Conservative Party Leader announcement...

Hot off Sky News:
News

‘Kemi Badenoch has made her first senior appointment as the new Conservative Party leader.

It is understood that Rebecca Harris, MP for the Essex constituency of Castle Point, will be the party's chief whip - replacing Stuart Andrew.’

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD am I right in thinking that y the Government (any Government) cannot tax their way out of this situation, isn’t it better to invest in infrastructure which in turn employs more people, which creates more tax revenue?

Sorry? Cannot tax their way out of what situation (I'm not being funny, just don't quite follow you)?

Government with a sovereign currency, which only it can create, isn't obliged to tax its way out of anything, apart from to prevent too much money swirling around the economy and causing inflation.

Whatever it invests in, whether it be infrastructure or day to day spending, will increase tax revenue, though, unlike a business, which expects its revenue to cover costs and profit, the government can't expect all the money it issues to be returned to it via taxation because people also spend it abroad and save it.

As David rightly points out, if we spend more on imports than we gain by exports then money is leaching out of the country. I'll even concede to him that we do need to maintain the value of our currency or else imports become very expensive. But I don't think that state money creation has quite the dire effect on the fx market value of sterling that he makes out... The state has visibly 'created some £900billion since 2008 through QE. It had no noticeable effect on inflation.

Current inflation is left over from the energy price shocks from the war in Ukraine and exacerbated by the idiotic raising of interest rates by the BoE and its reluctance to reduce them.

Of course, with food shortages likely from our own appalling weather this year and disastrous flooding in Europe affecting agriculture I think inflation might rise again. But that won't be because of too much money in the economy, it'll be because of supply shortages...

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD am I right in thinking that y the Government (any Government) cannot tax their way out of this situation, isn’t it better to invest in infrastructure which in turn employs more people, which creates more tax revenue?

Providing they are producing something that can be
exported or replaces imports, currently we are doing very little of either. Most of what we do export is produced by foreign companies, most of the profit goes overseas, in the case of many multi international or online companies it all goes oveseas.

MaizieD am I right in thinking that y the Government (any Government) cannot tax their way out of this situation, isn’t it better to invest in infrastructure which in turn employs more people, which creates more tax revenue?

MaizieD

From the Guardian article:

“She’s very sensitive to the feeling that people will treat her differently and have different expectations of her because of her ethnicity,

Now, that's a bit odd. Wasn't she utterly denying a few years ago that racial discrimination really even existed, let alone causing any sort of problem?

She's always been a bit selective about the issue.

From the Guardian article:

“She’s very sensitive to the feeling that people will treat her differently and have different expectations of her because of her ethnicity,

Now, that's a bit odd. Wasn't she utterly denying a few years ago that racial discrimination really even existed, let alone causing any sort of problem?

ronib

MaizieD I wouldn’t call Richard North’s musings on Kemi at all playgroundish today. I was thinking it was very near to the bone and almost offensive.
I have given up on economic theories for awhile. What economic theory is America following these days? It is making the population richer than here.

Ass far as I can make out the US is doing a bit of Keynsian stimulus to a depressed economy. It's not waiting for tax revenue to fund it, just spending.

It doesn't seem to have made any impression on the MAGA lot who insist they were better off under Trump...

Sadly, our current government isn't really going to follow suit with its utterly stupid goal of day to day spending equalling revenue...

It does read that way in the document that Casdon posted that she put her name to on small state politics.
(We had a thread on GN before because she wanted to totally cut support for adults and children with neurodiverse conditions that was discussed in this paper)

Brief profiles from 5 different POV's. people who've known her.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/nov/03/who-is-new-conservative-leader-kemi-badenoch

Wyllow3

With LK, Badenoch argued that taxes can be reduced without slashing public services. I don't see how this can be done, when services are already so inadequate. The Conservatives have often promised this, it's not new. I'd like to know "how".

That is a lie, any country around the world with good public services has higher taxation. You really can’t have your cake and eat it. If we want good public services we have to pay for them. What Kemi is intimating is that whatever is left of the public services will be slashed.

MaizieD I wouldn’t call Richard North’s musings on Kemi at all playgroundish today. I was thinking it was very near to the bone and almost offensive.
I have given up on economic theories for awhile. What economic theory is America following these days? It is making the population richer than here.

There were two responses to the first comment about Dawn Butler eazybee. You personally then raised the same subject twice or three times more. Were you looking for a derailing of the thread? I think most people would consider that overkill on a thread that’s not about her - you may be obsessed with the incidentals as opposed to the subject of the thread, so why not start your own thread to talk about that?

As Dawn Butler was criticising the new Tory leader in a most unpleasant way I think this thread is the perfect place to raise the subject and how Labour will respond. At present, apparently not at all. No surprise there.

jasper16

ronib

I quite like Richard North’s - Kemi Badenough!!!

Bit playgroundish isn't it?

'Playgroundish' is much more fun than seriously considering how a national economy works and how different economic theories produce different results.

Hairstyles and clothes is a good fun political topic, too...👿

ronib

I quite like Richard North’s - Kemi Badenough!!!

Bit playgroundish isn't it?

Wyllow3

With LK, Badenoch argued that taxes can be reduced without slashing public services. I don't see how this can be done, when services are already so inadequate. The Conservatives have often promised this, it's not new. I'd like to know "how".

I think she'll propose cutting state spending along with cutting taxes... That's the usual tory approach.

We can see how well that worked in the 'austerity' years (which have never really ended) of the Cameron/Osborne government. Because the minute you slash state spending you lose a significant proportion of your tax revenue when state employees are thrown out of their jobs. Along with the loss of tax from private businesses who not only supplied the state enterprises, but also supplied goods and services to the now out of work public employees.

The actual tax cutting theory says that more money in people's pockets will lead to growth in the economy by way of increasing demand for goods and services.

There's usually particular emphasis on cutting taxes for the rich, and for business, working on the premise that businesses will invest more and that the rich will spend more. Both premises are faulty. All that business will do is increase dividends to shareholders and the rich don't need more money to spend, they already have more than enough. Most economists will tell you that they have a 'marginal propensity to spend', i.e they don't spend more if they have more money. Besides which, it would take an immense amount of additional spending by the rich to compensate for the loss of spending caused by slashing state expenditure.

We saw in the 2010 onwards 'austerity' that cutting state expenditure just increased the welfare bill, leading to the government trying to cut state welfare as far as it possibly could. Increasing the numbers of people in poverty and widening the inequality gap.

Whether we believe that taxes funds spending, or that taxation's main purpose is to destroy excess money in the economy, the result of cutting taxes and state expenditure is the same. 😒

With LK, Badenoch argued that taxes can be reduced without slashing public services. I don't see how this can be done, when services are already so inadequate. The Conservatives have often promised this, it's not new. I'd like to know "how".

😁

I quite like Richard North’s - Kemi Badenough!!!

I thought the LK interview this morning left us with not much idea of what Badenoch's "Vision" was in any practical or policy terms, but there wasn't very good questioning on it, and it wasn't very long.

So waiting to see who she appoints to the Shadow Cabinet and further opportunities to see what policies she thinks will better tackle so many current difficult issues.

Eazybee a couple of points in response to your post:

1) I have not criticised the new Tory party leader; indeed, I read little criticism of her, on this thread, from Labour supporters.

2) GN is awash with posters criticising the PM and Labour MPs. When we challenge those criticisms, we receive scathing comments stating that we (Labour supports) can’t see any wrong in the PM, and calling him ridiculous names such as ‘Saint Keir’ etc. As far as I can see no-one, on this thread, has called Kemi Badenoch childish names, made rude comments about her appearance, her accent or her upbringing (remember the AR threads)!

eazybee
Again, what about Dawn Butler?
You are happy to have a person like that holding the Whip?

Yes they quite evidently are.

But this thread is for criticising or praising the new Tory leader.

3 spellings for Penny’s surname and yours was the correct one Casdon. 😁

Mordaunt indeed.

Penny Mourdant is being touted as a possible runner for Mayor of London by the Tories.

Casdon well that is an interesting argument from you but I don’t see why the majority can’t compare and contrast politicians from both parties. It doesn’t look too good at the moment for either of the two traditional parties.

Eazybee have you failed to notice that this thread is about the Tory Party leader announcement? You can and do have a go at Labour at every opportunity, but at least try to stick broadly to the thread subject.
Why not start your very own Dawn Butler thread instead of trying to throw dead cats?