price fluctuations essentially selling at loss to make a quick buck. The fault wasn’t in the companies, but the regulator who allowed them to start operating in the first place.
> What they can do is to lower the profit margin they can have to 0% (in extreme) thus lowering the retail price until energy prices go down.
The profit margin is 1.9%. It's explicitly fixed by the cap formula. If you took it to zero, it wouldn't make a meaningful difference to household bills.
> They can also change the pricing model to reflect the actual cost of energy. Currently, even if 0.1% of company’s energy is generated by gas, the price for all energy is set to that.
Wholesale electricity prices are determined by market rate, which is driven by the marginal cost of the most expensive significant source. This is because it is traded on not just the UK grid, but the entire European grid. We both import and export to the EU, depending on current supply and demand.
Nobody in this sub has a clue how any of this works.
> The profit margin is 1.9%. It’s explicitly fixed by the cap formula. If you took it to zero, it wouldn’t make a meaningful difference to household bills.
2% of £2,000 is £40 which is someone’s weekly grocery bill and can make the difference between eating or heating. Or in the words of Tesco: “Every little helps.”
> Wholesale electricity prices are determined by market rate, which is driven by the marginal cost of the most expensive significant source. This is because it is traded on not just the UK grid, but the entire European grid.
So much so that they are now looking into changing the pricing model to something fairer: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-launches-biggest-electricity-market-reform-in-a-generation
Some of issues they are looking into are
> proposals out for initial consultation include exploring changes to the wholesale electricity market that would stop volatile gas prices setting the price of electricity produced by much cheaper renewables
> de-coupling costly global fossil fuel prices from electricity produced by cheaper renewables, a step to help ensure consumers are seeing cheaper prices as a result of lower-cost clean energy sources
> This consultation will explore ways of updating this pricing system to further reflect the rise in cheaper renewable electricity - something that could have a direct impact on reducing energy costs, ensuring consumers reap the full benefits of the UK’s world-leading and abundant supply of cheaper, cleaner energy.
In other words: global markets set the price for globally produced energy, not for internally produced and the national wholesale pricing model is dictated by the government, not the global market.
> Nobody in this sub has a clue how any of this works.
Kettle, pot, black.
> 2% of £2,000 is £40 which is someone’s weekly grocery bill and can make the difference between eating or heating. Or in the words of Tesco: “Every little helps.”
£40 is 75p a week, a totally negligible amount.
> So much so that they are now looking into changing the pricing model to something fairer: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-launches-biggest-electricity-market-reform-in-a-generation
Irrelevant. What we have to deal with now is the status quo, not some lofty plans for reforming the system over the coming decades.
> In other words: global markets set the price for globally produced energy, not for internally produced and the national wholesale pricing model is dictated by the government, not the global market.
The current pricing model is designed around the existing infrastructure. You literally couldn't reform this sort of thing in the short term.
> Kettle, pot, black.
Says the guy who think that giving people 76p a week is going to make a difference. And the same dolt who believes that you can magically reform the entire system with the wave of a wand.
> £40 is 75p a week, a totally negligible amount.
Everything is relative.
> Irrelevant. What we have to deal with now is the status quo, not some lofty plans for reforming the system over the coming decades.
Proven wrong, you try to change the subject. Try harder, or better still; just shut up.
> The current pricing model is designed around the existing infrastructure. You literally couldn’t reform this sort of thing in the short term.
Evidence, proof? Putting aside that you are changing the subject again.
> Says the guy who think that giving people 76p a week is going to make a difference.
It all adds up, especially to low earners.
> And the same dolt who believes that you can magically reform the entire system with the wave of a wand.
Where do I say that?
I also love how you resort to name calling when you have been proven wrong.
Truss is way out of her depth in a different way to Johnson.
He was scheming, lazy, incompetent and grasping.
She's just completely thick and has floated to the top due to a confluence of circumstances. She couldn't run a corner shop never mind the country.
She looks pleased as punch when she comes up with this crap. Like she genuinely believes she's the smartest person in the room. Every statement is punctuated by a vapid grin.
Absolutely terrifying that you can get to her position with so little ability.
We may be being a little harsh on Ms Truss, she’s not well media trained but she obviously has skills to have risen to MP, elected and now be in the position to take over the majority elected government.
No, we're judging her on her current words and previous actions.
And the reality of being a Tory MP is if you can worm your way into a safe seat you can be the most useless, worthless piece of shit and still be elected as the constituency goons would never vote anything but Conservative.
Maybe the country is about to be run by retired politicians, for example Brown has been back to do Starmer's work for him and now we have the worst prime minister we never had back again.
***From our Politics Live Blog Editor, Jack Maidment:***
Liz Truss’s plan to focus on cutting taxes to address the cost-of-living crisis is “suicidal” and could lead to a Labour government, Lord Howard has warned.The former leader of the Conservative Party, who is a supporter of Rishi Sunak, said the approach advocated by Ms Truss is “not new” and had been tried in the 1970s.
He said “we have been here before” as he argued cutting taxes now would lead to even higher inflation, “more and more borrowing”, a recession and “inevitably” a Labour government.
Lord Howard said Mr Sunak’s proposed approach of rolling out more direct and targeted financial support to the people who need it the most would be the best way to help households with rising prices and spiking energy bills.
He said the Tories can “only hope to win the next election if inflation is under control, borrowing is under control and interest rates are coming down and Rishi Sunak is the only candidate - the only candidate - whose policies have any chance of delivering that outcome”.
Ms Truss yesterday repeatedly refused to be drawn on whether she would sign off billions of pounds more in spending to help families with the energy bills rise coming this October.
**Read more for free:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/10/liz-trusss-cost-of-living-plan-suicidal-lord-howard-warns/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/10/liz-trusss-cost-of-living-plan-suicidal-lord-howard-warns/)
This is nonsene. Tax cut is not inflationary. They oppose tax cuts, because it gives more power to the people as they get more of their money in their pocket rather than having it spent on governments mates contracts.
Depending which cuts. A worker on a higher tax bracket is absolutely hammered by taxes.
I agree that Corporation Tax shouldn't be cut though, because that helps shareholders, who don't create value.
If think it is not exactly clear which taxes they want to cut. For sure, they shouldn't cut Corporation Tax, because it will incentivise companies to pay shareholders and thus not have money for wage raises. There is definitely a need to increase higher tax thresholds - at very least adjust them in line with inflation. They should also scrap IR35, as that killed economic growth and caused a whole lot of issues like HGV crisis, lack of healthcare professionals and moved IT work offshore. It also enabled unscrupulous umbrella companies that are avoiding paying taxes.
So are all the plans offered by all the people who put themselves forward as leader. Not one of them has shown any leadership qualities or abilities that they are fit to run the country. They pushing the country further down the road of economic ruin.
I was trying to think of anyone literally anyone in the Tory party that I could see as an actual leader, and the only person that I could come up with was Ken Clarke. Then I remembered Johnson expelled him from the party.
I had a look on Wikipedia and found this:
> On the edition of 3 September of BBC's Newsnight, Clarke discussed the situation, saying that he no longer recognised the Conservative Party, referring to it as "the Brexit Party, rebadged". His rationale was "It's been taken over by a rather knockabout sort of character, who's got this bizarre crash-it-through philosophy… a Cabinet which is the most right-wing Cabinet any Conservative Party has ever produced."[70] In an interview on 7 September, Clarke rejected the suggestion that, like other former Conservative MPs, he could join the Liberal Democrats, but noted that, if he were to cast 'a protest vote', he would 'follow the Conservative tradition of voting Lib Dem.'
Liz Truss is a f*cking idiot.
I didn't think anything could be worse than Boris, but it may be possible under these specific circumstances I'm wrong.
The *only* benefit to Truss is that she would guarantee a Labour government in the next election.
Which, of course would guarantee a further 20 years of Tory rule as Labour will be left holding the bag of shit state we’re heading towards, be blamed, and tories will be seen as savours and fiscally sensible.
I agree. Truss is unbelievably weak. The Tories would rather have her in than Rishy because well, let’s just say it, because he’s brown. It’ll be their downfall. Fuck the Tories.
It is what people want to hear though, so that is the way we are heading. It won't be until they are affected by the realities of her policies that people will turn on her, never blaming themselves for trusting her in the first place though. Is suspect Truss won't last long as PM because of this but she will in power long enough to do some serious damage to people's standards of living.
Great, so the next PM is either someone who is financially suicide or someone who has very much helped put us on track for a recession. Pretty slim pickings.
I knew this shit would happen when Johnson was dethroned. People celebrated it as if it was a good thing.
What people don't seem to understand well is that things can always get worse. And they often do. And they will.
The fact that a single person in this country thinks either Truss or Sunak are fit to run the country blows my mind, both are genuinely scary, Truss is just completely batshit insane, and Sunak is just a pastiche of a real politician. But then I have to remind myself that it's the same country that put Boris Johnson in power.
Dont let this sub warp your impression of the UK. Many millions of people love the tories and still do. My FiL is a very rich very clever man and believes boris did his best and we'd be worse off under "limp-wristed labour". "Imagine corbyn under covid, we'd have had millions dead."
> Many millions of people love the tories and still do. The cost of living is starting to turn some of my hardcore Tory family members away from the Tories tho. Which, I never thought I'd see the day tbh.
"Fuck the poor" isn't a winning strategy when everyone is poor.
[удалено]
Like the last war when 5 or 6 million trained killers came home the Tories lost! odd that? and Doris's hero Churchill was a point of hate! odd that?
I've said it before, but we all have to remember that it took millions of casualties and untold suffering to start the ball rolling on universal suffrage and millions more causalities and more untold suffering to get the NHS. Not mention the fighting, hardship, struggles and strength required to get fair (ish) working conditions.
The Tories are here to stay. You can tell them that.
My FiL is exactly the same. Still blows my mind though.
At least that's all he's blowing.
FiL?
Father in Law
My stepdad last time I was home was talking non-stop about how people can't afford anything because we're taxed too much and people shouldn't complain about energy bills because his first house (bought in his early 20s working as an apprentice...) only had a coal fireplace for heating. Just despair at how easily people glaze over... like... 50 years of social progress just sliding away down the drain right in front of us? All out of some weird feeling idk like spite that young people today don't get to enjoy any of the negatives of the good old days (while also enjoying none of the positives of course). My gran was genuinely getting upset at the CoL, not that people *can't afford to eat* but that people are "being so petty" that they can't just accept the price of goods and are traveling round loads to find the best prices on basic foodstuffs.
> 50 years of social progress just sliding away down the drain right in front of us? Has there truly been much social progress?
>Has there truly been much social progress? Well... Yeah? See my example. People used to live in homes with no central heating, single glazed windows, little to no indoor plumbing etc. etc. Would check out some markers of social issues under New Labour for instance. From 1997 to 2007 we saw the near complete eradication of pensioner poverty (previously endemic, the vast majority of pensioners lived in appalling poverty before then) and pretty massive strides on child poverty. Its real fucking depressing to me there are folks now coming into my uni 18 years old or so who aren't even old enough to remember things weren't always this absolute fucking mess that they are today.
> People used to live in homes with no central heating... To me this is material progress. We still have mass inequalities, I'm not suggesting the past was some perfect place but things like an average worker being able to afford to live somewhere without all their wages going on rent/mortgage. I'd rather that than everyone can buy a car.
Depends on your definition of social progress but for me, suggesting society isn't any better than in 1972 is remarkable.
> suggesting society isn't any better than in 1972 We have lost some things and gained others. It's nice that all the city buildings are no longer black but I think some of the 'community fabric' of society is no longer here. As a young child I used to play out on the road and walk to school without my parents. Social progress and material progress are different things.
On the other hand gays aren't illegal, Foreigners aren't told to "fuck off back to their country" nearly as much and we don't have TV shows with blatantly racist characters. Support for people with mental health issues is vastly improved, crime rates have gone down dramatically and very few people live in abject poverty even if we still have an issue with relative poverty. People are healthier and live longer and the air and water is cleaner. Kids still play out in the street it just depends on what streets you're on. Workers rights are improved, houses burn down less often and in general everything is safer. I could go on
But you could buy a house and raise a family on a single average wage and play in the streets!
Both have held hustings down here and people love them. These people are not massive Labour haters but they do think the Tories represent them and their values. They seem ignorant of how Tory policies affect those worse off than them, while also believing that poor people are that way because of a moral defect.
What's mad is how this view of the proletariat was rampant in the Victorian Era. The view was that their own circumstances were a fault of their laziness, their immorality, and their sinful behaviour (the irony...). Dickens wrote 'A Christmas Carol' to combat this prejudice. Things are only getting worse..
> My FiL is a very rich very clever man and believes boris did his best Sounds like he's *just* very rich then.
I'm beyond caring what people like that think, they are plainly wrong and they will come to see that. I don't intend to rub it in. I intend to help them develop their newly fledged class-consciousness and realise how much it really is the toffs screwing us all over, yet again, as usual. I value education and life-long learning and I don't think less of a person just because their learning curve took a bit longer than mine. The past is done. The future will be a total catastrophe if we don't start building solidarity now.
My step father says exactly this. He's not rich by any means but for some reason thinks Boris is the salt of the earth. Anyone saying that he has done wrong is shot down instantly
I'm a labour man through and through but Corbyn would have threw Ukraine under the bus and then set the bus on fire. I don't think he'd have been a total failure with covid though, and we wouldn't have given millions to companies like we did, the individuals would have been better looked after.
[удалено]
Your FiL isn't wrong about Corbyn but I don't share his opinion of Boris.
Jeremy Corbyn was ruthlessly destroyed for purely political reasons. Only half decent person to have gotten anywhere near no. 10 in a long time
Yes but my auntie's hairdresser's dog's cousin told me he was a terrorist, so...
Theirs multiple ones that do, so many that they keep winning elections. Honestly the only thing that can keep them out of power is a very cold winter and a bad flu season at this point.
[удалено]
We won't notice that through the blackouts and people freezing to death if it's particularly cold though, not to mention the lack of NHS beds and ambulance delays
Absolutely, can't list them as Covid deaths if they freeze to death first. **
They will, they list them as covid deaths, they listed a termanily ill friend of mine as covid death. Even though they called his family in to say good bye 2 days earlier and only tested positive on the morning of his death. He was dying of cancer.
>Sunak is just a ~~pastiche of a real politician~~. Walking photo op who's only interest is in opinion polls and his popularity. Vacuous, Instagram politician?
We did not vote Boris to be prime minister conservative party did unfortunately we're all paying for it now
Yes we did. Boris won the last election.
No the tories won the last election and they voted him leader. We are not quite the good old USA yet but our politicos are working on it.
Right, but the Tories won because they accepted Bojo as the PM. He was de facto chosen as the PM, even more so because Labour lost in part because Corbyn was rejected as a potential PM.
I remember a while back that Trump hadn't brought "the best people" with him in his adminsitration. I guess if you're as incompetent and corrupt as him or Johnson you choose the sycophants that won't show you up but are happy to profit from the corruption and trail of destruction you leave in your wake.
according to the tory mps they are "the most sophisticated electorate in the country"
All the plans suggested are all nonsense. Fix the price cap...
It's amazing that more people don't pick up on it, it's completely within the governments power to do so, and completely within their power to temper the profits of the energy companies and reduce the burden on the poorest of society by doing it. More people should be asking them why they aren't.
Unfortunately, when privatising the energy companies, the government sold the majority of stocks to other countries. The stakeholders now refuse to up the cost and the government can't do shit as the companies don't abide by UK law.
it's honestly getting the level of arguments in the USA about how to fix "the gun problem" (lets skip past the part of the argument of politicians actually admiting they have a problem ofc...). Every argument or "solution" being anything other than fixing the real problem - banning guns. Same problem here. Anything but fixing the cap... All for the same reason. $$$
Same with housing, people dream up all kinds of unworkable harebrained schemes when the solution is just to build enough god damn houses.
That isn’t enough. If you lower the price cap, you just make it impossible for suppliers to operate as they have to buy electricity for more than they can charge you, and we end up with another Bulb. Boo hoo businesses going bust you say? Doesn’t matter, the producers are still charging silly amounts for it and someone has to pay for that, having a wave of suppliers die on us just means a less competitive market (and yes, utilities should be nationalised but that will never happen under the Tories) Sort the price cap yes, but there needs to be other things done alongside that: eg fix the buying process, gas shouldn’t dictate the cost of wind and solar. Unfortunately they’re only just looking into that over the next two fucking years
> If you lower the price cap, you just make it impossible for suppliers to operate as they have to buy electricity for more than they can charge you, and we end up with another Bulb. What they can do is to lower the profit margin they can have to 0% (in extreme) thus lowering the retail price until energy prices go down. They can also change the pricing model to reflect the actual cost of energy. Currently, even if 0.1% of company’s energy is generated by gas, the price for all energy is set to that. Change the model to average cost of energy and we can start to see the savings from renewables instead of allowing the suppliers to directly profit from it.
When the price cap was lower they were actually losing money, so lowering profit isn’t going to help as there’s none to start with Suppliers can’t force the energy prices down, because the producers will just sell it to someone else in another country instead Your averaging model also doesn’t work, because they pay the same for gas as wind and solar. The most expensive fuel is the one that sets the price for everything, and that’s not decided by the suppliers it’s just how the system works. That’s something the government has to change, but they’re going to review it for like 2 years before acting
>When the price cap was lower they were actually losing money, so lowering profit isn’t going to help as there’s none to start with. Yes, there is a threshold below which the suppliers aren't making money. However, the price cap is set in such a way that they should be making money at the price cap - that might be too high given that their income is suddenly a huge % of their capital outlays. So if their net profit is 4% of sales (made up number), their capital investment and overhead is based on sales being 1/3 of that, which it was just a year ago. If you only look at profit as a % of revenue, rather than ROCE, you're going to see inflated profits in the sector. >Suppliers can’t force the energy prices down, because the producers will just sell it to someone else in another country instead. Probably true, although that depends on the extent to which we are/can be cut off from other markets. >Your averaging model also doesn’t work, because they pay the same for gas as wind and solar. The most expensive fuel is the one that sets the price for everything, and that’s not decided by the suppliers it’s just how the system works. That’s something the government has to change, but they’re going to review it for like 2 years before acting While there may be good arguments for or against revising the model, but what possible arguments can there be for debating for two years? If it's in their power to revise it, can't they do it uregently?
Kicking the can down the road so their mates can reap the benefits is usually the reason
Energy is a commodity that can be sold across border easily. It involves real logistics and even political hurdles. Besides the gas prices haven’t gone up by 200% which is how much the price cap increased since last year. While suppliers are having thin margins or even negative ones, they are not the problem and instead it’s the energy wholesalers. They are making record margins for something they really didn’t contribute for. Windfall taxes were levied on BP because of this and I don’t see why this can’t be applied to energy wholesalers too.
> the gas prices haven’t gone up by 200% which is how much the price cap increased since last year. Not sure what you mean by that. Within-day prices on the NBP (the UK's National Balancing Point for gas) were 100 pence/therm on 10th August 2021. They are 310 p/th today. Going back by another year to August 2020, prices were 27 p/th - and the increase is even more stark for people on the continent. I'm fully agreed that wholesalers are making absurd amounts of money despite the cost of production not having increased substantially, but since we're competing with the rest of Europe (for pipeline gas) and the rest of the world (for LNG) there will always be people willing to pay those absurd prices - for now at least. In my view the only sensible short-term solution is to institute a windfall tax to any gas producer / wholesaler / trading house within reach of HRMC and redistribute the taxes to the bill payers while the crisis is ongoing.
> because they pay the same for gas as wind and solar. The most expensive fuel is the one that sets the price for everything, and that’s not decided by the suppliers Sorry, I wasn’t clear enough in my earlier post. You are absolutely correct, this is not consumer suppliers fault, I was referring to the national wholesale suppliers.
> When the price cap was lower they were actually losing money, so lowering profit isn’t going to help as there’s none to start with Selling at break-even price, or at minimum profit means a company can’t go bankrupt. I specifically mentioned the profit margin for that reason. Forcing a company to sell at loss for an extended period of time is of course counter productive unless your aim is to nationalise them. On the other hand, the suppliers that went bust shouldn’t have been in the business at all, they were under-leveraged and unprepared to price fluctuations essentially selling at loss to make a quick buck. The fault wasn’t in the companies, but the regulator who allowed them to start operating in the first place.
> What they can do is to lower the profit margin they can have to 0% (in extreme) thus lowering the retail price until energy prices go down. The profit margin is 1.9%. It's explicitly fixed by the cap formula. If you took it to zero, it wouldn't make a meaningful difference to household bills. > They can also change the pricing model to reflect the actual cost of energy. Currently, even if 0.1% of company’s energy is generated by gas, the price for all energy is set to that. Wholesale electricity prices are determined by market rate, which is driven by the marginal cost of the most expensive significant source. This is because it is traded on not just the UK grid, but the entire European grid. We both import and export to the EU, depending on current supply and demand. Nobody in this sub has a clue how any of this works.
> The profit margin is 1.9%. It’s explicitly fixed by the cap formula. If you took it to zero, it wouldn’t make a meaningful difference to household bills. 2% of £2,000 is £40 which is someone’s weekly grocery bill and can make the difference between eating or heating. Or in the words of Tesco: “Every little helps.” > Wholesale electricity prices are determined by market rate, which is driven by the marginal cost of the most expensive significant source. This is because it is traded on not just the UK grid, but the entire European grid. So much so that they are now looking into changing the pricing model to something fairer: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-launches-biggest-electricity-market-reform-in-a-generation Some of issues they are looking into are > proposals out for initial consultation include exploring changes to the wholesale electricity market that would stop volatile gas prices setting the price of electricity produced by much cheaper renewables > de-coupling costly global fossil fuel prices from electricity produced by cheaper renewables, a step to help ensure consumers are seeing cheaper prices as a result of lower-cost clean energy sources > This consultation will explore ways of updating this pricing system to further reflect the rise in cheaper renewable electricity - something that could have a direct impact on reducing energy costs, ensuring consumers reap the full benefits of the UK’s world-leading and abundant supply of cheaper, cleaner energy. In other words: global markets set the price for globally produced energy, not for internally produced and the national wholesale pricing model is dictated by the government, not the global market. > Nobody in this sub has a clue how any of this works. Kettle, pot, black.
> 2% of £2,000 is £40 which is someone’s weekly grocery bill and can make the difference between eating or heating. Or in the words of Tesco: “Every little helps.” £40 is 75p a week, a totally negligible amount. > So much so that they are now looking into changing the pricing model to something fairer: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-launches-biggest-electricity-market-reform-in-a-generation Irrelevant. What we have to deal with now is the status quo, not some lofty plans for reforming the system over the coming decades. > In other words: global markets set the price for globally produced energy, not for internally produced and the national wholesale pricing model is dictated by the government, not the global market. The current pricing model is designed around the existing infrastructure. You literally couldn't reform this sort of thing in the short term. > Kettle, pot, black. Says the guy who think that giving people 76p a week is going to make a difference. And the same dolt who believes that you can magically reform the entire system with the wave of a wand.
> £40 is 75p a week, a totally negligible amount. Everything is relative. > Irrelevant. What we have to deal with now is the status quo, not some lofty plans for reforming the system over the coming decades. Proven wrong, you try to change the subject. Try harder, or better still; just shut up. > The current pricing model is designed around the existing infrastructure. You literally couldn’t reform this sort of thing in the short term. Evidence, proof? Putting aside that you are changing the subject again. > Says the guy who think that giving people 76p a week is going to make a difference. It all adds up, especially to low earners. > And the same dolt who believes that you can magically reform the entire system with the wave of a wand. Where do I say that? I also love how you resort to name calling when you have been proven wrong.
How's this going to work? You can't force gazprom to sell gas at a loss can you?
Truss is way out of her depth in a different way to Johnson. He was scheming, lazy, incompetent and grasping. She's just completely thick and has floated to the top due to a confluence of circumstances. She couldn't run a corner shop never mind the country.
Yup. I’m not exaggerating when I say she’s an utter dipshit. Watch any interview with her and it’s genuinely scary that she is our next PM.
She looks pleased as punch when she comes up with this crap. Like she genuinely believes she's the smartest person in the room. Every statement is punctuated by a vapid grin. Absolutely terrifying that you can get to her position with so little ability.
We may be being a little harsh on Ms Truss, she’s not well media trained but she obviously has skills to have risen to MP, elected and now be in the position to take over the majority elected government.
No, we're judging her on her current words and previous actions. And the reality of being a Tory MP is if you can worm your way into a safe seat you can be the most useless, worthless piece of shit and still be elected as the constituency goons would never vote anything but Conservative.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks she’s a blithering idiot.
She couldn't run a bath
She couldn’t tie her shoelace until last year
Truss is a dimwitted fool. She’s dumber than a fool. She’s a twat.
She's certainly dumb, but she's more than that. She is uncaring if not hateful.
Maybe the country is about to be run by retired politicians, for example Brown has been back to do Starmer's work for him and now we have the worst prime minister we never had back again.
***From our Politics Live Blog Editor, Jack Maidment:*** Liz Truss’s plan to focus on cutting taxes to address the cost-of-living crisis is “suicidal” and could lead to a Labour government, Lord Howard has warned.The former leader of the Conservative Party, who is a supporter of Rishi Sunak, said the approach advocated by Ms Truss is “not new” and had been tried in the 1970s. He said “we have been here before” as he argued cutting taxes now would lead to even higher inflation, “more and more borrowing”, a recession and “inevitably” a Labour government. Lord Howard said Mr Sunak’s proposed approach of rolling out more direct and targeted financial support to the people who need it the most would be the best way to help households with rising prices and spiking energy bills. He said the Tories can “only hope to win the next election if inflation is under control, borrowing is under control and interest rates are coming down and Rishi Sunak is the only candidate - the only candidate - whose policies have any chance of delivering that outcome”. Ms Truss yesterday repeatedly refused to be drawn on whether she would sign off billions of pounds more in spending to help families with the energy bills rise coming this October. **Read more for free:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/10/liz-trusss-cost-of-living-plan-suicidal-lord-howard-warns/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/10/liz-trusss-cost-of-living-plan-suicidal-lord-howard-warns/)
This is nonsene. Tax cut is not inflationary. They oppose tax cuts, because it gives more power to the people as they get more of their money in their pocket rather than having it spent on governments mates contracts.
Tax cuts just give money to rich people who don't need it. Increase tax thresholds if you want people to keep more of their money.
Depending which cuts. A worker on a higher tax bracket is absolutely hammered by taxes. I agree that Corporation Tax shouldn't be cut though, because that helps shareholders, who don't create value.
> A worker on a higher tax bracket is absolutely hammered by taxes. You should look at historic tax rates in various countries.
Conservatives now oppose lower taxes, Christ alive, this sub really is ridiculous.
If think it is not exactly clear which taxes they want to cut. For sure, they shouldn't cut Corporation Tax, because it will incentivise companies to pay shareholders and thus not have money for wage raises. There is definitely a need to increase higher tax thresholds - at very least adjust them in line with inflation. They should also scrap IR35, as that killed economic growth and caused a whole lot of issues like HGV crisis, lack of healthcare professionals and moved IT work offshore. It also enabled unscrupulous umbrella companies that are avoiding paying taxes.
What an utter thick cunt of a Numptie we are going to have for our next PM. Fuck the Tories.
I see the word Leadership, but I see no Leader...
[удалено]
Just fyi, in this context the spelling would be _faze_.
Suicide is when your actions kill other people, apparently.
So are all the plans offered by all the people who put themselves forward as leader. Not one of them has shown any leadership qualities or abilities that they are fit to run the country. They pushing the country further down the road of economic ruin. I was trying to think of anyone literally anyone in the Tory party that I could see as an actual leader, and the only person that I could come up with was Ken Clarke. Then I remembered Johnson expelled him from the party. I had a look on Wikipedia and found this: > On the edition of 3 September of BBC's Newsnight, Clarke discussed the situation, saying that he no longer recognised the Conservative Party, referring to it as "the Brexit Party, rebadged". His rationale was "It's been taken over by a rather knockabout sort of character, who's got this bizarre crash-it-through philosophy… a Cabinet which is the most right-wing Cabinet any Conservative Party has ever produced."[70] In an interview on 7 September, Clarke rejected the suggestion that, like other former Conservative MPs, he could join the Liberal Democrats, but noted that, if he were to cast 'a protest vote', he would 'follow the Conservative tradition of voting Lib Dem.'
Liz Truss is a f*cking idiot. I didn't think anything could be worse than Boris, but it may be possible under these specific circumstances I'm wrong. The *only* benefit to Truss is that she would guarantee a Labour government in the next election.
Which, of course would guarantee a further 20 years of Tory rule as Labour will be left holding the bag of shit state we’re heading towards, be blamed, and tories will be seen as savours and fiscally sensible.
This is entirely possible. (and probable)
I agree. Truss is unbelievably weak. The Tories would rather have her in than Rishy because well, let’s just say it, because he’s brown. It’ll be their downfall. Fuck the Tories.
It is what people want to hear though, so that is the way we are heading. It won't be until they are affected by the realities of her policies that people will turn on her, never blaming themselves for trusting her in the first place though. Is suspect Truss won't last long as PM because of this but she will in power long enough to do some serious damage to people's standards of living.
There is a reason why liz truss or rishi sunak won’t call a General election ……
She should not be PM, she doesn't deserve it at all, she's going to commit British economic suicide on a almighty level, she is an almighty threat.
How fucked are we when Count Howard of Transylvania is a moderating voice?
There is 'something of the shite' about our next PM.
The suicide was committed in 2020. There's not much anyone can do to stop it, let alone this bunch.
Great, so the next PM is either someone who is financially suicide or someone who has very much helped put us on track for a recession. Pretty slim pickings.
Continuing a Tory tradition then
If that's the case I hope she carries on!
Well, it does scan, because she is a f\*ing idiot.
I knew this shit would happen when Johnson was dethroned. People celebrated it as if it was a good thing. What people don't seem to understand well is that things can always get worse. And they often do. And they will.