Hopefully reputable news outlets choose the people they interview carefully. Yeah I know. The National Living Wage is £11.44 per hour, so assuming full rate holiday pay for a 37.5 hour week, that's £22,308 p.a. I'm unclear what that is supposed to cover. Is it a single earner living alone? A couple? A family of 4? In any case, that seems a bit more reasonable cut-off than the basic State Pension.
Share prices down nearly 1% this morning and bond yields at their highest for a year. There’s a big bond (£2.25b) sale later today. It will be interesting to see how that goes. The biggest horror in the budget is making agricultural land subject to Inheritance Tax. It’s a safe target for Labour in some ways: not many farmers vote Labour anyway, but the transfer of family farms from parent to child is not only traditional, it’s a way of life and an important inventive to proper land management. There will be uproar in villages around the country. Tune into the Archers on Radio 4 at lunchtime for more info.
Buried in the OBR budget report: Catastrophic cost of Brexit on UK trade revealed in stark OBR warning And further to the news that rail workers who use a microwave can get a day off to make sure it hasn't par-boiled them: Northern Trains still use fax machines 'at insistence of unions' Thank goodness the government settled the train drivers wage dispute without worrying about restrictive practices.
well this will put paid to the apprentices as no one will be paying them 10 pounds a hour. i have spoken to some other companies who have these and not just plumbers, they are letting them go. a second year apprentice is not worth 400 a week sorry. so we will review our 2 next week. Lack of trades now so this will make it worse plus other costs put on a small business .. time to close the doors soon and sell up..
Yes there’s a lot in this budget not to like. I think the worst of it is not the higher taxes but what they’re doing with the money. I think people across the political spectrum could all support building new physical infrastructure, whether it be roads, rail, green power generation & distribution, water infrastructure, private and social housing, hospitals, schools, ships, planes and tanks for the forces - our needs are endless. There are also seed-corn projects in the private sector that could be supported: AI and the associated data centres, pharmaceuticals (as always), electric cars and batteries, green hydrogen production. Not only is spending on these physical assets desperately needed, the expenditure makes work for the private sector. That means new jobs and - more taxation. Of course, the public sector has a terrible record for managing these such projects - just look at HS2 - and that’s something else they need to sort out quickly before spending vast sums. Just tipping it into train drivers and junior doctors pay is just likely to bid up public sector wages generally and reward strikes. History also tells us that unfocused subsidies for the NHS just disappear down the vast plug hole like the rest. It’s typical of politicians to be desperate to be seen to be doing something - anything - but £40 billion is a lot to waste in trying to look decisive.
All RAF pilots must be sent to America for training because Britain is short of jets....defence chiefs have been warned. Our Armed Forces are so depleted ministers plan to rely on Nato allies to prop them up. Last night furious MP's and military experts blasted the "reckless" move and warned it will leave us having to "hold out the begging bowl: in times of conflict. Front page article in The Sunday Express 03/11/24. How humiliating it will be if we cannot defend ourselves....whilst talking big against people such as Putin and his like.
This is because we've never developed a replacement for the Hawk, which first flew in 1974. The Hawk has actually been a huge success with over 1,000 built and at one time or another in service with 19 air forces other than the RAF. It formed the base for the US Nary T45 Goshawk, of which a further 221 have been built. It is I suspect as much to do with advancing technology rather than availability of aircraft. Despite numerous upgrades, the Hawk doesn't (and can't) have the sophisticated electronics and flight control systems found in the RAF's front-line Typhoons and Lockheed-Martin F35 Lightnings. There's no point training in something that bears little resemblance to the operational aircraft in use. There are options - the Americans have similar requirements. I believe we make about a third by value of all the F35's made in partnerships by with the US. Lockheed-Martin are in the chase for the American order. There is also a similar project currently led by the Italians. We are working with the same Italian company on the Typhoon replacement, unsurprisingly called the Tempest. Leonardo also own what was Westland Helicopters and so are a major partner to all the UK armed services. We'd be pushing at an open door if we tried to join that project. This is the sort of area where Government money could be well spent in pump-priming in a high-tech, high value, high skilled industry in which we have a strong record. We could benefit from export orders as well as supply the RAF. It hasn't happened yet though.
Been watching the USA election results this morning....couldn't help but notice all the western leaders cowtailing to congratulate Trump on his victory.......Israel...Ukraine...UN leader etc etc. I think Starmer will find him a hard man to deal with......Ukraine must be wondering what Trump will say to his mate Putin over the war support.....even the United Nations who depend on a large financial support from the USA will be cringing on what might happen.....could be some unpleasant results appearing under Trumps leadership soon.
Typical of the man that he's claiming victory with no states yet declared and only one TV network calling it - and that Fox News. No class at all. I shudder to think what the repercussions will be if the exit polls turn out to be wrong and he hasn't won it, unlikely as that may be. I started to listen to his "speech" on the BBC. What a load of meaningless, graceless rambling. The whole of the free world will fear this outcome, or at least the world excluding Russia.
According to the BBC, Trump's Presidential To-Do List includes: During his first presidency, Trump rolled back hundreds of environmental protections and made America the first nation to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. This time, he has again vowed to cut regulations, particularly as a way to help the American car industry. He has constantly attacked electric vehicles, promising to overturn Biden's targets encouraging the switch to cleaner cars. How's his new bestie Elon Musk going to take that I wonder......
I used to think in my youth that Americans were well educated and intelligent. I then met a ship full of them and learned the truth. Having said that there are plenty here who think Farage is the answer and even voted for Boris. It does seem there is an outbreak of idiots across the World. I warned my grandson he will be in uniform soon if it all continues. He said he is in a reserved occupation as he works in the Dockyard. I said the Yard will be the first to go. He lost his smile...... Lets hope the gun laws in the US have an influence.
By reputation (backed up by the few I've net over the years) they're by no means stupid but rather insular and naïve, while genuinely keen to learn about new places. It's a long way from Europe for example. They have this habit of calling their own cities "Denver, Colorado" or "Cleveland, Ohio". There are I guess two reasons for that: the country's so big quite a few place names are likely to be duplicated but more importantly, the American states were at one time almost independent countries, so it's a more historic description than, say, "Swindon, Wiltshire" would be. What makes me laugh though as when Hollywood refers to "Paris, France" over a picture of the Eifel Tower. Whose benefit is that for? Unfortunately though I'm afraid attitudes worldwide have become more narrow-minded, bitter, insular, racist and selfish over, what, 5 or 10 years. That's been fed by misinformation and propaganda on social media and by carpet-baggers like Trump and his poodles, Johnson and Farage. They've taken advantage of a groundswell of ignorance, isolationism and general small-mindedness which has made the world a very unpleasant and dangerous place.
"by no means stupid". I repeat this was a ship full of them which was military. It was full of conscripts from hillbilly country. I kid you not that dumb doesn't do justice to the description. For the majority of them it was the first time away from their homeland and probably their State.
Donald Trump (Most powerful man in the west) and Elon Musk (richest man in the world).....two of the biggest ego's in the world.....will be working together in the new USA government.....how long will you give it before those two fall out big time.
I see Wes Streeting is planning to sanction senior executives in health trusts which consistently perform badly compared to other trusts. I'm sure that will make him sound like a tough-man to certain electors and of it's a refined form of bashing the fat cats, so it may make him popular. Sanctions may include dismissal and a ban on taking up similar posts elsewhere. What he didn't mention and what the BBC Breakfast presenter didn't have the wit to ask him, is what impact a lack of capital investment has on NHS performance. In Plymouth, we need look no further than the Derriford A&E operation, one of the worst, or possibly the very worst, in the entire country I believe. There, expenditure on construction of a new Emergency building, incorporating not just traditional A&E facilities. but a number of acute hospital beds so that patients aren't left in corridors, has been frozen, even although construction has started. Who stopped it? Well, errr, Wes Streeting and Rachel Reeves presumably. I am against just indiscriminately pouring money into the NHS because it normally just disappears without trace, but well focussed capital expenditure is clearly vital. If that money is spent in the expectation of, say waiting lists being reduced by X days or ambulance turnaround times improved by Y hours, then it's absolutely right that managers should be expected to deliver on those improvements. Just sacking them because they're in trusts that have inadequate investment for decades is going to achieve nothing.
This government really gets worse. The Chancellor apparently intends to bring together many small public sector pension funds into mega-funds which will invest in infrastructure projects. She cites the giant Australian and Canadian funds as examples. It’s perfectly true they have massive infrastructure investments around the world, including in the UK. Why is that? Well, once up and running, infrastructure generates large amounts of cash, often at very low risk. That’s because the underlying income is often quite immune to economic fluctuations as it’s governed by regulation or long term contractual agreements. That suits pension funds very well because they have long term obligations to pay pensions. That’s ENTIRELY different to forcing pension funds to invest in infrastructure CONSTRUCTION projects which carry significant risks. Just look at HS2. This is dangerous meddling to achieve political ends at someone else’s money and at someone else’s risk.
Oh and can I just repeat what I’ve said before. The Australian and Canadian public sector pension funds own large swathes of the UK water industry. If they don’t actually have direct control, they dominate dividend distribution policy and therefore the amount of cash left over in the business to invest in new equipment and better service. Need I say more?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gve4d8jljo Let’s hope someone asks her whether these mega-funds will be managed by independent trustees according to normal actuarial standards or will the Treasury be able to direct where investments are made. Pensioners do not need higher returns. They need adequate returns at the lowest possible risk. This is particularly true of public sector employees who are still blessed with Defined Benefit schemes. By definition, their pensions are determined the minute they sign up to the scheme. They will NOT get higher pensions if the fund achieves higher returns but they WILL suffer if risks are taken which fail. We must be told.
Here's another one on the horizon. It isn't a one-way bet because we build a significant proportion of the "American" F35 (I believe as much as one third by value) and with Donald Trump looming large and very very orange on the horizon, it might be a wise move strategically. The F35 is a superior aircraft, provided we buy the F35A for the RAF to operate off airfields and not additional F35B's already flown off aircraft carriers by the Royal Navy. Decisions needed to be taken and funded quickly though. Lead times in these things can be very, very long. BAe became involved in the F35 project in 1997 and the UK Government expressed an intention to buy the aircraft in 2006. The first aircraft was delivered in 2012. https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/production-essentially-stopped-for-british-built-typhoons/
